Miss Pink Investigates- Part Four

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Her had to go in your side if her’s in Rutting Beck,’ Ben’s lad put in aggressively, as if his father had been accused of something. Young Sammy was like that; Jacob thought the hostility must be in order to counter the effect of the gold ear-rings and the long hair.

  ‘It don’t make no odds,’ Jacob said. ‘Wherever she went in she were too old to be on t’fell. Eighty! Asking for trouble.’

  ‘She got it.’ Bored, young Sammy slouched away to the Saracen’s Head. His father turned with slow deliberation to the sheep. ‘Poor lot here,’ he said dismissively and they moved on to the next pen.

  Martin Blamire was searching a dale north of Closewater, heading towards the central fells. The call came through at midday – to the relief of the team who had been expecting it in view of Phoebe’s age, although the manner of it was somewhat surprising. However, it wasn’t a rare occurrence; people might cross a beck in the morning, then there’d be a storm and a few hours later the stream would be impassable but folk still tried to wade it.

  ‘Where did she have to cross a beck on the way down from Gowk?’ someone asked.

  ‘She went over Blaze,’ a voice said firmly. ‘Then she’d have to keep crossing becks on the way down as she looked for dryer ground on t’other side or came to side streams.’

  ‘Storm didn’t break till ten,’ someone said.

  They started to return to the vehicles, speculating as they went, Martin coming last with his deputy, Strickland.

  ‘Not a bad way to go,’ Stricky said. ‘Hopefully she hit her head first.’

  Martin was startled. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘So she didn’t know she was drowning, man! But then the cold water might bring her round.’

  ‘It’s the way she’d want to go,’ Martin said, ignoring the last words. ‘These old climbers: they’re all the same, determined not to die in bed. You have to admire them.’

  ‘I’ve got to keep going,’ Eleanor protested. ‘If I sit still I shall think.’

  Miss Pink had just made a fresh pot of tea. ‘At least sit down to drink this,’ she pleaded. ‘Misella! Come and have some tea.’

  Misella came in from the empty tearoom with a loaded tray. All the customers had left for the Lamb or the scene of the recovery operation lower down the dale. Deft and powerful, she balanced the heavy tray on the edge of the sink and unloaded the used crockery. She sat down at the table and waited expectantly for Miss Pink to pass the brandy bottle. Sugar was spooned into mugs. They all knew about sugar for shock. Hot alcohol fumes filled the kitchen. Outside a woodpecker laughed crazily.

  Misella said, ‘The body had to go by our place.’ She looked at Miss Pink. ‘What time would that be?’

  ‘You should go home to Sherrel,’ Miss Pink said. ‘She has to be told and it’s better coming from you. Isn’t that so, Miss Salkeld?’

  Eleanor’s face was drawn with misery. She said emptily, ‘There’s nothing to do here. Go home, Misella. I’ll send for you when things get back to normal.’ She shuddered.

  ‘She were very old,’ Misella said. ‘She’d had a long life.’

  ‘It’s still a shock,’ Miss Pink reminded her, staring pointedly at the woman’s mug, willing her to drink up and leave.

  ‘Shall I close the door?’ Misella asked, indicating the front room. ‘Mark of respect like,’ and then, abruptly: ‘Here, we got a customer. It’s the police, mum!’ It was a whispered hiss and carried a strong note of concern, even fear. Bobby, her grandson: he had been nervous too, on the beckside.

  The policewoman they’d met yesterday appeared in the doorway, in uniform now, although in shirt-sleeves. Calm eyes observed them – and the brandy bottle – but there was no lack of sympathy in her tone.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies’ – afternoon? thought Miss Pink, what happened to the morning? – ‘I think you’ve heard the bad news.’

  Misella had stood up; the others remained seated, Eleanor withdrawn in the face of this unwonted interruption, Miss Pink resigned. ‘Is it Phoebe?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s what I’ve come about.’ The woman looked at the teapot suggestively.

  Eleanor made no move. ‘Sit down,’ Miss Pink ordered. ‘Misella, get the officer a mug and then …’ She left it hanging.

  ‘You’ll be Miss Salkeld,’ the woman said pleasantly.

  ‘No, I’m Melinda Pink. This is Miss Salkeld. We’ve all had a nasty shock.’

  The hint worked. ‘I’m sorry!’ Eleanor exclaimed, coming to life. ‘What must you be thinking of me? Thank you, Misella’ – as the woman poured tea for the visitor. ‘Please help yourself to brandy if you’re allowed …’

  ‘I’m Sergeant Winder, from Bailrigg.’ She smiled and declined the brandy. Behind her back Misella slipped out of the kitchen, quiet despite her size, Miss Pink observing her departure without expression.

  ‘We need identification,’ Winder said. ‘Are there relatives, d’you know?’

  Eleanor was bewildered. ‘Cousins,’ she ventured. ‘She came from East Anglia originally: Norwich way. She was an only child so there’d be no nieces or nephews, and cousins could be old; probably there are only distant ones left.’

  ‘Then’ – the sergeant looked from her to Miss Pink and back – ‘would you be willing … one of you?’

  ‘I never met her,’ Miss Pink admitted. ‘I’m on holiday here. I only arrived on Saturday.’ She frowned fiercely, trying to think who else might have known Phoebe well enough …

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Eleanor said. ‘Someone has to, and there’s no one else.’

  ‘I’ll drive you.’ Miss Pink was firm.

  ‘I have a car outside.’ Winder smiled, equally firm.

  ‘We’ll take my car.’ Miss Pink stood up. ‘We have things to do.’

  The sergeant wondered what this formidable old bat had been in her working life: hospital matron, prison governor, police?

  Miss Pink had lied; they had nothing to do in Bailrigg town other than view the body where it had been placed in the mortuary attached to the hospital. It was, of course, Phoebe; they had been prepared for that but unprepared for the cleanliness of everything: not the surroundings so much as the body which looked as if it had been carefully washed. In a sense it had been: by the beck. Phoebe looked like a shrunken wax witch.

  ‘She had shrunk,’ Eleanor acknowledged on the drive home. ‘She said that the vertebrae impact with age. She had back trouble. She didn’t rock climb any longer.’

  ‘Poor balance?’ murmured Miss Pink, her eyes on the road.

  ‘Could be. Maybe she missed her footing as she tried to jump across the beck.’

  ‘Which beck?’

  Eleanor made no response and there was silence in the car until Miss Pink, seeking a fresh topic, said with casual amusement, ‘The Lee family don’t hang around when Authority appears.’

  Eleanor blinked as she sought to change mental gear.

  ‘The Lee family?’

  ‘I met Bobby by the beck this morning. He would see me as Authority no doubt. He was nervous as a wildcat. And Misella wasn’t slow in leaving when the police arrived.’

  ‘Oh, Bobby’s always up to some mischief.’ Eleanor shifted in her seat. ‘We’ve all got something to hide.’

  Miss Pink suppressed astonishment, then thought better of it. ‘You have?’ she asked in wonder.

  ‘Not me, no. Nor you, of course. I mean, people like the Lees.’

  ‘Meaning one-parent families. Because Bobby has no father to keep him in order.’

  ‘Oh, Bobby has –’ There was an audible gasp.

  ‘Has what?’ Miss Pink asked brightly.

  ‘He’s got Misella She keeps them all in order, including Sherrel. A matriarch, you know’?’

  That wasn’t what she had been going to say. Bobby had – what? And what secrets did Misella the matriarch have? This wasn’t the moment to push Eleanor in a direction she was loath to go. Miss Pink changed the subject again and wondered if they might take an excursion tomorrow,
Eleanor wouldn’t want to open the tearoom. They might visit a stately home, gardens; what would she like to do?

  ‘Sleep,’ she said. ‘Get drunk and go to bed.’ Apparently she could see no further than the immediate future.

  And so it happened that at five o’clock, taking a last look round the kitchen, having seen her friend to bed – not drunk but exhausted – Miss Pink was alone downstairs at Jollybeard when Sergeant Winder returned with the request for a statement relating to Eleanor’s knowledge of Phoebe Metcalf.

  No, Miss Pink said, not inviting the woman to sit down, Miss Salkeld was deeply asleep after taking a couple of tablets; the statement would have to wait until tomorrow, there was no urgency. She ended on a subtle note of inquiry.

  ‘Not urgency exactly,’ Winder admitted. ‘It’s just that we’d like to know more about the deceased’s state of health, who her doctor was and so on.’

  Immediately Miss Pink was on the defensive, sensing ageism, defending the dead woman. ‘There was nothing wrong with her health,’ she said angrily, dismissing the thought of cataracts, arthritis, a bad back. ‘Anyone could make a mistake in judgement when crossing a flooded stream. Why, even fit young men drown –’ She stopped, aware of stridency.

  ‘She may not have drowned,’ Winder said quickly, daunted by such vehemence, seeing she’d touched a nerve.

  ‘But she was –’ Miss Pink checked and was suddenly tense. ‘How did she die?’

  Winder bit her lip and tried for damage limitation. ‘We won’t know until they’ve done the autopsy but you see, at her age she could have fallen in the beck.’

  ‘Or fallen over when she was wading. That’s obvious, but she didn’t mean to …’ Miss Pink tailed off. Mean to what? ‘Why ask about her state of health? Something’s been discovered – during a preliminary examination?’

  ‘The skull is fractured.’ Miss Pink’s eyes widened.

  Winder swallowed. ‘And that’s all I know. She fell – could have fallen – from a height. A stroke maybe. If so they’ll find out –’

  ‘Her arteries must have been as sound as yours.’

  ‘Oh, you did know her.’

  ‘I know what she did. I never met her. You’re saying she died, then fell in the beck?’

  Winder’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you saying?’ She hesitated, choosing her words now. ‘Miss Salkeld said there was no one else who could identify her, meaning she had no friends here?’ The slightest emphasis. ‘You say you know what she did; you mean climbing mountains, but do you know what she did in the village: how she got on with her neighbours?’

  She was a bloody-minded little termagent, Miss Pink thought, and what this woman wanted to know was: did Phoebe have any enemies? ‘She kept herself to herself,’ she said with the doltish air of a villager closing the door on gossip.

  Gemma was with Dwayne at Blind Keld moodily watching him at work on the garden wall. A transistor played at full volume so when the newsflash interrupted the music there was no question of their missing it.

  At the announcement that the body of an elderly woman had been found Dwayne froze with a large rock still in his hands. They stared at each other, their expressions identical and vulnerable.

  Gemma recovered first, closing her eyes slowly, opening them, cool again, studying his face. He dropped the stone with a crack.

  ‘So?’ she prompted.

  ‘She won’t trouble us no longer.’

  She scowled. ‘She never did trouble me. Oh!’ She forced a laugh. ‘You never said. Don’t tell me she got on to you about me! She threatened you? Or did she try blackmail?’

  ‘Don’t talk daft.’

  ‘What was it then? Dwayne Paxton, you’ve been up to something. You can tell me, ’fact, I’m the only one you can tell. Come on, you know you’re going to sometime.’

  He shrugged. ‘It were nothing. I mean that!’ – seeing her scepticism. ‘Everyone does it: takes cash for a job. Who’s going to bank a cheque? Leaves a trail, don’t it?’

  ‘I don’t believe this. You’re saying she threatened you because of some bit of income tax fraud?’

  ‘Take off! Here’s Birkett; there’ll be hell to pay if he sees you.’ A van turned in from the road and started up the drive.

  ‘He’s not going to sack you, I just brought you your dinner, didn’t I?’ All the same she slipped round the side of the house and through the buildings. She could have stayed, defying both him and his boss, but her heart wasn’t in it. Phoebe had died and Dwayne was rattled, enough that she was uncertain where she might stand herself, being associated with him. She started to work her way across the pastures to the village, feeling that it would be comforting to talk to someone older, someone adult. Dwayne was still wet behind the ears.

  Miss Pink was working on a bed of oriental poppies, staking the least damaged, salvaging what she could after the storm, feeling guilty that she hadn’t done it before but then, with Phoebe missing … It seemed strange to return to everyday life: staking poppies in the company of a sleepy cat. Cooper was lounging on the drystone wall that divided her property from that of the Blamires. He seemed quite contented at the moment although she guessed that he returned often to his home to see if Phoebe had come back. She wondered what would happen to that cottage. Of course there would be a will …

  There was a sudden rush like a foot charge and Cooper was up on his toes, every hair on end and spitting like a cobra at something on the Blamires’ side.

  ‘Whisk! For God’s sake!’

  Jean Blamire’s face appeared, looking to see whether she should be apologetic or amused. She was half-stooped, holding the collie.

  Miss Pink had straightened. ‘No harm done,’ she said comfortably. ‘Cooper looks as if he can take care of himself.’

  ‘I know he can. Whisk was bluffing. He’s scared stiff of Cooper.’ Jean pushed back her mass of chestnut hair and looked contrite. ‘You’re looking after him? That’s sweet of you.’

  ‘He’s been commuting since Sunday.’ Miss Pink couldn’t take her eyes off that hair. ‘Eleanor’s gone to bed, d’you see, and I’ve locked up at Jollybeard so he had to come here.’

  ‘Eleanor’s ill?’ It was early evening, an odd time for bed.

  Miss Pink realized that Jean hadn’t heard of the latest developments. She said kindly, ‘Someone had to identify the body; not a pleasant experience for anyone, let alone a friend.’

  ‘How ghastly. Eleanor did that on her own?’

  ‘No, I was with her.’

  Jean shook her head in wonder. ‘You weren’t fazed by any of that?’

  ‘No.’ It wasn’t the moment to reveal that she’d seen a lot of bodies, and many of those in a worse state than Phoebe’s. One was enough on this gentle evening.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Jean exclaimed, ‘talking over the garden wall. Why don’t you come round and have a drink? I’m on my own.’

  Was that reassurance or a plea? Meaning my husband can’t object because he isn’t here, or I’m in need of company?

  Miss Pink’s cottage was furnished impeccably from Heal’s but the Blamire place was in keeping with rural Cumbria. It was a mixture of old and not particularly good oak furniture, and the kind of post-war pieces that were once produced as ‘utility’ and which had worn badly over the decades. Seated in a shabby armchair Miss Pink accepted a glass of red wine and beamed at the huge empty fireplace with its heap of wood ash. The collie nosed at her free hand.

  ‘Whisk isn’t a rescue dog then,’ she observed. ‘If he was he’d be on the hill with your husband.’

  ‘He’s an idiot – Whisk, I mean. I’ve tried to train him but it’s difficult when there are two people. Different methods.’

  ‘The search has been called off anyway,’ Miss Pink pointed out, as if that had anything to do with the dog. ‘I suppose there are things to do – what’s it called? Debriefing?’

  ‘He’ll be late tonight. The base is in Bailrigg and he has to sort out all the equipment so that they can be ready f
or the next call-out – which could come at any time, you never know. As the leader he’s always on call.’

  ‘Really. He must have a very sympathetic employer.’

  ‘Oh no. He’s self-employed.’

  Miss Pink found the adulation excessive but she played along. ‘He’s a mountain guide?’

  ‘Of course. But mainly he’s an author. He’s written a book on the south-east Lakes, and now he’s doing the south-west quadrant. And he does features for newspapers and magazines and he reviews books; you name it and Martin’s in there beavering away.’ She drew breath, her eyes shining. ‘And he has his sights set on an outdoor activity centre staffed by some of his mates in the team.’

  Privately Miss Pink thought that another outdoor activity centre was as superfluous as another book on Lakeland but all she said was that premises might prove hard to find, and expensive.

  Jean shook her head. ‘We’re lucky. My dad has to retire sometime and him and Martin have seen a way to turn things round. I mean, what with BSE and market prices there’s no point in farming any longer: not hill farming anyway. You have to diversify. We’ve started negotiating for the Change of Use for the farm. It’s no secret.’ Miss Pink was looking blank. ‘My dad’s Jacob Swinburn,’ Jean went on. ‘You get eggs from my mum.’

  ‘Ah. You mean that Sleylands would become your outdoor centre.’

  Jean grinned engagingly. ‘Of course there’s no money – yet – but bits can be sold off: houses, barns; Dad owns a raft of property. This house is his, and Sunder, but apart from land and buildings he doesn’t have a bean. However, I’m an only child.’ She said it with an odd air of defiance.

  ‘Should you be telling me this?’

  ‘Why not? Everyone knows. No one’s got any secrets in Borascal. We’ve all grown up together –’ She stopped and her eyelids drooped. ‘We soon find out about incomers.’

  The words passed Miss Pink by. Sunshine caught the woman’s hair so that it shone like chestnuts – like Bobby’s hair in fact. And both of them were involved with Sleylands, with Jacob. When Jean said she was the only child did she mean the only legitimate one? Was Bobby her half-brother? Miss Pink pondered. No secrets in Borascal?