The Guardian of Secrets and Her Deathly Pact

by Jana Petken

  “That hot?” Simon asked him.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. My face usually looks like a tomato by the time I leave Spain. October, now that’s a lovely month, pleasantly warm during the day and cool at night. I’ll be coming back in October, bringing the wife!”

  Simon spoke to Celia: “My dear, you’ll find everything very different in Spain, but that’s the joy of travelling. I’ve always told your aunt Marie that finding out about new cultures, sights, sounds, and smells even, and getting to know a race of people entirely different to our own, is a marvellous experience. You have so much to look forward to.”

  “Quite right,” George Rawlings said. “She’ll definitely meet a few unusual people at Ernesto’s, that’s for sure. His mother and father, now that’s a grand couple, fight like a cat and dog, according to Ernesto, but he says that’s what keeps their love alive and their lives a little more interesting. The Spaniards like nothing more than a good tongue wagging. Ernesto has a sister living there too – Rosa, she’s called. She’s a big woman and likes to talk a lot. That’s another thing, Celia. They all speak English, as they’ve been tutored over the years. They put us English to shame, so they do!”

  Celia spent the next three days allowing the fresh sea spray to wash over her melancholy, cleansing it and replacing it with a new enthusiasm for life. She read books and stared at the sea, mesmerised at the vast expanse of water that seemed to fill the whole world. She spent hours with Mr Rawlings, who told her some fascinating tales about Spain’s long history, and his stories made her even more impatient to reach her new home. She also thought about Joseph. The love she had felt for him had gone, but the memory of that love still haunted her. She lived the pain of loss, talked to it, wrote about it, and cried until there were no more tears left in her eyes. She prayed her aunt would get the justice they needed, the justice that had eluded her, for she would never be free of Joseph Dobbs until he swung at the end of a rope.

  Simon, not a good sailor, stayed in his cabin for most of the voyage, preparing documents for his upcoming meeting with Ernesto Martinéz. He thought about Marie, far away but ever present in his heart. He would propose to her on his return to England, something he should have done a long time ago. They were good friends; he had never had any doubts on that score. Marie confided in him and relied on him for so many things, and that gave him a certain amount of satisfaction. But love was a different matter, and being in love was entirely different still. He knew Marie so well and could gauge her every mood and every whim, but he was at a total loss when it came to matters of her heart.

  Baby Peter slept most of the time in a carry-cot especially made for the journey. Where Celia went, Peter went too, sleeping through the purr of the great engines and soft rocking of the vessel. He, of course would never remember the journey, but when he was older he would be told about their days on the great ship; Celia made this promise to him every night in their small but comfortable cabin.

  In the evenings, Mr Rawlings sometimes entertained Celia in his stateroom. Dinners were long and enjoyable, and Celia enjoyed their time together. She was growing very fond of the docile gentle giant of a man, whose tales of pirates captured the imagination with frightening clarity. At the end of the night, she found her jaws aching with spent laughter, which was a new and wonderful experience that filled her with hope. She slept well too and put that down to the fresh salty air and the knowledge that for the first time in over a year, she felt safe. She was a new and happier Celia, a life being reborn, still in its infancy but growing with each new day.

  After ten days that included brief stops in Bilbao and Gibraltar, the ship announced its arrival on the south side of Valencia. Not wanting to miss a thing, Celia readied herself and Peter. She then walked briskly up to the top deck. Many years later, she would recall her first impressions of this new land through her journals:

  The air was filled with the scent of sweet orange blossom and the pungent aroma of fresh fish mingling with the salty sea air that still filled our nostrils. Palm trees swayed sensually in the warm breeze, lining every street in the city. They hovered overhead from the sea and inland to green valleys and lakes, where they sheltered our faces from the burning sun. White mountains looked down on the land like majestic guardians, and in between their peaks, other mountains behind rose above the mist that engulfed them …

  Mr Rawlings, whom she’d come to know as a man of discerning vision with an insatiable zest for life, had depicted the coastline of the eastern peninsula with dramatic, colourful precision and detail, but Celia could never have imagined the breathtaking scenery that met her eyes. She was so entirely lost in its beauty that Mr Ayres’s booming voice had to tear her from the dreamlike state in which she found herself.

  She cradled Peter in her arms and stepped cautiously down the wooden gangplank to put her first foot on Spanish soil. Hundreds of people were jostling back and forth along the length of the docks, and she guessed by their attire that most of them were fishermen and merchant seamen. Loud, accelerated voices in a strange tongue filled the air of the already noisy atmosphere of the bustling dockside, and she suddenly recalled Mr Rawlings’s description of the Spanish people.

  “In general,” he’d told her, “they have extremely loud voices. They are a very excitable and passionate race. In fact, it’s perfectly normal to think that they are arguing all the time. I was quite alarmed the first time I came over here, but it’s just their way.”

  Celia’s eyes darted greedily over the scene that greeted her. Gypsies with colourful headscarves lined the dockside, begging for money and food. Small gypsy children clung to their mother’s dresses, with dirty faces and skinny bodies bared to the waist. Crates of fruit and other merchandise were heaped high in rows that seemed to go on for miles. Groups of men sat cross-legged, eating bread and cheese, whilst others sang and bantered with each other as they loaded the great foreign steamships that lined the jetties. Carts came and went in an endless stream, made from coarse wood and bamboo lattice. They were piled high with a menagerie of goods: vegetables, old clothes, pots, pans, and rafters of steel and iron. Some carried dockworkers and women with children tied to their bodies in rough cotton slings, and all were pulled by skinny flea-bitten mules and donkeys that laboured under their enormous burden.

  There were two carriages waiting for the small party. One was provided for their transportation, and the other was for the luggage. Celia stared at the brightly coloured wooden carriages. They looked nothing like their London counterparts, and she hoped that the three-hour journey would not be too uncomfortable. As she waited for the luggage to be loaded onto the second carriage, she pulled down the wide brim of her hat, shading her eyes from the sun. She was still getting used to the intensity of light and heat in the air, but nonetheless, she lifted her head upwards, allowing the hot breeze to caress her skin. It reminded her of days sitting huddled and far too close to the flames at Merrill Farm’s kitchen fireplace.

  “There’ll be plenty of time to catch the sun, Celia. Watch you don’t get burned now,” George Rawlings said, escorting her to the first carriage.

  “I know. I’ve never felt such heat, Mr Rawlings. It’s like a raging fire!”

  “You just wait till August gets under way.” He laughed. “That’ll shock you, pet.”

  When he helped her into the carriage, she noticed that it was surprisingly spacious. There was more than enough room for three adults and a baby. The seats were covered in velvet. There were blinds to block out the sun, and mosquito nets adorned the windows. She smiled, instantly relieved to note that contrary to what her aunt Marie had told her, the twentieth century had arrived in her new country, at least as far as the transport was concerned.

  “Are you ready for your big adventure, pet?” George Rawlings asked, settling himself in the seat opposite.

  “Yes, thank you. Just about.”

  “All right. Then let’s get going!”

  Chapter 23

  Michael Durkin was nineteen ye
ars old and had worked for the Goudhurst blacksmith since the age of thirteen. He stood tall and flexed his muscles outside the front entrance to Merrill Farm, waiting impatiently for Joseph to open the door. He hated the man he’d come to see, so the task he had been given by his boss had felt more like a gift than a chore, a long- awaited opportunity to take Joseph down a peg or two.

  He knocked on the door again with his fist and smiled to himself. Joseph Dobbs had hidden behind the Merrill name for far too long, flaunting its power and abusing its longstanding reputation, but those days were over now. The last of the Merrills had gone, and Joseph’s power and influence had gone with them. The news had spread fast. Joseph wasn’t welcome in the pub or at any of the poker games in Goudhurst. He was finished, and in everybody’s opinion, the sooner he cleared off, the better.

  The door opened to show Joseph dressed in a white shirt, faded grey and full of small holes from cigarette burns. His legs were bare, and only a pair of black socks with holes in the toes stood between him and the cold stone floor. His eyes were watery and red-rimmed in a face that was now half covered in an untidy growth of hair that sprang from just below his ears and ran across his shallow cheeks and down to the bottom of his chin.

  Joseph rubbed his tired bloodshot eyes and focused on the man standing on his doorstep. Durkin, he thought with contempt. He wanted money.

  “What do you want, Durkin?”

  “My boss wants his money.”

  “Tell him he’ll have to wait till the end of the month and tell him that I don’t need a visit from his whipping boy.”

  “I’m no whipping boy, you git! I’m Jim’s messenger, and the message is that if you don’t pay up now, today, you’ll be in the shit.”

  “I’ll be in the shit,” Joseph mimicked. “Fuck off, Durkin. I’ll make you eat your own shit if you talk to me like that again. Who the fuck d’you think you are coming here with a mouth the size of the Blackwall Tunnel?”

  “I told you. I’m Jim Brannon’s messenger, that’s who.”

  “Well, here’s a message for him: if he wants his money, tell him to deal with me directly. I’m not going to be told what to do by the likes of you,” Joseph spat.

  “I’m not leaving till you pay up.”

  “Fuck off—”

  Joseph’s mouth was still open when Michael Durkin’s fist hit him in the centre of his jaw. He fell to the ground with a heavy thud, lying still and swallowing his first taste of blood from a front tooth that hung on to his gum by a thread of skin. He stood up on shaky legs, wiping away the blood trickling down his chin, and took a minute to gather his thoughts. He wouldn’t retaliate. Durkin was bigger than he was, and there would be no element of surprise; he was bound to come out worse if he hit him back. He was hung-over and felt like shit.

  “Tell your boss he’ll get his money tomorrow,” he told Durkin with a dismissive wave of his hand. “And as for you, Durkin, get off my fucking land and don’t come back! You won’t get off so lightly the next time. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Do you get that message?”

  Joseph slammed the door shut and spat blood out of his mouth. His hangover had just got worse, and he needed a drink. He headed straight for the kitchen. He needed to think a few things through, get his head straight. It was time to choose, to stay or to go today. Ever since the game in London, he had been wallowing in his own self-pity, and that wasn’t like him. His defeat at the hands of men not fit to lick his boots when it came to poker had been a hard medicine to swallow, and it had caused him to lose focus on the bigger picture. He made up his mind that he couldn’t afford to hang around any longer. He was finished with Goudhurst and the farm, and there was no more profit to be made out of the Merrill family. He’d been left high and dry with unfulfilled dreams, a father-in-law who had outwitted him, and a wife who’d driven him mad.

  He put the whisky bottle to his mouth and laughed; even his whisky supply was running out. He only had three bottles left and no money to buy any more. He took a slug and felt the loose tooth land on his tongue and slide awkwardly down his throat … He coughed and then drank some more whisky just to make sure the tooth hadn’t got stuck somewhere.

  He cut some cheese and put it between two slices of stale bread before turning his attention back to matters at hand. His bank account was empty; the farm’s money and bank holdings were now out of his grasp and had been ever since Ayres froze him out a month ago.

  His only assets now were the remaining livestock and farm tools, which always sold well at the Maidstone auction houses, and some china and crystal that he could probably get rid of in the pawnshop in Sidcup. He fully expected Ayres to turn up and turf him out, but he wanted to leave on his own terms, with enough money to set himself up in rooms in London. He would need to buy new clothes, maybe get a new identity, and most importantly, he needed time to ransack the farm of everything.

  He threw the uneaten sandwich on the floor and walked into the parlour, looking around the room and picking up the ornaments one by one. He nodded his head. He would stay, give himself three days to get out, and in that time, one way or another, he’d get what he needed.

  Marie Osborne walked into Tom Butcher’s kitchen and sat down at the table. “Well, Tom, what we thought would happen did,” she told him.

  “Yes, you were right,” Tom agreed. “Joseph came yesterday afternoon, and I put him on to John Malone like you told me to. He’s got the animals at his place now. I did what you asked and gave John the money you left me, and he didn’t ask any questions when I told him it was to help Celia. He told me to thank you for all the extra money for the feed and said to tell you that he’ll take good care of the livestock till you decide what you want to do with them. He said they were in a bad way though, skinny and flea infested.”

  Marie shook her head in disgust. “I can imagine. Thank you, Tom. I’ll go and see John when this is all over, and I must say that finishing this nasty business can’t come soon enough for me. I’ve just been to see Jim Brannon, and he told me that he sent Durkin up to Merrill Farm yesterday morning. Joseph got a bloody lip apparently.”

  Tom smiled. “So that’s where it came from. Good for Durkin.”

  Marie accepted a cup of tea and a slice of cake. She removed her hat; it was going to be a long day. She took a sip of her tea and then carefully placed the cup in the centre of the saucer.

  “When this is all over, Tom, I’d like to put a proposition to you, something that I believe will be mutually beneficial.”

  “Yes, of course. Anything … Marie, can I ask you something now?”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “Well, to be honest, I’m baffled about most of what’s going on here. I’m dying to know how you knew about the bulls, not to mention Joseph selling the rest of the animals yesterday, How did you know he would do that? And how is this helping Celia? She’s left, and it seems to me that Joseph’s won.”

  Marie considered her answer carefully. She had always intended to tell Tom everything, and now was as good a time as any. She took another sip of her tea and wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “It’s a long story, my dear, but let’s just say that Joseph is a man of few surprises. We manipulated him into a position as one would a domino piece. We put him exactly where we wanted him to be, and he didn’t disappoint us.”

  Clearly confused by the term ‘us’, he asked, “You mean you and Celia?”

  “No, dear, this has nothing to do with Celia. She knows nothing about this.” Marie smiled at Tom, who was looking as confused as ever.

  “I think I had better begin at the very beginning,” she told him.

  Tom’s wife, Edna, sat down, joining her husband, who was hanging on to Marie’s every word. First Marie told them that she had the undisputable evidence to convict Joseph for Peter’s murder and the subsequent theft of the ring and watch. Then she let them in on her biggest secret: John Stein, his involvement, and that he was her son. Finally, she told them about Celia’s rape and the r
egular beatings that followed it.

  Tom wiped his eyes; all his suspicions had just been confirmed. He stood on legs weakened at the knees by the graphic account of Peter’s murder and Celia’s suffering. His eyes blazed with pent-up fury and prolonged niceties towards Joseph, forced upon him by his involvement in Marie’s plan, a plan he knew little about.

  “I knew it – I bloody well knew it,” he said, banging his fist on the table. “Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to beat the life out of that murdering bastard? I’m so sorry, ladies. Excuse my foul language.”

  Marie and Edna nodded her heads.

  “So when are we going to finish this?” he asked Marie.

  “Hopefully today,” Marie told him. “This is it. We will only get this one chance, Tom. I just hope that Joseph is as predictable as we believe him to be.”

  “Well, you’ve been right so far.”

  Marie was silent for a moment, and then she told them that they had indeed been lucky so far, but there had been mistakes made along the way, and Celia had paid a high price for them.

  “You know, Tom, we could have done things differently, and sooner maybe, but we can’t turn the clock back, I’m afraid. This is why today is so important.”

  Tom nodded his head in agreement. Sadness crossed his eyes for a brief moment as he thought once again about Peter, the biggest casualty of all.

  “Marie, just tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Nothing yet, Tom,” she told him. “My son and his friends should be at Merrill Farm within the hour, and the bailiffs should be with Joseph as we speak. They’ll keep him from running until you get there, along with Mr Ayres and Sergeant Butler.”

  “I’d like to be a fly on the wall up at Merrill Farm right now,” Tom said.

  Marie smiled for the first time. “You and me both, Tom. You and me both.”