Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  The only breaks in the colour scheme were pictures, every one of them featuring Thurston Wicks’s one true love. A large framed poster of Thurston, swooning brunette draped over his arm, cocktail in his free hand, hung over the fireplace. Portraits of Thurston adorned the walls, including a life-sized one behind the desk that had him breathing smoke through his nostrils from a cigarette in a long holder. Photographs on the mantelpiece showed him with glamorous women, one of whom might have been Bette Davis, and a signed picture on a table was definitely Edward G. Robinson, but I was not going to flatter Mr Wicks by peering closely at them. We had a rather more important matter at hand.

  ‘You saw nobody?’

  The letter lay unfolded on the desk.

  ‘We kept away from the windows for fear of frightening him off,’ he said reasonably, resting his fingertips on a picture of himself and Katharine Hepburn and not seeming to notice that he had knocked it over.

  ‘And it came just like this – no envelope.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Thurston Wicks looked up at me. ‘And there is nothing on the back.’

  He had weighed down the edges with little wooden rulers, creating a makeshift frame.

  ‘INSPECTOR CHURCH,’ I read,

  BRING THE MONEY IN YOUR HANDBAG TO THE KING’S OAK AT SIX THIRTY-FIVE. HANG IT ON THE HOOK IN THE HOLLOW. IF ANYBODY GOES INTO THE TREE BEFORE THEN THE DEAL IS OFF. MR WICKS WILL STAY AT HOME AND AWAIT MY PHONE CALL. COME ALONE. DO NOT BE LATE OR LAVENDER WICKS WILL DIE. NAPOLEON SPARTA THE SUFFOLK VAMPIRE

  A butcher’s hook had been driven into the inside of that tree many years ago. Some said a poacher used to string his rabbits on it to hide them. Others said a man had hanged himself on it. If so, he must have been a midget, for it was only about four feet from the ground.

  ‘Wilson said you will know where that is.’ Thurston casually rotated Groucho Marx towards me. The comedian was puffing a big cigar.

  I nodded. ‘So whoever wrote that demand must have detailed local knowledge.’ I looked at my watch. It was eight minutes past six already. I would have a job to get there by then. ‘Have you got the money?’

  Thurston Wicks pointed. ‘Behind the desk.’ He poured himself a brandy from a cut-glass decanter, sploshing it over the cuff of his shirt.

  I went round to find a green canvas duffel bag tied at the mouth. I untied the cord and pulled the mouth open. There were bundles of ten-pound notes inside, each wrapped in a gummed white paper band. I stacked them on the desk, twenty-five of them, all old, as far as I could see randomly numbered.

  ‘Did the bank not question why you wanted this much money?’

  Thurston Wicks shrugged his left shoulder. ‘Who said anything about banks?’ He downed the drink in one and slopped out another.

  ‘You keep this much money in the house?’

  ‘And more,’ he told me.

  I blew out between my lips. ‘You do make a tax return, don’t you, Mr Wicks?’

  ‘My accountant does.’

  ‘Ever heard of burglars?’ I asked.

  ‘Ever heard of the Depression?’ he countered.

  ‘Like everybody else, I lived through it.’ I didn’t tell him my maternal grandfather had lost a fortune investing everything in a hair oil company. He had owned Tringford Hall but ended up in the attic of Felicity House.

  ‘I want my money where I can get my hands on it whenever I want it.’

  ‘I hope you have a good safe.’

  ‘It would take an expert just to find it,’ he boasted. ‘And I doubt the one in Martins Bank has a better lock.’

  ‘I’ll have to empty my handbag.’ I unpacked it into his duffel bag and stuffed my torch into my jacket pocket and the money into my bag, just managing to force the clip shut. ‘I had better get going.’

  ‘Oh God…’ Thurston suddenly seemed to realise this was really happening. He rubbed his brow. ‘I am drunk and being stupid.’ He crumpled somewhere in the middle. ‘It’s this constant need to keep up an image.’ He ran his fingers through his not-so-carefully-more-than-slightly-tousled-now hair. ‘Oh shit.’ Thurston Wicks staggered one step sideways. ‘I love my wife, Inspector, and I want her back.’

  I went towards the door and he shot an arm across it in the way drunks do when they think they might get a kiss. But Thurston Wicks was not leering. He was pale and nobody can fake that on demand. His voice was steady but his gaze flickered.

  And, looking into those eyes, I believed it. ‘I know you do.’

  ‘You will bring her back safe, won’t you?’ Thurston begged, all at once transformed by fear.

  ‘I will do everything I can,’ I promised because that was all I could promise.

  92

  DANCING WITH THE MARQUIS

  I rushed outside, jumped on my bike and, within one revolution of the wheel, I knew something was wrong. For a second I thought it was the sand or that the chain had slipped but, as soon as I climbed off to push it over the drift, I saw that the rear tyre was flat.

  ‘Bugger-bugger-bugger.’ I threw it back to the side of the road and ran. It was hopeless unless… I saw two almost-painted-out headlights approaching and, before I had even waved, slowing down. The rich purr of the engine sounded very familiar. It pulled alongside.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Arthur, Marquis Stovebury called through his wound-down window. ‘I’m so sorry for my rudeness earlier but it’s Father’s car and I’m terrified of denting it. I came back to apologise and saw your bike so I’ve been cruising up and down ever since.’

  I went round the front of the car and opened the passenger door. ‘Take me to the King’s Oak.’

  ‘You can’t order me around like that,’ he said in half-amused indignation.

  ‘Under the Emergency Powers Act I can,’ I assured him, not quite sure if I could. ‘I can also requisition your car if you refuse and I don’t think you’d like me to be changing gears on corners.’

  ‘King’s Oak it is.’ He smiled. ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘Of course you can,’ I assured him, ‘but I won’t tell you.’

  And the marquis set off at a speed I should have flagged him down for, sand spraying in his wake like water from a speedboat.

  ‘It’s Betty, isn’t it?’ my new chauffeur said, not so worried about the bodywork as to avoid squealing into Manor Road on the wrong side and straightening up so violently that I was flung against him. ‘I’m Arthur. You won’t remember me but we danced together at a Hunt Ball, the first after the Great War. I never forgot you in that gorgeous pink dress, your golden hair, the way you swayed to the music. You were a terrible flirt.’

  ‘I was not,’ I retorted but I was. It only surprised me that he had noticed.

  ‘You jolly well were.’ We accelerated along a not-very-straight stretch. ‘What happened to your arm?’

  ‘I got fed up with it.’

  ‘Limbs can be such a bore.’ The marquis nodded. ‘I’m down to my last four now.’

  I laughed. The speed, dangerous and illegal, was intoxicating.

  Arthur glanced over. ‘You won’t give me a summons for speeding?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I promised. ‘You are going about urgent police business.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift more often,’ he vowed.

  ‘Not if you go into the gate you won’t,’ I said.

  The level crossing was closed.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Arthur slammed the brakes on, skidding to a halt two feet from the barrier, and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Sorry, can’t get used to them being blacked out. Good job one of us was paying attention to the road.’

  ‘I’d prefer that person to be you.’ I looked at my watch abstractedly.

  ‘In a hurry?’

  ‘I must be there by half past.’

  Arthur sounded his horn and the old signalman stuck his head out of the signal box window. ‘Be another four minutes yet.’

  I twisted to wind down my window. ‘Then you have time to open it. Urgent police business.’

  ‘Hea
rd that one before, I have,’ he mocked and I climbed out to show myself, flashing the torch briefly on myself.

  ‘Can’t be helped.’ He shrugged. ‘Rules is rules.’

  Arthur poked his head out. ‘Hello, Harry, how’s young Albert getting on at the estate?’

  The signalman squinted. ‘Oh, good evening, my lord. I didn’t see you there.’ And, miraculously, the gate swung open.

  I leaped and just had time to slam the door before the car set off again, forcing me back into my seat.

  ‘Can you actually see where you’re going?’

  ‘Eyes like a cat,’ he assured me, bumping over the kerb and nearly throwing me out of the seat he had just thrown me back in. ‘Damn.’ He dropped back onto the road. ‘I imagine the police will compensate for any damage incurred.’

  ‘You have a vivid but inaccurate imagination,’ I told Arthur as he swerved round the shadow of a dustbin.

  ‘Know why it’s called the King’s Oak?’ the marquis enquired, seemingly more intent on me than on the public highway.

  ‘Is it one of the five hundred trees Charles II is supposed to have hidden in?’ I guessed.

  ‘Don’t know.’ We veered sharply and without warning to the left. ‘Thought you might.’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ He wrenched the wheel and slammed on the brakes. ‘Here we are.’ He slid an arm over the back of my seat. ‘Fancy a nightcap?’

  A few years ago I would have jumped at the chance.

  I slid out. ‘Thank you but you have to go now.’

  ‘Another time then.’

  ‘I’ll give…’ My mind went through the possibilities. What the hell was the wife of a marquis called? ‘…the marquisess a call,’ I told him uncertainly.

  ‘Would you like me to wait for you?’

  It was starting to drizzle.

  ‘I need to be alone.’ I hoped I didn’t sound too much like Greta Garbo but at the same time a bit of me hoped I did.

  ‘As you wish, Greta.’ Arthur tipped his hat and it was only after he had sped off that I remembered it was a marchioness.

  93

  THE HAUNTING

  The Soundings was not so attractive at night as it had been when I had strolled through with Dodo after our first visit to Treetops House, but few places are in the dead of night.

  I made my way to the oak, a massive silhouette in my dimmed torchlight. Some said Etterly Utter haunted that tree and that they had heard her calling out at night. I didn’t believe them but, when you hear these stories from people you know to be honest and reliable, you can’t help wondering.

  Vandals had smashed the locks off the pine door twice and nobody had bothered to replace them the second time. I drew back both the bolts. Somebody had lubricated them recently. The bars slid easily despite the metal being rusty and I could smell the oil on my fingers. The hinges had been similarly treated so the door swung open without complaint. Obviously whoever had sent me there had not done so on a moment’s whim.

  I hesitated. The slit can’t have got any narrower but I hadn’t got any smaller. It was an elongated triangle, about four feet tall at the apex, and I had to bend just to be able to shine my torch inside the tree. The interior, which had been a good-sized den to play in once, was more like a chimney now. I poked my head in, running the beam around inside. It still looked a long way up to the top opening but at least I could be sure there was nobody else hiding in there.

  Here goes. I looked around me. As far as I could tell, there was no one else about but there were a dozen other trees a person could hide behind. I took off my helmet, putting it on the ground inside the tree, and was just about to follow it when I was attacked. There was a sudden rush behind me and I pulled my head out just in time to be cracked across the skull, fall to my knees and feel myself blacking out.

  94

  FOXES AND FASCISTS

  Somehow I managed to jolt back to consciousness and grab hold of a jutting piece of bark to steady myself, half-rising and swinging round to try to lash out, but a hand went into my face and rammed me back, smashing my head against the tree.

  ‘Struggle any more and I’ll beat the faecal matter out of you,’ a man’s voice threatened. ‘Nazi vixen.’

  I had been called a Nazi before, by people who thought anyone in uniform must be a fascist, but there was something in the way my assailant made the accusation that sounded as if he thought I actually was one.

  ‘I am a police officer,’ I managed to gasp.

  ‘Like fun you are.’ A torch went on, blinding me. ‘Oh flip, it’s you.’

  My attacker stood back and turned his torch briefly on himself and I saw it was Teddy Moulton, the bookseller, and that he had his warden’s uniform on now – well, a helmet and armband at any rate.

  ‘Yes,’ I said usefully.

  ‘Oh Betty!’ He shone the light on me. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you were signalling to the foe.’

  I rubbed my head. ‘In a tree?’

  ‘The beam was projecting through the superior aperture into the heavens.’

  ‘You’ve been reading too many of your own books.’ I had a splitting headache now.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He took my arm to help me up and, for once, I accepted. ‘Look, we’ve got a kettle in the shop. Let me make you a cup of herbal tea.’

  ‘That’s kind of you.’ A large Scotch would have been kinder. I put my fingers to my temples to hold my battered skull together. ‘But I have to ask you to leave, Teddy. I’m on police business but I can’t tell you what. Can you go to Sackwater Central and tell them where I am?’

  ‘You want backup?’

  ‘I want them to stay away.’

  He looked at me uncertainly. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Only you’re haemorrhaging onto your forehead.’

  I put a hand up and found he was right. ‘What the hell did you hit me with?’

  ‘My torch,’ he admitted. ‘Still works but there’s a deuce of a dent in it.’

  ‘I’ve got a matching one in my scalp,’ I told him. ‘I’m sorry, Teddy, but I really need you to go now.’

  Teddy hesitated. ‘If you’re free from doubt.’

  ‘Go… please.’

  Teddy, the bookselling ARP man, clumped away into the night.

  I checked myself over. I was in pain but that was all. I’d been in worse pain and most pains go.

  ‘Put that bloody light out,’ I heard distantly from the man who had once banned a customer for saying Blast when she dropped a sixpence through a gap in the floorboards.

  I crouched again and squeezed through the gap until I was inside the tree, and was getting to my feet when there was a bang. At first I thought it was in my head, because the noise sent a jolt through it, and that I must have been concussed – but I looked back and saw that the door had been slammed shut. I threw myself against it but even before I crashed into the planks I could hear the bolts being slid home.

  ‘Shit.’ I had hurt my right shoulder and jarred my head even more. ‘Shit. Shit.’ I sat heavily on the ground and kicked out with both feet but it was hopeless. I was shut inside a tree.

  95

  THE WHISPERER

  If I screamed now somebody would hear me and they would probably call for the police to rescue me – but police officers don’t scream and I would rather stay trapped than suffer Sharkey’s mockery when he found out.

  For some reason I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t signalled to Sandy Grinder-Snipe when I left Treetops House and I was just working out if that mattered when I heard it.

  ‘Betty?’

  I must have imagined it.

  ‘Is that really you, Betty?’

  It must have been the wind through the branches.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Why did you leave me, Betty?’

  ‘Etterly?’ Her name was wisped away to the clouds.

  ‘Why, Betty?’ The voice was coming through a knot hole near the top of the door.

  ‘I didn’t know you were here.’ I
listened hard.

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘I’ve come back for you, Etterly.’

  ‘Liar.’ The door rattled furiously. ‘Filthy filthy liar.’ I leaped towards it, switching on my torch, and saw an eye, the pupil screwing into a black dot, and heard a small grunt of surprise before it shot sideways, leaving me with a tunnel view of nothingness except the bark of a birch tree reflecting white in the distance.

  ‘Nice game,’ I shouted at whoever it was. ‘But she never called me Betty.’

  I banged the side of my fist on the wood uselessly and kicked it with my toe. I’m not claustrophobic but I am frightened of being trapped, and with good reason. I had been trapped before and nothing good ever came of those experiences. They say breathe slowly when you feel panic rising but one of the things about panic is you don’t feel you can breathe at all. I was getting hot and unbuttoned my coat. There was nothing I could force my way out with. My penknife might have been helpful but it was amongst the things I had emptied into Mr Wicks’s bag and the blade would probably not have been sturdy enough to do anything useful anyway.

  ‘Shall we play another game then?’

  I tried my torch again but only got the same view of the same tree. The whisperer had learned from the experience and was to one side of the knot hole now.

  I said nothing.

  ‘Shall we?’ More playfully, but still I held my peace. ‘I think we shall,’ the voice continued. ‘Let us have a race. You should be good at running with those lovely long legs.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘To where?’ the whisperer corrected me. ‘I shall leave you a message in the phone box on the corner of Gordon Street.’

  ‘And how will I get out?’

  ‘You will break the door down.’ The more that was said, the more sense I got of the accent. It didn’t sound much like anyone’s idea of a Transylvanian count.

  ‘That should give you a few days’ start.’