‘You’ll never guess in a million years, so I’ll tell you.’ Cathy slapped her hands on her knees. ‘I’ve just bought the Bailey farm, Three Trees.’
That can’t be right, I thought to myself. I glanced from Paul, to Janet, and back to Cathy again. ‘You bought Three Trees Farm?’ I repeated dumbly.
‘Abso-flipping-lutely! Isn’t that a gas?’
I was still trying to process the information when Paul said, ‘I thought it sold to a couple up in Manchester.’
Cathy grinned slyly. ‘Well, it did, but I outbid them.’ She all but pulled the tablecloth out from under what remained of the tea things with a flourish and a cry of ‘Tah-dah!’
‘My offer was accepted several days ago.’ She pressed her hands together, raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Thank you, Jesus!
‘We’ll be exchanging contracts in a couple of weeks,’ Cathy rattled on, ‘and my solicitor thinks that since it’s a cash deal, and there’s no chain of sales, we can go to completion on the same day.’ She paused to take a breath. ‘Don’t you just love British terms? Anyway, I don’t know why there have to be so many steps, but with such an old farm, I guess they have to check out the boundaries, and rights of way and . . .’ She waved a hand. ‘Makes my head hurt. That’s what I pay the solicitor for, right? So he can buy the aspirin!’
As Cathy talked, Janet had been stacking the cups and saucers on the tea tray, but she stopped for a moment to ask, ‘Whatever made you decide to buy the Bailey farm, Cathy?’
Instead of addressing Janet, Cathy looked directly at me. ‘Remember when I told you that I had a private reading with Susan Parker, Hannah? I gave her a watch that used to belong to my father, and almost right away . . .’ Cathy took a deep breath. ‘You know how she always used to see a letter, like in someone’s name? Well, in my case, she saw a number. Three. Isn’t that amazing?’
‘Amazing,’ Paul said, using a tone of voice I recognized. I inched my foot closer to his and got ready to stomp.
‘Then she got all shivery,’ Cathy continued. ‘She put her hands on her neck, and started gagging. Said she couldn’t breathe, like she was strangling. Right away, I knew I was on the right track.’
‘You did?’ I had absolutely no idea what Cathy was going on about.
‘Didn’t you ever wonder how the farm got its name?’
Janet stopped fiddling with the tea tray and sat down. ‘Would it be stating the obvious to say that perhaps at one time, there were trees there, and that the trees were three in number?’
‘That’s right!’ Cathy said, a proud teacher commending a student. ‘But not just any trees, Janet. In the seventeenth century, those trees served as an unofficial gallows!’
I thought it was a stretch, and Paul did, too. Before I could stop him, he commented, ‘Three trees and a hanging could just as well apply to the crucifixion of Christ.’ Anticipating objection, he raised a hand. ‘Just saying.’
Cathy ignored him. ‘My father’s body lies on that farm somewhere, Hannah, I can just feel it. And Susan could, too. Honest to God, when I saw on CNN that somebody’d run her down, and she had died, I cried buckets. Buckets! She was the real deal, wasn’t she?’
‘I like to think so, Cathy, but Susan was always the first to admit that she could occasionally be wrong.’
Cathy flapped a hand. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard all that. But you know what?’ She leaned forward, as if her words were only for me. ‘That means that some of the time, she’s gonna be tee-totally right!’
Claiming jet-lag, Cathy eventually left, heading up to her room to settle in.
As soon as she was out of earshot, I telephoned Alison, playing it casual. ‘How’s your father?’ I asked. ‘How’s he dealing with the sale?’
‘Wait, wait, wait!’ Alison said. ‘You’re not letting me get a word in edgewise!’
‘Well, OK,’ I said. ‘Over to you!’
‘I was just about to call you, Hannah. Have I ever got news!’
‘News?’ I was playing dumb.
‘You’ll never, ever guess who bought the farm.’
‘Is this a trick question, Alison? I was there, remember? When you told Paul and me about the buyers from Manchester. Champagne? Party hats?’
‘Well, they got gazumped.’
‘That sounds ominous.’ Visions of the Mancs sprang to mind, felled in their prime by a rare, African disease contracted while on holiday in Kenya. ‘What’s gazumped?’ I honestly didn’t know.
She laughed. ‘A London company trumped their offer by a good ten thousand pounds. There was a bidding war, actually, and the poor Mancunians kept upping their offer in thousand-pound increments, but eventually they had to drop out and the London people won.’
‘Who would want Three Trees that badly?’ I asked, feeling guilty about playing Alison along.
‘You’ll never guess.’
I hate playing Twenty Questions. ‘Is it bigger than a bread box?’
‘Oh, Hannah, you crack me up! As soon as I tell you this, you will guess for sure. The buyer is American!’
‘Could it be . . .’ I paused for dramatic effect. ‘Cathy Yates?’
‘Exactly! I was gobsmacked.’
‘I’m gobsmacked, too,’ I told her truthfully. It’s just that I had been smacking my gob about ten minutes earlier. ‘Does your father know?’
‘We’re not going to tell him until after we complete.’
‘Alison, that could be weeks! How can he not know?’
‘Well, the offer was made through a limited partnership in London. Cathy’s the only partner, of course, but Dad won’t know that.’
‘Crimenently, Alison. Your father will have a stroke when he finds out!’
‘So what? At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the money. And after we’ve completed, there’ll be nothing Stephen Bailey or anybody else can do.’
NINETEEN
‘The American military police were called Dewdrops because their helmets were white.’
Pat Kemp, Ministry of Food: Women’s Land Army: Index to Service Records of the Second World War 1939–1948, Series: MAF421, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey
While Paul was soaking in the tub, I kicked off my shoes, climbed on to the bed and reached for my iPhone. Olivia hadn’t given me her phone number, but when she called me earlier in the week, the number had been captured in my ‘Recents’ folder. I scrolled through the list of incoming calls, tapped her number, adjusted a pillow behind my back, and waited while it rang.
No answer.
I left a brief message asking Olivia to call me back, then joined Paul in the bathroom, a place, Paul always claimed, where he did some of his finest work. The toilet lid was up, so I put it down and sat on it.
Paul glanced up from the paperback he was reading to ask, ‘So, how was your day, sweetheart?’
Paul had bugged out on me at tea time, leaving me alone in front of the television screen with Cathy and the dirty dishes, so I hadn’t had the chance to tell him about an unnamed person from Totnes who was presently, according to a police spokesman on BBC1, helping police with their enquiries in the Parker case.
‘There are a lot of people living in Totnes,’ Paul reasoned after I’d finished. ‘Why are you so eager to pin the hit-and-run on poor old Alf?’
‘He gives me the creeps?’
‘Hah! Take that to the police and they’ll act on it right away.’
‘I’d sure like to know where he got all that money.’ I smiled, remembering Olivia’s reaction when she opened the bag. ‘Olivia calls it wonga. I looked it up, by the way. It comes from “wanger”, a Gypsy word for coal which was apparently used as currency at some time in the past.’
‘Dough, moolah, cabbage, bread, bacon . . . whatever. Maybe he doesn’t trust banks to take proper care of his wonga.’
I giggled. ‘When you put it that way, it sounds mildly off-color.’
Paul feigned wide-eyed innocence. ‘Moi? Hannah Ives, you have a dirty mind.’
I plucked a wet face cloth off the rim of the sink and tossed it at his head.
After a few more seconds, I said, ‘Olivia claims she makes regular deposits to Lloyds of the charitable contributions they receive, so Alf trusts banks to that extent.’ I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. ‘The only reason I can think of for not putting my money into, say, the Navy Federal Credit Union, is if I didn’t want anybody, especially the IRS, to know that I had it.’
‘Well, duh.’ Paul folded down a corner of a page to mark his place, closed the paperback and dropped it on to the bathmat. ‘There must be a million ways to launder money when you collect donations on the street.’
‘True, but Paul, you didn’t see it. To quote Olivia, it was a whacking great wodge of wonga. If Alf spent a century standing on a folding chair in Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park, he couldn’t collect that much money. It’s ill-gotten gains. I’m sure of it. And so is Olivia. Alf pretends that he’s only a fiver away from going on the dole, yet he hasn’t given her a raise in over a year. She’s really fuming.’
‘Well,’ Paul drawled, ‘I could spend the rest of the evening lolling in the tub, discussing Alf and his finances, but if I’m taking you to dinner, I’d better get a move on. What’s your pleasure?’
I whipped a towel off the warming rack and handed it to him, watching appreciatively as he stepped out of the tub, tall and trim, water droplets glistening on his slightly graying chest hairs and trickling down his recently acquired tan. ‘I’m thinking we should skip dinner.’
Paul wrapped the towel twice around his waist, tucked it in. He padded over to where I was sitting, took my hand and pulled me to him. ‘How about we just postpone dinner,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘We have reservations at Spice Bazaar at eight.’
I wrapped my arms around his waist, hardly noticing as the bathwater soaked through my sleeves. ‘Sounds like a plan,’ I mumbled as his lips found mine.
Twenty minutes later, I lolled in his arms, gazing out the window and across the Dart where the last rays of the sun were turning Kingswear into a photo opportunity – if I had a camera handy and even the remotest inclination to get out of bed. ‘Do you think Olivia turned him in?’ Paul breathed into my ear.
I rolled over to face my husband. ‘Could be. When I put her on the bus, she was fit to be tied.’
Five minutes later, I would find out how pissed off Olivia Sandman could be.
I had just started dressing when Olivia returned my call.
‘Hannah. Guess you heard.’
‘Someone from Totnes is helping police with their inquiries?’
‘It’s Alf. Serves the bastard right.’
I buttoned the last button on my shirt, one-handed, and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Did he do it, do you think? Did he run Susan Parker down?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Hope they lock him up forever.’
‘How did the police get on to him, Olivia?’
‘Somebody might have called Crimestoppers?’
‘Was that somebody, you, Olivia?’
‘Not saying I did, not saying I didn’t. But do you remember how I told you Alf pays me a salary? What I shoulda said is I get an allowance. When my mum died, she left a bundle, but it’s in trust, like, with my mum’s brother, Uncle Alf, as trustee. I get the lot when I’m thirty.’
I had figured that Olivia was about the same age as my daughter, born in the same decade anyway, but I had never asked her. ‘When’s the magic birthday, then?’
‘November fifth. It’s Guy Fawkes Day. I was planning to splash out on a party for my mates. Had the restaurant laid on and everything. So I go to the bank where they got my trust, and you know what I find out? The money’s gone. Most of it, anyway. One hundred pounds and some pence is all that’s left. My bleeding uncle spent it, the son of a bitch.’ Olivia took a deep, shuddering breath, and I could tell that she was crying.
‘Olivia, that’s terrible! You need to see a lawyer. What your uncle did is illegal.’
‘What I need is to knock his bloody block off, and take that bleeding bag of money. Should have done it when I first saw it,’ she snuffled. ‘Now the police got it, I s’pose, cos they got the car.’
Paul made a production of checking his watch, tapping the crystal, putting it to his ear to see if it was still running. If I didn’t hurry, we were going to be late for our reservation.
But, there was something puzzling me. ‘Olivia, when we looked at your uncle’s car the other day, it didn’t appear to be damaged.’
‘It wasn’t.’ She paused, and I could hear her breathing. ‘Not then.’
‘What the hell are you talking about, Olivia?’
‘You think I just go along like a daft dog? When he had my money, I had to dance to his fooking tune. Yes, Uncle Alf, no, Uncle Alf. But that was going to be all over once I got what was mine by rights. So, me and Kayleigh, we drive to Alf’s and I’m going to tell him I know what’s going on, and where’s my money, you bastard. But Alf, he’s not home, and I see the Beemer’s in the garage.’ She paused to take a breath. ‘Not sure I should say anymore.’
Paul was making circular, hurry-up motions with his hand. I countered with my hand up, palm out: hold-your-horses, bucko. ‘So, what happened next, Olivia?’
‘It was Kayleigh’s idea.’
‘What was?’
‘She had a screwdriver in her car. She unscrewed the hinges t’one side of the lock, and we got in, easy like. I was gonna get my money, see, but damn that Alf, he had the car locked tight.
‘So I picked up a big stone, and I wrapped it in my cardigan, and I was going to smash one of his fooking windows so I could open up the boot . . .’ She started to giggle. ‘Then I had a brilliant idea. I told Kayleigh what I was about and we fell about laughing!’
While Olivia was busily confessing to a B and E, Paul had given up on me. He brushed aside my hair, kissed the nape of my neck and walked over to the window where I could hear him speaking into his cell phone, telling the Spice Bazaar that we’d be a few minutes late.
‘If I busted the windows,’ Olivia continued, ‘Alf’d just get them fixed. But what if he got a bit of aggro from the police? So I wound up and gave his left front wing a good whack. Pranged it good, I did. Oooh, it was brilliant! Then Kayleigh and me, we put the garage door back together and scarpered.’
I pressed my hand to my mouth, stifling a laugh. It was brilliant. Wicked, completely illegal, of course, but brilliant. ‘And then you called Crimestoppers?’ I asked again.
‘It’s anonymous, right?’
‘Right.’
‘No way they can find out who called?’
‘None.’
‘Well, OK then.’
‘Olivia, you didn’t answer my question.’
I could practically hear her smile coming down the line. ‘What question?’
Paul had started to pace, so I changed course. ‘So what’s happening with Alf, do you know?’
‘I guess he’s screwed. Alf called me on my mobile and asked me to get the name of a good lawyer.’
‘Do you think he was responsible for Susan’s hit-and-run, had the car repaired, and then you, well, un-repaired it?’
‘Dunno. But they musta stitched Alf up good and proper. He says he’s not coming home for a while, and I should “carry on”.’ She snorted. ‘As if. WTL can go fook itself.’
I laughed out loud. ‘I figured you didn’t totally buy into Alf’s theology.’
‘Too right,’ she said. ‘So you know what I did? I got that lawyer’s name and number, all right, but Alf? He can whistle for it. I’m hiring the bloke myself. He says he’s gonna help me get my mum’s money back.’
TWENTY
‘When they left Torcross their means of transport to Chivelstone was a meat lorry . . . After the household effects were loaded, the chicken sheds came next and lastly, bags of coke on the tailboard with Reg sitting on top. Reg’s father had to
leave the family car, a Rover, behind, and when they returned to Torcross it was discovered in the Ley.’
Robin Rose-Price and Jean Parnell, The Land We Left Behind, Orchard Publications, 2005, p.78
Early the next morning, in spite of enjoying a full English breakfast at the B&B, I walked up the hill to Alison Hamilton’s with the taste of lamb rogan josh making an occasional, but not unwelcome appearance – a hint of ginger, a tinge of red curry – at the base of my tongue.
While Paul and Jon were attending a seminar at BRNC, Alison and I planned a second trip from Three Trees Farm to Coombe Hill carrying a small load of household goods that her father had packed up with the assistance of his right-hand man, Tom Boyd.
A few minutes before ten, I was dropping a detergent tab in the dishwasher, while Alison was scurrying around her kitchen, turning over newspapers, napkins and the previous day’s mail searching for her car keys, when the telephone rang. She snagged the receiver with one hand, and said ‘hello’ while moving cereal boxes around on the sideboard.
‘Oh, hi, Tom. We’re running a little late, but we should be there to pick up the boxes shortly.’ Alison paused, and I watched her expression change from mild annoyance to shock. ‘Stolen? You have got to be pulling my leg! Dad’s car is a wreck!’
I closed the dishwasher door, set the dial to normal wash, and focused my full attention on Alison’s end of the conversation.
‘Who would want it, Tom? Who? It looks like the last vehicle standing after a banger race.’ She leaned against the countertop, nodding. ‘Yes, yes, I understand, but are you sure he didn’t just drive it to town and forget where he parked it?’
Alison pantomimed an exaggerated eye-roll. ‘He could have walked home, couldn’t he, or someone could have given him a ride? Everyone knows my father . . . What? Of course you should, right away. And Tom? This time, we’re really going to take away his car keys. Right?’
Alison dropped the phone into its cradle, closed her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose. ‘Did you hear that?’
All Things Undying Page 17
