The Hiding Places

by Katherine Webb

  ‘I do. He went in early because George Turner’s wife is sick, and he’d been having some time at home.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘So he was there, at the mill, before the rain started,’ said Irene, relinquishing all hope of using the weather to disprove Tanner’s alibi.

  ‘It won’t help, you know,’ said Nancy. ‘Replaying it. Wondering if it could have been prevented. Which of course it could. But it wasn’t, and never can be.’

  At the end of the day the shires clopped back onto the yard, their massive legs dusty to the hips and elbows, the salt of dried sweat on their shoulders and flanks. Hilarius came out of the barn to take custody from the carters, dressed as always in his canvas overalls, no hat to cover his bald crown. He moved quickly, assuredly in spite of his great age, and the horses obeyed his every unspoken command, lining up at the rail by the barn to have their bridles unfastened, shaking their necks in relief as the heavy collars were lifted off. Irene watched him from a small window in the downstairs corridor. Pudding had been adamant that there was nothing sinister about the man, but Irene couldn’t help the feeling she had, looking at him. Something hung about him, something grave; something cold and heavy and deadening. A shadow, as she’d described it to Pudding; a shadow darker than the one his wiry body cast on the cobbled yard. He would have been up even earlier than Nancy that morning, Irene didn’t doubt. And she knew, she knew he had been inside the farmhouse. She didn’t know when, or why, or why it was even significant, but she knew that he had. He could have lit the unexplained fire in Nancy’s sitting room. Irene just didn’t have the first clue why he would, or what it meant. Or whether it meant a damned thing.

  She’d been thinking hard all afternoon, and had even spent a while in her writing room, jotting a few things down on paper, trying to draw connections between things that refused to be connected. She suddenly felt, quite keenly, that it would be hard to take Pudding the bad news without offering her some good along with it. Some idea to follow, some new thought. And it wasn’t just for Pudding, she was prepared to admit. As she’d gone out to tell Pudding about her uneasy feelings that morning, she’d felt, for the first time in her life, that she was doing something useful. She’d felt that, having gone seamlessly from being her parents’ charge to Fin’s fool to Alistair’s burden, she was now in charge of herself for the first time. It was a good feeling. And even better was the idea that she was, finally, doing a good and useful thing for Alistair, when he had done so many good things for her. It was too late, of course, far too late. But it wasn’t too late for the Cartwrights. But in spite of her efforts, all she had come up with was that somebody might have paid Tanner to kill Alistair. Tanner was a poor man, a drunken sot and recently laid off; perhaps he might have been desperate enough to take such a job. There was certainly enough acrimony in the man, as George had said and she herself had witnessed. But all that did was return them to square one – searching for a reason somebody might have wanted Alistair dead. Irene hated to tell Pudding as much. She hated to disappoint her; she hated, having offered to help, to fail to do so.

  On the hallway table, Irene was surprised to find a letter addressed to her in a familiar hand – the first since Fin’s terrible letter, which seemed now to have arrived months, years, before. She opened it hurriedly, on the spot, absorbed the contents with a feeling that teetered between happiness and dread, and then went to tell Nancy.

  As she worked, Pudding repeatedly calculated how much time remained until Donny’s hearing – how many hours, minutes, seconds. The need to act was like a terrible itch, impossible to ignore, but however hard she tried, she couldn’t think what to do next. As Irene had been forced to admit, hedgingly, the day after they’d been to Biddestone, until they could find out a motive, they were stuck. At lunchtime she banged on the front door of the house, ostensibly to ask for a glass of water but actually hoping to talk to Irene, but nobody answered. She went around the back to the kitchen and found Clara Gosling and Florence having their lunch, but since they, too, fell silent upon seeing her, Pudding retreated. In the great barn, asleep in a shaft of sunshine with his battered hat over his face, she found Hilarius. He slept there in the summer – carrying up his evening meal, which Clara gave him on a plate, every night – and if he had ever had concerns beyond the gates of Manor Farm then he’d long since left them behind him. Pudding thought about the darkness Irene said she sensed around him, but it seemed ridiculous. So ridiculous that it made her doubt all of Irene’s odd instincts, though she didn’t want to – just then, they were all she and Donny had. But Hilarius was a harmless old man; of few words perhaps, but he had only ever been kind to her, and the horses, and he never shirked in spite of his years.

  Pudding felt awkward about waking him, but she couldn’t help herself. She picked up a pitchfork and began to tidy the hay, noisily – letting the metal tines scrape against the cobbles.

  ‘Thee’ll start a fire, girl,’ said Hilarius in his thick accent, not moving. ‘Give up on’t. I heard you coming from the house.’

  ‘Oh, hello. Sorry to disturb you,’ said Pudding, sitting down near him. He smelled comfortingly of horses, and the molasses he mixed into their feed.

  ‘Doubt it,’ he grumbled, but he tipped back his hat and looked at her without rancour. ‘Still fretting on’t, are you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sat on her hands to keep them still, and hunched in on herself. A childhood habit, to make herself smaller. ‘Even Superintendent Blackman said that he always sought out the why, in a case such as this. Though it didn’t seem to bother him that Donny doesn’t have a why at all – as though his … as though the way he is is reason enough.’

  ‘Are you good and sure it isn’t?’

  ‘Of course!’ She flared up at once, but Hilarius had a way of watching, with such steadiness in the wrinkled slits of his eyes, that she actually stopped to think before she spoke again. She probed her own conviction, and found it watertight. ‘I’m absolutely sure, Hilarius. He got into that fight last year, and he did lose his temper, and he did … injure that other man. But there was a very good why – his Aoife marrying that chap, and about to have their first child. He might have got upset or lost his temper at other times, and it might have been … alarming. But he never, ever directed it at anybody.’

  There was a pause, then Hilarius nodded and put his hat back over his eyes, and Pudding wasn’t sure he was going to answer her.

  ‘Ar,’ he said, in the end, which meant yes. ‘I been thinking the same.’

  ‘Really? You have? You don’t believe it was Donny? Oh, Hilarius! Thank you.’ For no good reason, Pudding’s hope soared.

  ‘Not a thanking matter. And nowt to be done about it.’

  ‘But … there is. I just have to find out who really did kill Alistair, do you see? I wanted to ask you if you could think of any reason – any reason at all – why somebody might have had a grudge against Mr Hadleigh. You’ve been here longer than anyone, haven’t you?’

  ‘Seventy years and mounting. Some days, I can feel each last one o’ them.’

  ‘Well, there you are then – longer than anybody. Is there anything you can think of, Hilarius? Anything at all? Irene still thinks it’s Mr Tanner – that perhaps somebody hired him to do it, but we can’t seem to come up with a reason why.’

  ‘Easy for folk to lay blame on that family,’ said Hilarius, disapprovingly. There was a pause. ‘None of much as goes on here has owt to do with me,’ he said. ‘Nor ever has.’ He lifted his head, and gave her a slow, shrewd look. ‘I’ve no answers for you, girl, and it’d be best left alone, on that I be sure. But I’ll say this. ’T’ain’t no good holding a fruit in your hand an’ looking up at the leaves and sky, puzzling where it came from, an’ why it tastes the way it do.’

  ‘A fruit? What do you mean? Where should I look, then?’

  ‘Look down to the roots of it, girl. Look to the roots of the tree.’ Pudding thought about this for a while, scratching her nose as the hay dust
tickled in it. But before she’d formulated her next question, Hilarius was snoring softly, so she got up quietly and left him to his nap.

  As Pudding walked home, she got lost in thoughts of her brother, and the day he’d come home from the army hospital. They’d all been delirious at the sight of him, but had tried so carefully not to overwhelm him, not to crowd him or fuss too much. The four of them – Ruth included – had followed him around the house as he’d rediscovered it, his face wearing a kind of wonder and puzzlement, as though a dream he’d once had was turning out to be real. Pointing out to him things that were new – a blue eiderdown on his bed; Pudding’s height and size – and things that were just the same – everything else. Waiting for him to say or do something, to show he was still their Donny in spite of the horrors he’d seen and the violence he’d survived, and in spite of Dr Cartwright’s warnings that he wasn’t quite the same, that he didn’t like to be hugged any more, that he needed time. Four tentative people, anxiously alert, holding their breath and hoping to feel happy soon. Returning to the kitchen, Donny had frowned a little and looked down at his toes. His right hand had strayed up, as it often did in the beginning, to brush nervously across the damage on his head, then he’d looked up and said, Well, isn’t there a cup of tea for a fellow, Ruth? And Ruth had tutted about there being no rest for the wicked, and they had all exhaled, and the happiness had indeed begun.

  Heavy footfalls scattered the memory, and the sight of Pete Dempsey jogging to catch her up gave Pudding a jolt, even though he wasn’t in his uniform. Her throat immediately went dry. Since Donny’s return she only seemed to encounter Pete when something bad had happened. She remembered him struggling to hold Donny while he fought, and refused to be led away after the fight in Ford the year before. She didn’t doubt that Pete remembered it too, and had been thinking of it recently; she wondered if he thought Alistair would still be alive now had Donny been jailed back then, as he came to stand in front of her, red-faced from hurrying in the heat. Her heart thudded as she waited to hear what bad news he’d brought this time.

  ‘Hello, Pudding,’ he said, breathlessly.

  ‘Hello, Constable. What is it?’

  ‘I’m not Constable now, just Pete. I’m off duty.’ He smiled as though this ought to have been funny, but it faded when Pudding didn’t respond.

  ‘Is there something new about the case? What can you tell me?’ Pudding couldn’t seem to do anything about the flat sound of her voice, not even for the sake of keeping a policeman on side. It seemed pointless to dissemble, anyway; she’d known Pete since they were children. He’d always been there, one of her crowd of peers, even though he was a few years older. She’d once seen him throw up all over his own boots when another boy had dared him to eat frogspawn from Worthy Pilton’s pond, and he’d been daft enough to do it. He had always known Donny – deferring to him due to his size and age; slightly wary of him because he was so protective of Pudding. Now Pete represented the law, which was strange enough in itself; he had power over Donny and over them all, and Pudding didn’t know how to square that away. She was oddly, and enormously, embarrassed.

  Pete took off his cap and scrubbed his fingers through his sweaty hair, looking uncomfortable.

  ‘No. I’m afraid there’s nothing new,’ he said.

  ‘But are you still looking for the real killer?’ she demanded, not able to look him in the eye.

  ‘Are we what?’ he said, with a puzzled frown. Then, as he understood, he looked away, awkwardly. They stood in silence for a while.

  ‘Well, I’d better be getting home,’ said Pudding.

  ‘Pudding, wait.’ Pete put out his hand to stop her. ‘I’ve been wanting to say, since all this started … I’ve been wanting to say how sorry I am. I mean … I know you’ve enough on your plate with your mum being ill, and now this.’ He cleared his throat, and Pudding’s face flamed. ‘I know what your Donny means to you, Pudding.’ He spoke in a gentle tone she’d never heard him use before. ‘I wish it hadn’t turned out this way. I do wish it,’ he said. Pudding still couldn’t look at him. She stared down at his dusty boots instead; there was grit and chaff in the turn-ups of his trousers. She wanted to say that it hadn’t turned out this way, and that she was going to bring Donny home with his name cleared, but she didn’t think she ought to say that to the law. She doubted Pete would approve of the fact that she and Irene had been making enquiries of their own. And she knew he’d dismiss Irene’s prescient feelings out of hand – Pudding wasn’t even entirely convinced about them herself.

  ‘Thanks,’ she muttered instead, and this time Pete let her go.

  Since Alistair’s death, Dr Cartwright usually got home before Pudding finished work. He had fewer patients now, and once upon a time Pudding would have been happy about that – happy that he didn’t have to rush about as much, and could spend more time with them at home. But he didn’t belong in the garden – he never had, beyond sitting out in a lawn chair from time to time, to read the newspaper; it had always been Louise’s domain – so he merely lingered about the house in idleness. And he was so listless, and looked so lost and tired, that in fact Pudding began to almost dread seeing him at the kitchen table when she got home. Quite often he wasn’t even doing anything – not reading the paper or one of his medical journals, or writing out his bills or pharmaceutical orders; not listening to the wireless; not mending anything small and mechanical, replacing the wick in the stove or drinking tea, or oiling the chain of his bicycle with his sleeves rolled up and a rag tucked into his braces. Just sitting. Just as Donny had used to do. He seemed to deflate even further with every day that passed, and every new bit of bad news that came – like the date of Donny’s hearing. Part of Pudding longed to throw herself into his embrace and sob all over him, but she couldn’t let herself do that. He simply didn’t look strong enough. Instead she made him tea, cut him a piece of one of Ruth’s cakes, and patted his shoulder as she went about the house, doing whatever she could get done before supper time.

  Ruth was stalwart. In spite of being a highly effective conduit for gossip, and highly susceptible to it, she maintained her loyalty to the Cartwrights with puffed-up defiance like armour plate.

  ‘Most folk don’t know they’re born,’ she said, cryptically, when Pudding thanked her for staying on. Ruth opened the door to callers with folded arms, a gingham scarf knotted tight around her hair and a thunderous expression on her unlovely face that dared folk to peer inside, offer judgement, or hang about, eavesdropping. Not that many people came to call – they hadn’t for a while, because of Louise Cartwright being unwell. If Ruth had abandoned them, Pudding knew, things would have been much worse. They’d all have gone hungry, for starters, since beyond toast and scrambled eggs, she herself was a dreadful cook. Not that any of them had much appetite – Pudding least of all. It had cheered her up before: great slabs of fruit loaf, covered in butter; bacon sandwiches on a cold morning before work; strawberries from the garden, drowning in cream. Now all she could think about, when food was put in front of her, was Donny in his cell in the New Bridewell in Devizes, eating prison stew and wishing he were home. Her parents didn’t seem to notice her lack of appetite, and mealtimes were largely silent affairs. That evening, her father was even quieter than usual.

  ‘What is it, Dad? Has something happened?’ she asked, when Ruth had gone home and her mother upstairs. His forehead was all furrows and his lips looked pale. He shook his head. ‘Please, tell me,’ she said.

  ‘I spoke to a fellow doctor today, Dr Whitley, in Devizes. He had … been called out to the prison to see to Donny,’ he said. Pudding gasped.

  ‘Why? Is he all right? What happened? Is he ill?’

  ‘Shh – your mother mustn’t hear! He is all right now, but Dr Whitley had to give him a sedative to calm him, so that … he could administer some stitches.’ He had been looking down, fiddling with his spectacles, but now the doctor glanced up at Pudding. She stared back, aghast. ‘The account he was given was that Donn
y had got into a fight with one of the other inmates. He … he wasn’t able to tell me what the fight was about—’

  ‘But that can’t be right! Donny wouldn’t have been fighting, and—’

  ‘Pudding, please, just listen. The fight wasn’t particularly serious. But Donny needed stitches to his hand where he … struck the other fellow, and he needed stitches to a head wound … a head wound that he … that he …’

  ‘That he what?’

  ‘That he gave to himself. Once he was back in his cell. He … he dashed his head against the wall. They were forced to restrain him.’

  For a long time, Pudding couldn’t find a single word to say. She swallowed, painfully.

  ‘Poor, poor Donny,’ she said, in the end, and the words came out wobbly, half-broken.

  ‘Yes,’ said her father.

  ‘He must hate it in there. He must hate it so much! They won’t understand him … they won’t understand how he is! And that he needs to be allowed to … do things in his own time! And be shown how to do them. I bet this other man – whoever he is – I bet he picked on Donny, and drove him to fight!’

  ‘Pudding—’

  ‘Why would he hit his own head on the wall? Why would he? He must hate it there so much!’ She started to cry, and tried to stifle it. ‘They must let him come home!’ she whispered.

  ‘I wish they would. I wish it more than anything, my dear. He’s clearly not able to … cope.’ The doctor shook his head helplessly.

  ‘Can’t we apply to the judge to let him come home? A special order, or something – special circumstances! Donny isn’t the same as other men …’

  ‘Our best hope is to get a charge of manslaughter from the magistrate – then, perhaps, he could be allowed to leave on bail. If it’s set at a level we can manage. But if he gets into any more trouble …’