by Emma Jameson
“Sarcasm.” Gaston spoke in a tone usually reserved for estimating tumor size. “There’s no call for sarcasm. Sarcasm—”
“Never did anyone any good. Yes, you’re probably right,” Ben finished for him. “Look. Clarence. Mrs. Cobblepot’s information about Freddy is a start, but I still need to examine the body. It would help me a great deal if you took notes. Careful, detailed notes.”
Gaston said nothing.
“In that notebook?” Ben’s voice crept up an octave. When he wore that half-smile, that hopeful look in his big blue eyes, Juliet could have denied him nothing.
“The notebook labeled ‘Official Business,’” she put in helpfully. “I can scarcely imagine business more official than this.”
“Oh, aye.” With the greatest dignity, Gaston removed the book from his coat, uncapped a pen, licked the tip, and poised the implement over a blank page. “Proceed when ready.”
“Lady Juliet, I’d like you to steady the body as I remove the belt. Once I have it off, I need you and Mr. Gaston to transfer Freddy onto the bed.”
“Concentrate on your notes, Clarence. I’ll help Lady Juliet lift him,” Mrs. Cobblepot said, positioning herself on one side of the corpse.
“He’s not a big man, but he’ll be heavy,” Ben warned, gently unfastening the belt. “Dead weight is always—”He broke off as Juliet and Mrs. Cobblepot neatly transferred Freddy onto the bed, the older woman handling her end as easily as Juliet had hers.
“You should see me turn a mattress or wrestle a wet blanket onto a clothesline,” Mrs. Cobblepot told Ben. Then she gazed back at Freddy, studying his bent body, stiff with partial rigor, and open, milky eyes. “Poor child spent his whole life trying to get people to pay attention. Now he has what he wanted at long last.”
After Juliet and Mrs. Cobblepot undressed Freddy, Ben made his examination, dictating to Gaston and frequently pausing to repeat or spell a medical term. His summation emphasized points Juliet doubted she would have noticed, though once they were pointed out, she had no idea how she’d missed them.
“There are no ligature marks on the neck, nor any abrasions. Subject’s loss of body fluids suggests gastrointestinal spasms and violent convulsions. Although subconjunctival hemorrhages could indicate either repeated emesis or asphyxiation, I note there is no froth upon the lips or blood around the nostrils. Lack of such signs, as well as the subject’s unmarked neck and intact hyoid bone, cause me to suspect poisoning. Subject will be conveyed to my office for post-mortem. Should I determine further evidence of foul play, I will request confirmation from the pathologist at St. Barnabas hospital.”
“Path-all….” Gaston prompted.
Ben spelled the term aloud, as he had “hemorrhages” and “asphyxiation.” Juliet noted that if he felt any temptation to lord it over the ARP Warden, indicating by look or tone that learned men managed such words with ease, he resisted. Of course, out-spelling Clarence Gaston was no major feat of intellectual prowess. But she didn’t think that crossed Ben’s mind. He just wasn’t the sort who seized opportunities to make others feel inadequate.
Mrs. Kenner fetched up hot water and towels, carrying Freddy’s soiled clothes down to the rubbish bin as Juliet and Mrs. Cobblepot bathed the body. It was unpleasant work, less because of those all-too-human sights and smells and more because Freddy was like a ruined church, desecrated and abandoned. Its shape was correct, its once emotionally potent features still recognizable yet degraded beyond all joy and purpose. And Juliet’s earlier observation that laying out was women’s work still proved true; Ben and Gaston drifted away to review Ben’s notes, then prepare a place in Ben’s car for Freddy, as if the dead man needed special accommodations in the backseat. Only females, it seemed, had the stomach to wash and dry the corpse, then shroud him in a white cotton bed sheet.
“The thing is, the note made sense,” Juliet told Ben as he settled himself behind the wheel. The rain had tapered off, but twilight was upon them, and they needed to get to Fenton House before full dark. “I’ve seen Freddy get drunk and quarrel with Edith, bawl at her, beg her to marry him. I can’t quite imagine him running her down, but heaven knows what a man will do when insensible from drink. For him to mistakenly kill Penny, send you that clumsy note, then top himself out of guilt—it all makes perfect sense. May I examine that handwriting again?”
“Gaston has it.” Ben started the engine. “I plan to start on the post-mortem right away. You can read it over again while I go to work. Of course, you’ll have all night.”
“All night?”
“You’ll be my guest at Fenton House. Unless you plan on walking back to Belsham Manor in the black of night.”
“Oh. Well. We’ve a little time left, and I know Old Crow Road better than my own face in the mirror,” Juliet said, giving the red and purple sky a nervous glance. “If you’ll permit me to borrow this car, I solemnly promise to escort myself safely to—”
“Juliet.” Ben’s tone was firm. “I won’t hear of it. You’re my guest till morning.”
Attacked by an absurd desire to ask him what Rose would think of that, Juliet bit her tongue till the impulse passed. And luckily it passed swiftly, because they were soon bouncing over fresh ruts, then swerving around potholes, and she talked too much to make do with half a tongue. Why was her heart fluttering in her chest? Ben was merely being decent, not betokening her of his chivalrous love. Besides, her heart wasn’t fluttering, nothing about her fluttered. Clippity-clopping like the aforementioned horse, more like.
“I agree with you, by the way,” Ben said after a moment. “The note made sense, so there’s probably some truth to it. But the best lies always contain a kernel of fact. And whoever wrote it must have been desperate to keep the whole truth buried, or he wouldn’t have dared enter Mrs. Kenner’s in the middle of the night, much less loiter about after Freddy died to make it look like a hanging.”
“She,” Juliet said.
“What?”
“That handwriting. It was lovely. Perfect. I’d have to look again to be certain, but I believe the note was written by a woman. For decency’s sake, I’d like to believe Freddy never brought Edith into Mrs. Kenner’s house but perhaps he did. Do you think Edith might have done it? Convinced Freddy to run you down, then killed him when he threatened to tell? Did she have any connection to Pen—”
That last was lost in an explosion so loud, Juliet shrank reflexively, closing her eyes and covering her ears. From behind her eyelids, she saw bursts of illumination, blooming like white dahlias trailing fiery stems. Then hail and rain was pounding down—except the hail was chunks of brick and bits of metal, not ice, and the rain was powder and ash, not water.
“God in heaven!” Juliet cried, throwing open her door in blind panic. She never knew what she meant to do—hurl herself into the thick of it, apparently—but Ben shouted her name and pulled her close. Heart thudding in her throat, in her temples, everywhere but her chest, Juliet clung to him, whimpering as a second, smaller explosion rocked the high street. This time she was cognizant enough to feel the car shudder and heard a crash as the windshield shattered.
“It’s all right,” Ben said, keeping her pressed against him. His voice was calm, but like her, he was trembling all over. “Stay still. Stay still.”
Brakes squealed behind them. Too frightened to move and braced for another explosion, for what could only be more German bombs raining down on their heads, Juliet heard a car door open.
Then Gaston, his voice oddly magnified: “Stay in your homes! The zone of greatest safety is nearest the ground! This is your ARP Warden speaking.” He must have been using a megaphone. Only Gaston would have had the forethought to stash one in his car, Juliet thought. Yet under the circumstances, such extremes of preparedness no longer seemed so silly. “I repeat, shelter in your homes! Do not attempt to view the skies. Curiosity about the enemy can be deadly!”
“This is real. This war is real,” Juliet babbled, pulling free of Ben and gaping at the sky over
Birdswing, where wisps of smoke still hung in the shape of dahlias.
“Something’s real. I’m not sure what. Isn’t the constabulary just over there?”
“What?” Braced for another explosion, Juliet could hardly decipher his words, much less reply. Yet when he repeated himself, voice still remarkably composed, she forced herself to focus, first on the words, then on the darkened high street. “You’re right. The smoke is rising from the roof. It must have been hit.”
“Or the explosion came from inside. Stay here.” Ben opened his door.
“No—you can’t—” Suddenly she was very aware of the corpse in the backseat, his frosted eyes open beneath a thin cotton sheet.
“I don’t hear engines overhead. Either one plane dropped one bomb on a village in the middle of nowhere—sorry—or this is something else.” He lurched forward, one hand on the car’s bonnet for support.
“Your cane!” Turning to fumble behind the driver’s seat, Juliet came face to face with a man-shaped figure swathed in white. For one surreal moment she thought the bombing had claimed a victim, that his shade hung in the smoky air like a flashbulb’s afterimage.
And in her moment of terror, of unreasoning belief in the spirit world, a woman’s voice seemed to whisper in her ear, “The twins. It’s Bonfire Night, after all.”
All of Juliet’s panic dissolved. The shrouded figure was only Freddy Sparks, his earthly remains awaiting post-mortem. The Germans might bomb her village someday, but tonight the skies were silent and increasingly clear, wind pushing aside clouds to reveal the stars. The constabulary was indeed the only structure affected, and those bright streaks in the sky now reminded her of signal flares.
“This was a prank,” she announced, hurrying to Ben’s side and pressing the cane in his hand.
“Back in your car until I sound the all clear,” Gaston bellowed at them through the megaphone. Juliet and Ben ignored him.
So did Mrs. Cobblepot, who’d emerged from Gaston’s vehicle to ask, “Did the constabulary explode?”
“Of course, you daft woman. We’ve been hit! Are you aiming to get blown to bits like our Paul and Tommy?”
“Gaston! What’s happening?” Mr. Laviolette called from his restaurant, where he also resided. A glowing yellow rectangle fell out into the street.
“DOUSE THAT LIGHT!”
“The quicker we find Mrs. Archer’s boys and force a confession, the better,” Juliet told Ben. She didn’t question anything, including her sudden calm and soft voice that had not really been a voice, somehow. There were moments of total surety in life; this was one. “Two years ago, Caleb and Micah tried to burn their own Guy Fawkes at the stake. They set fire to an old man’s back garden and torched his weeping willow. I remember where their mum found them.” She set off at a good clip, still ignoring Gaston’s exhortations through the megaphone, strangely invigorated by the tang of what might be gunpowder in the air. Only when she realized Ben was struggling to keep up did she modify her pace.
“I do believe this is what got me in trouble in the first place,” he muttered, limping more swiftly than she’d ever seen. “Blundering through the dark in the middle of the road.”
“I’m practically inured to the blackout now. And painting the curbs white was a stroke of genius—we should have done it ages ago.” Before long, she felt the paving beneath her feet give away to brittle winter grass, as she’d known it must. Around one of the churchyard’s trees, a white band had been painted, the bench beneath it also a soft, spectral white.
Are you enjoying all these changes, Lucy? Juliet wondered. Do you see everything that transpires in Birdswing now, or just bits and pieces?
She received no answer as St. Mark’s loomed before them, nor had she expected one. The moment of connection had been fleeting and might never be repeated.
“Won’t the church be locked after hours?” Ben asked.
Juliet laughed. “This isn’t London. Besides, in wartime, we have perhaps more cause to pray than previously.” Fingers curling around a cold brass door handle, she pushed her way into the vestibule. Unsurprisingly, every last votive candle was lit, small flames dancing inside wells of amber glass. If Mrs. Archer’s wayward twin sons had a signature, it was fire.
Two rows of pews stretched toward the old-fashioned wooden pulpit situated on a marble dais, and the altar, dressed in green. Before that altar, Caleb and Micah Archer knelt in conspicuous prayer. Both looked rather worse for wear, shirttails out, hats and coats missing, hair and clothing streaked with soot. Neither turned as Ben closed the door firmly behind him, but Caleb, usually the leader in mischief, lifted his voice so the words practically rang off the rafters.
“… and know the truth of our repentance, and punish us in your own good time….”
“… and protect us from unbelievers,” Micah threw in, as if that might help.
“Boys! Your hope for deus ex machina is in vain,” Juliet called, briskly closing the distance between them. “Do you know what our Lord said about the Pharisees, praying aloud on street corners?”
“No, Lady Juliet.” Caleb leapt up and spun around, presenting wide eyes and singed eyebrows while behind him, Micah sanctimoniously thanked God in advance for services rendered. “But I’ll bet he forgave them.”
“Forgiveness is a cornerstone of the faith,” Juliet agreed. “Alas, confession and contrition come first.” Seizing Caleb’s ear, she twisted it till he screamed and gave him a swat on the rear. When the boy tried to run, Ben tackled him, bringing him to the tiled floor even as Juliet collared Micah, giving the identical backside an identical blow. “So much for you two being sick. Well enough to slip out, obviously. What in heaven’s name were you doing? And be honest, there’s a witness. We know it was a Bonfire Night prank.”
“We just wanted to set off a flare.” Caleb’s voice sounded slightly muffled, perhaps because Ben’s good knee was hard against the boy’s chest, pinning him down. He received rougher treatment from his schoolmates on the cricket pitch every week, yet nevertheless looked on the brink of tears—the gambit of final resort. “We heard where old Gassy kept ‘em, and jimmying the lock was easy.”
“Proves he needs a better one. He should thank us.” Micah tried to pull his hand away. “Let me go, Lady Juliet. Promise not to run.”
“I don’t believe you,” she replied, fighting hard not to smile at the nickname “Old Gassy” as the door banged open.
Speak of the devil, even in church.
“What possessed you to light a flare indoors?” Ben asked the twins as Gaston and Mrs. Cobblepot hurried down the aisle.
“We’ve done it before,” Caleb said contemptuously. “Just a test to make sure they weren’t all gone damp or stale before we took ‘em out to Pate’s field. But Old Gassy must have stored something in there with a bit of a kick—”
“Munitions,” Ben cut across him. “A stockpile of bullets and shells.”
“What?” Micah looked stunned.
“How’s that?” Caleb asked.
Ben nodded silently as the boys exchanged glances.
“Cor,” they said in unison.
“I despair of you both,” Juliet exclaimed. “ARP Warden Gaston, I fear this is a job for Acting Constable Gaston. Here we have the two miscreants awaiting punishment. They broke into your cache and blew it sky-high.”
To say Gaston responded in poor humor would have taken British understatement to extremes even Lady Juliet did not condone. White-faced, he heard the boys’ confessions without a word, then left them briefly in Juliet, Ben, and Mrs. Cobblepot’s custody. When he returned, soot-stained and smelling of gunpowder, a few minutes later, it was with handcuffs. And leg irons. Only a whispered conference with his sister spared the twins that particular indignity, but another awaited. Transporting them across the village to Mrs. Archer’s place was too dangerous during the blackout. There was nothing for it but putting them up overnight in what amounted to jail: Gaston’s bungalow.
“It could be worse, boys,
” Juliet told them as they were frogmarched out of St. Mark’s for a short jaunt in Gaston’s car. “Dr. Bones has a corpse in the back of his vehicle. A possible murder victim awaiting a post-mortem. Since you two enjoy courting death, we almost decided to let you ride with him.”
The handcuffed twins exchanged glances. “Cor,” they mouthed to one another, and Juliet swallowed a sigh. It was true; she never learned.
“If it’s all right by you, doctor, I’ll return to Fenton House tomorrow morning,” Mrs. Cobblepot said, seating herself in a pew. “Clarence will be back in a moment, and I thought I’d sit with him until he’s quite composed. Then I’ll help him sound the all clear and reassure everyone within earshot. I’m sure they’re frightened to death.”
“We can help, too,” Ben said, and despite Juliet’s mounting exhaustion after so much excitement—had the disastrous fête really ended only hours ago?—she felt herself nodding.
“You’ve enough on your plate with poor Freddy,” Mrs. Cobblepot said. “I’ll see to Clarence. It’s just that he—”
She fell silent as ARP Warden Gaston reentered the church. His face was a mask. Eyes focused directly in front of him, he looked at neither Juliet nor Ben, making for his sister and joining her on the pew. A few seconds passed as he sat, back stiff, staring at the altar. Then he slipped to his knees, put his face in his hands, and began to cry.
Ben looked mortified. “What…?”
Putting a finger over her lips, Juliet nodded toward the door. Only when they were out in the cold, smoky November air did she answer.
“He lost both his sons, Paul and Tommy, during the Great War. When he was called up and his wife took ill, they were sent to live with an aunt. Then the zeppelins bombed London….” In the deep darkness, Juliet couldn’t see Ben’s face clearly, but she heard his intake of breath, and realized he hadn’t known. “ARP warden is a big job and mostly thankless. Why do you think he tries so hard to get it right?”
Post-Mortem
5 November, 1939
