The Valentine Murder

by Evelyn James

  “I don’t want to take a chance,” Tommy told Clara firmly. “Look at this another way. Annie is a stranger in Hove, oh, some may remember her from when she lived there as a girl, but what about now? And you know what people are like when someone dies mysteriously, and a stranger turns up out of nowhere. They connect them.”

  “You are suggesting they will link Annie to this crime?”

  “I think it damn possible,” Tommy said, his agitation affecting his language. “How many times have you heard of just that happening?”

  Clara had to admit that people could be funny souls, and in a close community such as the rural districts of Hove, a stranger was very noticeable and often unwelcome. If people were already muttering about witchcraft, what would they do when an unknown woman turned up and settled herself in the area? People didn’t like to believe that a brutal crime could be committed by one of their own, by people they had known all their lives. They preferred to think it had to be the work of an outsider.

  Tommy’s anxiety was started to infect Clara. She didn’t really think Annie would be in any danger, even if some people were concerned about her arrival so soon after the murder, but she might be in for a difficult time. How would she help Ellen if people refused to talk to her, or sell things to her? What if people started to be aggressive towards her because they thought she was somehow involved in this terrible murder?

  People often took two and two and made five. It was far rarer for people’s assumptions, usually based on prejudice and their own inner fears, to be accurate.

  Clara also knew there was no way she was going to stop her brother going out to Hove to make sure Annie was safe. Annie and Tommy were due to be married in the summer, they had finally set a date and had booked the church. Tommy would do anything to keep Annie safe.

  “What we are forgetting is that Park-Coombs will be investigating this crime,” Clara tried to reassure him. “That does not mean we can’t go and make sure Annie is safe and sound with her friend Ellen. I just think we need not become so agitated.”

  She poured out tea for them all and placed one mug heavily laced with sugar into Oliver’s trembling hands. The poor photographer looked like all his nerves had been shredded by his experience. Clara wondered if it was the sight of the body, or the talk of witchcraft that had upset him more.

  “Oliver, did anyone mention who the poor man was?”

  “I heard his name several times,” Oliver replied. “William Beech. Someone said he was seventy, if he were a day.”

  “What a terrible think to occur to him,” Clara frowned. “No one deserves to die like that. And slashed with his own hedging tool.”

  “What do you make of the pitchfork?” Tommy asked her, calm for the moment, but still ready to run and get his coat the second they were ready to leave.

  “I suppose you could look at it two ways,” Clara said. “One, the most likely, the killer was in a rage, trying to hurt William as much as he could and drove the pitchfork into him as the final blow. Maybe in attempting to get the tool out again he ended up wedging it in the hedge. The second option, which is rather more in the territory of a horror novel, is that there is a symbolism to the pitchfork pinning William to the ground.”

  “You mean, as if the killer was attempting to stake down a witch and keep her spirit forever trapped?” Oliver asked with the most enthusiasm he had shown the whole time he was there.

  Clara, who thought that whole idea preposterous, though she would never rule it out in case someone else did not think it was preposterous, reluctantly agreed.

  “That is an outside possibility.”

  Oliver gave a visible shudder.

  “How horrible people can be.”

  “Are we going?” Tommy said, looking like he was going even if they were not.

  “Do we even know where we are going?” Clara asked him and that stopped Tommy in his tracks.

  “Annie must have left the address for her friend somewhere here,” he remarked, pacing around the kitchen as if the answer would suddenly spring to life before him.

  “While you are doing that,” Clara told him, “I am going to ring Captain O’Harris. We are going to need a lift.”

  “Oh good,” Oliver said as she left the kitchen, low enough that Clara did not hear.

  Tommy glanced over at him.

  “Can’t have everything, old boy,” he said sympathetically, knowing the photographer had always had feelings for Clara.

  Oliver gave him a despondent look.

  “I’m too dramatic for her, that is how it is.”

  “I would call you more… eccentric,” Tommy consoled him.

  “Hysterical,” Oliver corrected. “Look how I rushed here with talk of witchcraft. How could any girl take a man like me seriously?”

  “Now you are being overly harsh on yourself,” Tommy persisted. “We are all different. Clara and O’Harris, they just suit each other.”

  “Because he is handsome and brave and was in the war,” Oliver had missed out on the war due to a medical condition. The army doctors had decided he would be more trouble to them than he was worth.

  “Chin up,” Tommy said, not sure what else he could offer. “There is someone out there for you, never fear.”

  Oliver did not look convinced, but at that moment Tommy spied a note Annie had left for him and his sister, stuck with sealing wax to the tin where they kept Bramble’s dog biscuits. She had assumed they would find it when they came to feed the dog. Tommy yanked it free, ignored the carefully written repeated instructions to keep Bramble out of the pantry and scanned down to where Annie had listed her friend Ellen’s address.

  “Got it!” He said in delight just as Clara reappeared.

  “You know where we are going?” His sister asked.

  “I do, Three Pigs Farm on the far side of Hove.”

  “Good,” Clara said. “John will be here shortly with the car. I have offered him a dinner invitation to say thank you for his assistance.”

  “Dinner, here?” Tommy raised his eyebrows. “With us cooking?”

  “We are not so bad,” Clara rebuked him, before hesitating. “Are we?”

  Oliver interrupted their conversation.

  “Should your little dog be climbing the shelves in the pantry?”

  Tommy felt his eyes slip to the note and Annie’s forceful warning. She had even underlined it. There was a crash from the pantry.

  “Oh damn!”

  ~~~*~~~

  Clara explained the purpose of their journey to Captain O’Harris as his chauffeur Jones drove them to the address on the letter. Oliver had declined to join them, deciding he would rather go home. Tommy had patted him on the shoulder as he left but could only offer an understanding smile. That left the three of them in the car, excepting Jones. Tommy rode in the front, while Clara sat in the back with John.

  Captain O’Harris had served in the RFC during the war and had come home with a full understanding of the mental traumas the conflict could induce in a man. He had subsequently set up a home for soldiers suffering the effects of shellshock. His life was extremely busy running his home, but he was always willing to make time for Clara.

  “A dead man murdered by witchcraft,” O’Harris mused over what he had been told.

  “Murdered because of witchcraft, possibly,” Clara corrected.

  “You know, my uncle and aunt had a servant when I was a boy who was a regular witch,” O’Harris continued. “She was a dab hand with making cheese, so Auntie Flo employed her in our dairy, back then they were very self-sufficient. Anyway, she was the most remarkable looking creature, her eyes turned to opposite sides of her face and she had more warts than a toad. I suppose, with a face like that she was always going to be a witch whether she liked it or not.

  “She knew all sorts of charms. Ones for stopping a tooth ache or a heart ache, ones for making a person feel better towards you or to suffer bad luck. She once started to teach me how to curse my enemies using a piece of their hair and a bo
ttle. Auntie Flo caught us before we went too far and warned the woman that if she ever did that again, dab hand with the cheese or not, she would be out on her ear. Not that Auntie Flo believed in witchcraft, but I suppose she did not want me getting notions into my head.”

  “What did the other servants make of her?” Clara asked.

  “Oh, they were scared to death of her, but if they had an ache or wanted a charm brewed, they went to her,” O’Harris smiled thoughtfully at the memory. “They used to whisper that she went out at night and danced naked around this old stone near her house and summoned demons and the spirits of the dead. If you had seen what the woman looked like, you would understand what a frightful image it was to picture her naked. Especially to a young lad.”

  O’Harris gave a mock shudder of disgust.

  “In hindsight, I appreciate she was badly misunderstood. Life had dealt her a bad hand and she was making the best of it. She had to endure prejudice and isolation, yet she was always welcoming and had a smile on her face. I rather feel sorry for her now. Considering how she must have been treated, you can see why she might cast a curse onto her enemies every once in a while to try to feel like she was regaining some control over her world,” O’Harris’ musings had grown sad. “Supposing it was the same with this murdered man?”

  “That is entirely possible,” Clara agreed. “Many country folk believe in superstitions us townies would consider nonsense. Maybe he was just someone who could give you charms to cure toothache rather than go to a dentist?”

  “It’s a brutal thing to do to anyone, slash their throat open and pin them to the ground with a pitchfork,” O’Harris pulled a grimace that spelled out his abhorrence for the crime. “That is a person with a lot of rage burning inside them.”

  “I saw men do things like that in the war,” Tommy interjected from the front of the car. “They had been put through so much and they snapped. When they came across the enemy, they didn’t just kill them, they savaged them, stabbing or shooting them over and over. It was this craziness that came upon them.”

  “Most people have to be driven to that state by incredible circumstances,” O’Harris continued. “But there are those in this world who can be tipped over the edge by normal life. Those are the ones to be afraid of.”

  “That’s what makes me so worried for Annie,” Tommy said, frowning. “This killer could be anyone, could be someone she will speak to everyday and who knows what might set them off again? Such a savage attack on an old and vulnerable man suggests a person with no restraint and who might lash out again at any time.”

  “I think it highly unlikely Annie is in any danger,” Clara repeated her earlier sentiments. “But we shall arrive to see her soon and put your mind at rest.”

  “Are you investigating the murder?” O’Harris asked her.

  “No one has asked me to,” Clara replied. “I am sure the police will do a fine job. They are entitled to solve a murder for themselves once in a while.”

  O’Harris laughed at her joke.

  Jones was taking the car very carefully down a winding lane, keeping a close eye on the hedges either side for fear he might scratch the paintwork.

  “I believe that is the farm up ahead, sir,” he pointed over the steering wheel and they all leaned forward to get their first glimpse of Three Pigs Farm.

  An old thatched farmhouse came into view with a roof that sagged down in the middle, as if a giant child had sat on it. Wooden barns and outbuildings stood around it and a yard spanned the square space before the cottage. Jones drove through an open metal gate and pulled up before the farmhouse, wincing as the car bounced through the many holes in the yard.

  “Don’t worry,” O’Harris told him. “She has good suspension.”

  They came to a halt parallel to the house. Tommy dashed out of the car almost the moment it stopped, as if Annie’s life depended on him not wasting a second. He was just crossing the yard when the front door of the cottage opened, and Annie stepped outside.

  “What on earth are you all doing here?”

  Chapter Three

  Annie had a mixed look of anxiety and annoyance on her face as she stood before them, hands on her hips, looking rather, to Clara’s mind, like an irate mother who has discovered her children somewhere she did not expect them to be. Funny how Clara could be instantly cowed by the glare Annie gave them. O’Harris appeared to feel the same as he unconsciously took a step behind her, as if that would deflect the fearsomeness of those eyes.

  “Have you burned my kitchen down?” Annie demanded.

  “No, Annie, there has been a murder,” Tommy said, which was of course wholly the wrong thing to say.

  “In my kitchen?” Annie shrieked. “I can’t have been gone more than three hours!”

  “No, no, Annie, the house is fine,” Clara quickly said. “What Tommy means is that there was a murder here in Hove and he was worried about you. He wanted to make sure you were safe.”

  Annie moved her hands from her hips and folded her arms, staring at them as if none of them were making any sense.

  “Then, you have come all this way, purloined Captain O’Harris’ car – good afternoon, Captain, by the way – just to make sure I had not been caught up in a murder that had nothing to do with me?” Annie said.

  “That is pretty much it, yes,” Tommy nodded. “It sounds rather foolish when you say it like that.”

  Annie sighed at them.

  “Well, you best come in and have a cup of tea, it looks like it is going to rain any minute.”

  Her prediction was accurate. They were barely through the door when a roll of thunder graced the skies and rain pattered down.

  Annie showed them through the house to the back where a spacious kitchen was pleasantly warmed by a stout iron range. A woman of Annie’s age sat at the table, nursing an infant. She had a pleasing, if not precisely pretty face, and long black hair. She looked extremely tired and seemed to be dozing off as she fed the baby from a bottle.

  “This is Ellen,” Annie introduced her friend.

  Ellen raised her eyelids a fraction but was too exhausted to even care about the strangers in her kitchen.

  “Ellen, these are my friends,” Annie ran through the introductions, though it was not obvious if Ellen was alert enough to take them in. “And this is Bramble.”

  She pointed out the poodle who had wandered over to a crib by the range and was stood up on his back legs to peer in. Ellen gave them all a nod of welcome then she yawned mightily.

  “How is your husband faring?” Clara asked her politely.

  “No better,” Ellen said, though she was too practical to get upset by this declaration. “I was up with either him or the children all night. I was so relieved when Annie turned up today. I was at my wits’ end.”

  “Gus, that’s Ellen’s husband, has been taken quite bad by the ‘flu, but I am sure he will recover,” Annie said stolidly. “He just needs some good food inside him and plenty of rest.”

  “Rest,” Ellen sighed to herself.

  Just then the babe in the crib started to cry and she rose with weary resignation to switch infants and begin nursing the other twin.

  “Now, tell me again why you have come all this way?” Annie asked her friends. She was already making tea in a kettle the size of a small barrel.

  Clara gave Tommy a nudge with her elbow. This was his idea.

  “It all started like this. Oliver Bankes came rushing to the house saying there had been a…” Tommy glanced in the direction of Ellen, who was now rocking the crying baby in her arms. “An old man was dead, and it was in Hove and the circumstances were all a bit… nasty.”

  Tommy scratched his head, knowing he was making no sense at all.

  “Are you talking about the death of William Beech?” Ellen asked, not looking up. She had started to hum to the baby and seemed blissfully calm despite the discussion of death.

  “You know about that?” Clara asked her.

  “My father told me about it t
his morning when he came to feed the pigs,” Ellen explained. “It happened not four miles from here.”

  Tommy’s earlier fears were suddenly back as he heard how close the murder had occurred, but Ellen seemed unperturbed by the gruesome death so close to home.

  “What has this got to do with me?” Annie asked. “As awful as it is for a man to die, why are you all in such a state?”

  “It was the manner of his death,” Tommy said. “I don’t want to upset anyone by discussing it.”

  Ellen missed his remark, aimed at her, and spoke over her shoulder to her friend.

  “Mr Beech had his throat slashed by his own hedging tool and someone had pinned him to the ground with a pitchfork,” she said as if she was describing the weather. “Father says people are muttering it was a witchcraft killing, what with the date and all.”

  “Date?” Clara asked.

  Ellen turned her attention to her.

  “Yesterday was the fourteenth of February, St Valentine’s Day. Everyone knows that is a magical day. Lots of charms and magical rites are best performed on Valentine’s Day. I personally went out and poured a little cider over the roots of the fruit trees in the garden and blessed them all for the coming year.”

  Clara had not been paying attention to the dates, she had certainly never heard of Valentine’s Day being a time for magic and rituals.

  “You can give your love an apple on Valentine’s Day and if that apple stays fresh for a month your love will go strong, but if it withers, so too shall your romance. And a maid who ain’t married might put an ivy leaf under her pillow on Valentine’s night, so she dreams of her future love,” Ellen was enjoying reciting all these country charms and was smiling to herself.

  O’Harris tapped Clara’s arm.

  “Happy Valentine’s,” he whispered. “I suppose I forgot, sorry.”

  Clara smiled up at him.