by Clare Curzon
‘And your daughter found passion elsewhere?’
Anna bowed her head. ‘I saw very little of them. At first Freddie insisted I spent my leaves with them, but naturally Jennifer found it unpleasant, associating me with so much that had gone wrong in her life before. And then grandmothers are suspect, the generation gap producing such opposing cultures.’
‘You didn’t approve of the way she was bringing up her children?’
‘I was fearful that she was making a harem child out of her son, always including him in her girlie group meetings. I know as he grew older she encouraged him to dress up in her most exotic clothes, use make-up and wear a wig. She acted sometimes as if he were her spoilt little sister.’
‘You didn’t protest?’
‘Once. After that it was made clear I should only put in a rare appearance, on sufferance.’
‘And her relations with young Angela?’
‘Cooler, on both sides. She was Daddy’s girl, for all that they weren’t related. Jennifer and she stepped gingerly round each other. As though they were afraid the other might encroach on private ground. She was old for her years. I suppose they were a lot alike, and unconsciously felt in competition.’
‘Your daughter never wanted to become an actress?’
‘She was an actress, in everything she did, but she’d no time for the hard graft required by theatre. You could say she was stagy, I suppose.’
‘Superstitious?’
Anna looked hard at him. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Some women read their horoscopes, won’t walk under ladders, cross their fingers when they lie, consult mediums, believe in magic.’
‘If she did believe in magic, it would be in her own magic. Not anyone else’s. I know she used to organise great parties at Hallowe’en and dressed up as a black witch. Maybe that’s what was behind the local superstitions about the hanging wood. An old poacher round here called Huggett tried to persuade me there were “goings-on” at full moon up there; a coven operating, so that locals were afraid of the place.’
‘And did he persuade you?’
‘I assumed he’d spread the rumours himself, to keep everyone clear of his traps.’
‘Have you ever been there?’ Zyczynski asked, at last stepping in.
‘Maybe we should go and take a look.’ Abercorn grinned, Puck-like.
‘Actually,’ Anna admitted, ‘I had thought of dropping in on the folks down at the farm and seeing what they had to say about it. I could say I wanted to see the new calf.’
‘Why not?’ beamed the little man. ‘But I like the idea of a woodland walk, perhaps tomorrow, if you could find some commission to occupy your grandson. Joining us wouldn’t be in his best interests at the moment.’
‘You want me to send him away somewhere?’ Anna asked bluntly. ‘I’m not sure he’d go. He steers clear of the village; naturally is keeping his head well down until he hears further from the police about the girl’s death.’
‘Yes. Perhaps an invitation from outside the family? Surely he has friends of his own age he can trust, and whom you can conspire with?’ His face was impish, cajoling her into a fun thing and, although suspicious, she had to agree that it might be expedient.
‘There’s Camilla, a badminton partner,’ she said. ‘Four or five years older than Daniel, but then most of his friends are. She’s a self-employed manicurist, so she could probably take time off if I paid her expenses.’
‘Would you ring her? Emphasise how badly Daniel needs taking out of himself in cheerful company.’
Reluctantly Anna rose. ‘I’d find it easier if I do this bit on my own.
‘But of course.’
While she withdrew to phone from the study, Zyczynski went across to look out of the window. ‘He’s going down the fields to the river.’
Abercorn was lying back, cup in hand and staring at the ceiling. He grunted. ‘She’s embarrassed,’ he decided. ‘Not being secretive, just not accustomed to acting deviously. That implies distaste for manipulation. I tend to share your opinion of the lady: she’s not subversive. The boy has nothing to fear from her.’
‘I never said what I thought of her.’
‘You disagreed when your fellow sergeant suggested she’d need watching.’
Zyczynski stared back blank-faced. She’d need to be careful with this one. Too observant by half. But maybe he was what this complicated case needed. So long as he didn’t let his cleverness run away with him.
‘So you thought you’d warn me I’m transparent?’ she accused.
‘We’re both on the same side.’
Just as well, she thought. I wouldn’t give him the right to poke about in my brain.
‘There’s one little puzzle. I understood she hasn’t visited for some years. How then does she know of Daniel’s current friends?’
‘Maybe this girl’s more than a friend. He may have talked to Anna about her.’
‘I don’t imagine he’s that open with her.’ He said no more as they heard Anna’s heels on the hall tiles.
She returned impassive, nodded and sat down again to drink her cooling tea. ‘Camilla will ring him this evening, invite him out for lunch somewhere, maybe Oxford or Henley. I will ring later and let Rosemary know what time she’ll be picking him up. That should leave us plenty of time to investigate Huggett’s claims about the woods.’
She regarded the psychologist squarely. Actually Camilla sounded very keen. I’m afraid she may have a morbid taste for the sensational. I warned her to keep off the dreaded subject, and not to question Daniel. We don’t need him further upset.’
‘Unless the dam bursts and gives him relief.’
‘I’d rather that happened here, where we can get the right sort of help.’
‘You’ve been very helpful yourself, Mrs Plumley. Thank you. But now I’m expected by Superintendent Yeadings, so I must leave you.’
He handed back his cup and saucer, smiled at Anna and let Z lead him back to her car. Anna watched them drive off, saw Daniel in the distance walk out from a line of trees above the water meadows to stare after them.
When he returned she wandered in as he shed his boots at the gun room door. ‘Someone called Camilla phoned, wanting you. She’ll try again this evening. An invitation of some kind, I think.’
He looked aghast. ‘I’m not up to clubbing.’
‘Of course not. Something rather different, as I understood it. Just a drive and some lunch. Away somewhere. Make a bit of a break.’
He considered this, pulling on his slippers. It would be a relief to be free of this damnable house. Swap the grim grandmother for Camilla and her giggles. Provocative Camilla, teasing yet sexually barring him. Just the two of them. Maybe this time he’d get lucky. It was more than time something went right for him.
Dr Abercorn walked into Yeadings’ office to find his desk covered in crumpled pieces of paper. A WPC, kneeling on the floor, had separated others into five piles and was now gathering them up in bundles.
‘Historical archivist?’ he asked benevolently.
‘In a way. Not without profit. SOCO had examined bins in the house. This lot had travelled a stage further but, thanks to the recycling system, hadn’t joined the stinkier stuff.’
Abercorn hovered over the desk, after more detail.
‘Some interesting results. Hoad was having problems at work,’ Yeadings informed him. ‘A whistle-blower had written to him, suggesting a review of the list of employees at the Bristol foundry. There have been recent sackings, and fictional names have been substituted on the wages lists. If that’s true, Fallon, the partner, could be feathering his nest.’
‘So what move did Hoad take?’
‘The letter itself was torn into sixteen pieces, as if in angry denial, but the itemised phone bill I requested for Fordham Manor records a two-minute conversation with a Bristol number on the following day. This proves to be for Fallon’s personal line. A short enough conversation to be a summons to meet, but not long enough to
go fully into the matter and receive assurances that all was well.’
‘Interesting indeed. So did they meet? And when?’
‘That remains to be discovered. But other correspondence might also be germane to the investigation. A letter from Mrs Anna Plumley, Hoad’s mother-in-law, who apparently kept regularly in touch. Computer-printed, so perhaps the envelope was too; so that unless the postmark gave it away, no other member of the family need have known the correspondence existed.’
‘She spoke of him as “poor Freddie”. More sympathy there than for her own daughter.’
‘I think he kept her abreast of family matters, and even welcomed her advice.’
‘An éminence grise. What a formidable lady. But that explains something I was puzzled by: how she was aware of what friends Daniel had. Hoad may not have been a blood relation, but he sounds like that rarity, a good family man.’
Yeadings nodded. ‘I trust your visit was profitable.’
‘Certainly interesting,’ and he outlined it to the superintendent, ending, ‘So tomorrow we take a walk in the woods.’
‘Very refreshing.’
‘You’re wondering to what purpose. So, frankly, am I, but my question about superstition took that turn. I am simply going with the flow.’
‘Uniform Branch reported there was nothing of interest there, but I doubt if they penetrated far. According to the Ordnance Survey map the wood’s quite extensive. Nothing significant marked there.’
‘We shall see. I just hope the weather stays fair. I have an urban horror of rain.’ He looked rueful. ‘Also of cow pats and midges, if it comes to that.’
‘See Z about borrowing some wellies, just in case.’
‘Rubber boots? Ah, yes. Thank you.’
‘As for the forecast,’ Yeadings warned him, ‘it’s for showers and intermittent sunshine, with heavy winds rising to gale force by evening, blowing out overnight.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Abercorn, deflated. ‘I wish I’d had advance knowledge.’
Chapter Fifteen
They had been lucky so far with the rain, but the wind had strengthened earlier than anticipated. Their jackets, unbuttoned for the climb, flapped behind them like broken wings. Anna strode stoutly uphill in mountain boots and with a shepherd’s forked staff, observing how in silhouette a distant string of thorn trees toiled up the edge of the hill like bent and wizened crones.
My mind already exercised by covens, she thought dryly.
Rosemary Zyczynski lagged behind with the breathless Dr Abercorn, having kitted him out with wellies on loan from a strapping WPC who took size nines.
‘I’ll be glad,’ puffed the little man, ‘when we reach the shelter of the trees.’
Z smiled encouragement, thinking it might not be much better then. The tops of the nearest clump of ashes were rolling about as if in helpless merriment. Every gust brought a flurry of autumn leaves and the ground was already slippery with them.
They reached comparative calm in the darker depths of the wood, striking through to a clearing from which paths meandered in three directions. ‘Do we take one each?’ asked Abercorn.
‘The left one’s fairly fresh, little more than trodden undergrowth,’ Anna pointed out. ‘We could run into Huggett’s latest traps that way. Let’s stay together and tackle the other two in turn.’
After fifty yards of twisting, the central path ran straight except for circling a stagnant pond where two half-submerged logs lurked like wary crocodiles. A few minutes later it suddenly dropped away, zigzagging down a steep escarpment planted with pines and spruces. As the trees thinned they glimpsed patchwork fields in the valley below, its straggling lanes dotted with whitewashed cottages.
‘Are we still on Hoad’s property?’ Abercorn asked.
‘On the edges, I think,’ Anna said. ‘Just before the trees thinned there were the remains of an old fence. I imagine it was kept in proper repair when there were still gamekeepers. Shall we make our way back and take the other path? From here it looks as though that’s the gentler side of the hill and the woods extend farther that way.’
They retraced their steps in silence, Abercorn easing his collar but making no complaint. Their second path was anything but straight, meandering between ancient beeches and eventually curving right, back towards the direction of the Manor, then plunging away left and opening out just above Fordham village.
‘This could be the way the daily staff used to come on foot,’ Abercorn surmised. ‘I’m surprised it hasn’t grown over, since the advent of bicycles and cars.’
‘Maybe it’s still used for picnics,’ Anna suggested. ‘And dalliance, of course.’
‘Back to the clearing?’ Z invited. ‘Then do we call it a day or try the newish track?’
Halfway there it grew darker and began to rain. They heard more than felt it pattering on the foliage above. There seemed no point in breaking cover yet to get soaked.
‘We might as well push on,’ Anna decided. So they turned into the least trodden track, Anna clearing the way ahead with her forked stick. After some twenty paces or more she stopped.
‘I was wrong. It’s an old path, but grown over. Look, there are even flints tamped in underneath. This was certainly well used at some period in the past.’
Now and again they passed the shrivelled remains of wild raspberries, the canes dried brown and tangled like old brambles. The trees here were all deciduous and mature; no filling in with rapid-growth evergreens.
Anna halted again and produced her torch from a capacious pocket.
‘What is it?’ Z demanded.
‘I thought so. A little way back I noticed something too. Wait till I scratch it off.’ She bent and picked at the broad blade of a dock leaf.
‘There. Tell me what that is.’
Abercorn peered close, touched the shiny surface. ‘Wax?’
‘Candle wax. Now why walk in a wood with a lighted candle when there are more convenient ways of picking out your path? I begin to think there really was a coven, or some kind of arcane gathering. The start of the path was deliberately concealed.’
That morning, just before eleven, Camilla’s Toyota had slewed to a stop by the front door, throwing up gravel as she braked. Daniel, ready, waiting and stagy in an ankle-length black coat and leather riding boots, golden hair loose under a wide-brimmed felt hat, was taken aback to find three passengers grinning in the rear seats.
‘Thought we’d make up a party,’ Camilla said. ‘You know Louise and Harry. That’s Jack in the middle, playing dormouse.’
Daniel took the free front seat, disconsolate. The others’ presence meant he couldn’t demand to drive. It soured the day, because he’d hoped Camilla would be specially nice to him, out of sympathy.
They avoided the market-day crowds in Fordham and the narrow wriggle of Wendover’s main street. Past World’s End, straight roads opened up with boring shorn hedges and glimpses of corn stubble beyond. Camilla was being wary of the speed cameras, which irked him. The traffic grew denser and the pace ever slower.
‘Right,’ Daniel challenged, ‘Let’s get cracking. There was an old man of St Ives … You next, Camel.’
‘Um’, said Camilla. ‘All right, then. Whose moggy had used up eight lives.’
There was a pause. ‘Louise, we’re waiting,’ Danny sang over his shoulder. ‘It’s easy-peasy; yours doesn’t have to rhyme.’
‘One day it went mousing …’
‘In inner-city housing …’ That was Harry’s uncertain effort.
The others all groaned. ‘Doesn’t rhyme,’ Camilla damned it. ‘You’ve changed to a hard s.’
‘Leaving me with the abominable last line,’ Jack complained, wedged in the centre of the back seat. ‘Hives, arrives, drives …
‘No, I’ve got it. And ended on juveniles’ knives.’
There was a horrified silence. Even a dumbo like Jack must have realised …
‘Not one of our best,’ Daniel said defiantly. For God’s sake, hadn’t they w
arned the idiot, don’t mention the war!
Trying for cool, he felt sudden nausea, wanted to climb out and start trudging back home. No, not home. The way they’d come, that’s all.
‘Marked at two out of ten,’ Camilla decreed, rushing into the breach. ‘What’s happening up front?’
Those in the rear craned forward. There was a tailback. At least twenty cars queued ahead, nose to tail. Red rear lights lit the darkening noon.
‘Flock of sheep,’ Louise guessed. But it was something more. An approaching siren demanded road clearance. Camilla ran the car on to the nearside verge. ‘Oh Lord, we could be here for hours. And I’m ravenous.’
A second warbling note joined the other. Paramedics first, then Fire Service. Next there’d be police.
‘OK. Looks like I get to start another,’ Harry claimed sourly. ‘A nautical traveller called Claud …’
‘Spoke only English abroad …’
‘Flawed, fraud, sawed,’ Louise muttered under her breath.
‘Shush, we’re not there yet.’
‘And we shan’t be for a bloody long time,’ Daniel growled. He’d reckoned on an hour for the journey, say one and a half for a meal. Now it could string out until dark. So much for his brilliant idea for when they reached a decent-sized town.
They edged slowly forward, only three or four car-lengths at a time with long pauses between, eventually reaching a narrow space past the emergency vehicles. As a fireman in a luminous jacket waved them over, Camilla ran the Toyota up on the grass verge, skimming the lopped branches of a giant oak that stretched across all lanes of the road. Its massive root ball reared over the far bank.
With windows lowered to gawk, they smelled dank earth and sap, heard the snarl of a chainsaw as it bit into the obstruction. Beyond it oxy-cetylene flared where a group of firefighters cut into the distorted hatchback of a small car crushed underneath. The entire front half, barely visible under the trunk’s main weight, was staved in like a crumpled beer can. Paramedics from two ambulances sat strung out along the bank, useless as yet.
Without warning Daniel slid sideways. His head hit the window frame and he vomited over the seat.
