[Edith Horton 05] - Murder in Retreat

by Noreen Wainwright

  “I don’t want to talk to that Scot. I didn’t take to him, one bit, if you must know. I’m disappointed that you don’t want to listen to me. No-one will take me seriously and I think you’ll all live to regret it. It will be too late then, when something happens to me.”

  “For goodness’ sake,” Henry muttered. His irritation with the canon’s complaints was rising and he felt guilty about being annoyed—which was quite possibly what the old codger intended all along.

  Henry looked at him, trying to get some clue, see whether there was that tell-tale clouding of the eyes he’d seen before in elderly parishioners back at home. He couldn’t work it out—that was the problem. There were times when he felt that Canon Richardson was almost impish, set on mischief -making; then at other times, he’d think of the boy who called wolf. Could someone in the house really be threatening him?

  Since the attack on Stephen Bird, Henry had been unable to shake off the strangest feelings; danger, unease about what was going to happen next and a sense that they were all, police included, missing something vital. The only times he thought that his own perceptions might be skewed were when he spoke to Edith or Larry.

  “What’s troubling you now? Has something happened?” Henry recognised he couldn’t call himself a Christian and preach virtues like patience and charity, while showing none himself.

  “Someone tried my door last night, Wilkes. As true as I’m sitting here, with you now. I was asleep, just asleep and I woke up, my heart racing nineteen to the dozen. There was a tap. I didn’t answer. Then a creak as whoever it was turned the knob. Thank the Lord I’d had the presence of mind to lock the door and put the key underneath my pillow.”

  And what would have happened if you were ill and we needed to check on you? Henry kept the thought to himself. Anyway, Brother Malcolm would have a master key.

  He’d try a different tack. For himself now, he needed to know how out of the ordinary the canon’s behaviour was. He was definitely not normal and getting less so, by the day. “Where do you live now, Canon?”

  “What do you mean? I live in York, in the cathedral close, of course. Why do you ask?” His eyes were narrowed and he stared at Henry.

  “No reason, in particular, Canon. I live in Yorkshire too. In a small dales village and someone said that you lived in York.”

  “Who?”

  He’d have to be careful. The man was getting agitated, his right leg jerking slightly and there was a tremor too in his hand, not something Henry had previously noticed.

  “I wondered whether you had a housekeeper, someone living in, to see to you, the housework, so forth.”

  “That’s a long way away from what we were talking about but yes, there’s a woman, does for me. Doesn’t live in. Why do you ask?

  You talk as though I’m senile…need looking after…I’m not imagining this, you know, Wilkes. There’s someone threatening me in the house and you have to admit that things have been happening here. Did Stephen Bird imagine that someone knocked him over the head and put him in the hospital?”

  “No, of course not…” what could he say that wouldn’t further infuriate the man?”

  “I’m concerned, that’s all, you do seem in an agitated state and we’ll all be leaving here shortly,” It couldn’t come soon, enough. “I wanted to know that you had someone looking out for you at home.”

  “We’re not going anywhere, yet awhile, Wilkes. We’re a long way from home and dry, yet.” It was hard to tell whether or not there was malice in the older man’s face.

  “You’re green, wet behind the ears and green as cabbage,” Fallon sneered. Roland Weston flushed, dull and deep red. He had been talking about the class system and the redistribution of wealth and Henry had felt uneasy, listening to him. Weston was irritating and none of them were in the mood for his proselytising. There was no need for the level of Fallon’s contempt, though.

  “Weston and Fallon. The two of them are in my mind and I’d like to know where either them was when Fallon was attacked.” Henry and Larry Harrison were walking in the grounds, after lunch.

  Henry had telephoned Edith again in the late morning. He was doing the very thing you shouldn’t do, on retreat. The point was to have the time out of your everyday world. But, that point had passed. As soon as Stephen Bird had been attacked and Inspector

  Jardine and his colleagues had come out to St Chad’s, the outside world had intruded with a vengeance.

  What she’d told him about Josh Braithwaite had made him long to be back in Ellbeck. His flock. It was arrogant to think he might have any sway over Josh Braithwaite but he’d like to have a try.

  He was torn between worry about things back in Yorkshire and what was going on here, in his immediate surroundings.

  “You think one of them attacked him? Honestly, Larry? It would need to be a strong motive, a deep enmity indeed. Now, if it had been the other way around and Fallon had been attacked, I could—

  just—understand it. There was something cruel in the way Fallon mocked Bird about his nightmares, terrors, whatever you call it.

  The way he was with Roland Weston, too, just today.”

  “Let’s sit down for a minute.” Henry gave the bench a wipe with his handkerchief. There had been a light drizzle in the night and the air had mercifully cooled. Everywhere looked refreshed, daisies had opened anew and the half-open rose buds glistened with drops of rain. Even the grass was greener though Henry might be imagining that.

  “Look at the situation in the house, Henry. Brother Malcolm wouldn’t have a reason to do such a thing and I can’t imagine his blood being stirred enough, either. The two women…too far-fetched. Patterson and Finn from Derbyshire. Again, I can’t see it and they are so inseparable that it’s difficult to see one of them attacking Bird on his own. You didn’t do it. I didn’t do it and mad as the canon seems, I can’t see that he’d be strong enough—which brings us back to our two friends.”

  Something niggled at Henry’s mind, almost too nebulous to be put into words. “I thought there was a definite connection between Fallon and Bird. Before they came here, to St Chad’s I mean. You could cut the tension between them.”

  “You’re right, Henry, though I don’t see where Weston comes in. A boy compared to those two. What I say, Henry is cherchez la femme, I’m sure I’m right. Fiona Elliott will be somewhere in this mixture. I can see by your face that you don’t agree with me?”

  “Fallon and Fiona Elliott. Yes. Definitely something in that.

  But, somehow, Bird…I can’t see it, him being involved with a woman, especially one as complicated as Mrs Elliott. He’s too wrapped up in himself, I’d say. His nerves are too bad.”

  “You see, that’s where I have to disagree with you, Henry. He’s just the man to develop an unhealthy sort of obsession, I’d say.

  All that intensity. It could just as easily be directed at a woman. At someone who showed him a slight bit of interest.”

  Larry went back to the house. He needed to make a telephone call, this time, to reassure his curate who had been ringing St Chad’s worried about rumours he heard.

  The chapel was a good place to think as well as to pray. Henry saw a changed picture as in a kaleidoscope after shaking. Not that Larry was necessarily right but maybe Henry had been too dismissive of Bird. Just because a man was prey to demons, to nightmares and nerves you couldn’t write him off as neurotic and thereby incapable of feeling or doing anything else.

  Larry’s views on Roland Weston had been interesting too. Maybe Henry had been too quick to dismiss him as a young zealot. A pain in the neck but harmless. Larry had made him re-consider.

  “It’s all he shows us, here, Henry. His youth and his idealism, that’s all we see but those characteristics are only a part of the picture. I’d say there are other traits. Intolerance, for one, a frightening inability to see the world from any other viewpoint. The kind of person who could be ruthless in the pursuit of something he saw as being more important.”

&
nbsp; Now, Henry felt a mixture of awe at Larry’s ability to read people and dismay at his own blindness. Edith would be impressed if she encountered Larry. He must tell her about him; the only other person at the retreat who might become a friend.

  He knelt and closed his eyes. His mind was all over the place.

  His efforts to pray and to engender some calm were a struggle.

  But, wasn’t that part of the reason he was here? Challenges, tests of faith. He came to one decision. It was over-stepping the mark but he was going to talk to someone about Canon Richardson.

  John

  “When is he taking me to my father?”

  John tried to sound more confident than he felt. He’d been in this house with this elderly couple for two whole nights. The man who he had gone with wasn’t around. How stupid had he been to go off with him in the first place? He felt sure now that he was not going to see his father at all, though he needed to hide that fear.

  “Malcolm will be dealing with that. No point in asking us.”

  He had a different accent which John couldn’t place. It wasn’t Scottish and it wasn’t Yorkshire though he knew that South Yorkshire sounded very different from the dales. He didn’t know why but had a feeling that they had driven north.

  John sat at the table. From what he’d seen, this was a fair-sized cottage and the couple had a small holding. The woman had gone

  out with scraps in a bowl and later, with some sort of mash, presumably for a pig.

  They were the parents of the man, Denis, his name must be. He bullied them, that was clear from the way he ordered them about, the way he spoke to them.

  The old couple dealt with him and his questions by barely meeting his eye and saying as little as they could in response to their questions. He had sat at the kitchen table with them after a night spent in a small room upstairs. He’s lain on a lumpy mattress under a heavy eiderdown that gave off a slightly mouldy smell. The only sounds were of a dog’s barking occasionally, punctuating an endless night. His mind jumped from terror to anger and then to puzzlement. What was this about? He went through everything that had happened since dad first brought up about John coming to stay with him for a while.

  “Say nothing to your mam or sister for the time being. I’ll square it with her.” That had made John feel odd, for a start. If he got out of this mess in one piece, he’d never again ignore those odd feelings, doubts.

  “If you tell her now, she’ll put obstacles in the way. I’ve tried to come back and see you and your sister, you know and she wasn’t having it.” That was news to John.

  It wasn’t meant to be forever.

  “A month or two, see how you get on. See if you take to gamekeeping, see if you’re any good.” He’d laughed and John had promised himself that he’d be the best gamekeeper there had ever been. What an idiot he’d been. Well, he wasn’t going to go on being an idiot. He’d walk out the door in the morning. Denis wasn’t here. What was this old couple going to do to stop him? He must have slept then for a bit.

  In the morning he checked his wallet. His leather wallet that his mother gave him for his last birthday. He has saved ten pounds.

  It had taken him years to save that, and he had doubled his efforts since he’d known that he was going to stay with his dad.

  The flush that boiled the skin of his face was of embarrassment.

  What a complete fool he’d been from start to finish of this business. There was a pressure behind his nose and a few seconds of real tears. He hadn’t cried like that for years. He wasn’t going to start now, either. He’d been fool enough without crying like a blinking baby, now.

  The woman put a cream-coloured bowl of porridge in front of him.

  He played with it. Porridge was not something he liked. But, like his mam said, hunger was a great appetiser and he hadn’t eaten since early yesterday.

  Both of them looked at him, often, saying nothing. What could he do or say to make them give him some clue? Maybe if he just talked. He’d been thinking about this. If they could see him as a person instead of some nuisance who’d been foisted on them. He put the spoon down halfway through the bowl. The hunger and the light-headed feeling had gone but he was done with the porridge.

  It was the texture of it.

  “He told me that he was taking me to my dad. To Scotland. You see we had arranged that I’d go and stay with my dad for a while and, Denis. Your son. He told me that my father had sent him, hadn’t been able to come himself.”

  “Have you had enough of that porridge?” She didn’t wait for an answer but took the bowl from in front of him.

  Was she just going to pretend he hadn’t spoken? Ignore him?

  “Go out to the toilet if you want to and there’s a tap in the scullery. Give yourself a wash and make sure you come straight back. No running off.”

  “Of course the lad won’t run off, Mary. Will you, lad?”

  Dishonestly, John shook his head. He’d take off the very first chance he got. This had gone on long enough.

  He left the kitchen, went to the porch, made a noise opening and closing the door and stood there. He was taking a chance but he didn’t care. What could they actually do? He wouldn’t have a problem, out-running them.

  “That fella has outdone himself this time, Mary. What is he thinking? Dragging us into this at our time of life.”

  “He’ll have his reasons, Barty. You’re always down on the lad, always have been. It’s no wonder he’s struggled finding his way.”

  The man’s voice rose. “I bloody give up, woman. There’s no talking to you on him, is there? It’s no wonder he’s turned out bad. You’ve spoilt and defended him no matter what he’s done. No wonder he doesn’t know right from wrong. If he isn’t back here with some explanation and take that lad back to his parents by the end of the day, I’m ringing the police. I should have done it years ago.”

  Her voice rose now, “You wouldn’t. Even you wouldn’t do that, Barty. To your own son.”

  John opened the door, for real, quietly. Though they probably wouldn’t be paying attention. They would before long though. He had minutes to make up his mind.

  Outside in the small yard, he looked around. You could see across a valley and the landscape was very like home. Similar but

  different too. The stone walls were different, must be made from a different type of stone. The air was soft and there was a sweet smell of honeysuckle, which crept across the wall of the cottage.

  The smell flipped his stomach. He was back on the lane that led from the main road to his home. Honeysuckle and fresh cut hay.

  The fragrance reminded him of other senses. The smell of home, the taste of butter on his mother’s homemade bread. That feeling of getting back from school. Back to safety.

  There was a garden path leading to what looked like a quiet lane; which led to, what? He had no idea.

  The old man, Bart said he’d ring the police by the end of the day if Malcolm didn’t return.

  He walked towards the outside lavatory; the heady flowery scent giving way to the pungent smell of Jeyes’ Fluid.

  Tetchy, that’s what Inspector Greene was, rather than furiously angry which Brown would have expected.

  They’d been out to the Braithwaites after finding that their man had flown from the Dun Cow.

  Hannah Braithwaite was like a different woman. In control of herself and her household again.

  Cathy had been more cautious.

  “He’s gone, Inspector Greene,” Hannah said. She’d changed her clothes and was now wearing a blue and white polka-dot dress and a white cardigan. Brown saw she’d done something to her hair. Set it. That’s what his mother called it when she put her curlers in, in between the perms that took her off for hours to Rene’s salon, in Ellbeck.

  “I expressly told him to stay put, at least until we saw him today. And you, Mrs Braithwaite. You’ve known about this for hours. Why on earth didn’t you let us know that he’d gone? I didn’t expect you to cover up for him, like
this.”

  “My mother isn’t covering up for him, Inspector. She wouldn’t do that. But, he knows where John is or he has a strong idea. That’s her first concern, my first concern too. If my father is able to do something to get John back then wouldn’t you expect us to let him go and do it? I mean, you haven’t got him back, have you?”

  “Cathy, stop. Have some respect. Don’t speak to Inspector Greene like that. She’s right though. Josh knows something and, as usual, he wants to go off and sort it out in his own way. If there’s a chance that he can get my son back, then that’s what I want. I suppose he may be lying to me but I don’t see why he’d do

  that. If I’d rung you straight away all that would have done is to hold it all up.”

  “Did he say when he’d be back? Give any explanation at all of how he took John or at least why he knew what had happened?

  But they had got no further and there was no point in annoying themselves any more. As they left the cottage and got in the car, Brown had the most uneasy feeling. “It’s frustrating, Sir.”

  “It’s beyond frustrating, Sergeant.”

  He got into the passenger seat of the police car and Brown noticed that he was beginning to make those small grunting and moaning noises that you heard old people make when they got up from their armchairs. Greene wasn’t old, though, not really.

  “The point now, Brown, is that the whole thing is fizzling out.

  It looks like the lad will be back home and the father, the waste of space, will be back in Timbuctoo or wherever he reckons to live. And we have been running around for the last few days, working our backsides off and wasting time and money on a wild goose chase.”

  It was true too, and what could the police service even do about the whole debacle? Boy leaves home to be with his father. Hardly hold the front page, stuff. It didn’t sit well to feel like this because surely they should all be delighted to think that nothing bad had happened to John Braithwaite. Delighted and relieved.

  What did it matter that they had been made to look fools, and not for the first time, Josh Braithwaite had run rings around them.