Poke, prod, smash, dig.
Dig out the broken earth and stones and rock and pile them up beside the grave, beside the badger who was all ready to become Auntie’s eternal bedmate. Mr Blundy went on digging manfully, hating his task and fearing it too. But there could be sense in it all. Ag’s story did hang together. They could take all Auntie’s personal things with them, clothes and whatever, and it was unlikely anyone would ever see the need to check. They could write about the lease of the cottage and even arrange for her few bits and pieces of furniture and that to be sent to an auction in Hawes. As for the grave, should anyone notice the earth disturbance, they would have the unimpeachable testimony of the Reverend that he had that morning deposited one dying badger. Come daylight Ag was going to telephone him from the kiosk in the village, sepulchrally, to say that the poor beast had died and had — at Auntie’s behest, a nice touch — been given decent burial.
The trouble was, the fellsides were no more suitable for grave-digging than they were for crops. By the time he had finished, Mr Blundy was in a horrible state, what with sweat, rain and mud. And Auntie was going to have to lie fairly shallowly, though Mr Blundy had decided upon a layer of stones and rocky slabs between her and the badger. It was a lot of extra work but it was also extra security and somehow it also seemed more decent. The job done to the best of his ability, Mr Blundy went back to the barn and cleaned himself up a little in the darkness, then went over and tapped twice on the back door of the cottage. Entering when Ag opened the door, he watched the closely supervised emergence of Harold Barnwell with gag and his propulsion to the earth-closet. Once the boy had been locked in, Ag returned and Mr Blundy felt his stomach reacting to thoughts of Part Two of the operation, now imminent.
“All ready?” Ag asked.
“S’pose so.”
“Come on up, then.” Ag seized the oil lamp.
Mr Blundy creaked up the steep, narrow stairs behind Ag, his very guts seeming to melt away. Inside the bedroom Ag’s lamp flickered eerily on death. Everything about the room seemed different from the last time he’d spoken to Auntie in her bed. A sort of stillness and silence that was never quite so total in life. Mr Blundy gave himself a shake.
“Now what’s the matter, eh?”
“Nothing, Ag. Just I don’t like it, that’s all.”
“No more do I. Sooner it’d been in a churchyard I do admit. But I don’t reckon Auntie’d worry.”
“Always been on the Godly side you have, Ag. Till now. I don’t understand you.”
Ag shrugged. “Mourn her in me own way, I will. What’s mourning anyway? Self-pity, that’s what it is. Ought to look on death as a wonderful thing, that’s if you believe in what you say in church, like. For them as is dead, I mean. Peace and light, like, see, no more worries about gas bills and that. If your belief is real.” She took up a position on the west end of the corpse, the feet end. “Strip off the blankets.”
Mr Blundy did so, shuddering.
“Now give her a lift up, head end. That’s it. Now swing her.”
Mr Blundy stumbled backwards towards the door, portering the head. Auntie sagged a little in the middle: rigor mortis had long since come and gone again and she was pliable. It seemed like Ag meant to have her go down the stairs head first, which was irreverent and awkward. Mr Blundy, going down with extreme difficulty, thrust his elbows out sideways to the walls to help take the strain by friction. At the bottom he nearly fell flat on his back, but just managed to keep his equilibrium and his grip on the dead.
“Careful!”
“Being careful as I can, aren’t I?”
“Aren’t I, well, that’s rich.” Ag gave a horrible laugh and Mr Blundy realised he had inadvertently made a sort of pun. He looked wide-eyed at Ag; such a thing to say, he was really shocked, couldn’t make her out at all. But maybe it was like quacks and nurses: you had to make a joke of the horrors or you’d go barmy in no time. Same with professional undertakers, probably. Mr Blundy still thought it was in poor taste all the same. He carried his end of the body towards the back door, taking the weight on one knee and standing like a stork while he fumbled the door open and held down Auntie’s nightdress against a gust of wind. Then out into the dark, windswept yard, past Harold Barnwell in the toilet and up towards the low dry-stone wall between yard and field. Auntie was hefted over to lie for a moment on the ground in the wall’s lee while Mr Blundy and Ag got their breath back.
“Where’s the grave, eh?”
“You nearly got one foot in it,” Mr Blundy panted. Ag, peering down, moved swiftly but clumsily backwards and put a foot on the body of the badger, giving a high scream. Savagely Mr Blundy said, “Shut up.”
“Should have brought a light.”
“Don’t be daft.” Mr Blundy bent and laid hands on Aunt Ethel. “Come on, then, give us a hand.”
“No, wait.”
“Now what?” Mr Blundy straightened.
Ag said, “We should have dressed her, Ern. Not just a nightie, it’s not right. She’d never have gone out of doors in a nightie.” The wind blew around the graveside, tugging and buffeting. “Cold, too. Cold for —”
“Tell you something else it is an’ all.”
“What?”
“It’s too late.”
“I can go back —”
“Oh no you bloody can’t,” Mr Blundy said with menace. “I can’t stand any more of this. Let’s get it over. She won’t worry what she’s wearing, not now she won’t.”
“But it’s not decent, Ern.”
“More decent than me pulling off her nightie,” Mr Blundy said with belligerence. “She’s not going in dressed and that’s that. Now give me a hand and shut up.” Once again, he bent; so, this time, did Ag. The body was lifted, moved sideways, lowered into the grave. Mr Blundy, shaking and feeling really sick, was much on edge. “Now the prayers,” he said, “quick, before I fill it in and add the badger.”
“All right.”
Far above, the high peaks of the lonely Pennines, invisible yet very present, frowned down below the storm-dark northern sky. The wind was blowing louder, howling and bustling about the fellside. From somewhere lower down in the dale there came the storm-tossed moo of a solitary cow.
Ag began.
A mumbled Lord’s Prayer and then, for no apparent reason, Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild; after that what Mr Blundy took to be the Jubilate, more or less.
Praying done, Mr Blundy unclasped his hands and unbent his neck. He took up the spade.
“Cheerio, Auntie,” Ag said through sudden tears.
Mr Blundy dug deep into his pile of stony earth.
“Earth to earth,” said Ag.
“Look out for the bloody badger, do,” Mr Blundy said suddenly. The animal had rolled into the grave before time; Mr Blundy removed it and carried on filling in, eventually putting on the rock and stone slab layer. On top of this he placed the badger and then completed the job, a difficult one in the almost total dark. When the shared grave was filled he flattened down the earth with the spade, then shoved some surface rocks about so that the patch looked, or anyway he hoped it looked, nicely camouflaged.
“Amen,” he said simply and reverently but belatedly. “Now let’s get away as fast as we bloody can.”
Mr Blundy unlocked the earth closet and, reaching in, removed the gag.
“Come on out, son,” he said, unhooking Harold from the ringbolt.
“It’s not breakfast time, is it? It’s still dark.”
“I know it’s still dark. We’re moving out.”
“I see. Have you heard from my father?”
“No.”
“Oh. Where are we going?”
“Never you mind about that. Just come out. And be a good boy, mind.”
Harold blinked in the light from the oil lamp that Mr Blundy was holding. “What, in your view, does being a good boy involve?”
Mr Blundy hesitated. He fancied the time had come to reveal some of the truth and also ask for a bit of co-o
peration. “Look, son. Things have gone a bit wrong —”
“I thought they might. I do know my own father, you know.”
Superior little sod. “Yes, ’course you do. Thing is, what do we do with you now, eh?”
“You tell me. You’re the kidnapper, aren’t you?”
Mr Blundy compressed his lips. “There’s two alternatives. One: dispose of you, like. You know what I mean by that. There’s plenty of ways, plenty of places around here. Or two: we take you near your home and let you go. Trouble is, if we do that, you’ll talk, won’t you? About us, I mean.”
Harold seemed to consider the point. He said, “Yes, I suppose I might. But then again I might not. Of course, I can’t deny the actual facts, can I? I mean, I can’t say I wasn’t kidnapped. You’ve already been in touch with my father — I know that, because the fat woman has rather a loud voice, hasn’t she? It must be dreadful for you, living with that. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t quite sure until just now, but you’ve just confirmed what I thought I heard by saying you hadn’t heard from my father. Do you follow?”
“Bloody little perisher.”
“Yes, I probably am. However, you do see the point? Since you’ve already been in touch with my father, I can’t deny the kidnap.” Harold’s eyes gleamed in the guttering light. “I can say I’ve no idea where I was taken, though. I can be positive about that if you like. I’ve never heard of Windersett. The same about you and the fat woman. I don’t know your name’s Blundy, Ernest Blundy. Or that the fat woman is Ag. I don’t know anything about Bass Street, Paddington. Or about Mrs Whale.”
Mr Blundy sucked in a horrified breath. This was appalling, they were done for. He said threateningly, “Taking a big risk, you are! With you knowing all that lot, why, you’re not safe to leave around, you aren’t. I could duff you up, couldn’t I, sew you up.”
Harold smiled. “Yes. I don’t think you will, though.”
“Just tell me why not.”
“Sewing anyone up is murder, isn’t it? Or was when you were young.”
“Now look here —”
“That’s why you won’t do it. You and the fat woman are not murderers — I’ve made that point before, if you remember. Besides, they don’t like child-killers, inside. They duff them up, don’t they?”
Such innocent eyes. So much guile, too much altogether for a kid. Mr Blundy was speechless. Harold Barnwell was not. He went on, “I won’t say anything about the other woman either, the old one. Aunt Ethel, isn’t she? Miss Ethel Pately. I believe you’ve murdered her, though I’m not sure. I —”
Mr Blundy pounced. “You said we wasn’t murderers.”
Harold considered the point. He’d been shaken, Mr Blundy could see that, he’d committed a stupid indiscretion, he wasn’t as clever as he seemed to think he was. But the kid, give the little sod his due, got out of it neatly. “I take back murder. You caused her to die. She was probably honest and tumbled what you were doing, and the terrible shock killed her.”
Not quite spot on, but near enough to be alarming. Mr Blundy’s heart missed several beats and he felt faint and ill. One thing, the kid wasn’t too certain of his facts about Auntie, by his own admission, that was … but there was quite enough danger around as it was.
Something had to be done.
Mr Blundy began to wheedle.
“You won’t talk about all that, will you, son? We’ve treated you all right, you know we have. Fed you proper, haven’t harmed you in any way at all, we haven’t. Could have been different, couldn’t we?”
“Oh yes. I’m taking all that into account.” Harold watched him, shivering in the cold wind that swirled into the earth closet. “Can’t we continue this conversation indoors, please?”
“Yes — yes, ’course we can, son. Come along in.” Mr Blundy put a protective arm around Harold’s shoulders and helped him off the seat. He led him indoors, wrists still bound behind his back, into the nice oven-warmed kitchen where Ag was waiting and showing impatience.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Get him a nice hot drink, eh?”
“Now look —”
“Shut up and get it, Ag.” Mr Blundy signalled over the boy’s head by means of a contorted wink. “He’s cold and upset, like.”
“I’m not upset,” Harold said calmly. “I’m going home, aren’t I?”
“Maybe, son. Depends, don’t it?”
“But there’s still the question of how much I’m going to remember, isn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“There’ll be a lot of questions.”
“Yes.”
“My father and the police. It won’t be very easy.”
“No. But you’ll manage, I know you will — eh, Ag?”
“There’s more behind him than meets the eye,” Ag said.
Mr Blundy moved round the boy and looked into his face. “Is there, son?”
“You bet there is,” Harold said, grinning. Noting the grin, Mr Blundy’s heart sank. Little sod, his teachers would be dead sorry to see him back. Talk about crafty! Mr Blundy’s mind was getting there now, fast. Harold Barnwell continued, “For not saying anything about you two, for not even remembering Windersett or Aunt Ethel or anything like that, I’ll want a hundred quid a week, payable monthly in advance. My father doesn’t give me very much pocket money and I find Brands Hatch expensive. Also I like to get to Silverstone for the Grand Prix. And I’m saving up to buy a racing car when I’m old enough to drive. Well?”
“You little sod!” Ag and Mr Blundy said together. “That’s blackmail,” Mr Blundy added.
Harold gave an almost cherubic smile. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? I’d like your answer before we get to London.”
Ag aimed a clout at his head. “Little beast,” she said viciously. “You’ll not get away with extortion, you won’t. London, my foot! There may be another sort of destination for you, one that’ll shut your big mouth better than cash. If I were you, I’d be thinking about that.”
Harold gave one of his superior smiles and turned to Mr Blundy. “That fat woman’s awf’lly dense, isn’t she? I’m offering her the only safe way out and she hints at malum in se.”
“What’s that?”
“Malum in se. Wrongdoing — in Latin. Jiggery-pokery. Awf’lly stupid. I repeat, both the police and the villains absolutely loathe and detest child-murderers. You’ll have a simply terrible time in the Moor and Holloway respectively. Surely it’s worth a hundred a week to avoid all that, isn’t it?”
Mr Blundy met Ag’s eye. “Twenty,” he said sourly, though God knew where it was going to come from.
“I’ll settle for seventy-five.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Fifty.”
In the end they compromised on thirty. Little bastard, rotten little blackmailer! Mr Blundy’s hands, almost involuntarily, moved towards the lovely target of Harold’s skinny neck. One squeeze, one quick flick, and a lot of cash he hadn’t got would be saved. God, it was tempting! But Mr Blundy resisted the temptation. The kid was only too right. Mr Blundy, who had absolutely no faith in his own ability to get away with actual murder, knew that the dangerous cons in the Moor, or the Ville, or Parkhurst, would certainly make the Loop’s duffers-up look like Boy Scouts at a garden fete. His hands relaxing, Mr Blundy retreated from suicide — yes, you could be really sewn up inside, he’d known it happen and always in such a way that it looked like something else, the best cons being far from stupid.
“Bring the money on the second Sunday in each month,” Harold said, scenting victory. “That’s our day for meeting our parents or other relatives. We’re allowed down into the town. Be outside the gates at 2.30 p.m. You can be an uncle from Australia if anyone asks.”
“Why Australia?”
“To account for your Cockney accent.”
“Oh, I see. And how, may I ask, are you going to account for having so much bloody cash, eh?”
“My father,” Harold said calmly, “has a very good accountant who ha
ndles all his business, including my own funds. And I happen to know the accountant is having an affair with my mother and he knows that I know. Payment in advance to cover the holidays. And if ever you don’t turn up, my memory comes straight back.”
*
By the time they were all ready to move out the wind had dropped and the dawn had come: a lovely dawn too, bright and clear and fresh, with streaks of green and pink and purple spreading from the rays of the rising sun to touch the Pennine peaks and then bathe the dale in heart-warming splendour, just like any day when after a wet holiday you were homeward bound. Sheep woke up and gambolled with their lambs, farmers rose from their beds to muck out byres, birds sang, some early heavy traffic rumbled along the A684, bound for Kendal and the Lakes or the other way for Northallerton and the North Yorkshire moors beyond the Hambleton hills. The squat man who was crouched behind the old Granada in the barn, the man with the gun and the cushion which he would use as a makeshift silencer if necessary, shivered in that cold northern dawn and looked again at his watch.
Any minute now.
Blundy wasn’t going to get away with it whatever it might be he was trying on.
Blundy was due for the chop if he’d been trying any funny business, any double-dealing or such.
Fourteen
“Am I going in the boot again?”
“Yes,” Mr Blundy said. “For safety’s sake, see — don’t want to get done by any Bill when I’m on my way to hand you back, like. That’s natural, you’ll agree.”
“Yes, of course.”
“And don’t you bang and thump.”
Harold shook his head. “All right, I won’t. Just a small one when I want you to open up for anything. Don’t forget the blankets and pillows.”
“I know my job without you telling me.”
“I just wondered.”
“Well, stop wondering and shut your gob before I lose my temper and duff you up.”
“That stupid expression again.”
Mr Blundy lifted a hand and aimed a half-hearted cuff that missed. “Ag,” he shouted up the stairs. “Ready, are you?”
“Keep your hair on, I’m coming, aren’t I?” There was some heavy motion overhead and half a minute later Ag came down with her bag packed, just as though she’d been up to thank Aunt Ethel for having them. Also with her was a suitcase of Auntie’s, complete with such clothing as Auntie would be presumed to need on a visit south; and in her handbag was the balance of Auntie’s cash together with Mr Blundy’s IOU. Ag glanced around the kitchen with a professional housewife’s eye. The place was to be left neat and clean, just like Auntie would leave it when going away to stay with her niece and nephew-in-law. Nothing must be overlooked, nothing.
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