‘He’s off his hinges!’ Tom said.
‘I take it you deny the allegation?’
‘I do deny it! It’s a bloody lie!’
Tom sat rigid on his stool. He felt imprisoned; trapped by his blindness; and a great anger ran through his blood, threatening destruction. He felt it would break him; that he would go to pieces like a man driven mad; that the darkness would engulf his mind. But he felt Linn’s hand on his shoulder again, and her touch steadied him. He wished he could see the two men’s faces.
‘Why now all of a sudden? Tilly’s been gone for months and months. Why don’t Emery look for her in Birmingham, together with that Trimble fellow?’
‘The man Trimble’s been seen in Huntlip. Mr Preston asked him about your wife and the man denies that she went with him.’
‘But she must’ve done! She took all her things. She couldn’t have took ’em if she’d gone alone. She couldn’t have took ’em if she didn’t have a car to drive away in. It’s three miles to the nearest bus. Supposing Trimble is telling lies?’
‘If somebody’s lying, it’s up to us to find out, Mr Maddox, and that’s what we are aiming to do.’
The two men stood up. They were very tall and their heads touched the rafters. Tom could feel them towering above him.
‘You ent arresting me nor nothing, then?’
‘Your wife has been reported missing and a certain allegation has been made. We have no choice but to follow it up. That’s all there is to the matter at present, Mr Maddox, and I hope we’ll succeed in tracing your wife in Birmingham as you suggest.’
‘What happens if you don’t?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But one last question if you don’t mind. Do you know the name of the firm this man Trimble worked for?’
‘The name,’ Tom repeated, and thought about it. ‘It was Bruno,’ he said. ‘Bruno Brushes of Birmingham. It was on the dustpan and broom Tilly bought. You can have a look at them if you like.’
‘No need for that,’ Darns said. ‘It merely confirms what we’ve already heard. Thank you for answering our questions, Mr Maddox. We’ll let you know if we have any news.’
The two men went. Tom and Linn listened as they drove away. He turned towards her.
‘You don’t think I murdered Tilly?’
‘Don’t be foolish,’ Linn said.
‘I should like to know.’
‘No, Tom, I don’t believe it.’
‘What about them? Did they look as though they believed me?’
‘I think so, yes. In fact I’m sure.’
‘Seems like I bring you nothing but trouble. I make a mess of things all the time.’
His hands were still clenched on his cobbling hammer. He was breathing hard, and trembling a little. Linn took the hammer and the boot on its last and put them aside. She knelt before him, taking his hands between her own.
‘You must try not to worry about it,’ she said. ‘The police will soon find her, I’m sure of that. I know how you feel, having Emery Preston spreading this lie, but you mustn’t let it poison you. You must try and put it out of your mind.’
Tom made no answer, but drew her gently into his arms.
At The Rose and Crown, when the two detectives entered the taproom, the gathering of customers fell silent. Emery Preston, sitting at one of the crowded tables, got up at once.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘Have you arrested Tom Maddox?’
‘Mr Preston,’ Darns said, ‘I’d like a word with you in private.’
‘No need for that I don’t mind my customers hearing. I ent got nothing I want to hide.’
‘I’d sooner we were private,’ Darns said, and Emery, shrugging, led them into the back room.
‘I’ll ask you again. ‒ Have you arrested Tom Maddox?’
‘No, Mr Preston, for there’s no evidence as yet that a crime has been committed at all.’
‘Evidence? It’s your job to find it! Though there won’t be much, I don’t suppose, ’cos he’ll have made certain of that, you mark my words. Out there in that lonely place, he could’ve buried her in them woods and no one the wiser, and I’ll stake my last penny that’s just what happened.’
‘If there’s anything to be found,’ Darns said, ‘we shall find it, be sure of that.’
‘How long’ll it take?’ Emery asked. ‘From now to Christmas?’
‘The only fact so far is that your daughter has disappeared. Everything else is speculation and I would advise you to be more careful in what you say or Mr Maddox could take you to law on a charge of slander.’
‘I’d like to see it!’ Emery said. ‘A murderer taking me to law because I tell the world what he is?’
‘What reasons have you for your suspicions?’
‘Where’s my daughter if he ent killed her?’
‘Apart from that, Mr Preston?’
‘His father was a murderer, did you know that?’
‘That’s no reason,’ Darns said, but he was interested all the same.
‘It is to me!’ Emery said. ‘I know the stock Tom Maddox comes from. His father was a wrong ’un. Anyone will tell you that. He attacked my poor old mother once and she was over eighty years old. He had a murderous temper always. He turned on the woman he lived with in the end and hit her over the head with a poker. He went and hanged hisself afterwards and saved the hangman a lot of swither.’
‘Yes, I remember the case, now you mention it,’ Darns said, ‘but is the son as violent?’
‘Sure to be. It runs in the blood.’
‘But he’s never actually been in trouble?’
‘Not that I know of. He’s been away. But he’ll have got used to killing, won’t he, out there in the war, fighting the Germans?’
‘That could be said of thousands. But what I came for, Mr Preston, was to ask for the address of Arthur Trimble.’
‘I’ve got it here,’ Emery said, and passed over a piece of paper.
‘I’d also like a photograph of your daughter.’
‘What for?’
‘To help us trace her, Mr Preston.’
‘Trace her! Trace her!’ Emery muttered, beginning to search a sideboard drawer. ‘How’ll they trace her if she’s under the sod?’ But he found a photograph and handed it over. ‘That was took on her wedding day and a bad day it turned out to be for her, too, poor girl.’
‘She looks very happy in the picture.’
‘She didn’t know what she was in for, did she?’
Emery followed them out through the taproom and saw them off the premises. He returned to his customers with a scornful face.
‘A lot of use they are, going about so dilladerry, as though they got all the time in the world. Tom Maddox could vanish while they play about.’
‘Have they seen him, Emery?’
‘Seen him? Yes! They been passing the time of day with him, just as though they was all good pals, or so it seemed from what they said.’
‘That’s the way they go about it,’ said Emery’s cousin, Humphrey Bardey. ‘They let him feel he’s pretty safe and then when he goes and gives hisself away they pounce on him like a cat on a mouse.’
‘If I had Tom Maddox alone in my yard,’ Emery said, hard-faced, ‘he’d be telling the truth in ten seconds!’
Betony was away in Wiltshire when the rumours started. She returned to find them in full spate.
‘Who started all this? Emery Preston, I suppose! And no doubt the village is all agog!’
‘No doubt it is,’ her mother said, ‘but the best thing is to take no notice.’
‘Has anyone been to see Tom and Linn?’
‘Dicky and me went a day or two back but your father’s busy all of a sudden and can’t find the time.’
‘Yes, well,’ Jesse said, not quite meeting Betony’s eye, ‘what good can I do, going to see them?’
‘I always said it!’ Granna exclaimed. ‘I always said he’d end up badly. It’s the bad blood in him. He can’t rightly help it.’
<
br /> ‘So he’s tried and condemned already, is he?’ Betony said, fiercely angry. ‘By his own family too!’
‘We ent his family by rights,’ said Great-grumpa. ‘We took him in as an act of kindness.’
‘Yes, and it’s him that’s cut hisself off,’ said Jesse, ‘living over the brush with the Mercybright girl and making us feel ashamed to know him.’
‘I’m not ashamed,’ Betony said.
‘Don’t mind your father,’ Beth said. ‘Go out and see them. They need to know they’ve got a few friends.’
‘Yes, mother, I’ll go now.’
Driving along the main road, she overtook Jack Mercybright, and he rode with her the rest of the way. When they got to the Pikehouse, Tom was sitting in the open doorway, watching the sun going down in splinters of crimson light behind the church on Eastery ridge. ‘Can you see it?’ Betony asked.
‘I should think I can!’ he said, smiling, and the sunset colours were bright on his face. ‘Such sunsets we been having lately! Almost as good as the winter time. But I don’t see much, besides lights.’
In the lamplit room beyond, Linn, big with child, moved slowly to and fro, setting supper on the table. Tom rose from his chair and carried it in. He set it by the table, feeling his way.
‘You heard what they’re saying about me in Huntlip?’
‘I’ve heard it all right. This fairy tale!’
‘You don’t believe it, then, Bet?’
‘Not a single word.’
‘There’s plenty that will,’ Jack said, and stood lighting a broken clay pipe, watching Tom through the smoke he was making. ‘As for myself, well, if you had upped and murdered Tilly Preston, I dunno that I’d really blame you. Her sort of girl often asks for trouble.’
‘Father!’ Linn said, rounding on him. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I reckon he’s trying me out,’ Tom said. ‘The policeman did the same thing. But I ent going to be catched that way ’cos I never touched her, neither by accident nor on a purpose, though I’d hardly admit it if I had, would I?’
‘You needn’t worry,’ Jack said. ‘I’d sooner believe what you tell me than anything the Prestons is putting about.’
‘The police are trying to trace Tilly, but what’ll happen if they don’t? What’ll they do if she don’t come forward?’
‘What can they do when there’s nothing to go on except a rumour? If you’re innocent you got nothing to fear.’
‘It’s the waiting and wondering,’ Tom said, ‘and the fact that the rumour might never get scotched.’
‘Forget about it,’ Jack said. ‘Gossip of this sort is not worth fretting over. It’s less than the smoke going up that chimney. Meantime, we must look on the bright side, and hope that wife of yours turns up.’
‘I don’t think she will,’ Tom said.
‘Oh? Why’s that?’
‘I dunno why. I just don’t, that’s all.’
Jack said no more, and Linn at that moment called on him to put out his pipe, for the soup-bowls were filled and on the table. But Betony noticed how, during supper, his gaze often rested on Tom’s face, and, driving home later that evening, she asked him if he had any doubts.
‘Doubts? Yes. Ent you?’
‘I’ve never known Tom tell a lie.’
‘Everybody tells lies, especially when they’re in trouble.’
‘Then you think him guilty!’
‘I never said that. I don’t think it. I only said I’d got my doubts. I’ll have them for ever, I daresay, if that Tilly ent found.’
‘They can’t be very serious doubts or you’d be frightened for Linn’s sake.’
‘No, I ent frightened, ’cos it’s like I said ‒ if Tom did kill Tilly she very likely drove him to it.’
‘I don’t think he killed her. He wouldn’t, I’m sure.’ And she cast her mind back to that day early in the year when she had called on Tom at the Pikehouse: the day he had told her Tilly was gone and that he was beginning to go blind. ‘I’d have known,’ she said. ‘I’d have felt it, somehow, in my bones.’
A few days later, Michael called for Betony at Chepsworth Park, and took her to lunch at The Old Plough.
‘There’s good news about Kingsmore Farm. I’m taking over the lease at Christmas, so by the time we come back from our honeymoon, there’ll only be a month or two to wait before we move in. We’ll live at King’s Hill until then. D’you think you can bear it?’
‘If your mother can, so can I.’
‘You don’t look all that delighted,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you pleased about Kingsmore?’
‘Of course I’m pleased. It’s just that I’m worried about Tom.’
‘Ah, yes, I might have known. So much for my little celebration!’ He raised his glass, sardonically, and sipped his champagne. He tried to purge himself of his irritation. ‘Is there any truth in the allegations?’
‘No, there isn’t. None whatever.’
‘You seem very sure.’
‘It’s just wicked gossip. Huntlip has bouts of it from time to time.’ And, after a pause, she said: ‘I’m afraid this is all very unpleasant for you, Michael. You’re not only marrying beneath you ‒ you’re marrying into a family that’s getting talked about in a hateful way.’
‘Huntlip gossip is nothing to me, though I agree it’s a very unpleasant thing to happen. Still, I’ll have you out of it quite soon, and you’ll be able to put it behind you.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Betony said. ‘I don’t want to be out of it. Not while this thing is hanging over my family. I think we should wait a little longer.’
‘Haven’t we waited long enough? Hell and damnation! Your vicar has started publishing the banns.’
‘It’s the going away I don’t like.’
‘Look,’ Michael said, and he was suddenly very angry. ‘I’m not giving up my honeymoon for anything or anyone, least of all that foster-brother of yours. He got himself into this God-awful mess and he’s only got himself to blame.’
‘I don’t agree. None of this is his own doing.’
‘How can you be sure of that?’
‘How can we be sure of anything?’
Betony’s anger was as fierce as his. They stared at each other across the table. But, aware that people were watching them, they ate for a while in complete silence, until they were in command of themselves and could speak calmly.
‘If Tom is innocent, you don’t need to worry.’
‘But he’s a sick man. It’s the strain and the worry that will do the harm.’
‘He’s got other people looking after him.’
‘Yes. That’s true.’
‘Can you do more for him than they can?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘perhaps not.’
For a moment she was tempted to tell him the truth: that Tom was now a dying man; but she could not. This secret she shared only with the Mercybrights and old Dr Dundas out at Norton. It was better that it should remain so.
‘You’re right, of course, there’s nothing much I can do for him.’
‘Well, then?’ Michael said, and reached across to refill her glass. ‘Perhaps now I can have a few minutes of your time in which to discuss our future lives? Just trivial things, you know, like the wedding arrangements and the honeymoon and making Kingsmore fit to live in.’
Betony smiled.
‘Dear Michael,’ she said. ‘You’re very patient.’
One morning, when Tom awoke, he could see nothing, not even outlines. When he stepped out into the garden and turned his face towards the sun, its light was concealed from him, as though in eclipse. It fell on dead eyes.
He sat on the old backless chair against the wall and yielded to the darkness. He felt it surrounding him, pressing in on all sides, as though it would squeeze him from the face of the earth. Nothing was left of him, only a central bubble of fear, and if that burst he would be destroyed.
Then suddenly the fear was gone. He could not have said why. But it was as though he had been
away from his own body, lost in a no-man’s-land of nothingness, and now he had come upon himself again, sitting on this seat in the autumn sun, with the overgrown garden all around him, smelling of mint and marigolds and apples eaten-out by wasps.
‘What is it?’ Linn asked, finding him sitting there so still.
‘I was thinking of Grannie Izzard,’ he said, ‘and how she used to tend this garden.’
‘Are you coming in to breakfast?’
‘Might as well, if you’ve got it ready.’
He was reluctant to tell her that the last of his sight had gone completely. It would only grieve her. But Linn knew without being told, and she took his arm to lead him indoors.
Betony often called at the Pikehouse. She brought him a white-painted walking-stick and a whistle for him to hang round his neck. She brought things, too, ready for the baby.
‘No more visits from the police?’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘I was thinking,’ she said once. ‘It might be as well if you were to see a solicitor. Great-grumpa’s man, perhaps, young Mr Hay. I would go with you if you like.’
‘But I ent done nothing,’ Tom said.
‘Think about it all the same, if the police come pestering you again.’
‘I reckon it’s all blowing over now,’ he said.
But a few days later, on the fifteenth, the two policemen came again.
‘Is it news of Tilly?’ Tom asked.
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Maddox. There’s been no response to our poster so far, nor to our enquiries. But I’d like to ask a few further questions. What, for instance, was Mrs Maddox wearing the day she left home?’
‘I dunno. I wasn’t here.’
‘But what about in the morning, early, before you went to work? Can you recall what she wore then?’
‘She was in bed when I left the house.’
‘And you did say, I believe, that she left no clothes behind her?’
‘Not a stitch,’ Tom said. ‘Is that all you wanted to know?’
‘Unless there’s something more you’d like to tell me.’
‘No, there’s nothing,’ Tom said.
Darns turned to Linn.
‘Were you acquainted with Mrs Maddox?’
‘No,’ Linn said, ‘I never saw her in my life.’
The Sorrowing Wind (The Apple Tree Saga Book 3) Page 18
