Head Wound

by Judith Cutler

  CHAPTER NINE

  It wasn’t a cat but a dog that an embarrassed Lloyd wished on me first thing on Monday morning in an early phone call. His mother had torn a calf playing tennis (though no one would have dared add, ‘At her age?’, which must have been pushing seventy). It wasn’t a serious injury, but bad enough to preclude her from taking her very active Schnoodle for the long walkies it enjoyed. Geoffrey—

  ‘Geoffrey?’

  ‘I know. Ma’s a fan of Geoffrey Boycott. But Geoffrey doesn’t favour long slow innings – he’s a bit of a bouncer. If he could just come and stay with you full-time for a few days, or – and this might be even more of a pain, come to think of it – maybe you could tool over to Lenham twice a day and walk him there.’

  I had the strongest suspicion that there was nothing wrong with Mrs Davies senior but a strong desire on the part of her son and daughter-in-law to keep me out of trouble. I had to eat my words when I went to collect him, though. Maggie Davies had her foot up and a pair of elbow crutches.

  ‘Marooned for five days, according to the physio. Something to do with scar tissue healing the right way,’ she said. ‘And there I was planning on painting the lounge.’

  ‘Which would have been fun in itself with Geoffrey trying to help,’ I pointed out.

  ‘But so much easier without Lloyd ditto,’ she said.

  Geoffrey, greyish-white and about knee-height, had a smile both charming and possibly untrustworthy. He and I got used to each other while we walked down to the village store to buy supplies for her – and of course him. The only problem was when I tied him up and went inside: his howls were heart-rending.

  ‘Don’t worry – Geoffrey always does that,’ the woman beside me by the pet food section assured me.

  On the other hand, he was clearly an experienced passenger, waiting with ill-disguised impatience for me to clip him into the car, which was stuffed with his bed, enough toys for a playgroup and food and treats for five days, by which time Maggie assured me her physiotherapist insisted she start walking again. Clearly, he was disconcerted, to put it mildly, when he found he wasn’t returning to his person, but he had a good sniff round my house – my bears had retreated to the safety of the wardrobe, where they gazed down from the very top shelf – and seemed reassured.

  Geoffrey was, of course, an open sesame to the neighbours: everyone stopped to exchange doggy stories, and to introduce their various companions to him. He also gave me nominal protection (penetrating barking, rather than penetrating teeth) if I wanted to walk in places I’d normally have avoided in the dark – our estate being one of them of course. Through Geoffrey’s new acquaintances I learnt that the blinds and bright lights had gone from our neighbour’s house, and that, according to a neighbour I immediately got into conversation with that evening, the road was much quieter generally.

  ‘Day and night these cars came and went. Vans, too. I mean, it’s just an ordinary holiday let. I suppose we should be grateful they didn’t have a big party and smash the place up,’ added the woman whom I only knew as Dolly’s mummy – Dolly being a scrap of a dachshund that Geoffrey treated with casual disdain. ‘Apparently there have been a couple of those up at the vicarage – you wouldn’t expect that at the home of a man of the cloth, would you?’

  When did I last hear that term in conversation?

  ‘After the goings-on with the last man, you’d think they’d be more … more considerate, wouldn’t you? It’s the Church’s reputation we’re talking about, after all.’ She sniffed disparagingly. But before I could say anything, however, she asked with no change of tone or pace, ‘Now, how did you come to have this handsome young man, then?’

  What crazy rumour was this? Was I supposed to be involved in some ecumenical orgy? It took me a second to grasp that she meant Geoffrey. ‘I’m looking after him for a friend.’

  ‘But you’re obviously used to dogs.’

  ‘I used to have one – but he died …’ I still couldn’t explain the circumstances to anyone but my therapist. Ironically it was the involvement of the RSPCA that brought him finally to justice.

  ‘And you didn’t get another?’

  ‘You know how it is … and the hours I work, it wouldn’t be fair, would it?’

  ‘I’d always walk it for you. The more the merrier.’

  Dolly and Geoffrey appeared to disagree.

  I shook my head. ‘Thanks. But it’d be like farming out a child.’

  ‘A lot of people do that – as you must know from experience. Poor things – in my day mothers stayed at home to look after them properly. None of this nursery business.’

  ‘But since then the economic climate has changed, of course.’

  ‘And not for the better, either. All this fundraising you’re having to do for the school – you shouldn’t have to. It’s the council’s job! Now, Geoffrey dear, that’s rather rude, you know.’

  Geoffrey was no longer ignoring Dolly – he was doing his best to get very close to her indeed.

  We went our separate ways.

  Our evening walk was less sociable but more intriguing. It was true that there was no longer any activity at the original house with blackouts and bright lights. Further down the road, however, at number 39, tucked away in a little sub cul-de-sac, two or three cars were parked outside another house. The driver of one was banging hard on the front window with his keys, yelling in a way not likely to endear him to Dolly’s mummy.

  Eventually the front door opened a crack – it was held by a chain, I think – and a young woman told him to remove himself. I didn’t speak a word of her language but the gist was clear. She repeated the suggestion with considerable vigour, and managed to close the door. I’m sure she spoke an East European language, but I’d have needed Zunaid to tell me if it was Romanian.

  By now I’d photographed the car and gathered up Geoffrey’s offering. I also clamped my free hand over his mouth to stop him drawing attention to us by barking: I was terrified the driver might take out his frustration in the way Simon used to do, by kicking an innocent animal. In fact, there was every chance he might use a human as a punchbag instead. Then another car arrived at the same address. It took only the shortest of sentences from the first man to make the second reverse sharply and go on his way.

  Geoffrey and I followed suit – an indirect way home, via the useful alleyway I’d shown Joy. Then, having locked him up, I set out again, and, with my business card in my pocket, made my way back to number 39.

  ‘Hi,’ I meant to say, ‘I’m Jane, one of your new neighbours. I was wondering if you wanted to come and have a coffee tomorrow morning.’

  I got as far as ‘Hi.’ I couldn’t understand a syllable of what she was saying – and no doubt she wouldn’t have understood if I’d managed to issue my invitation. What I did understand was the violent gesture sending me on my way and the slammed door.

  Even though the anger and violence weren’t personal, they shook me – as a reminder, even a very dilute one, of Simon’s behaviour. I edged away, shaking, nauseous. I wanted—and then I wondered, dimly, what the woman might want. Was there anyone lurking behind her telling her to get rid of the unwanted visitor – just as Simon had controlled my life? If only I’d had the forethought to bring a pencil so I could scribble a note. While the impulse was still strong, I hurried home and actually wrote one – but what if this brought not her but her putative assailant to my door? Torn between self-justification and shame I tore it up.

  But I did have some school headed paper. And on my computer was a copy of the letter we sent to newcomers to the village inviting them to bring their children to the school. A general, non-specific note – with the bonus that of course it had my name on it. If she was as desperate as I’d once been she might just see the connection with the visitor she’d driven away.

  Breathing deeply, I forced myself back up the drive, sliding it silently through the letter box.

  The next afternoon Geoffrey and I ventured as far as the school, where
he sat warming my feet until he became truly bored. So ten minutes’ work accomplished. Ten! I gathered up some files, stowing them in my bag. Idly I wondered if I could simply ignore them and offer an excuse: ‘Someone’s dog ate my homework.’ But it didn’t work like that for grown-ups, did it?

  Our route home was via the church and then the vicarage. This was an unremarkable building, nothing like the Rectory, a lovely Georgian house owned by one of the village millionaires. The last vicar had died, as a result of what my fellow dog-walker had called goings-on. There’d been a long interregnum before the appointment of a new vicar, due to be inducted into the parish very shortly. But the diocese hadn’t let the place lie empty. It had been let out on the commercial market to benefit not parish but diocesan funds, according to Carol, one of our churchwardens, bitter at the lack of a parish priest for a year. I knew how hard she’d had to work to cover the services – somehow she and Mike, a new recruit to the Parochial Church Council, or PCC, had sourced retired priests, trainee priests, two archdeacons and a variety of lay people. She wouldn’t have minded all the hard work if only the parish had benefited financially from the lack of a full-time vicar.

  The vicarage looked very sorry for itself. Geoffrey was keen to check for canine activity. We were greeted, perhaps cautiously, by a woman probably a dozen or so years older than me, though her wild greying hair, contrasting with almost perfect skin, made it hard to judge.

  Geoffrey took her smile as an invitation to put his paws on her thighs.

  ‘No, Geoffrey!’ I snapped, pulling him off and making him sit, but she shrugged aside my apology saying, with more than a grain of truth, that it would be hard for her jeans to be any dirtier. ‘And I hope you won’t mind if I don’t shake hands with you, just Geoffrey, but I’d need to scrub mine first. Oh, my husband’s the new vicar, Graham West. I’m Izzie,’ she added, trying in vain to persuade Geoffrey to shake paws.

  It sounded like a name straight from Thomas Hardy. ‘Jane Cowan,’ I responded. ‘The village school head. Surely you shouldn’t be doing this?’ I said, pointing at a half-full skip. ‘The PCC were assured that it would be professionally cleaned.’

  ‘Cleaned, yes, perhaps – but not cleaned out, which I find I’ve got to do first. Well, no one said, but it’s obvious, isn’t it? I’ve never seen so much stuff – it’s as if people fly-tipped in it. The magazines and DVDs … I know there’s much worse online, but they’re vile enough. Recent stuff, too: I know that the police had to remove … material … after the last incumbent’s death.’

  I looked her in the eye: she knew, didn’t she? Mark Stephens had, as people observed, done everyone a favour by topping himself. Not the train driver under whose wheels he fell, of course. There was a rumour that the poor man was still on sick leave.

  ‘Who on earth was it let to?’

  ‘A pair who had sold their place and were waiting to emigrate. For some reason they cut short their tenancy, and then there was a series of short lets. You ought to see what they’ve done.’

  ‘I’d be very interested.’ I tried to sound neutral. ‘And maybe I can give you a hand.’ Geoffrey was keen to lead the way.

  She shut the door behind us. ‘Even the smell!’ she wailed. She looked close to tears.

  ‘Quite.’ Sex and unwashed bodies overlying fresh emulsion paint – prison yellow in the hall and purple in the rooms I could see. Had someone tried to freshen up the place or to cover something they wanted kept hidden? ‘Goodness! How many mattresses does a house need, for goodness’ sake?’ There were four or five propped against the hall wall, with another visible in what was once the study. ‘Is it like this upstairs?’

  ‘Exactly. But more a smell of cheap scent. I don’t know where to start, Jane,’ she prompted me as I stood arms akimbo looking at the chaos.

  ‘You want my advice? Then you don’t start. Not till you’ve called first the police and then the diocese office.’

  ‘Police? Why the police?’

  I spread my hands theatrically. ‘This isn’t normal household rubbish, Izzie. Someone’s been running a business here – and, last I heard, a brothel isn’t a legal business.’

  ‘Would they be interested? I thought they tended to turn a blind eye.’

  ‘It rather depends on whether the sex workers are there of their own volition for safety’s sake – and even then it’s against the law – or if the women are what the media would probably call “sex slaves”.’

  She went pale – to my surprise, because I’d have thought being a vicar’s wife you’d all too quickly understand the vile things one human could do to another. But what she said was far more banal. ‘But if the police get involved it might mean we can’t move in!’

  ‘There’s no reason to suspect anyone’s been killed here, is there?’ I asked jokily.

  She dropped her voice. ‘There is some blood. Was. In the bathroom. Someone’s messy period, I thought. It was the first thing I did – to clean it up.’

  Did I need to tell her that it was very unlikely that she’d managed to eradicate it completely?

  ‘Should I dial 999?’

  I scratched my ear. Trust Lloyd to be on holiday when I needed him. ‘It’s not as if there’s still a body here – Izzie, there isn’t, is there? But 101 takes for ever to get through, and then you don’t seem to get much action. Tell you what: I once worked with a very nice officer, DI Elaine Carberry. I could text her?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to waste anyone’s time.’

  ‘She’ll soon tell me if she thinks you are.’

  Elaine rang me within a minute. ‘I’m just finishing a meeting and I’ll come straight over after that. It’d be good to catch up outside a hospital room.’ She was another of Will’s regular visitors, though I’d not seen her for a couple of months. ‘See you in about an hour.’

  Not so good. It meant I was closeted with Izzie for the duration, with no more work at school and a much shorter walk than I’d intended. ‘You look as if you could use a cup of tea,’ I said mildly.

  ‘From that kitchen! No thank you!’

  ‘In that case we can go back to the school – I’ll text Elaine and tell her.’ As she locked up behind us I continued, ‘When did you say you planned to move in, by the way?’

  ‘This time next week.’

  I frowned, and not just at a delighted, effervescent Geoffrey who clearly thought we had another adventure ahead of us. ‘Do you have to get permission from the PCC to change locks, and so on?’

  ‘What a strange question!’

  ‘If people squatted in an empty house, there’s always the chance they might do it again. And I gather squatters are the very devil to remove.’

  ‘Surely … Actually, you mean it, don’t you? Won’t it be expensive to get a locksmith in?’

  I was only going to offer to do it myself, wasn’t I? Like when, Jane? ‘The guy who’s done the security for both my schools is very reasonable, and he’d probably give a discount if I leant on him. Ecclesiastical, if not educational. He’s a good honest man and wouldn’t overcharge anyway. In fact, since you have to live here, I do think the PCC or the diocese should pay. The churchwarden’s a decent woman and would surely try to tap any budget she had if she saw this lot. You have shown her, haven’t you? Oh, Izzie! This isn’t just your problem, you know.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  I hardly recognised Elaine Carberry when we met her outside the vicarage. Wearing a very sharp suit and boots to die for, she’d lost weight and changed her haircut and colour.

  ‘HRT time,’ she said gleefully in response to my widened eyes. ‘Plus Robin’s got an incredibly high cholesterol count so we’re on a joint diet.’ Robin was in a branch of the National Crime Agency dealing with the sort of online images he wouldn’t even talk about, preferring long conversations about cricket. Actually, I was glad that there was a physical reason – all too often I’d seen changes like that in women of my acquaintance when they were embarking on new relationships, and I liked both her and Rob
in too much to contemplate their hurt if the marriage wobbled.

  ‘I really think Jane’s overreacted,’ Izzie said as they shook hands. ‘Squatters, that’s all it is. And now they’ve gone. All I need to do is clear up.’

  ‘Well, I’m here now, getting a bit of country air, so there’s no harm in my taking a look, is there?’ Elaine spoke so kindly and reasonably that had I been Izzie I’d have taken immediate offence. She stood aside for Izzie to unlock the door.

  Izzie gasped. ‘I was sure I locked it. Sure. But maybe …’

  ‘Golly, a kid with a bit of wire could have dealt with the lock in five seconds flat.’ Elaine produced plastic overshoes from her elegant shoulder bag. ‘Yes, put these on, will you – I know you’ve been in and out, but there may still be bits of stuff on the carpet and elsewhere that will bring a smile to the faces of our scenes of crime people.’

  ‘But—’

  In her own way Elaine was as steely as Paula; without being abrupt, let alone abrasive, she waited till we’d both followed her in donning the protective footwear. ‘Excellent. Now, what have we here? What was it that worried you, Jane?’

  Me. Not Izzie. ‘Apart from all these mattresses and the smell? Well, jokingly I asked Izzie about blood, and I gather there was some in the bathroom.’

  ‘Which I’ve already cleaned up,’ Izzie said. ‘Someone with a messy period, that’s all.’

  I wouldn’t let myself exchange a glance with Elaine.

  ‘Let’s go and have a look. Could you just shove your hands in your pockets and try not to touch anything?’

  ‘Would you rather we stayed down here or even in the garden? You can trust us, but I can’t vouch for Geoffrey.’

  Elaine’s rare smile emerged. ‘You know what, he looks to me as if he needs a tree. I might as well have those back.’ She held out her hand for our unused overshoes. ‘Then I shall actually need you, Izzie, to see it in case anything’s been disturbed.’

  I don’t think Izzie realised what she was implying: that Izzie had indeed locked the door and that someone had been in – and with luck – out in the space of that empty hour.