“Well, I know we said we would have a quiet wedding but I do want to make it special, you know, a bit of a splash with some of our friends for a party and what have you.”
“Oh yeah, absolutely, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about really. I know we said that we’d wait for a while, til we had some money in the bank, so we didn’t need a loan or anything but…”
“Now, we’re not borrowing from your dad Freddy, don’t even suggest it. He’s already mentioned it to me and I told him no.”
“I know, I know, I agree with you. The thing is though, if we were to sell that piece of land up at the top of the garden to Jared and his mother then we’d have enough to pay for a pretty decent bash.” Marsha opened her mouth to speak but stopped as Freddy took hold of her hand. “I know what you said about not wanting them around while you were working at home, I haven’t forgotten. I’ve been looking and there is an access from the lane beyond the top of the garden. If we put a hefty fence up and they use that road then you won’t even know that they’re around.”
“Oh, really, I didn’t know you could get in from the other end.”
“No, it’s a bit overgrown but I reckon we could make it a condition of the sale that they open that up and it becomes the access point. They seem to want the land so much that I don’t think they’ll mind at all. What do you reckon?”
“I don’t know, Freddy. I don’t feel comfortable around them, I can’t explain it, you know, to be honest, they scare me a bit. I always feel Jared is just on the edge of losing his temper and his mother – well, she give me the creeps.”
“I know but will you just give it some thought? I’ll take you up there tomorrow and show you where the gate will be and so on.”
“Yeah, okay. But, you won’t make any decisions without me will you?”
“Of course not, you daft thing.”
“I feel a bit cold Freddy, do you think we could go in and sit inside. I feel quite shivery all of a sudden.”
“Come on, I’ll get the cups, you take the glasses.”
As they turned to walk into the house Marsha glanced back at the garden. There was still some brightness in the sky but up at the top, amongst the weeds and ferns, the light was swallowed, leaving the area a deep pool of blackness save for one tiny glint like a teardrop sparkling and winking in the dying light; Marsha shuddered again, the claustrophobic sense of sadness fell on her like a cloud.
Chapter 19
The owl was hunting; the cry spiralled around the night-time trees and spun across the field. Slender skeins of cloud laced across the moon. Marsha pushed herself from the bed and crossed the room. They didn’t close their curtains, preferring to let the morning wake them so there was light to guide her feet. She wrapped her shawl across her shoulders. There was a chill in the air and her nightgown was sleeveless.
The garden was monochrome in the dim light. White flowers were small glows spotted here and there but the rest of it showed shades of grey and black. The apple tree at the end of the lawn stretched great limbs skyward and beyond it was a pool of nothingness.
What was it about this place that disturbed her? It was a dream house in many ways but living here wasn’t becoming any easier and soon it was going to be theirs. She should have been thrilled and yet more and more she felt trapped. Tears prickled at her eyes, was she never to have real peace and untainted joy?
She leaned her head against the cool glass and let her eyes lay unfocused on the scene. A glow flickered beyond the tree, near to the ramshackle little shed, at the same level as the tumbling down roof, a yellowy cone of light flicked and turned and was extinguished. Alert now and holding her breath she peered closer. She knew she had seen something, not imagination, not dreaming, there was a light at the top of the garden. There, it was there again, and this time lower down, almost ground level. It was a torch, someone had come over the back fence and was in the overgrown plot. She should wake Freddy, she should call the police. “Freddy, hey there’s somebody in the garden.” He didn’t stir, he mumbled a little from deep in sleep. She turned back to the window. She couldn’t see anything now.
She would feel so stupid if she woke him, called the police and then there was nothing there. She watched, chilled and shivering, peering through the old glass. No, there was nothing, it was her imagination. She’d let it go. Tomorrow she’d have a chat with Freddy about security lights, they had assumed that they were fairly well protected, but if there was an access path to the top of the land then actually it was a security risk.
She took a last look, all was well, the bed welcomed her back and she spooned with Freddy’s warm body and surprisingly easily drifted back to sle…
Breakfast was late. The table was laid of course, the cutlery and crockery glinted in the morning light which was diffused and fractured by the net curtains. There was marmalade, there in the pot, but where was the toast, the tea, and where on earth was Mrs Boulton?
Marsha watched herself as she strode down the corridor into the kitchen, and nibbling a cold piece of toasted bread she stepped out into the bright warm morning.
She pattered across the dew soaked paving of the terrace, as she did a faint click startled her, the back gate surely. What was that under the rhododendrons, Mrs Boulton’s brown shoes, her lisle stockings? And what was that glutinous liquid seeping across the morning damp earth? Mildred descended the two stone steps onto the twinkling lawn. “Mrs Boulton, Mrs Boulton dear, are you alright?” A myriad stars exploded in front of her eyes, pain shot through her head as she felt herself topple forward, a gush of sticky fluid was covering her face and then, before the true horror could take hold, blessed darkness took Mildred to be with Mrs Boulton.
“Aaah, oh god, oh.”
“Marsha, hey Marsha what ever is the matter? Hey, hey come here, it’s all right, you’re safe, you’re safe. You were dreaming.”
“Oh Freddy, that was awful, terrible. There is something so very wrong here, something dreadful is here in this house.”
“Shush, shush, I’m here, you’re okay, come here.” He wrapped her round in his big arms and rocked her like a child, but it had touched her now and wouldn’t be denied. It was time, the past would sleep no longer.
Chapter 20
“What happened Jared, did ya get inta the land? What’s it like up there? I never been, not since.”
“Yeah, I got in again. Ripped me bloody jeans on that old fence an’ all. It’s all overgrown, I told ya that before. You can’t make out much. The old shed is there and the rest is weedy and brambly. She did make a start that young lass but she didn’t get very far.”
“D’ya think there’ll be anything there by now? Would ya be able to find it?”
“Well, course there will be. Ya know that don’t ya? This stuff doesn’t just disappear, well not as quick as that anyway. I don’t know what’ll be there, ya know, what it’d look like but for sure it’ll be there. Thing is though I ‘ave no idea where to start, it’s a fair sized plot and I can’t just start diggin’ at random, not in the dark as well. This is no sort of a plan, not this way.”
“Oh God, it’s hopeless, ‘e never said ya know, your dad, nor your granddad neither, they just went up there, did what they ‘ad to and then said we were never to speak of it again.”
“Aw, come on old woman, don’t start blubbin’ that’ll not ‘elp nothin’.”
“Aye I know Jared but this thing, this awful thing, it’s ruined our lives ‘ain’t it. After it ‘appened I wanted to get away, just go somewhere else. I would ‘ave, I reckon ya dad would’ve an’ all but Granddad wouldn’t ‘ave it. ‘We ‘ave to stay close, we ‘ave to be ‘ere, ere where Simon is. And ‘e weren’t anyway were ‘e, that Simon, ‘e weren’t ‘ere, he were locked away back in the ‘ospital place, back safe where ‘e should’ve been all the time.”
“I know, I know.”
“Oh lad what shall we do?”
“Ya know, I think that it’s time we came clean.” Jared held up his great hand to
still her as his mother started to speak. “It weren’t us were it? What ‘ave we ever done but suffer ‘cos of it? It weren’t Dad and it weren’t even Granddad it were that Simon and ‘e were sick, sick in the ‘ead.”
“Yes but lad, we all took a part in coverin’ it up didn’t we. Well not you, not you, you took no part in anythin’ did ya and yet you’re tainted just like me.”
“What can they do, just what can they do to us now? Simon’s dead, Dad’s gone and Granddad, they’re not gonna blame you are they, not after all this time, not if you tell ‘em ‘ow scared you were, ‘ow Dad used to treat ya, the beatin’ an all that.”
“Oh lad, I can’t let that come out, I just can’t and what about the business, the garden centre, the farm shop, who’s gonna’ buy from us if it all comes out after all this time? What will folks say if they find we ‘id bodies in sheds and that we buried ‘em, back where they came from, tossed in the ground, like old rubbish with not a word said over ‘em?”
“But Ma, there’s no other answer, I can’t go and dig up that land, it’s not ours, I didn’t do anything, it’s years and years ago and you weren’t to blame. For God’s sake, I’m goin’ to the police. I’m gonna tell em all of it. I’ll tell ‘em ‘ow Simon escaped from the ‘ome and what ‘appened after. I’ll tell ‘em Dad and Granddad took care of it, hidin’ the bodies and all so Simon wouldn’t ‘ang. Then we’ll ride the storm, we’ll tough it out and if the business goes under then we’ll move and kick the dust of this cursed place off of our ‘eels for good. I can’t bear it any longer, this thing ‘anging over us, this guilt when we’ve done nowt and this fear, always worryin’ that they’ll dig up the bones. That’s the other thing ya know, maybe if we tell and they dig ‘em up, that Mrs Boulton and that girl Mildred, then they can bury ‘em, what’s left, bury ‘em decent in the graveyard and then per’aps after all this time you can ‘ave some peace, let go the guilt and the worry. What do you say eh, can I do it, can I settle it once and for all?”
Tears trickled between her grubby fingers as she lowered her head. Overwhelmed by an unusual feeling of tenderness Jared reached across and laid his great paw on the thin grey hair.
“Don’t cry old woman. Come on, we can finish this, we can. Just say the word, I’ll do it.”
She shook her head and raised red swimming eyes to his. “I can’t Jared, I can’t let you. It’s been ‘idden too long, I’m too scared of what’ll ‘appen.”
“Will you think about it, tell me you’ll at least think about it?”
“I’ll do that, for you boy, I’ll do that. Come on I’ll put the kettle on, we’ll ‘ave a brew.”
Chapter 21
Thin moonlight filtered through the drapes and stroked the discoloured wallpaper. On the old walls the once pink rosebuds had faded now to colourless blobs and in places damp had drawn ugly patches. The carpet was worn and thin, even the cheap wooden furniture, such as it was, looked forlorn.
Tossing and turning in the gloom Masie brushed impatiently at the tears running across her wrinkled cheeks to drip onto the pillow. Life was hard. It had always been hard and it was a long time since she had harboured hope that it would change for the better. In the early days when she had been a young girl, her hair thick and brown and her fingers supple and soft, then she had hoped and dreamed. Her husband was a landowner after all. It was only a smallholding but they had some livestock and a house and they had plans.
The old man, his father, had soon quashed them all though. Things must stay the same, there was to be no expansion, no rebuilding. They were to stay low-key, keep their heads down and attract no attention. In his mind it was the only way to be, if they stayed as they were then no-one would look at them and all would be well. Albert, her weak husband, had proved to be a straw in the face of his father’s bluster and so they had sunk beneath his dictates and she was still there all these years later, still paying, still cowed.
The brain-sick brother, locked away and not spoken of, was the family shame and ultimately its downfall. But really the whole mountain of life had simply been too great for her to climb and so she had floundered about in the foothills, losing strength in body and soul, gradually becoming what she was now. She was a drone living out each day in grey monotony watching her son succumb in his turn to the pressures and the great weight of family guilt and so it was and so it would be.
Should she let him go, Jared, should she let him go to the police and bring it all out into the open, and what then? Where would that get them? Prison, no probably not, but the business would fail, the only thing she had would crumble around her and there would be nothing for Jared. His job at the school would go and she feared that if that happened he would leave her at last, alone and broken and lonely. A wracking sob escaped her throat.
Scrawny legs slid out from under the duvet and she shuffled across the bedroom floor. Jared was snoring in the room next door. Wind whistled through the night-darkened branches, smoky clouds painted the face of the moon and she pulled on her work clothes and heavy coat. She thrust her feet into boots and stealthily pulled open the kitchen door and made her way through the village and up to the sheds and glass houses. There was a need for tools, equipment and a lantern. Deep inside she knew that this was insane, but wasn’t insanity at the root of it all anyway?
The big barrow held sacks and lights, a pick and shovel and the rakes and fork that were the companions of her everyday. She was a gardener, still strong in the arm and back, and this was after all just another sort of gardening. Desperation drove her forward now and she thrust aside the voice that told her she had tipped over the edge of reality herself and had entered the realm of fantasy.
Down the damp roadway she pushed the barrow. The jangle of metal on metal disturbed the night creatures and she heard them shuffle and flee amongst the undergrowth. It wasn’t far to the house, she followed dirt lanes and trekked across fields, and inside half an hour she was at the back entrance to the cursed piece of land.
She remembered where the old gate was. It was hidden by hawthorn and bramble and tied with creeping vines but she had brought her machete and hacked them away easily. She dragged and tugged at the crumbling wood, there was neither time nor need to open the space wide enough for the barrow and so she gathered up tools and sacks and, battling through the long weeds, she threw the stuff down on the flattened space in front of the old shed. She went back for the lantern, it was a risk but there was no way to work totally by moonlight so she draped an old cloth over the top to diffuse the light and would work within the small circle of illumination.
It had been years since she was here. It had still been cultivated then and the soil had been easy to till and dig. She had helped Mrs Boulton and Mildred as they had dug the Victory Garden and they had paid her, cash they had given her and it had bought clothes and kitchen stuff and extra food. She had liked them and thinking about it now the air left her lungs and she was taken by a moment of dizziness and panic, totally beaten by the disaster that had fallen upon her. It had been so unfair, for all of them, all three women and there was no way back for her, but maybe if she could save Jared she could go to her grave in peace.
Chapter 22
She turned now and surveyed the dim plot. The twisted shapes of weeds and brambles clawed up from the earth. Gentle night-time wind shifted the grass and shuffled through the bushes. Where was she to start? The old men had done this thing. They had brought the poor ruined bodies here and left them in the cold unhallowed ground. All these years, undetected, unmarked and untended they had laid alone in the dark, two innocent, kind women.
Masie was overcome now by the shame. Shame for the selfish acts of her husband and father-in-law but more than that, shame for her own part in the affair. Maybe in the eyes of the law she was blameless, as much a victim as these poor dead creatures, but in her own soul she acknowledged that she was guilty. Guilty of silence when she should have spoken out, and of theft. Her guilt was the theft of her son’s life and the chance of happiness f
or her family when she should have been strong and truthful.
What was she doing here? Where would she start? Where would it end? She dropped helplessly to the ground. Her sobs were lost to the gentle wind as bitter tears watered the corrupted earth. It was hopeless. There was no sign or marking and no way for her, a broken old woman, to dig up this plot and search for the bones. If she were to find them, skull and spine and femur, what then? Her original idea had been that she would take them and thrust them into the wood chipper, reduce them to dust and then scatter them on the hills. Was that so wrong, would it not be the same as a cremation, a scattering of ashes? Yes it was wrong, she didn’t have the right. She was not kin, not even friend, sometime employee and that was all. This was not her place and here in the dark and lonely night she saw the truth.
Jared was right, she would go with him tomorrow. They would go to the police station and they would end this now and they would take whatever came.
She had not heard the sound of footsteps on the dry grass and a squeal escaped her throat at the feel of hard hands on her shoulders.
“Quiet, quiet old woman, it’s only me, it’s Jared. What are you doin’? Why are you here?”
“I’m just sayin’ goodbye lad, goodbye to Mrs Boulton an’ that Mildred. We’ll go tomorrow, both of us, we’ll go and make a clean breast of it.”
As her son held out his hand, Masie reached up and struggled to her feet. For a moment she bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Jared had parked the old van some way up the road and so the journey home was easy and quick and tomorrow was another day.
Chapter 23
“Have they finished, Freddy?” Marsha asked.
YOU'RE DEAD: Three Gripping Murder Mystery Suspense Novels Page 12
