The house where Pieter and Maren lived, and where she had once slept in a lean to at the back, looked deserted. Weeds had overtaken the garden she had tended so carefully, and the door that Pieter had painted a cheerful red had faded to an ugly pink. She crept around the back to find the lean to. Perhaps if no one had lived here since Pieter and Maren had gone to Bunnythorpe, the bed she used to sleep in would still be there. She could lie down and rest until morning, and find someone in the clearing to help her then.
She paused outside the door, remembering the horrible night when Gottlieb Karlsen had come there and tried to force himself on her, and what Frank had done to him later. She had become friendly with Frank after the attack when he seemed always to be saving her from something or other. Remembering that made her heart ache. She was already in love with him when they met; she had fallen in love the first time she had seen him watching her when he was talking to Hans Christian Nissen - something she had never told him, as he believed he had seen her first and talked her into marrying him. She knew she was going to marry him the minute she had seen him looking at her. He was the man she had been waiting for.
She opened the door of the lean to carefully. It creaked loudly. The bar Pieter had built for her to protect herself was no longer there and the room smelled musty and unused. When she had lived there the milch cow had been in an adjacent room, but she could hear nothing. A milch cow did not live there now.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
No reply. She tried again in Danish, realizing that the language she spoke would not change how anyone sleeping inside would react. “Hej. Er der nogen?”
Still nothing. Emboldened, she opened the door wider. The bed she had once slept on, the collapsible iron cot purchased from surplus army supplies, was still there. No blankets, no mattress, but something to lie down on. And she was getting desperate. She stretched out on it and made herself as comfortable as possible. It was only slightly better than the dirt floor, but she fell asleep instantly.
She awoke, or thought she did, with an old grey witch dressed in a blue shawl and white cap bending over her and asking her who she was and why was she there. She thought she saw a soldier marching behind her, left, right, left, right. He was carrying a sword and for a moment she thought it was Frank. But why would Frank be marching behind a witch in a lean to? It didn’t make sense. And anyway, the soldier was wearing the wrong uniform, so it couldn’t be Frank. The room smelled of honey and garlic, which for some reason was comforting. She could feel her arm throbbing, but it was covered in a stiff, grey cloth, a bandage of some kind. She imagined her whole body was covered in a bandage, but realized it was probably a blanket. It was all too much to make sense of, and eventually she fell back to sleep thinking of tinder boxes and dogs with eyes as big as teacups, and flying through the air in a wheelbarrow, which seemed even more foolish.
She awoke again and found she was lying on a mattress in a larger room. She recognized the room - Pieter and Maren’s bedroom. Someone must have carried her from the lean to. She was grateful, but she could not stay here. She had found her way to a stranger’s cottage and would have to leave. She hoped her dream about the witch was just a dream.
She propped herself on one elbow and noticed the old woman - the witch - was sitting on a stool nearby mending a sock which was pulled over a darning mushroom. She had a hunched back and pale grey hair pulled into a bun.
“God morgen,” said the witch. She smiled at Mette, who realized she was not actually a witch, just an old woman with a very pleasant, friendly smile.
“God morgan,” said Mette. She sat up and tried to put her feet on the floor, but was overcome with dizziness. She lay back again. “I’m sorry. I want to get up and go home, but I don’t seem able…”
“You cut yourself,” said the old woman, still talking in Danish. “I found you in the back room yesterday morning. You were delirious.”
“Did you carry me around to this room?” asked Mette. “How…”
The old woman smiled. “You’re not very heavy, and I’m used to hard work. I take in washing and mending, and sometimes the washing is in very large bundles. And I put you in my wheelbarrow, which helped.”
Mette closed her eyes. That explained quite a bit, but she was surprised to learn she had been here since yesterday morning. Wouldn’t people be wondering where she was?
“I suppose you ran away from your husband,” said the old woman. “Can’t see the need for husbands, myself. I never married.” She put down her darning needle and flexed her hand, which was knobbly and crooked from arthritis. “Did he beat you? I noticed a mark on your eye, as well as the scratch on your arm.”
“I…I cut myself climbing out a window,” said Mette. “I landed in a boxthorn hedge, and…” She realized that the cut didn’t feel as painful as it had when she had awoken the first time. “It’s much better than it was.”
“They’re hard to escape from, husbands,” said the old woman. “Not worth the trouble to run away, I would think. He’ll come looking for you. May as well go back if he does.”
“I wasn’t escaping from my husband,” said Mette. “I was…” It was going to be hard to explain the whole story to this woman, and she was too tired to try. “Actually, I would like to go back to my husband. Or at least send for him, Miss…?”
“Mrs. Gammel,” said the old woman. “I never married, but I call myself missus. I don’t want men to get ideas about me.”
Mette didn’t know what ideas men might get about Mrs. Gammel. She seemed like a nice enough person, but Mette was beginning to fear she was seeing a vision of herself who had never met Frank, and it was sobering. “Do Hans Christian and Johanna Nissen still live next door?” she asked.
Mrs. Gammel shook her head. “Left last year. They’re up in Stoney Creek I think. Not many of the houses in the clearing are occupied. All the Scandies have found better places to live.” She picked up her needle again and finished the hole she had been working on, snapping the thread with her teeth when she finished. “Would you like some broth? All I could get you to take since yesterday was a little water, and you need to regain your strength.”
Mette nodded. She was hungry. She would have some broth to make her feel better, and then she’d walk into Palmerston and find Frank. If he’d gone back to the farm, she would ask Karira to ride out and bring him in to town, and they would deal with Ernest together. It would probably mean finding a place for Agnete to live, as she could not stay with a man who hit her. As for the letter…that could wait for now. But she was worried about it, and about what had happened to Mr. Robinson. How terrible if Ernest had pushed him off the ladder. Could a son do something like that to his father - even a father he hadn’t seen since he was a child?
“What did you do to my cut,” she asked. “I remember when I woke up earlier it was painful, but it seems much better now.”
“Sepsis,” said Mrs. Gammel. “The red line was half way up your arm. If it had reached your heart you’d have died. But I managed to stop it…”
“Did you use Holloway’s Ointment?” asked Mette. “My sister uses that for everything. I don’t think…”
“Holloway’s Ointment?” said Mrs. Gammel. “Do I look like an heiress? I crushed up some garlic in honey and put it on the wound. It works much better than Holloway’s Ointment. Now, I have some mutton broth on the stove. I’ll bring you a cup of that. You lie down and stay calm for a while.”
Mette did as she was told and lay back, feeling lucky to be alive. So many people died of sepsis, and even doctors found it hard to stop it once it took hold. Thank goodness she had found someone who did not believe in expensive patent medicines, and who knew enough to put honey and garlic on it. She would have done the same thing herself, maybe using onions instead of garlic so the smell wouldn’t be so bad. She hadn’t written about plant medicine in her cook books; perhaps that was something that would sell well in the book shops of the district. Not many people could afford Holloway’s Ointment, which
came in little tubs for a few shillings apiece. A ridiculous waste of money, she thought.
Mrs. Gammel came back with a steaming tin mug filled with broth, and Mette sipped at it gratefully. “This is delicious,” she said. “What do you put in it to make it so tasty? My mutton broth is very thin and tasteless.”
“I leave all the fat in and add a little dab of honey,” said Mrs. Gammel. “The honey…”
“Hello there,” said a voice from outside. “Anyone home?”
“Does that sound like your husband?” asked Mrs. Gammel in a whisper.
Mette shook her head. It didn’t sound like Ernest either so she wasn’t worried - not very worried at least.
“I’ll go out and talk to him,” said Mrs. Gammel. “And if I don’t like the look of him I’ll send him away. I can see you’re afraid…but if it is your husband you may as well go with him. If you behave yourself he won’t hit you.”
She heard Mrs. Gammel talking to someone and pulled herself from the bed to look out the window. It was probably some traveller stopping to ask for water, which happened all the time in the clearing. The Danish settlers had always been glad to offer water and food. Without putting too much thought into it, she pulled the curtain to one side to see who was outside.
Looking directly at her was Bernard, the man from Ernest and Agnete’s hallway, the one who had been reading the paper outside the meeting. She dropped the curtain and stumbled back towards the bed, tripping over the stool where Mrs. Gammel had been sitting to do her mending. She banged her arm against the stool as she fell, and felt a stab of pain. There was no way to get out of the room without going through the door. She dragged the bed away from the wall and threw herself into the space between it and the wall, knowing it was a useless thing to do. What was Bernard doing here? He must have been sent by Ernest to find her.
After several minutes, the door opened and Mrs. Gammel said, “Your husband is here, dear. He seems like a nice…”
Mette sat up. Had she been mistaken? “Frank is here?”
“Hello, darling,” said Bernard from behind Mrs. Gammel. “Time to come home, don’t you think?”
Mette shrank back behind the bed again, her body cold with fear. “That’s not Frank. That’s not my husband…”
“You see, Mrs. Gammel?” said Bernard. “Didn’t I say she’d tell you that?”
“But he’s not,” said Mette. “Ask in Palmerston, Mrs. Gammel. Anyone will tell you that Frank is very tall and dark…his mother was Spanish and he doesn’t look…”
Bernard leaned over the bed and grabbed her arm. “I’m sure Mrs. Gammel doesn’t want to go all the way into town to ask about me,” he said. He looked her directly in the eye, his own eyes narrowing and yet still smiling in a terrifying way. “That would be very dangerous for her. You know about the Maori running wild all over Palmerston, attacking people. And the ruffians from the slums of England roaming the streets. Much safer for her to stay here.”
Mette knew he was threatening to do something to Mrs. Gammel. She allowed him to drag her from behind the bed, suppressing a sob. If only it had been Frank.
Still holding her tightly by the arm, he marched her outside. “Come now, darling. Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
Mette cast a desperate look at Mrs. Gammel, who had followed them to the doorway, doubt forming on her face.
“Please Mrs. Gammel. He isn’t Frank…”
“Of course I am,” said Bernard. “Don’t be foolish now darling.” He gave her arm a hard squeeze right where it had been cut by the boxthorn hedge.
“Are you sure…?” said Mrs. Gammel. “I would have thought she’d know her own husband…I’m going to get my coat and…”
He smiled at her, his expression understanding. “Of course if you have any doubt…let’s go back in the house and talk about it. I’ll show you something that will prove who I am.”
“No, no,” said Mette. She tried to tug her arm away from him, but he maintained his grip, lifting her arm up so that it pulled at the socket. “Please don’t do anything to her.”
Dragging her with him, he shoved Mrs. Gammel back into the house and threw Mette onto the bed. While she was still struggling to her feet, he grabbed Mrs. Gammel from behind around the neck. Mrs. Gammel looked surprised, unsure what was happening. She had time for a quick, “No, please….” Then Mette heard a loud crack and saw her slump in Bernard’s arms. He dropped her on the bed like a bundle of washing and turned to Mette. “Now then,” he said as if nothing at all had happened. “Shall we go?”
15
Back to Bunnythorpe
The coroner knelt in the mud beside the body, put his finger on the neck, and turned to Inspector James. “I think I can safely say he’s dead,” he said. The coroner, Piers Warburton, was a tall, upright man in his early thirties who had spent time in the British Navy. He’d become coroner recently, replacing Dr. Rockstrow who had moved to Foxton. He had no medical experience but had been hired as coroner because of his experience with death. He was also a knowledgeable, worldly man.
“Are you able to declare…?” asked Inspector James.
Warburton shrugged. “I imagine so. If anyone wants to contest, let them show me someone with the back of his head missing who’s still walking around.” He moved the head slightly, lifted one eyelid, and said, “I declare him dead. Some time in the last twenty-four hours I would imagine. And to be noted - the circumstances are suspicious.”
“Can we move him?” asked Inspector James.
Warburton nodded and the Inspector beckoned his constables forward. “Take him to the hospital.”
Frank and Warburton exchanged glances.
“Ah…there is no hospital in Palmerston,” said Warburton. “There’s a piece of land out at Terrace end where they’re planning to put a hospital. It has a building on it, but…”
“Dr. Marriner’s office then?” suggested Frank. “He’s over on Amesbury Street. He should be in - he has office hours at his home.”
“Very good,” said Inspector James. “Sergeant Hardy, I’ll need a statement from you about the pony trap, but once I have that you can remove it from the ditch.”
He gave the statement to the inspector, and released the volunteers, after first asking them to help pull his pony and trap from the ditch. They worked silently, watching him sideways to see how he was reacting to the events. The ginger-haired bank clerk came up to him and said quietly, “Sergeant Hardy - if you’re in trouble of some kind, we - the rest of the volunteers and me - we’d be happy to help. Just ask.”
“Thank you Mr. Todd,” said Frank, touched by the vote of confidence. “I don’t think I’m in trouble, but I’ll keep that in mind.”
He’d been thinking about Mette the whole time, of course. She’d taken the pony trap, and now here it was in the ditch. Ernest and Agnete had said she had gone past their place and on out to Maren and Pieter’s place. He had to go out and check that she was alright. Surely he would have heard if she’d gone out in the trap at night and not come back. Pieter would have contacted him somehow. Someone must have stolen the trap from Pieter’s place.
The memory hit him like the flash from a cannon. He’d seen the trap behind Ernest’s house earlier yesterday morning when he rode out to the race course. And then another realization. Mette would not need to pass Ernest’s house on the way to Maren and Pieter’s. She may have gone that far, changed her mind, and turned back to the road to Bunnythorpe. But Agnete had not said that. She had said Mette had “passed by on the way” to her sister’s house. Something wasn’t right.
Feeling anxious and unsettled, he took the pony and trap to the paddock behind the Royal Hotel and collected his horse. He would go to Bunnythorpe immediately and make sure Mette was there and safe. It would mean apologizing, but he had to face the fact that he’d been in the wrong, as Karira had said. He just had to see her - to make sure she was alright. If she was, he would leave her there for now, under the protection of Pieter and his workers.
He was in Bunnythorpe within the hour, riding at top speed along the muddy, rutted metalled road without thought of his own safety. That Mette might be in trouble was weighing ever more heavily on his mind. Why hadn’t he thought about her sooner? Why hadn’t he remembered seeing the trap and pony in Ernest’s paddock? What was wrong with him?
Bunnythorpe had grown since he had first seen it - back two years ago when he was running from the Armed Constabulary. He was escaping from the gaol up the Wanganui River and had come upon Pieter building a house in Bunnythorpe. Pieter had brought Mette out from Palmerston without telling her why, and he remembered her joy at seeing him. A difficult time, but it had brought them together and marrying her became the only thing he could think of for a while, even while he fended off attacks from a woman he’d known years before.
Pieter’s house was finished now and looked comfortable and lived in, with whitewashed walls and honeysuckle growing up beside the front door. Maren was in the front garden with her four children and Agnete’s two, a boy and a girl, swatting white butterflies with small paddles and laughing happily. The butterflies ate the cabbages, but trying to stop them was a fruitless task, although useful for keeping the children entertained. He wished he could see Mette in a garden surrounded by children. It was something he’d been expecting to happen quickly, but so far no sign of a child. He hadn’t been able to talk to her about it, partly because of what had she had learned about his past right before they married.
Maren saw him and came to the gate holding Anna, her youngest, smiling. “Frank. What brings you here?”
Dead Shot Page 9
