by Diane Janes
‘We could turf most of it,’ Wendy said. ‘I can easily keep the grass cut.’ She turned to see that Katie had drifted back into the courtyard, where she was looking up at the arched window which lit the stairs.
‘Do you like the house, Katie?’
Katie turned to face her mother, apparently caught between the desire to please and telling a fib. ‘We-ell,’ she began. ‘It’s not a very nice house …’
‘It’s not very nice now,’ Wendy plunged in. ‘But once it’s been cleaned up and decorated nicely …’ She turned to Bruce, hoping for support.
‘It’s no use even thinking about it until you’ve had proper advice from a builder.’
‘But do you like it?’
‘Wendy, it’s no good anyone liking or not liking anything unless you can afford to make it habitable. Assuming you can make it habitable.’
‘But if we really could?’
‘If. If. It’s all ifs. If you really want to, then I suggest you get in touch with a builder – a reputable one who knows his way around old buildings. You need proper advice to find out what needs doing and how much it would all cost.’
‘The estate agents can probably recommend someone.’
‘I daresay. In the meantime, don’t go getting your hopes up.’
‘A builder,’ Wendy said brightly. ‘Job for first thing on Monday.’ She folded her arm through Bruce’s. ‘Would you like to walk round again?’
‘No. That young chap is waiting to lock up, and anyway, it’s no use getting the kids all excited if in the end it turns out not to be doable. Jamie, stop clambering about in that shed – you’ll break your neck in there.’
Wendy smiled. That was it, of course. Dear, steady, sensible Bruce, treading cautiously, not wanting to get the children’s hopes up. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the house, just that he was taking things step by step, avoiding the risk of a possible disappointment.
Disposing of a body isn’t easy. Burial is the traditional way, and there’s a lot to be said for sticking with tradition. Do things the traditional way and you can’t go far wrong. Except that you can – easily – go wrong.
THREE
March–May 1980
The estate agents recommended Mr Joseph Broughton of Broughton and Sons, Master Builders, a recommendation which was fully endorsed by Ted, a squash player of Bruce’s acquaintance, who was something to do with building controls on the local council. ‘Sound as a pound,’ Ted said. ‘You won’t go wrong with Joe Broughton. A bit on the expensive side, but he’ll see you right.’
Bruce declined to take an afternoon off work to meet Mr Broughton. ‘I don’t need to be there,’ he said. ‘We’ll want everything in writing, anyway, before we decide to go ahead.’
Wendy therefore met the builder alone. He was a short, stocky man of few words, who explored in an unhurried manner and seemed reluctant to be drawn into any kind of conversation. He managed a lit pipe between his lips, while his hands were busy pulling away bits of crumbing plaster, poking into the backs of cupboards, and periodically working a stub of pencil against the pages of a dog-eared notebook. He began his inspection by standing in the front garden, where he shaded his eyes, peered up at the chimney stack, then shook his head before making a note, and he finished it in the little courtyard at the back of the house, where he finally removed the pipe from his mouth and used it to gesture up at the landing window. ‘D’you know what that is?’ he asked.
Deciding that ‘a window’ was not the correct answer, Wendy shook her head.
‘That’s a Venetian window, that is. You don’t see so many of them about now.’
‘No.’ Wendy thought she had probably never seen another like it.
‘About two years ago I had a client who got us to brick right across the arch; blocked it up completely, to accommodate some double glazing.’ The recollection seemed to so incense Mr Broughton that he knocked out his pipe against the outhouse wall and replaced it in the top pocket of his jacket, as if unable to enjoy his tobacco in the contemplation of such vandalism.
‘I want to keep this one just as it is.’
Mr Broughton nodded. ‘In a right bad way, this lot.’ He gestured to take in all the outbuildings.
‘I would like them repaired and reroofed. Apart from installing things like central heating and a modern kitchen and bathroom, I want to restore all the actual buildings so that everything is as close as possible to how it was originally. The only exception to that is the place I showed you where I would like the hall cupboard and the pantry knocked into one, to make a small study.’
The builder grunted and wrote down something else, but her commitment to retaining the building – as far as possible – in the spirit of the original seemed to thaw him, and he unexpectedly volunteered the information that the bricks had probably emanated from a local brickworks, affectionately patting the wall alongside the kitchen door as he did so. ‘Course,’ he said, stepping back inside and hauling a strip of mouldering wallpaper away from the wall, ‘them old chaps had never heard of damp courses. They seen the water travel down the walls, but they didn’t appreciate that it could travel up them and all. They knew craftsmanship, though.’
‘But can you sort out the problem with the damp?’
‘Oh aye,’ he said, as they made their way back through the house. ‘There’s nothing here as can’t be fixed. It’ll take time though, and it won’t be cheap. I’ll make you out a full estimate this evening and get it in tomorrow’s post … No, Mrs Thornton, I’ll not be giving any rough guesses. That’s not the way I do business. Let me lay it all out proper so’s you and your husband can think about it. By but it’s a grand old place, I’ll say that.’ He extended his hand and smiled for the first time, nodding as he headed towards the front door and repeating by way of a farewell, ‘A right grand old place.’
Though the estimate was well within the scope of Wendy’s inheritance, Bruce remained unenthusiastic. ‘Broughton is sure to go over budget,’ he said. ‘Builders always do.’
‘It doesn’t really matter. Even if it costs almost twice as much, we can still easily afford it.’
‘But surely you don’t want to fritter away every penny? You have to consider whether you will end up spending more than the house is worth, just in order to make it habitable. It’s not as if we need a house that big.’
‘But surely we can have some things that we want, whether we need them or not. Isn’t that the definition of having enough money? Even if Mr Broughton goes over budget, there will be plenty of change left out of thirty-seven thousand. To say nothing of the equity from this house.’
‘Well, we won’t be frittering that away on any mad schemes like this, I can tell you. This house is a shared asset.’
‘Oh, Bruce, we won’t be frittering anything away. We’re using the inheritance money to get ourselves a lovely home. I don’t understand why you are being so negative about it. And the money I’ve inherited is a shared asset too. All my worldly goods with thee I share.’
‘For richer, for poorer.’ Bruce laughed. ‘Anyway, those weren’t the promises you made to me. We were married in the register office, remember? But as you’re so determined, you’d better go ahead.’
Wendy jumped out of her chair and hugged him.
‘Hold on …’ He held her at arm’s length, laughing. ‘I haven’t finished. The condition is that you will have to take responsibility and deal with the builders. Your dream house, your project.’
‘I know you’re just teasing. You know I don’t know anything about DIY.’
‘I am not teasing. And this is a bit more than DIY, my girl. You are going to have to be the person the builders answer to because I’ve got a huge amount on at work. If you want to go ahead then you will have to take responsibility and manage things.’
Wendy took a deep breath. ‘Mr Broughton knows what he’s doing. He won’t need much managing, but I will be keeping an eye on things, because while he is working on the house I’m going to start sorting out the garden.�
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‘The garden is a pretty big project in its own right.’
‘There’s no need to sound so doubtful. I’ve picked up quite a few gardening tips from the television, and if I run into trouble there’s a whole section on gardening in the library. If the worst comes to the worst, I can get a gardening firm in to do some of the heavy stuff.’
So it began. Though he oversaw the work, Mr Broughton was seldom actively involved. He subcontracted the electrical work to a trusted local firm, but pretty much everything else was done by three of his employees. Kenny treated Wendy with exaggerated deference each time she arrived on the premises, which she did on an almost daily basis, her jeans tucked into her wellingtons and old anorak over her gardening jumper, addressing her as ‘Missis’, which seemed to be his equivalent of ‘Your Ladyship’. Kenny’s sidekick was the much younger, perpetually cheerful John, who bore a faint resemblance to Robert Redford, a resemblance which he had played on by growing a Sundance Kid-style moustache. John wore a sleeveless T-shirt in all weathers and whistled as he worked. His accent betrayed him as a Brummie, and his habit of ending the day with the words ‘tara-a-bit’ took her back to her Coventry days. The third member of the team was Peter, a hulking giant of a man, who wore a permanently sorrowful expression, which probably derived from his principal interests in life: Hartlepool Football Club and the mournful songs he sang about penitents being in a jailhouse and elderly hobos dying on freight trains.
One afternoon Wendy met John carrying a length of pipe across the courtyard while Peter’s voice was issuing from somewhere within the house. It was a song Wendy had heard him sing so often that she knew the words herself.
‘What are those songs that Peter sings?’
‘It’s that country and western stuff.’
‘Like Dolly Parton?’
‘Oh no,’ John said. ‘Peter doesn’t think much of them. He’s got a thing about some old bloke who used to drive an engine.’
‘A railway engine?’
‘I think that’s right. Peter …’ John raised his voice above some hammering that had begun upstairs. ‘Peter! Come and tell Mrs Thornton about your engine driver.’
The song came to an abrupt halt, just as someone was a kissin’ with Nellie Bligh, and Peter’s huge frame appeared, filling the doorway.
‘He were a brakeman. The Singing Brakeman, they used to call him.’ Peter’s speaking voice was grave and steady. He would have made a marvellous undertaker, Wendy thought.
‘Yes, but what was his name?’
‘Jimmie Rodgers – the Singing Brakeman.’
Wendy did not like to enquire what a brakeman actually did, so she said, ‘Are all the songs you sing his songs?’
‘Mostly. I know all of them.’ His features attempted to reconfigure themselves into a smile, but the unaccustomed effort was too much for them.
‘And he worked on the railways,’ John prompted.
‘Aye. He worked on the railways in Mississippi. That’s in the Deep South.’ Peter imbued the words with the kind of awe some people might have used a century before, when referencing the Mysterious East. ‘He were a genius. He died of TB.’ Peter nodded to himself, as if these two factors were inextricably linked.
‘Thank you for explaining,’ Wendy said, for some kind of comment was clearly required.
As Peter disappeared into the house again, John winked at her as if sharing a joke, before he went on his way, pipe balanced effortlessly across his shoulder.
Wendy put her tools away in one of the reroofed sheds and headed for the front gate, where she paused to glance back at the house. The external appearance of The Ashes was vastly improved, now that the slate roof had been replaced with modern terracotta tiles and the old brown brickwork cleaned and repointed. After an initial period when the place had looked more like a warzone than a dwelling, the house was coming alive again just as she had always known that it would. The garden was progressing too. Soon she would be able to start buying plants from the newly opened garden centre at the other side of the village. From inside the house, she could hear Peter singing something about being a thousand miles away from home, just waiting for a train.
It was only when she opened the gate and stepped on to the pavement that she noticed a vaguely familiar figure a couple of yards down the road. It was a woman she had seen a few times, walking along Green Lane. Someone encountered often enough for them to be on nodding and smiling terms, although they had never exchanged a word. Today the woman was not smiling, but she did appear to be hesitating, on the point of speaking.
Though something about the woman’s demeanour made her feel slightly uneasy, Wendy smiled and said ‘Hello,’ as she emerged from the gate.
‘Hello.’ Encouraged by the friendly overture, the woman stepped closer, simultaneously glancing towards the house, as if she was trying to make sure that the front hedge concealed her from anyone who might be looking out of a window.
‘Is there something the matter?’ Wendy asked.
‘I’m Mrs Parsons. I live just opposite. Well, not exactly opposite … across the road, a few doors down. Look … I don’t know … well, I don’t want you to think I’m poking my nose in or anything, but those men who’re working on your house – it is your house now, isn’t it? Well, do you know who that big, tall one is?’
‘Do you mean Peter?’
‘The big one,’ Mrs Parsons repeated. ‘Peter Grayling, his name is.’ She paused again, but then continued when she realized that Wendy was none the wiser. ‘He’s the one what was arrested over that girl what disappeared. Leanne Finnegan, her name was. You must remember it. Happened up Hartlepool way, two years back. Police never charged him, but everyone knew it was him as did away with her.’
‘Oh …’ Wendy could see that her soon-to-be-neighbour was expecting a reaction, but she had no idea what to say. At least half-a-dozen possibilities ran through her mind all at once. ‘But … people can’t be sure,’ she said, hesitantly. ‘I mean, if it was certain … if there was actual evidence, the police would have charged him, wouldn’t they?’
Mrs Parsons pursed her lips and shook her head. It was almost, Wendy thought, as if the woman considered that she herself was complicit in some felony for allowing Peter to work on the house and therefore facilitating access to the neighbourhood for this dangerous individual.
‘Well, I just thought I ought to warn you. You’ve a teenage girl yourself.’
‘Thank you,’ Wendy said. ‘That’s … very thoughtful of you.’
There was a pause, which became increasingly awkward with every passing second.
‘Well, I expect we’ll be bumping into each other again,’ Wendy said. ‘Seeing as we’re going to be near neighbours.’
‘Aye. Maybe.’ Mrs Parsons turned away, heading down the road, presumably towards her home.
Wendy thought about the encounter all the way home. What had Mrs Parsons meant, saying ‘maybe’ in that way? That she would not be going out of her way to mix with someone who had clearly not been willing to immediately act on her warning? Or that she doubted it because Wendy might end up disappearing as comprehensively as the girl from Hartlepool? She didn’t keep things from Bruce as a general rule, but he had been inclined to worry over the new house since the very beginning, and the idea that someone working there had been suspected of abducting and doing away with a young woman wasn’t exactly going to reassure a man with a wife and two daughters. Surely there was no need to give him anything additional to worry about – another reason to question the purchase of The Ashes in the first place? After all – and she had intimated as much to Mrs Parsons – the police (and ‘everybody’) couldn’t really know that Peter was the guilty party. If there had been any evidence against him worth talking about, he wouldn’t still be at liberty to replace her rotten floorboards while singing his Jimmie Rodgers songs and spending his Saturday afternoons at the Victoria Ground?
She considered speaking to Mr Broughton about it, perhaps even asking him to
move Peter to another job, but that seemed very unfair. Suppose there wasn’t another job? It must be bad enough having the finger of suspicion pointed at you by everyone, without losing your job on top of everything else. Well … no, not pointed at you by everyone. She herself had not associated him with the disappearance of Leanne Finnegan. Nor, obviously, had Bruce, who would surely have said something about it if he had.
She only vaguely remembered the case. The disappearance had been all over the local papers, and at one stage a man had been detained to help police with their enquiries, but now she came to think about it, the girl had never been found and the man had not been named. There had been a brief flurry in the local media and then a couple of days later came the news that he had been released without charge. There would always be a grapevine, though. Neighbours, work colleagues, friends of friends who could put a name to the man involved. Word would spread along that spiderweb of contacts, a whisper in the pub, a nod in the supermarket. Mrs Parsons had evidently heard the story and knew what Peter Grayling looked like well enough to recognize him as he arrived to work at The Ashes, though she clearly wasn’t a friend.
It came to Wendy, as she turned into Jasmine Close, that if you wanted to settle an old score against someone who was not a friend, suggesting something that might result in his immediate loss of employment was a nifty way to go about it. After all, she had no way of confirming whether or not what Mrs Parsons had told her about Peter had so much as a grain of truth in it. That decided her. It was far better not to bother Bruce with the story at all, particularly when everything was coming on so well, what with Mr Broughton saying they were still on budget and all the major works on target to be finished in little more than two or three weeks. After that they would need time to allow for things to dry out before they could paper and paint. No point rushing to move in until everything was perfect.
They would be in by summer. At Christmas she would be snipping holly from their own bush and putting up their tree in The Ashes. A proper evergreen from now on, not that artificial one they had in the loft. She visualized the tree’s arrival, Bruce unloading it from the roof rack, being helped (or hindered) in the process by overexcited children. Fairy lights reflecting in the front downstairs window. Maybe they could rig up some lights in the garden too. It was a bit posh, having lights strung in your front garden, but the kids would love it. Bruce would know how to do it safely (and tastefully).
