Dead on Dartmoor

by Stephanie Austin

  The hot wave of anger that came up from the soles of my feet was so intense I found myself gripping the edge of the basin for support. How dare she? How dare that posh little cow bring her stash into my shop and snort her evil drug on my premises? And be so contemptuous of others that she didn’t even bother to conceal the evidence; she didn’t care who found out. I felt faint with anger and sat down on the edge of the bath. My mother had died of a drug overdose when she was twenty-three. It was one of the few things I knew about her. I was already older than she would ever be. I suppose that’s why I was so angry, because of my mother, because of the waste. I wondered if Jamie knew about Emma’s habit. Not my business, I warned myself resolutely, don’t get involved. She would now be driving her little sports car through the streets of Ashburton under the influence of a dangerous drug. I ought to call the police and report her. But in the end I calmed down, swept the tiny remnants of her guilty secret away with a cloth, binned it, and decided not to say anything to anyone; certainly not to those downstairs. Sophie would be celebrating getting her commission. I didn’t want to ruin her moment.

  But when I got down there, no one was celebrating. Something else entirely was going on.

  ‘I tell you, it must have been her!’ Sophie was saying loudly. ‘It was right there on my desk, and now it’s gone!’ Gavin was on his hands and knees, searching for something under her desk.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Sophie’s lost her inhaler,’ Pat told me.

  ‘I have not lost it,’ she insisted. ‘It was there, on the desk. No one else has been in here.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not like we’ve had any customers.’

  ‘Well, I did see Miss Hoity-Toity put her hand in her pocket,’ Pat admitted, ‘just before she went out.’

  ‘But who would do that?’ Gavin objected, standing up and dusting his hands. ‘Who would steal an inhaler from an asthmatic?’

  I could think of someone. I had no doubt that gin-guzzling, cocaine-snorting, horse-riding, sports-car-driving, thrill-seeking Emma could get high on just about anything.

  Barely two hours after Emma had departed, during which time one customer had come in, wandered around and left without buying anything, Jamie himself arrived. Unlike his sister he was charm itself, asking after our welfare and EB’s, introducing himself to Pat and Gavin, admiring Pat’s wares and asking her questions about the animal sanctuary. We mentioned Emma’s earlier visit, but I didn’t say anything about the drugs. No one said anything about the inhaler. Sophie’s mum had been phoned and had already popped in with a spare one from home.

  ‘The portrait was her idea,’ Jamie admitted. ‘But that’s not why I’m here. I’ll come straight to the point,’ he added briskly, perching his rear on the edge of Sophie’s desk and folding his arms. ‘I’m hoping you might be able to dig me out of a hole.’

  ‘We’ll try,’ I assured him. We could refuse nothing to the handsome saviour of EB.

  ‘We’ve got this fete up at the house a week from today,’ he went on. ‘I heard Sandy mention it to you. Well, it’s more of an autumn country fair, really. We do it every year, to raise money for the lifeboats or some charity. Always brings in the crowds. This year it’s for the air ambulance. Usual thing, you know, gymkhana, dog show, beer tent, all that. Well, we always have a tent for art and crafts. Dartmoor Guild of Arts come every year, put on a great display. Unfortunately, this year there’s been some mix up over dates and they’re not coming. They’re already booked for somewhere else—’

  ‘—leaving you with an empty art and craft tent,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly, bit awkward. So Sandy and I wondered if you ladies might be able to come along and bring your wares − and you, too, of course,’ he added, turning around to include Pat and Gavin.

  ‘Well, I don’t do crafts, as such,’ I warned him. ‘I sell antiques and collectibles.’

  ‘That would be fine. In fact, Sandy’s got a few mates in the antiques trade. We can invite them along too. And if you know of anyone else who …’

  He saw Sophie and me exchanging glances. ‘We’d waive the normal stallholder charges, of course,’ he went on. ‘You’d be doing us a favour. Perhaps, if you do well on the day, you might consider making a small donation to the charity?’

  ‘Well, in that case—’

  ‘Good, so you’ll come?’ he asked, turning round to include all of us.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Gavin said instantly.

  ‘That’s fixed, then. Can’t tell you how grateful I am. Any news on your van, Juno?’ he asked. ‘Has the insurance chap turned up?’

  I explained I was still waiting for the insurance assessor to come, my local garage playing host to the burnt-out wreck, but that I was getting new wheels in the meantime.

  He raised his brows. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Peugeot Partner,’ I told him.

  ‘Excellent.’ He left, well pleased with the success of his mission, as suddenly as he’d come.

  There followed a brief argument with Gavin, who was intent on bringing his collection of comics to sell at the fete, about the unsuitability of his stock for such an occasion, but he remained obstinate; he was determined to come along.

  ‘I don’t see why my comics shouldn’t sell as well as Pat’s knitted sheep or Juno’s old tat,’ he argued.

  ‘This is a country fair, not a fantasy convention, Gavin,’ I pointed out. ‘Perhaps some mainstream books would be more suitable, you know, appeal to a wider range of interests? You’ll probably sell more that way.’

  ‘Gavin has got a point,’ Sophie said reluctantly. ‘There will be families there, and lots of kids read comics.’

  ‘These aren’t for kids!’ Pat snatched up the fantasy novel that Gavin had been reading.

  ‘The Sword of Virangha,’ she read out loud. ‘Look at this female on the front. She’s got nothing on except a metal bikini.’

  ‘She’s a warrior queen,’ Gavin said hastily, a telltale blush beginning to tinge his cheeks, ‘she’s wearing armour.’

  ‘I don’t fancy her chances going into battle in that,’ Pat went on remorselessly, ‘it only covers up her rude bits.’

  Gavin snatched the book out of her hands. ‘Mr Westershall extended the invitation to include me, so I’m coming. And anyway,’ he added childishly, ‘you can’t stop me.’

  ‘I think we’re missing the point,’ I said before hostilities could escalate. ‘If we all go next Saturday, who’s going to look after the shop?’

  There was a moment’s gloomy silence. It was obvious that no one was going to volunteer to stay behind. It was equally obvious that it wasn’t a good idea to close the shop on a Saturday. Whilst the fine autumn weather continued, Ashburton would be full of visitors.

  The silence was broken by the mad jangling of the bell above the shop door. Ricky and Morris struggled in through the doorway, each carrying what looked like the severed halves of a naked female corpse but turned out to be a dress-shop mannequin. ‘This is Mavis,’ they chorused, grinning. ‘Where do you want her?’

  I pointed them in the direction of my unit in the stockroom. Then I turned to grin at the others. ‘We will go to the ball, Cinderella,’ I promised, and then followed, to talk nicely to my Fairy Godmothers.

  Sunday morning I finally became the owner of White Van and took it for a spin up the A38 to Newton Abbot. A large market town, it has in abundance things that Ashburton doesn’t have, like supermarkets, charity shops and takeaways. It is the kind of town that guidebooks describe as ‘bustling’. Holidaymakers in their thousands pass through its railway station every year: change at Newton Abbot for Totnes and Plymouth − or for Dawlish, Teignmouth and the delights of the English Riviera. Famously, it boasts a racecourse, which on occasional weekends when the horses aren’t running hosts a giant car boot sale.

  As my ignorance about antiques is profound, the only chance I stand of making any profit is to buy cheap from people who know even less about them than I do. Boot sales can be quite good in this regar
d. I picked up half a 1960s coffee set, a Torquay pottery milk jug, a few pieces of nasty but collectable Goss ware, a sandalwood writing slope with a broken hinge, some strings of coloured glass beads that Pat could break down into earrings, and a cast-iron boot scraper: the sort of original feature that rich people doing up old houses will pay silly money for. I also invested in a box of paperback books in reasonably pristine condition, in the hope I could talk some sense into Gavin about putting them on his shelves.

  As I was about to leave, I found a cardboard box full of electric light switches. The man who sold them to me was surprised I wanted them. After all, he said, they were just rubbish he’d found in his garage. It was true, many were plastic and broken and would be thrown away, but as I gleefully handed over my five pounds and gaily lied that my partner was an electrician and collected old switches, it occurred to him, judging by his slight frown, that he should have inspected the contents of the box more carefully. But it was too late then.

  Three of the switches were made of Bakelite – always collectable no matter what the object − and four were Edwardian switches with brass covers in a decorative shell pattern. I knew that all of these would be of interest to the architectural salvage merchant in Ashburton, the same merchant who had removed the Victorian fireplace from Nick’s old living room. I remembered his surprise at my wanting to dispose of such an original feature, but it was no longer a living room and a saleroom doesn’t need a fireplace; and for me, it was too vivid a reminder of Nick’s murder.

  The day ended with another strange little incident. I was thinking about going to bed when I realised that I’d been carrying around in the depths of my bag a birthday card Maisie had given to me to post through the letter box of her friend, whose birthday was yesterday. Conscience pricked, I got in the van and drove to the little sheltered housing development where she lived. I parked in the council car park behind the town hall. Even the car park in Ashburton is picturesque by most standards, surrounded by old stone walls and overlooked by trees, sheep grazing on the steep field that rises up behind it.

  Card delivered, I walked back to the van. It must have been nearing midnight. All was quiet, all was dark. A car was parked in the corner that I hadn’t noticed on my way in. The tailgate was up, lighting up the interior, and a woman was standing behind it, fiddling with something. A small pale form sidled towards me across the tarmac: a cat, one of those thin, leggy, oriental breeds. It was wearing a harness on the end of an extendable lead. It yowled in a friendly fashion as I bent to stroke it. Oriental breeds of cat are very vocal, they like to chat. ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘who are you?’

  The woman shut the tailgate of her car and wandered over, the lead in her grasp. She was tall and slim, dressed in cords and a padded body warmer, her hair − in the dim light I couldn’t tell if it was blonde or grey − worn in a French pleat. I judged her to be in her late sixties. ‘He’s Toby,’ she informed me in a pleasant, cultured voice, ‘just giving him a walk.’

  I asked if he was Siamese, a breed I knew was easily trained to walk on a lead.

  ‘Yes. He’s a lilac point,’ she confirmed, bending to scoop him up. ‘Time to be on our way.’

  I was close enough to her car to see that the back was piled high with bedding. I wondered if she and her cat were sleeping in it. ‘Going far?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. Goodnight,’ she answered, pleasantly, but as a definite end to the conversation.

  ‘Well, goodnight,’ I said, and returned to my van.

  She also went to her car, put the cat in the back on the pile of bedding, and sat in the driving seat. But the car hadn’t moved when I turned out of the car park, its driver sitting motionless, and I had the feeling she was waiting for me to go, to be out of sight before she moved on.

  Running away, I thought to myself, she and her cat are running away, and for the rest of the night, until sleep claimed me, I couldn’t get them out of my mind.

  I was alone in the shop with Gavin. It was the afternoon before the Moorworthy fete and I was in the storeroom sorting out what stock I was going to take with me. Was it worth taking a fluted carnival glass bowl with amber lustre, I wondered, and risking it getting broken en route? I decided it was and was carefully wrapping it in bubble wrap when I heard the bell jingle on the shop door as someone came in.

  I didn’t rush because I knew Gavin was sitting at his post, although as he was deep into one of his fantasy comics it was debatable whether the sound would have penetrated his consciousness. Then I heard his voice. ‘I want you to leave me alone,’ he was saying loudly. ‘I’ve told you to stop coming in here.’

  The reply, whatever it was, was spoken too quietly for me to hear. Curious, I crept into the corridor and peered into the shop. The man muttering inaudibly to Gavin was exactly as Sophie and Pat had described: ferrety-looking, a skinny man in jeans and an old denim jacket, thinning brown hair brushed across his head failing to conceal the red scabbiness of his scalp. His neck and hands were peppered with scabs too, as if he was suffering from some unfortunate skin condition. He was older than Gavin and, despite his general seediness, had an air of menace about him, like a small-time crook. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I realised he wasn’t purposely whispering. His voice was just very soft; a collection of breathy, sibilant sounds came from his lips, the sounds a snake might make if it could speak.

  ‘I’ve told you, no,’ Gavin’s voice was edgy with panic.

  ‘Anything wrong?’ I asked, strolling into the shop. I stopped and smiled innocently at his companion. ‘Did this gentleman come in to buy something?’

  He slid a glance at me, hissed something inaudible and slipped out, not bothering to close the door behind him. I walked over and shut it, turning to study Gavin, who looked paler than usual and slightly unwell. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘No one,’ he mumbled, averting his gaze, ‘just a creep.’

  ‘Does this creep have a name?’

  ‘Croaker, that’s what he calls himself.’

  I folded my arms. ‘Do you want to tell me what that was about?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing − it’s nothing.’ He blushed deeply. ‘He’s just a pervert.’ Flustered, he began to tidy his table in an effort to cover his discomfort, hastily sliding comics into a box.

  ‘If he’s bothering you, we could call the police. You don’t have to put up with—’

  ‘No! No, I’ll sort him out,’ he cried hastily. ‘Honestly, Juno. I’ll make sure he doesn’t come in here again.’

  ‘Gav, if you’re in any kind of trouble—’

  ‘I’m not!’ He gave me a steady stare, lifting his chin in defiance. ‘It’s fine, really.’

  ‘OK.’ I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘But you can tell him from me that if he comes in here again upsetting anyone, I will call the police.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I’ll deal with him.’

  I let it go at that, but I was dubious about Gavin’s powers to deal with the creepy Mr Croaker and resigned myself to the fact that I might not have seen the last of him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The wisdom of letting Ricky and Morris look after Old Nick’s whilst we were at the fete was something I pondered more than once on our drive to Moorworthy House. It wasn’t that they couldn’t be trusted with handling customers, or cash; it was their fondness for putting their own stamp on things that had me worried. They could rearrange my stuff as much as they liked, had already done so in the intervening week as they produced a clothes rail with more and more vintage garments to fill it. But if they started tinkering with Sophie’s or Pat’s stock it would not go down well. I needn’t have been concerned. Sophie had almost none left after her visit to the arts centre, and during the week she’d been busy dashing off quick watercolour sketches of Dartmoor and comical cartoons of farm animals to sell at the fete. There wasn’t time to get them framed, just mounted and cellophane-wrapped.

  She rode with me in White Van. Pat had nobly volunteered to take Gavin and h
is boxes of comics in her old station wagon. We arrived before them − quite a long time before them, as it turned out; Gavin wasn’t ready to be picked up at the promised hour and had to be rousted out of bed whilst Pat sat drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

  The fete was taking place on the vast lawn at the back of the house, with a central arena for the gymkhana, dog shows and livestock competitions. A beer tent and pavilions housing flower and vegetable shows and cake competitions vied for attention alongside tents selling locally produced cheese, cider, honey and even Dartmoor gin and chocolate. In a marked-off area stood a Punch and Judy show for children and a bouncy castle, while a colourful bunch of helium balloons bobbed like a big bouquet over the face-painting stall.

  The Craft and Antiques tent was situated nearest to the house, which was a bonus as far as I was concerned as the ballroom had been set up for lunches and teas. The long windows were thrown open, the terrace scattered with garden tables and chairs. Admittedly the Portaloos were way over the other side of the fair, but you can’t have it all.

  As Jamie had asked, I’d contacted some other traders to see if they could help fill the empty stalls. Tom and Vicky Smithson from Exeter had readily agreed, and when Sophie and I arrived in the tent, they were already busily dressing their table. Their stock was infinitely superior to mine, mostly delicate pieces of china and small items of highly polished silver. I gazed enviously at an arrangement of dainty vinaigrettes and snuffboxes. Tom and Vicky had been in the antiques trade a long time, they knew their stuff. I only wished the same could have been said of me. I had begun to educate myself when I started working with Nick; I just hadn’t got very far.

  Once Sophie and I had unloaded our boxes, I parked the van in an adjoining field and trudged back to the marquee. The sky was clear blue overhead, the air already warm, a perfect day for a garden fete. Further down the lawn a painted sign warned visitors to Beware of the Ha-Ha. The trees in the woodland had turned a deeper gold, a reminder that summer was over. In a few short weeks we would be turning back the clocks; there were not many of these long, golden afternoons left.