The Hiding Places

by Katherine Webb

  ‘But he didn’t actually see him there all night, did he? I mean, Tanner was alone in the shed. Nobody watched over him.’

  ‘No. I suppose not.’

  Irene accepted a steaming mug of tea, dark and bitter from its agitated brewing. She sipped it and thought back to the terrible morning of Alistair’s death. The odd stillness in the house that had made her skin prickle; the grey veil of rain outside; the way she’d been disappointed, for the first time since she’d married him, not to have seen her husband before he’d left for the day. It brought a lump to her throat, and a renewed flare of anger.

  ‘It rained very heavily the morning Alistair was killed,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. So what?’ said Pudding.

  ‘Well, if Tanner had perhaps only feigned his drunkenness, and had crept back to the mill in the early hours to attack Alistair, and had then returned to the shed in order to give himself an alibi …’

  ‘He’d have got soaking wet!’

  ‘He would. His boots, at least, even if he’d had a raincoat that he got rid of somewhere.’

  ‘So … if he was wet when Bob Walker kicked him out in the morning …’

  ‘Then holes begin to appear in his alibi,’ said Irene. Pudding chewed her lip for a moment, then put her mug down abruptly, slopping the contents.

  ‘Let’s go and ask him, then.’ She stood, and hitched up her breeches.

  ‘What, now?’ said Irene, startled.

  ‘Well, when, then?’ said Pudding. Irene thought for a moment, then stifled her own fears and stood up as well.

  Pudding had Dundee, the cob pony, hitched to the Stanhope in no time, and drove them to Biddestone with the nonchalance of long practice, trotting briskly along Ham Lane once they were up the steep hill out of Slaughterford. Irene had an uneasy sense of transgressing, of cheating in some way, but Pudding watched the lane between the pony’s ears with a kind of fixed determination, clucking her tongue whenever they slowed. Irene peered along the driveway to Biddestone Hall as they passed it, but saw no sign of the McKinleys. They had possibly gone away after the funeral, to a place less dogged by sorrow. She remembered Cora’s enthusiastic response to the tentative letter Irene had sent, on Alistair’s suggestion; the trip to Cousin Amelia by the sea that had never happened. There hadn’t been time before everything had fallen apart, but perhaps if they’d gone they might have been friends, in spite of what came next. But then, perhaps Cora was just one more person who’d loved Alistair better than Irene had; one more person whose grief was more visceral than her own.

  The White Horse was an uneven whitewashed building set back from the green by the duck pond in the centre of Biddestone. It was nearing midday, and a few men from the wood mill were sitting outside, swigging from glasses of dark beer and brushing the sawdust from their hair. Pudding and Irene drew curious glances, and Irene wondered how they looked, the pair of them – herself so very overdressed and out of place, and Pudding scowling and grubby with her chest all but popping the buttons of her shirt. Irene did her best not to look awkward. They found Bob Walker, the landlord, in the yard behind the inn, carrying a stack of old news-sheets towards the outhouse. He was massive in both height and girth, with hands like paddles, stooped shoulders and blond hair that was thinning on top but spread down his cheeks in big, wiry sideburns.

  ‘Ar? Help you ladies?’ he said, when he saw them. Buck teeth gave him a way of leaving his bottom lip hanging that made him look simple, but he seemed friendly enough. Irene and Pudding exchanged a glance, and Irene realised that she was expected to speak first.

  ‘Ah yes. How do you do? I’m Irene Hadleigh, and this is … Pudding Cartwright,’ she said, realising that she still didn’t know Pudding’s real name.

  ‘The doctor’s lass.’ Bob nodded, which set his chins wobbling. ‘And ’ee can’t be the new widow, can ’ee?’ He shook his head. ‘Fearful business.’

  ‘Yes. Indeed.’ Irene hated her own voice just then; hated how it turned all her words into empty things. She sounded, she realised, just like her mother. She hurried on. ‘We were wondering if we might talk to you a little bit, Mr Walker, about Mr Tanner’s … recent time with you. The night before the … incident at the mill.’ At this Bob put down the papers and folded his arms, looking uneasy.

  ‘Oh, ar?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. The thing is … The thing is, we wanted to ask whether you’re quite, entirely certain that Mr Tanner was as drunk as he appeared to be.’

  ‘That police ’un, the dark-haired fellow, he asked I the same thing. I’ll tell ’ee like I told him – Tanner’d had enough drink to kill most men. In here all the afternoon long, he were. Sad about something, it seemed to me. Even saw him weep for a time, I did, though not a soul will believe a word o’ that.’

  ‘But he’s a man well used to drink, is he not?’

  ‘It’s true he is. A most valued customer,’ said Bob, with a grin.

  ‘But doesn’t he normally drink at the White Hart, in Ford?’ said Pudding.

  ‘Takes it in turns, we do, the Hart and I. He drinks here when he’s barred from there; drinks there when they’ll have him back.’

  ‘Mr Walker, I wonder if you can remember, when you came to put him out in the morning … was he wet?’ Irene asked. At this Bob pulled himself up straighter, and looked embarrassed.

  ‘What possible cause can ’ee have to want to know that?’ he asked, soberly. ‘Whether a man soils himself or—’

  ‘Oh, no! No – not in that way,’ Irene said hastily.

  ‘From the rain!’ Pudding interjected.

  ‘I cassn’t follow ’ee.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Walker,’ said Irene, flustered. ‘I know this must seem a very odd question. When you came to put Mr Tanner out in the morning, were his clothing, his boots – or perhaps his hair – wet at all, as though he had been out in the rain?’

  ‘But he weren’t out in it. He were in the shed, still sleeping like a babe, when I turfed him out.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But can you remember specifically, at all? Whether he was wet or dry, I mean?’

  ‘Well.’ Bob squinted up at the roof of his own establishment, and appeared to think hard. ‘Now ’ee mention it, I cassn’t recall. He must have been dry, then, else I’d have found it amiss, and remembered, wouldn’t I? Mind you, I was soaked right through from the short walk to the shed, and rain do wash in under the door of it, so perhaps if he were wet, I wouldn’t have thought that amiss either.’ He kept staring up at the roof, kept thinking, but nothing else appeared to be forthcoming.

  ‘So … which was it?’ said Pudding.

  ‘I cassn’t rightly say,’ Bob confessed. Pudding deflated a bit. ‘But if I had to call it, I’d say dry. I’d say he hadn’t stirred an inch from when I dropped him there the night before. I s’pose that’s why you’re asking?’ He looked at them shrewdly. ‘If he slipped out and done some dark deed, and slipped back to have I give him an alibi?’

  ‘Well … yes. Only please don’t put it about that we were asking,’ said Irene, her pulse quickening. She realised then how afraid of Tanner she was; afraid at some deep-down, gut level. Bob Walker nodded carefully.

  ‘As far as I can tell it, Mrs Hadleigh, he was here all that time.’

  The ride home had far less of an air of urgency. Pudding let Dundee dawdle so much that the pony paused now and then to snatch mouthfuls of the hedgerow. It was as though she didn’t want to get back to the farm at all.

  ‘Well, it struck me that Mr Walker was telling the truth,’ said Irene, to break a long silence that was becoming strained. ‘Not providing a false alibi.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pudding agreed, glumly. ‘Tanner wouldn’t have the money to bribe him, anyway. And he could hardly threaten him. Bob’s as big as a hayrick.’

  ‘So … I suppose the next question is when did it start to rain?’ Irene tried. ‘I mean, if it didn’t start until after Alistair was killed, then it doesn’t matter whether Tanner was wet or dry.’

  ‘But it a
lso wouldn’t prove one way or the other if he’d left the shed.’

  ‘True. But if … but if it didn’t start to rain until after he was killed, then the fact that Tanner stayed dry still means he could have sneaked out.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Pudding, and Irene gave up. It wasn’t enough, as Pudding clearly knew. The white lane shimmered in front of them and clouded with dust behind; the sky was painfully bright; a few faint wisps of cloud seemed impossibly high above them. Squinting was giving Irene a headache, and she wished she knew of some way to encourage Pudding, or cheer her. What cheer there could be for her until, and unless, her brother were released, Irene couldn’t think. Hers would be one more life blighted forever by whoever had stolen Alistair from them.

  ‘Well, we still haven’t got to the bottom of his motive, in any case,’ she said, desperately. ‘Why don’t we go and talk to the foreman at the mill, about him being fired?’ At this, Pudding straightened up a bit, and looked across at her.

  ‘Good idea! Oh – but I need to get back and get Tufty in off the grass, before he explodes. I should have done it before we left, really. And Dundee will need a rub down, it’s so blasted hot …’

  ‘Well … I’ll go, then,’ said Irene. She could think of few things she wanted to do less than walk down to the mill alone, and return to the very place Alistair had been killed, but she refused to yield to herself. ‘I’ll go, and see what I can discover.’

  ‘Right. I’ll drop you at the mill, then,’ said Pudding.

  There was a terrible moment outside the mill offices. Irene halted at the door to the old farmhouse, caught between the prickling stares of the workers in the yard behind her and the remembered horror of the room in front of her. She stood for a long time, her eyes down and her heart thumping, entirely unable to go either onwards or back. The mill machines rumbled; the air smelled of smuts, metal and the river. They all had so many questions for her, she knew: whether she would sell their place of work, their homes and land; what she would do; what their lives would be from now on and how they would change. And, real or imagined, she felt them blame her for all of it. It felt like a huge wave about to break over her head, and it smothered the anger she needed for strength. She jumped when the farmhouse door opened. George Turner, the foreman, came out with his face full of concern.

  ‘Mrs Hadleigh? Is everything all right?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. That is, no, not at all,’ said Irene. George nodded kindly.

  ‘Won’t you come inside out of this sun? One of the girls just brought a jug of iced tea over from the canteen, and I have to say, it’s not half bad. Plenty of cucumber.’ He took her elbow and ushered her in.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Irene couldn’t help but look at the place on the floor where, the last time she had seen it, Alistair had lain all bloody and dead. George said something else but it was drowned out by the thumping in her ears. As her eyes struggled to adapt, it looked, for a moment, as though a dark shadow remained; a patch of gloom that might have been his body, still, or the blackened crust of his blood. In a flash she was assailed by the thought of the Alistair-doll again, and the roots and creatures that would now be making their homes in what remained of him, buried in the ground. Her head swam.

  ‘Do sit down, Mrs Hadleigh.’ George touched her arm again, and Irene sank obediently into a chair, breathing deeply. ‘We had the thought of closing this place up – perhaps even knocking it down. Knocking it down and building something new to house the offices. I wasn’t sure …’ He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t sure if Mr Hadleigh himself would have liked that. Such a dramatic gesture, and the destruction of such a traditional part of the mill. Miss Hadleigh has said she would prefer it razed to the ground.’

  ‘Has she?’ Irene had heard Nancy make no such request; she herself hadn’t given the mill a second thought.

  ‘Oh, yes. In no uncertain terms. But perhaps decisions like that aren’t best made in the heat of the moment. A new building would be a considerable investment. For whoever had control of the mill.’

  ‘Nothing’s been decided yet,’ said Irene, more sharply than she’d intended.

  ‘Of course it hasn’t,’ said George, gently. ‘Do have some of this tea, and tell me how I can help you.’

  ‘Thank you. Sorry. I—’ Irene gathered herself. ‘You’re very kind. I wanted to ask about Mr Tanner.’

  ‘Tanner? What has the fellow been up to now?’

  ‘Oh – nothing like that. Well. I wanted to ask you, was he fired from the mill? Recently, I mean. I know he has been let go before, and then rehired. Pudding said she saw him drunk on the job, just a short while ago.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. He was indeed let go. It must be nearing three weeks ago now.’

  ‘I see,’ said Irene, trying to keep her voice neutral.

  ‘It was a grave shame. He had kept off the drink for a goodly while, but then all of a sudden, something seemed to set him off. And he never does anything by halves, does Tanner. One drink leads to twenty or thirty, with him. Mr Hadleigh was sympathetic, but he had no choice but to let him go.’

  ‘I imagine Mr Tanner was very angry about that.’

  ‘Oh yes, all the usual bluster. But I know the man well enough to know that the person he’s most angry with is himself. Not that he has the capacity to recognise that, of course. Mr Hadleigh told him he could have his job back again if he stayed sober a month long, and—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was told he could have his job back as long as he stayed sober a full month. It was an arrangement that had worked quite well before – the man needs a good reason to lay off it, you see.’

  ‘So … it wasn’t acrimonious?’ she asked, sinking inside. George grunted.

  ‘Oh, there’s always acrimony, with Mr Tanner. He’s the type to soundly reject any show of charity. But Mr Hadleigh had got onto his good side, over the years – as good a side as the man has, of course. He’s a bad sort, and some men are just born that way. What other employer would have a man back, over and again, in similar circumstances? Precious few, I should think. I made the same point to the police superintendent, when he asked about it. But when your husband saw a problem, or a person in trouble, he took it upon himself to alleviate the situation – or at least to try to – rather than to wash his hands of it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Irene, thinking of herself. Their hasty marriage, the new life he’d tried to give her. Her eyes swam; the anger swelled in her chest.

  ‘If you don’t mind my saying, Mrs Hadleigh, why do you ask? Are you inclined to withdraw the offer?’

  ‘What? I don’t know, I—’

  ‘Not that a decision is urgently required – Tanner shows no signs of regaining mastery of himself, as yet.’

  ‘I fear I have taken up more than enough of your time, Mr Turner,’ said Irene, tremulously. She was thinking about telling Pudding this news; about Tanner having not only a firm alibi, but no real reason to harm Alistair. She felt a failure.

  ‘Nonsense. Your visit has brightened my day immeasurably,’ said George.

  He smiled but suddenly it slid away, and his face drooped. ‘There is something weighing on my conscience, Mrs Hadleigh, and I beg your forbearance while I … disclose it,’ he said, sombrely. Irene looked at him properly and noticed the shadows under his eyes, and that he had lost weight since she first met him. ‘Your husband ought not to have been here so very early, on the day he died. He had given me time off because my wife … Since our little one came along, she has … struggled. With a lassitude, and a depressed mood she can’t seem to conquer.’ He looked down at the desk. ‘Mr Hadleigh had been most understanding. I had been late to work several mornings, in remaining behind to help Elizabeth along. He said he would come in early in my stead, to oversee the change in shift.’ He shook his head, and took a sudden deep breath, as though struggling to breathe freely. ‘If I had been keeping to my regular hours, he would not have been here by himself at that hour of the day. And I know I shall
never forgive myself for that.’

  ‘Mr Turner,’ said Irene, reaching out to take his hand, on impulse, and squeezing it. ‘Please do not berate yourself. You are not in the slightest bit to blame.’

  Back at Manor Farm, Irene saw Pudding out in the paddock with one of the horses, and slipped indoors without going to talk to her. Her visit to the mill had only made it even more unlikely that Tanner was the culprit. If he’d been fired and rehired before, then it seemed highly unlikely he should suddenly react by attacking Alistair. More bad news, although Irene couldn’t quite put her finger on why it was bad, was that the police had interviewed Mr Turner about it already. Just as they had been to talk to Bob Walker at the White Horse. Pudding and Irene were simply retracing the police’s steps, and finding the same lack of evidence as they had, no doubt. She found Nancy in her sitting room cum study, writing out a list of some kind.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you, Nancy,’ she said, absently. ‘I wonder if you can remember what time the rain started on the morning Alistair was killed?’

  ‘What?’ Nancy snapped, and Irene shrivelled inside at the tactlessness of her question. ‘Why on earth would you ask me that?’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘But why do you want to know?’

  ‘I was just … I was just thinking about that morning,’ she said, knowing instinctively that Nancy would not be pleased about her trying to prove Donald Cartwright’s innocence. Miraculously, her half-answer seemed to suffice.

  ‘Yes. My mind plays those games with me, too,’ said Nancy. ‘What if this, what if that. I find it better not to indulge such thoughts.’

  ‘You’re quite right.’ Irene turned to leave her.

  ‘It started well after sunrise. It was a red dawn.’ At this Nancy paused, her eyelids flickered and she swallowed. ‘I wake with the birds, as you know. There was plenty of cloud, but the rain didn’t start until about half past six.’

  ‘So late?’ Irene murmured.

  ‘About when Alistair normally rose, which was why I assumed he would remain in bed. You remember what I told you about him being a terrible layabout on wet days.’