A Dirty Death

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Not my department,’ shrugged the man. ‘Friend of yours, is she?’

  Amos laughed, the lines on his face deepening as he did so. ‘Haven’t seen her for years, till all this.’

  ‘Then why—?’

  ‘She’s a madwoman.’ Amos leant closer, his voice hoarse. ‘Trouble, that’s what she be. I’d have thought you’d know all about her.’

  ‘Why do you think we should know about her?’

  ‘She’s deep. She … knows things.’ He shifted from one foot to the other, wanting to say more, but having nothing specific to offer.

  ‘Would you say there’s reason to think she’s involved in your brother’s death?’

  Amos slowly shook his head, which had begun to ache again. ‘Don’t know about that. I just wish she’d stay clear of me. Got rid of Isaac’s cats, she did. ’Tis quiet here, without the cats.’

  There being no obvious suspicious import in any of this, the policeman closed his notebook and prepared to leave. ‘You look poorly, Mr Grimsdale,’ he said kindly. ‘Must be difficult here, after what happened. Isn’t there someone you could go and stay with for a bit?’

  ‘Not a soul. And I have to stay, for the sheep and that. Can’t just up and leave, even if there was a place to go. Thinking of getting a dog or two, now Isaac’s gone. Never liked dogs, did Isaac. Poor fellow.’ He shook his head again, bowed with the strangeness of events and the burden of victimhood. Amos had never before regarded himself as a victim, and he found it heavy going.

  He hardly noticed the policeman leaving, exhaustion hitting him so abruptly that he had to sit down in the old armchair and lean his head back. He fell into a deep sleep for an hour or more, before waking suddenly from a tormenting dream. If anything he felt worse for the brief oblivion.

  He forced himself upstairs to get dressed, and then out to inspect his animals. The air was damp, a fine drizzle blowing across from one hill to another. Bad news for the hay, he thought, from long habit. Even though he and Isaac had not made hay for years, it still coloured his thinking. That and corn a month or so later, and ploughing, seeding, fertilising all in their due season. Giving all that up had been an unthinking process, brought about by the inexorable sale of their land, piece by piece, and the reduction in livestock accordingly. Amos had seen farmers ten years older than himself still working the land, wiry and indestructible, but he had not possessed their energy. He had been distracted and weakened by Isaac, who wasn’t safe on a tractor, and who needed to be watched most of the time, like a little child.

  A sudden storm swept through him. Grief for his brother, fear for himself, and a new sense of rage at his situation combined to galvanise him, as he stood there on the edge of his land, looking down at Redstone. He couldn’t bear it, there with nobody to talk to, no cats to complain about, nothing where he’d left it, the house not feeling like his any more. Some instinct drove him over the big rotting gate which was never opened now, onto the land that had once been his and was now a part of Redstone Farm. This was where he had run, that morning, his head split open, blood wet on his face, mingled with tears at what had befallen his brother. He must have climbed the gate then, too, though he couldn’t remember doing so.

  They had been kind to him, the girl and Sam, that morning. He could go down and thank them. That was a normal thing to do. And he might get a sight of Miranda, of whom he had not thought for so many days. With a sense of wonder, he checked back in his memory. It was true – he had forgotten Miranda until now. As if stored up out of sight somewhere, his obsession with her returned with new force. Beardon was dead and gone. She was free to talk to him, smile at him, even – was it possible? – come and drink tea with him in his pristine home. He smiled to himself, at that. What a snub to Phoebe that would be, if her mischief could be turned to something good and sweet after all.

  He hurried down the field, slipping now and then on the wet grass. Before reaching the yard he paused to smooth back his hair with both hands, remembering that he had not brushed it for days. He hadn’t washed his face, either. He shivered to think what he must look like. The dressing on his face must be grimy and coming unstuck, too. With sudden decision, he took hold of it and ripped it away. The stinging sensation abated within a few moments. Delicately he fingered the wound. It was dry and not unduly sensitive. Thick skull, he thought to himself.

  The man Sam was moving about in the big shed that housed the implements. The mower was sitting out in the yard, attached to the tractor. He hadn’t seen Amos, being intent on fixing something on the baler, a long screwdriver in his hand. Amos looked around for a dog to notice him and bark. Funny sort of a farm without a dog, he thought.

  After a minute or so, he deliberately kicked at a stone, trying to make his presence felt. Sam looked up slowly, carelessly, a glance with no alarm in it. Odd, really, thought Amos. After the things that have happened. I could be standing here with a gun or a crowbar.

  Sam’s face showed clearly the succession of reactions to Amos’s appearance. Blank failure to recognise him, followed by surprise, mild alarm and concern. ‘Lord, man, you look poorly,’ he said.

  Amos smiled. ‘I b’ain’t so bad,’ he said. ‘Up and about, as you can see.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Sam stood up straight, subtly masterful. He spoke without a trace of Devon accent, something he had found both useful and embarrassing in his years at Redstone. The Midlands rhythms of his boyhood persisted only mildly, hidden by his almost eccentric habit of using good English. Guy had mimicked him, teased him, without effect. Miranda had once realised that it was Sam’s use of language which redeemed him, and made him more than a simple farm labourer.

  ‘Amos, what do you want?’ he repeated.

  ‘To say thank ’ee. For what you and the young girl did, for Isaac and me. You was neighbourly.’

  ‘It was what anybody would have done. We’re all sorry about Isaac. It must be very hard for you.’

  ‘Ay.’ Amos glanced towards the house. ‘And things here can’t be a lot better.’

  ‘We’re managing.’

  ‘Strange, all the same. Police running over everything. Taking papers, nosing about. Seems like they think the same chap’s done both killings. Is that right?’

  Sam stood very still. ‘Hard to say,’ was all he would reply. It had struck him that this was the first time anyone had asked his direct opinion. Even the police, interviewing him three times, hadn’t sought his personal view. They’d enquired about Amos and Isaac, their history and anyone they might know; they’d asked about his years with the Beardons, and what he might gain from Guy’s death. They’d looked at him strangely, and written a lot of notes. But they hadn’t asked what he thought.

  ‘Nobody’s saying much, I reckon,’ Amos commented. ‘Not so easy to trust each other, time like this. For all they know, ’twas me, or Isaac, as chucked Beardon in the slurry. Or you.’

  Sam made no reply. Something closed down in his face, and he became sullen and silent.

  ‘See what I mean,’ chuckled Amos, feeling rather better for this encounter. Again he looked towards the house. ‘D’ye think I could go and say my thank yous to the little girl?’

  ‘Nobody’s going to stop you,’ snapped Sam, discovering the screwdriver in his hand, and returning to his baler. ‘But she’s not a little girl. She’s a grown woman, by any measure.’

  Lilah’s maturity was unimportant to Amos. Girls grew up, he supposed, but for him, she would forever be the cartwheeling child in the buttercups, that first day the Beardons moved in.

  Boldly he strode to the farmhouse door, and knocked on it. After an interval that seemed unreasonably long, the door was opened by Miranda. For a moment Amos was speechless at the sight of her in front of him. Then he found the sense to utter, ‘I came to say thank ’ee for being so good when we had our trouble.’ He spoke haltingly, words whirling around in his head, everything difficult and different from his expectations. Miranda was closer than he had been to her for very many years. He h
ad to hold his arms stiffly at his sides to prevent himself from embracing her.

  ‘Mr Grimsdale!’ she greeted him. ‘What a surprise! Come in, you look terribly tired. Gosh, I’m so sorry we haven’t come to see you, to tell you how dreadfully upset we were to hear about your brother. But – well, you can imagine it’s been a bit chaotic here. And how’s your poor head? I didn’t even know you were out of hospital. Isn’t that awful! Except, yes, my friend did see you, a day or two ago, when the inquest was on. I should have paid more attention.’

  He let the babble run over him, warm and sweet as it was. She sounded so genuine, as if she really did care about him. She sounded just as she had, all those years ago when she’d run up to visit him, and he’d fallen so ridiculously in love with her. She was a woman in a million.

  ‘Oh, do come in,’ she went on, stepping to one side to give him space to cross the threshold.

  He stumbled past her, unable to believe what was happening. Never once had he been inside Redstone farmhouse. He hardly dared to raise his head and take in what her home was like. He was in a room with a Rayburn on one side, a big table at the end, under a window, and a dark dresser full of plates and a mess of other things, facing the Rayburn. Everything was untidy, cobwebs in corners, grimy windows. Without waiting for an invitation, he dropped into one of the upright chairs beside the table. Emotion was bubbling up inside him, and a weakness from love of Miranda and loss of Isaac.

  ‘I just came to say thank’ee,’ he mumbled. ‘That’s all.’ And to everyone’s horror, his own included, large hot tears began to slide down his cheeks, as he rested his injured head in both hands on the table.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The day of Roddy’s Alton Towers trip seemed to stretch for ever, comprising one bizarre event after the other. Sam’s loss of the gun, which was less alarming than mysterious, to Lilah’s mind; Sylvia’s visit, which had lasted so long; and then poor old Amos turning up in such a state. There had been no time to slow down and try to grasp the import of each event until long after it happened.

  Lilah didn’t reproach her mother for neglecting to produce any supper, or to feed the calves, or close the yard gate, or to perform any of her usual tasks; she had clearly gained so much pleasure from Sylvia’s company – and even, in a way, from Amos’s as well. Miranda had taken an obvious satisfaction in soothing him, giving him tea, taking him home and promising to keep an eye on him in the future. But the girl could not postpone her plan to have a talk of her own with her mother that evening. As soon as she could, she settled them both in the sitting room and took a deep breath.

  ‘About visiting Barbara,’ she began. ‘I can see that it would be intriguing to meet her, and it’ll be fine when we’ve got straighter here – but don’t you think you’re being a bit premature? She sounds rather hostile towards us, in the letter.’

  ‘She doesn’t know us. And I didn’t take Guy away from her; they were divorced before I met him. I suppose I just want to … well, compare notes.’

  ‘That’s ghoulish, Mum.’

  ‘Is it?’ Miranda spoke dreamily, not noticing or caring about her daughter’s disapproval. ‘I think it’s nature. For me, it is, anyway. I was never jealous of her, like second wives are supposed to be. If he’d had a mistress, I’d probably have wanted to get to know her as well.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘Don’t forget I grew up in the sixties. My whole generation is crazy. I never went a bundle on the idea of fidelity. It’s too exclusive; too possessive. You wouldn’t understand,’ she finished with a sigh.

  An awful thought struck the girl. ‘Mum?’

  ‘What? What’s the matter?’

  ‘You didn’t … you weren’t … were you?’

  ‘Unfaithful?’ Miranda avoided her daughter’s glance and gently fingered her own neck. ‘Not much chance of that, stuck away down here. I wouldn’t tell you, anyway. You’d be on his side, you Daddy’s girl.’

  ‘You were, weren’t you! I can see it from your face.’

  ‘Not enough to be worth making a fuss about. Goodness me, why people get so upset about a perfectly harmless natural instinct, I shall never understand. People don’t own each other, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘He would have killed you if he’d found out. How did you have the nerve?’

  ‘Well he didn’t. Somebody killed him instead.’ Miranda’s face was suddenly hard and fierce, frightening Lilah.

  The fear crawled with icy feet all over her. Anyone, anyone, could be Guy’s killer. Even Miranda. Or Sylvia. The person hadn’t needed to get right into the slurry with him – just pushed him down with some long-handled tool; something that would grip him by the back of his neck. It would take what – two or three minutes, or even less. Plenty of time to hide the tool, run back into the house and pretend to be asleep.

  The growing panic generated by these suspicions was interrupted by a now-familiar sequence of sounds outside. A car engine; a slamming door; footsteps; then a knock. Frozen, Lilah and Miranda sat fighting their foolish trepidation, each trying to guess who it must be.

  The sight of Jonathan was overwhelmingly reassuring. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ Lilah breathed, on a great sigh of relief. ‘How lovely to see you.’

  ‘Steady on,’ he laughed, a hint of warning in his voice. She checked her enthusiasm, instantly aware that he had come for something serious. A thump of foreboding went through her. Was there more trouble?

  ‘Come in,’ she invited. ‘Mum’s got a bad ankle. You can come and sympathise.’

  ‘Can Roxanne come in too? She’s got a story to tell you.’

  ‘How are her feet?’ The Beardons had rarely allowed dogs inside the house, because of their muddy feet, which could so easily turn an untidy and dusty house into a sordid hovel.

  ‘Beautiful, except they need trimming. You can do it for her, if you like. She won’t let me touch them.’

  She didn’t respond to the affable words. Jonathan had never come to see them in an evening before. Guy would not have welcomed him; it was even possible that he would have refused his neighbour entrance to the house. Lilah felt battered by so many changes, all carrying their own implications, all depriving her of peace. For the first time in her life, she felt an acute desire to jump into the car and just drive and drive until the land ran out.

  Jonathan took several minutes to come to the point of his visit, but then he told his tale concisely. He hadn’t brought the mucky clothes with him, despite his initial intention. Lilah asked him why.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want me to. You might … recognise them.’

  ‘Well, from what you say, we’d have at least found the brother to the shoe that was in the slurry. Not that that would have got us much further. I don’t get what you mean. Wouldn’t it be a good thing if we discovered who the stuff belonged to?’

  Jonathan and Miranda maintained their silence – two wise adults waiting for the child to come to its senses. Lilah felt a rising anger. ‘Well, wouldn’t it? Christ almighty, Jonathan! You’re as bad as Mum, wanting to deny the truth. We’re talking about murder! That’s the worst crime there is. You can’t just stick your head in the sand. I’m phoning Den. This is evidence. The best evidence we’ve got so far.’ She got up, and strode over to the phone. Her hand reached out for it, lifted the receiver, paused and then slammed it down again. Still the others said nothing.

  ‘You’re not being fair,’ she howled, tears of rage burning her cheeks. ‘You’re not telling me everything. Den’s the only straight person in this whole vile business. He’s the only one I can trust.’

  ‘Phone him, then,’ said Miranda, coolly. ‘We’re not stopping you.’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t know his home number. I’ll have to wait till tomorrow. He’s coming to take me out, anyway.’

  ‘When?’ Miranda demanded.

  ‘One day soon. We didn’t make a precise date.’ Lilah kicked viciously at a pot of pampas grass, sending it rolling across the room. Miranda flinched at the
violence. Jonathan and his dog drew closer together, ludicrously comic to Lilah in her hysteria.

  ‘Steady on, kiddo,’ he said, as she crumpled into a mix of sobs and laughter. He got up then, and went to her. ‘Come on, now. It’ll sort itself out. Maybe I should have waited to speak to your mum on her own. You’re getting out of your depth with all this. At your age everything seems so black and white. The point is, I think, that there seems to be one main suspect in everyone’s mind now. Cappy thinks the same and it’s someone we’re all fond of, someone we can see had plenty of provocation. We just can’t really see how it would benefit anyone – not the cause of justice, or the greater good, or any worthy moral cause – if he was sent to prison for years. Some people survive prison more or less intact, but most don’t. This chap wouldn’t. It’s a serious thing we’re talking about here. We all know that. But your mother and I – and Cappy – know that it isn’t black and white. Do you see?’

  Lilah went on crying, clinging to his shoulder; Roxanne pushed at her with her nose, wanting to play this odd new game.

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Miranda suddenly. ‘Look at the time!’

  They both turned to stare blankly at her.

  ‘Roddy,’ she said. ‘We were supposed to meet him at school twenty minutes ago.’

  For Lilah, it was a fitting end to a day which had begun far too early. Awkwardly she disengaged from Jonathan and sat heavily on the floor. ‘Well I’m not getting him,’ she said. ‘I should have been in bed by now. He’ll phone in a minute. Tell him to get a taxi.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Jonathan, valiantly. ‘I’ve got the car. Let me fetch him. I’ll go right away. If he phones, tell him to stand where I can see him.’

  Neither woman attempted to argue. All Miranda said was, ‘Leave Roxanne here, then. We enjoy her company and I don’t suppose she wants to go for a drive in the dark.’