Cherringham--Last Train to London

by Neil Richards

  She nodded. Daniel was playing cricket up at the nets all day, Chloe had signed up to a drama workshop. Grace, her assistant, was hopefully managing things at her web studio – summer was slow anyway.

  So, a good time to dig into Otto Brendl’s life. And for once, Sarah really hoped she wasn’t going to find anything.

  8. A Walk by the River

  Sarah had expected the proprietor of the ‘Why Knot’ knitting shop to be a little old lady, round and soft and sweet, wearing a knitted cardigan and almost certainly in a misery of mourning.

  In fact, she was anything but – and Sarah had to contain her surprise when they finally met at the start of the river-walk down by Cherringham Bridge. Jayne Reid was in her early fifties, lean, sharp, in jeans and a runner’s fleece, and Sarah realised that she recognised her from walking around the village.

  Sarah had gone to Why Knot and had found it closed. Next door, the shutters were also down on Otto Brendl’s jewellers shop. A little discreet asking around had turned up a mobile number, and Sarah had finally got through to Jayne.

  Sarah’s tentative suggestion that perhaps they could meet for a chat had turned into a brisk instruction to meet her ‘in one hour precisely or not at all’. Jayne led a busy life it seemed and if Sarah was going to find out more about Otto Brendl she was going to have to pay the piper …

  “I usually walk up as far as the old church and back,” said Jayne after they’d made their introductions by the stile on the river path.

  “Lovely,” said Sarah.

  “Good,” said Jayne, striding ahead along the river bank.

  Sarah caught up – and tried to figure out her tactics.

  She’d always found that walking together was a good way to interview someone. Plenty of time to think and there were no awkward silences. Distractions, possibilities of finding shared interests, ways of changing the subject if one particular direction got awkward …

  And here in the meadows opposite the residential moorings, on a warm summer’s afternoon, under a blue sky, there should be no shortage of things to talk about. The river was busy with little boats, fishermen and kids in kayaks.

  All she had to do was get Jayne talking, get the information flowing …

  “You’re sure you don’t mind me asking you about Mr Brendl?” she said, keeping step with Jayne’s brisk, no-nonsense pace.

  “That depends upon the questions.”

  “We’re just trying to get a sense of his background so that we can —”

  “— get Mrs Harper off the hook,” said Jayne. “That’s really what this is about, isn’t it?”

  “Sorry?”

  Sarah hadn’t expected that comment.

  “Oh come on, Sarah, I wasn’t born yesterday,” said Jayne. “Otto never got round to those ridiculous checks and now instead of people remembering him for his charity work, that bloody stupid woman is going to pollute his reputation by sending you and your American —”

  Jayne Reid stopped dead and spun round, to point across the river towards Jack’s boat, moored just thirty yards away.

  “That where he lives, isn’t it?” she said, as if accusing Sarah of some kind of crime.

  Sarah nodded.

  “I suppose he’s watching me through binoculars,” said Jayne, shaking her head. “So, where was I? Yes – my good friend dies and minutes later I’m being questioned by two bloody amateur detectives trying to dig up dirt.”

  “Ms Reid, that’s not true. We’re just trying to —”

  “For God’s sake call me ‘Jayne’, will you,” she said, spinning on her heels and carrying on up the footpath. “Ms? Ms? Ridiculous form of address!”

  Sarah hurried along behind her to catch up. This wasn’t going at all the way she’d imagined – she needed to change tack and fast.

  “I’m not sure if you know, but somebody broke into Mr Brendl’s house over the weekend and stole his puppets.”

  Jayne stopped so suddenly that Sarah nearly bumped into her.

  “What? No, I didn’t,” she said, her brow furrowed in anger. “How do you know? And why wasn’t I told?”

  “We only found out this morning. Jack and I took the Punch and Judy back to his cottage and —”

  “So you’ve got his keys? I don’t believe this …”

  “The keys were actually in the little theatre, so Mrs Harper —”

  “I asked at the hospital for them; they wouldn’t give them to me —”

  “I’m sure that’s only because they didn’t have them —”

  “I thought they were just being bloody-minded, I didn’t expect the school to be in on it too.”

  Sarah realised that Jayne was still in shock at Otto Brendl’s death – somehow she was going to have to calm her down.

  “I’m sure Mrs Harper intended to pass the keys onto you,” she said.

  “Oh God, back to Mrs Harper again – I really don’t want to talk about that woman – okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “Come on,” said Jayne, striding off once more down the river path.

  Sarah watched her marching away and thought:

  I could just leave this for now. Catch her later. Take a breather. Grab a cuppa over at Jack’s boat.

  But something – some instinct – told her that there might never be a better time to question Jayne Reid.

  She hurried after her.

  Ten minutes of fast walking had passed without a word between them.

  Sarah had decided to let Jayne Reid stew for a while. In silence they’d followed the slow winding shape of the river path upstream, occasionally crossing stiles or footbridges over small brooks. Up here there were fewer pleasure boats and holidaymakers. The meadows turned to pasture and Sarah kept an eye on groups of inquisitive cows as they walked by them.

  On any other day this would be a lovely walk, she thought.

  But she was determined not to give in.

  Eventually the path curved in across the meadow and Sarah saw they were close to the old church, which stood on a raised mound just a few hundred yards from the Thames.

  Ahead of her, Jayne had reached the dry stone wall which surrounded the churchyard. She pushed the ancient wooden gate and held it open for Sarah.

  “I haven’t been here for years,” said Sarah.

  “We – I – come here every day,” said Jayne over her shoulder, striding up the stone path to the church entrance.

  Sarah paused and took in the familiar view.

  St Paul’s Church, Ingleston.

  When she was a teenager she and her friends used to come up here, drink cider in the graveyard and scare each other half to death.

  In truth, it had always been, to her, the most peaceful, romantic place. She’d even written an essay about it as a local history project.

  The church had once been at the heart of Ingleston, she remembered – but the village had been decimated during the Black Death. The fields all around were dotted with grassy mounds, under which slept the grim remains of the abandoned cottages and barns.

  “Come on,” said Jayne, holding the heavy church door open. Sarah walked up the church path, past ancient gravestones, marked with skulls and gothic texts.

  Through the open church door, she could see only darkness. She crossed the threshold.

  9. Doom

  After the bright sunlight, it took a few seconds for Sarah’s eyes to adjust. She looked around. The church was empty. It looked just as it had done twenty years ago.

  It probably hasn’t changed for hundreds of years, she thought.

  Instead of the modern plastic chairs which filled most churches these days, here there were seventeenth-century box pews. And on the crumbling walls there were faded paintings which must go back more than a thousand years, depicting biblical scenes.

  As Sarah followed Jayne through the church, her footsteps echoed on the smooth, worn flagstones.

  Eventually Jayne stopped at the altar and sat on a bench. Sarah joined her and waited. The air was cool.
Outside, Sarah could hear birdsong and the occasional playful shouts from children on the river.

  “You see the ‘Doom’?” said Jayne, nodding to the faded painting on the East wall.

  “Doom?” asked Sarah.

  “Judgement Day. Right there. Christ separating those who will go to Heaven, from those who will go straight to Hell.”

  Sarah looked at the wall and suddenly remembered how, as a teenager, she’d been fascinated by the details in this graphic image of Hell, the ingenious tortures imagined by the medieval painter.

  “This was Otto’s favourite place,” said Jayne eventually. “In the whole world, he said.”

  “Was he religious?” said Sarah, sensing that Jayne was ready to talk.

  “No, not now.”

  “But once?”

  “As a child in Germany – yes, I think so.” She took a breath. “We didn’t talk about that.”

  “He grew up there?”

  Was there a bit of hesitation?

  “In Erfurt. What used to be East Germany.”

  “But he never went back?” said Sarah.

  “He hated it. He was an orphan. It was communism. Would you go back?”

  Sarah knew she had to keep this conversation going.

  “He has no next of kin?” she said.

  “No.”

  “He never talked about his family?”

  “Are you listening? He grew up in an institution.”

  “So, Jayne. You and Otto …” Sarah groped for the right word. “Were you …?”

  Dangerous ground here.

  “We were very close,” said Jayne, turning and looking directly at Sarah. “Is that enough for you?”

  Sarah nodded and changed the subject.

  “Where did he learn to do puppetry? In Germany?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” said Jayne. “I think so. When we first met, he showed me his Kasperletheater. Very old, and those classic German puppets … so beautiful …”

  “He kept them in special cases,” said Sarah, coaxing.

  “Yes,” said Jayne. “They were worth a fortune.”

  “Really? Did anyone else know about them?”

  Sarah spoke softly. She sensed that Jayne’s anger was beginning to dissolve, sitting here in the cool air of the church.

  “People in the trade, I suppose,” said Jayne. “Otto bought and sold puppets online, you see. Never his most precious ones, of course. But others he ordered from all over Europe and then sold on.”

  “And you don’t know who might have broken into his house and stolen them?”

  “Oh but I do,” said Jayne, turning to Sarah as if her question hardly needed asking.

  Sarah blinked in surprise.

  “Who?”

  “Krause, of course.”

  “Krause?”

  “‘The Puppet King’,” he calls himself.

  “Is he local?”

  “He’s got a unit on an estate outside Chipping Norton. Full of party crap.”

  “But he sells puppets too?”

  “He does shows. Bad Punch and Judy shows. Or junk with themed puppets. Horrible things – ripped off from American cartoons.”

  “And you think he stole Otto’s puppets?”

  “Krause hated Otto. Tried to put him out of business.”

  “Why?” said Sarah.

  “He was jealous, of course,” said Jayne. “Otto’s puppets were handmade, special. He did shows the old-fashioned way. The children loved him.”

  Jayne sniffed the air. “Krause was a hack. Otto was an artist.”

  “So Krause – saw Otto as a threat?”

  “Of course,” said Jayne. “It was all about money for him! But also he wanted Otto’s puppets so he could sell them, had some secret buyers lined up. He offered Otto thousands. Every week he phoned. Kept coming into the jewellers, making trouble, trying to force Otto to sell. Otto told him where to go. Nicely, of course. Otto was always too nice.”

  For a second Sarah wondered what she was doing here.

  The plan had been just to make sure there was nothing untoward in Otto Brendl’s life that could come back to haunt Mrs Harper. But now, it seemed she was tumbling into a bizarre puppet war …

  “Do you have any proof of all this? Anything we could talk to the police about?”

  “I don’t need proof,” said Jayne, and Sarah could see her anger flash across her face.

  Another sniff. Jayne Reid was a force to be reckoned with …

  “Krause is evil. He did it. He stole Otto’s puppets. End of story.”

  10. The Puppet King

  “In your basket, Riley,” said Jack. “You know the deal.”

  Riley gave Jack his most pleading expression, then turned, whining, and slouched down the wheelhouse steps into the saloon.

  In the time that he and the Springer Spaniel had lived together on the Grey Goose, Jack had learned to ignore these looks – but he never liked to be parted from his dog for long.

  He padlocked the wheelhouse and walked the short gangway to the river bank.

  “Gonna be a scorcher, Jack!” came a voice from the next but one barge. Jack squinted against the bright early morning sun. There in a deckchair on the fore-deck of the old Magnolia was Ray Stroud, shirt off, tin mug of tea in one hand, a roll-up cigarette in the other.

  Maybe it was tea. That the cigarette was tobacco was more doubtful.

  As far as Jack could tell, Ray was the only genuine hippy left in the Cotswolds and a handy ‘in’ to the shadier activities of the area. Handy too, when Jack needed help on the boat – though the price was often a hangover the next day.

  “Yep, warming up nicely,” said Jack as he headed down the riverbank towards the old bridge car park. “You up to much today?”

  “Might tickle a few trout this arvo,” said Ray chewing on the roll-up that was glued to the corner of his mouth. “Then it’s happy hour down the Ploughman’s. Suppose I’ll have to go. Can’t let them down now, can I?”

  “I’m sure you can’t,” said Jack grinning.

  Ray spat into the river.

  “See you locked up there, Jack.”

  “Always do,” said Jack, pausing.

  This wasn’t idle chatter. He could see Ray hesitating, as if he had something to share. Then:

  “Only I heard there was a fella asking after you last night, up at Iron Wharf.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “So I hear,” said Ray. “Asking which of these boats might be yours.”

  “Really? I’m obliged to you for the information, Ray.”

  “’s what neighbours are for.”

  “And … don’t suppose you … heard any more?”

  Ray pulled himself up from the deckchair and tossed the dregs of his cup into the river.

  Then he crossed the deck to be nearer to Jack.

  Jack edged closer to the barge – he knew that any exchange of information with Ray had to be treated seriously, respectfully.

  “What I heard was … that this fella doing the enquiring was a young’un. Had an accent. Russian, or somethin’ – they reckoned.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Jack taking this in.

  “And what with you being American, Jack – well you’ll know what that means.”

  “I surely do,” said Jack, not knowing at all what that meant.

  Jack stared at Ray, who nodded slowly, then tapped his nose.

  “Good to be prepared, eh Jack?” he said then turned on his heels and went back to his deckchair.

  “How true. And thanks Ray.”

  Jack too turned – and carried on down the river bank past the other moored boats and barges.

  On any other day, he might have treated Ray’s little chat as a symptom of overheated local imaginings, fuelled by whatever.

  But right now there were thin connections forming in the back of his mind, threads of ideas, wisps of coincidence that he couldn’t ignore …

  And I don’t believe in coincidence, he thought.

  Th
e tattoo on Brendl’s chest. Brighton Beach. East European gangs. And now a young Russian …

  That man on the road near Brendl’s place. A walker? A stranger? What was he doing on that road? It went nowhere. Only to Brendl’s cottage …

  And Krause, the man that Sarah had called him about, the man he was on his way to meet this morning over in Chipping Norton.

  The Puppet King.

  All these disconnected threads …

  What did all this have to do with the sad death of an old man at an English summer fête?

  On the early morning empty roads, it only took Jack around twenty minutes to get to Chipping Norton – and he relished driving the Healey Sprite in the sunshine, wind blowing.

  The little sports car flew like a fire-cracker up and down the Cotswold hills and, with the top down, it reminded him of some crazy vacation trips in his youth along the Pacific Coast Highway …

  Sarah had filled him in on her chat with Jayne Reid – and now he thought about it, he knew he’d seen Jayne and Brendl more than once in the past year on the meadows walking together along the river.

  The industrial estate sat half a mile short of the town and, as he pulled off the main road and drew in, he was struck how all these little English towns seemed to have identical, scruffy little work units on their outskirts.

  He drove slowly, inspecting each one – dog food distributor, bathrooms, pizza bases, tyres, tiles, furniture strippers, and then – how could anyone miss it …

  FunLand!

  Single storey, glass-fronted, garish colours, neon signs, balloons – and three people dressed as vegetables sitting on a bench having a smoke. Jack pulled up right in front of them.

  As he got out of the car, the carrot and the onion ignored him. The pod of peas gave him a cursory nod.

  Par for the course, he thought. If it’s a cigarette break, the customers can go hang.

  Jack went in and paused for a moment just behind the sliding doors.

  Rows and rows of party gear stretched away to the back of the cavernous warehouse, each line individually themed. He could see Irish, Cowboy, Wizard, Superhero, Fairy …

  Party music blared out of walls, balloons swung in the air and everywhere he could see signs telling him to ‘Have Fun, you’re in FunLand!’