02 - Down the Garden Path

by Dorothy Cannell

  DOWN THE GARDEN PATH

  Dorothy Cannell

  About the Author

  Publishing Information

  * * *

  Prologue

  The Vicar’s Daughter

  To the residents of Flaxby Meade in the Cotswolds, the avenue was known as Abbots Walk, a remembrance of a gentler time, of centuries gone by, when the famous monastery, Chantwell, stood near this place welcoming beggars to its alms-gate and tending the infirm and ailing. Those were Popish times, and the village was now staunchly Church of England, but the residents could be tolerant—when they chose.

  On both sides of the walk’s earth-trodden pathway, ancient elms arched upwards in graceful latticework to meet at last in gentle supplication: a cathedral ceiling of green, fragile as filigree. This was September and radiant afternoon sunlight filtered through the leaves, turning the ground to a mosaic of gold and brown. Somewhere high in the pure blue sky a bird chanted its eternal song. Surely a monk, or even the abbot himself, might still pass this way; his tonsured head bent low, fingers tolling the beads with the patient ease of daily ritual.

  Some of the superstitious old folk claimed the walk was indeed haunted, and sometimes children hid amidst its trees, whiling away the hours, playing jacks or cat’s cradle, waiting to glimpse a spectral brother dressed up for the outing in his best hair shirt. There were also the cowards—namby-pambies afraid to pass along that shadowed pathway—but Abbots Walk was a sacred place, not a place of treachery and evil. Serenity, a gift from the earth and its history, had laid a hand upon it in benediction. Stillness and peace were the offerings bestowed here, woven in quiet shadows across the ground. Many the passerby who gazed upwards, awed by the rich carving of bark and jade, and bowed his head to pray a mumbled verse or two.

  Tessa Fields was certainly praying as she precariously pedalled a rusty old bicycle into Abbots Walk. She was belligerently demanding that the Man upstairs drop any paperwork with which he was presently occupied and take care of that arch-demon of them all—Harry Harkness—pronto. Harry was the one who had insisted on the bicycle. He was the one who deserved to meet his Maker fifty years before his time—not her.

  At twenty-one, Tessa wasn’t ready for the Pearly Gates ... but she would make her grand entrance if she flew over those handlebars and was impaled on an outstretched branch. Damn! she thought. Those trees were snickering at her. And she really couldn’t blame them. To meet one’s end taking a toss from a bolting black stallion held a certain poignancy; a fatal fall from a piebald metal nag was a sick joke.

  The bike erupted over a moss-covered rock, bucked wildly, and shied to the left. No wild screeching of brakes; the brute didn’t have any. A tree stump loomed in their path, and Bronco reared wildly before plunging to a whimpering halt. The whimper was from Tessa. When she opened her eyes and adjusted to the sunlight filtering dappled gold and green through the trees, she found she was in the middle of the walk. And walk was what she should have done, she mused bitterly.

  Her friend Harry had insisted on the bicycle, claiming it was essential to everything the afternoon entailed. Had it mattered that she had never even mastered a tricycle? Not a bit! Harry had informed her it was all in the mind—like parachute jumping. Yesterday, when giving her that ten-minute lesson, he had assured her that her only problem seemed to be confusing fore with aft. She did, however, recall his admitting that pedalling might have been a tad easier if Bronco had possessed pedals instead of steel rods.

  Tessa shook back her thickly curling mop of wild, honey-colored hair without prying her hands off the handlebars, and gave the bike a vicious kick. Decidedly un-Christian of her. This palsied metal beast was not the one to blame. Harry was the only villain, and he was compounding his sins by being late. “Men!” she seethed. Not one of the Creator’s finer achievements. But, as Fergy would say, practice makes perfect—look what He achieved with one spare rib only minutes after His trial run with Adam.

  Straddling the bicycle, Tessa peered towards the opaque green light at the end of the walk. “Come on, Harry!” she muttered under her breath. “The least you could do is show up on time.” She didn’t exactly like all this hushed beauty. Made one feel like a turkey smelling Christmas on the wind.

  Speaking of birds. There were plenty of those, twittering and tweeting away. Tessa could sense their eyes, hundreds of little black stabs of darkness, pinning her onto a piece of paper like a dead butterfly. She wished Harry would get here. Harry with his laughing eyes.... Ages ago, when she had been madly (and childishly) in love with him, she had written a poem to his eyes, likening them to bluebells on the first May morning. Now she winced at such sentimental gush and damned Harry’s eyes. He was going to ruin all their fantastic plans for this afternoon. Already he was two and a half minutes late.

  Even the trees tensed and the light at the end of the tunnel clouded. Something waited there. Something human? Tessa was surprised at her unease. What she and Harry planned for this afternoon would never have met with her father’s approval, but until minutes ago she had been convinced that it was what she wanted, that it was right. The ruffled collar of her cream silk blouse brushed her neck like cool quick fingers. If only Harry had not informed her that this place was haunted.

  “Hello! Anyone there?” Tessa called. Banish Harry’s quip about earthly abstinence making for very lusty ghosts. She was wearing her brown corduroy knee-length britches with the dozen minuscule buttons down the front. Let Vapour Fingers try having a go at those! Instantly she was sorry. Vulgarity was not acceptable here. Even the birds had stopped tweeting, as though their beaks had fallen open. Quickly she crossed herself. Her father was very ecumenical in spirit. A slight breeze stirred, surprisingly chill.

  A dim form stepped forward, and something else gleaming silver was hunched by its side.

  “Harry, is that you?” The whispered words were drowned out by a gust of shrill twitterings. She saw now that the silver monster was a motorbike which the creature had leaned up against a tree.

  “Hey there, my lovely!” The voice was male and not the least bit vapourish. His only resemblance to a monk was that he wore brown—a dark brown leather jacket and form-fitting taupe trousers. He walked leisurely, almost indolently, towards her, eyes glinting in his sun-darkened face, thick chestnut hair lifting a little in the breeze. Those eyes—alert, yet somehow amused—made her think of fire and ice, and idiotically she was a little afraid. Perhaps it was the too-sleek clothes. She disliked leather jackets on men, and despised silk cravats knotted at the neck.

  The man was carrying a small branch, flicking off leaves in a little trail as he came. He was tall, but tilting her neck to look at him was not what caused the cold tickle down Tessa’s spine.

  “So I can find my way home.” He flicked off another leaf, watching her eyes watching him. “Remember Hansel and Gretel?”

  “That was bread.”

  “I got hungry and ate the lunch my mummy packed in my little kerchief.” He smiled slowly, displaying exceptionally fine white teeth. Thumbing back at the silver monster, now several yards behind him, he continued, “You think it safe for me to leave Petrol Breath by that tree? I haven’t seen any ‘No Parking’ signs posted, have you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m just here minding my own business.”

  “Guess I’ll chance it.” He smiled again. “You’re not trying to scare me, are you, standing there eating me up with your big bad eyes? What about you, Little Red Riding Hood?”

  Tessa’s knuckles ached from gripping the handlebars, “I’m not unescorted. I’m meeting a friend. He will be here any minute.”

  The man had stopped a pace or two away from her, still yanking leaves off the branch. Tessa half expected
to hear a series of “ouches” as they fluttered to the ground. “That’s a good one,” he said. “Almost as good as my favorite line—the cheque is in the post.”

  Reaching out long brown fingers he unclenched her hands from the bike and gave the handlebars a playful jerk. Looming over her, his breath fanned her face. Then, lips tightening, he directed the tree branch at her like a pistol. “Stand and deliver, my lovely. Ah, how this place fires up the imagination!” He covered the lower half of his face, masklike, with his free hand, then dropped it. “Don’t you love those old yarns of highwaymen appearing out of nowhere on deserted stretches of road? Such high old times those jolly dogs had despoiling innocent damsels.” His voice surged to a rasp and Tessa jerked back, scraping her shin on the mudguard.

  “A high old time and a swinging one, too, at the end of a gibbet,” she tossed back. Fear sharpened her voice to an unnatural pitch.

  “My, what big beautiful eyes,” he said in a soft, almost musing voice. “You know, I consider myself a connoisseur and I don’t believe I have ever seen anything quite like them. Topaz. No—sherry, warmed lovingly in a crystal glass. Eyes to drink a toast to and then smash.” He extended the word—toying with it with his tongue. “The glass, of course.”

  The timbre of his voice had deepened again and his breathing became decidedly ragged. Tessa tried to yank the bike backwards, but he held on. “And the way your mouth tilts down at the corners—charming. The only part I am not sure about is the hair.” Reaching out he flicked at it with the stick. “Gorgeous colour and masses of it, but I don’t care for the style. Too unkempt. What it needs is brushing—lots of brushing; long, smooth, languorous strokes.” Eyes baiting her, he tossed the stick away. Catching up a handful of hair he forced her head backwards. “Red Riding Hood, you really are something.”

  “Not something, someone,” she snapped back, the tangled cloud of hair flaring out as she pulled free. The bike stood between them like a chastity belt.

  “Oh, cripes! Don’t come over all bloody high-minded.” He closed his eyes and sucked in a pained breath. “Life’s too short not to pounce on each chance encounter and wring every last drop of pleasure from it. Come on! You look like a girl who’s great at thinking up highly inventive fun and games. Know what else I think?” His voice was gentle now, almost beguiling.

  “No.” Tessa tilted her head sideways as she rammed the front wheel of the bicycle into his legs. His eyes darkened.

  “I don’t think that friend of yours is coming,” he said slowly, as if savouring every word. “But the way I see it, his loss is my gain.” In one lithe movement, he reached out an arm and lifted her from the bike. Holding her for a moment before releasing her, he picked up the bicycle as if it were a child’s kite and flung it across the walk, where it shuddered into a tree stump.

  “Calm down, precious.” The man had both arms around her now. “Don’t fight the inevitable. I could break every bone in your body just by blowing on you. But be a good little mousey and this nice tomcat will play with you first.”

  “You’ve been going to the pictures too often.” A separate part of Tessa was listening, not to this creature with the steel arms, but to the quivering silence. She had the feeling of being watched by secret eyes.

  “Look.” She was shouting now. “You’re not scaring me—you are not going to murder me. No one in his right mind would pull something like that in daylight, in a place that isn’t”—her gaze shifted around the walk—”all that isolated.”

  “Oh, but it is ... and you see, my pretty, I make no claim to being in my right mind. Not when I look upon those eyes. By the way—if you give me your address before we’re through, you have my word that I will write something really touching on the card attached to my floral offering.”

  She was choking as his lips sidled, warm and hungry, up her neck.

  “Relax,” he breathed, teeth nipping at her ear. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” His voice was a creeping-crawling thing holding her mesmerized, the muscle and steel of his body and hands moulding her against him like melted plastic. “This is what all you women want, isn’t it? None of that sissy drivel that made your mothers froth with delight. You want a man who will do his stuff and not ask you how you enjoyed it, right?” The words stopped when his mouth clamped down on hers.

  “No,” she gasped, twisting her mouth away, heart knocking wildly in her chest. She had to make him stop. She should never have come to this place. Beneath the beauty and serenity lay something evil. The ghosts weren’t nice people. “Harry!” she gasped.

  “Harry isn’t here.” The man smiled. “There’s only me, Mr. Evil Incarnate.”

  “Don’t be so stupid.” Tessa tried to blink away the tears of rage and fright but they were trapped in her lashes. She could smell the sun on the man’s leather jacket. She could smell the dark moistness of the earth following that morning’s shower; the woody fragrance of the bark; the green pungency of the leaves. Such a lovely day. The lump in her throat threatened to choke her. And then she heard it—the crunch of twigs underfoot. Someone was coming. Someone perhaps to disturb those sly twittering birds, and whatever else lurked amidst the trees.

  “Scoundrel!” shouted a high, quavering female voice. “Rapist! Murderer!”

  Tessa wrenched sideways, peering over the man’s shoulder. A flurried elderly lady in a grey-and-white striped dress was thrusting her way through the trees, hampered somewhat by a wide straw sunhat. A bulging string bag swung from the crook of her arm, and her lavender crocheted shawl kept getting snagged on twigs.

  “Unhand that girl at once if you know what is good for you.”

  The man snickered. “Ah! What I like best! An audience!”

  “Sneer if you must, sir.” The elderly lady unpinned her shawl carefully and checked for damage. “But beware! My nephew Marmaduke, otherwise known as Muscles, is right behind me.”

  The man tossed Tessa away, sending her sprawling on the ground. “The old hen’s lying. What say you, little temptress? Shall we adjourn our merry romp for another time?” He lowered his voice. “If I hang around too long she may recall where she saw my wanted poster. But despair not, I am the faithful kind. I will see you again—some dark and stormy night.”

  Before Tessa could struggle to her feet the man had sprinted down the walk and they heard the surging roar of the motorbike. She was shaking violently all over.

  “My poor child, are you all right?” The elderly lady nipped spryly over and placed a tentative hand on Tessa’s arm. “There, there! Such an appalling thing. In my young day, a girl would never recover from such an outrage. Indeed, it would have been considered a shade unladylike if she had. Now, my dear, that rogue was rude but truthful in calling me a lying old hen in reference to my nephew Marmaduke. The boy lives in America, so we cannot place any dependence upon his assisting us. We will have to manage on our own. Should one call in Scotland Yard, one wonders? An exciting prospect! But I have the notion that they really do prefer murder. And can we risk offending Constable Watt by going over his head? With strikes rampant, one does have to pander to the sensibilities of the working class, doesn’t one? But as my dear father always said, one doesn’t chase down a solution with a wooden club. First things first. When we get back to the house we will both have a nice hot cup of tea to settle our nerves, so we can think straight, then say a little prayer of thanksgiving that I reached you before all was lost.”

  Tessa looked into the crumpled tissue-paper face with its gentle pansy-blue eyes. “You’re very kind,” she breathed, slowly raising a limp hand to her brow. “Excuse me, I feel rather faint.” Groping with her other hand, she met unresisting air, dropped forward and—before the elderly lady could catch her—slipped into a heap upon the dark, sun-warmed ground.

  Were the ghosts enjoying themselves? Behind her closed lids Tessa could see them, squirming shadows thick among the leaves. She could almost hear the murmur of their watching ...

  * * * *

  Ten-year-old Berti
e Krumpet had just experienced the most gruesome time of his life, even worse than the time he accidentally got locked in the henhouse one night when Aunt Maude was gone on a case. Worse even than his memories of the orphanage in the East End before his adoption. Worse than being sent to the butcher’s and seeing all those stiff carcasses hanging from the ceiling, the dried bloodstains on the sawdust floor.

  Most times he enjoyed coming to Abbots Walk. Him and Fred often went there. They wasn’t afraid of spooks. People was what frightened them—people like the Squire with his weird toddler’s voice and sissy clothes, and that gypsy lady with the big black eyes that took X-rays of your innards. Weird, they was. But they wasn’t wicked like the man in the leather jacket. No one was that wicked except on the telly. Funny about that....

  For a while, as he and Fred peered down from their perch midway up one of the elms, Bertie felt like they was watching a play. Sort of comforting in a way. You wasn’t expected to rescue people on the telly, however awful they got knocked around. Must have been the young lady’s being so pretty what gave that make-believe feeling. Bertie had only grown frightened when he realized that her fear was real. And it weren’t as though the man had done something awful like sticking a knitting needle in one of her ears and out the other. It were his voice—all thick and slimy—what told you he was wicked and spooked you half to death.

  What a stroke of luck, the old girl bopping along in the nick of time like that! And now the young lady had come over queer and fainted! Awful, but exciting! What next? Miss Primrose Tramwell was gentry, a breed for which Bertie felt immense pity. Imagine never prowling round Woolworth’s or munching fish and chips out of newspaper while walking home from the flicks on a dark wet night. But Miss Tramwell weren’t just gentry, she were batty; she and her sister both. A very weird pair—Miss Hyacinth and Primrose Tramwell. The whole village said so.

  From the tree branch, screened by leaves, Bertie and Fred had continued to watch, fascinated, as the frail elderly lady reached into her string bag. Drawing out a jar of pickled onions, she unscrewed the lid, and waved them under the girl’s nose.