Jennifer Fortescue, usually known as 'Mrs. Val' is the very bored wife Mr. Percivale Fortescue and a leading suspect in A Pocket Full of Rye. A former hospital nurse Percivale apparently fell in love with her after she pulled him through a serious illness and proposed marriage. Rex Fortescue, a thorough going snob, despises his daughter in law and she thoroughly dislikes him in return - which gives her a motive for murder if an unlikely one given that the younger Fortescues are due to move into a house of their own quite soon.