by Peter James
The days were getting noticeably shorter; in a few weeks the clocks would be going back, but now, in the balmy evening, winter seemed a long way away.
The grazing chestnut mare turned into a silhouette and slowly faded to black. Stars appeared in the metallic sky, bats flitted and the lights of planes coming into Gatwick winked.
They picked at the last grains of rice and strands of noodles and wrote a list of things to be done.
Later, in bed, they made love. But in a strange way it was more like a rite than a spontaneous act of passion. It reminded her of when they had made love on her wedding night after two years of living together. Both of them had been tired, flaked out, but they knew it ought to be done. Consummation.
They had consummated the move tonight for their own secret needs, hers to be held and to hold; to hold something real, to feel Tom, to feel life after the weirdness of the discovery, first of the car in the barn then the chewing gum. Reality.
She wondered what his need was. Wondered what went through his mind when he made love to her so mechanically, so distantly. Who did he think about? Who did he fantasise she was?
The noises came after, through the open window. The noises of the night. Real darkness out there.
She could taste the minty gum in her mouth.
Ben padded restlessly around the room, growling at squeals, at shrieks, at the mournful wail of vixens.
It was two o’clock. She slipped out of bed and walked across the sloping wooden floor to the curtainless window. The new moon powered a faint tinfoil shine from the lake. Somewhere in the dark a small creature emitted a single shriek of terror, several more in fast succession, then one final shriek, louder and longer than the rest; there was a rustle of undergrowth, then silence. Mother Nature, Gaia, the Earth Goddess was there dealing the cards, keeping the chain going. Life and death. Replenishment. Recycling the living and the dead equally methodically.
Serial murderers were out there too. In the inky silence.
Tom had taken two weeks’ holiday for the move, but he had to go to London in the morning. A wife had poured paint stripper over her husband’s new car and had blinded his racing pigeons. Tom brought home stories of cruelty every day. Sometimes Charley thought there were few acts committed in the world crueller than those under the sanctity of marriage.
The water slid relentlessly over the slimy brickwork of the weir, crashing down into the dark spume of the sluice. It seemed to echo through the stillness, unreal; it all seemed unreal. She was afraid. She wanted to go home.
She had to keep reminding herself that she was home.
* * *
‘Blimey, what you running here? A space station?’ The Electricity Board man’s eyes bulged from a thyroid complaint and there was sweat on his protruding forehead from the heat outside. He tapped his teeth with his biro.
‘What do you mean?’ Charley asked.
Footsteps from the hall above echoed around the cellar. Somewhere a drill whined. She looked at the man irritably. She was tired.
He held the printed pad so she could see the markings he had made. ‘The quarterly average for the past year here has been five hundred units. This quarter it’s gone up to seven thousand.’
‘That’s impossible. It’s been empty for a year and we only moved in yesterday.’ She watched the metal disc revolving. ‘Is the meter faulty?’
‘No, I’ve tested it. It’s working fine. See how slowly it’s going? You’re not using much juice at the moment.’
‘If there’s a short circuit, could that —?’
‘Must be. You’ve got a leak somewhere. You’d better get an electrician to sort it out. It’s going to cost you a fortune otherwise.’
‘We’re having the house rewired. They’re meant to be starting today.’
She was not sure he had heard her. He was checking the meter once more with a worried frown.
The Aga was smoking from every orifice, and Charley’s eyes were smarting. A new telephone was on the pine dresser next to the answering machine, its neat green ‘Telecom Approved’ roundel hanging from a thread. The phone was red to match the new Aga — when they could afford it. For the time being, her hope of replacing the existing solid-fuel one was item 43 (or was it 53?) on the list of priorities she and Tom had written out last night. ‘Central Heating’ was at the top and ‘Snooker Room In Barn’ was at the bottom (item 147). During the next twelve months, if they found nothing disastrously wrong with the house, they could afford up to item 21, ‘Window Frames’. If Charley went back to full-time work, eventually, it would help. (Item 22, ‘Double Glazing’.) For the time being the sacrifices were worth it. It was a good investment. On that point, Mr Budley, the estate agent, was right.
The telephone engineer poked his head round the kitchen door. ‘Same place as the old one in the lounge?’
‘Yes, with a long lead,’ she said, scratching what felt like a mosquito bite on her shoulder.
‘The cordless one in the bedroom?’ He had an attachment clipped to his waist with a large dial on it.
She nodded and coughed.
The engineer looked at the Aga. ‘Needs plenty of air. Leave the door open until the flames have caught. Me mum had one.’
‘Open? Right, thank you, I’ll try that. I’m making some tea, or would you prefer coffee?’
‘Tea, white no sugar, ta.’
She opened the oven door as he suggested and backed away from the plume of smoke that billowed out. She picked up the kettle and turned the tap. It sicked a blob of rusty brown water into the stained sink, some of which splashed on to her T-shirt, hissed, made a brief sucking noise and was silent.
Bugger. The plumber, she realised, had just asked her where the stopcock was. She flapped away smoke. With that and the sun streaming in, it was baking hot. They needed blinds in here (item 148, she added, mentally).
There was an opened crate on the floor labelled in her handwriting ‘kitchen’. Crumpled newspaper lay around it and the pile of crockery on the table was growing. A flame crackled in the Aga. She peered into the goldfish bowl. ‘Hi, Horace, what’s doing?’ she said, feeling flat.
Ben padded in and gazed at her forlornly.
‘Want a walk, boy?’ She stroked his soft cream coat and he licked her hand. ‘You’ve had a good morning’s barking, haven’t you? The builders, the electrician, the telephone man and the plumber.’
She filled the kettle from the mill race, which looked clear enough, and boiled the water twice.
The smoke from the Aga was dying down and the flames seemed to be gaining ground. While the tea was steeping she admired the flowers Laura had sent, the three cards from other friends and a telemessage from Michael Ohm, one of Tom’s partners, which had arrived this morning.
There was no greeting from Tom’s widower father, a London taxi driver who had desperately wanted his only son to be a success, to have a profession, not to be like him. When Tom had succeeded his father resented it in the way he resented everything he did not understand. He had lived in Hackney all his life, in a house two streets from where he was born. When Tom told him they were moving to the country, he had said they must be mad.
Ben bounded on ahead up the drive. The builders were unloading materials from a flatbed truck, and an aluminium ladder rested against the side of the house. A squirrel loped across the gravel into the shade between the house and the barn. Charley could hear cattle lowing, the drone of a tractor, the endless roar of the water and a fierce hammering from upstairs.
At the top of the drive she felt the cooling spray. The weir foamed water, but the lake was flat as a drumskin. Mallards were up-ended near the shore and somewhere close by a woodpecker drilled a tree.
She crossed the iron footbridge, looking down uncomfortably into the circular brick sluice pond. It reminded her of a mineshaft. On the other side of the bridge there were brambles and the remains of a fence which needed repairing. It was dangerous and someone could trip and tumble in. She walked quickly and turned to wa
it until Ben was safely past.
The path was dry and hard and curved upwards, left, climbing through the woods above the lake. The undergrowth grew denser and the trees were slender, mostly hornbeam, birch and elms. A large number were uprooted, probably from the winter storms or maybe the hurricane of eighty-seven. They lay where they had fallen, leaning against other trees or entombed in the creepers and brambles and nettles of the wild undergrowth.
Traces of a nightmare she had had during the night remained in her mind: a horse rearing up, opening its snarling mouth to reveal fangs chewing a piece of gum the size of a tennis ball, breathing hot minty breath at her then laughing a whinnying laugh. She had woken and tasted mint in her own mouth.
Chewing gum. In the car. It —
Her train of thought snapped as Ben stopped in front of her and she nearly tripped over him. He began barking, a more menacing bark than normal, and she felt a flash of unease. The bark deepened into a snarl and something moved ahead on the path.
A man hurrying, stumbling, very agitated, holding a fishing rod with a bag slung over his shoulder. He was wearing an old tweed suit with leather patches on the sleeves and gum boots. There was a strip of sticking plaster above his right eye, and a solitary trickle of sweat ran down his face like a tear. He was about sixty, tall and quite distinguished, but his state of anxiety was making him seem older. Ben’s snarl grew louder. She grabbed his collar.
‘I wonder if you’d mind terribly nipping down and telling Viola I’ll be a bit late,’ the man said without any introduction, ‘I’ve lost my damned watch somewhere and I must go back and look for it.’
‘Viola?’ Charley said blankly.
The man blinked furiously. ‘My wife!’ he said. ‘Mrs Letters.’
She wondered if he was a bit gaga.
‘I must find my watch before someone pinches it. It has sentimental value, you know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Charley said. ‘We’ve only just moved in.’ Ben jerked her forwards.
‘Rose Cottage, up the lane! I’d be very grateful. Just tell her I’ll be a bit late.’ He raised a finger in acknowledgement, then turned and hurried back up the path.
Charley continued holding Ben. He was still snarling and his hackles were up, his eyes flickering with colour.
‘What is it, boy? What’s the matter?’ She pulled him and he followed reluctantly. She waited until the man was well out of sight before she dared release him.
Rose Cottage. She had seen the name on the board at the entrance to the lane. It must be the stone cottage. Ben ran on ahead sniffing everything happily, his growls forgotten.
She came out of the shade and the sunlight struck her face, dazzling her. Ben cocked his leg on a bush. The potholed ground was dry and dusty and the hedges buzzed with insects. A swarm of midges hovered around her head and there was a strong smell of cows, an acrid smell of bindweed and the sweeter smell of mown grass.
The roof of the cottage came into view through the trees and a dog was yapping. A car door slammed, then a woman’s voice boomed like a foghorn.
‘Peregrine! Quiet —!’
Charley rounded the corner. The ancient Morris Minor estate was parked in the driveway of the cottage behind the picket fence and beside it was an old woman who had a cardboard groceries box under one arm and was holding the leash of a tiny Yorkshire terrier with the other.
Ben leapt forward playfully but the terrier replied with another volley of yaps. Charley grabbed Ben’s collar and made him sit.
‘Are you Mrs Letters?’ she shouted above the terrier’s yapping.
‘Yes,’ the woman shouted back. She was a no-nonsense country type in stout brown shoes, tweed skirt and rib-stitched pullover. Short and plump, she had a ruddy, booze-veined blancmange of a face and straight, grey hair which was parted and brushed in a distinctly masculine style.
‘We’ve moved into the Mill. I’m Charley Witney.’
‘Ah, knew you were coming sometime this week.’ She glared at the dog and bellowed in a voice that could have stopped a battleship, ‘Peregrine!’ The dog was silent and she looked back at Charley. ‘Viola Letters. Can’t shake your hand, I’m afraid.’
‘I have a message from your husband.’
The woman’s expression became distinctly hostile and Charley felt daunted. She pointed towards the valley. ‘I just met him and he asked me to tell you that he’s lost his watch and he’s going to be a bit late.’
‘My husband?’
‘In a tweed suit, with fishing tackle? Have I come to the right house?’
‘Said he’d lost his watch?’
‘Yes — I —’ Charley hesitated. The woman was more than hostile; she was ferocious. ‘He seemed rather confused. I think he may have hurt himself. He had a strip of elastoplast on his head.’
The terrier launched into another spate of yapping and the woman turned abruptly and walked into the house, dragging the dog so its feet skidded over the paving slabs. She closed the front door behind her with a slam.
Chapter Ten
The gardener turned up in the afternoon, small and chirpy with a hare lip, and tugged the peak of his cap respectfully.
‘I’m Gideon,’ he said with an adenoidal twang, ‘like in the Bible.’
Charley smiled at him. ‘You’ve done a good job with the hedge.’
‘I wanted it to be nice for when you arrived,’ he said, obviously pleased with the compliment. ‘The old lady, she never wanted nothing done.’
‘Why not?’
‘I dunno; never saw her, ’cept rarely. She left me the money for cuttin’ the hedge and the grass out the back door.’
‘Didn’t she ever go out?’
‘Nope. Had everything delivered.’
‘Why did she do that?’
‘She were what you call a recluse. Mind, I’m not sorry. I know I’m not Robert Redford, but she really didn’t look that great.’ He glanced at the house. ‘Is there’s any jobs in the garden you want doing?’
There were plenty.
They walked around together, and agreed on a plot between the hen run and the paddock fence for the kitchen garden. The soil was moist and sandy, he told her, pretty well everything would grow. They could buy spring cabbage and broccoli plants, and he had some leeks to spare. They would be eating their own vegetables before the winter was over, he said.
She bluffed her way through a discussion about hens, helped by a book she had read called Poultry Keeping Today which she’d borrowed from Wandsworth library. Gideon knew where to buy good layers, but the run needed fixing first to make it fox-proof and he’d get on with it right away. He charged three pounds an hour and she paid him for the work he had done on the hedge. Eight hours, which sounded about right.
She tried to get him to tell her more about Nancy Delvine, but he did not seem to want to talk about her. He’d only seen the woman twice in ten years, and that was enough. Why, he would not say.
The first call Charley received, after the engineer had tested the equipment and gone, was from Laura.
The engineer had been right about the Aga. It had heated up and the smoke had gone. The musty smells of the kitchen faded a bit and the dominant one now was from the cartons of the Chinese takeway in the rubbish sack. She had spent the last three hours opening crates, unpacking and moving furniture around. It would have to be moved again for the decorators and the carpets, but at least it was beginning to look vaguely like home.
‘The flowers are wonderful,’ Charley said, caressing the petals of a pink orchid.
‘Got your green wellies out yet?’
‘It’s too hot.’
‘You’re lucky you’re not in London. It’s sweltering. No one’s buying any winter clothes. How did the move go?’
‘Fine. Great. You must come to Tom’s birthday a fortnight on Saturday. We’re going to have a barbecue, if it’s warm enough.’
‘Any dishy bachelors around?’
‘Actually there’s a rather nice chap down the lane.’
‘I have a feeling he’s single. If he is, I’ll invite him.’
‘Tom’s going to be thirty-eight, isn’t he?’
‘And not very happy about it. Someone told him middle age starts at forty.’
‘He doesn’t look middle-aged.’
Hammering echoed around the house. ‘Laura,’ Charley began. ‘Do you know when Flavia Montessore is going to be back in England?’
‘In the autumn sometime.’ Laura sounded surprised. ‘Why?’
Charley toyed with the green tag hanging from the phone. ‘I — I just wondered, that’s all.’ There was a clatter outside the window and the rungs of an aluminium ladder appeared. ‘You know I said I was in a car?’
‘Bonking. Yes.’
‘I was chewing a bit of gum. I took it out of my mouth and stuck it under the dash —’
A pair of legs climbed past the window.
‘I found …’ Her voice trailed off, and she left foolish.
‘Found what? Charley, what did you find?’
The ladder was shaking. ‘The autumn. Do you mean October? Next month?’
‘She usually calls me. I’ll let you know.’
Rude, Charley thought, suddenly. Mrs Letters. Rose Cottage. Very rude to slam a door.
‘If you want to see someone sooner I know a very good man called Ernest Gibbon. He does private sessions.’
She’d gone out of her way to give Mrs Letters the message, and she’d turned her back and slammed the door. Rude. Except it hadn’t felt rude at the time, just odd. The woman had seemed upset. Upset by something more than a husband being late.
‘I can give you his number,’ Laura said. ‘He’s in south London.’
‘Is he as good?’
‘He’s brilliant. Give him a try.’
‘I might,’ she said distractedly, and wrote the number down on the back of an envelope.
Tom arrived home in the evening and changed into a T-shirt and jeans. He thought three pounds an hour was fine for the gardener, but he would look after the lawn himself. Part of the fun of moving to the country was to work in the garden, he said.
