“Why?” There was belligerence and fear in the swollen eyes.
“We’re not sure of the cause of death. We’ll need another opinion anyway since Mr. Morgan wasn’t under my care.”
“I thought he had a heart attack.” She looked up at the other woman. “Didn’t you say he had, Wendy?”
“I said it looked like one, Muriel.”
Heaven save her from amateur diagnoses.
“Wasn’t it then, Doctor?” Muriel Morgan asked. “Why the coroner? That means they’re going to cut him up, doesn’t it?”
“That depends.” Scant comfort but…
“Doctor, I don’t want him cut up. He’d hate that!” She broke down sobbing and Alice, loathing this part of the job like poison, handed over her own laundered handkerchief.
Muriel sobbed into it while Wendy muttered, “There, there, Muriel,” and treated Alice to a definite scowl. “Is that really necessary?”
“We believe so.”
Muriel looked up, her eyes redder than ever, and sniffed. “Your father would have known a heart attack when he saw one. If he were here…”
She refused to be hurt by the slight on her professional prowess. “I wish he were here, too, Mrs. Morgan. I can’t sign the death certificate unless I’m completely certain. Your husband deserves better than that.”
She nodded, her eyes blank with grief and shock. “I just know he’d hate to be cut up.”
The poor man was long past being distressed by that. “I know the thought’s upsetting, but once it’s over and settled, it will be worth it.” She hoped.
“I suppose the police will pester Muriel with more questions.”
The woman was sharp-tongued. “No more than they feel necessary. I’m Dr. Doyle. I apologize for not introducing myself. I forget people outside Brytewood don’t know me.” She offered her had, which the woman took with an air of reluctance.
“I’m Wendy, I was helping Muriel with the pickles. We was busy in the kitchen when Fred went out.”
“She’s my sister. Visiting from London. I told her to come down here and get away from all those bombs,” Muriel added.
“Welcome to Brytewood and I’m sorry this happened, but I am glad Mrs. Morgan has company. Can you stay a few days?”
“I was planning on it. My house in Clapham got a direct hit last week.”
She was entitled to be a trifle acerbic. “How terrible for you.” And thousands of others. “And now this on top of it, but I’m really glad Mrs. Morgan has company for a while. This will take a few days.” Maybe longer given everyone was short-staffed.
“You’ve got more questions, I suppose.”
“I’m afraid so.” Wendy seemed to mellow a little so Alice pressed on. “What happened? You were both in the house?”
She nodded. “Bottling up a couple of recipes of piccalilli. We had plenty of vegetables and thought it might help brighten up a few meals now that rationing has started. We were all in the kitchen when Fred said he’d heard a noise outside. We’ve been bothered by a fox around the henhouse the last few nights so he went out to look.”
“He took his gun?”
Wendy shook her head. “No, just a light. Said it would scare the blighter off.”
Alice nodded, suspecting Farmer Morgan had used a saltier expression. “Was he out there long?”
“Long enough for us to fill seven or eight jars. First off we heard him shout, thought he was scaring off the fox. He didn’t come back in, then we heard this awful scream, more like a howl than anything else. We both ran out and found him in Esmerelda’s sty.” It never ceased to amaze Alice the names given animals destined to be slaughtered. “The old sow was shivering in a corner, scared to bits to see her master drop dead in front of her.”
“So he screamed before he died?”
“It wasn’t just a scream,” Muriel Morgan piped in. “It was unearthly, like a sound from a nightmare.” Even allowing the widow’s grief, the description sent a shiver down Alice’s back. “Was he in pain, d’you think, Doctor?”
Certainly sounded like it. “That’s what the postmortem will establish.”
Declining a belatedly offered cup of tea, Alice went back to the kitchen. Seemed somehow very sad that poor Fred Morgan was laid out on the very table where he’d no doubt tucked into Muriel’s generous cooking.
“What d’you think, Doctor?” Sergeant Jones asked. “Call for them to come get him in the morning?”
They were asking her, and she had no idea. Brytewood residents tended to die peacefully in their beds, not like this.
“Think we should call the detectives in from Leatherhead?” PC Parlett suggested.
The sergeant shook his head. “Not unless the doctor thinks so.”
“Do we have any reason to suspect foul play?”
Both shook their heads. Alice tamped down the feeling of unease. “Let’s see what the coroner has to say.”
Gran was waiting when she finally got home. “You’ll be needing a nice cup of cocoa. Have a seat, Alice, and I’ll warm up the milk.”
Alice hung up her coat, kicked off her shoes, and gladly accepted a couple of Osbourne biscuits and a mug of cocoa, which came, she noticed at the first sip, with a generous tot of rum. “Trying to knock me out, Gran?”
“No, love, but you looked so peaky when you came in, I decided you needed a little warm-up. Was it bad?”
Good question. “No death is easy, is it? But this was…” How the heck could she describe it? Gran waited as Alice took another drink and let her mind sort out the possible adjectives to describe the odd atmosphere up at Morgan farm. “It was…odd.” Inadequate but…
“How did he die?”
“That was what was strange. We’re calling in the coroner. Mrs. Morgan was upset about it, but I couldn’t in all conscience sign the death certificate.” She bit on one of the Osbourne biscuits and chewed, then dunked the other half and let it melt in her mouth. “Something wasn’t right, Gran.” She explained all she’d seen up at the farm and Mrs. Morgan’s account of finding him. “It just seems wrong.”
She half-expected another lecture about using her innate gifts but instead, Gran nodded. “Trust your instincts, Alice. They won’t let you down. After all, it’s not the first strange thing in the village this week.”
“You mean the disappearing man?” Of course she did. “They could hardly be connected.” Could they?
“Everything is connected, Alice. We can’t always see how. Just remember to trust your instincts, and things turn out.”
Maybe, but if she followed her instincts about her new assistant, she’d hand him the white feather.
Chapter 6
“One of them has killed,” Bela told them when they returned in the early morning. They were not pleased. The anger came off them as cold waves despite their calm faces.
“Which one?” Zuerst asked.
“Eiche.”
“You are certain of this?” Zweiten snapped.
“I sensed it. You told me to stay alert to them whenever I was awake.”
“But you are sure he killed?”
She nodded at Zuerst. How many times did she have to speak to be believed? “He was feeding. At first it was an animal, a creature without a mind or thought, but then he was connected to a human. I felt his terror. I felt the life leave him.” She would not add she also felt the victim’s strength. Eiche must have absorbed some of it, but the rest flowed into her. After the shock and the pain of the death, she was stronger and that her captors would never know. If every time the vampires killed she strengthened, maybe one day she could cross the iron barriers that kept her imprisoned.
“Your attention, fräulein!”
She jumped at Zuerst’s command. “Apologies. I am tired.”
“You did not sleep?”
“It is hard to rest when they do not.” Not completely true, but she did know when they were moving. And now, killing.
“Then rest while you can,” Zweiten said. “In a few weeks you
will need all your talents.”
In a few weeks she hoped to be gone from here. Although where she could go that the dreaded Nazis would not find her was still an unanswered question.
But even a lone Fairy, once freed, was a force to be reckoned with.
Chapter 7
Peter Watson looked out of the window at the passing countryside and wondered what the heck he was doing riding a bus. If he had the sense he was born with he’d be spending his day off packing his few belongings or waiting for the pubs to open, but instead, after demanding the day off, he’d seen the bus waiting at the corner was going to Leatherhead via Brytewood. A roundabout route if ever there was one, and he’d taken it as sign from heaven and jumped on as it was moving off.
Now he had a good twenty minutes to consider the impulse.
He could see about a billet in Brytewood. He didn’t have the billeting officer’s name or phone number but how hard could it be to find out in a village?
While he was there, he might as well ask about work hours and duties. Even if it did entail meeting the scornful eyes of the downright beautiful doctor. Dash it all! Might as well admit he fancied her—snubs, sneering, and all. He had to be bonkers. And why on earth had he practically begged her not to judge him? Did it matter what she thought about him?
For some impossible-to-fathom reason, yes.
He spent the rest of the ride trying to sort that one out.
He got off the bus in the center of the village. Right across from the post office and general store and a few yards from the Pig and Whistle. Now that he was actually here, his impulse seemed stupid. Why meet trouble halfway? Monday would have been quite soon enough. But he was here and might as well look around.
He hadn’t taken more than three steps from the bus stop when the grandmother, the woman from Devon, met his eyes with a broad smile. “You’ve come early. We were expecting you Monday.”
“I had a day off due me and decided to have a look around.”
“Wonderful!” She almost convinced him it was. “Do you have anywhere special to go then?”
“Just thought I’d have a look around and perhaps see the billeting officer.” It struck him her eyes were just like the doctor’s: a deep, clear blue.
“That’s taken care of. You’ll be staying with Sergeant Pendragon. His son’s off in the Army and he’ll be glad of the company.”
That’s what she thought! Blimey, was he getting back into the same situation? “Are you sure?” He hated sounding diffident but the last thing he wanted was an unwilling host. “Is he aware I’m a CO?”
“Of course. I told him.” She patted his hand, and he couldn’t miss how thin and delicate her skin was. She had to be older than she looked. “He understands you’re fighting the war in your own way.”
He’d never had another person put it quite like that. “I hope I’ll be of use here. I’ve only the sketchiest idea of my assignment.”
He wondered if the doctor laughed like her grandmother. “Oh, my love! Just you wait. You’ll be stretched thin and overworked before the week is out.” The prospect obviously delighted her. “You can’t imagine how much we need you. When Alice’s father ran the practice he had an assistant. Alice is now doing the work of two and has the evacuees in addition to the villagers and she’s seeing the workers up at the government installation on the heath. Gloria—that’s the district nurse—does more than her share and desperately needs another pair of hands.” She gave him another pat. On his sleeve this time. “Trust me, you’re going to be welcomed with open arms.”
That he doubted. Open snarl from the good doctor was more likely. Pity that. He fancied she’d look smashing if she smiled.
“…don’t you think?”
He had been off in the outer reaches. “Beg your pardon, I was looking at the church. Interesting. Saxon is it?”
“Yes, or was until the Victorians started their improvements.” She gave him an intent look. “Interested in ecclesiastical architecture?”
Was that a note of amusement or a tinge of sarcasm? “No more than the next person. Just something about a church and a duck pond and a village green reminds me of home.”
“Life’s different here, though,” she replied, almost as if talking to herself. “Maybe it’s the proximity to London. Maybe they are just all so English.” She shook her head and gave a wry smile. “You’ll understand, coming from the West Country.”
She wasn’t potty, that he was certain of. In fact, the way she spoke reminded him of his own grandmother. She’d died a few months before his father but he remembered her tales. “You mean the wild hunt? Pixies?”
She laughed. “The wild hunt is coming straight from Germany and falling from the skies these days. And as for the Good Folk, what does a young man know of them?”
“I know what my grandmother told me.”
“And you believed her?”
“I was seven at the time.” He believed everything back then. Even that grown-ups were invincible and indestructible.
“Don’t tell Dr. Doyle you believe in the Good Folk.” She gave a dry chuckle. “She’ll think you as barmy as her old Gran.”
It was hardly likely he’d end up discussing Devon folklore with the doctor. He’d be lucky to exchange two civil sentences.
“Don’t you worry too much about Alice,” she went on. Crikey, could she read his mind? “She’s a good girl at heart and as good a doctor as her father was.”
And she couldn’t stand his guts.
Sergeant Pendragon proved as welcoming as Mrs. Burrows claimed. After the woman deposited Peter at the Pendragon front door and skeedadled off as fast as she could, even to the point of refusing a cup of tea, Peter and Howell Pendragon faced each other over the scrubbed kitchen table.
“Care for a bite of lunch?”
“No, thanks. Just tea would be splendid.”
The old man shook his head. “Tell the truth, young man. Yer hungry, right? Never say ‘no’ to a chance to eat. I learned that in the last war.”
Mention of the last war had to be a preamble to talk of the current one. “I hate to put you to the trouble.”
“Think of it as giving me company. It’s good to have a young man across the table and you might as well learn yer way around the kitchen. Bread’s in the bread bin.” He indicated a chipped enamel one by the back door. “And the board and knife over there.” He nodded toward the edge of the draining board. “You cut us some bread. Don’t have any butter left I’m afraid, but I’ve some cheese and pickled onions. I’ll fetch them while the kettle boils.”
They sat down to pint mugs of tea and doorsteps of bread with slices of delicious crumbly, white cheese and homemade pickled onions.
“Thank you,” Peter said as Howell Pendragon refilled his mug. “I think that’s the best meal I’ve had in weeks. Where did you get that cheese?” He hesitated—was that being rudely inquisitive?
“My old aunt back in Anglesey sends me a cheese every so often. She helps my cousins out on their farm. I don’t ask how she has so much spare that the government don’t grab. I just say ‘thank you.’”
Peter couldn’t hold back the smile and the thought of an old lady hiding cheese from the Ministry of Food inspectors. He raised his mug. “Good health and my thanks to your aunt in Anglesey!”
Howell Pendragon nodded and raised his own mug. “I think you’d get on with old Aunt Blod. She’s always been one to face life her own way and damn what people say. And they’ve always said plenty about her. Some even say she’s a witch.”
The last statement contained a loaded question. And demanded a response. “Doesn’t every village claim a witch or two? Where I grew up there was an old lady lived down by the old millpond. Old Mother Hastings was her name. She scared the willies out of us children, but women in the village went to her for herbal remedies and all sorts of things. I can remember even my mother going to her when she had a skin rash that nothing the doctor prescribed could cure.”
Howell Pendrago
n smiled. “Don’t say things like that within earshot of the doctor—she’d brush it off as superstition.”
“And you don’t?” Peter held little faith in all that superstition himself.
“I’d say go for whatever works. No one knows everything.”
Heavens was that true! “You’re right there.”
“Mind if I smoke?”
In his own kitchen? “Go ahead.”
He spent a few minutes cleaning the dottle out of his pipe, refilling carefully, and puffing on it as he lit the tobacco. All set, he took the pipe out of his mouth and exhaled toward the window. “Nothing like a good pipe after a meal. I think we’ll deal well together, young man. Just one thing I have to know, seeing as how we’re going to be sitting across the table from each other for the next heaven knows how long: What made you stand up as a CO?”
Talk about hitting a man between the metaphorical eyes! Peter stared, stunned for several seconds, then took a breath. He’d faced the question before and evaded the sticky issue of personal details, but Howell Pendragon offered friendship and courtesy and he had a point. If Peter was going to be living in the man’s house, he was entitled to ask. Another deep breath. “Can I have your word this stays between us?”
He nodded, putting the stem on the pipe between his teeth. “You have it. I’m not one to gossip at any time. This is between the two of us and the kitchen table, if that’s what you want.”
Fair enough. Better make it a precise as possible. “My father always promised me that when I turned ten, he’d teach me to shoot. I was a demanding and impatient little bugger and couldn’t wait. I was forbidden to touch his guns. I disobeyed. Went into his gun room one afternoon, took down his Rigby, and ignoring any rules I’d ever had pounded into my thick skull, loaded it, and practiced sighting.
“Dad walked in on me and demanded to know what I was doing. I was so startled, as I turned around, my fingers closed on the trigger. I got him in the chest at about four feet.”
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