by Rebecca Tope
‘I meant to come before this. We never got a chance to talk to you at the funeral, and … well, there’s not really any excuse. Time just goes by—’
‘I know. Don’t worry, Jonathan. There wasn’t anything you could have done, anyway.’
‘I wondered if you wanted some help. I could manage the odd afternoon, if you need me.’
‘That’s a nice offer. We’re coping, I think. Mum seems to have come through the worst, and she’s talking about getting down to some work. We’re trying not to think about the hay, though. How are you at grass-cutting?’
‘Middling, I think would be the word. Slightly better than nothing.’
Lilah laughed. Smiling, laughing, two minutes into Jonathan’s visit: the man was a tonic. And yet Guy had loathed him so passionately, it felt disloyal even to be speaking to him, here in broad daylight out in the yard. Lilah still half expected her father to emerge from one of the buildings and start some raging argument with the man.
She herself had always found Jonathan Mabberley intriguing. Although officially he was ‘the enemy’ – the neighbour Guy fought with constantly on every minor issue, despised for his sloppy farming practices and carefree demeanour – his charm was unavoidable. Wickedly, he would visit Redstone when he knew Guy was away, and flirt disgracefully with both Miranda and her daughter. In his late thirties, well-spoken and relaxed, he had treated Guy as a mildly amusing neurotic, to be humoured but not taken seriously. The sheer blasphemy of this approach had been enough to seduce the Beardon women.
Jonathan had a lot to forgive Farmer Beardon for. Guy spared nothing in his raging tirades against the man when one of his beef bulls got in with the Jersey heifers, on the day that three of them were in heat; or when the Mabberley bullocks found their way through the threadbare hedges into clover which was being conserved for a later time. The names Guy called him, the aspersions on his background and value systems, the threats and aggression, all rolled off his neighbour’s back. ‘Jonathan is the most Christian man I ever met,’ Miranda said, more than once, when Guy wasn’t listening.
Only Roddy seemed unimpressed by Jonathan. ‘It was terrible what his bull did,’ he pointed out, coolly. The heifers had been given abortifacients, and their planned calving dates thereby significantly delayed. Roddy’s orderly mind was outraged by that.
‘Am I interrupting you?’ Jonathan asked now. ‘What were you doing?’
‘It’s silly, I suppose, but I was having a look in Dad’s office. The police seem interested in it, and I wondered whether there might be some sort of … well, clue. Sounds daft, doesn’t it.’
‘Clue? It really is a murder inquiry then?’
She hesitated. There was something indefinably dangerous about Jonathan. He gave off an aura of a kind of intimacy that was exciting, but nonetheless disturbing. He spoke to everyone in the same way, she knew that, and yet he made her feel that she was one of the most special people in his life. He invited confidences which he hadn’t truly earned. And Dad had hated him. Now, more than ever, that had to count for something.
But it was very tempting to talk to someone about her certainty that Guy had been murdered. Someone from outside; someone neutral. Miranda was too distracted to be rational, and Roddy sheered off if he came within spitting distance of anything serious. But perhaps Jonathan wasn’t the person: he must be rather pleased, she supposed, that Guy Beardon was out of his hair, and that had to put him on a list of people to be wary of.
‘They seemed sure it was an accident at first. But when Isaac was killed, that changed their minds. Apparently it’s impossible, in the official mind, for two deaths to happen in the same area, within two weeks of each other, by coincidence.’
‘Well, you can see their point,’ he nodded. ‘And I dare say they’re always on the lookout for a nice juicy serial killer. They can do wonders for a copper’s career.’
She grimaced, half amused, half offended. ‘Nobody’s said anything about a serial killer. That’s going a bit far, don’t you think?’
‘Sorry,’ he flipped a careless hand. ‘Trust me to say the wrong thing. Maybe I should take my dog and go.’
Roxanne was sniffing idly around the big barn, across the yard from where they stood. Her feathering rippled as she moved, light glinting on her glossy coat. Jonathan had made a great thing of it when his dog’s uncle had won Best in Show at Crufts that year and Guy had ratcheted up his mockery accordingly. ‘It’ll still be just as dead when it gets shot for chasing sheep,’ he’d glowered. ‘Then he can have a champion pedigree hearthrug made out of it.’
‘Don’t go,’ Lilah pleaded. ‘Come and say hello to Mum. She’ll be glad to see you.’
‘It’s a kind thought, but I won’t stay now. I just came by to see how you were. It must be a strain, keeping things going on the farm, and coming to terms with your Dad dying, all at once.’
She shrugged. ‘It helps, really, having to keep on top of the work. And Sam’s a marvel.’
‘Of course. Actually I thought I saw him just now, in my woods.’
‘Sam? No, you couldn’t have done. He’s doing some fencing in Top Linhey. Right the other side from your woods.’
‘Oh, I know. I realised it wasn’t him after a minute or two. It was a younger chap, and he had a girl with him. I was going to shout at them, until I saw the girl was Elvira Winnicombe. Not much point in shouting at her.’
‘I thought she was going to that day centre in town. She’s meant to go every morning. Last I heard, she was doing very well, making rugs and stuff.’
‘Poor lass. Maybe she’s having a holiday.’
‘I’m surprised her mother lets her go out with a boy – she never lets her out unsupervised. Although I think Phoebe’s poorly. Hetty said something at the funeral. Maybe she’s losing her grip over Elvira. It must be quite a responsibility.’
He grinned. ‘Well, to be honest, I deliberately looked the other way, pretended I hadn’t seen them. She deserves a bit of fun, if you ask me.’
Lilah felt a surge of exasperation. Jonathan’s irresponsibility seemed to know no bounds. Elvira, though twenty-three years old, had the capabilities of a child of eight or nine. The precise nature of her handicap was not fully understood. Some maintained that living with Phoebe Winnicombe would send anyone off their rocker; others that it was an age-old fact that children of sin would always turn out badly. But on the whole the mother and daughter were treated with the typical mix of affection and impatience that country people show the disadvantaged in their midst. Some years ago there had been talk by the health visitor and local doctor of having Elvira sterilised, which had given rise to a wholesale outraged defence of the girl’s rights. Nobody in the village or neighbouring area would force themselves on her, and if she met a boy she could love and live with, then where was the harm in that? But as she became older and more voluptuous, the community became more uneasy, and Phoebe openly and loudly worried about what could happen. By mutual consent, the people of the village took it upon themselves to supervise Elvira and keep her safe.
All except Jonathan, it would seem. ‘Honestly,’ Lilah said. ‘Anything might happen if you let her wander off with a boy. You should have taken her home.’
‘I don’t think it was a boy. He looked well into his twenties. And she was quite happy, laughing and chatting. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. It looked like some sort of nature ramble. Probably it’s some carer chap from her day centre, giving her some fresh air. There might even have been others with them, who I didn’t see. If you like, I’ll go back that way, and make sure nothing untoward is happening.’
‘That would be a good idea. Now, I’d better get on. It’s nearly lunchtime already, and I’ve hardly done anything yet.’
‘By the way, Cappy’s doing one of her barbecues on Saturday, about six. Will you come? Bring your Mum and brother, too. Just turn up – there’s always more than enough.’
‘Who’s going to be there?’
‘Oh, the Rickwort
hs, the vicar, various odd bods.’
‘Okay, then. It sounds fun. Thanks. I’ll try and come, though I might be late. I can’t vouch for the others.’
‘Whatever.’ He shrugged easily, whistled to his dog, and swung along the path that ran past the slurry pit, alongside a hedge and through a gateway onto the small lane leading to his farm. Lilah watched him go, wondering whether he’d remember to check that Elvira was all right. She wished he hadn’t told her about seeing the vulnerable girl. She had too much to worry about as it was, without that nagging at her. Most of all, she wanted to think about Den, and that moment when she could have used him as a comforter and friend, and perhaps even more than that. In a desert of fear and sadness and bewilderment, Den shone like a beacon of hope. Despite – or perhaps because of – his role as junior detective in the investigation into Guy’s death, he seemed to her someone she could trust.
‘We’ve got two more weeks until the recorder comes,’ noted Lilah, when she and Sam were finishing up that evening’s milking. ‘I wonder if she’s heard about Dad? I wonder if we can keep the yield up. So far, we’re doing really well.’
The recorder was a brisk woman, youngish, with a friendly manner, who visited every dairy farm on a strict monthly routine. The days when she came were memorable because the milking took longer, and she often brought gossip from neighbouring farms. Guy was always charming in her presence, and did all he could to impress her. The yard was invariably brushed before her visits …
‘Sam!’
He was clattering some of the equipment and didn’t hear her. Then the new heifer, last to be milked, kicked her unit off and all was consternation for a few minutes. They both remembered how Guy would beat the novice milkers if they did that, training them into docility from the outset.
‘Sam?’ she tried again, when things had calmed down. He turned, questioning. ‘If we cleaned the yard last time Maggie came, how come it was so filthy again only a few days later?’
He looked blank.
‘You said you hosed it all down because it was mucky everywhere – you know, that morning. Especially beside the slurry pit. It’s not usually bad there, anyway, not when the cows are lying out. So why was it like that?’
He turned his attention back to the last minutes of the milking, and then seemed not to want to answer her questions. ‘Wait a minute – you can switch the motor off now.’ He went on dismantling the units and pipes while she went through to the little room containing the motor and flicked the switch up. The sudden silence, as always, came as a profound relief. Silence, and stillness; the throbbing was a physical sensation, which left a calm pool of relaxation behind it when it stopped. She almost forgot what she had been saying.
Almost, but not quite. ‘Sam, you heard me. Why should it have been so mucky?’
He still seemed not to understand her. ‘You were there,’ he growled, abruptly angry with her. ‘You know as well as I do how it was.’
She paused, trying to think back. She had been on the house side of the pit when she first saw Guy. Sam had fished him out on the opposite side. A picture slowly developed in her mind. Before Sam had come out of the privy, before anybody had done anything, she remembered that there had been a great splurge of slurry up that side and over the lip to the yard beyond. Perhaps she had assumed it was made by Guy struggling to get out again. But of course it couldn’t have been. Because the marks were of someone who had got out …
She gave a small gasp as the implications hit her. ‘Jesus, Sam. Sam!’ But she said no more. Trust nobody came a warning from somewhere, ringing in her ears.
Sam looked impatient. ‘What? What’s the matter with you?’ Another of her father’s phrases: it cast a chill over her.
‘I’m sorry. It just came over me again, that’s all. I’m all jangled this morning. I think I had a bad dream and it’s making me jittery. Take no notice.’ She held out a hand in front of her and was alarmed by how much it was shaking. Sam seemed to soften.
‘Bound to be like that sometimes,’ he sympathised. ‘Best thing is to concentrate on the work. That’s what I try to do.’
Finished at last, they closed the doors and went in for their breakfast.
For once, they found Miranda dressed and downstairs. She was wiping down the worktops with a pungent cloth, tackling the build-up of splashes and stains that no one seemed to have noticed.
‘Morning,’ said Sam, cheerily. ‘Going to be a nice one. Thought we might get started on clearing out the big barn today, but the weather’s more suited to an outdoor job.’
‘I could help you,’ Miranda offered. ‘It’s time I pulled my weight. We can’t go on as we have been, can we?’
Lilah looked at her, considering. ‘I’m not sure what you could do,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’d take so long to explain things to you—’
Miranda hovered between offence and amusement. Finally she chose the latter.
‘I know,’ she laughed. ‘I never was any use as a farmhand. But there isn’t much to do around the house, so could you give me a try?’
‘S’pose so,’ Lilah conceded. ‘You’d be better off asking Sam than me.’
Sam looked cornered, but gave a brief nod. ‘There’s sure to be something needing doing,’ he agreed. ‘Come out and find me when you’re ready.’
Miranda left it for half an hour, and then went to look for Sam. She had woken that morning with an urgent need to speak to him. The offer of help was as much a ploy to gain an opportunity to be with him as a genuine urge to do her bit. It seemed to her that there was a great deal to be said between them.
She found him in the milking parlour, dismantling the equipment ready for cleaning. His back was to her as he disassembled the milk units and sluiced them in the sterilising tank. In Guy’s coat; she felt, as Lilah had done, that he had taken on something of her husband’s personality along with the garment. His movements seemed more deft than usual, his shoulders less bowed. He even seemed to her an inch or two taller than before. She watched the back of his head, the springy hair longer than he normally kept it, and felt a surging pulse between her legs. She moved forward to touch him.
He turned to meet her; he’d known she was there. ‘There you are,’ he said, not meeting her eyes.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’ But this was such a reversal of their usual encounters, where he would hurry into the house to see her, snatching opportunities as they occurred, that she didn’t know what to say.
‘You talk to me every day, at mealtimes,’ he said, deliberately obtuse.
‘Not alone. What’s the matter? You seem to have lost interest.’
‘The man’s dead, for God’s sake,’ he blurted, harshly. ‘Do you think I could …’ He went back to his work, shaking his head, closing the matter. Miranda was stunned. The pulse became more urgent, mixed with panic.
‘That’s stupid,’ she hissed. ‘Damn it, you can’t be saying you’ll never do it again.’
‘That’s how I feel now. As if all this is because of what I did.’
She was beyond words. She had encountered the over-developed morality of men before and always found it misplaced and inconvenient. Now she felt insulted as well. For an androgynous moment, she could feel the kind of fury that she presumed led a man to rape. If she had been equipped for it, she would have thrown Sam onto the wet concrete floor there and then and plunged into him, in a rage of frustration. The more hurt and humiliation she could have inflicted in her revenge, the better she’d have liked it.
As it was, she took up a large metal bucket standing near the doorway, and dashed it against the wall, wanting simply to cause noise and confusion. The rolling clatter it made was disappointing, but enough to cover her departure and convey to Sam precisely how she felt.
CHAPTER TEN
Lilah hadn’t been into town since her father’s death. Each morning, she had made the farm her main priority, and found the day disappearing in an endless, insistent stream of tasks. Guy had very often given himself a long brea
k in the afternoons, but Lilah hadn’t dared do the same. Even when Miranda started to take over some yard-based work, there suddenly seemed to be new things to do in the further fields.
But on that Friday, she finally decided she could manage a brief shopping trip. The prospect of meeting some different people, perhaps bumping into a friend, rediscovering something like normality, was very attractive. Her two best friends had moved away, and had not been available during the crisis days, but she had lived here almost for ever, and knew virtually everyone who would be assembled at the stalls of the Friday street market. If there was time, she might even go into the big comprehensive school during the lunch break and look for Martha Cattermole.
Feeling shy and very exposed, she took the smaller of their two cars and drove herself the eleven miles into town. Passing through the village on the way, she noticed Father Edmund coming out of the Post Office. He spotted her instantly, and gave her such a piercing stare that she almost stopped, thinking he wanted to speak to her. When he made no move, she pushed harder on the accelerator again, wondering at the sudden tightness in her chest. There had been something very disturbing in the look he’d given her.
It was a bright day; the hedgerows and fields seemed to shimmer with life and weeds grew almost as you watched them. The narrow lanes sported pink campion and cow parsley and the occasional excessive hogweed, towering high and arrogant above everything else. Guy had called them Triffids, and took delight in felling them with a well-judged chop from his bill-hook.
As she drove, Lilah became aware of a sense of escape. Forgetting the weird vicar and all the events of the past weeks, she began to hum brokenly ‘Oh my darling Clementine’, which had always been the song she and Guy sang together in the car, from the time she’d been a tiny infant. The memories were still there, intact, she found, and was cheered. She only had to sing ‘Thou art lost and gone for ever, dreadful sorry, Clementine’, to feel her father with her, laughing and intimate and warm. The obvious meaning of the words themselves was irrelevant. Sentimentality would have been a betrayal. For the moment, feelings about Guy had been put on hold, waiting for the inquest into his death – due the following week – to be over.
