by Roland Moore
Finch didn’t know about Vince! It was the food-poisoning story that Connie had invented. Henry had felt uneasy about her lying, but he breathed a sigh of relief as he dug his heels into the pedals and set off again.
The hammer missed the nail and made another small dent in the wooden baton. Connie muttered a curse and lined it up for another shot. Coming outside into the garden to fix the hen run had meant that she could escape the feeling of brooding claustrophobia in the small vicarage. Or, more accurately, the man causing that feeling of brooding claustrophobia. The chickens, Esther and Gladys, were flapping back and forth, agitated by the activity in their coop. Connie consoled them with softly spoken words. But all the while she was thinking about the girl who Vince had mentioned. Mixed feelings tumbled around her head. Sadness that the girl had died; queasy relief that she hadn’t stayed with Vince and met a similar fate, and, most infuriatingly, a fleeting illogical hint of jealousy. Was it because she felt she’d been replaced? What sort of relationship did Gloria have with Vince? Did it matter? No, of course it didn’t matter. Or it shouldn’t matter. Connie shrugged it off, thinking she’d had a lucky escape. If she hadn’t left she wouldn’t have found her new friends in the Women’s Land Army, she wouldn’t have married Henry Jameson. Who knows what would have happened otherwise?
Left on Barnes Common to die.
Connie batted the taunting thought from her mind.
Realising she couldn’t stay out here forever, and that she had to face their unwanted guest sooner or later, she picked up the hammer and the remaining nails and sloped dejectedly towards the house.
Nothing could have prepared her for the sight that greeted her inside.
Vince was sitting in Henry’s chair reading the Bible.
“You won’t find the racing results in there,” Connie said.
Vince grinned, lowering the book. “You always made me laugh, Con.” His smile faded when he noticed the hammer.
At that same instant, she realised that she was still holding it.
Connie quickly put it on the table. Neutral. Non-threatening. “I’ve just been repairing the coop, ain’t I?”
“Thought for a minute you were going to be stupid,” Vince said, his tone flat, his eyes icy cold; perhaps a little hurt.
“Don’t be daft,” Connie stammered. She looked at the rusted, heavy hammer as it lay on the table mat. She hadn’t viewed it as a weapon until the last few seconds. Perhaps she should have done. Could she have done it, though? An uneasy silence ensued.
“Do you believe in this nonsense now?” Vince tapped the Bible with a heavy finger.
“I’ve always believed in it.”
“Yeah, right,” Vince snorted.
“I never said out loud. But I always prayed.”
“Even when we was together working the scams?” Vince mocked. “Don’t play me, Connie.”
“I’m being honest, Vince. I always prayed. Not for really Christian things, but I prayed we wouldn’t get caught. Prayed you wouldn’t get hurt. Prayed I wouldn’t neither.”
Left to die on Barnes Common.
But it was true, she’d always talked to God even during her days in the children’s home. She had no idea if she was doing it right, but she guessed there was no right or wrong way.
“Learning something new about you, now.” Vince was amused by this development. “And there was me thinking it was all for the Reverend.”
This stung Connie. “What you saying? That I’m scamming him?”
“Nice set-up here. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
“I love Henry.”
Vince took this in, his face unconvinced. “He sees you as a charity case.”
These words stung even more. At this moment, she hated him more than she’d ever done; with his roughness and his uncultured views and his scant regard for anything nice and decent. Yes, she’d scammed men, playing on her attractiveness, but she’d never scam Henry. She’d never deceive him. She wasn’t lying about praying. It wasn’t part of some elaborate scheme.
“Even prayed when I was a kid. I always prayed me mum was going to come back.” She looked saddened by this memory. The nights in the noisy children’s home. She remembered herself lying in one of the lower bunks, in the semi-darkness, mouthing prayers until she fell asleep. And always with the hope that the next day she’d open her eyes to see her mother staring down at her, smiling. A kind young woman, ready to take her home. That day never happened, though.
Connie thought that her words were hitting home. The smile had disappeared from Vince’s lips, replaced by a troubled wince. But then she realised it wasn’t their conversation. She noticed that Vince was flexing his injured hand as if it was playing him up.
“Giving you gip?” she asked.
“A bit,” Vince replied. “Maybe it’s just the stitches binding up or something.”
Connie went to the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. She looked at a painting of Jesus looking down at his disciples and under her breath she offered a new prayer. It only had two words.
“Save me.” Connie sighed.
After a long hour in Dr Beauchamp’s quaint but cramped thatched cottage on the edge of Gorley Woods, Henry was relieved that he could leave and return to Connie. For better or worse, hadn’t they been the vows? Maybe they were getting all the worse parts out of the way and the rest of their marriage would be an idyllic time. He waved a hasty, but he hoped not indecently hasty, goodbye to the wheezing Frenchman at the front door, pushed down on his pedals and started on his way. Twenty minutes later, Henry was surprised to again run into Frederick Finch. This time, Finch was sitting on his tractor on the other side of the hedge, munching on some pickled eggs.
“Afternoon, Reverend!” Finch chirped.
It looked as if he’d totally recovered from his intoxicating morning, robust and rosy as he pulled his battered hat down to stop him squinting in the early-afternoon sun. “When we going rabbiting again then, eh?” Finch called.
“I don’t know if I’ve got time.”
“Come on. We can go later, if you like.”
“No, I really don’t think I-”
“You can use the shotgun then, how about that?” Finch smiled.
Henry stopped in his tracks. Shotgun. He remembered Finch’s heavy double-barrelled shotgun. That was a weapon that commanded respect. For a moment, he imagined marching into the vicarage with it, demanding that Vince left immediately. Vince would back away, hands in the air. Connie would relieve Vince of his pistol – and they would demand that the vile man never came back. Maybe Connie would respect him if he used his brawn.
Finch could see Henry’s mind wandering off.
“Tempting, isn’t it, eh?” Finch said.
“Yes it is,” replied Henry.
But it was probably not a good idea. Henry cycled off along the rocky path. Finch saluted him with a tip of his hat and then returned to his pickled eggs.
When Henry got home, he parked his bicycle against the vicarage wall. When he got inside, he wanted to hug Connie, but something stopped him. He was still angry with her. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for her. And yet, he’d known what she was like, hadn’t he?
“I’m pleased you’re all right,” he said.
Connie felt relieved to hear those simple words. But right now she was taking any sliver of hope that Henry didn’t hate her.
“Where is he?” Henry whispered.
“Went for a kip a couple of hours ago.”
Connie had just served up some scrambled eggs. She placed them on the table in the dining room and listened for sounds of movement from the spare room. Nothing. She told Henry that she’d called Vince to the table a few minutes ago and got no reply. Now, starting to wonder whether he’d already left the house, Connie edged her way up the stairs. She reached the closed door to the bedroom and knocked a couple of times, hoping that there would be no reply. Henry was behind her on the stairs, praying that Vince might have miraculously
disappeared. Connie was praying that Vince wasn’t about to spring a nasty surprise on them. She knocked again. “I’m sure he’s in there.”
“Why isn’t he answering?” Henry said.
But she heard a breathless, exhausted plea come from within: “Connie.” The voice was weak, drained of energy.
Connie and Henry shared a momentary look of foreboding.
Then Connie quickly opened the door and went in.
Chapter 8
The room was warm, thick with dead, stuffy air. On the bed, a fully clothed Vince Halliday was staring with glassy eyes. A beached whale gasping for breath. His face was flushed and his brow was covered in sweat. Beads of perspiration hanging like bunting over his top lip. His lips were parched and cracked. He struggled to focus watery eyes on her. Connie knew immediately that this was no ruse, no trap.
“What’s happening? What’s happening to me?”
Connie felt his brow. Cold and clammy. She didn’t notice Henry wince at the sight of her concern, her speed of action.
She had seen this thing before in the hospital at Hoxley Manor. When she’d stitched Vince’s wound it had seemed angry and inflamed – but she’d hoped that the iodine would sterilise it. But it looked as if it had blossomed into a full-blown infection coursing through his body. “You’re burning up,” Connie said. “You need a doctor.”
“No doctors. Nobody must know I’m here,” Vince rasped.
“But I don’t know what to do,” Connie protested.
“Find out, then.” Vince narrowed his eyes and with immense effort, he propped himself up into a sitting position. Sweat had pooled around the neck of his vest. His pistol was on the bedside table, incongruous amid the decorations of Christian devotion above the bed and the Bible next to it. Vince had meant his movement to be a warning, but it had just served to draw their attention to the weapon. Emboldened, Henry’s eyes darted to the pistol. Could he pick it up? Could he force a sick man to leave their house at gun point? He felt ridiculous for even thinking such thoughts, but Connie had seen the gun too. But it seemed she was troubled by something other than a moral dilemma. Something else had drained the colour from her face.
On the ivory plate of the pistol handle were two letters. A monogram of the owner’s initials. AA. Connie felt as if someone had slapped her. She forced herself to clear her head. “Amos Ackley,” she said. Henry looked confused. “You’ve got his gun.” Henry felt stung as Connie spoke. Here was another shared reference point. A man who he’d never heard of, someone, something that connected his wife with Vince Halliday.
But Connie just wanted to uncover the truth. Her tone was insistent and urgent. “Was he the one what stabbed you?”
Vince was finding it hard to focus. The effort of sitting up had left his head swimming, the blood pulsing fast in his temples, a rushing sound filling his ears.
“Just get me some medicine or something!” Vince half screamed, half cried. Connie rested her hand on his brow, concern trumping her worry about upsetting Henry. Surely as a vicar he’d understand such compassion and not read anything into it? “You’ll be all right, Vince. You always are,” she said, with something approaching warmth in her voice.
“You say that sort of thing when someone’s going to die.” He winced. But suddenly they were back in the psychological place where they’d been before. Two misfits against the world telling each other that it would all work out.
“I’ll sort it.” Connie took her hand away, and glancing back a final time, left the room. Henry stayed a moment longer and looked coldly at the man on his bed. He left the room.
When they were alone in the dining room, Henry asked what was going on. “Who is that Amos man?”
“Amos Ackley works most of South London. He’s a really dangerous man. You remember I told you at the pub about him?”
“He sounds like a variety act.” Henry pondered, not making the connection with what Connie had told him before.
“Yeah, but the only turn he’d do is a bad one. To anyone who crosses him.”
“But he must be dead?” Henry reasoned, trying to process the scant facts. “If Vince has the man’s gun, surely he’s shot or killed this Ackley chap?”
Connie wasn’t sure. Vince had said there were some bad people after him. She always liked to think the worst where Vince was concerned. “I think Amos must still be alive.”
“Well maybe if he turns up, it’ll be a good thing,” Henry said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. A thumping headache was beginning to embrace his temples like an unwelcome aunt hugging a small child. He was out of his depth here, more used to offering comforting advice based on the scriptures than predicting what one gangster might do to another. “Maybe he’ll take Vince away?” An uncharitable part of his brain silently added “Or kill him”.
Connie had to remind Henry. Perhaps she hadn’t spelt it out clearly enough in the pub, when they were woozy with drink and struggling to take in the upheaval of Vince’s arrival.
“Thing is, Amos Ackley is the man I tried to scam,” Connie admitted. “He’d be quite keen to find me too.”
Henry’s face fell. And his headache suddenly got much worse. It wasn’t just Danny or Vince he had to worry about. Connie seemed to have ties to the whole seedy underworld. It felt as if he didn’t know his wife at all.
Sitting around the dining table, Henry and Connie struggled to work out what the best course of action might be. Connie wanted to ask him how he felt, but she guessed he was too angry to talk to her about anything other than the practicalities of their situation.
“This adds a spanner to the works,” Connie said, attempting some levity. But Henry just shook his head; a disapproving school teacher refusing to be drawn into a child’s joke.
A hand-drawn poster for a cake sale sat on the table between them. Henry had been busy drawing it. It was in aid of Lady Hoxley’s latest Spitfire Fund. On the poster was something that Connie thought looked like a squashed bag. Henry informed her proudly that he’d drawn a fairy cake with a candle in it. Connie gave an encouraging smile. Of course it was.
Toying with the poster between his thumb and forefinger, Henry pondered the Vince problem.
“Could you ask Dr Channing for advice?” Henry asked. “About his illness?”
Connie rejected the idea. Channing would want to know what was going on. He was a smart man who’d have too many questions.
The other option was to ask Dr Wally Morgan for advice – but the feckless drunk probably didn’t know what day of the week it was. But of the two doctors, one who would report them and one who would probably forget he’d seen them, Wally looked the most likely candidate.
But she remembered Vince’s warning. He would shoot the first person who came through the door.
“What if he kills him?” she asked.
“Surely he’d realise the man was here to help.” Henry sniffed in sudden derision. “Of course, we’re not dealing with a normal man, are we?”
“We’ve got to take care of it ourselves.”
Henry studied her. Her dark eyes. The things they’d seen. Who knew what other secrets they held?
Connie knew there was only one thing they could do. At Hoxley Manor, she could steal some medicine. Just like she had taken the iodine and the bandages. She knew they had stocks of Tyrothricin, an antibiotic that had been introduced at the start of the war for treating wounds and ulcers. The hospital even had small amounts of a new medicine called Penicillin that seemed miraculous in its power to heal. But Connie knew that these drugs were carefully monitored. The stocks had to be eked out to treat a large number of injured servicemen. It would be dangerous to steal any of the tablets.
“He’s got you stealing for him now,” Henry snapped. Finally, he couldn’t contain it.
“This is how we get rid of him,” Connie argued. “We have to do this. I have to do this. I thought you’d help me, though.”
The comment hung in the air. Henry was troubled and tired, and wrestling with more conf
licting emotions than he knew how to deal with, but finally he knew he had to help her. “I will.”
Connie looked as pleased as she had when he’d proposed. It was ridiculous. Another wave of resentment coursed through Henry. She scurried off upstairs to tell Vince the plan.
Vince was lying on his bed, rubbing his head and moaning. He had tried to sleep but the pain in his hand was too bad, throbbing as if it had been resting in a hot grate. Connie told him that they planned to get some drugs for him. But both of them needed to go to Hoxley Manor to stand a chance of getting them.
Vince protested and said that one of them had to stay.
“But it’s the only way,” Connie said.
“One of you stays,” he gasped.
“I can’t do this alone.”
“All right.” Vince relented. “But you bring the police or anyone back, and I’ll-”
Vince trailed off, the effort of talking exhausting him. But he fumbled for his pistol and with great effort returned to his position on the bed, the gun resting on his sweat-soaked chest, ready to grab if he was betrayed.
“I know.” Connie left the bedroom.
When they arrived at the Manor, Lady Ellen Hoxley was emerging from the front of the house, frowning at some American servicemen who were smoking and stubbing out butts on her drive. She was a slender and classically beautiful woman whose every motion was one of elegance. She didn’t notice Connie at first, but when she did, a pleasant and businesslike smile crossed her face. It had been eight months since Ellen’s husband Lawrence had died. She felt mixed feelings being free from that awkward and sometimes difficult marriage, but the circumstances of his death – and his betrayal with one of the Land Girls – still caused Ellen anxiety and sleepless nights. It was true that, in the intervening months, she had rekindled an old friendship with Dr Richard Channing, a man who had predated Lawrence in her affections, but she wasn’t ready to totally commit herself to that relationship yet. She consoled herself with a steady approach to life, a need to always do things properly and in a way that befit a lady of her standing in the community. Haste was unseemly.
