The Language of the Dead

by Stephen Kelly

  “Abbott said the niece came to his door in the middle of his tea and told him that the old man had not returned for his,” Wallace continued. “Apparently the old fellow was as reliable as a clock when it came to his meals. So Abbott led the way up the hill to the hedge and the two of them found him there. The niece went to pieces, according to Abbott. He tried to restrain her but she broke free of his grasp. He said he tried to remove the pitchfork and the scythe in an effort to calm her. When he couldn’t get them free, he thought better of touching anything—realized that he should leave well enough alone. Or so he told me. He managed to calm the girl and persuade her to walk back to the village with him. I had Larkin take his prints, which he grumbled about. He has the aspect of an embittered old country arsehole. But I got the impression he’s no fool.”

  They were nearly to the house.

  “What about the niece?” Lamb asked.

  “When the doc arrived, he had a look at her and gave her a sedative—though I think it was a bit of placebo. Salt tablets, perhaps. In any case, they seem to have done the trick in that she began to calm down once she swallowed them.”

  “What was her story?”

  “The same as Abbott’s. She began to worry when old Mr. Blackwell didn’t come home and so went to fetch Abbott. The two of them went up the hill to find Blackwell and she saw her uncle’s body and the state it was in. As I was interviewing her, she began to cry—fell right apart—so I let it be for the moment.”

  Here was the one thing in which Wallace feared he might have bollixed things before Lamb arrived. He’d gone soft when he shouldn’t have. He turned to Lamb. “She seemed so upset that I thought it unlikely that she was going to give up much more of use at that point.”

  Lamb would have preferred that Wallace had gotten as much as possible from the niece at the outset, before she’d had time to solidify her story. But he let the mistake go.

  They reached the door of Abbott’s house. A young PC whom Lamb didn’t recognize answered Wallace’s rap on the door.

  “I take it our man hasn’t flown the coop?” Wallace said to the constable.

  “Not a chance, Sarge. He’s in the kitchen, drinking tea. He offered me a cup, but I declined.” The constable smiled at Wallace. “Didn’t want him to get the impression that I was in the mood to be friendly, like.”

  “Very good, Pearson,” Wallace said. “You can return to the village now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pearson said. He headed toward the gate, sending the sheep bounding away again.

  Abbott appeared in the parlor as Wallace and Lamb stepped inside. Wallace introduced Lamb to Abbott. “We’d like to ask you a few more questions,” Wallace told Abbott.

  Abbott grunted; his big toes protruded through identical holes in his dirty green wool socks. “Can’t sleep anyway,” he said, as if the matter of his interrogation was up to him. “Not after seeing Will like that.”

  Abbott was short, stocky, squared off at the shoulders. Despite his age—Lamb guessed that he was in his early sixties—he exuded an impression of physical strength. His manner, the way in which he stood, as if prepared to take a punch, put Lamb in mind of a boxer. Abbott had a head of thick, tousled, unwashed gray hair, deep-set dark eyes, and graying stubble on his chin. He held a cup of tea in his hand and a cigarette in his lips. Once again, Lamb reached for his tin of butterscotch.

  Abbott turned and headed back into his small kitchen, which was dominated by a round wooden table at its center. An open bottle of whiskey sat on the table. Lamb could see no hint of a feminine presence in Abbott’s life, and yet he could see how Abbott might hold sway over an apparently lonely and isolated spinster such as Lydia Blackwell.

  Abbott sat at the table and poured some whiskey into his tea. He held the bottle aloft and waggled it in the direction of Lamb and Wallace.

  “Care for a nip?” he asked. Wallace eyed the bottle. He would have loved a drink.

  “Sergeant,” Lamb said and nodded at the tea. Wallace snatched Abbott’s tea from the table and poured it into the sink. He then snatched away the bottle.

  “My bloody tea!” Abbott protested.

  Lamb cast a cold gaze at the farmer. “I’d prefer that you remain sober while I question you, Mr. Abbott,” he said.

  “It ain’t right of you to take my tea.”

  Lamb ignored him and sat down. Wallace wiped his hands on a towel by the sink and also sat at the table.

  “How long have you known Will Blackwell?” Lamb asked Abbott.

  Abbott ground out the cigarette he had been smoking in a small ceramic bowl that was full of ground-out cigarettes. He pulled another from a pack on the table, placed it between his lips and, squinting, lit it with a match he struck against the bottom of his shoe. He was stalling before answering—an act, Lamb knew, that was designed to show that he would not be intimidated, even if they could take his tea from him.

  “All my life—like I told your man there when he questioned me earlier,” Abbott said, nodding in Wallace’s direction.

  “Were you friendly with him?”

  “Aye—as much as a man could be a friend to Will.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Will kept to himself mostly. Didn’t fancy people much, did he?”

  “You hired Will to trim your hedge today?”

  “Aye.”

  “And when did he head out to the job?”

  “I saw him coming up the hill from his cottage at about half past eleven. But I didn’t keep an eye on him now, did I? Wasn’t my brother’s keeper. Just told him what needed done and he’d do it in his own time.”

  “And Will brought his own tools to the job?”

  Abbott blew smoke at the ceiling. “Aye.”

  “And he used those tools on this job for which you hired him?”

  “Aye, them were Will’s tools.” He grunted. “Can I have my tea if I put nothing in it save milk and sugar?”

  Lamb nodded at Wallace. “Get him some tea, please, Sergeant,” he said. He turned back to Abbott. “When Miss Blackwell came to your door, you led her directly to the body, is that right?” he asked.

  “Aye.”

  “How did you know that Will would be there?”

  “Well, I sent him there myself, didn’t I? Hired him to trim that very hedge.”

  “But wouldn’t he ordinarily have finished that job hours earlier? What made you believe he would still be there at nearly six o’clock in the evening?”

  “Well, I didn’t know. I guessed, didn’t I? Used the common sense God gave me. I thought that maybe his heart had failed him—that the exertion of the cutting might have done him in. So I went to the hedge. And when I seen them crows rise from him, I knew the truth.”

  Wallace put a cup of tea in front of Abbott.

  “Would you have liked to have seen Will die a natural death up there, Mr. Abbott?” Lamb asked. “You just said that you thought the work might kill him. And yet you sent him up there. Were you hoping he would die?”

  Lamb was fishing. He expected Abbott to protest. Instead the farmer narrowed his eyes and asked, “What are you getting at?”

  Lamb ignored the question. “So you saw Will only once today, when he was heading up the hill?”

  “As I said.” He hunched closer to the table and encircled his cup of tea with his arms.

  “You didn’t go up the hill to check on him—to check on his work—during the day?”

  “I’d no reason to. Will could take care of himself.”

  “What is your relationship with Miss Blackwell?”

  Abbott stared at his cup. “I have no relationship with the woman.”

  “No?” Lamb asked. “You being a single man and she a single woman? And she living right down the hill? Nothing has ever passed between you? You’ve never looked on Miss Blackwell and thought to yourself, ‘I could use a bit of that’? And then one thing leads to another, as it naturally would?”

  “No!” Abbott said in a tone that suggested that the ques
tion insulted him. “I’ve never laid a finger on the woman. Never had no cause nor desire to.”

  “Oh, come now, Mr. Abbott,” Wallace interjected. “Nobody would blame you if you had. A younger, available woman and a lonely soul, such as yourself? Maybe she fancied you as well, eh? Maybe she offered herself to you? Any man in your position would say aye to that. As the inspector said, it’s only natural now, isn’t it?”

  “I told you—I never touched her!” Abbott said. Although Abbott’s eyes were full of fire, Lamb sensed that Abbott was attempting to bring his anger under control, perhaps worried that it made him appear defensive and guilty. Smoldering, Abbott drew in a lung full of smoke, then exhaled it.

  “Had you and Mr. Blackwell quarreled over anything recently?” Lamb asked.

  “No,” Abbott said. He stared at the table.

  “How much did you pay Will for these jobs for which you hired him?”

  “Two bob or thereabouts. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the job.”

  “And how often did you hire him?”

  “Whenever I needed the odd job done. A few times a month.”

  “Did you hire Will for all of these odd jobs because you owed him something? A debt, perhaps?”

  “Well, Will didn’t have anything else, did he?” Abbott said. “He’d gotten too old to work as he used to. Nobody in the bloody village hired him for anything anymore. None of them gave a damn for Will. Had I not hired him, he would have had nothing.”

  “And why is that?”

  Abbott hesitated—then laughed. “You mean to say, then, that you don’t know?”

  “Why don’t you fill me in?” Lamb said.

  “Well, it’s common knowledge that some in the village thought Will to be a witch.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Lamb asked. “A witch?”

  “Just as I said. A witch. You know—one of them that rides around on brooms and make potions out of toads’ ears?” He slapped the table and laughed. “Toil, toil, bubble and boil, eh?”

  “I haven’t the time for your jokes, Mr. Abbott,” Lamb said. “In fact, I’ve half a mind to take you in right now and charge you with Will Blackwell’s murder.”

  Wallace tried to hide his surprise. Abbott appeared shocked.

  “What are you on about?” Abbott asked. “I told you I never killed Will! I only tried to help him.”

  “I’ve no doubt we’ll find your fingerprints on the murder weapons,” Lamb said.

  “Here!” Abbott said. “I tried to pull them out of Will. I was only trying to calm Lydia! When she seen her uncle, she went into hysterics.”

  “So you say. But I find that story far too convenient, Mr. Abbott.”

  “I say it again—I had nothing to do with Will’s murder!”

  Lamb thumped the table with his fist. “Then answer my bloody questions!” he said. He allowed the silence that followed to linger for a few seconds. He looked at Abbott and said, “Now tell me what you mean when you say people thought Will to be a witch.”

  Abbott’s voice was quiet. “Well, he’d seen the Black Shuck, hadn’t he? The black dog. When he were ten. And once that happened, his sister suddenly died and no one knew why.”

  “The Black Shuck?” Lamb asked.

  “Aye,” Abbott said. “The hell hound. The dog that appears to those who have allowed the devil into their souls.”

  “And where did Will see this dog, according to the story?”

  “Here on the hill.”

  “Other than to have seen this dog, did Mr. Blackwell do anything else that would have made people believe him a witch?” Lamb asked. “Were there rumors that he cast spells or got up to mischief?”

  “There were always rumors about Will,” Abbott said. “When some of the autumn wheat came in bad last year, some blamed him for that. Said he’d run toads over the crop in the night.”

  “Toads?”

  “Yeah. Said he’d harnessed them like a team of horses and run them over the crops, as did the witches of older days.”

  “Did you believe that Will practiced witchcraft, Mr. Abbott?” Lamb asked.

  “No. I never put no stock in that mumbo-jumbo. But if you want to know about it, you can ask the bloody lord of the manor himself, can’t you? Lord Pembroke. He wrote a whole bloody book about it, didn’t he? Ghostly legends of Hampshire and the like. Strange subject for a lord, I say. Has Will’s story in it. Will never liked the fact that his story was dredged up again, I can tell you. And while you’re at it, you can track down that mute boy Pembroke has living with him—though you’d need some magic for certain to get anything out of him.”

  “Which mute boy?” Lamb asked.

  “The one who lives on Lord Pembroke’s estate; spends his time drawing insects and the like. He used to walk over from the estate and spend time with Will. He would sit and watch Will work and make his drawings and that. Will didn’t seem to mind. But there are those about who said that Will was training the boy to take his place, as if he were Will’s apprentice, like.”

  “How old is this boy?” Lamb asked.

  Abbott shrugged. “Hard to tell. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. Maybe more. He don’t talk. Won’t even so much as look at me. He just wanders over here from the estate and makes his insect drawings. He avoided everybody save Will.”

  “Do you know this boy’s name?”

  Abbott shrugged again. “No. Like I said, he don’t talk.”

  “Where were you this afternoon between noon and two?” Lamb asked.

  “About the farm, working. Cutting hay, mostly.”

  “Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”

  “I saw no one.”

  “Very well, then, Mr. Abbott,” Lamb said. “We may have further questions, so I advise you not to leave the area.”

  Abbott did not look up from his tea. “Where would I go in any case?” he said.

  FIVE

  LAMB AND WALLACE SAW THEMSELVES OUT. FOR THE FOURTH TIME that evening, the sheep by the gate scattered. Lamb lit a cigarette.

  “What about the Stukas?” Wallace joked.

  “Sod the bloody Stukas.”

  As they moved down Manscome Hill in the dark, Lamb gazed over the moonlit meadows. He easily picked out details in the landscape—hillocks, trees, shrubs, a ramshackle shed by a gate, another ghostly flock of sheep grazing on a far hill. Although he’d grown up in south London, the natural beauty and apparent peacefulness of the countryside always had attracted him. As a boy, he’d harbored a notion of the country as “simple,” though since coming to Hampshire more than twenty years earlier he’d learned that the country villages—and country folk—often were nothing of the sort.

  Wallace longed to finish and to get back to Winchester before the pubs closed. “What do you make of this witchcraft business?” he asked Lamb, partly to get his mind off drink.

  “I think it’s possible that someone wants us to believe the whole thing’s wrapped up in black magic.”

  “What about Abbott?”

  “He might easily have done it.”

  “Him and the niece, then? The two of them getting up to something and needing the old boy out of the way?”

  “It’s possible.”

  It was past nine when they reached the village. Winston-Sheed had departed with Blackwell’s body, and the people who’d gathered in front of Blackwell’s cottage earlier had gone home—though the three children who’d sprinted past Lamb earlier that evening had returned and were loitering near the house. They appeared poised to run again, but when Lamb called to them they froze.

  The oldest, a boy who had no shoes, appeared to be nine or ten. The other two were girls. Their arms and legs were dark with filth. The youngest looked to be about three. She clutched in her tiny fist a stick with a pointed end. As Lamb squatted to speak to them, they remained rooted, their eyes wary. Lamb wondered what they were up to, out at such a late hour with no one looking after them.

  He smiled. “Here now,” he said. “What are you lo
t on about at this time of night?”

  None of them spoke.

  “I hope it’s nothing I wouldn’t want to know about,” Lamb said.

  The children continued to stare at him for perhaps ten seconds before the boy spoke. “We was waiting for the witch to come home,” he said.

  “Well, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” Lamb said. “There are no witches around here and never have been.”

  “Old Will’s a witch,” the boy said.

  “I’m afraid that’s not true,” Lamb said. “Will was no witch. I’m from the police, you know, and I’ve done an investigation of the matter and concluded that Will was nothing of the kind. So there are no witches.” He wondered what good any of this was doing.

  Lamb held out his hand to the youngest girl and softly said to her, “I’ll take that stick, love. That’s nothing for a pretty little girl like you to be carrying around.”

  The girl tossed the stick in Lamb’s direction. He picked it up and handed it to Wallace.

  “Now then,” he said to the group. “Where do you belong?”

  The boy pointed toward the path beyond the stone bridge, which led to the mill ruins.

  “Well, time for you to be off home now,” Lamb said. “Time for bed.”

  He wondered what awaited them at home—likely nothing as wholesome as a proper putting-to-bed. If the Blitzkrieg reached England, little ones such as these would be consumed like so much underbrush in a forest fire, he thought.

  The boy broke into a run, heading in the direction of the path. The girls followed. Lamb watched them cross the bridge and disappear.

  Harris met Lamb and Wallace at the front door of Blackwell’s cottage. “No one has gone in or come out,” Harris said. “Miss Blackwell is still awake.”

  “Thank you, Harris,” Lamb said. “Please stay until we’re finished with Miss Blackwell. Then I think you can call it a night.”

  A large black car crossed the stone bridge and pulled to a stop near the cottage. Lamb and Wallace recognized the saloon as police Superintendent Anthony Harding’s.