‘I think you’ll find there’s a lot of things women will be doing differently before this war is over.’
‘Do you think it’ll begin?’ Toby’s face crumpled even more. ‘I hear Chamberlain’s going to sue for peace by giving some of our colonies to the Germans.’
‘There was a girl at my school who used to make other girls give her their pocket money,’ I recalled, ‘and I’m ashamed to say that I gave her mine. But when the smallest girl in our class, Davina Divine, refused, everybody else realised they could too. You have to stand up to bullies or they just demand more and more.’
‘We need a strong man.’ Toby stood up.
‘Churchill’s the man for me,’ I said. ‘I’m just worried he might be too old.’
‘Didn’t do us much good in the last war,’ Toby argued. ‘Gallipoli for a start.’
‘If Chamberlain met Hitler again he’d polish his shoes,’ I said. ‘Winston would break his jaw.’
‘I’ll get the drinks.’ Toby scooped up my florin and, when we were settled again, he unclipped his satchel and brought out a large buff envelope.
‘We had a choice between cutting down to two pages or going weekly with eight,’ he told me, ‘in anticipation of paper shortages. There was sweet damn all to fill a daily anyway. Even the fox story had to be embellished. All the duck did was quack and wake the dog.’ He slid out a developed photo. ‘Came out quite well, I think.’
I held it out into the evening light. ‘Very well,’ I agreed. ‘You can see the cleats clearly.’ I handed it back.
‘And this is my draft.’
It was typed on a sheet of white foolscap.
MURDER OF SACKWATER ACCOUNTANT
The idyllic seaside resort of Sackwater was shocked on Wednesday by news of the murder of local businessman Skotter Heath Jackson, Chartered Accountant in his office at 14 Dogeye Lane.
I skimmed through. He had given few details but lots of quotes from locals about what a wonderful man Skotter Jackson had been, and then on page 2:
IS THIS THE FOOTPRINT OF A MURDERER?
was printed over a space for the picture and mention of a reward.
‘Fifty pounds,’ I read out. ‘Who’s giving that?’
‘A group of local businessmen. They’re worried holidaymakers will get frightened away.’
‘Holidaymakers?’ I repeated incredulously. ‘What on earth would they come here for? The burned-out pier? The signs saying Danger Mines on the barbed-wire sand-free beach?’
Toby Gregson shrugged. ‘It’s their money.’
‘You haven’t mentioned vampires,’ I said with gratitude and Gregson wheezed painfully.
‘Would you ever trust me again if I did?’
‘No but you don’t need me to tell you it would sell more papers.’
‘In the short run.’ He rubbed his chest. ‘But I won’t be the one looking silly when you catch the killer and you might be more inclined to let me know first. Plus I need another photo.’
‘Of?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘You,’ he said, ‘in uniform.’
‘All right.’ I was never averse to a bit of publicity. ‘Did you get one of Inspector Sharkey?’
‘Old Scrapie?’ Toby tossed his head. ‘He’s not very photogenic.’
‘How did you know he was called that?’
Toby grasped the handle of his tankard. ‘You are sitting next to the man who christened him.’
I laughed. I thought it was more imaginative than their usual nicknames. ‘Do you have any family?’
‘Only my parents. My wife left me for a rat-catcher – no, really. They live in Harwich now with his mother. How about you?’
‘A spinster of this and every other parish,’ I told him.
‘Good,’ I thought I heard him say softly to himself.
I leaned back and he leaned back and we watched the sun sink behind the sand dunes and the lengthening shadows of the thinly scattered pines in the distance, comfortable together, like the old married couple neither of us were.
50
THE OTHER SIDE OF FURY HILL
The nights were drawing in and it was only just about light enough to risk riding my bike – crow-time, as the locals called it, when the birds return to their nests. I pedalled out of town, up the side of Fury Hill – quite a climb by Suffolk standards – all the way to the gate that used to guard the entrance to Treacle Woods but now hung off its hinges.
There I dismounted. The track was too steep and dark to risk hurtling down it, especially one-handed with a heavy satchel of paperwork over my shoulder. I parked my bike in the old hide that Tubby Gretham’s father had built to watch badgers. The sett was deserted now and curtained with cobwebs, much as my mother was allowing Felicity House to become.
Carmelo had been as good as his word, giving me sculling lessons on my very first day. The secret was, he had instructed, to put the oar in the rope notch at the stern and move it to and fro in a figure of eight. It was hard work and required a lot of wrist action. At first the boat swayed crazily from side to side but I was soon confident enough to make the short distance from Shingle Bay to Brindle Bar without capsizing.
The important thing to remember was to loop a rope over a post as you set off, to trail after you so that whoever was on the other bank could haul the boat back if they needed it. Jimmy had forgotten once and been subjected to a torrent of Maltese references to his mother’s son by a Carmelo who had stood bellowing in the rain for twenty minutes before I heard him over Cressida’s noisy conversation with a stiff wind.
The poultry had been locked away and Mrs Perkins clucked reproachfully at me from her prison as I climbed the steps wearily. It was unlikely, we thought, that a fox would bother to swim the channel, but foxes were notorious for doing unlikely things. Captain swore he had seen one crouched under the seat one night, trying to hitch a ride until he chased it away with an oar. But seafaring men are not renowned for understating their stories.
Captain Sultana sat at the pointy bit – as Jimmy and I insisted on calling the bow, to annoy him – smoking his favourite briar stuffed with what always smelt like old rags to me. He must have watched me struggle across but knew better than to offer help.
‘Qalbi, you are weary,’ he told me as I bent to kiss his cheek. Apart from that tobacco, he smelt of the sea, as if the salt had soaked into his leathery skin over the years.
‘I thought there would be no work in Sackwater.’ I rested my backside against the railing.
‘No rest for the wicked,’ he quoted.
‘The wicked are probably snug in their beds while we scurry about looking for them.’ I leaned back, feasting my eye on the illuminated vault of the earth. ‘What a beautiful night.’
Without the glare from nearby towns and villages, we were getting some wondrous skies. The captain took out his pipe and pointed with the stem and I knew that he was going to name all the stars in the galaxy.
‘Like a drink?’ I asked hurriedly.
‘I shall wait for dinner. You have one.’
I went below.
Jimmy was in the galley with a pot bubbling on the range. ‘Oh hello, Aunty. I was just making a sort-of stew.’
‘Sounds nice,’ I said uncertainly for it didn’t smell good. ‘What sort is sort of?’
‘Bully beef.’
‘Yummy.’
He churned his creation with a large wooden spoon. ‘Any luck with that stabbing?’
‘Not much.’ I slumped onto a stool. ‘What were you doing at the station anyway?’
‘Oh just seeing a friend off.’ Jimmy’s ears went red and he wiped his hands on a tea towel, a little too casually, it seemed to me. ‘You look dead beat.’
‘So the captain told me.’
Jimmy looked at me a bit warily, I thought. ‘He hasn’t told you anything else?’
‘What have you been up to?’
‘Nothing… well nothing bad… Honestly.’
If I knew one thing about Jimmy it was, when he sa
id Honestly, he never lied.
‘Is it just me or is it hot in here?’
‘Hot? You could make ice cream in here.’ He looked at me in concern. ‘Sit there.’ He pulled out a chair from the pine table, opened an overhead cupboard and took out a bottle. He poured two large measures of Scotch with a splash of water in each. ‘Welcome home.’
I took a large draught and slumped. ‘Oh Jimmy, what would I do without you?’
Jimmy swirled his whisky around the tumbler. ‘Well, you’re about to find out.’
I knew what he was going to tell me but I only said, ‘Oh yes?’ After all, I was not interrogating him.
‘I popped into the Anchor at lunchtime,’ he told me. ‘They had some mail for me.’ He took a drink.
‘Go on,’ I encouraged him.
‘My papers have come through.’
‘For the RAF?’
‘No, the Women’s Institute,’ he joked weakly. ‘They’re taking me off the list of reserves.’
‘But that’s marvellous.’
Jimmy smiled wryly. ‘It would have been.’
‘If you’re thinking about the captain…’
‘I’ve done a lot of jobs in the last few weeks he can’t do by himself.’ Jimmy brushed back the fringe flopping over his eye. ‘That rope for the rowing boat, mending the fence, re-roofing the hutches. How will he cope?’
‘He coped alone before and he’s got me now.’
‘Yes but he’s getting older and you… well, you’ve only got one hand.’
‘Which is more than enough to spank you with,’ I teased but Jimmy was serious. ‘I’ll try again with the false arm and anyway I can help pay towards any hired help we need. Tubby’s always willing to assist when he’s available.’
Jimmy put the lid back on the cast-iron pot. ‘And how often is that, now he’s back at work?’
‘About as often as you, when you’re not chasing local girls, I should say.’ I put my glass down.
‘They chase me,’ he said with some justification and I got up, ducking under the great oak beam that had so often been his tormentor.
‘We’ll be fine.’ I gave Jimmy a hug, keeping my stump well clear. It was sore enough already without getting knocked. ‘It’s what you’ve always wanted and I’m very happy for you.’
And I was but I was not happy for me. I had got used to having Jimmy around and – if truth be told – I was frightened for him. There were boys even younger than him in the forces but Jimmy was a dreamer. He had been raised on stories of knights of the air, the Red Baron and chivalry in the Great War, and I had a feeling this war would not be run by gentlemen, but I pulled back so he could see my best smile before I hugged him again. Courtesy Aunts are a bit like hens. They fuss and brood over the chicks – but I never saw Mrs Perkins with a tear in her eye.
*
‘It was his news to give,’ the captain told me when we were having a nightcap in the wheelhouse.
‘Of course it was.’ I sipped on my limoncello, an Italian drink very popular in Malta. Captain Sultana made his own with thick-skinned warty lemons from his home town of Birżebbuġa, known to the English as Pretty Bay. I didn’t ask where the alcohol came from but it was powerful stuff. Perhaps it would help ease the pain and the headache I had had all day.
‘I can’t imagine Jimmy killing anyone,’ I meditated.
‘Nor I,’ the captain agreed. ‘When Jimmy was twelve he came to stay and my sister asked him to go out and get our last rabbit for the pot. He was gone a long time and when he came back he said he was sorry but the rabbit had escaped. Karmena was furious and nearly took a stick to him. I told her, remember he is not used to handling rabbits. I didn’t tell her I had seen him put it over the wall and shoo it away.’
‘That sounds like Jimmy.’ I smiled.
‘I fear for him,’ his great-uncle said.
‘Jimmy?’ I tried to chuckle. ‘He’s a natural flier, from what his wing commander told me. Jimmy can look after himself.’
‘He is but he can’t.’ The captain tossed his liqueur back.
‘No he can’t,’ I agreed, ‘but we can’t keep him here.’
‘A caged bird dies slowly,’ he ruminated.
‘Is that a Maltese proverb?’
‘No, it’s a clue in your crossword,’ Captain Sultana told me, ‘but I can’t remember how many letters.’
51
THE CROWN OF THORNS
The mornings were getting colder but we liked to eat our breakfast in the wheelhouse when we could, watching the geese skein over the estuary as the low mists – or dags, as the locals called them – melted in the soft autumn sun.
Jimmy was busy packing, unpacking and repacking his few possessions. The lower ranks could use rucksacks big enough to smuggle a petite brunette into their dormitories but an officer was a gentleman and carried a small leather suitcase – or so Jimmy told me, with his vast experience of such matters.
I had tried to sneak a present in – A Further Range, the poems of Robert Frost in a nice burgundy cover with gold letters – but of course he had seen it now, and my inscription.
‘Will you really miss me?’ he had asked.
‘Be glad to see the back of you,’ I had told him and hurried back on deck.
The whistle blew and Carmelo strode over to answer it. He still had a rolling gait, though his seafaring days had been long over when I first met him. ‘Bridge,’ he bellowed and put the tube to his ear, then back to his mouth. ‘Stand by.’ He held the tube towards me. ‘It’s for you.’
‘Ahoy,’ I shouted sheepishly into the horn. Captain had forbidden me to say hello.
The message was faint, being relayed from the summer house up the hill. At nearly 300 feet it took strong lungs to even blow the whistle, let alone hold a conversation. ‘OK. Thanks. I’ll be up,’ I yelled and put the cap back over the mouthpiece. ‘I have a phone call.’
I grabbed my old tan coat.
‘Must be important.’ I had given very few people Tubby Gretham’s number and then only with strict instructions not to abuse his generosity. Tubby was one of the few people in the area to have a phone, thanks to his profession. A disagreement with the General Medical Council may have deprived him of his livelihood for a time but he never lost the line.
‘If I’m not back in twenty minutes, can you tell Jimmy I’ll see him at the station?’ I asked Carmelo. ‘I know he’s got some people he wants to see in town first. Are you sure you won’t go?’
‘He won’t want a silly old fool blubbing on his shoulder,’ the captain said. ‘I’ll say goodbye here.’
I clambered down the wooden steps to the earth still wet with dew.
Tubby was coming lumbering awkwardly down the hill, shambling even more like a bear than usual, his open duffle coat flapping about him.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been disturbed.’
‘I’m not.’ Tubby was almost luminous with excitement. ‘Do you know who it is? – Of course you don’t – it’s your godmother, March Middleton, the March Middleton.’ I knew he was an admirer but a fifteen-year-old girl meeting Bing Crosby could not have been more thrilled. ‘And you will never guess – of course you won’t – she promised to send me an inscribed – inscribed, mark you, not just signed – copy of The Breathing Horse!’ If it were humanly possible, Dr Gretham would have evaporated with the joy bubbling out of him. ‘We must hurry,’ he urged, giving me a little shove in the back. ‘She said she would ring back in ten minutes and you can’t keep March Middleton waiting.’
Tubby turned back up the hill, still jabbering. A rabbit popped out of the old warren burrowed into the side of the woods. ‘I told her how much I admired her forensic skills and she said you had told her about that emergency operation I did on Dandy Tremaine and she’ – he took a breath – ‘complimented me on it. Oh Betty…’ He swept his arms out, a love-struck boy after his first date.
I followed him up the wide strip that his grandfather had cut through Treacle Woods to give a clear view from
White Lodge at the top. Barbed wire was wrapped like thorns round a broken fence rail.
We drew level with the summer house and I almost came a cropper on a collapsed molehill camouflaged under a pile of leaves, only saving myself by performing a split leap Margot Fonteyn would have been proud of, though landing a little less gracefully.
‘How’s the arm?’ Tubby chuckled at my antics.
‘Still hurting.’ I trod cautiously.
He flicked at a pine cone with his stick but missed like the bad golfer that he was.
‘I’ll take a look at it later.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Any progress on the railway station stabbing?’
‘Not much.’
‘I have a theory.’ Tubby hesitated. ‘Why are you groaning?’
‘I was clearing my throat.’
The good doctor cast a sceptical eye. ‘What if the murderer had fired darts from a blowpipe?’
‘I think we might have noticed them sticking out,’ I objected.
‘Ah yes’ – he wagged a finger – ‘but here’s the clever bit…’ He shot me a glance.
‘Got a bit of a tickle.’ I rubbed my neck. In every theory the public ever gave me there was always a clever bit. I hoped he was not going to suggest the darts were on fishing lines for the killer to reel them in again. Miss Prim had written to me with that one.
‘What if the darts were made of ice? No, hear me out. The temperature of the blood combined with the pressure of your peculiar constable’s tourniquet would have melted them away.’
‘You got that from Death on the Amazon,’ I pointed out.
If there was one thing that had made the life of a police officer more difficult over the last decade, it was the explosion of whodunnits with their bizarre murders and unconvincing explanations. The only redeeming factor was that most of the best ones were written by women.
‘That’s what Boadicea said,’ Tubby mused. ‘But the murderer could have read the book too. It’s great stuff. Lady Olga Slayer wrote it, you know.’
‘I do.’
‘Ask your godmother what she thinks of my theory,’ Tubby urged.
‘I shall,’ I promised and whispered, ‘not.’
Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire (A Betty Church Mystery Book 1) Page 19
