Miss Pink Investigates- Part Four

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Do the police know all this?’

  ‘No. Tyndale is certain it was suicide: says that, with the truck bouncing and toppling as it went down, Isaac would have floated out of the driver’s seat. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt.’

  ‘Never wore one in’s life!’ Edith was contemptuous.

  ‘So they won’t be looking for fingerprints.’

  ‘You said they took yours.’

  ‘That was earlier — and there was all that blood in the kitchen at the Hoggarths’. She spent a lot of time with me. Nasty minds these local police have.’ Miss Pink bared her teeth. ‘Probably expected me to make a run for it — or commit suicide.’

  ‘They didn’t believe you when you said Isaac were murdered?’

  ‘I’m not going to mention it just to be laughed at. I go my own way: poking in odd corners, interviewing suspects —’

  ‘What d’you suspect me of?’

  ‘Suspects and witnesses. You didn’t let me finish.’

  There was a pause. ‘I could do with a ride to Blondel,’ Edith said, visibly relaxed now. ‘I need to sort the furniture for Age Concern.’

  Miss Pink looked doubtful. ‘I did tell the Fawcetts I’d go along the river — but that was before I saw the flood. Still, it’s immaterial. Yes, I’ll run you out to Blondel. I’d like to look over the place myself.’

  ‘You won’t find nowt.’

  ‘There may be something you’ve overlooked. I’m a trained investigator, and quite good at it if I say so myself.’

  Edith went back indoors to emerge wearing a cagoule and gum boots. They walked to Doomgate by way of Botchergate to avoid passing Nichol House. ‘No need for Anne to see us together,’ Miss Pink said with a hint of amusement. ‘It’s nothing to do with her where I’m going nor who I’m with.’

  Edith said nothing. She didn’t understand half of what the old fool was saying but she was in command of the situation; they were going to Blondel. Belatedly she wondered if this Pink woman were right and there might be some trace of the girl at the farm. Not that it would matter, she had it all worked out.

  Miss Pink reversed out of her garage and Edith closed the doors unasked. She got in beside the driver, the collie monopolising the back seat. They didn’t say much on the short drive, Miss Pink concentrating on the road, Edith lost in thought, giving no assistance at junctions, but then she’d admitted she didn’t drive.

  No dogs barked at Blondel now that Bainbridge had removed them but it wasn’t quiet. Below the birdsong there was a persistent rushing note from the direction of the waterfall, while higher up the slope white water marked the course of the full beck.

  Miss Pink grabbed at the dog as they left the car but Edith said sharply, ‘I don’t want him in the house. Let him off the lead; he’ll come to no harm.’

  They went inside, shutting the door on Bags who gave a low whimper before turning away to explore the barns.

  There seemed to be nothing sinister in the house, only dirt and dust and rat droppings. Miss Pink wandered in a distracted fashion from room to room looking for any place large enough to conceal a body. It was an old man’s home with clothing draped on chairs in one bedroom, and the only decent garments a heavy dark suit on a wooden hanger in a wardrobe. The furniture was basic. ‘He sold the good pieces,’ Edith explained, but Miss Pink doubted that he ever had any.

  They paused on the landing under a trap door. ‘There’s a ladder somewhere,’ Edith said.

  ‘No. He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble. For my money, if she is dead, she’s in the peat — like Joan — or the river.’

  ‘Of course,’ Miss Pink went on, descending the stairs ahead of Edith, looking back, her hand on the banister, ‘Isaac buried Joan, whoever killed her.’ She opened the front door and stepped out into the sunshine.

  ‘He buried her but someone else killed her? Is that what you’re saying? Different folk?’

  ‘Oh yes. Walter killed Joan.’ Miss Pink was preoccupied, looking around. ‘Bags,’ she called. ‘Here, boy! They were in league.’ Her eyes searched the yard. ‘You must have realised that yourself — no, you were only ten. It had to be two people who were very close: one to kill, the other to bury; two people who could trust each other implicitly. Walter and Isaac.’

  ‘Them trust each other! You don’t know what you’re — Where are you going?’

  Miss Pink was crossing the farmyard. ‘To the waterfall,’ she called back, adding something Edith failed to catch. She hurried after the older woman.

  ‘What was that? You said what?’

  ‘The body could be caught up in wire in the bottom of a pool. Isaac wouldn’t be bothered about dumping old fencing. Out of sight, out of mind.’

  She was hurrying across the pasture, panting, stumbling a little. She came to a halt, clutching her chest. ‘Too fast,’ she gasped. ‘I’ve a weak heart and high blood pressure — should slow down, take it easy —’

  ‘That’s right.’ Edith eyed her shrewdly, assessing her condition. ‘You take it easy.’

  The fall was thundering down the rock face like a miniature Niagara, a rainbow arching the spray. Sunshine filtering through leaves chequered bright wet rock in a confusion of colour and light. Down in the shaded chasm the black water was streaked with foam.

  Dangerously close to the edge Miss Pink said something. Edith leaned closer, holding a branch, straining to hear.

  ‘— makes me dizzy,’ Miss Pink shouted. ‘Give me a hand to get back —’

  ‘Look!’ Edith commanded, gesturing across the chasm with her free hand. ‘What’s that?’

  Miss Pink turned to look, felt sudden pressure, and fell.

  *

  Bainbridge surveyed his flattened barley dismally. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. Mad cow disease, sheep scab, lodged barley. Next thing he knew, he’d get bit by one of Isaac’s glumpen dogs — and what was that — barking its head off? His own little bitch was interested, and she knew where t’noise was coming from: Blondel. One of them animals had got loose and run home maybe. So why bark? It certainly wasn’t killing sheep, sheep killers work in silence. Trippers at Blondel? Broken into the house and shut their dog outside?

  He hurried home and looked in his pens. All the dogs were there: Isaac’s and his own. Taking the little bitch he drove to Blondel. No car, no people, no dog, The barking was coming from the direction of the beck and now he guessed what had happened. Some dog was cragfast: washed down with the flood, it had survived the waterfall and hauled itself out onto a ledge some place.

  The bitch led him to the edge of the ghyll way downstream of the big fall and not far above the lower cascades. The trees seemed to choke the chasm here but above the black rock face was a small turfy ledge where a big fat collie was barking at something below.

  Bainbridge told the bitch to stay and lowered himself gingerly to the ledge. The collie had stopped barking and looked eagerly from him to the water below. Bainbridge spoke quietly to the animal and it moved back and sat down.

  He put one arm round a young oak tree and leaned over the edge. ‘Oh, my God!’ he breathed.

  There was a tiny cove of black pebbles washed by the water. Lying across it, hips and legs submerged, arms outstretched, the hands still clawing into the stones, was the body of a large woman.

  *

  Edith came downstairs with the second hanging basket as Tyndale appeared at the open front door. She nodded to him and asked him to put the basket on its hook for her. Mounsey stood in the yard, watching. She wondered what they’d come for this time.

  ‘We were here this afternoon,’ Tyndale said. ‘Twice, in fact.’

  ‘I’ve been in Carlisle. Had to buy more flowers. First lot were ruined in t’storm last night.’

  ‘Did you drive to Carlisle?’ Tyndale asked.

  ‘I would if I had a car, and if I could drive. I took the train, o’ course.’

  ‘What time did you leave Miss Pink?’

  ‘I’ve not seen her today.’ Her tone changed. �
��You don’t want to stand around out here. Will you come inside?’

  ‘No, we’re looking for Miss Pink; we were told you went out with her. Must be a case of mistaken identity. If you see her perhaps you’ll ask her to give us a ring at the police station.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ Edith was equable. A thought struck her. ‘She did say something last night about going to Carlisle.’

  ‘Did she say anything else — about her intentions?’

  ‘No, she just looked in, see if I was all right. After me brother died like.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They turned away. Edith looked critically at the new petunias, nipped off a wilted blossom and went indoors. As she climbed the stairs she felt a pang of hunger. She would have liked to eat immediately but the thought of chips, deepfried and succulent, was too tempting. She lit the gas and put the chip pan on to heat the oil and then it was time for the first drink. She hadn’t had a drink all day. Her face relaxed in anticipation as she went to the corner cupboard.

  She was sitting in the easy chair in her bedroom watching Neighbours when someone knocked on the front door. She let them try again — folk who knew her knew she was deaf and shouldn’t expect an answer; strangers could go to hell. Then the caller started to hammer as if he’d break the door down. This was no stranger.

  She’d had two glasses of cherry brandy and should have felt good; indeed, she had been feeling good until this madman came battering on her door. She went downstairs furious, prepared to blast him off the step. She opened the door to Miss Pink.

  She looked just as she’d looked before: neat slacks, shirt, denim jacket, hiking boots. Her hair was dry, she was in command: powerful, pushing her way in; Edith retreating, turning, groping her way up the stairs.

  Miss Pink followed, ignoring the crab-like progress, treading lightly, inexorably, to the top, following Edith into the living-room, watching blandly as the other sank on to a chair at the table to stare at her visitor with chattering teeth.

  Miss Pink settled herself on the far side of the table. ‘Where did you go?’ she asked curiously.

  Edith was massaging her chest. She looked towards the stairs as if expecting more people.

  ‘Yes?’ Miss Pink asked, like a teacher with a tongue-tied pupil.

  ‘Carlisle,’ Edith whispered.

  ‘Where’s the car?’

  ‘I dunno.’ A long pause while she stared at the table-cloth. ‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You drove to Carlisle —’ Miss Pink prompted.

  ‘I can’t drive.’

  ‘ — and left the car in a back street with the keys in the ignition. You were seen —’

  ‘I weren’t in no back street!’

  ‘Where were you this afternoon?’

  ‘I were in the town centre. I went and come back on t’train.’ The sentences emerged in spurts. ‘I bought plants. I got the receipts.’

  ‘You drove Isaac’s Land Rover to the reservoir and put it in the water.’

  ‘I can’t drive.’

  ‘You shot Isaac.’

  ‘We was struggling for the gun —’

  ‘The second time. Your fingerprints are on the gun.’

  ‘They can’t be —’

  ‘Why wipe it if he was shot by accident? And the Land Rover. You may have wiped the gun — but you missed a thumbprint. You forgot to wipe the Land Rover —’

  ‘I didn’t then —’

  ‘ — forgot to wipe it everywhere. Your memory’s going. And something’s burning.’ Miss Pink stood up and went to the kitchen, switching off the gas under the chip pan. She returned and sat down.

  Edith said shakily, ‘I didn’t kill him. He died in the truck as I were taking un to infirmary. So I shot un again, make it look like suicide, and I drove to the lake and put t’truck in the water like you said, with him inside. It weren’t murder.’

  ‘He was a threat. He was dangerous.’

  ‘He couldn’t do me no harm.’

  ‘You always threatened each other.’

  ‘He were my brother! You said police says as it were suicide, you said Walter killed Joannie —’

  ‘What’s Joan got to do with Isaac?’

  Edith bit her lip and her eyes wandered. ‘Why was she killed?’ Miss Pink asked.

  ‘How would I know?’ Edith reddened, hesitated, then said heatedly, ‘She asked for it.’ She stared at the window. ‘We was friends once but she were no better’n she should be.’

  ‘She was nine years old, a child.’

  ‘Huh! Joannie were more grown up than...’

  ‘More than Isaac?’

  ‘Never! Never, never!’

  Edith pounded the table, overcome with rage. Miss Pink looked round quickly, seeing nothing she could utilise as a weapon, flexing her muscles.

  ‘She never come near un,’ Edith hissed. ‘She’d never dare! Her were too feared o’ me!’

  ‘Not all that feared,’ Miss Pink said, adrenalin surging. ‘She got you on the raw.’

  ‘I tell you — Listen —’ Edith leaned over the table, dropping her voice like a conspirator. ‘Folk as didn’t know her said she looked like an angel, but in truth she were a devil.’ She sat back and smiled. ‘She were lovely: blonde, and big eyes the colour of violets, and a voice like a bird. She could make ‘em do anything...’ She trailed off.

  ‘Like a movie star,’ Miss Pink said: ‘beautiful, seductive —’

  ‘But not Isaac.’ Edith shook her head vehemently. ‘She told me and I said as she were a liar. She laughed at me. She said he were tired of me, what he wanted was a pretty little girl.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t blame him — even if it were true.’

  ‘No, it weren’t his fault.’ They spoke like women in a dream. ‘No more than it was with Perry. He never meant her any harm.’

  Edith frowned. ‘He were always on at me: shouting too loud on t’phone, drinking too much, and like when I told that Anne I’d go to police — but I can’t help going blind and being deaf and talking loud. That little trollop shouldn’t have been listening.’ She grinned slyly. ‘Another one as were asking for trouble.’

  Miss Pink said nothing, concentrating on the words, letting them sink into the sponge of a brain, making a record.

  ‘Taunted me,’ Edith said viciously. "You got a carrying voice, we can hear every word you say"’ — grotesque mimicry of Perry’s southern accent. ‘I coulda finished her for good only Isaac, he had to follow me there, the stupid gowk! An’ all he got for his pains was to go and shoot hisself!’

  ‘He followed you to the Hoggarths’ to see you came to no harm. He must have known you’d taken the gun.’

  ‘That would be what brought him back from Blondel. He’d been with me that evening and I took the shotgun from t’truck. He never missed it until he got home and then he come straight back. He knew where I’d have gone. I told un I’d seen Rick go out and through churchyard and I saw him come into Doomgate and cross to Whelp. My bedroom looks over Doomgate. I’d guessed she were there. Isaac knew where he’d find me. Everything happened just like I said.’

  Except that Isaac had been trying to take the gun from his sister, not the other way round. ‘I wonder,’ Miss Pink said, ‘if the police had questioned him about Joan, would he have admitted it, perhaps saying that she died by accident?’

  ‘Joannie?’ Edith considered the point carefully.

  ‘You never thought about it?’ Miss Pink seemed only academically interested.

  ‘Hard to say. No, I never did think about it.’

  ‘On the other hand, you could have taken the blame. You could have led the pony up to the peat cuttings and buried her. You’re a powerful woman.’

  ‘I were only ten, but you’re right, I coulda done that. I could harness the pony.’

  ‘I doubt if you had the strength to lift her on to its back.’

  ‘Oh, he done that.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘Strangled.’ Marginal surprise th
at the question had to be asked. As if that were the obvious way for one little girl to kill another. Her hands were on the table now and she glanced from one splayed thumb to the other, slowly, in slow motion. ‘She

  were a wee slight thing.’ A long pause. Miss Pink held her breath. ‘I hated her,’ Edith said. ‘I never asked him; all these years and I never asked. You wouldn’t, would you?’

  ‘But you believed her.’

  ‘Aye. That’s why I killed her.’ She was silent for a long time, as if cataleptic. At length she sighed deeply and focused on Miss Pink. ‘You thought Walter killed her.’

  ‘I said someone close to Isaac killed her.’

  ‘You know. You’ve known all along. You shouldn’t be here. How did you get out?’

  Miss Pink shrugged as if it were of no consequence. ‘I swam down the gorge and hauled out on a gravel beach. The dog found me and barked until Bainbridge came with a rope.’

  ‘You said you couldn’t swim!’

  ‘I lied.’

  Edith regarded her sleepily, then she smiled. ‘You got no witnesses — to anything. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t need to do anything.’ Miss Pink was quite calm. ‘Tyndale’s here — I left the front door ajar.’ She raised her voice: ‘We’re in here, Mr Tyndale!’

  Edith didn’t move. She heard the steps recede and the front door close. She realised she’d been tricked, and then why: the old fool was frightened of her! She giggled and went into the kitchen and lit the gas under the chip pan again. She turned the jet high because she was suddenly very hungry indeed, then she went in the bedroom and switched the television on. She lay down on the bed and slept a while.

  There was a sound in the flat. That woman was back again? Edith staggered into the living-room and saw a shape fade through a blue haze. Objects in the kitchen weren’t clear but even blind she’d have known where everything was — except that she must have missed something because there was a hard sound, some kind of sensation and a brilliant light against the smoky cloud.

  She fumbled for the chip pan and pulled it off the gas.

  Oil slopped and ignited and tresses of flame reached out to her and she saw that the visitor was Joannie with her long blonde hair and violet eyes.