“Bunny.” Miss Nuttel jabbed her companion with a bony elbow. “Your teeth. Hear them grinding from here. Bad for the enamel.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Blaine felt herself turning pink. “I knew that nettle tea was a mistake for breakfast—we should have had chamomile, as I said. So much better for the nerves.”
But Miss Nuttel was no longer listening: she’d heard too much too often before about her friend’s highly strung nature. Her eyes darted from one side of the bus to the other as she surveyed the passing trees of Ashford Forest, trying to make up her mind.
“Here, I think.” They were approaching a crossroads: a landmark. Miss Nuttel, tall and thin, reached up with ease from her seat to pull twice on the bell rope, and as Mrs. Blaine began to collect her scattered wits, the bus rattled to a halt. With Eric in the lead, the two Nuts hurried down the aisle, collected the haversack from the luggage rack, grudgingly remembered to thank the driver for stopping—it was the man’s job, after all—and climbed down the steps into the middle of nowhere.
When the bus had rumbled on its way, only the rush of an occasional passing car disturbed the birdsong and rustling leaves of Ashford Forest. With the coming of September, there was a hint of gold among the green, a touch more dryness in the underfoot grass and in twigs which snapped more easily when trodden on than they would have done in the lush days of summer. The Nuts, blind to the beauties of nature, trod doggedly on their way towards their goal of such mast-laden beeches as stood more than fifty yards (“Lead poisoning, Bunny—trees breathe too, you know,”) from the road.
They went in about a hundred yards, to be on the safe side, and struck up a course parallel to the road, out of sight but still, though barely, within earshot of it. They pushed through undergrowth, and Mrs. Blaine muttered about brambles snagging her stockings and skirt. Miss Nuttel, who was wearing trousers, said that if they didn’t want everyone to know what they were doing, they must put up with a little discomfort. Did Bunny really want to risk having the good trees raided by other people—who wouldn’t have found them unless shown the way by wiser, more adventurous souls—the instant their backs were turned? They hoped, after all, to return another day, as they’d never manage to carry as much as they wanted on the first trip . . .
“We haven’t found one tree yet, Eric, good or bad. It’s too unfair—you ought to have asked me before stopping the bus.” Mrs. Blaine contrived to sound as if she possessed an unerring instinct which would, had it not been thwarted by Miss Nuttel, have taken her straight to groves of beeches whose boughs were breaking under their nuxial burden. As it was, however, she must suffer in silence . . .
Miss Nuttel knew, only too well, that Bunny’s sufferings were never silent. They had come upon a glade, formed by the fall of a vast and ancient tree. “Sit down,” she said, and swung the haversack from her shoulder. “Have a breather. Bite to eat, perhaps?”
Mrs. Blaine allowed herself to be persuaded, but remarked that the water they’d drawn from their very own well before embarking on this excursion was bound to have been shaken by the judderings of the bus. She thought she could hear the sound of running water, not too far away . . .
Miss Nuttel knew a hint when she heard one. “Back in a jiffy,” she said, knowing that a mug in the water was worth two minutes’ search—was worth anything to stop a tantrum, with the rest of the day to endure. She fumbled inside the haversack, pulled out two enamel mugs (“Plastic’s too artificial, Eric—and a by-product of oil, as well!”), and dumped the bag by Bunny’s feet as she strode off streamwards.
A squirrel scuttered along a branch, disturbed by Miss Nuttel’s passing. Mrs. Blaine turned to watch it disappear—squirrels, everyone knew, ate nuts. If she found a bearing tree when Eric had so patently failed . . .
Sighing, Mrs. Blaine dragged herself to her feet, and set off in the direction taken by the squirrel. She wouldn’t bother telling Eric where she’d gone: she’d reappear with a smile of quiet triumph on her face, and—
“Aaaah! Bunny!” The cry came from the place Mrs. Blaine would have expected Miss Nuttel to be—but it wasn’t Miss Nuttel who cried. Surely not—that high-pitched, quivering, frantic screech? Mrs. Blaine’s heart gave a thump, and she spun round, prepared to sell her honour dearly, ready for whatever ravening masculine monster had invaded this rustic solitude—but not entirely sure she’d do any good if she ran towards that cry—that cry which Eric, surely, had never uttered . . .
It was a trick! He was holding a knife to Eric’s throat—forcing her to call—worse, he’d already . . . already . . .
“Bunnnnnyyyyy . . .” And a thump, as the lifeless form fell to the ground. Bunny saw blood spurting, grass red-stained, the gleam of steel as the knife came closer . . .
And Mrs. Blaine, in her turn, rolled up her eyes, threw out her hands, and collapsed in a heap on the forest floor.
chapter
~ 8 ~
SUPERINTENDENT BRINTON SAT at his desk, silent, introspective, staring at the calendar on the wall; his desk was piled high with photographs and scene-of-crime reports and witness statements; his open pocket diary lay beside his blotter. Detective Constable Foxon walked on tiptoe about the office, worrying. He’d never seen Old Brimstone so shattered—and nothing to do with the fact it was another—messy—sort of murder. There’d been enough of those, in the past, and the super had never turned a hair. But this—this second Blonde in the Bag—this had shaken him, all right.
“A lunatic on the loose, Foxon,” said Brinton at last. “That’s what we’ve got—and I don’t like it one little bit. I don’t like the way I knew—I told you—it was going to happen, and there was nothing I could do about it . . .”
“Perhaps,” ventured Job’s Comforter, “it’s a copycat killing, sir. Perhaps he remembered it was a year ago the original blonde was bagged, and—”
“It’s chummie again, Foxon—it’s got to be.” Brinton abandoned his slumped pose and sat upright, glaring. “I’m not going to believe we’ve two loonies on the loose who work to identical patterns—because they were identical, Foxon.”
“So it seems, sir. The only apparent difference we’ve found so far is in the place he left her this time, but—”
“Seems—apparent—so far—stop splitting hairs, laddie!” There was a flash of Brinton’s usual self in the command, but it didn’t last. He waved a weary hand at the pile of paperwork on his desk. “What use is your blasted quibbling to young Darren Bannister? His girl carved to ribbons, wrapped up like a parcel, carted off to the woods, and plonked under a bush like rubbish—not to mention having been interfered with beforehand, poor kid . . .”
“I’m sorry, sir. But—maybe Bannister’s our man, sir.” Foxon offered the suggestion as a man offers meat to a hungry lion. “I mean, statistically it’s usually your nearest and dearest, isn’t it? And they had quarrelled—he said so himself. Suppose it was all a bit more vicious than he let on, and he lost his temper with her, and . . .”
“And carried her out there on the back of his motorbike, riding pillion?” Brinton snorted. Foxon’s nonsense, as the superintendent saw it, was rapidly restoring him to his old self. “Use your head, laddie. Darren doesn’t have a sidecar on that bike, for one thing—and, for another, if we’re going to talk about statistically, then the one who finds the body’s right up there heading the list, isn’t he? Or, as we both know only too well, isn’t she. They. The Nuts.” Brinton shuddered. “Potter’s tougher than I’d ever dreamed, Foxon—not to have asked for promotion to another district, I mean, with those two practically on his doorstep and him the village bobby. I can understand they were upset and shocked at finding the poor girl—anyone with a spark of humanity in them would be, so I suppose it proves the Nuts are human after all—I’ve sometimes wondered—but how they could have the . . . the consummate gall to say it was anything to do with Miss Seeton . . .”
“It’s a thingummy reflex, sir, that’s all,” said Foxon at once, delighted to see his chief so much improved: and so
prepared to give Miss Seeton, for once (though in this case anything else was quite out of the question) the benefit of the doubt. Almost championing her, you could say. “Simple, or conditioned? We did ’em in biology at school—one you learn from experience, one you’re born with. Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine were both born suspicious, I’d say, so—”
“Never mind your reflexes, laddie. Those Nuts are both mad, there’s no other word for it. Miss Seeton a . . . a razor-killer and a rapist? Stark, staring mad—just like,” he added thoughtfully, “our chummie has to be . . .”
“Oh, surely not, sir. I mean—well, they haven’t got a car, sir, or even a motorbike. And they couldn’t—I mean, they’re female, too, sir. I know they’re odd, but—”
“They found the body,” said Brinton; then sighed, and shook his head. “I’m talking rubbish, Foxon—we both know it. And,” he added darkly, “we both know why, as well—she does it by remote control, doesn’t she? There hasn’t been a sniff of her umbrella anywhere in this business, just having her name bandied about by a pair of malicious old biddies—but that’s enough to send me off my rocker and start putting up theories no sane man would contemplate for a minute. How she does it, I’ll never know . . .”
“The girl, sir,” said Foxon, after a pause. “Came from Murreystone originally, didn’t she?”
Brinton eyed him sourly. “And Murreystone’s only five miles from Plummergen, and deadly rivals—like Miss Seeton and the Nuts, only MissEss probably doesn’t know what they think of her, and Murreystone does. Know what Plummergen thinks, I mean—about the other village, not about—good grief! I’m starting to sound like the woman now, Foxon! Can you understand why I didn’t want her brought in on this case even before it was a case? Mrs. Blaine can rabbit on about her blasted nerves all she likes—”
“She certainly did,” murmured Foxon, unnoticed.
“—but mine aren’t in too healthy a state right now, believe me. Or my blood pressure . . .”
Brinton slumped again, the adrenaline draining out of his system and leaving him once more a miserable man. “She came from Murreystone,” he said heavily. “And her parents have been notified, and enquiries are in progress, and everything chugging along more or less how it should . . .” With a jaundiced eye, he glared at the pile of paperwork in front of him. “We’ll plough through this lot like we’re supposed to, and read all last year’s stuff again—and again—and then, just maybe, we’ll find the lead we’ve been looking for—maybe. But somehow, laddie, I don’t think so. Something tells me we’re not going to enjoy this one little bit . . .”
Brinton’s misery was further increased throughout the afternoon, as each completed report was brought in and added to the rest. He and Foxon read, and reread; and each made various suggestions which were either shot down at once by the other, or considered worth a follow-up when circumstances permitted. They did not—as the superintendent had predicted—enjoy themselves one little bit.
In Plummergen’s post office, where everyone was enjoying themselves very much indeed, the atmosphere could have been caught and bottled and sold as high explosive. Mrs. Putts, mother of young Emmy who worked behind the grocery counter, herself worked in Brettenden, in the biscuit factory. Coming home at the end of her shift, she had rushed straight off the bus to give her daughter the latest news.
It was sheer coincidence, of course, that the post office was full of shoppers at the very time Mrs. Putts made her announcement. “There’s a girl gone missing—one of them Felsteds from Murreystone, lives in Brettenden—and they’ve arrested her boyfriend along to Ashford!”
Sensation. Mrs. Putts relayed what little else she knew of the matter, together with considerable quantities of what had been invented by other workers on the industrial estate as they queued together for their homeward buses. Young Darren Bannister had quarrelled with his Myrtle the other night—the girl hadn’t come in to work for a day or so—when they’d started to wonder why she hadn’t phoned in or produced a sick-note, Darren had pretended to be worried about her—had stolen her pay packet and tried to make a run for it—had been spotted by the police and hauled off to chokey . . . This last, courtesy of a shift worker who, like Darren, lived in Ashford, and had recognised his motorbike outside the police station, and had mentioned the fact when he arrived at his factory to find the place seething.
In the middle of all this pleasurable speculation, there came a cry from young Mrs. Newport, standing near the window. “There’s a police car outside Lilikot!”
Sensation, followed by stampede. Even Emmy Putts abandoned her official post and scurried to the door—or as near as she could, given the press of older, heavier bodies who’d reached it first. Mr. Stillman’s window display was partly dismantled, so that shoppers could see out; Mr. Stillman’s aluminium steps were dragged from their usual place behind the counter to be squabbled over by Mrs. Skinner and Mrs. Henderson, who’d once disagreed about the church flower rota and had never been reconciled. Tall persons were elbowed to the back of the crowd by others less blessed with inches . . .
And everyone, breathless, watched as one tall person and one short—one equine of feature, bony and spare; one dumpy and querulous, flat of foot—made their slow and staggering way along Lilikot’s front path; fumbled for their keys; opened the door; and vanished within, watched by the driver of the Panda and the eyes of the whole post office.
“Well!” Collective breath was released as the police car drove off down The Street. “And where’s he going now?” Mrs. Flax pointed a dramatic finger in the direction of the vanished Panda. “Ah, we all know who lives that end of the village, don’t we?” And she favoured her audience with a long, portentous look.
“He’ll be turning round, that’s all,” said young Mrs. Scillicough, sister to Mrs. Newport. Mrs. Newport had a quartet of well-behaved offspring; Mrs. Scillicough had triplets whose behaviour was a byword. Mrs. Scillicough had consulted the Wise Woman, and been disappointed; and was inclined to vent her subsequent grievance at every possible opportunity. “That,” she said, as the rest of the shoppers thrilled at her challenge to the authority of Mrs. Flax, “was Constable Buckland, that was—him as is a friend to young Foxon, that works over to Ashford along of Superintendent Brinton. And if he’s not turning round,” she added, as there came no sign of the Panda’s return past the panting plate glass of the post office, “then he’s took the other road. There’s more than one way of getting to Ashford from Plummergen, goodness knows.” Mrs. Scillicough turned her back on the window, and marched towards the grocery department to await Emmy’s return.
Mrs. Flax glowered, then rallied. “Ah, and more than one way of travelling that road than in a police car, as all of us do know.” She turned the full force of her personality upon the expectant shop. “There’s the bus . . .”
Which was enough to send speculation through the metaphorical roof. How could they have forgotten the Nuts had travelled on the Brettenden bus that very morning—travelled with a mysterious load they’d made sure nobody saw them sneaking on the Ashford bus later? And that poor girl gone missing from Brettenden—and the bus going past the very stop she’d have been waiting at . . . Dates, timetables, and common sense were forgotten as gleeful imagination ran riot. Emmy Putts, having reluctantly dragged herself back to the grocery counter in the absence of further activity across the street, clasped rapturous hands in the throes of cutting cheese, and exclaimed:
“Dope, that’s what it’ll have bin in that bag—and then them Nuts waylaying the poor girl, and taking advantage of her trusting, innocent nature, and white slaving her, sure as eggs!”
“Drink, more like,” opined Mrs. Skinner, as the majority digested this theory and found it highly palatable, though a minority of one, in the form of Mrs. Putts, felt a twinge of unease. Had she been (she wondered) right to allow Emmeline to enter the Miss Plummergen contest three summers ago? The blonde wig she’d worn for her coronation seemed to have given the girl . . . ideas, mused Mrs. Putts,
though her anxious musings were soon drowned out by Mrs. Skinner’s next remark. “That shoulder bag of Miss Nuttel’s,” said Mrs. Skinner, “it looked much heavier nor what I’d reckon dope enough to white slave anyone would need to be. Bottles is glass, and glass is heavy, and takes up room. Now, a few gins under a girl’s belt, and—well!”
As someone mentioned Mother’s Ruin, someone else began to point out that the apparent weight carried by the Nuts could have been large quantities of dope for the express purpose of white slaving any number of young women; but before this delightful theme could be enlarged upon, Mrs. Henderson remarked to nobody in particular, very loudly, that it seemed Some People knew far more about dope than any decent soul did really ought to.
“Drink,” retorted Mrs. Skinner, “is easier by far than dope for a body to get hold of. Stands to reason, when you can buy it easy as wink if you’re over age—which I hope as nobody’s daft enough to say the Nuts aren’t? There you are, then!” as heads were shaken, and voices murmured of Old Enough To Know Better, with particular reference to Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine—
“And Miss Seeton,” said Mrs. Flax; with which not even Mrs. Scillicough could disagree.
“Old enough to know better, dear, he really is,” said Martha Bloomer, whisking a duster round an already gleaming tabletop in Miss Seeton’s dining room. “Says he wants to be a pop star, of all the crazy notions. Did you ever hear the like? If there’s money in pop music apart from the Beatles, I’m the Queen of Sheba, and my Stan’s Mr. Universe. Poor old Beryl. The boy’s a trial to her, Miss Emily, and no mistake. Never mind not earning any money to speak of, because of course there’s always the dole, if the worst comes to the worst, though honest work is honest work and nobody ought to be ashamed of it—which give him his due he isn’t, if you can call it honest work going round places singing and playing that daft guitar—but they won’t make their fortunes that way, dear, and what he doesn’t give Beryl for his keep—because you have to say that for him, he tries to pay his way—but he never saves a penny of the rest, so Beryl says. Spends it on parts for his motorbike, and drinking, not to mention—well, you know what those clubs can be like, Miss Emily.” Martha frowned. “Not just drink, is it, with these arty types, meaning no disrespect, dear. But there’s drugs, too, and that’s what Beryl’s most afraid of, I know.”
Miss Seeton Plants Suspicion (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 15) Page 7
