I didn’t ask if there’d been any further word from or about Tom. She would have said.
We were in the car heading back to our room when I rebelled. ‘Alan, we need a new point of view. A new way of looking at this. I know I keep saying that, but events keep turning corners, and we keep getting lost trying to follow them. We’re not going to get anywhere just sitting around in our room stewing. And it’s a beautiful day. Where could we go to get away from all this?’ I made a sweeping gesture that included St Stephen’s and the university and the city of Cambridge and our whole problem. ‘There must be parks or something. I need some fresh air and serenity.’
‘I don’t know the area well, love. Let’s park the car and find a TI office.’
The Tourist Information services in Great Britain are wonderful. I discovered them when Frank and I first visited England, and we learned to rely on them. They can tell you how to find the church or museum or stately home you’re looking for. They can point out the nearest pub or the shop where you can buy a walking stick. They will not only tell you about hotels and B and Bs, but they’ll call and book you a room. And I’ve never encountered any personnel too rushed to be courteous and helpful.
The Cambridge one was, of course, in the Market Square. ‘Yes, of course,’ was the reply when we asked about quiet places for refreshment of the spirit. ‘There are any number of nature reserves in the fens.’
‘Are there woods anywhere?’ I have a thing about woods; I find them restorative.
‘There are, certainly. But if you were planning to walk, I’m afraid you’d find most of them rather damp at this time of year.’
‘Rather damp’ in Brit speak can mean anything from slightly moist to you need hipboots.
‘Actually,’ said Alan, ‘I think we’re just looking for a place of peace and quiet. We’d be happy just to sit and look at an interesting landscape.’
‘Then I’d suggest one of the fen reserves. The fens are always damp, of course, but there are boardwalks, and bird-watching shelters which ought to be perfect for you.’
She showed Alan a map, and after some conversation, he chose one that seemed relatively easy to reach and obtained detailed directions for how to get there. ‘Your satnav may well not work in that area,’ she said, ‘but you should do splendidly with the map and your notes.’
Alan smiled. ‘We haven’t invested in satnav yet, so the directions are invaluable. I assume there’s a village nearby where we can get some sort of lunch.’
‘Well, no. This is a very isolated part of the fen, with nothing one could call a village. There is one farm, not a very busy place these days, but Mrs Bradford does sell eggs. She might be able to give you tea, at least. I’ve a brochure somewhere … ah, here it is. I seem to have only one left. There’s been quite a little run on them lately; I’ll need to ask her for more. Now, from the reserve, you’ll want to …’ She marked the map, and Alan added to his notes.
‘Thank you so very much,’ he said when she had finished. ‘You’ve been a great help.’
Neither Alan nor I have relished the idea of a disembodied voice telling us when and where to turn, nor do we entirely trust the technology. After we had driven for nearly an hour, however, turning this way and that, finding ourselves in barnyards and lanes that petered out to nothing, I began to think more kindly of the ‘lady in the dashboard’. I was also ravenously hungry.
‘Alan, let’s give up on the nature reserve,’ I said. ‘If I don’t get some food inside me soon, my head is going to split.’
‘Sorry, darling. These fen roads are maddening. At least we haven’t ended up in a ditch, like Lord Peter. And it isn’t winter, and we’re near a house.’
‘Then that must be the farm the tourist lady was talking about. She said there was only the one hereabouts. Let’s try it.’
It was an attractive house, solid and comfortable-looking, a house that had probably stood for at least two hundred years, and would stand for two hundred more. A few trees softened the flat surrounding landscape. It would be a pleasant place to live.
I thought about its remote location as Alan got out to open the gate. Suppose I had kidnapped someone and wanted to stash him somewhere while I did whatever it was I needed to do. Never mind that for the moment. There would be worse places than a remote farm. I wondered how far we actually were from Cambridge as the crow flew. I wondered how any villains could possibly know about remote farms, and remembered the brochure in the Tourist Information office. ‘Quite a little run on them lately.’ Hmm.
‘I’ll just see if anyone is at home,’ said Alan, getting out of the car. He was back in less than a minute. ‘We’re in luck, darling. Mrs Bradford – that’s her name – is just preparing lunch and has invited us to share it with her.’
‘But we can’t barge in like that on a total stranger!’
‘She’s a widow, and somewhat lonely, I think. I’m quite sure the invitation is sincere.’
My stomach rumbled; my head sustained an especially vicious jab.
‘Well … but I’m not dressed to go visiting.’
Alan just opened the door and held out his hand.
TWENTY-THREE
One look at Mrs Bradford and I knew Alan was quite right. She was a comfortable sort of woman in her fifties, dressed in an old skirt and sweater and wearing a flowery coverall. The house was full of savoury odours. We were greeted, also, by a large dog of indeterminate breed, who came up and put his nose under each of our hands in turn. ‘You won’t mind Rufus. He adores people, and we seldom have visitors. Oh, someone gets lost now and again, like you, and people come to buy my eggs, but they don’t usually stay but a moment. Now, sit down and let me bring you some tea. Dinner won’t be half a tick.’
The room was lovely. Exposed beams, rough-hewn and aged to a lovely colour, went perfectly with the rag rugs on the wide oaken boards of the floor. The furniture was chintz-covered and squashy, the sort that’s heavenly to sit in and nearly impossible to get out of. Bowls of spring flowers sat on the brick hearth to one side of a small fire, and photographs hung on every wall and sat on every surface.
I felt the tension draining away as the excellent tea eased my headache.
Lunch – ‘dinner’ to the countrywoman – was a marvellously homey hodgepodge of bangers and mash, ‘mushy’ peas (which I usually can’t stand, but these were well-buttered and well-seasoned and seemed to go well with the sausage) and home-made pickles, with a treacle tart for dessert that melted in the mouth. There was lots of tea to wash everything down, and when I got up from the table to help with the dishes, I felt very much better.
Mrs Bradford was scandalized by my offer to help. ‘No, no, sit down. You’re a guest! I’ll just rinse these and stack them. It won’t take me two ticks.’
‘We can’t just eat and run,’ I said in an undertone to Alan as we repaired to the front room in front of the fire. ‘And anyway I’ve had an idea.’
‘Shh.’ He put his finger to his lips as our hostess bustled into the room.
‘Well, now,’ she said, ‘that’s that. I never have been one to wash up after every meal. Silly waste of time, not to mention water and soap, when there’s just one person. It was another story, back in the day. Oh, the meals I used to cook! Used up every dish and every pot in the house. But then there were plenty to help in the kitchen afterwards.’
‘You have a big family, Mrs Bradford?’ Alan gestured at the pictures.
‘Seven children, eighteen grandchildren,’ she said with a broad smile.
‘You don’t look anything like old enough to have eighteen grandchildren,’ I said truthfully.
‘Bless you, dear, I was married at seventeen. Two of the grands are married, so there’ll be some greats coming along before you know it.’ Her smile dimmed a bit. ‘None of them live nearby, though. The boys all went into the services and moved away. One’s in Papua New Guinea, one in Kuala Lumpur, two in Australia. The girls married English boys, but they all live in London or thereabouts.�
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‘Oh, dear, so you don’t see much of your grandchildren,’ I said.
‘Not so much now that they’re all nearly grown. The two oldest – the married ones I told you about – they live in Canada, but the others are still with their parents. Of course, for most of them, that means the other side of the world. The ones in England visited often when they were younger, when my husband was alive.’ She allowed a tiny sigh to escape, but then smiled again. ‘But I mustn’t grumble. You can’t live in the past, can you? Now, I know you were headed somewhere when you got lost, and you don’t want to spend all afternoon listening to me nattering on. Can I give you directions to wherever you were trying to find?’
‘We were just looking for a peaceful place,’ I said, ‘but I must say I find it hard to imagine a more peaceful place than this.’
‘That it is. Too peaceful, sometimes. If it weren’t for the animals, I don’t know how I’d fill the time.’
‘Animals?’ I’d seen only Rufus, who lay stretched out in front of the fire in deep sleep, his paws twitching now and then as he chased rabbits in his dreams. ‘You have other pets, then?’
‘Bless you, no, not pets, except for the barn cats, that’re more than half wild. This is still a working farm, you know, though not like it was when Bert was alive. But there’s still a cow to be milked, and of course the chickens, and three horses. They’re not mine, the horses. I board them, and I have help with them, but it still makes a fair amount of work. Thank the Lord. I couldn’t do with sitting on my hands. Would you like to see around the farm?’
That, in fact, was exactly what I wanted to do. My idea about a remote farm was niggling in my head. In truth, I had no idea what I might be looking for, but a leisurely tour of the farm buildings might turn up something. Now, I’m terrified of cows and horses, and I dislike chickens anywhere except in the supermarket, and I loathe farm smells. But I was prepared to suffer a little, if only it might help find Tom.
Alan looked at me. ‘I’d love to see the farm,’ I said firmly.
Mrs Bradford glanced at my feet. ‘Oh, good. You’ve got sensible trainers on. Would you like to borrow some wellies, though?’
I tried not to think about what I might be walking through in the stables and the barnyard. Oh, well, my sneakers were washable. ‘No, I’m sure these’ll be fine.’
‘Just watch your step. Bessie’s out to pasture, of course, but my stable lad only mucks out the stalls in the mornings, and as he’s had to go and buy some new tack, the horses haven’t been out yet for their exercise.’
Oh, dear. Alan and I struggled out of our chairs and I took his arm. If I should slip in anything in the stable, I wanted to make sure I didn’t fall in it.
The stable building was beautiful, a lovely brick structure in a sort of Victorian Gothic style, with arched windows and doorways, and actually quite clean. Each stall had its own Dutch-style door, painted glistening white. The top halves of the doors were open, and the horses peered at us curiously as we walked past.
‘Fine animals,’ said Alan, who, as far as I knew, had as little acquaintance with horseflesh as I did. He’d been born and raised in a small seaside town in Cornwall, where the predominant animals were fish. But I had to agree that the horses were beautiful, as horses go. Each was a lovely colour of brown (I don’t know the proper terms for horse colouration), and two had white blazes on their faces. They looked well cared for. Their manes and tails were nicely trimmed and combed, and their coats were glossy. And that is the sum total of my knowledge of horses. We explored the stable, though I steered well clear of the stalls, not finding the rear view of a horse as attractive as the front. We were even taken up to the hayloft – the ladder wasn’t too bad – and shown the tack room.
As we left the stable to take a look at the cow barn, Alan asked casually, ‘Does your stable lad sometimes sleep here?’
‘Only when a mare is about to drop a foal, and that hasn’t been for a year or two. I look after calving myself. Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, I thought I saw signs of occupation in the hay.’
I gave him a sharp look, but he went on blandly, ‘Probably just the barn cats making a lovely nest for themselves. Now, you say you have only one cow now?’
‘Yes, there used to be a small herd, and we sold milk and butter, and sometimes even made cheese. Now Bessie’s the only one, and her milk is for me and the barn cats. This used to be the dairy, you see.’ And she pottered happily about, showing us the rest of her farm buildings, which were as spotless as one could expect the homes of animals to be. I hoped to spot the cats, but they stayed out of sight. Nor did I notice anything out of order, though I kept a sharp eye out.
We got away at last, Alan having been given careful directions to a bird sanctuary not far away. I spoke as soon as we were out of the farmyard. ‘What was that all about? Someone sleeping in the hay?’
‘Someone has certainly been sleeping there, and recently. I played it down because I didn’t want that nice woman to be frightened about tramps or gypsies, but the signs were unmistakable.’
My thoughts went, of course, to the one person we knew was missing and might be sleeping rough. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking.’ I passed along my idea.
‘I had thought about him coming here if he was on the run,’ said Alan, ‘but surely he would have gone to the house instead of bedding down in the stable. There are worse beds than hay, certainly, but nothing quite matches mattress and pillows and real blankets. But if he was a captive …’
That needed some thought. We found the bird sanctuary and sat there silent for a few minutes, letting the peace of the place seep into our souls. Birds were everywhere; their cries filled the air. I recognized only a few. We were looking at a marsh on the edge of a wood, so there were both water birds and the more familiar English robins (so much smaller and fatter than ours) and nuthatches, along with probably a dozen others I didn’t know. Now and then Alan pointed an interesting bird out to me, but by the time I adjusted the field glasses provided in the shelter, it had, of course, flown away.
I put the glasses down. The jumble in my mind had cleared, and my brain was functioning again. ‘Alan,’ I said, ‘why has Elaine been involving herself so personally in all this? Surely that’s not standard procedure. In her position, wouldn’t she delegate?’
‘You know, I’ve been wondering about that, too. Yes, she is acting very much outside the bounds of standard protocol. Of course, in her position, she can make that kind of decision, but her boss will surely show his displeasure in time.’
‘Chief Constable Andrews? I see him as more interested in posturing and seeking headlines than in policing.’
‘Oh, he’s well known as a blowhard, but in order to maintain his image he has to make a show of supervision from time to time, and I will be very surprised if he doesn’t make this morning’s raid on Mahala’s house an excuse for discipline.’
‘But they didn’t do anything illegal, or even harsh. They handled that hostile housemate of his with the proverbial kid gloves, even after he assaulted that man-mountain.’
‘Still. White officers—’
‘And Asian, don’t forget.’
‘And Asian, but mostly white, hauling a black man off to the station—’
‘They had plenty of reason! He wasn’t cooperating, they needed his information, they need to find Mahala, who may be responsible for at least one criminal act—’
‘Yes, dear. You don’t have to convince me. But it could be made to look like a racist action, and you can be sure Andrews will put that spin on it.’
‘But why? Elaine is a thoroughly competent police officer. She’s risen through the ranks by hard work. Those under her command plainly enjoy working for her. Why would that idiot of a chief constable want to discredit her?’
‘Yes, that’s the question, isn’t it? You may have hit on it. She’s competent and well liked.’
‘And he is neither. Just plain jealousy, you think?’
‘It could well be.’
But somehow that didn’t feel right to me. Not enough to explain his attitude. ‘You know, I think there’s more to it than that. Some sort of personal grudge.’
‘For example?’
But I couldn’t come up with anything, and neither could Alan. I mentally shoved aside that problem and went back to Tom and Mahala, for I was sure they were connected.
‘What’s Mahala’s ruling passion in life?’ I asked after a while.
‘His rats.’
‘They’re just a means to an end. What he really cares about – I think maybe all he cares about – is helping his people back in Africa. He’s a dedicated man.’
‘Dedicated people can be dangerous.’
‘Indeed. And Mahala, in his way, is dangerous. He’s single-minded, entirely focussed on that one aim. Look at how he got into a fight with someone who might have made his rats, his project, look ridiculous. Just what would he do to make sure he succeeds in his goal to bring more food to his starving country? Would he kill?’
There was no answer to that question, but we had at last faced it. I was inclined to think not. I had grown fond of Mahala in a way, the sort of way one might befriend a snarling dog that looked hungry. Feed it, but be very cautious.
‘Why would he kill Tom Grenfell?’ asked Alan. ‘Did he pose a threat to Mahala’s project? Or to his rats? Or was there some sort of personal conflict?’
‘He says not. He says he scarcely knew him. Drat! Why are we using the past tense? Scarcely knows him. Tom himself said, or implied, that he knew little about the plans for the prank, and that would further imply that he didn’t know Mahala, except in passing. And I don’t know how things work here, but back home, at my university, the graduate students and the undergrads hardly lived on the same planet. They didn’t mix at all.’
‘Terence Faherty knows Mahala better, but he said that no one knows him well. He’s a lone wolf, making enemies rather than friends.’
Blood Will Tell Page 20
