The Hiding Places

by Katherine Webb

  ‘If he didn’t do it, oughtn’t he to be cleared?’

  ‘Indeed. However, I see absolutely no reason to suppose that he didn’t do it, Mrs Hadleigh,’ said Blackman. ‘Tell me more about this doll, if you would. Where exactly was it found, and how did Mr Tanner come to know of it?’ So Irene told him in as much detail as she could, and when she finished Blackman fell still, pen poised, staring into space. After a while, he looked up as though a little surprised to find her still there. ‘Was there anything else, Mrs Hadleigh?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Irene. ‘Well, no.’ She got up, and Blackman rose as well, though he made no move to come out from behind his desk. ‘So, will you look into it? Will you talk to Tanner – Mr Tanner?’ she asked, knowing that she’d face the same questions from Pudding. Superintendent Blackman seemed surprised to be asked.

  ‘If I deem it necessary, Mrs Hadleigh,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, defeated. ‘Good day, then.’ She let herself out.

  Pudding was as let down by the superintendent’s reaction as Irene, who was getting used to seeing the girl’s shoulders drop and her chest deflate as all the fight went out of her, just for that moment.

  ‘It’s like he doesn’t want it to be anyone but Donny,’ she said, heavily.

  ‘I know.’ Pudding looked in need of contact – a hug, or a reassuring squeeze of her arm, at least. Other people did such things so easily, so naturally. Irene was still wondering the best way to go about it when Pudding picked herself up yet again.

  ‘Well. Never mind. We’ve done all we can do with the police, and it looks like we’ll have to carry on without their help.’ It was lunchtime, and they were sitting at the table at Spring Cottage as Ruth cleared away the plates. Louise Cartwright was sitting with them, but in that peculiar way of hers she was simultaneously not with them. She turned to watch whoever was speaking with a look of benign incomprehension, as though Pudding and Irene were children, talking of a game she knew nothing about. She smiled whenever Irene looked across at her, and Irene smiled back, having all the while the gnawing feeling that she was being horribly rude. From the sink, Ruth tutted her tongue.

  ‘First time in history the coppers don’t want to think some rotten deed was done by a Tanner, and sure enough they couldn’t have picked a worse time,’ she said, grimly.

  ‘The superintendent said he thinks their reputation is based mostly upon sour grapes,’ said Irene.

  ‘Don’t you believe it, Mrs Hadleigh. That Blackman’s new ’round here – down from Hereford, I heard; he don’t know. Maybe they ain’t each last one of them bad to the bone, but most of them are. And as for Tanner himself …’ She shook her head. ‘God knows, I shouldn’t like to meet him in the lane on a dark night.’

  ‘Well,’ said Pudding, to Irene. ‘Shall we go down to the mill?’ They looked at one another, and Irene knew that the same nightmare images as were in her own mind were in Pudding’s too. Alistair, lying dead with Nancy weeping at his side; his blood on the floor; his wounds so obscene, so darkly black and red and grey. The thought of going into the old farmhouse still filled her with dread.

  ‘I suppose we must,’ she said, and Pudding nodded.

  The door to the offices was open, propped with a chunk of stone. Irene caught Pudding glancing across into the generator room, and remembered that her brother was wont to wander in there, to watch the machinery. When Pudding turned away, it was with the wince of someone being forcibly reminded of a loss. A look of such intense sorrow passed over her face that it brought a lump to Irene’s throat.

  ‘Ready?’ said Irene, swallowing. Pudding looked up at her with haunted eyes; it was the first time she’d returned to the mill since the murder. The bustle and thump of the machines filled the silence between them. Inside, they heard George Turner at his desk, clearing his throat. Without another word Irene knocked lightly, stepped into the comparative darkness within, and into another moment of panic almost as bad as the time before. The spectre of the Alistair-doll reared up in front of her, and she stepped backwards directly onto Pudding’s toe.

  ‘Ow!’ Pudding cried, staggering slightly to get out of the way. Irene turned, and the sight of Pudding’s freckled face, her clear blue eyes and stubborn hair was so familiar, and so comforting, that her panic lost its grip at once.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I just … I thought for a moment …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Pudding. ‘Nothing’s broken – you weigh almost nothing. You should hear me yell when Baron stands on my toe.’

  ‘Ladies,’ said George Turner, who’d got to his feet. ‘How may I be of service?’

  ‘Hello again, Mr Turner.’ Irene’s nerves thinned her voice. ‘How do you do?’

  ‘Passably well, thank you, and it’s kind of you to ask, Mrs Hadleigh. All our thoughts here at the mill continue to be with you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Irene. ‘Thank you. And Mrs Turner?’

  ‘I believe we have seen an improvement of late, thank you.’ George smiled kindly and then stood, waiting, his hands behind his back. Pudding gave Irene a nudge.

  ‘I was … we were … just going up to my husband’s office. To see … well,’ she said, floundering, but George merely nodded.

  ‘Of course, Mrs Hadleigh. You’ll find the door unlocked. Is there anything I can fetch for you?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ With a shiver, Irene walked across the place where Alistair had died, and took the stairs with Pudding at her heels. The office junior watched, bored, from behind his cramped desk at the far end of the room.

  Sunlight streamed benignly onto Alistair’s leather-topped desk, where there wasn’t a single speck of dust. Nor was there a speck on his bookshelves, which were full of files, ledgers and books about paper-making; nor on the elm floorboards that showed around the fancy crimson rug; nor on the brass fender around the fireplace, swept clean for summer.

  ‘Somebody must still be coming in here and cleaning,’ said Irene, and Pudding nodded.

  ‘Ready for you to come in and … er … do business, I suppose,’ said Pudding. Irene blinked. ‘You own all this now, don’t forget.’ Pudding went to the window and pointed out at the array of buildings, the stores and workings, the busy employees. ‘All of this is yours. Crumbs, that must feel strange. Does it?’

  ‘Stranger than I can tell you,’ said Irene. It didn’t feel at all real to her.

  ‘Look at it all,’ Pudding breathed, running her eyes along the shelved files, all neatly labelled and in order. ‘We’ve quite a task.’

  ‘Surely … you can’t mean for us to look through everything?’ said Irene, incredulously.

  ‘Well … why else are we here?’ said Pudding. ‘We don’t know what we’re looking for, that’s the problem.’ Irene took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  ‘We mustn’t make a mess,’ she said. ‘We must leave it all just as we find it.’ She didn’t know why that was important, just that it was. She sat down in the captain’s chair and ran her hands along the edge of the desk, worn smooth by being leant against and polished, over and over again. The leather top had been warmed by the sun, and Irene spread her hands on it, seeing how pale and frail her fingers looked against the bottle green. She felt, again, that she didn’t belong where she was, so could achieve nothing, but this time she fought back against it. She could get justice for Alistair, even if she didn’t belong.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Pudding asked, and Irene nodded, pulling herself together.

  ‘Yes. Well. Best to make a start, I suppose.’

  She opened the top drawer of the desk, and found bottles of ink, pens, pencils, a sharpening knife, paperclips and a paperweight fashioned from a chunk of quartz. The drawer had a familiar, schoolroom smell but no papers at all, so she moved on to the next, and so the afternoon ticked by. Now and then they heard George Turner talking to his junior, or to somebody who’d come into the farmhouse; now and then the foreman went out on some errand elsewhere in the mill. Other voices, those of worke
rs, echoed in the yard as the shift changed, but other than that, and the constant noise of the machines, the office was a peaceful, almost drowsy place. Even Pudding, devoted to the task, sighed each time she stood, returned a file to the shelf and fetched another. At five George Turner came up to them with a tray of tea, his face registering mild concern.

  ‘If there’s anything you’d like to learn, Mrs Hadleigh, I’d be more than happy to oblige you, if it’s within my capacity to do so.’

  ‘No, thank you, Mr Turner. That is, not unless …’ Irene considered her next question. ‘I’m sure the police have already spoken to you, Mr Turner, only I’d be most interested to know if there was anyone here at the mill, or anyone my husband had dealings with, who you think might have held a grievance towards him.’ Irene held her nerve, and the manager’s eye, as she waited for his reply. She saw his discomfort and confusion.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said, uneasily, flicking his eyes towards Pudding, who coloured. ‘Surely … surely there’s little question as to what happened to your husband, Mrs Hadleigh?’

  ‘But I should like to know, all the same,’ said Irene.

  ‘As I told the authorities, everyone who’d ever had business with Mr Hadleigh knew him to be an honest man, fair and straight in all his dealings. No business acquaintance of his can have had a grudge against him. Not even Mr Tanner.’

  ‘What about the other Tanner boys working at the mill?’ said Irene. ‘Have they … been in any trouble?’

  ‘Trouble? No, not at all. Young Elijah is a firebrand – he takes after his father, and no mistake. He sent some black looks my way when Tanner was laid off again, and now it seems he’s taken himself off somewhere else. But for the most part they need the work, and they work hard. And they would be more likely to be angry with me than with Mr Hadleigh.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ said Pudding.

  ‘I counselled that Mr Tanner ought to be let go for good this time, but your husband was always very tolerant towards the family. Too generous by half, I always thought. But Mr Hadleigh said if he didn’t give them a chance, what chance would they have?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Irene. ‘That sounds like Alistair.’

  ‘But might Mr Hadleigh have had an argument with any of them, and not told you?’ asked Pudding.

  ‘No.’ George shook his head. ‘I’d have been informed.’ Irene nodded as she took this in. She trusted her instinctive fear of Tanner; the memory of him coming at her in the churchyard made her shiver, as did thoughts of her visit to Thatch Cottage. But if he’d had cause to hurt Alistair, then the reason for it was something far older, and far darker, than an argument over a job.

  Irene was suddenly completely certain that they were wasting their time looking through invoices and receipts. She felt a flare of impatience, and the maddening sensation that she knew the answer, but couldn’t see it, and was about to suggest that they called a halt when she was cut off by the sudden sound of quick, determined footsteps on the stairs. Nancy strode into the room, glaring as though they’d all been caught in her bedroom, going through her smalls.

  ‘I heard your voices – what on earth is going on?’ she demanded, and before anyone could answer, added: ‘This is Alistair’s office! Nobody should be in here.’

  ‘Nancy, Pudding and I were just looking for some … clue, I suppose. Something that might help to explain what’s happened,’ said Irene.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, ladies,’ said George Turner, uncomfortably. ‘I’ve some matters to attend to.’ Nancy didn’t even look at the foreman. Her eyes were fixed on Irene and Pudding, and blazing.

  ‘There is no question about what happened.’ Her voice was low and trembling. ‘I simply do not understand why you must keep on … muckraking in this way! You’re only making things worse.’

  ‘They can’t get worse,’ said Pudding, meekly, but Nancy’s glare silenced her.

  ‘Shame on you, Irene,’ said Nancy. ‘I thought you were starting to show some sense, on the whole. But now I find you recklessly encouraging the dratted girl in her fantasies – you’re only making it worse for her in the long run, you know. Pudding’s a child and doesn’t know any better, but you ought.’

  ‘Pudding isn’t a child,’ said Irene, her pulse racing. As she said it, she realised how true it was. However naive Pudding was in some ways, the responsibilities she’d been forced to shoulder had pushed her beyond her years. ‘And I don’t think she’s a fantasist either.’

  ‘Really? And what about when she pointed the finger at you for Alistair’s death?’

  ‘Well, never mind that. I … I have had an encounter with Mr Tanner myself, which has made me think that perhaps—’

  ‘No.’ Nancy cut her off, stonily. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. I won’t hear any more. Every time you bring it up it’s like you’re … you’re disturbing Alistair’s grave! It’s obscene! I want you out of here, the pair of you. You’ve no business going through my brother’s things like a … a pair of thieves. Go on – I insist that you leave.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss H,’ Pudding mumbled, making for the door with her eyes down, but Irene put out a hand to stop her.

  ‘Wait, Pudding. Nancy … I’m sorry, but we’re not finished yet. These are my husband’s things, not your brother’s – or your nephew’s – any more. I know this is hard for you – that seeing anyone in here must be very hard for you. I promise we will leave everything just as we found it.’ As she spoke, Irene began to feel calmer, more resolved.

  ‘You will leave,’ said Nancy, and she and Irene stared at one another for a long time.

  ‘We will, when we’ve finished,’ said Irene. The air between them seemed to freeze, and a second later Nancy turned on her heel and left them there, and Pudding exhaled massively.

  ‘Heavens, Irene,’ she said, ‘I’ve never seen anyone face down Miss Hadleigh like that before!’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Irene. She perched on the edge of the desk for a moment, pressing her fingers to her lips. ‘I hope I don’t live to regret it.’

  Clemmie slunk back into Weavern Farm like an errant cat – silently, after dark. She curled up under the blankets next to Josie and went straight to sleep, feeling that while much was still wrong, much was also right again. In the morning, Josie gave a little gasp when she opened her eyes and found her sister there, but then she smiled.

  ‘You’re back,’ she said. When Mary and Liz woke up they clustered around her, peering closely, pinching her and pulling detritus from her hair.

  ‘Have you been living under a hedge? Smells like it.’

  ‘You gave us quite the jolt. It wasn’t the same without you, Clemmie,’ said Mary. ‘Where on earth have you been?’ But Clemmie couldn’t tell them about the long hours of walking, lost, through Swindon’s confusing streets, and the feeling of starting to fly as she left the city behind her; or that she’d hitched two rides – the first with a farmer in his high-wheeled gig, who’d been travelling back from burying his brother. She’d had to run away when he’d turned in at a field gate and made a grab for her. The second was with an elderly couple who spoke no more than she did, and only nodded for her to climb into the back of their small wagon, which carried a load of old furniture – a carver chair, a commode, a washstand with a cracked top, all mildewed. Clemmie had slept for hours with her head on a rat-chewed prayer stool. They’d brought her as far as Marshfield, and she’d walked the last stretch, tired and afraid but driven forwards, pulled towards home. ‘Oh, why can’t you talk?’ said Mary, but she didn’t expect an answer. ‘Ma! Clemmie’s back!’ she shouted down from the top of the stairs, and they all heard Rose’s oath from below.

  She was berated and hugged in equal measure by her mother; scowled at and ignored by her father; questioned and cajoled by her sisters. Clemmie paced and gestured and even tried some sounds – anything to prompt them to start asking the right questions, but they did not. Only Josie got close, as they were milking.

  ‘Clemmie – did you go off with
your sweetheart? With the baby’s father?’ she asked, and Clemmie nodded eagerly, and waited for her to ask more. ‘But where is he now? You’ve left him?’ Clemmie nodded and then shook her head. ‘Yes and no, Clem?’ Josie frowned. ‘But how can that be?’ She thought for a moment, chewing her lip. ‘Is he coming here, Clem? Is that it? Will you be wed?’ Josie’s face lit up, but Clemmie only frowned. She couldn’t say yes, not when she knew Eli would never return to live in Slaughterford while his father remained. She had to make her plan to get rid of Isaac Tanner work, and she couldn’t let herself think about what Eli might be thinking, or feeling. Abandoned, discarded; cheated out of his new life, his new family, his fresh start. He would be in so much pain. Such thoughts made her weak with remorse, and something else, nearly unbearable – something close to terror. She sent out thoughts to him, and longed for him to hear them, and know the contents of her heart. At times, her projected thoughts made such a loud roar in her head that she was sure he must hear them; at others, she knew he could not and never would. She wondered if he would think she planned to turn him in for what happened at the mill. She wondered if he would come to find her, and gut instinct said that he would. She wondered if he was on his way, if he was getting closer, if he was almost at her heels. And one thing that was clear, once a few days had passed, was that however much she could show them that she needed to tell them something, her family were never, ever going to ask her the right questions. She would have to say out loud what she needed to say.

  Her need to speak kept her awake all night, and in the daytime made her wayward and tearful. Her mother, Rose, came to check on her frequently, appearing wherever Clemmie was with a worried expression that eased when she saw her daughter, and coming out with some excuse.

  ‘Oh, there you are. I was just wondering if you’d … seen the filleting knife?’ At which Clemmie would rise from whatever she was at and take her mother to where the filleting knife lay, in the drawer where it was always kept. Whenever she was alone, she began to practise. She needed as short a sentence as possible, with words as short as possible, and she needed to decide who to say them to. She thought she ought to say them directly to one of the policemen who’d been around the mill in the first days afterwards, but they’d all gone now and she didn’t know how to find them. There was the police constable in Ford, and the one in Corsham, but they were both strangers, in any case, and that would only make it worse. She thought about Nancy Hadleigh, who was the kind of person who would get something done in Alistair’s absence, but then she thought of Nancy’s grief, and her anger, and her misunderstanding, and knew she couldn’t approach her. There were her mother and father, of course, and there was Mrs Tanner, Eli’s mother – but afterwards, when they went to the police, it might just seem like some scheme cooked up between them to point the finger at Isaac. Then there was the foreman at the mill with the foxy whiskers, who had always been kind and treated Clemmie as a whole person. He might be the one. But she needed the right words to say, and she needed to be able to say them.