Blood on the Wood

by Gillian Linscott

  ‘Well, miss, the first thing is to get you safe home to Mrs Penny’s and—’

  ‘No. If necessary, I’ll steal a horse or a bicycle, ride to Chipping Norton and throw stones at the police station window until somebody does something.’

  I meant it, and luckily he saw I did. He sighed, went inside and came out after long minutes carrying his helmet in one hand and a lighted oil lamp in the other.

  ‘If you say he’s been sleeping in Bestley’s wagon, chances are he’s gone back there.’

  After that scream, I doubted it. Still, it was possible. We hurried together down the street, past the forge and the carter’s cottage. The inside of the wagon was just as I’d left it, Bobbie’s crop included, the nest in the hay undisturbed. At least the evidence that somebody had been sleeping there made the constable more ready to believe me.

  ‘Tell you what I’ll do, miss. I’ll wake up a few people and we’ll go out and see what we can find.’

  So we did, going round the village like a party of carol singers, stopping at the forge first then other places on each side of the street. Probably a routine the village had followed before, looking for lost children or sheep thieves. It took an achingly long time – the knock on the door, the opening of upstairs windows, the constable’s long and none too comprehensible explanation about a tramp and a young lady. Then the wait while the man got on his clothes and came sleepy-eyed to the front door, lamp and stick in hand. As the clock struck one there were half a dozen of us standing by the churchyard wall.

  ‘Right,’ the constable said. ‘The lady thinks she heard the scream from somewhere near Church Coppice but it might have been on the other side. Anyhow, it’s not as far up as Fowler’s piece. Two of us have a look round the churchyard in case, two in the coppice, two on the other side of the lane.

  ‘He’ll be long gone,’ someone said. ‘Whatever he’s done, he won’t wait around.’

  I agreed. It was in my mind that somebody should run to the Venns and get the horse and gig out, but that might have to wait until daylight. I followed the main party up the lane. When I looked back, two lamps were moving slowly round the churchyard like ghosts. ‘Give a shout if you find anything,’ the constable had said. Nobody shouted. At the first gateway two more men went off to the right. That left three of us for the coppice. Over the keeper’s stile this time, by lamplight, the constable and a man I recognised as the shopkeeper’s husband carefully turning their heads away from my tattered skirt and exposed knees. All the time we were searching, above the swish of feet in dead leaves, I was listening for a shout from one of the other searchers. After a while the two from the churchyard joined us, so there were four lamps moving through the coppice.

  Around five o’clock the light started coming back, oak leaves showing outlined against a grey sky. Our search party reassembled in the lane, the men looking weary. They had their day jobs to go to in an hour or two, had willingly given up their night’s sleep on what might have been a freak of mine. I hoped I thanked them but I’m not sure. Instead of reassuring me, the long night without trace of Fardel or Bobbie had turned the fear to near certainty.

  ‘What I’ll do…’ the constable said. ‘What I’ll do is ride my bicycle over to Charlbury and report. If you can get in touch with somebody and find out where your friend is staying, we can go there and see if she’s at home.’

  Yes, I could do that, I said. Somebody in this part of the world must have a telephone, probably at the rail junction. I’d have to ring the office, find out Lady Fieldfare’s number. Keep it calm. I wonder if you could kindly tell me where your daughter’s staying. Something’s happened and…’ And perhaps I’d go there and find Bobbie alive and laughing, nothing to do with a scream in the night. Or perhaps not. ‘… and your daughter may have been killed and it’s my fault’.

  Still two hours to go before the earliest bird would be in at the office. The six men were ready to go off down the lane, waiting for me.

  ‘I’ll stay for a while,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave a message at the police house as soon as I know anything.’

  They went away, moving with the heaviness that comes to you when you’ve been up all night. I knelt down, soaked my hands in cold dew from the grass and wiped them over my face. Not much help. The stile was a few steps away. I climbed over it, back into the coppice. The blackbirds were awake now, clattering their warning calls every few steps. My memory from the confused night was that we’d spent most of our time in the middle and upper part where the trees grew thickest. Down the slope they thinned into a tangle of smaller trees with trunks not much bigger than broom handles and coppiced hazels sprouting leafy growth looped with tough stems of honeysuckle. At the bottom you could see through the trees to pasture land with a track running diagonally through it from the road to the bottom corner of the coppice. A path for cattle to go and drink, so probably a pond down there. We hadn’t searched a pond.

  Down through the hazels, I slid on moss and after a while saw a glint of sunlight on water. No more than a glint because most of the surface I could see was covered with bright green duckweed. Further down, more of the pond was visible. Three cows in the meadow beside it looked as if they’d come for their first drink of the day, only they weren’t drinking, just standing staring.

  Cows stare at anything, of course they do. Cows stare at anything or nothing. But while I was telling myself that, I was sliding down on the moss and as I slid I saw what they were staring at. Something black and white, near the edge of the pond, black and white and waterlogged. From my side the ground above the pool ended in a steep bank that tipped me down knee-deep into mud and rushes. The mud sucked at my feet as if it wanted to stop me getting there, sucked shoes off and came up between my toes like something cold and fleshy. The cows wheeled and galloped away, tails up.

  She was lying head down in the deeper water, face submerged, feet at the muddy edge. The mud was stained mahogany colour. I splashed out waist-deep, lifted up head and shoulders and turned her over, knowing it was no use. She slipped away and her head flopped forward, nape showing very white against the crinkly hair that hadn’t lost its tidiness even after hours in the water.

  Carol Venn.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  WHEN I GOT DOWN TO THE road, Constable Johnson was just coming along on his bicycle. I ran in front of him.

  ‘She’s dead. In the pond.’

  Naturally he thought, as I’d thought when I’d first seen her, that I meant my missing friend. Even when I managed to get control of myself and tell him, it took a long time for him to understand. He laid his bicycle down on the grass verge and came back with me up the pasture.

  She was just as I’d left her except her head and shoulders were lower in the water, the stain on the mud more fresh and red because she’d bled when I’d moved her. He waded in, lifted her. The slash across her throat gurgled out air and water. More blood was coming from cuts in her chest. They looked like deep stab wounds, ripped through the fabric of her blouse and jacket. When her right arm flopped back there were deep slashes across the palm of her hand.

  ‘The devil,’ the constable kept saying. ‘Oh the devil.’

  He let me help him with her out of the water, laid her on the bank and took off his cycling cape to cover her face. You could see him working out what to do next.

  ‘What I’ll do…’ It was a kind of formula, to steady himself. ‘What I’ll do is get somebody to stay here with her, then I’ll ride to the junction and telegraph.’

  ‘We should start looking for Fardel,’ I said. ‘But he’ll be miles away.’

  He’d had a whole night from the time I’d heard the scream. He could even have got as far as one of the railway lines and be in a train by now, on his way to lose himself in any city.

  ‘And the husband’s got to be told.’

  Constable Johnson looked sick at the thought of it, but I couldn’t face Adam Venn yet.

  ‘I’ll stay here with her while you get somebody,’ I said. ‘The
n I’ll take your bicycle and telegraph if you want.’

  Constable Johnson went back down the field leaving a broad green track in the silver of the dew-covered grass. I sat down on the bank a little way from her, not touching. The cows came back to drink, avoiding the patch of red-stained mud, uneasy. The church clock struck six. Soon after that the constable came back with another man who’d helped in the search and we left him keeping watch. On the road, the constable surrendered his heavy official bicycle with some reluctance. I raced it the three miles or so to the junction, woke up the telegraph operator and, as instructed, sent a message to Inspector Bull. The stationmaster at the junction had seen no sign of a man who might have been Fardel.

  I rode back more slowly, tiredness setting in, and delivered the bicycle back to the constable’s door. There was no sign of him – presumably he was still up at the house with the Venns – but the news had spread now and the whole village was stunned. People were out on their steps or clustered round the pump and the village shop, angry or scared in a way they hadn’t been over Daisy’s death. Soon after that a brake arrived at a smart trot, trailing plumes of dust, with a policeman in the driving seat and two bay cobs between the shafts. It halted in the yard of the Crown and I watched from a distance as Inspector Bull and two more constables climbed down from the back, making sure they didn’t see me. I knew I’d have to talk to the inspector but I wasn’t ready for it yet. There was another arrival I was watching for.

  * * *

  It happened, with no dust or fuss, an hour or so later. Walter and Janie Sutton came walking down the street from the station, so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t notice the groups of people gossiping about what had happened. He had a dazed look of relief on his face and was carrying the baby, she had a brown paper parcel tucked under her arm. I went to meet them, knowing I had to break the news before they heard it more casually. When he saw me he started talking about how grateful they were and she gave me a scared smile.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ve got some bad news. Can we go inside?’

  The craftsman and the two apprentices were in the workshop and, from the look of them, had been talking about the death.

  ‘Come upstairs,’ he said to me.

  I followed them up the steep stairs to their living quarters, full of sturdy and simple furniture and bright colours. He made Janie sit down with the baby on her lap. She looked better than in the home, but her eyes were still scared.

  ‘I’m afraid Mrs Venn’s dead,’ I said. ‘She was killed last night.’

  Janie gave a thin scream that set the baby crying. My eyes were on her, so all I heard was a thump behind me where Walter Sutton had been standing. He’d slipped down on his knees, head bent on the edge of the baby’s cradle. When Janie saw that, she looked terrified.

  ‘Was it … was it who I think?’ The words came thickly from him; his face was still hidden.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The police are looking for him.’

  ‘Who?’ Janie said. ‘Who does he mean?’

  ‘A man named Luke Fardel.’

  She gave another little cry. Walter Sutton got shakily to his feet and went behind her, so that he could put his arm round her without letting her see his face.

  ‘Don’t cry, love. You’re home. He can’t hurt you. Don’t cry.’ He did quite a good job of keeping his voice calm for her, but the eyes that met mine over her bent head were terrified. I knew there’d never be a good time to do what had to be done next. For the sake of everyone, I thought, get it over with.

  ‘Do you think Janie and I could talk to each other alone?’ I asked him.

  ‘What do you want to tell her?’

  His arm tightened round her. His eyes were angry now as well as scared.

  ‘I think it’s more a case of what Janie might have to tell me,’ I said. He relaxed just a little.

  ‘Let him stay,’ she said, tears flooding her face. ‘I want him to hear. Whatever’s to be told, he’s got a right to hear.’

  He took the baby from her, settled it gently in a wooden rocking cradle, beautifully carved with ducks and ducklings, and stood rocking the cradle, looking at us.

  ‘That Sunday,’ I said, ‘the Sunday before Daisy died, Mrs Venn came and went out for a walk with Janie.’

  ‘Yes. She said her head was aching and she was going to Church Coppice to pick leaves to draw and would I like to come with her. She did that sometimes. We were picking some bits of oak twigs with acorns on them. When we heard somebody on the path we didn’t think much of it because a lot of people walk in Church Coppice on a Sunday but when we turned round, there was a man.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  She hesitated. ‘Dark-haired, quite big.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He asked her if she had a brother named Daniel. No good afternoon or excuse me, just came out with it.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She said yes.’

  ‘Did she seem scared of the man?’

  ‘Startled, more. Then he said something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He asked if she knew of a girl called Daisy Smith.’

  ‘Did she answer?’

  ‘She just looked at him for a while, then she asked me to excuse her and took him off down the path. A few minutes later back she came without him.’

  ‘Did you ask what had happened?’

  ‘I didn’t like to ask, but she said something like her brother-in-law met some very odd people when he was out collecting songs.’

  ‘Except you knew it was more than that, didn’t you? You recognised the man.’

  Walter’s fists were clenched and the cradle had stopped rocking.

  Janie covered her face with her hands, nodded her head. Walter stared at her, eyes even more miserable than when she’d been missing.

  ‘He came from your part of the world, didn’t he? That Saturday in the workshop we all thought you were scared because of the cabinet. But it was something that Daniel Venn said. He told everybody he’d been collecting songs near Ogbourne. That’s where the man Fardel came from and it scared you. I think you recognised the man in the copse because you came from there too.’

  Another nod, hands still clasped over her face.

  I asked as gently as I could, ‘A relative?’

  ‘Uncle.’

  It came out as a retching sound.

  ‘Then Daisy Smith was…?’

  ‘My sister … my half-sister, that is. I hadn’t seen her for five years, since I ran away from him.’

  ‘From Fardel? Your uncle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t know he and Daisy were both here until you met him with Mrs Venn?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he recognise you?’

  ‘No. I kept my face turned away. I thought … God forgive me … I thought let him go after poor Daisy if that’s what he’s come for, only leave me alone. I’d got away from him, made a life for myself here with Walter and the baby and now … here he was. I could have killed him.’

  Walter made a move towards her, probably to stop her saying anything else, setting the cradle lurching.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘Janie didn’t kill anybody. Janie’s done nothing wrong at all.’

  ‘I have, though. I could have gone to her, couldn’t I? Gone to my sister?’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t want anything to do with any of them – not even Daisy. We weren’t so close. She was only a kid when I went away. He was looking for Daisy and if I went looking for her too he’d have found me and dragged me back. And I was ashamed … ashamed of having anything to do with a man like that. I wanted to forget I ever knew him.’

  I watched Walter’s face and thought there were things I might have to tell him, for Janie’s sake, about why she’d needed so much to get away from Fardel but that would have to wait until I got him alone. ‘But you did tell somebody,’ I said. ‘Y
ou told Mrs Venn.’

  ‘I had to. She could see anyway. When she came back from talking to him I was shivering so much I could hardly stand up. So she asked me what was wrong. I told her. Then I begged her not to tell him or Daisy I was there, almost went down on my knees and begged her.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She was so kind. She knelt down and put her arm round me and said she wouldn’t tell anybody. Then she said she’d make him and Daisy go away and it would be all right.’

  ‘You’re sure she said that – she’d make him and Daisy go away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she say how?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you didn’t think she could do it. You still ran away.’

  ‘I thought she would. Then, on the Monday morning…’ She took a deep breath. ‘They were moving that cabinet and I heard his voice down in the workshop here, helping them move it out to the cart. There he was, inside our own house. She hadn’t made him go away after all. So I had to go. I took the baby and went.’

  ‘Without seeing Daisy?’

  ‘I never saw Daisy.’

  ‘What happened to her wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault.’

  Which was as near true as it needed to be. In all the various neglects and betrayals of Daisy, her sister’s had been the most excusable. The two of them needed time together, so I said I must go. Walter Sutton came down the stairs after me. The workshop was empty. Through the window we could see the craftsman and apprentices out in the yard. I expected Walter to show me out but he led the way to the dark back of the workroom.