All Things Undying

by Marcia Talley

  ‘Hard not to.’

  ‘Tom had to ask me whether to call the police. My God.’ She took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. ‘Now, where the hell are my car keys?’

  As my friend continued to rant, I spotted what looked like a Lucite sunflower peeking out from behind the electric kettle. ‘Fob shaped like a sunflower?’

  Alison nodded.

  I pointed.

  Alison scooped up the keys, tugged on the hem of her T-shirt in a let’s-get-down-to-business way. ‘I swear, Hannah, the sooner I get that impossible old man into Coombe Hill, the better. When Tom showed up for work this morning,’ she elaborated, ‘Dad reported that he’d left the car where he usually does, in the courtyard, but when he came out this morning, the car was gone.’

  ‘Priuses are popular right now, hard to get.’ I’d read something of the sort recently in The Times. ‘Maybe they weren’t interested in the body, just the parts?’

  Alison spread her arms wide. ‘That’s me! Body a wreck, but, oooh the parts!’

  ‘Nut!’ A tiny fact stored somewhere in my brain surfaced and began to wave hello. ‘Alison, didn’t you tell me that Tom worked part-time in a body shop in Plymouth?’

  ‘I know where you’re going, Hannah, but Tom’s worked for my father for more than ten years. There’s no way he could have been involved in something like that.’

  ‘How about Tom’s mates?’

  ‘Possible, I suppose, but not likely.’ Alison paced from the Aga to the pantry to the sink and back again, nervously tidying counters that looked perfectly tidy to me. ‘I told Tom to go ahead and report it to the police. Now, where did I put my handbag? Other than informing the insurance company, I don’t suppose there’s much more we can do.’

  That tiny thought was now waving and shouting, you-hoo!

  Was Alison’s father trying to scam his insurance company? He had been reluctant to file a claim for the damage from the accident, but if the car were reported stolen instead, who would be the wiser?

  None of my business, of course.

  I returned to an earlier, slightly less thorny topic. ‘Do you have to wait until the completion date to move your dad off the farm?’

  ‘No, thank goodness. We’ve had the flat from August first, so as far as I’m concerned, Cathy Yates can move into Three Trees Farm at any time, fancy New York interior designer and all.’ She winked. ‘Although that would be illegal, of course.’

  By then she had collected her keys, her handbag, and a lightweight jacket, and we were headed for the front door. ‘What’s kept him on the farm until now was the cows. How he loves those cows.’ She grinned. ‘Feckless is Daddy’s little girl, I’m afraid. Did I tell you they were sold to another farmer?’ When I nodded, she continued, ‘Well, the transport lorry’s coming for them later this morning, so my father’s in mourning, everything but the black armband.’

  Olivia Sandman, on the other hand, was far from mourning, if I interpreted the punctuation on her text message correctly:

  Unc Alf confessed!!!! 8-O

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ I commented to Alison after sharing the news. I switched off my iPhone and dropped it back into my bag. ‘I suppose it will be all over the news tonight.’

  Alison apparently feels compelled to look at you while talking, which is not particularly compatible with conversation while driving. I lived to see another day, because she pulled into a lay-by on the outskirts of Dittisham before facing me to say, ‘I’m glad they caught the fellow, of course, but there must be more to it than a simple exchange of words on a London street.’

  ‘Back where I come from, Alison, people kill people simply because they won’t hand over the North Face jacket they’re wearing, or give up a pair of one-hundred-eighty-five dollar athletic shoes, so anything’s possible. But, I agree, it’s puzzling.’

  ‘Maybe Susan did to Alf what she did to you.’ Alison touched my hand where it rested on the console between us. ‘You know, an off-the-cuff reading that hit close to home.’

  ‘A dark secret from his past, you mean? Something incompatible with his holier-than-thou persona?’

  ‘Exactly. Or maybe he was all fired up with religious indignation, saw her walking on the Embankment as he drove by and something snapped.’ She brought her hands together with a crack. ‘Stranger things have happened, Hannah.’

  ‘I’m sure. Remember the Crusades.’

  Alison checked the wing mirror, then eased the car back on to the road. ‘Don’t have to think back that many centuries. Osama bin Laden springs immediately to mind.’

  ‘I’d rather not think about that madman, Alison.’ Two young naval officers, Paul’s former students, had been killed when terrorists flew an airplane into the Pentagon. It was a difficult subject.

  Alison took her eyes off the road for a moment. ‘But that’s exactly my point, Hannah. Madmen are not governed by logic!’ After looking both ways, she turned right from The Level on to Riverside Road. ‘So, trying to understand or explain them is futile.’

  ‘If so, a lot of psychiatrists would be out of work.’

  ‘Boo hoo,’ Alison said.

  Ten minutes later at Coombe Hill, I found myself unpacking dishes in the kitchen, while Alison worked on installing a small flat-screen television in the adjacent lounge. It was to be a surprise for her father.

  I leaned around the bookshelf that divided the two rooms and yelled, ‘Do I need to wash these dishes before putting them in the cabinets?’

  The floor around my friend was littered with boxes, cables and instruction manuals, one of which she held up for my consideration. ‘It’s written in English, French, Spanish and Arabic, but does it tell me where to attach this damn wire? In any language? It does not.’ She tossed a cable that terminated with three plugs – banded in red, yellow and white – aside. ‘I’d like to tell them where they can shove their bleeding wires!’

  ‘Does that mean I don’t have to re-wash the dishes?’

  She flapped a hand. ‘Never mind. I’ll figure it out.’ She picked up the manual, flipped over a few pages and began to read, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Who drew these illustrations, anyway? Three-year-olds?’

  Back in the kitchen, dust motes danced in slants of sunlight streaming through the window. My nose began to itch, and I felt a big, juicy sneeze coming on. I twitched my nose like Samantha in Bewitched, but not even magic would stop that sneeze from coming.

  I slipped the platter I’d been holding back into its protective nest of crumpled newspaper, and plunged my hand into the pocket of my cotton jacket, hoping I’d find a tissue. What I came out with was a wad of newsprint.

  Oh, right. I’d forgotten about that. It had fallen out of Alison’s car the other day, and since I firmly believed in Keeping Dartmouth Green, I’d picked it up off the street fully intending to throw it away.

  I started to pitch the scrap into the bin with the rest of the packing trash, but as I closed an eye and lined up the shot, a single word leapt out at me: Parker.

  Curious is my middle name, so I took the scrap of paper over to the kitchen counter and smoothed it out on the granite:

  Police Seek Help of Public in Solving Hit-and-Run

  Forensic analysis of clothing worn by the victim of a hit-and-run on the North Embankment nearly two weeks ago has revealed that a blue coloured vehicle was involved.

  Sergeant Barry Evans, Dartmouth Police, said finding the vehicle with this coloured paint is crucial in helping to find the driver who was responsible for the hit and run.

  Popular medium and television personality Susan Parker was walking her dog on the Embankment when she was struck from behind, killing her instantly. The hit-and-run happened around 8.15 in the morning.

  ‘We hope that the paint analysis from fragments on the victim’s clothing may focus public attention to a blue vehicle that has recently been damaged.

  ‘From the extent of the victim’s injuries and the paint fragments on her clothing we know that th
e vehicle involved will have some body or paintwork damage. The driver or owner may have taken it to a panel beater for repairs. They may have tried to fix it themselves or have parked it up out of sight.

  ‘If anyone has any information about a vehicle with blue paint that has recently been damaged then we would like to hear from them,’ he said. ‘The driver who struck Ms Parker must know what happened. We urge that person and anyone with information about the hit-and-run to contact police.’

  Why did Stephen Bailey go to all the trouble of tearing that particular article out of the paper, then crumple it up and save it? Thinking about the trials and tribulations of Bailey’s car lately, the man couldn’t be acting more guilty than if he’d run Susan Parker down himself.

  Blue car. Check.

  Body damage. Check.

  Out of sight. Check.

  But Alf Freeman had motive. And he’d confessed to the crime, hadn’t he?

  I dragged a chair out from under the dainty bistro-style table I’d helped Alison pick out at the IKEA store in Bristol and sat down to think.

  Stephen Bailey knew that Susan Parker had been planning a visit to Slapton Sands, but even if that visit were to lead to the location of the remains of American soldiers some sixty years dead, the only thing she’d prove was that Ken Small was right and Stephen Bailey was wrong about the disposition of some of the victims’ bodies following the disastrous training exercise.

  At her live show in Paignton, Susan had called on Bailey, saying she had a message from somebody named Rose, but she’d been wrong, hadn’t she? Or had Bailey lied about ever knowing a woman named Rose?

  I couldn’t make the pieces fit. Unless . . .

  My bag was on the table, so I pawed through it until I found my cell phone. A few taps later, I reached Olivia. ‘Got your text, Olivia. So, tell me. What’s up with Alf?’

  ‘Oh my God, Hannah! Him and Derrick got arrested for human trafficking!’

  ‘What? You mean he didn’t kill Susan Parker?’ If Alison hadn’t had the television and its paraphernalia spread out in pieces on the carpet all around her, I would have rushed right out to click the set on.

  ‘Coulda knocked me over with a feather, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘But, but . . .’ I’m seldom at a loss for words, just ask my husband, but human trafficking was the last thing that came to mind when I thought about Alf God-Loves-Me-Better-Than-You Freeman. Sex slaves? Prostitution? Diminutive Alf with the pasty skin and thinning hair, dressed in the height of last year’s fashions from the Men and Boys department at Walmart? I tried to reconcile that image of Alf with the burly, dark-haired, gold-chained Mafioso so recently popularized on HBO. Fuhgedaboutit.

  As Olivia rattled on, however, the penny dropped. Calais, she said. Chunnel. A BMW that was even more ‘special’ than the manufacturer intended, with an undercarriage compartment that was impervious to heat sensors and infrared cams.

  Alf had been smuggling illegal immigrants from France into the United Kingdom at £1000 a pop.

  ‘Strange occupation for a man of God,’ I huffed.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Important meetings. The area described below is to be requisitioned urgently for military purposes, and must be cleared of its inhabitants by December 20th, 1943.’

  Notice, Mortimer Bros. Printers and Publishers, Totnes, November 12, 1943

  ‘The Chairman of the Devon County Council, Sir John Daw, was ordered to requisition an area of 30,000 acres [including] the villages of Torcross, Stokenham, Chillington, Blackawton, East Allington, Slapton, Strete, Frogmore and Sherford. It also included 180 farms and many small hamlets. It affected 750 families and totaled 3000 men, women and children.’

  Robin Rose-Price and Jean Parnell, The Land We Left Behind, Orchard Publications, 2005, p.10

  ‘The trouble is,’ I said to Paul as we were getting ready for bed that evening, ‘I like Stephen Bailey. It’s hard for me to believe that he’d deliberately run anybody down.’

  Paul rinsed his toothbrush and dropped it brush-end up into a drinking glass. ‘How would you feel if he were just an ordinary Devonian farmer and not the father of one of your closest friends?’

  ‘I’m trying to keep that out of the equation, darling.’ I crawled into the bed, propped some pillows behind my back, and pulled the duvet up to my chin. Maybe I could think better that way.

  A few minutes later, Paul joined me under the duvet. ‘So, what are you going to do with the information?’

  ‘What information? I don’t have information, just hunches. The police aren’t going to be interested in my unsubstantiated theories.’

  He rolled over and started to trace circles on my upper arm with the back of his index finger. ‘Which are?’

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s rooted in the past. Susan either sensed it, or Bailey was afraid she would come to sense it. Maybe Alison’s father had a beef with one of the American soldiers. Maybe they fought, the soldier got killed, and Bailey buried him on the farm.’ I sat up a bit straighter. ‘Yes! That explains why Bailey has this love-hate thing going on with Yanks.’

  ‘The trouble with that theory, Hannah, is that Bailey wasn’t here during the occupation. He and his family had been forced to move their farm lock, stock and barrel to someplace near Dittisham, right?’

  ‘Right. And security was tight.’ I folded my arms across my chest and pouted. ‘But there are first-hand reports in some of those booklets I bought of farmers sneaking back into the American zone to check on their property, to collect fruit, search for family pets. Maybe Bailey was able to slip past the patrols. Maybe . . .’ I was making it up as I went along. ‘How about this. He makes his way back to the farm, discovers some soldiers lounging about in his sitting room, laughing, drinking his father’s elderberry wine, breaking up his mother’s furniture for firewood. It was winter.’

  ‘And?’ By the way he lifted one eyebrow, I could tell my husband was unimpressed.

  ‘Something snaps. He clobbers them with a fire iron or something.’

  ‘All very interesting, Hannah, but I don’t know how you are going to prove any of this.’

  ‘Frankly, neither do I.’

  Paul picked up the remote. ‘Mind if I turn on the television?’

  ‘Just as long as it’s something mindless, like Big Brother. I’ve heard all I care to hear about Alf Freeman and Derrick What’s-His-Name today. Hard to believe they were part of a smuggling ring. Just goes to prove that all thugs aren’t big, burly goodfellows from Russia or Bulgaria. Primordial slime, the pair of them. Preying on hundreds of poor, desperate people hanging out in a squalid tent city in the woods near Calais. You’d think the French police would swoop in and clean it up.’

  ‘Do you think that there was anything legitimate about the Guardians of Way, Truth and Life?’ Paul asked when I paused to come up for air.

  ‘I doubt it. I think the organization was a massive smoke screen to explain his frequent trips to the continent. We still tend to trust men of the cloth, even though in case after case, they’ve proved themselves unworthy of that trust. Alf wasn’t so much “of the cloth”, though, was he? More of a self-styled prophet.’

  ‘A prophet of profit?’ Paul grinned.

  I punched him in the arm. ‘Don’t get me started!’

  On the TV, Siavash was sweet-talking Sophie in the garden now that Noirin had been evicted from the Big Brother house. ‘How can people watch this drivel?’ Paul aimed the remote and switched the channel.

  ‘Paul?’ I asked as the channels flickered by. ‘You’re a farm boy. If you had a car you wanted to get rid of, what would you do with it?’

  ‘Does Three Trees Farm have a pond?’

  ‘It certainly does.’

  ‘Then that’s the first place I’d look.’

  I turned on my side, punched the pillow into submission, and snuggled down under the duvet. ‘Before I call Crimestoppers, however, I think I need to talk to somebody about wartime in Devon.’

  Paul’s face was
inches from mine. ‘Who?’

  ‘The woman that Cathy says is going to help with her museum project. I met her at the charity lunch at St Saviour’s. Her name is Lilith Price. She knits, Paul.’

  ‘She knits? Well, that explains everything.’ He kissed the tip of my nose.

  ‘Shut up and cuddle, Mr Ives.’

  And Paul, being the obedient husband that he is, promptly obliged.

  The following Tuesday, I gathered up my knitting and hurried off to St Saviour’s, hoping that I’d find Lilith there. I’d just settled down at a table by myself, wondering if I’d have to eat alone, when Lilith appeared. I motioned her over. ‘When you get your lunch, do join me.’ I indicated my knitting bag that was sitting on the empty chair next to me, the needles I’d borrowed from Janet sticking out of the top like antennae. ‘Did you bring your knitting today?’

  Lilith patted her bag. ‘Never go anywhere without it! You never know when you’ll be stuck waiting for something with time on your hands. Some people carry paperback books. For me, it’s knitting.’

  I knew what she meant. I’d once been a card-carrying member of the paperback club, but recently I’d found myself wasting vast amounts of time in doctors’ offices and airport terminals playing Bejeweled on my iPhone.

  Before long, Lilith was back. She seated herself across from me. I had planned to show her the shawl I was making, using our mutual love of knitting as an ice-breaker, but I found myself diving right in instead. ‘I heard a rumor about you the other day, Lilith.’

  Lilith glanced up from her cucumber sandwich, a bemused look on her face. ‘Oh? I hope it was a good one. I could use a little excitement.’

  I grinned. ‘I understand that once she gets it going, you’re going to be curator of Cathy Yates’ museum at Slapton Sands.’

  Lilith nodded. ‘Fascinating project, don’t you think? Although I hadn’t been born yet when it happened, I’ve always been interested in the evacuation. I’ve written several articles about it for some of our better historical journals. You can find them in the public library here, if you’re interested, and at BRNC, too, of course.’