by Ann Purser
“It’ll pass,” said Lois. “Maybe I’ll send someone else into that Everitt house. It is sort of creepy. Nothing changes, except for a layer of dust. Magazines the same, some clothes still in the cupboards. Shoes in a neat row in the bedroom. It’s like time’s stopped.”
“Surely it won’t be for long?” Gran said. “After all, if Herbert’s not coming back, they’ll sell it, won’t they?” She scratched her head and continued, “I wish I knew where he’s gone. Don’t like to think of the old boy on his own in some nursing home with a load of ga-ga old people. And no visitors, very likely. Can’t you find out, Lois?”
“I’ve tried. That Reg Abthorpe seems to have disappeared too. Nobody round here has heard of him, his telephone number is wrong, and he never gave me an address. My fault—1 slipped up there.”
Derek was reluctant to encourage her, but said, “Have you seen any letters left lying about in the house? Might give you a clue … Or an address book … Is the telephone still working?”
Lois shook her head. “Nope. And there’s no letters, no address book, not even a message pad. There’s only this,” she added, fishing in her pocket for the tiny piece of blotting paper.
Derek took it, holding it as if it would explode in his hand. “ … such cru …” he read, peering at the smudged writing. “That ain’t much help, me duck,” he said, and passed it to Gran.
But she shook her head and wouldn’t take it. “No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want anything to do with it. Just leave the cooking and washing and ironing to me, and you two can get on with playing at detectives.”
“It’s not playing, Mum. Could be serious,” Lois said shortly, and left the room.
Derek looked at Gran. “So she’s at it again,” he said sadly. “Best do what we can to help, and hope it’ll be over quickly.”
“For Herbert’s sake, if nobody else’s,” snorted Gran. She took a jam sponge pudding out of the oven and yelled loudly that if Lois wanted any she’d better come back straight away. “There’s some nice custard here,” she added, pushing a jug towards Derek. “Help yourself.”
“Crude … crucify … crux …” Derek muttered, and Gran looked at him witheringly.
“Cruelty,” she said. “What else?”
S
EVEN
“RIGHT, TEAM,” LOIS SAID, IN HER BEST FOOTBALL manager’s voice, “we have a new member today. Some of you may know her … Floss Pickering, welcome.”
Sheila nodded, and spoke up. “We’ll give you any help you need,” she said encouragingly to the girl sitting at the end of the row in Lois’s office.
“Thanks,” Floss said, not looking in the least nervous. She’d set off up the street this morning, her head full of strictures from her mother not to be too know-all or casual. “Cleaning is Mrs. Meade’s business,” she had said, “and she runs it very efficiently. Got a good reputation. So mind you don’t besmirch it …”
“Be-what?” Floss had answered, and left for work.
Now she listened to the team discussing schedules and giving reports, and realized the whole thing was not quite such a doddle as she’d thought. Lois suggested Floss should accompany Sheila Stratford for a couple of weeks, and help out while learning what she needed to know. “More than you thought, probably,” said Lois, reading Floss’s mind. “But you’ll be fine. And think how useful it will be when you’ve a home of your own!”
There was a general laugh, while Floss protested that that was a very long way off in the future. “Mmm,” said Lois, “that’s what they all say. Mind you, our Bill here took his time. And how’s Rebecca this week?” she added to the reddening Bill.
“Fine,” he said, and then hesitated. “Um, that is, she’s really fine, but … er …”
There was a pause, and then Hazel said with a delighted shout, “She’s sick in the mornings? Come on, Bill, tell us—are you going to be a dad?”
Bill nodded proudly. “It’s quite a way on,” he said. “We thought we’d leave it before telling people, what with Becky being at the school and all the children getting excited. She’ll be stopping work soon.”
After that, not much more business was achieved, and Lois disappeared to open a bottle. “Wonderful news,” she said, returning with a tray of glasses. “Here’s to you both,” she smiled, “and to the little Stockbridge on the way.”
THE AFTERNOON WAS FINE AND SUNNY, AND LOIS HAD no urgent calls to make. She looked at Jeems chasing her tail in the garden, and thought maybe a short walk might be a good idea. After all the excitement of Bill’s announcement, she needed to quieten down and let her thoughts settle. She found the lead and went to call the puppy. Growing bigger already, she noted. But it was a terrier, mostly, and wouldn’t get huge, she hoped.
Gran had gone into Tresham on the bus, and Derek was at work, so Lois locked up the house and set off up the road out of the village. The countryside around was undulating, with smallish fields and occasional prairielike vistas where in the past a modern-thinking farmer had decided to grub up hedges. Now several new hedges had been planted, and Lois recalled Derek grumbling about subsidies for farmers. “They get paid for going to the bog,” he’d said tetchily.
She strolled on, and on a quiet stretch of road, unfastened Jeems’s lead and let her run on. Then she called her back, and was delighted when the puppy obeyed. Once more she gave her a free run, and called—and this time the dog did not come back. She was hunched over something big and dark lying at the roadside. Lois began to run. As she reached the pup, she yelled, “Jeems! Come here at once!” On closer inspection she saw the dark heap was a badger, familiarly striped, and with its jaws open in a silent scream, showing its long, sharp teeth and a lolling tongue.
“Ye Gods!” Lois felt sick, and quickly fastened the lead. She walked to the other side of the road, pulling the puppy behind her. Then she stopped. Her nausea had subsided, and she was curious. Picking up Jeems, she went back for another look. The badger must have been run over by a vehicle, but she could see no marks on it. Perhaps it had a glancing blow on the head. Flies were beginning their demolition work, starting on the eyes, and she shuddered. Poor thing, she thought. Maybe I should tell someone. She walked on now, still dragging the reluctant puppy. A large tractor and trailer came in sight, fast towards her in the middle of the narrow road, and she hopped on to the verge. It slowed down to pass her, and she waved at the driver. He pulled up, and looked at her enquiringly. “Down there,” she said, pointing back along the road. “There’s a dead badger. It’s big, and it’s beginning to rot. Can you get rid of it?”
The driver was young, dark and handsome. She recognized him as the son of a farmer who owned land a mile or so away. He laughed at her unpleasantly. “Let it rot!” he said, and drove off before she could reply.
Lois walked on into a different landscape, with overgrown hedges, choked ditches and patched-up gateways. She passed a rundown farmhouse with a sheep dog straining at its chain and barking sharply at Jeems. The puppy stared at it, and then released a stream of sharp yelps. “Good gel!” Lois bent down to pat her head, and at that moment the sheepdog’s chain broke and it charged full pelt towards them. Lois snatched up the puppy and faced it. A couple of feet away from her it suddenly stopped and looked back to where an old man with a stick hobbled towards them, cursing and swearing at the top of his voice. “Come ‘ere, y’ bugger!” he yelled, and the dog turned and slunk off into a barn.
“You should get a new chain!” Lois said angrily. “It could have done some real damage, that thing!” She could feel Jeems trembling, and did not feel so good herself.
The old man glared at her. “No good you talkin’ to me, missus,” he said, pointing to his ear. “Deaf as post.” Then he cackled like a decrepit cockerel and hobbled away back to the house.
“THIS GOING FOR A WALK LARK IS NOT ALL IT’S cracked up to be,” Lois said to Derek at teatime. She had told him and Gran about the badger and the sheepdog, and said for two pins she’d move back to the safety of a cou
ncil estate in Tresham.
“Walks’ll do you good, me duck,” Derek said cheerfully. “You spend too much time in that office, or driving about to clients. A walk in the fresh air is the best thing for good health.”
Lois stood up and walked quickly to the kitchen door. She opened it, and stood back, as if letting in a visitor. A powerful smell of well-rotted cow muck and slurry filled the kitchen. It was muck-spreading time on all the farms. “Fresh air?” she said. “You can keep it.”
Later that evening, Derek was reading the local paper, Gran watching television and Lois talking on the telephone in her office to Josie. When she came back into the sitting room, Derek looked up. “Have you seen this, Lois?” he said. “Isn’t this your cop chum?” He handed her the newspaper, pointing to a photograph of two people, the man in police uniform and the woman in an old-style wedding dress. Lois looked more closely, and then read the text. “Local Police Detective Inspector’s wife dies in road accident. Two youths detained.”
“Oh my Lord,” she said. “That’s Cowgill …” She felt dizzy and sat down heavily on the sofa.
Derek looked at her, and then at Gran, who said, “I think I’ll make a cup of tea for us.”
“Are you all right, me duck?” he said quietly, and went to sit beside Lois, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Bit of a shock?”
“I met her once,” Lois said in a flat voice. “At a school concert evening. She was very smart, and a bit fearsome. They’d been married a long time. She looked after him well.”
“Then I expect he’ll miss her a lot,” Gran said, returning with the tea. “Poor bloke. He’ll probably retire and go and live near his daughter.”
“With any luck …” Derek muttered to himself.
But Lois heard, and rounded on him. “I don’t want to hear no more of that!” she said, half in tears. “We’ve bin through all that before, an’ it’s put behind us. So can we change the subject and get back to the telly? You’re missing your favourite show, Mum.” She stood up, leaving Derek huddled on the sofa, and said, “I need to go to the loo, then I’ll come back for me tea.”
“I wonder if the youths were local?” Gran said.
“They don’t stand much of a chance, wherever they come from,” Derek replied. “Only one thing worse than killing a policeman—snuffing out his wife.”
E
IGHT
NEXT MORNING, SHEILA AND FLOSS WERE MAKING their way to Farnden Hall for a morning’s work for Mrs. Tollervey-Jones, generally accepted as the squire’s lady. Her husband had died some years ago, but she had stepped into his shoes with as much, if not more, efficiency as the head of a sizeable estate, and with an inherited sense of responsibility for her village.
“Don’t be put off by her manner, Floss,” Sheila said. “She’s not a bad old stick at heart.” Sheila had no evidence for this, having never seen any indication that Mrs. T-J’s heart was anything but stony. Still, the girl’s first job was in at the deep end, and she wanted to help her to stay afloat. They parked around the back of the Hall in the stable yard, under the steady gaze of a large horse.
“He’s lovely,” Floss said enthusiastically.
“Do you ride, then?” Sheila said.
Floss nodded. “When I was young,” she said, and Sheila laughed.
“So you’ve given it up, now you are the great age of seventeen?” Floss’s reply was aborted by the kitchen door opening and an elegant elderly lady walking briskly towards them.
“Morning, Sheila.” Mrs. T-J looked at Floss enquiringly, and Sheila introduced her as the new apprentice cleaner.
“I shall be teaching her exactly how you like things done,” she said diplomatically.
“Shall I be paying double for this?” Mrs. T-J said brutally.
Sheila shook her head. “Of course not! Mrs. M just thought it would be good for Floss to begin with the nicest and most rewarding client we have.” Dear Lord, forgive me, she said to herself. I mean it for the best.
“So long as I am not expected to reward you with cash,” Mrs. T-J said acidly. “You’d better come on in, then. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
Floss was a good pupil. She had a natural aptitude for things domestic, and also a healthy curiosity stimulated by the splendour of the Hall’s furnishings. “Mrs. Stratford,” she said, “have you ever broken anything valuable?”
Sheila put her finger to her lips. “Ssshh … only once,” she replied, “and that was not here, luckily!”
In the large front hall, Floss looked up at stags’ heads mounted on the wall, and frowned. “Ugh!” she whispered. “Were they shot in the park?”
Sheila shrugged. “Sboudn’t think so … more likely in Scotland. Mrs. T-J goes up every year for several weeks. Got a house in Sutherland, I think. In the far north.”
“But what’s that? That thing with tusks?”
“Some kind of pig,” Sheila whispered. “Wild boar, probably. I think it came from France. They shoot anything that moves there. Anyway,” she continued, “we’d better get on and stop talking. Mrs. T-J will have her ears pinned back, you bet.”
When Floss arrived home full of her first day with New Brooms, her mother asked her what it was like up at the Hall, and received a detailed account. “I wouldn’t mind us living there!” Floss enthused. “Except them stuffed animals … I’d take them to the dump straight away. I reckon shooting them’s cruel enough, but stuffing them to hang on the walls is grim. They’re moth-eaten, too. Ugh!”
Her father came in at that moment, and was updated with Floss’s day. “Ah, well,” he said when she described the trophies, “that’s the upper classes for you. What’s grim to you and me is a day’s good sport to them. Now then, Mother, what’s for supper?” he added. “Your favourite—venison casserole,” she replied.
AFTER HER PARENTS HAD SETTLED DOWN IN FRONT OF the television, Floss appeared at the door saying she was going round to her friend Charlotte for a while. “Righto, dear, said her father, without looking round. She was not, of course, going to see Charlotte, she had an assignation with young Ben Cullen, only son of a Scottish family who were the first to move in to Blackbeny Close. They referred to themselves as the oldest inhabitants, and were much liked in the village. Organizers of an event needing help could rely on Ben’s family, and his mother sang in the church choir, belonged to the WI, and helped at the Darby and Joan Club once a month.
Floss’s mother knew of the friendship, and approved, but her father had a heavy hand with boyfriends who turned up. Not that he was discouraging. It was the opposite, with the lad being welcomed with a friendly thump on the back, and offers of drinks, meals, books to borrow, family outings to join. By this time, the boy was thoroughly put off, deciding that there must be something seriously wrong with Floss if she needed such a sales promotion.
Ben was new on the scene, and of course it would not be long before Floss’s father would hear of it. But by that time, Floss and her mother hoped the boy would be hooked sufficiently to ride out the welcome.
“So how did it go, Flossie?” Ben was waiting for her in the bus shelter near the pub.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s walk, shall we? Lovers’ stroll through the woods?”
Ben laughed. “So tell me about your first day as a skivvy,” he said.
Floss scowled at him, and was silent for a minute. Then she said, “I really enjoyed it, most of it. Mrs. Stratford was very kind to me. Which was just as well, because old Mrs. T-J is a dragon! Not surprising she has all those gruesome stuffed things on her walls …”
“Tell me more,” Ben said. They were out of the village now, heading towards the woods. It was twilight, and Floss said she shouldn’t be long, as she had once more lied to her parents. “But you’re a working girl now! You can do what you want. Stay out as late as you like … with whoever you like … except that it has to be me,” he added.
“Yukky, Ben,” Floss said, and took her hand out of his. Ben was a couple of years older than her, and had
been around. “Anyway, do you want to hear about the trophies? There was one,” she continued, without waiting for an answer, “that looked like a hairy pig, and Mrs. Stratford said it was a wild boar and probably came from France. She said the French shoot everything that moves.”
“Glad I don’t live in France, then,” Ben said. They climbed the stile into the edge of the wood, and Floss stopped suddenly, a few steps along the track. “Listen!” she whispered. Ben looked at her enquiringly, and she put a finger to her lips. They stood motionless, listening. Voices, men’s voices from deep in the wood, trickled through to them. It was dark now, and they could see nothing. Then Ben grabbed her arm and pointed along the track. Far along it, a small light, as if from a torch being carried, moved up and down, getting closer.
“Come on!” Floss said, and turning around, dragged Ben back to the stile. They were over it in seconds and running back down the road to the village. “What the hell was going on?” Floss said, when they were safely in sight of comfortingly lit houses.
Ben shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said. “Maybe alien visitors from another planet, or a secret coven of witches …”
“Witches are female. Those were men’s voices,” said Floss. “An’ I’m not stupid, you know. Not a child any more. So you can forget the aliens. I didn’t like it, because men in a wood in the dark must be up to something. But they weren’t little green men with antennae coming out of their heads.”
“Could’ve been Green Men, though,” said Ben smugly. “Haven’t you heard of them? Legendary ghostly characters who look a bit like trees and come at you in the dark. Then you’re never seen again.”
