The Pull of the Moon

by Diane Janes

  When I was finally satisfied, I took the pen and book back to my own room. I extracted the money from inside the back cover, putting twenty pounds in my purse and the remainder in the inner pocket of my anorak, which had been hanging unworn in the wardrobe ever since we arrived. Then I set about gathering all my things together, piling them on the bed so that it would only take a matter of minutes to pack them in my rucksack.

  I couldn’t quite shake off the idea that I should have learned something from Trudie’s library book, but the voice of reason reminded me that it only proved how daft and far-fetched Trudie’s ideas had been. Murdered Agnes had clearly not been in touch with Trudie. She had no need to be – her mystery had been put to bed by Maisy Wotsername. Moreover she had ultimately received justice in its acutest form. The murderous vicar had been executed for his crimes.

  I kept the book to one side ready to take it downstairs with me, but I hesitated over the pen. It would be very difficult to destroy it but binning it might be too dangerous. Not many people had four initials. Maybe no one but Trudie had that particular combination. I didn’t trust the guys to come up with a safe solution; so I decided to keep the discovery to myself and hid the pen in my anorak pocket with the balance of Trudie’s money.

  The hall was so gloomy that before descending the stairs I switched on the lights, but this only served to increase the sense of depression, highlighting the long wisps of cobweb floating from the ceiling and the film of dust which lay over everything. It was as if the house manufactured dust, I thought; breathing in stale air overnight, then exhaling it as dust the following morning, so that I could never hope to keep pace with it. For some reason this reminded me about the hose pipe, slowly filling the pond. The moment I allowed my guard to slip far enough to allow in one image associated with the pond, it was followed by a host of others that I didn’t want to see. I couldn’t stand much more of this. I had to get away.

  As I entered the kitchen through one door, Simon came in at the other.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Have you worked out how long it is until your uncle gets here?’ (It occurred to me – too late – that I might have been able to use Trudie’s diary to work this out, if only I hadn’t been so busy snooping.)

  ‘No, I haven’t thought about it.’

  That seemed a bit weird. Surely Simon must be wondering how his uncle would take the fact that so much of the projected garden development was still unfinished. He must have sensed what I was thinking, because he added, ‘I can’t think of anything – I can’t think straight at all.’

  A brisk barrage of knocking interrupted us. There was someone at the front door – someone who favoured the traditional rat-a-tat-tat approach to making themselves heard. Simon’s eyes widened and he gripped the back of the nearest chair, as if he needed its support. I too must have been on the verge of hysteria because for some reason this latest development struck me as extremely funny. ‘It’ll be the Avon Lady,’ I said. ‘Shall I go?’

  Simon evidently didn’t get the joke. After gaping at me for a few seconds, he said, ‘You see who it is. I’ll wait here.’

  I almost skipped along the hall, positively lightheaded. We’d already had the builders, the police and the news brought by the postman. What more could Fate throw at us?

  The man waiting on the step was tall and thin. He was wearing an old-fashioned tweedy suit and grey sideburns on a scale which outdid Noddy Holder’s. In his hands he held a hat which he had presumably just removed. It looked for all the world like a deerstalker. I suppressed a wild urge to laugh. Having run out of other tricks the gods had sent us Sherlock Holmes.

  The man regarded me as someone might look at a slug who has invaded their greenhouse. He wasted no time on preliminaries. ‘Is Trudie in?’

  Aha – the direct approach – trying to catch me off guard. ‘No,’ I said carefully, not least because I was still fighting to subdue my mirth. ‘She doesn’t live here any more.’

  He regarded me with disbelief. ‘Are you sure? She specifically told me this is where I could find her.’

  I started to return to my senses. ‘Why? I mean – who are you?’

  He reached inside his jacket and extracted a card which he held in my direction. I took it from him and discerned that he was an antiques dealer from Leominster. Having read the card I handed it back, uncertain what my next move ought to be. He continued to stand on the front step, evidently expecting an invitation to enter. When none was forthcoming he began to speak, his tone somewhat impatient, his face screwed up as if assailed by a bad smell. ‘Trudie came into my shop last week and showed me something rather valuable. It was outside my speciality but I told her I would make enquiries with a friend and it turns out that he is interested. I have come to tell her so.’

  ‘What was it Trudie showed you?’

  ‘I rather think that is between myself and Trudie.’

  ‘It might not have been hers, you see. It might have belonged to someone else. Someone who – lives here.’

  ‘I see. I did explain to the young lady that the question of how she had come by such an item would inevitably arise, before it could be put up for sale. Do you know something about the item in question?’

  Oh God. Now he was starting to wonder if we were a ring of antique thieves or something. ‘I don’t know,’ I hedged. ‘It depends what the item is. It’s not a teapot with roses on it by any chance?’

  He drew himself up as if insulted. ‘It is a stamp. For your information an Hawaiian Missionary stamp. Now is the girl who called herself Trudie here or isn’t she?’

  I stared at him. Was it all a joke? What would missionaries be doing with stamps? The sensation that I had stumbled into a Monty Python sketch began to reassert itself. Then I gasped. ‘It was on an envelope, wasn’t it? It was the thing her grandmother gave her.’

  ‘So she said, yes. Although my friend would require some sort of proof. But you say she doesn’t live here any more. In which case are you able to get a message to her, or tell me where she has gone?’ His voice was increasingly tetchy. No doubt he had detected my earlier amusement and suspected me of giving him the run around. His irritation made me nervous, but I couldn’t pull myself together. I thought about that envelope – that tatty old envelope to which I hadn’t given so much as a second glance. In my mind’s eye I saw it blackening as the flames crept toward it, then suddenly being engulfed: its precious cargo snatched into instant oblivion.

  ‘You say she’s not here?’ he repeated. A little white spot had appeared at the end of his nose. I could see he was on the edge of losing his temper.

  ‘No, she’s gone.’

  ‘And you don’t know where to?’

  ‘No. She didn’t say. She hadn’t decided.’

  ‘Then I’ve wasted my time,’ he said, abruptly turning towards his car, saying something under his breath that I didn’t hear.

  The blood pounded in my head. Who else might Trudie have confided her whereabouts to? She had barely been dead a couple of days and already the search for her was narrowing in our direction. Suppose this man had spotted Trudie’s name in the papers? She was supposed to be a runaway in hiding, but here she was giving out her address to all and sundry. She had even told him her own name. Her first name anyway. Trudie – that was who he had asked for. Maybe she hadn’t said Finch – maybe she’d only said Trudie or maybe Trudie Eccles, or something equally daft. Suppose she had been introducing herself in other antique shops, talking to other dealers.

  For a wild fanciful moment I wondered if I ought to find a way to prevent him from leaving. Entice him into the house, poison him with my cooking, then have the boys bury him alongside Trudie. Perhaps that’s how mass murderers got started – one thing leading inexorably to another: because once you have begun there’s no turning back . . . But I had let my quarry escape. I closed the front door, resigning myself to the fact that I was not successful mass murderer material.

  Simon had been listening from the other end of the hall. He retreated
into the kitchen at my approach. ‘Who was it?’ he asked, as I entered the room. ‘What did he want?’

  I stared at him. I knew he must have heard every word. I didn’t have a chance to respond, because just then Danny came in from the garden, saying that he’d turned off the hose pipe and thought the whole thing would look better once there were some plants round the edges. ‘Perhaps we ought to go to the plant nursery tomorrow and buy some.’

  This gave me my cue. ‘Is the nursery towards Leominster? Because I was thinking, you know, with Si’s uncle coming back and everything, that the best thing would be for me to go to Cecile’s family after all – and I can get a train from Leominster.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Danny made no attempt to disguise his annoyance. I realized I had sprung it on him too quickly.

  ‘I know you said I could stay with you – but I think this would be safer.’

  ‘No,’ said Danny abruptly. ‘It wouldn’t be. We’ve got to stick together.’

  At that moment I felt more certain than I had ever been that ‘together’ was not an option. I had to get completely clear of that house and of Danny. I had to find a way of shutting this whole horrible mess into a cupboard and never opening the door on it again.

  ‘Someone’s just been here,’ said Simon. ‘He was looking for Trudie. Katy sent him away.’

  Danny turned to me. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Just some old guy – an antiques dealer. Trudie had been into his shop, asking about a stamp.’

  ‘What stamp?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Some stamp her grandmother had given her. What does it matter – we’ve burnt it now anyway. I told him she’d gone away.’

  Danny whistled between his teeth. ‘Shit. I wonder how many more people are going to turn up here, looking for her.’

  ‘That’s just the thing,’ I said. ‘If we weren’t here, we couldn’t be asked anything.’

  ‘We need to be here, to give the right answers if anyone does ask.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think you’re wrong. And can’t you see that all the time we’re here, together, we’re never going to be able to stop thinking about what’s happened? Simon’s uncle coming back is the best possible thing that could happen. This way none of us has to stay here the whole summer – we can all get away.’

  ‘You have to stay with me,’ Danny persisted. ‘I don’t want you to go to France.’

  ‘It would be for the best,’ I said.

  Simon had been looking from one to the other of us, saying nothing. I addressed him directly. ‘Will you take me into Leominster, Si?’

  Danny gave him no opportunity to reply. ‘You’re not going,’ he said. ‘You can’t go. We’re meant to be together. What about us – our future?’

  ‘There is no us – we have no future. Can’t you see that? Whenever I’m with you, I’ll always be thinking about what happened here. The only way any of us can hope to forget is to stay well away from one another – and even then . . .’ I trailed off, allowing Danny another opportunity.

  ‘That’s crazy. Tell her she’s crazy, Si. The only way is to stick together.’

  I turned to Simon, deliberately blanking Danny. ‘Please will you drive me into Leominster – if not this afternoon then first thing tomorrow?’

  ‘Don’t take her,’ Danny butted in. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s saying. By tomorrow she’ll have changed her mind.’

  We both faced Simon, forcing him to choose.

  ‘The nursery isn’t on the way to Leominster,’ he said. He didn’t say it as if he was making a decision; it was just an observation, spoken in a flat tone of voice, as if in response to a different question posed by some other voice we couldn’t hear.

  I decided to assume he had declined. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll make my own way.’

  Danny tried to put a conciliatory arm around my shoulders. ‘Why not sleep on it?’ he suggested, in a much kinder tone.

  I shrugged him off. ‘I’m going to pack,’ I said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I stamped out of the kitchen, not exactly slamming the door but undoubtedly applying greater force than was necessary. I would show them. Even biddable old Katy had her limits.

  The few minutes it took me to shovel everything into my rucksack afforded sufficient time to contemplate the realities of the situation. The afternoon was already well advanced and I was at least four or five miles from the nearest town. I didn’t know what time the buses ran, or where they ran to, and even if I could get to Leominster it was probably too late to complete my complicated train journey that night. A bed and breakfast would eat deep into my precious travel fund, even assuming that I could find somewhere to stay. I wasn’t equipped for camping. I could try hitch-hiking, but it wasn’t recommended for women on their own and sure as eggs were eggs I would fall in with a murderous psychopath and finish up dead in a ditch.

  As I fastened the straps of my rucksack I heard the first patter of raindrops on the window. Great – that was all I needed. How long would it take me to walk five miles? When I lifted the rucksack off the bed, I was also forced to consider how far I could actually carry it.

  I decided to appeal directly to Simon again. Maybe if Danny wasn’t around, I could persuade him to run me into Leominster straight away. I wasn’t mad about the idea of being on my own in the car with Simon, but I was spurred on by the thought that an immediate departure might still see me in London that night, if not at the coast itself.

  I descended the stairs cautiously because I didn’t want to encounter Danny if I could avoid it. I had more than half expected him to follow me upstairs and attempt to convince me of the error of my ways – but he was probably giving me time to cool off. He would not have banked on my being packed and ready to leave in ten minutes flat.

  The kitchen door was closed so I got right up to it before I heard voices coming from the other side. Damn it – I had counted on Simon being alone but they were both still in there. I was about to creep away again when I heard my name. I didn’t catch what Simon was saying about me, but Danny’s reply came through loud and clear. ‘Not on your life. Katy stays here with us.’

  ‘I say let her go if she wants to. I could take her to the station this afternoon.’

  I laid a hand on the door, elated to discover that Simon had apparently come down on my side.

  ‘She doesn’t really want to go,’ Danny began, but Simon interrupted him.

  ‘Yes, she does – and we’d be better off without her.’

  ‘Don’t say that about Katy.’ The sudden anger in Danny’s voice took me by surprise. My hand jerked away from the door as if the panels were red hot. ‘You just want her out of the way.’

  ‘I’m just thinking about what’s best for all of us. And she doesn’t know, does she?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  There was a pause. When Simon spoke again his delivery seemed slower and more precise than it had ever been. ‘I covered for you. When the police came and asked me about the screwdriver.’

  The words stopped me dead. The cold from the stone floor travelled upwards, stiffening me like washing frozen on a clothes line. It seemed to take forever before Danny spoke again.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re going on about that for.’ I found it impossible to gauge his mood. He sounded half amused, half irritated. ‘The screwdriver was easy enough to explain. There’s no problem about that.’

  ‘Only that it wasn’t true,’ said Simon.

  ‘What? Are you saying you don’t believe they found the screwdriver in that girl’s room?’

  ‘No. I’m saying I lied about it to the police.’

  ‘Well, that’s what friends are for, Si.’

  ‘That’s not why I did it. By then we were all up to our necks and I had no choice.’

  ‘Come off it, Si. You did it because you lurve me.’

  ‘Piss off,’ said Simon, angrily; but the words ended in a sort of sob.

  ‘We’re best mates, you and I – alway
s will be, yeah? But don’t imagine you can blackmail me with fairy stories about screwdrivers.’ Danny’s tone hardened as he continued. ‘Nothing you or anyone else can do is going to stop me being with Katy. I’m in love with Katy and you just can’t take that, can you?’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like to really care about someone,’ Simon burst out. ‘You don’t have feelings like other people. You’re not – not normal.’

  ‘I’m not normal. That’s a good one, coming from you! I’ve started to think I’m the only one who is normal round here. Everyone knows you’re as bent as a five bob note.’

  ‘At least I’m honest about it – with myself and other people.’ Simon’s voice rose to a shout. ‘At least I’m not a nutter – why did you do it, you bastard? Why? Why?’

  There was no sound from the kitchen for several minutes, then Danny spoke again. He sounded perfectly calm and friendly. ‘Look, Si, you’re the greatest, right? We’re a good team. Butch and the Kid. Laurel and Hardy. Morecambe and Wise.’

  A chair scraped across the floor. I couldn’t tell which one of them it belonged to. After a moment Danny spoke again. ‘The three of us were great together. There wasn’t any friction until Trudie came along – how about the Grand Tour of Europe? We’re still on for that, right? Nothing’s really changed.’

  When Simon eventually spoke his voice echoed all the disbelief I was experiencing myself – but there was something more – a sense of utter despair. ‘I lied for you. I thought it was the right thing to do – but now I see I was wrong. I’ve done a terrible thing and ruined my whole life. I can’t take back what I told them, even if I wanted to. I’m implicated now whatever happens. So’s Katy. I wondered if she was in it too – but she wasn’t, was she? It was all you.’

  ‘Si, Si, what are you saying?’ Danny was soothing as syrup. ‘You’re talking rubbish, man. They’ve got absolutely nothing on any of us. You explained to them what happened about the screwdriver and they went off satisfied.’