The Lives She Left Behind

by James Long

The woman pushed the gate ajar and walked slowly into the middle of the yard, keeping her distance.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Jo. Yes indeed, she was here . . .’ Another explanation he couldn’t give. Another woman staring at him with doubting eyes. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know where she went.’

  ‘Is she with someone? The girls said she was with a boy.’

  With a boy. ‘She could be,’ he said.

  ‘He’s called Ferney but he’s also called Luke? Is that right? Do you know him? How does she know you? Why did she come here?’

  ‘Look, you don’t need to be worried.’

  ‘Worried? I’m bloody furious, that’s what I am.’

  ‘Would you like to come inside?’ He saw her eyes stray down to his hand and the scythe he was clutching. He put it down but that didn’t seem to help.

  ‘No, I’d rather stay out here. It’s a simple enough question. How come she’s given them your name?’

  ‘What about a cup of tea? I could bring it out?’

  Another car drove up and stopped.

  ‘I don’t want your bloody tea,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go inside your house. I just want to know what the hell is going on and if you don’t tell me, I’m going to call the police.’

  At which point, as if orchestrated by a malign fate, a new voice spoke from the gate. ‘There’s no need to call us, madam. We’re right here.’

  Mike saw Detective Sergeant Wilson, accompanied by the same policewoman they had met earlier.

  ‘We’re from Yeovil,’ said the man. ‘And if you don’t mind me asking, who might you be, madam?’

  ‘My name is Fleur Driscoll. I’m looking for my daughter, Jo. Her friends told me this man knows where she is.’

  ‘Her friends would be two girls with backpacks, looking for a girl with dark hair and a red jacket?’

  ‘Oh God. Have you found her?’

  ‘No. I saw them yesterday. And she was coming here, was she?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m just trying to find out where she is. She’s with some boy named either Ferney or Luke.’

  ‘Luke Sturgess?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  ‘We’ll need to talk to you, if you don’t mind, but there’s something we need to do first.’ He turned to Mike. ‘Michael Martin, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Gabriella Martin and Rosie Martin.’ He stopped as Fleur Driscoll screamed, glanced round at her with a wooden face and went on, ‘You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  ‘Does Meehan know you’re doing this?’ asked Mike but found himself ignored, turned roughly round by the sergeant, and felt the click of cuffs pinning his wrists together.

  Mike was taken to the same interview room and Wilson sat down opposite him. The WPC put her head round the door. ‘We let your solicitor know we were bringing you back in,’ she said.

  ‘Why the handcuffs?’ he said. ‘We were coming back tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Wilson answered as the door opened.

  A fat fair-haired man with a flushed face followed Meehan in and stuck out his hand to Mike. ‘Leo Avery,’ he said, ‘Whitson Saunders. Seems I’ve drawn the short straw.’ He looked at Mike as if waiting for a laugh. ‘Never mind. Just skimmed through the old paperwork. Soon be up to speed, I’m sure.’

  They went through the same preliminaries as before then Meehan put a sheet of paper down on the table.

  ‘Mr Martin, where were you on the evening before the death of your wife and child?’

  ‘The evening before? I was at the cottage and then I drove to London.’

  ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘You’re asking my client for a precise time of departure on an evening sixteen years ago?’ said the lawyer. ‘That’s not a reasonable question.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Mike. ‘I’ve been over it a hundred times. I left at seven in the evening. I heard the news headlines on Radio 4 just after I drove out of the gate, then The Archers. It’s carved on my memory, believe me.’

  Meehan pushed his sheet of paper across the table to them. The lawyer picked it up and began to read.

  ‘From our lab people,’ Meehan said, ‘the toxicologists. They’ve gone over the case again. Like I told you, things have moved on. They’ve got a better idea of how it might have worked. Now they reckon it could have taken up to eighteen hours to produce a lethal effect.’ He looked hard at Mike. ‘That puts you right back in the spotlight, Mr Martin. By your own admission, you were still at the house eighteen hours before death occurred.’

  The lawyer was still reading the paper.

  ‘Ingredients partially degraded? That doesn’t sound very certain.’

  ‘Certain enough, they tell me, Mr Avery.’

  ‘Inspector Meehan, are you telling me they now know precisely how this mixture worked?’

  ‘Ninety five per cent, that’s what they say. Ninety five per cent is enough for me at this stage.’

  ‘That’s a bit slender.’

  ‘Not when taken in conjunction with this.’ Meehan produced a sealed plastic document holder. In it were two scorched twists of paper. ‘I found this with the other evidence. Again, we didn’t have the technology to enhance it properly at the time.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Mike.

  ‘There were burnt pieces of paper in the fireplace. It’s your wife’s handwriting, Mr Martin.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It’s an incomplete sentence. What we can now read is “unbearable for her to . . .” then a gap, then “tortured by a so much older man”. I believe it said “unbearable for her to be tortured by a so much older man”. Anything you would care to say, Mr Martin?’

  ‘Is it your intention to charge my client?’ Avery said.

  ‘It is my intention to keep him here for further questioning for the time being. We are expecting more detail on the toxicology. I also wish to re-examine the records on your client’s movements at that time.’

  They were left alone.

  ‘That’s not very good, is it?’ said the lawyer. ‘There’s not much I can do right at this moment. You’re in for the night, I’m afraid. Anybody else I should be telling?’

  Mike shook his head.

  ‘My colleague, Mrs Palmer, er . . .’ He seemed unsure what to say. ‘She said it was something personal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would it help to start at the beginning, old chap?’ He looked at his watch.

  ‘No.’

  When he was sitting in his car, about to drive out of the car park, Leo Avery rang Rachel Palmer as she had made him promise he would. ‘I’ve just left him,’ he said. ‘Funny bloke. Wouldn’t lift his finger to help. I’m afraid they’ve got him bang to rights.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Dick Meehan said so. The toxicology is damning. It was the only thing they were short of last time. If anyone knocked off the wife and the kid it had to be him. Now they can put him there at the right time, it’s open and shut.’

  ‘Meehan’s not necessarily right.’

  ‘Dick? He’s pretty sound. I play golf with him.’

  ‘We need someone to look at that report.’

  ‘We? I thought you’d passed it over to me, old girl. To be honest, if there’s something personal in this, I would say you should definitely stay out of it. I’ll do my best, but at the moment I think we’d be better off discussing a guilty plea and thank our lucky stars if we can get some form of mitigation.’

  CHAPTER 24

  She watched Ferney walk towards her in the quietening evening, wondering what news he brought from down below, still wrestling, as she had been all the time he had been at the cottage, with the impossibility of making everything work for all three of them.

  ‘It’s fixed,’ Ferney said when he came to where she sat on the bench. ‘We can stay.’ />
  Her heart leapt. ‘He said so?’

  ‘We can use the house. He’s had to go away.’

  ‘Where? How long for?’

  ‘I don’t know how long. Definitely for tonight. I saw him off.’

  She so much wanted to believe it was as easy as that, so much wanted Mike’s understanding, that she didn’t question him further. The simplest fact in her life was that she wanted to be with Ferney in their old, old home, and they arrived at the door in burning excitement. He took the key from under the flowerpot, opened the door and led her inside, through the hall to Mike’s untidy study at the back. He switched on the light and pointed.

  ‘Do you remember this?’ he asked. ‘If you want proof it’s really ours, you couldn’t ask for better.’

  It was a large painting in a gilt frame. ‘It’s Bagstone,’ she said.

  ‘Not just Bagstone. Do you see the people at the gate?’

  She stepped forward to look at the two small figures. ‘Oh. You and me.’

  ‘You and me, in the place where we belong. You remember it?’ Ferney thought back to the disconsolate artist he had found in the field, taking his irritation out on his easel. ‘He called himself John Poorman, remember that? Back in eighteen hundred and something, that was. Look at us, there forever as we have every right to be. Come upstairs with me now.’

  She climbed to the floor above, where the eaves curved in to claim her with their old familiarity. He let her go ahead, looking in on Mike’s room which had been theirs and closing the door quickly, then on to the spare room where she stood staring at the bed with tears coming.

  She turned and said, ‘Here. We will bring life back here,’ so that he came into the room and they lay down together and let the evening slowly wrap itself around their bed.

  When Gally opened her eyes again she was startled to find that ceiling above her with sunrise slipping through the window and an arm across her breasts and breath warming and cooling on her neck in the even pulses of sleep. She knew that she had woken there under many older roofs and she heard Ferney’s breathing change as he joined her in the new day. She gently turned her head to look at her lover’s body and his eyes opened so that there was nothing else there but the thin river of light between their eyes.

  ‘I was dreaming,’ he said.

  ‘A good dream?’

  ‘Yes, but far better to be awake with you.’

  She lifted the blanket and looked down the length of both their bodies to remind herself. ‘I must go and find the herbs.’ She recited the old country names – Lord’s Balm, Maiden’s Blessing and the rest.

  He laughed. ‘Your morning-after method. The natural way.’

  She was silent, thinking of other, harsher herbs, and that led her back to Rosie and the boys, children who had died. ‘Do you remember them well, our lovely sons?’

  He saw tears starting to bead in the corners of her eyes. ‘It was a thousand years ago,’ he said. ‘You’ve mourned them fully, in thought and in deed.’ He knew the old sorrow was still tangled into this much more recent past and felt the dangerous depth of her sadness.

  She turned and wrapped her arms around him and they held each other through the memory of the memory of the echoes of that old tragedy.

  ‘What do you mean I mourned them in deed?’ she asked.

  ‘You always told me there’s no hope for humans while we still slaughter each other.’

  ‘Did I? Yes, I still believe that.’

  ‘You said the world stumbles backwards every time we spill life. Few things would make me go to war.’

  ‘Young men beware, to make you fight they first must make you hate . . .’ She stopped. What is that?’

  ‘That’s the man who made you better. I said we’d get to that part. I think this is the time. He was called Guy and we didn’t know him when he first came.’

  Gally sprang off the bed, put her clothes on in a moment, urged him on. ‘Come downstairs,’ she said. ‘I have a glimpse of it.’

  She had the front door open when he caught up with her. ‘We were standing here. We were looking out at the puddles by the gate . . .’

  It had been a wet night and now those puddles were turning to mist in the morning sun. ‘Listen,’ said Ferney. ‘There’s a horse on the lane.’

  He meant an unknown horse or he would have said ‘There’s Thomas’s cob coming’ or ‘That’s the Wyncaleton cart’. In those days, they had a good ear for strange footsteps and strange hoofbeats. He took up the thick staff that stood ready for unexpected visitors, gestured her to stay back while he held the door just far enough open to look. The horse and its rider walked into the yard. The man swung down, hitched the reins to a post and looked towards the house.

  ‘Is anyone at home?’ he called.

  ‘I’m here,’ Ferney answered. ‘What’s your business with me?’

  The stranger faced the door but came no nearer. He smiled. He had a weather-beaten, open face and he wore a leather jerkin over wool. The sword at his belt had a soldier’s plain grip and a strong and simple scabbard.

  ‘I’m your new Lord,’ he said, ‘in a manner of speaking.’

  ‘That’s not Molyns,’ said Gally behind him. ‘Open the door, Ferney.’

  They walked out into the sunlight, though he kept hold of the staff.

  ‘My name is Guy de Bryan,’ said the man.

  ‘Of the King’s household?’

  ‘You’ve heard of me?’

  ‘I’ve heard nothing but good,’ said Ferney. ‘This is my wife, Gally, and it surprises us that you say you are our Lord.’

  ‘Sir John Molyns has incurred the King’s displeasure,’ said the other man drily. ‘His manor of Stoke Trister and the attached lands at Chaffeymoor and this end of the ridge have been put in my keeping for the time being. I hope that comes as good news to you because we have some business together.’

  ‘Very good news,’ said Ferney. ‘Come inside and share what we have.’

  In their parlour, the man politely refused everything they offered from their small supplies until he wrinkled his nose and enquired after the source of the smell from the kettle on the fire.

  ‘That’s mint, my Lord,’ said Gally. ‘An infusion.’

  ‘Then that’s what I should like. You may have heard that Molyns has gone into hiding?’

  ‘It takes time for news to reach us here,’ said Ferney, ‘and longer to make sure it’s true, but we heard something like that, yes. I would be pleased to hear the reasons. He was not much loved around here.’

  ‘Or anywhere else. King Edward sent him home from the French campaign to raise money to pay the army. A royal and urgent mission. Instead, Molyns dived straight into the Treasury like a robber’s dog, feathered his own nest and left the king trapped across the Channel, a hostage to his own mercenaries and to the Archbishop of Trier who seized the great crown of England as security for his debts. Imagine that. The king was forced to escape by ignoble means. Molyns is now on the run and hotly sought.’

  ‘And nobody knows where he is?’

  De Bryan gave Ferney a sharp look. ‘Not too far from here, if I am not mistaken, but well protected by a powerful patron. I’m making enquiries and I will discover him if my suspicions are correct.’

  ‘In the Montacute household perhaps?’

  ‘Your words, and probably wise words, but not yet mine and not yet proven.’ He gave a tiny shrug and Ferney knew there was need to tread lightly. Montacute, Earl of Salisbury had a strange weakness for his violent henchman Molyns. He knew there was a long history between Molyns and de Bryan. Rumour had it that de Bryan’s estranged son, wanted for a dozen misdeeds and turned against his father these many years by Molyns’ coaxing, also had sanctuary in the Earl’s household.

  ‘You say we have business?’

  ‘I would like to understand the estate before I go knocking on my tenants’ doors. The accounts show some of them are slow payers.’

  ‘I’m not one of those. I rent a barn, that is all. The
house is ours.’

  ‘Indeed I know that and I believe I owe you a duty because I see your barn roof needs patching. I have come to you simply because whenever I ask who is the authority on the history and workings of the area, yours is the only name I ever hear. I want you to tell me which of my tenants deserve my patience and which are only pretending to poverty.’

  ‘I can answer the first part. I am not one for blaming so you will have to search for answers to the second part in the gaps in what I say.’

  Gally left them to go about her business in the village and the two men talked on about the history of the ridge, the special problems of the eastern slopes and the chance of any worthwhile return from renewed quarrying in the greenstone pits.

  ‘I’ve enjoyed our time and I will come back if I may,’ said de Bryan in the end, ‘but I have to go to Stavordale. Will you direct me?’

  Ferney told him the way through Cockroad Wood past the Norman castle.

  ‘Wake up, Emily,’ de Bryan said to his horse. ‘I look forward to talking again.’

  He had been gone a short while when Gally came flying in through the door, shouting for Ferney.

  ‘There are men chasing after him,’ she said. ‘Three men with swords, running through the fields. They mean no good, I can tell you that for sure.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Heading for Cockroad.’

  Ferney took his staff and went as hard as he knew how, running, then walking, then running again as soon as his breath allowed, only slowing when he came into the wood and saw the corpse of the great horse Emily, flat down on her side with the tail of an arrow sticking upwards. Thirty paces on, a man was curled around a leaking sword wound, quite dead. Into the trees, collapsed into a bush was another man, equally dead. Both had cloths tied round their mouths to disguise their faces. Ferney went on, gripping his staff, and heard the slow clashes and grunts of battle continuing. He saw de Bryan, white in the face, bleeding badly from his right shoulder but still holding his sword with a loose grip, prodding and swinging to keep at bay a man with his back to Ferney. The man was jeering at him, playing with him. De Bryan looked past him, saw Ferney coming, seemed about to say something. His adversary laughed, said, ‘You don’t fool me. There’s no one to rescue you, Guy, and you have just committed mortal sin,’ and was still laughing when Ferney brought his staff down hard on the man’s skull.