She took a deep breath to settle her heartbeat from its jolting and stood unsteadily upright while Rani looked up at her with questioning eyes.
“I think we should have another cup of tea,” she decided. “Something stronger, something with a bit more stiffening in it. Some Assam tea I think, and a nice piece of biscuit for a good and patient dog. We cannot possibly let anything happen to our Gerard, can we, Rani? Oh dear, no. Come along and we’ll see what we can find.”
Chapter 4
“I don’t know, Rani,” Aunt Gwendoline sighed, leaning back in her chair and stirring a fresh cup of tea. “It is a very strange dream I am having and I’m not sure that it was something I should even be able to remember. I really was too young at the time it happened.”
She cross-checked her thoughts while Rani snuffled up the last few crumbs of biscuit from the carpet.
“I was born nine months to the day our dad volunteered to join Lord Kitchener’s army at the outbreak of the First World War, so I would not have been two years old when the Zeppelin flew over Low Felderby, coming all the way across the North Sea to toss out a few small bombs and see if it could do some damage to Felderby Pit and Iron Works. Our sister Alice would have been able to remember it because she was two years older than me. But I should definitely have been too young to recall anything from that time.”
She sipped her tea and stirred her memories.
“I can remember our Alice telling me that our dad’s clothes were returned by post in a brown paper parcel some weeks after he enlisted. They were all covered in mud because the army didn’t have enough uniforms for its new recruits at the outbreak of the War, so they had to do their training in their ordinary clothes. Mother cleaned them and pressed them and put them away in his drawer, and I remember her pulling them out on several occasions over the following four years and brushing them down and crying and praying over them in her simple faith, and then packing them away again for the day of his return. I remember all that, but I am not sure I should remember the Zeppelin.”
She gave an involuntary shudder and grasped her shawl closely around her.
“Poor, poor men,” she muttered, and braced herself to face the memory.
It was not only the image of the stricken Zeppelin that had persisted with her over the years. It was also the memory of the six, five-pointed stars that fell from it as it died.
“I know there were six stars, Rani, because young as I was, I counted them.”
Her child’s eyes had seen six five-pointed stars, flailing and waving to her and making a noise like the distant accident siren at Felderby Pit as they came down. It was only with the passing of years that she came to see those incandescent, falling shapes not as stars but as men on fire, casualties of war, the crew of the Zeppelin unable to escape, and the sound she heard was them shrieking out their agony as they plummeted blazing to merciful oblivion several hundreds of feet below.
“Poor, poor men,” she repeated. “But why should I be dreaming about them now, at the same time that our Gerard’s lady friend broke our sister Alice’s vase?”
“You’re a good girl, our Gwen. Look after the family for me. Keep them together.”
“You were a spoiled and selfish cat, Mother,” she fired back at the aspidistra sitting in its ornamental pot. “Why could you not have asked one of the others, our Alice or our Lizzie? Why me?”
Because in the end, there was only her, Gwen, the middle of the three sisters, to keep an eye on them all. Older sister Alice had married Will, a tinker who came with his horse and cart selling pots and pans and other goods useful to the working folk of Low Felderby. He had worked hard and done well and had eventually sold his cart and bought a shop, and it was the tragedy of his and Alice’s lives that they had died childless. Then there was younger sister Lizzie, as dizzy and as scatterbrained as anyone could imagine, born one year after their dad came home from the War. She had married Jack, a foundryman from Felderby Iron Works, and it was the defective heart she had been born with that gave out a few short months later in the final push for the birth of their daughter, Gerard’s mother.
“And now our Gerard is all there is of our once productive line, isn’t he, Mother?” Aunt Gwendoline sighed. “A single child. Still, he is ‘a good ’un’ as our dad would have said, certainly the best our family has produced though how on earth he ever came out of sister Lizzie’s line, heaven only knows. A more dottily irresponsible individual you could never wish to meet, all of which traits she managed to pass on to her daughter who cannot distinguish Ming china from fairground pot. Fortunately, our Gerard seems to have escaped that bit of his mother’s and grandmother’s inheritance, doesn’t he?”
The aspidistra did not move but Rani agreed with a vigorous swishing of her tail stump.
Somebody had to take care of the family and so in her knowing way Mother had chosen her, Gwen. And with that thought, her dream of the skyfire recreated itself in her mind, together with the panic and tears she felt as she had reached out her hand to catch one, any one, of the tragic stars falling from it.
She listened to the tickings of her clocks and followed her thoughts, fighting the conclusion they were dragging her to.
“Our Gerard seems to have got himself into some sort of fix, hasn’t he, Rani?” she summarised. “And we are going to have to catch his star before it drops to earth.”
She shook herself and tried to focus on the fear that was silently approaching.
“It seems likely that whatever fix he has got himself into has something to do with Janet Brinsley’s bloody awful murder. It is not like our Gerard to use bad language and so we know he means it literally. So, how do you suppose he has got himself involved in a murder that was both bloody and awful? And what has my late sister Alice’s vase got to do with it? It is all a very puzzling.”
She let her mind wander to see what other threads it could gather. Her head nodded forward, and Rani settled her chin on her paws at her mistress’ feet to watch and wait.
Chapter 5
“You mentioned something about Janet Brinsley being murdered,” prompted Aunt Gwendoline as soon as Gerard had settled into his usual chair the following Wednesday.
Her dreaming of the skyfire has not given her much rest in the meantime.
“Was she a friend of yours from the university?” she asked.
The tea was Earl Grey, the sandwiches were smoked salmon and tomato and the cakes were chocolate buns. She had specially selected the chocolate buns. Her grand-nephew was notorious for being a most enthusiastic chocoholic.
“Janet Brinsley?” he answered, trying to sound casual. “Yes, she was a friend, although it was her husband Mark who was the pal from the university.”
He had been upset that his parting comment on his previous visit had driven past his guard as he said goodbye to his aunt. She was an old lady, refined and genteel, who prepared a civilized tea on Wednesday afternoons in the shelter of her sitting room. She was from another time, a gentler age and she had a right to live out the last of her years unexposed to the turmoil of the present day. He should never have mentioned anything as violent as Janet Brinsley’s murder.
“I only ask,” Aunt Gwendoline persisted, “because you mentioned something about her murder having some bearing on why your lady friend…”
As so often occurred, she hesitated over the name. Although it was a simple name to remember, she always had difficulty recalling it.
“…why Susan broke your vase,” she finally managed. “It seems rather an oblique association if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Just a vague association,” he agreed. “The Brinsleys were good friends of ours. Sue and Janet got on well, went shopping and did all the usual girly things together, and Mark and I had some very useful professional collaborations going.”
“None of which provides us with a particularly strong motive to start breaking the family china,” she countered. She saw him shrug. “My dear Gerard, I really do not understand why you per
sist in thinking of me as nothing more than a frail old woman. I have lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, several years of food rationing and such social upheavals as your generation could only know through the benign medium of history books. Now, I really do want to know why your Susan broke my late sister Alice’s vase.”
He looked into her blue and determined eyes and knew he was not going to be allowed to avoid giving a full account of what happened.
“Then I suppose I had better tell you,” he conceded. “I would hate to think that you were not sleeping well at night because of something I said.”
He deflected her warning look with a grin and settled back into his chair.
“Not surprisingly,” he began, “I was the connection between us all. I first met Mark when I came back from that archaeological dig I was involved with in Thailand. It was a fascinating dig site, going back over five thousand years with human habitation throughout. You don’t get many archaeological records like that. Anyway, at around two and a half thousand BC, we came across some pots which had some black, sticky stuff inside so I brought them home with the idea that someone in the chemistry department might be able to tell me what it was. That was how I met Mark, or Dr Brinsley to give him his official title. The university had recently appointed him as a senior lecturer and by repute he was an absolute wizard of an organic chemist. He was immensely popular with the students, had a very dynamic approach to his research and was all in all a very approachable and well-liked individual.”
“Was he able to identify your sticky material for you?” queried Aunt Gwendoline.
“Yes, it was honey. Honey from four and a half thousand years ago.”
“And from Thailand too,” she added. “Quite fascinating. But please tell me more about Dr Brinsley.”
She saw him hesitate then look down at his hands. The enthusiasm that always flooded his face when he talked about his beloved archaeology drained from him, and his words crept out as if testing themselves against the stillness of the air that had gathered about them before agreeing to give up their sound.
“The only words I keep coming back to are ‘bloody’ and ‘awful’,” he choked. “I cannot imagine what it must have been like for Mark to walk into his home and find his wife dead like that. They had only been married three years. They were so happy.”
“It did sound rather terrible in the newspapers,” Aunt Gwendoline agreed.
“That wasn’t the half of it,” he continued. “The first two police officers to arrive walked into Mark and Janet’s bedroom and walked straight out again and threw up. The female officer told me it had taken them both a full hour to recover before they could talk to their colleagues on the murder investigation team. They were just two uniformed officers who happened to be closest in their patrol car when Mark’s call came through. He, poor fellow, was in complete shock when they got there, unable to speak or move, crouched against the wall on the floor in the hallway, gripping the telephone, staring at nothing and pointing silently in the direction of the bedroom. He had been the one to find her, the first one to see her and see what had been done to her.”
Aunt Gwendoline could see her grand-nephew was struggling with his words, but he needed no more prompting.
“Janet had been raped,” he stated. “Several times and brutally. There was blood everywhere. Her naked body was still half in the dressing gown she had put on when she got out of the bath and the fresh clothes she had laid out to dress in were all crumpled up in the mess. She was spread-eagled on the bed and her body had been mutilated, cut horribly in numerous places. Her ribs had been slashed at and there were vicious gashes down both her legs. Some of her teeth had been broken and the post mortem showed she had also been part suffocated and strangled as well. It was horrible, beyond description. None of us could imagine the madness she must have had to endure before she finally died. I still cannot even begin to think about it.” He forced in a deep breath and felt the sob of it kick in his lungs.
“I suppose we can only be grateful that even the lowest of the gutter tabloid press chose not to publish all the details,” Aunt Gwendoline commented.
“But even that is not the whole story,” he sighed. “I only know what I do because I sat with Mark at home while he talked, and I have been able gradually to piece together the bits of the story from what he told me and what the police said. They have been wonderful, the police, so easy in their questioning of Mark and Sue and me, not that Sue and I could tell them anything other than some background on Mark and Janet. They were such a loving couple, so full of life and enthusiasm for the future. He had just got his promotion, they had just bought their new house and they were talking about starting a family.”
He paused and looked up from his hands. “I’m sorry, Aunt Gwendoline. I didn’t mean to unload all this on you but it has been perhaps more terrible than I thought.”
“You must talk to someone,” she reassured him. “I am only concerned in so far as it is affecting you. Continue when you are ready. You say the police spoke to you and…” Again she hesitated. “… Susan,” she completed.
He ordered his thoughts, dimly heard the striking of the hour by the grandfather clock in the hallway, and took another deep breath.
“They questioned us only briefly,” he resumed. “Sue and I took care of Mark immediately after Janet’s murder. He was in a terrible state and not fit to look after himself, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else around to help. He was in complete shock and Janet’s parents had enough to deal with on their own once they had been told. And Mark’s own parents are in Canada where his father has bad arthritis so cannot travel easily. So, after the doctor gave him a hefty shot of sedatives we tucked him up in our spare room and left him to come round in his own time. It was my idea really and I would have to say that Sue did not like it. Janet’s murder had scared the daylights out of her and she quickly developed the idea that the killer might come back for Mark or, by association, one of us. I told her it was nonsense but that was how she felt. I understand it is different for a woman so I can sympathise, but Mark is a friend and he needed help. Even now I can’t understand Sue’s attitude entirely, but from the start she did not like Mark staying with us.”
“Is that when she broke your vase?”
“Oh, no. That was later,” he replied, puzzled by the question. “Aunt Alice’s vase was still safely on its pedestal at that time.”
He refocussed his thoughts. “Mark seemed to bounce back very quickly and after only a few days with us he announced he was going home, so Sue and I did not have to put up with him for very long. The police had quickly ruled him out as a wife beater and murderer. They had finished their forensic work at his house and, since he seemed calm enough, there was no reason to stop him going back. In fact, it seemed like a good idea to let him go and start putting his life back together again. He still had his wife’s murder to deal with but he had the support of all of us in that, including the police. I have to say that I cannot imagine a more determined bunch of officers. They were adamant they were going to get whoever had killed Janet and from the way they talked when they spoke to us we could only believe them. Janet’s murder seemed to strike something very deep in all of them and that would have given Mark some encouragement in what were for him very dark days.”
“So, he went home and your vase remained intact,” concluded Aunt Gwendoline.
“Yes,” Gerard finished simply.
He sighed with the release of some of the fatigue that had been bottled up inside him since the time of Janet’s death. Aunt Gwendoline joined him in a muted sigh of her own and as the silence extended it was clear he was not going to say anything more for the moment. It did not surprise her. She could wait. She got out of her chair and walked over to the aspidistra, standing pensively in front of it while brushing the surfaces of a couple of its leaves with her thumb and forefinger.
“Would you like some more tea?” she finally asked, turning back to him.
“N
o, thank you,” he replied. “As always I have to be getting back to the university. I am trying to organise another dig, this time in Vietnam, with the Anthropology Department at Hanoi University. I have a good number of letters to write to get the process moving.”
“Vietnam?” she queried. “I didn’t know the Vietnamese were interested in archaeology, but then I would have to confess I know very little about them as a people.”
Gerard smiled warmly to his great-aunt. “It is because of the French,” he explained as he shrugged himself into his coat. “When Napoleon Bonaparte went to Egypt, his archaeologists followed his army and deciphered the hieroglyphics on the tombs of the Pharaohs. It became a habit. Wherever the French army went after that their archaeologists followed, and wherever they dug they gave the locals a taste for doing the same. That is why today there is a big interest in archaeology in what was French Indochina, or what is today southern Thailand, Laos, Kampuchea and Vietnam.”
“Interesting,” commented Aunt Gwendoline, “although still not a reason for your lady friend breaking your Chatterwood vase.”
“And as regard Sue’s shattering of Aunt Alice’s vase,” he replied, “that did not happen until after Mark Brinsley sobered up.”
“Goodness me. Do you mean to say that your vase and Dr Brinsley got smashed together, if I may use the modern idiom?”
“See you next week,” he called as he gave her a wave and stepped off smartly up the street.
Chapter 6
“Away, our lass. Away to the dugouts. Go with the other women and bairns. Sharp now and we’ll be getting along.”
Granddad’s tall figure was silhouetted in the open doorway against the fearsome furnace of the skyfire hanging threateningly above them in the darkness.
“Aye, Dad, we’ll be there directly.”
Skyfire Page 2
