‘Mrs Black?’ I said. ‘I believe I’ve met her husband. Well, your charity does you credit, dear.’ The girl stood aside to let me in.
‘It’s Mrs Gilver, is it no’?’ she said when we had gone along the passageway beside the staircase and come out into the kitchen, where a rather patched and ragged sheet of pastry dough showed that she had been engaged unsuccessfully in trying to make a pie. The air was redolent with the beef she was boiling up to fill it. ‘Miss Tait told me about you.’
‘Did she say what I was doing?’ I said. ‘Mrs . . . ?’
‘Muirhead,’ said the woman. ‘She did and if it’s household hints ye’re givin’ oot then here’s one for you. How can I get this bloomin’ dough to hang thegither long enough to line the dish wi’ it? I’m about at my wits’ end and I promised Archie.’
‘Um,’ I said, racking my brain. ‘An egg, perhaps?’
‘An egg!’ she exclaimed as though I had handed her the key to all mysteries and waddled away to fetch one.
‘It’s just an idea,’ I called after her, loath to be responsible for the ruination of Archie’s supper. ‘It’s not really my bag, baking.’ Saying that, though, reminded of what was my bag and I planned a subtle approach to my area of concern.
‘On the subject of your delightful neighbour again,’ I called gaily, while she was still out of sight, ‘she can at least be sure never to meet this dreadful “stranger” character I keep hearing about, keeping herself to herself as she does. One would almost forswear a social life to stay out of his way.’ Silence greeted this. ‘Mrs Muirhead?’ I cocked my head and listened, but there was not a sound. Eventually I rose and, calling her name again, went out of the kitchen door, across a tiny back hallway and through the half-open pantry door beyond. Amongst the shelves, thinly arrayed with pots of jam and a few strings of onions, she stood with one hand clutched over her mouth, the other pressed against her straining waist, her eyes showing white in the false twilight of the windowless room.
‘Mrs Muirhead, dear!’ I cried. ‘What is it? Come back to the kitchen and sit down.’ Gently, and praying that whatever was the matter it was not the imminent arrival of a baby, I drew her back across the little hallway and installed her at the kitchen table.
‘Now,’ I said, shrugging off the Persian lamb and folding it over the back of a chair, ‘I’m going to make you a nice cup of tea and you’re going to tell me what’s wrong.’
By the time I had got the kettle hot and assembled a pot, some sugar and a jug of milk, however, young Mrs Muirhead had rallied a little and was trying to brush my solicitousness off with a smile.
‘You must forgive me, Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘I’m awfy subjec’ to these funny turns just noo.’ Her hand, however, shook a little as she took her cup from me and she looked up to see if I had noticed just as I looked down. Our eyes met and some of the nervous lift went out of her shoulders as though conceding defeat.
‘Tell me,’ I said, sitting opposite her and scraping my chair forward. ‘I’m so sorry I spoke of it as lightly as I did. Please tell me what you know.’
‘I cannot,’ she said, rocking back and forward so that some of her tea slopped into the saucer. ‘Dinna ask me, madam. I dare not. God help me. What am I goin’ to do?’ With that, she put her teacup down, put her head into her hands and began to weep sustainedly. Oh good work, I said to myself. A subtle approach, indeed.
‘Hush now,’ I said, smoothing back her hair. ‘Sh-sh. Try to calm down, my dear. It isn’t good for the baby.’ At that, the sobs only strengthened in volume and I settled back to wait out the storm, only hoping that ‘Archie’ would not appear before it was over and box my ears for me. Eventually, sobs were replaced with sighs and she sank into her chair a little, although still holding her hands to her face.
‘When was it?’ I asked. There was only snuffling for a while but at last she answered.
‘June,’ she said and I am sorry to relate that in a small, shabby corner of my detective’s soul I cheered, just for a second, before humanity prevailed.
‘Monstrous,’ I muttered. ‘Monstrous devil.’ Mrs Muirhead raised her head at last and looked at me out of sodden eyes.
‘You believe?’ she said.
‘Of course,’ I told her.
‘What am I goin’ to do?’ she said. ‘What am I goin’ to tell Archie?’
I had no idea what she meant, but I had no intention of saying the wrong thing again and provoking another bout of weeping. It has never felt so cruelly wrong to do so, but I am afraid that I employed the inestimable trick of saying absolutely nothing and waiting for her to fill the silence for me. She soon did so.
‘I wish ye had come sooner,’ she said. ‘I ken there are things you can dae. But who could I ask? Who could I turn to? Ma mammy’s gone and the only one I could even imagine tellin’ just wouldna listen to me.’
‘Who was that?’ I asked. ‘Who wouldn’t listen?’
‘Auntie Bessie,’ she said. ‘Mrs McAdam. She came tae see me – I think she had guessed, when I stopped goin’ to the Rural – but she took no heed, jist telt me to keep quiet and no’ to be so daft.’
‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ I said. ‘If this Mrs McAdam guessed at your ordeal, what is it that she wouldn’t listen to?’ Mrs Muirhead stared at me, breathing fast and shallow, her eyes flickering in fright.
‘Promise me,’ she said. ‘You must promise me on your life, you’ll no’ tell a soul.’
‘I cross my heart and hope to die,’ I told her.
‘It’s the baby,’ she said. ‘What am I goin’ to do?’
10
We sat in silence for a long, empty moment, listening to the clock ticking and the soft patter of rainfall beginning outside. Then I took a mustering breath and began to speak, looking just over her left shoulder as I did so.
‘You do nothing,’ I said. ‘When the baby comes you will love it just the same. We must catch this beast, my dear, make no mistake about it, but you do nothing. Knit and sew and get ready and, you’ll see, it will all be fine in the end.’
‘But what if the baby . . .’ she began. She was looking at me strangely. ‘What if it’s no’ . . . a baby?’ I was speechless. ‘Mrs Black next door telt me,’ she went on. ‘It happened to a woman fae Dundee and it wasna a baby she had, nothin’ like.’
‘Mrs Muirhead,’ I said. ‘I’m going to speak very plainly and I hope you forgive me. This creature is a man. He is not a demon or a devil, just a very bad, evil, nasty man. Of course, your baby is going to be a baby. Put that nonsense right out of your mind.’
‘But then where did it come fae?’ said Mrs Muirhead. ‘He swooped down on me and hung over me. He pulled at me, but he didna . . . I mean, no man could o’ made this happen just by his evil touch. It’s no’ possible. Oh, what am I goin’ to do?’
‘Well, of course it’s not possible,’ I exclaimed. ‘Are you saying that this creature didn’t force himself upon you?’ She shook her head. ‘And your husband?’
‘He thinks it’s his,’ wailed Mrs Muirhead.
‘Then why, I beseech you, do you think otherwise? What in the name of sanity are you frightened of?’
‘It started that nicht,’ she said. ‘I ken it did, for the next mornin’ I was as sick as sick could be and every mornin’ since too.’
‘But my dear,’ I said, ‘that means nothing at all.’ I was not about to launch into a lecture on biology, but I had to say something; she had told me her mother was dead and Auntie Bessie McAdam was obviously of little practical help if ‘keep quiet and don’t be daft’ was typical advice from her lips. ‘The sickness doesn’t start the very next day, you know,’ I told her, trying to sound both fierce and gentle. ‘The . . . night in question’ – at this point we both blushed – ‘might have been weeks before that. Simply weeks.’
‘But Mrs Black,’ she whimpered. ‘Mrs Black next door telt me I had opened my soul to the devil and asked him in. And then Auntie Bessie asked me if I had been visited, but she disna beli
eve in the devil, none o’ them do, and so she jist said that whit’s for me would never go past me and no’ to worry.’
I was rubbing the bridge of my nose between finger and thumb, trying to see a thread of sense in this tangle.
‘Why did Mrs Black accuse you of such a thing?’ I said. ‘Did she see him? If she did, then she’s a sweep for not backing you up.’
‘She saw nothin’,’ said Mrs Muirhead. ‘She said I had invited him in wi’ a’ my traipsin’ about at nicht. When she saw me start to show she said a bairn takes in sin wi’ its mither’s milk and that this one would be a foot sojer for Satan. That’s what she said. And then she telt me aboot the woman fae Dundee who had met the devil on the road and nine months later . . . it was terrible, she said.’
‘My dear girl,’ I said, trying to speak briskly although I was shaking with anger. ‘Mrs Black would have us all in the fires every day, just for breathing. Don’t ever ever pay any attention to anything she tells you and you won’t go far wrong.’ I sat back and passed a hand wearily over my face, trying to restore myself to something more everyday. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘let’s get this completely straight and clear. Most unfortunately, at just the moment when you should have been overjoyed by your happy news, purely by coincidence . . .’
‘Coincidence?’ she echoed.
‘Truly,’ I said. ‘I promise you. I give you my word of honour. I’m a mother myself twice over and was a nurse in the war.’ Ludicrously, since maternity wards hardly dominated in military convalescent homes, it was the nursing that appeared to clinch it and at last, she let her shoulders drop and gave me a watery smile.
‘So now that we agree what didn’t happen,’ I went on, ‘perhaps you would tell me what did. You were walking home from the Rural meeting in June and . . . ?’
‘He come doon the lane fae the law, as fast as fast, fairly flyin’ over the ground he was and then . . .’ She stopped, trembling again.
‘He pounced on you, knocked you over, held a hand over your mouth so you couldn’t scream, and pinched you.’
‘Just so,’ said Mrs Muirhead, with enormous relief that I had taken the worst part of the memory out of her hands. ‘He was trying to jab at my face, but I kept my head doon and so he just plucked away at it with his claws—’
‘Nails,’ I said sternly.
‘His nails, aye,’ she said. ‘Then he disappeart again.’
‘Back where he had come from? Back towards the law?’ She nodded. I took another deep breath, resisted the urge to cross my fingers and asked the question that was burning in me.
‘Cast your mind back,’ I said, ‘and tell me this: was there a smell of any kind when he was close to you? Can you remember anything like that?’ Mrs Muirhead’s eyes flared, fear beginning to grow on her face again. ‘Don’t worry if it seems odd,’ I assured her. ‘Just tell me.’
‘It disna,’ she said. ‘It’s just what you’d think.’
‘Whisky?’ I ventured. It would not be the first time in my experience that the demon drink had been interpreted as literally as that. She shook her head, still holding her bottom lip in her teeth and with eyes still widening. ‘Sulphur? Yeast?’ Young Mrs Muirhead looked more and more horrified with each outlandish suggestion. ‘Flowers, perhaps?’ I suggested.
‘Flowers?’ she echoed. ‘No, nane o’ that. He smelt o’ the fire itself. He smelt as though he’d come straicht fae . . . there.’ She looked down as she spoke.
‘Brimstone?’ I said.
‘I dinna ken what that smells like,’ she said. ‘He just reeked o’ smoke.’
‘Whisky, smoke, eggs, flowers and yeast,’ I repeated to myself as I left the cottage a moment later. Mrs Muirhead was restored to something approaching serenity and the pastry dough had come together at last, so I made my escape while the going was good and during a break in the rain. I did take the time, however, to stop off next door.
Mrs Black answered my peremptory rap looking more than ready for me; I was sure she had heard the Muirheads’ cottage door close and had been watching me.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ I said, before she had a chance to talk. ‘Mischief-making, salacious creature that you are. I’ve a good mind to tell Mr Tait what you said to that poor girl.’
‘Him!’ spat Mrs Black. ‘I’m no feart fur him. A fine state my immortal sowel wid be in if he wis mindin’ it.’
‘It’s a great sin,’ I told her firmly – I thought I might as well address her in her own tongue – ‘a very great sin to cause the kind of trouble and unhappiness you have caused.’ Mrs Black drew herself up.
‘Nae whip cuts sae deep as—’
‘Spare me,’ I said, talking over her. ‘Mischievous, salacious and a crippling bore to boot. Goodbye, Mrs Black.’
With that, I stamped back to the manse, far too cross to attempt further interviews and needing a good long stint of hurling sticks for Bunty from the shelter of the porch before I was ready for tea.
Mr Tait was installed as before in front of the sitting-room fire when I entered, looking even more cosy than ever; he evidently felt that after a total of three days in his household I was no longer to be treated as an outsider and he was wearing carpet slippers now as well as the cardigan jersey and had an embroidered tea-napkin tucked over his dog collar. Lorna, however, was nowhere to be seen.
‘Pancakes, my dear,’ he sang out to me, ‘or you’ll know them as drop scones, I daresay. Come, come, while they’re hot. And before Lorna gets here from wherever she’s lost herself, tell me: how does it go on today?’
‘Tremendously well, as a matter of fact,’ I said. ‘I’ve unearthed another victim.’
Mr Tait made a creditable job of registering concern, admiration and interest all at once with just one expression and then he circled his butter knife in the air as though whisking something, telling me to carry on.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Who was it? What poor soul has been suffering in silence?’
‘I don’t think,’ I said slowly, ‘that I’m at liberty to say.’ I could not remember whether young Mrs Muirhead had sworn me to secrecy or not – the whole conversation had been rather fervid and the details were blurred – but if she had not, I was sure it was because she had taken my discretion as a given.
‘Oh, come,’ said Mr Tait, looking rather startled. ‘I’m sure there’s not one of my parishioners who wouldn’t give me her troubles to share.’ I forbore from pointing out that there was at least one of his flock – Mrs Black – who would scarcely give him the steam off her porridge to share.
‘But she didn’t, did she?’ I pointed out. ‘And so I rather think I shall keep my own counsel too.’
‘Very proper,’ said Mr Tait, almost managing to sound as though he meant it. ‘But you can surely tell me this much: has it filled in another piece of the puzzle for you? Has it moved things along?’
The honest answer to this was, no. I had gained confirmation that the stranger often came around the law from the north, but I had known that anyway. I suppose I had gathered another note to add to his signature scent, but all I had really achieved was confirmation that there really were missing victims and that it was worth pursuing the rest of them, in the hopes that one of the others might provide a more vital clue.
‘Ish,’ I said, and Mr Tait smiled at me ruefully. ‘There’s always a great deal of “ish” before one finally breaks through.’
‘Can you at least assure me that she is quite well after the ordeal? That she has rallied and put it behind her?’
Again, I could not easily think how to answer. Up until this afternoon she had done anything but and had been set fair for a complete blue funk, but now I flattered myself that if she took my words to heart she would begin to recover.
‘She’s fine,’ I said in the end, crossing my fingers and trusting that it was true.
‘Splendid,’ said Mr Tait. ‘They are a stalwart band, these farmers’ wives of mine, are they not?’
I was about to agree with him – they
certainly were – and then I checked myself.
‘What gives you the idea that she is a farmer’s wife?’ I asked.
Mr Tait grew very still at that and did not answer for a moment or two.
‘I can’t honestly imagine,’ he said at last, sounding interested. ‘How peculiar of me. Unless . . . perhaps the strange case of Mrs Hemingborough made me assume that this latest doughty lady must be another like her. Or perhaps,’ he chuckled, ‘it’s just that my dear late wife was a farmer’s daughter, as I’ve told you. In the ordinary way of things she might have married a farmer and been a farmer’s wife too, but she married a clergyman who kept her from her home . . .’ His normally cheery face had clouded, his cushiony cheeks falling.
‘But brought her back again,’ I said, trying to comfort him.
‘All too briefly,’ said Mr Tait. ‘And now her home, where generations of her family tilled the good soil, has passed into other hands.’ He gathered himself with a brave sigh. ‘But you are quite right, my dear. Even although there are so many farmers’ wives and they’re all so very good to the kirk I should not forget the others.’ This, I was sure, was closer to the truth, and might even account for why the likes of Mrs Black felt so disapproving of him. A minister should not have favourites, but even that first day at Gilverton when Mr Tait had told me the tale he had mentioned farmers’ wives and, in reality, Mrs Fraser of Balniel was the only wife of any sort who had come forward with a story about the stranger by then. That had always niggled me in some way I could not put my finger on, but I set it aside as the unmistakable sounds of Lorna arriving home, late and flurried, came to us from the front hall.
She appeared to have been out tramping around in a very different October afternoon from the one I had endured for, although her hair was frizzed with rain and a dark patch on each shoulder showed where her mackintosh seams had let in water, her eyes were alight and her smile as sparkling as any I have ever seen on a sunny picnic.
Bury Her Deep Page 15
