The Wickenham Murders

by Amy Myers

  Jim returned just as she was about to leave, and she promptly tackled him as to why he’d suggested she come back to Wickenham today. ‘There’s Steve Faraday suggesting I keep out of trouble, and you’re inviting me into it,’ she joked.

  ‘Keep out of it, I agree,’ Jim replied gravely. ‘You need to observe though. Didn’t I say Wickenham was like a volcano waiting to blow its lid? You never know what muck will be chucked out of it, but it’ll get you, you can count on that. I reckoned you should be here to see it in action.’

  Georgia made her way back to Country Stop with a vague feeling of irritation. Jim seemed to be implying that there were links between what was happening now, and what happened in 1929. She couldn’t see how. Had the Elgins been covering up the true murderer for the sake of seeing a Todd hung? It was a gripping theory, but that’s all it was. A theory. The fingerprints on Time could hardly turn themselves into whopping fists so long after the murder, unless of course it had been the feud, rather than Mary Elgin herself, that had been responsible for the sense of unfinished business in the Wickenham air. If so, it followed that she and Peter might be barking up the wrong tree so far as the Proctor case was concerned. Well, they were too far into Ada’s story to retract now, and a village feud, however ugly, was outside their power to resolve.

  Into the frying pan, she thought as she entered Country Stop and Lucy Todd’s flushed excited face greeted her.

  ‘Hello, Georgia. Sorry I couldn’t stop to chat at lunchtime.’ She had an air of great self-importance.

  ‘I understand. It’s a big day for you all tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, we Todds have got to stick together. Half the village will be out of a job otherwise.’

  Especially the butcher, the baker and the small grocery-cum-stationery store all run by Todds, Georgia thought. Lucy ignored the fact that the other half of the village might gain by it.

  ‘You’ll be eating with Mr Scraggs tonight. I hope you don’t mind,’ Lucy added. ‘With both of you in for dinner, it’s best to serve you together. Seven o’clock all right? Earlier than you like, I know, but—’

  ‘You’ve got another meeting.’ Georgia grinned.

  ‘And there’s tomorrow,’ Lucy muttered awkwardly.

  ‘I understand. I’ll go to the pub tomorrow evening. Even if Steve’s at the meeting, I’m sure someone can stick something in a microwave for me.’

  Lucy looked relieved. ‘I could do you a poached egg at six,’ she offered half-heartedly, but Georgia politely turned down this offer.

  In fact the pub would suit her splendidly. She’d probably be there alone since everyone who was anybody would be at the meeting. Georgia Marsh, however, would remain a non-contender in the Wickenham battle.

  Once back in her own – albeit temporary – space, her feeling of irritation continued. Here she was in the heartland of the Todd empire and yet instead of drawing closer to the truth of the past, she felt more like a heavy stone stuck in the middle of the fast-flowing river of the present. If she leant out of her window she could see the place where The Firs had once stood, but that would only increase her frustration. There was still nearly an hour before supper, and a shower, even with a hair wash, wouldn’t take that long.

  Perhaps – yes, she’d fall back on the remedy that had often worked in the past. It was time for a ‘Somebody’s Son’ – her private phrase for it, never shared with Peter for obvious reasons, for setting someone in a family context and thereby giving the name a reality it might otherwise lack. No man is an island; even the darkest villain or the purest saint had parents and ancestors, and probably siblings and descendants. Seeing the names set down on paper could often clarify her thoughts. She grabbed a notepad and pencil to make a start, and half an hour later – after much scrabbling through her notes – she looked at the results of her work with great satisfaction, blanks and question marks notwithstanding. The Todds and the Elgins shared the same page in her pad, and this gave her an odd sense of power over them, which she had been far from feeling earlier.

  ‘That,’ she declared, gazing with satisfaction at the name of George Elgin White, ‘fixes you. Even a blundering bully like you was a proud mum’s offspring once, bawling your head off and dirtying your nappy.’

  When she came down for dinner promptly at 7 p.m., Terence Scraggs was already at the table.

  ‘Still painting?’ she asked brightly as she sat down opposite him. She tried to sum him up anew, as an outside ‘professional’ protestor, but here in Country Stop he presented just the same somewhat forlorn image she’d first seen.

  ‘Right.’ He seemed to be regarding her as a problem he had to endure, and she pitied him. In a way, this enforced companionship was worse for him than for her, since she might at least pick up interesting snippets about the protest.

  ‘Where have you been today?’ she persevered.

  ‘The Bloomfields’ place.’

  ‘But they’ll probably be selling up, so why do they want a picture of their house?’ Georgia could play the innocent well when required.

  ‘Not to paint. I was marching.’ The last word came out with pride: clearly he wasn’t shy about his involvement.

  ‘So you must feel strongly about the sale of the Manor and the grounds?’ As if she didn’t know.

  His face flushed, and not from the mulligatawny soup Lucy had plonked down before them. Georgia had seen that look before. It meant a zealot’s speech was on the way.

  ‘Someone has to stand up to those conglomerates,’ Terence said fiercely. ‘The rights of the common man have to be respected. Look what they’re doing to the farmers of the Third World.’

  ‘But a supermarket opening in Wickenham doesn’t seem related to that.’

  ‘It’s part of it, you see,’ he explained eagerly. ‘You have to make a stand somewhere. Like El Alamein. Far enough, we said. This is where we stand and fight. These supermarkets are buying up these EU surpluses cheaply and driving everyone else out of business. All the developing countries’ farmers and our food stores here don’t get a look in. Nor the fish. Nor the butchers. Bakers will go soon. It’s time to say no.’ He banged a fist on the table, which Lucy took as a signal that their soup was finished, and shot in to remove the plates. ‘I tell you –’ Terence disregarded the interruption – ‘the Third World is here in Wickenham. We have to help.’

  Georgia agreed with his cause in principle, but to use the sale of two sports fields for attacking global issues smacked of hijacking to her.

  ‘So that’s primarily what brought you to Wickenham,’ she said admiringly, ‘not the painting.’

  He glanced at her warily, perhaps surprised that she had twigged this. ‘I saw the publicity in the newspapers. There’s something I can do there, I thought.’

  ‘But doesn’t making a living have to take precedence?’

  ‘Justice does,’ he announced.

  ‘Do you live in a village yourself?’

  ‘My parents do.’

  Locally, she presumed, since otherwise how could he have seen the local publicity about the sale? She decided she had gone far enough with her questions, however. Fortunately Terence was the sort of man to whom it would never occur to enquire what she was herself doing here. Unless he already knew of course. This was answered for her when he said: ‘Lucy says you’re looking into the Ada Proctor case.’

  ‘That’s right. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘Not before I came here. It was a Todd versus Elgin thing, wasn’t it? Did it start this feud?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure it didn’t help.’

  ‘And you think Davy Todd was innocent?’

  ‘He might have been.’

  ‘Who did kill her then?’

  ‘As yet I’ve no idea.’

  ‘There was a body found recently, in the woods or something.’ His turn to persevere.

  ‘Yes, a skeleton in a denehole. Did you read about that too?’ Perfectly natural that he should have done, but he seemed more interested than she would have expect
ed. Usually zealots were one-subject people.

  ‘No.’ Terence didn’t seem disposed to go any further, then perhaps realizing that her eyes were still on him, as Lucy brought in their braised beef, he added: ‘Someone in the pub mentioned it. Wouldn’t have anything to do with this Ada Proctor, would it?’

  ‘I can’t see why it should.’ Georgia was taken aback at the coincidence of his querying this, though she supposed it was a natural enough connection in a village where murders were comparatively rare.

  ‘A tramp, probably. Nothing to do with Todds or Elgins anyway.’ A pause. ‘Families can be odd,’ he added inconsequentially.

  ‘There’ll certainly be two very odd ones meeting tomorrow night, or do you think the Elgins will boycott the meeting?’

  He grinned, but no warmth from it reached his eyes. A cold fish, Georgia decided. ‘They’ll be there. Either inside or outside.’

  ‘The meeting’s in Todd hands though. You, or rather they, are the ones opposing the sale.’

  ‘But the Elgins will kick up a rumpus somehow or other. Hypocrites,’ he added darkly. ‘They want to keep in with the Manor, so they get the building contracts when the sale’s complete.’

  ‘Some things never change, do they?’ Georgia decided to move on to safer territory. It was a Wednesday. How about discussing The Bill? At least she’d be watching it, even if Terence had mightier matters in mind. She had no desire to be sitting in the pub while yet another Todd meeting took place. The Bill would be escapist in comparison.

  *

  The next morning was grey and even when the sun came out briefly, it was quickly overtaken again by dark clouds. Not a good omen, Georgia thought. Then: nonsense, this was just an ordinary day in Wickenham with an important meeting at the end of it. The weather symbolized nothing. The post office was busy with pensions that morning, judging by the queue, and mothers with pushchairs were shopping in the general store and the bakers. This, she reminded herself, was not Tonypandy. No major eruptions of civil unrest here.

  Nevertheless, once at the Forge, she tried in vain to concentrate on Dr Proctor’s appointment book. Despite her best intentions, the Wickenham of today kept taking precedence over 1929, and she had to force herself to study the book. After Ada’s murder there were two weeks with nothing but the word ‘locum’ scribbled on the otherwise empty pages. Then a different handwriting began recording the doctor’s appointments. She learned little new. The old Squire had died earlier that year and the doctor had been visiting him regularly, with all appointments recorded in Ada’s hand. After the murder the doctor was still visiting the Manor, this time to see the new Squire, or his wife of course, the famous She-Wolf of Wickenham.

  The She-Wolf had been one of the other voices on Jim’s tape. Not so deep a voice as Ada’s, not unpleasant, but very assured. She was talking of the Wickenham she had come to as a young bride in 1920, and of the role she played in the village, a subservient one to that of her husband, and one which, even to their ears, it was obvious she was eager to change. She saw her job not as bearing comforts for the sick, but of sharing in her husband’s managerial responsibilities for the welfare of Wickenham. Unless the Manor thrived, the village would fail to do so, and the Manor’s duty was to ensure the village became increasingly prosperous and independent – as she was sure it would. The Manor might be the guardian of the village’s soul, but that included making sure the village could fuel its own body. Fine words, Peter had commented, but they had apparently won few friends. Why had she been dubbed the She-Wolf of Wickenham? he asked. A good question, and one to which Georgia had as yet no answer.

  There was one phrase from her contribution that had stuck in Georgia’s mind, however: that the Manor was the guardian of Wickenham’s soul. Merely fine flourish, or was there something in it? Now that the said soul was being so rudely rejected by the Manor, perhaps there was. The sports fields were only symbols of a bond far more ancient. If the core was rotten, the rot would spread outwards.

  Psychological claptrap, she told herself. This meeting was beginning to get to her, yet the protest was only a dispute between two warring parties, nothing to do with ancient relationships. And to prove it, she decided she would take her lunch at the Red Dragon today, just as she had gone to the Green Man yesterday. Blow Steve’s warning. She had nothing to feel guilty about – quite the contrary since she was supporting Mary Elgin.

  The first face she saw as she walked inside was a man who always seemed to be in the bank queue with big boots, and have a continuous snuffle, not to mention his present belligerent way of planting his two fat elbows possessively on the counter. She also recognized the woman who served in the ironmongers, and the man she’d seen retiling the roof on a cottage under renovation on the Green. Now she knew it was odds-on they were from the Elgin clan.

  No George here today though. At least she was grateful for that. Nevertheless, she was immediately conscious that she was still not wanted here. Although she nodded pleasantly as she walked to the bar, there was no reaction. Eyes stared at her, backs were turned, although there didn’t seem to be a formal meeting going on here. The first back that turned, he of the big boots – Tom Elgin White? – sent a ripple through the bar, with groups edging away, leaving her isolated. From behind the bar Billy Parsons gave her a shamefaced nod, obviously remembering her from her earlier visit, but he was the only one, while the low rumble of voices made it clear she was the object of discussion and that her presence was resented. Every so often she caught a word – and was probably meant to: Todd, bitch, cow . . .

  She realized that she was shivering, although the day wasn’t cold. It had been a mistake to come. By doing so, she had not only rubber-stamped the idea that she was a Todd supporter, but thrown her hat into the ring of active participants. She left as quickly as she could, aware that the groups behind her were uniting as she moved towards the door. Battlelines had been drawn. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs/Something evil this way comes.’ The play you never quoted from on stage. Nor perhaps in Wickenham.

  *

  ‘Are you going to the protest meeting this evening, Jim?’ Back at the Forge, she sensed that Jim was waiting for her to mention it, and he answered promptly.

  ‘Got to, my love. It’s about Wickenham, isn’t it? Historic, you might say.’

  ‘It’s a football field and a cricket field,’ she objected, trying to convince herself as much as Jim. ‘Important to those who play there but not fundamental to the village.’

  ‘You’re wrong there. It’s about the Manor. About who’s boss here. We reckon we are, because we live here. That’s democracy. But it wasn’t always so. Commoners and King, villages and lords of the manor. That isn’t democracy. We stopped the first by chopping his head off, now we have to deal with the other.’

  Jim was an intelligent man, and obviously saw this as more than a squabble over two sports fields between two feuding groups. That finally convinced her. Georgia’s blood was up, furious with herself firstly for going to the Red Dragon and secondly for retreating so quickly. She was going to the meeting, whether it branded her as a Todd or not. If the Elgins believed she was an active player, then she might as well behave like one.

  ‘Do the Bloomfields have children? And if so, do they mind about their “inheritance” here being sold?’

  ‘Three. Jacob, he’d be about twenty-five, don’t mind about nothing but making money in the City. Sarah, she’s a looker and a sensible lass. Twenty or so, at university. And Crispin, he must be eighteen now. He’s spoiled rotten. Fast cars and drugs is what he cares about. There’s always a bad streak in every family comes out every so often, and I reckon he’s the streaker in the Bloomfields at the moment.’

  ‘Aren’t you—’ Georgia broke off, fearing to sound rude.

  ‘Overdramatizing? No, Georgia,’ Jim replied gravely. ‘I’m not. You ought to come this evening. You won’t understand Wickenham till you see the clash of the Titans. And I reckon that will happen tonight. You come to sit with Jan
et and me. You’ll be safe enough if you do that.’

  ‘I don’t care about the Elgins, but won’t the Todds resent me too? Everyone knows I’m here to investigate Ada Proctor, and tonight’s meeting is nothing to do with that.’

  ‘The Elgins and the Todds are though. After all, if Davy Todd was innocent, it was the Elgins let him die. Mary’s father lied, if she’s to be believed.’

  ‘No one seems interested in the case though.’

  ‘They weren’t, my love. All long forgotten – till you came here, talking about Davy maybe being innocent. Then those Todds got to thinking what that meant.’

  Georgia went white. ‘You mean I’m responsible for stirring up—’

  ‘No, you might have caused it, but you can’t be held responsible for tribal warfare.’ Jim was looking serious. ‘Let’s hope they take it out on the Manor folk by yelling and shouting, that’s all, not fighting it out over Ada Proctor.’

  She took her dinner soberly in the Green Man – soberly since as she walked up to the door, a passer-by had spat at her. When she swung round indignantly she saw two men, one of whom she recognized, laughing and walking away. He’d been in the Red Dragon earlier. She was about to have it out with them, then realized she had only herself to blame. She’d nailed her colours to the mast, and all she could hope was that this rancour towards her would die down after the meeting.

  The pub was almost deserted, with only a few commuters having a drink after their return from London. Jim’s words had shaken her as much as the Elgin spittle, despite his assurance that no blame could be attached to her. She realized she should take care that her view of Davy Todd’s guilt shouldn’t be swayed by the fact that she could only justify Marsh & Daughter’s investigation into the case if he was innocent. If he was guilty, she might have unleashed this tornado for nothing. And then, to her relief, she remembered Terence Scraggs. No, she wasn’t responsible for this eruption of the feud. For whatever reason, he had come independently to rabble-rouse.