29
“Spiro!” I ran to them. “Oh God, Spiro, are you all right? Lance, what did they do to him!”
Lance, panting, dragged Spiro to the nearest chair and deposited him heavily, whereupon Spiro, with a great moan of misery, doubled up, put his head in his hands and wept. Angie was on her feet, beside herself with consternation.
“Good heavens, what on earth’s happened to the poor boy? Liwy, what’s wrong with him!” She wrung her hands.
“Nothing, he’s fine,” said Lance shortly. “He’s just upset, that’s all.”
“Lance is right,” I said quickly as Lance shot me a meaningful glance and jerked his head towards the door. I picked up Angie’s handbag and took her by the arm, trying to propel her door-wards. “He’s absolutely fine, Angie,” I said firmly, “really he is, but sadly – well, sadly he’s had some bad news. From home.”
Angie wasn’t going anywhere, though. She stood rooted to the spot at this, appalled. “Oh Lord,” she clutched my arm. “Has someone died?” she whispered.
Lance flinched at the mention of death. “No,” he hissed roughly, “no one’s bloody died. Now listen, why don’t you just mind your own bloody – ”
“It’s the goats,” I breathed quickly, realising as soon as I’d said it I’d just picked the first Greek thing I could think of. It could have been yoghurt. Or dancing.
“Goats?”
“Yes, they’ve got some – terrible disease. Scurvy, or something ghastly. Wiped out the whole herd.”
“Oh heavens, how awful,” she breathed, “and with it his livelihood, I suppose?”
“Exactly,” I agreed soberly as, to my alarm, Spiro looked up in horror.
“My…goats?” he croaked, red-eyed.
“Oh, you poor boy,” said Angie, touching his arm. “But, Liwy, have they really all gone?”
“No, no, there’s one or two left,” I said wildly, “now come on, Angie.”
“Only…one or two?” Spiro gasped, horrified, getting slowly to his feet.
I groaned. Oh God, why hadn’t I gone for yoghurt? “Yes, but the best ones, Spiro,” I soothed, “the absolute pick of the bunch. Now come on, Angie. You really don’t want to get involved in – ”
“Because, darling, if there are some left, there’s the most marvellous vet in Athens,” she insisted. “Theodore Popolopolus or somebody – Johnny will remember. Oliver flew him over when one of his horses had a rare blood disorder – said he can cure anything. Why don’t I – ”
“Angie, please,” I insisted, shoving her forcefully out of the front door now. “Heavens, the poor boy’s got enough on his plate without forking out for horrendous vet bills. Now come along!”
As I hustled her out and down the drive I had one ear on Lance behind me, listening as he placated a distraught Spiro, putting him straight on the goat front if nothing else.
Angie shook her head sadly, groping about in her bag for her keys. “That poor boy,” she sighed, shaking her head and suddenly looking very old, her forehead fretted with fine lines. “There just seems to be so much sadness about at the moment, doesn’t there?” She hesitated. Glanced up hopefully. “Will I – will I say anything else to Johnny? Give him a few words?”
“Yes,” I said grimly, “you can give him a few words. Give him – ” I stopped, ashamed, as her eyes grew round and fearful. “Just – give him my best.” I finished lamely.
She nodded, and I saw her eyes fill. “And if you change your mind?”
“He’ll be the first to know. But I won’t, Angie, believe me, I won’t.”
She swallowed. “I know. And you know, Liwy, sad as I am about this whole wretched situation, about losing you, I admire you for what you’ve done. Truly I do. I couldn’t have done it.”
We regarded each other for a long moment.
“You haven’t lost me,” I whispered.
She gave a grateful smile, nodded again, but tears were imminent now, so she didn’t speak. Instead she patted my arm, turned, and got in the car. I watched as she reversed out of the car port, turned out of the gateway, and waved as she purred off slowly down the road. Then I stood for a moment, in the empty drive, remembering. Remembering happier times, long ago, when we’d gardened together; roared with laughter as we’d battled against elder and thistles, up to our knees in brambles and –
“LIWY – GET IN HERE!” Lance’s voice came roaring through my memories, and abruptly I came to. Oh Christ – Spiro!
My hand went to my mouth and I dashed back into the house. Slamming the door behind me, I hurtled to the sitting room where I found Spiro, hunched up in my yellow Colefax armchair, leaning forward now, and being violently sick into a potted plant. Lance looked up grimly and handed it to me.
“Yours, I believe.”
“Oh, help – hang on. I’ll get him some water.” I took the pot, hustled it to the loo, couldn’t face chucking it in, so just shut the door on it, then, retching violently at the terrible smell, ran back via the kitchen to get a glass of water. As I flew back in, Spiro reached out and took it with a shaky hand. I dropped to my knees beside him and took his hand, appalled.
“Spiro, what on earth happened to you in there!” I gasped. “Was it really as ghastly as all that? God, what did they do to you?”
“They didn’t do anything to him,” said Lance drily, lighting a cigarette and perching on the arm of the chair. “This isn’t Occupied France, you know, Liwy; we’re not living with the Gestapo. They didn’t pull his fingernails out or anything beastly, they just questioned him, that’s all, frightened the life out of him, I expect. I don’t know what they said to him actually, he hasn’t uttered a word yet.”
I squeezed Spiro’s hand. “Spiro, it’s me, Liwy.” He was staring at the carpet between his feet, shaking his woolly head and moaning.
“Come on, Spiro, you can tell me, can’t you? You can tell Liwy? What is it? What happened?”
Suddenly he sat up bolt upright, his dark eyes wide and strange. His head turned slowly – and his gaze fell on Lance.
“I so sorry!” he blurted out, staring at him.
Lance frowned, shook his head. “Why, Spiro? Why are you sorry?”
“Because – because they go on and on, questions, questions, and I know nothing of what they speak, but then – then I theenk of something, and – ” He broke off, gave a strangled sob, hid his face in his hat.
“What?” Lance insisted. “What, Spiro?”
Spiro lowered his hat. “I theenk I let the rabbit out of the bag!”
“Cat.”
“Ti?”
“Never mind. What rabbit, Spiro, what did you say?”
He glanced about furtively, as if to check we were alone, then beckoned for us to lean in. Lance and I both bent our heads.
“They want the body!” he hissed.
I jumped back. “The body!” I yelped.
“I know,” said Lance calmly, “that’s what they kept asking me. Where was she, where was she buried, what have they done with Vi? But we don’t know that, do we, Spiro? I don’t, so you certainly don’t.”
“No, I don’t, but they keep saying – theenk, Spiro, where could she be? Where you theenk they could have put her? What were Mac and Alf doing at the time, in those few days of her death?”
“Well, they were working here,” I said staunchly, “that’s what!”
A terrible silence fell.
“Exactly,” said Lance, at length, quietly. “They were working here.”
Spiro turned to me and nodded, wide eyes full of portent.
I stared at him. “Shit!” I squeaked suddenly, leaping to my feet.
“And the bald man, he keep saying – where you bury her, Spiro? Where you put her? And I say – 1 know nothing! And then he say – so if you know nothing, perhaps you were not there to see? And I say – what you mean? And he say – well, did they perhaps get you out of the way, while they got rid of her? And I say – no! No, I work there every day, like a dog, that not possible, I see eve
rything, everything that go on, and she not there!”
“Quite right!” I squealed.
“But he so persistent, Meesis McFarllen, he go on and on, and he say th-e-e-nk, Spiro, th-e-e-nk, and he tap his bald head, like this, like an egg.” Spiro broke off to tap his temple. “Was there not a day when you go out on an errand? When your services not required at the house? When you sent elsewheres? And I theenk, and slowly, very slowly, I say, yes, yes there was such a day, because I remember Lance, that day when we have so much to do, so very busy, and we both surprised, because Mac – he send us to builders’ merchant for bricks, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Together, both of us, so unusual, both in truck. And when we get there they say – oh no, so sorry, we know nothing of brick order, and we ring Mac and he say – oh, so sorry I mean timber merchant. So we go there, and it take hours in traffic, and when we get there, they know nothing either. So we ring Mac again, and he say – oh, no order? Oh deary me, well, get us some bits of four-by-two then – and so we come back with these teeny tiny bits of wood, and it feel 50 much like a wild-boar chase – remember, Lance?”
Lance had gone very pale. “I remember.”
“And I don’t theenk anything about it at the time, I just theenk, oh bleeding heck, with all the work we got to do back there at the house, that beeg, heavy job, and Mac – he send us for pieces of wood! Remember, Lance? Remember what Mac and Alf have to do all alone here on that day?”
“I do.” Softly.
“And I hadn’t theenk of it before, but the police, they griddle me, griddle me something rotten, and I say it – I say it without even theenking and – ”
“What!” I gasped. “What did you say? What job were Alf and Mac doing?”
Spiro went quiet. Glanced down at his hands.
“It’s all right, Spiro,” said Lance softly. “I thought of it too. Not before, but when they were questioning me, down at the station. It suddenly occurred to me, too. I could just as easily have said it.”
“WHAT!” I shrieked. “What could you just as easily have said? Tell me, you bastards, or I’ll – Christ!”
I broke off as a terrible banging came on the door. We all swung around – then stared back at each other. I froze. Only one man knocked on my front door like that. Only one, very small man, with one very bald head, who clearly made up for his lack of height and hair by announcing himself in a big way. My insides curdled as the banging came again.
“They’re here,” I breathed. “It’s them.”
Spiro whimpered, got up from his chair and backed away into a corner. Lance had gone very pale.
“Open it, Liwy.”
I nodded and went to the door, holding my side now where the stomach cramps and the shock were searing through me, making me feel light-headed as my hand went up to the latch. I swung it back. Sure enough, the bald-headed man with the big fist and his blonde accomplice, in another shiny suit, were neatly ranged on my doorstep. But this time, they weren’t alone. Behind them stood two, much larger men, wearing blue overalls and carrying tool bags, and behind them, stood a couple of uniformed policemen, too. Six, in all.
“Yes?” I breathed.
“Mithith McFarllen, may we come in?” Baldy lisped softly.
“Yes, yes, of course,” I stood aside. “I see you’ve brought…reinforcements this time,” I managed weakly.
“Indeed we have. How very obthervant of you.” He gave me a thin little smile as he shuffled through with his hands in his mackintosh pockets, closely followed by the rest of the crew.
As I shut the door behind the last one, I went weak for a moment, leaning back on the door and shutting my eyes. It occurred to me that I was heaving around a stomach which under normal circumstances would have had me doubled up on the sofa with a fistful of paracetamol and a hot-water bottle, and I had a nasty feeling I might need Spiro’s pot plant in a minute. As I opened my eyes, though, I realised – no time. No time to exercise that jolly little option. Baldy’s pale brown eyes, the colour of a certain doggy detritus, were trained on me like searchlights. I jumped nervously. Me? Why me? I glanced behind, wondering perhaps if there was someone standing behind me, but no, just the empty kitchen. Realising I wouldn’t be the one slinking off in there to make the tea, I crept forward nervously. Clearly I was expected to join the party. Still staring, his eyes, it seemed to me, full of hideous portent, he nodded his head almost imperceptibly, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the overalled men quietly unzip a tool bag in response.
“Mithith McFarllen,” he lisped, “so thorry to bother you, but we have here a warrant to search your house and garden.” He quickly flashed a piece of plastic at me, eyes pale and watchful.
I held on tight to the back of the sofa. The garden? Christ Almighty, was she out there? Buried under my Bobby Brown rambler perhaps, or – or under the phlox and the delphiniums? Beneath my beautiful clematis-covered pergola?
I felt both hot and faint. “A-Any…particular reason?” I faltered.
“Oh yeth. For the very particular reason that we believe the body of Mrs Violet Turner to be buried here.” He kept his eyes on me.
“That’s Alf Turner’s late wife, I take it,” I muttered, edging along the sofa and playing for time, although what I was going to do with it Lord only knows.
“The very thame.”
“I see,” I gulped. “And did you have any particular place,” I gripped the sofa hard, my legs feeling odd and my head woozy, “any particular corner of my beloved, much-treasured home or garden in mind for excavation, officer? Or are you just going to dig away indiscriminately at the whole lot?” I managed to raise my chin defiantly.
He took my point, but his eyes slithered away. He wasn’t interested in whether or not he was violating my precious home. He wasn’t even interested, it seemed, in my garden. His eyes didn’t slither that way, you see, to my herbaceous border, for instance, burgeoning over as it was with late lupins and asters, or to my rockery, thick with alpines and heather. Nor did he gaze beyond, down to the cedar tree, to the marshy banks of the river, nor even beyond that, to the caravan on the other side. No, no, Baldy’s eyes were trained somewhere much more proximate. On the doorway, in fact, behind me. The doorway which led, via a small passageway, through into the new kitchen, and more specifically, those eyes were trained on something at the far end of that room. I glanced around.
“Yeth,” he said softly, slowly making his way past me in that direction, “yeth, we do have a particular corner in mind.” He stopped, just beyond me, in the doorway. “You thee we believe, Mrs McFarllen, that she’s embedded in concrete.”
“Concrete!”
“Yes, or to be more precise, in a concrete plinth. A concrete plinth commonly built to support a heavy, free-standing, cast-iron, range.” He turned to face me in the doorway, his nose almost touching mine. “In fact it’s our belief, Mithith McFarllen, that Violet Turner is buried underneath your thtove.”
I gaped. “My…thtove?”
“Your Aga, Mrs McFarllen.”
I jumped – then stared incredulously past him to my new kitchen. To my shiny pride and joy at the far end of the room, surrounded at it was by Portuguese tiles, edged with dados and doo-dahs, with its pine shelf above brimming with pretty plates, antique jugs and Mary Berry cookbooks; where I stood every day, frying the bacon, prodding Claudia’s fish fingers, turning occasionally to warm my bottom, contentedly cradling a mug of coffee, chatting on the phone…and all the time…yes, all the time, stretched out beneath it, face up perhaps, hands clasped across her bosom, or maybe in a black bin liner, curled up in a foetal position, eyes shut, or possibly even wide and staring…
As the dawn came up I gasped in horror, as simultaneously a stab of pain seared straight through my abdomen. My hand clutched vainly at my stomach, but I had white lights flashing before my eyes now. My ears roared, my brain sizzled, my fingers slipped from the back of the sofa, as with a little gasp of “Shit!” I collapsed,
insensible, at Baldy’s feet.
30
“Best thing you could have done,” said Hugh, dunking a soldier into his son’s boiled egg.
“What?” I raised my head feebly from their breakfast table.
“Faint like that, last night. Makes it so convincing, so much more obvious that you had nothing to do with it.”
“She didn’t have anything to do with it,” snapped Molly, opening her dressing gown and clamping Flora firmly on to her left bosom. “What – you think she might actually have assisted in some way, Hugh? Bundled the body under the Aga in a bin bag and arranged the feet neatly whilst Mac and Alf stood poised, ready to pour on the wet cement mix?”
“Oooh, don’t,” I groaned, dropping my head like a stone again.
“No, all I’m saying is that when the police rang and asked us to come and get her, it looked pretty good,” said Hugh. “You were still out for the count, Liwy, flat out on a sofa and completely away with the fairies, whereas poor old Lance and Spiro were shifting about pretty nervously, I can tell you.”
“I still don’t quite understand how they came to ring you,” I said bleakly, opening an eye from the stripped pine table.
“Apparently Lance suggested us when the police said they wanted you out of there,” said Hugh. “Presumably they couldn’t cope with you doing the dying swan all over the place when they had a house to excavate and a body to exhume. I must say I was hugely intrigued. Those guys had bloody nearly shifted that stove when I got there. I reckon she was damn nearly out! I hovered about a bit and tried to play for time by pretending you weighed a ton and that I was having difficulty lugging you off the sofa, then staggering e-ve-rso slo-wly to the door – ” Hugh got up to demonstrate – “then coming back for your handbag which happened to be, oops, in the kitchen, then – ooh yes, better pop upstairs and get your nightie, and then, damn it, just as I was popping back for your toothbrush, that bald chap sussed me and hustled me away. Shame. I reckon two more minutes and they’d have had the old bird out.”
Olivia’s Luck (2000) Page 46
