by Roland Moore
Henry felt uneasy. On the way here on his bicycle, he had seen the clouds bruising purple and black – a cold wind in the spring air – as if the weather itself had an atmosphere of foreboding about it. And when he had made the pot of tea for Dr Beauchamp, Henry had felt like someone was watching him. He had no proof, just the vague unsettled feeling of something not being quite right; a feeling of a face through the window. The cottage was isolated, on the edge of Gorley Woods, land outside of the vast Hoxley estate; a place where only poachers came. Perhaps a poacher had wandered close to the cottage?
Henry looked around the sides of the house and found nothing, save for an old bicycle which had no front wheel; possibly another piece of Dr Beauchamp’s youth consigned to the status of memento. He let himself back into the house, locked the door and finished the washing up. Half an hour later, Henry said his goodbyes to Dr Beauchamp, promising to return in two days’ time. Outside the cottage, Henry fastened his bicycle clips and got on the saddle, pushing off along the stone path that led around Gorley Woods and back to Helmstead. The moonlight left a wall of dark silhouetted trees by the side of the path as Henry rode. The only sounds were of the pedals moving the chain round and the infrequent call of an owl somewhere in the woods.
As he rode, and each pedal push took him further away from the isolated cottage, Henry began to forget about half-glimpsed imaginary figures in Dr Beauchamp’s garden.
Instead, thoughts of Connie filled his head. He wondered how she was getting on in London, hoping that she was safe. He consoled himself that it was her old environment. She knew the streets of the East End and how to look after herself. She would be fine. In fact, she would probably be on her way back on some clattering steam train right –
WHACK!
Suddenly Henry was wrenched backwards off his saddle, the air smashed from his lungs, seemingly by an invisible force that had slammed against his chest. He landed hard on the stony road as the bicycle flew, spinning upwards into the air, looping over itself and crashing on top of him. He winced in pain and struggled for breath, winded by the impact of whatever it was. Was it a tree? A branch? In his dazed state, Henry didn’t see the length of wire that had been stretched across the road between two trees. It was at chest height and had been very effective at dismounting him. A figure moved stealthily between the two trees, unhooking the wire; its job done. As Henry fought for his breath, stars were twinkling in his vision. As a wave of blackness settled over him, he was dimly aware that he recognised the man looming over him. A large dark shape in a dirty suit. He knew it was Vince Halliday.
Henry Jameson just had time to notice that Vince was smiling – as he slipped away into unconsciousness.
Chapter 15
Amid the morning rush at Euston station, Connie Carter and Glory Wayland made their way to the ticket office. Glory had decided to come back with Connie to Helmstead. By writing in her pad, she had explained to Connie what she wanted to do when she saw Vince again: “I want to confront him. Ask him why he left me.”
Connie felt uneasy, remembering the razor-sharp scalpel in her handbag. The young woman seemed angry about what Vince had done. Quite rightly. He had abandoned her to die. She said she wanted answers. But Connie also knew that she had the key in her possession that could send Vince Halliday scurrying out of her life. She didn’t want to jeopardise that arrangement by returning with a furious, and possibly murderous, young woman. Connie felt so close to getting rid of Vince, she didn’t want anything to go wrong.
Despite her sympathies for the girl, Connie knew that she had to leave Glory in London.
As Glory crossed the concourse to the ticket office and started the somewhat lengthy process of writing what she needed on her pad, Connie sloped away. She dived into a throng of soldiers who were moving towards the platforms. Her train was up ahead. The guard was checking his watch. Connie asked him when the Birmingham train was due to leave. By force of habit, he unnecessarily checked his watch again and told her that it would go in four minutes. She let the tide of bodies sweep her along the platform, keeping a weather eye on the ticket office in the distance. There was no sign of Glory. Connie’s getaway was slowed by a soldier hauling a heavy backpack onto the train. She willed him to move more quickly, but watching him reminded her of an ant trying to move a raisin. Adjacent doors were equally blocked. At last, Connie stepped up onto the running board of the carriage, feeling a twinge of guilt. She had felt empathy with Glory Wayland, both kindred spirits in a way that had been used and abused by Vince Halliday. But Connie couldn’t risk her future for the younger woman. As selfish as it seemed, Connie had to put Henry first and any chance she had of mending their marriage. She had to get their life back: Sunday sermons, afternoon teas, late-night suppers around the fire, tending to the two chickens in the garden.
On board, Connie squeezed past the backpacked soldier and darted down the carriage. Finding an empty compartment, she sat nearest the far-side window. She scanned the stream of people walking along the platform, getting on at various points along the train. Faces, young, old. But there was no sign of Glory Wayland. And then finally, Connie heard the reassuring, insistent sound of the guard blowing the whistle. She realised she had been holding her breath, and now she let out a satisfying sigh of relief, as the train began to chug slowly out of the station. Feeling safe, Connie slumped back in her seat.
A headache was pounding in her temples, formed by the unhappy marriage of stress and too much alcohol the night before. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes and concentrated on the calming rhythm of the train. She wondered how Vince would find the lock that fitted the key, before deciding it wasn’t her problem. Maybe he had a system or some information. It didn’t matter. She’d done her part of the deal.
Connie heard the carriage door slide open, and waited for the sound of someone sitting down. But she became aware of the feeling of being watched. And then she heard the heavy breathing of a young woman out of breath. She opened her eyes to see a red-faced Glory Wayland staring accusingly down at her.
“I looked for you. We must have got separated.” Connie smiled in embarrassment. Glory must have got on the train and spent the intervening minutes searching compartments for her.
Glory wrote something in her pad. Connie could tell she was angry because the pencil was pressed hard against her fingers, draining them white. She held up the page in Connie’s face.
“Why were you leaving me?”
“I told you. We got separated, all right?” Connie said, trying to brave-face the situation with a lie.
But this wasn’t good enough for Glory. Again she pushed the page into Connie’s face, the same message.
“Why were you leaving me?”
“Because you’ve got a bleedin’ knife in your bag!” Connie found the words tumbling out before she could stop them.
This stopped the silent interrogation. Glory’s brow furrowed. She wrote something: “How do you know?”
“I saw it, didn’t I?” Connie said, lowering her voice. “And I can’t have you attacking Vince. Not when I’m so close to getting him out of my hair. Understand?” Now it was her turn to be steely and determined. She’d had enough of people riding roughshod over her. She was a fighter and she was going to finish this.
Glory Wayland seemed contrite. She put her pad on her lap and started to write. This time, the pencil wasn’t being rammed into the page, her finger wasn’t blanched white by its pressure. She had calmed down.
“I won’t attack him.” Glory showed Connie the page. “It’s protection.”
Connie nodded. “I know what it’s like, though. I’d like to attack him myself.”
Glory looked warmly at her for the first time since she’d got on the train.
“But let me see him first, yeah?” Connie added.
Glory nodded her agreement and then wrote something else. She held up the page and Connie read it.
“Where will I go?” it said.
“Don’t worry. I kn
ow a place you can stay while I end things with Vince.”
“But I don’t know the first thing about her,” Esther Reeves blustered. She explained to Connie that she’d had a difficult morning, having to deal with the fall-out of a Land Girl on Vernon’s farm who had become pregnant. There had been a lot of tears and Esther had needed to make reassurances to the girl. But she also had to explain that paragraph eleven of the Women’s Land Army Rules states that any girl found to be pregnant must be demobbed immediately and sent home, with no opportunity to re-enlist.
And after that stressful morning, the last thing she needed now was Connie Carter asking if a strange – mute – girl from London could stay a few days. She wasn’t part of the Women’s Land Army, she hadn’t enlisted through the normal channels; and she would be taking up a valuable bed and food and resources that could be used by a Land Girl. Someone helping the war effort.
Glory Wayland looked sullenly at the floor of Finch’s farmhouse kitchen.
“Couldn’t we make an exception?” Connie asked. “It’s only for a few days.”
Esther considered this and then a question came into her head. She turned to Connie with a suspicious look.
“Why can’t she stay at the vicarage?” Esther replied. It was a blindingly obvious question. Esther knew that there was a spare, apparently empty, room there at the moment. There was no bishop staying there. The room was empty.
The question threw Connie. How could she explain why there wasn’t a spare bed? Connie shook her head slowly, buying herself valuable thinking time. A technique she’d used since an older girl had taught it to her in the children’s home. But as she prevaricated, Connie realised that not only was Esther looking at her, but Glory was too. The answer had better be good on both counts.
“She’s my friend and I don’t want to trouble Henry,” Connie said, knowing that the reply was about as convincing as the George Formby impression that Finch did when drunk.
“Then it’s out of the question,” Esther stormed.
“But please, Esther.”
“It’s bad enough you skive off and say you’re ill. I don’t know what you’re up to these days,” Esther said. The matter was closed and as if to emphasise the point, Esther produced a large saucepan from a cupboard and started to fill it with water. Dinner had to be prepared for all the hungry girls in the fields. The ones who turned up for work. It was business as usual and there was no place for favours for Connie and her mute friend.
Esther bent to get the sack of potatoes and realised a note pad was being proffered in front of her face.
“I can cook,” it said.
Now it was Esther’s turn to be thrown. Her anger started to subside. She looked at Connie’s pleading face and at the wide-eyed innocent face of the girl with the cloche hat. And she felt her own hardness melting away. Yes, there was a war on, but they had to stick together and help each other, didn’t they? Always a sucker for puppy-dog eyes, Esther found herself saying she could stay.
“But only for a few days, mind!” Esther said, reasserting some semblance of authority in the situation. She plonked the potatoes in a colander for Glory to start peeling. “And she’d better be good at cooking or she’ll be out on her ear faster than you can say Neville Chamberlain!”
Connie thanked Esther. She was about to go home to change into her uniform, when Esther told her to get changed upstairs. With a girl down from Storey’s farm, they couldn’t afford for Connie to swan off home. She’d have to see Henry later, after her shift. A reluctant Connie did as she was told, getting changed in Joyce’s room. She knew she couldn’t rock the boat – especially as Esther had been so good about taking Glory in. Once in her Land Army uniform, she put her smart handbag away with her suit, taking the precious key from inside and slipping it into her trouser pocket. It was literally her key out of the mess with Vince and she wanted to keep it on her at all times.
After her shift was over and as the sky began to darken into night, Connie said goodbye to Glory, leaving her with a warning to behave herself. It was a relief that everyone had liked her cooking, and Esther had glowed at the praise the girls were giving, as if she had found some talented prodigy. Joyce wanted to know why Glory couldn’t speak and Connie was glad that she was sitting around the table when the question was asked so she could invent a quick lie to close it down. Glory had been injured in a bomb blast in London. End of story. Joyce and the others seemed to buy this. Dolores wasn’t happy, though.
“Why do I have to share a room with her?”
“It’s the charitable thing to do,” Esther reminded her.
Joyce whispered to Iris and Connie that maybe Glory could actually find out something about the mysterious Dolores.
As Connie crossed the small bridge back into Helmstead, a portly figure made her jump, as he called out from across the road. It was Roger Curran. He scuttled over with a sombre look on his face. And when he spoke, it was with a hushed, urgent whisper which made Connie think there was something worrying going on. And there was.
“Have you got a moment, Mrs Jameson?” he said. “I looked into your mystery.”
“My what?” Connie said, confused. “What mystery?”
“About Michael Sawyer.”
Her head was so full of train journeys, Gloria Wayland and dealing with Vince that she’d forgotten that she’d asked Roger to investigate Michael Sawyer for her. It all seemed less pressing than her current, personal concerns.
“You said Sawyer hated people coming to the house? Was never seen in Helmstead since he moved here? You said that there was something he was covering up?”
“It was probably nothing.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It turns out he is covering something up.” Roger emphasised the “is” with dramatic relish, his face beaming with the delight of a man whose journalistic talents had finally been allowed to shine. He’d obviously found this whole investigation a rewarding exercise, poring over parish records, telephoning the War Office for military records, talking to anyone who could shed light.
And like a great magician, he revealed the trick: “He served in the Great War.”
“That’s hardly news. Most men in their forties and fifties did.”
“And I assumed he was a soldier. When I went to the cottage – the garden was so ordered. Regimented.”
Connie wasn’t in the mood for hearing about planting schemes, and willed Roger to get to the point.
“So what are you saying?”
“Anyway it was the Fourteenth Service Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Michael Sawyer joined it in October 1915. And in November 1915 it went to the Western Front.” Roger was eager to impress with his skills.
Connie nodded, still waiting for the punchline.
“Or rather, the battalion went but Michael Sawyer didn’t. He was reported as being injured during training. And when he’d recovered, his NCO came to collect him, only to find he’d absconded. He was reported for absenteeism for four occasions and then reported as being AWOL.”
There it was.
“So he’s a deserter?” Connie’s hunch had been right. Sawyer did have a secret. A pretty major one, at that. It explained his hatred of anyone coming to the house and the reason perhaps why he never left the house. He didn’t want to be seen. As a deserter, Michael Sawyer would be a wanted man; tarred by the stigma of being a coward.
But as Connie fitted it all into place, Roger threw a little cold water on the revelation. He wasn’t sure that, in the current situation, whether anyone in authority would worry about finding him. “They’ve got more important things to worry about now, of course.”
But that brought him to his second point. Something was worrying him about this case.
“Thing is, he must know he’s unlikely to be hauled in for questioning any time soon,” Roger said. “So why is he so – isolated?”
“Maybe he’s just got into the habit of hiding all these years?” Connie suggested.
“Or –” Ro
ger said, with the great flourish of Hercule Poirot solving a case. “He’s got something else to hide!”
Connie’s mind was reeling. “What else could it be?” She pondered if Michael was reclusive because of Margaret. Maybe that was the other thing that Michael Sawyer was hiding: a fear of being exposed for not having adopted her properly. Connie was in two minds about whether to tell Roger about this. What if she was wrong? It would seem as if she was victimising an innocent – if slightly odd – couple who were trying to do their best for an orphaned girl. Connie decided to keep this to herself for the time being. Besides, Roger Curran had his own ideas.
“We should go to the cottage tomorrow and confront him with this,” he said. “See what else falls from the tree.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“It could be a great story, Mrs Jameson.”
The story, yes. Connie had lit a touch paper there. Well done, Connie.
She wondered what they could accomplish. “Michael isn’t likely to admit to being a deserter and then open up about anything else he’s hiding, is he?”
Roger conceded that she might be right. “You can either come with me or stay out of it.”
Reluctantly Connie agreed to come with the journalist tomorrow. But it would have to be after work. Roger Curran agreed and said he’d meet her outside The Helmstead Herald offices tomorrow night. He went off with a whistle while Connie walked quickly up the path of the vicarage.
She opened the door, hung up her Women’s Land Army jumper and went through to the living room, where a roaring fire was burning in the hearth. On the table were two plates of sandwiches. Connie’s heart soared at how welcoming Henry had made things for her return. Maybe things would be all right and –
But she was surprised when it was Vince Halliday, not Henry, who came through from the kitchen with a pot of tea and a warm smile.
“Where’s Henry?” Connie asked.
Vince shrugged. His manner wasn’t as brusque as before. “I thought he’d be with you,” he said, softly. “How did you get on in London? You weren’t followed?”
