by Amy Myers
The new village hall could easily seat, at a guess, five hundred or so in its main hall. Even so it was full to over-flowing. She was wedged in between George and Janet near the back of the hall – and near the aisle. ‘Just in case,’ Jim said, whether comfortingly or not.
‘I don’t see any Elgins,’ she whispered. There were still twenty minutes to go, but some should surely be here?
‘This is a protest meeting,’ Jim answered,’ and since they aren’t protesting that’s probably why they’re not here. Bet they’ve got a spy or two here though. Still, I’d feel a darn sight more comfortable if we could see some. Better to have the verbals in here than . . .’
‘Than in the dark of the night?’ she finished for him.
He nodded. ‘Take a look behind you,’ he said. ‘You’ll see Mr Blasted Bloomfield’s two male offspring standing right at the back by the door. No sign of the great man himself. Sensible of him.’
Georgia glanced back over her shoulder. Jacob looked a younger version of her father, confident, assured – and rich. How did a twenty-five-year-old manage to look like that? Crispin was in jeans, a T-shirt, a shock of curly dark hair and a gleam in his arrogant eye that suggested that he could easily add women to fast cars and drugs. She thought of Trevor Bloomfield as she had glimpsed him earlier that day, and wondered if fear or prudence made him stay away tonight. The local volunteer policeman was guarding the doorway (or the Bloomfield sons?) as if in answer to her question.
Terence Scraggs was already on the platform, together with one of the older Todds whom Georgia recognized from the pub and Oliver, who was chairing the meeting. He was going to keep the ball in his court judging by the size of the butcher’s mallet lying before him on the desk.
She had expected an evening in which both the rights and wrongs of the sale would be at least represented even if both weren’t examined in the same detail. From the outset, however, it was clear that the wrongs were taken for granted; not even the action to be taken was under discussion. That had already been decided. A formal appeal to the Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions had been drawn up, Oliver announced, on the grounds that the circumstances under which the original planning permission had been granted and regularly updated were now radically altered. Planning permission for Class Al retail use had been given when the land was still part of the Wickenham estate and went with the hotel. Now it was being sold separately, which was an entirely different kettle of fish, since it transformed ancillary use into dominant use, which was a material change to the original permission.
It also, Georgia thought, had brought a material change to Oliver Todd. Seen in a new role, he had a gravitas alien to the homeloving butcher she was used to. What was required of the audience this evening was a willingness to show its support of the appeal, Oliver concluded, as he yielded the floor to Terence. Mr Scraggs would explain.
As Terence stood up and began to speak, Georgia watched another unexpected and even more powerful transformation. This wasn’t the pale nervous co-lodger of Country Stop. Having an audience obviously brought out latent powers in him. Like Hitler, once before an audience, the hesitant man turned into the impassioned leader of men. Perhaps it was unfair to compare poor Terence to Hitler but, as she witnessed his control of the audience, there seemed to be something in it. He’d certainly done his homework, quoting specific cases on revocation of planning permissions. One High Court case in particular, brought by a district council against the Secretary of State, against the latter’s decision to in effect scrap a planning permission that allowed the building of a supermarket, seemed very relevant to Wickenham. The council had lost, and the supermarket’s enormous costs became a major issue. If she were Jacob Bloomfield, Georgia thought, she’d be listening very intently indeed to carry the message home to Father.
It became apparent that the solicitor who had drawn up the appeal was a contact of Terence’s, confirming Georgia’s suspicion that this wasn’t the first time that he had taken up such a cause. He was moving on to the common law on immemorial custom, and their need now to establish a substantial period of usage of the fields for recreation. Once again he impressively cited chapter and verse.
By the time he sat down, most of the audience was on its feet, cheering, and punching the air in approval. Georgia almost joined them. Terence had inspired a sense that there was a legal path forward and that even if the Elgins were waiting outside to duff up the Todds, they couldn’t stop this roller-coaster.
‘Good, eh?’ Jim commented.
She agreed, but was uneasily aware that this didn’t bode well for peace in Wickenham, especially since Oliver then announced that all those who could swear that sports had been played unchallenged on those grounds for over twenty years should sign two copies of an attachment to the appeal. One was for the formal appeal, and one for a protest to be delivered to the Manor, which would be passed through the audience. The tension palpably increased while this long procedure took place. The noise level grew as some of the audience left and the rest united.
It took Jacob Bloomfield to blow the top of the volcano. As the last depositions were handed in to Oliver Todd, and the noise abated, his voice was suddenly heard from the back of the hall.
‘You’ll achieve nothing by giving a copy of your appeal to my father.’
Georgia turned quickly round, to see him standing right by the door and no sign of Brother Crispin. The roar that greeted him, caused either by the obvious sneer in his voice or by disagreement, silenced him only for a moment. As soon as it died down, he began to speak again. ‘It should be presented to the new owners, when the contract is signed tomorrow.’ The roar that greeted this final word was more than angry. It was ugly. It was a shock to Georgia – and perhaps to all the audience – that it was being rushed through so quickly.
‘I don’t like this,’ Jim muttered. ‘Bloomfield must have known what he’d be doing, the fool, so why’s he doing it?’
Oliver banged the mallet for order, as Jacob continued. ‘If you’ll kindly let me speak, the new owners are offering an alternative site.’ The hush that followed this announcement held a strange quality as though the volcano merely paused to gather its energy, and Georgia’s stomach muscles tensed.
‘Where would that be?’ Oliver shouted stonily.
‘Dickens Field.’
The volcano blew. No longer a concerted roar but shouts of abuse, the scraping of chairs, as the audience began to move.
‘What’s this about?’ Georgia had to yell at Jim to make herself heard.
‘Bloody insult, that’s what. Dickens Field is a waste dump by the motorway on the edge of the parish several miles out. They know it’s useless. It’s to kill the appeal, that’s all. If they offer an alternative site, what’s a chap in Whitehall going to know about Dickens Field? It sounds good, and that’s all they care about.’
The whole audience was now moving towards the exits. ‘This is where we get out, Georgia. Janet, come on love. Move quickly.’ Jim grabbed her arm and then, keeping Janet between them, with Jim ahead they were swept along in the crush to the exit, squeezed through and at last they were out. Georgia breathed in the cold fresh air thankfully, as Jim pulled them to one side, apart from the mass of people swelling out into the narrow road leading to the Green.
‘Keep to the side, and then make for home,’ Jim ordered. Once at the Old Forge, they stopped to look behind them, but Georgia could see nothing.
‘Where are the Elgins?’ she asked. She’d assumed they would be gathering en masse by the Green, or in front of the pub, but there was nothing but the dark grass and the amber light from the street lamps.
‘They’ll be waiting somewhere, you can be sure of that.’
‘And the police?’
‘If the village bobby’s wise he’ll have sent for them. They’ll likely be too late though.’
She watched as the Todds swept down by the side of the Green to the main road, their placards sprouting
like magic. And somewhere, probably at the entrance to the Manor and the Bloomfields’ house, the Elgins must be waiting.
Georgia turned down the offer of a nightcap, preferring to make her way home safely while the village was venting its wrath at this end. This clash was nothing to do with her, and yet she felt a sense of guilt at leaving. Involvement? If so, that was bad. She half walked, half ran along the top of the Green and down the far side to the main road, then along past the silent Red Dragon to Country Stop.
The house was dark and cheerless and she was half sorry she had turned down the offer of a nightcap. Tomorrow she would leave Wickenham, at least for a while. She tried to get the thoughts of what might be happening at the Bloomfields’ house out of her mind, but it was impossible. There was a noise from far away like the hum of a motorway. She had just reached her room when the sound of police sirens swept by, and she instantly went to the window. She could see nothing. The distant hum resumed, but as she climbed into bed fifteen minutes later the sound of the sirens blared out again. Once more she ran to the window to look out, only to see that the flashing lights of the police were followed by those of an ambulance.
Chapter Seven
Georgia slept badly. Distant noise advanced, retreated, fell silent, and then advanced again in a different guise. If she woke, all seemed quiet and she fell back asleep, only to find herself once more on the battlefield. She longed for the reassurance of another human body beside her. Not anyone’s. Luke’s. When she finally awoke, it was due not to light, but to a banging on her door. It took her a moment to realize where she was, and why this had to be an unusual summons.
‘Who is it?’ she shouted.
‘Your father’s here, Georgia.’ She just about registered that it was Lucy calling out, and that she sounded agitated. The words didn’t make sense, though. She shook the remainder of sleep from her eyes and head, the latter still spinning from the dreams of the night, and glanced at her watch: 7.30.
Peter? Here? What could be urgent enough to justify that? Rick? There was news of her brother, was her first thought, as she swung her legs out of bed. Luke? Her mother? No, please God, to any of these.
‘I’ll be with you,’ she called, in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. She carried out the speediest toilet possible; though the shower woke her up, it didn’t stop her mind racing round as she pulled on trousers and sweater, brushed her hair, hoicked out some shoes from under the bed and ran downstairs.
There was her father, his wheelchair wedged in between the three tables, his eyes fixed impatiently on the doorway for her arrival. The entrance to Country Stop was hardly wheelchair friendly, so to see him here represented some considerable manoeuvring on somebody’s part, more than Lucy could have managed. Lucy appeared from the kitchen door, still in her dressing gown, and looking drawn and pale. ‘I’ll get you both some tea.’
‘Coffee today, please.’ Georgia knew she needed it, and Peter seldom looked at tea. ‘Now, what’s happened?’ She looked fearfully at her father.
‘Not any of those,’ he answered simply. It couldn’t have been difficult to read her mind, she supposed.
‘Poor Mr Scraggs is dead,’ Lucy burst out. ‘And him staying here. I couldn’t sleep a wink after Oily told me. And the police are coming here.’
Georgia’s head spun with shock and instant scenarios and questions. She needed breathing space to assimilate this shocking news and to talk to Peter. Somehow his arrival had to be connected with this event, though she couldn’t see how Terence Scraggs’ death would affect Peter.
‘Lucy, you need coffee yourself,’ she hinted, and to her relief Lucy obediently returned to the kitchen.
‘How,’ she asked her father, ‘did he die, and what are you doing here? Did he –’ she remembered her sickening dreams – ‘die here?’ She remembered her conversation at dinner with him, and the different personality he’d shown last night at the meeting. She hadn’t taken to Terence Scraggs, but even her brief acquaintance made her mourn him and the devastating uncertainties of life.
‘No, Georgia. He was stabbed in a fight last night, I gather. Mike Gilroy telephoned me this morning when the SIO requested his presence via Darenth Area HQ. He’s here too, but he’s gone to the incident van at the scene of crime.’
Georgia couldn’t make sense of this. Why on earth should the senior investigating officer send for Mike, who was in a different police area?
‘Mike remembered you were here, and he immediately rang me, so of course I came too,’ Peter continued. ‘I had to get myself up,’ he announced offhandedly.
‘You were worried about me? Trust me, I always avoid a fight.’ Mechanical banter while her brain grappled with Terence Scraggs.
‘I did. But if Mike was going to be here I didn’t want to miss out.’
‘On what?’ She began to see where he might be heading now, and she resisted it more in the hope of convincing herself than to deter Peter.
‘Don’t you think it’s odd there’s another murder in Wickenham?’
‘No, not if this fight was connected to the Elgin–Todd feud that had just erupted when I came home last night. Terence Scraggs was here because he was probably a semi-professional protestor, and because he was a freelance artist, not because of the Ada Proctor murder.’ Even if he had questioned her about the case, his interest had only been a polite one, hadn’t it? ‘So why was Mike involved?’ she continued firmly.
‘The SIO was short-handed, and remembered he’d been showing an undue interest in Wickenham. So he was called in.’
‘I bet Mike was thrilled to bits to be asked,’ Georgia rejoined, and Peter looked guilty. He was saved by the – now welcome – reappearance of Lucy bringing coffee, orange juice and toast.
‘Were you there, Lucy, when Terence died?’ Georgia asked sympathetically, her mind still racing over connections between a murder during a fight and Marsh & Daughter’s sphere of interest.
‘No. Yes. I mean, at first I was.’
‘Last night was the protest meeting I told you about,’ Georgia explained to Peter. ‘After it, I came home, but much of the audience joined a march to the Bloomfields’ house. Is that when the fight happened, Lucy?’
‘Mr Mighty Trevor Bloomfield didn’t even bother to come to the meeting,’ Lucy sniffed. ‘He just sent his two posh sons, who did a quick disappearing act once they’d said their dirty piece. So we had to march to the house, perfectly peacefully, and look what happened.’
‘The Elgins appeared,’ Georgia answered. It hardly took a PhD to work that out. ‘Perfectly peacefully’ was unlikely to have been a correct description either. She had seen plenty of booze flowing at the meeting.
‘I don’t know where the Elgins had been waiting.’ The words began to spill out of Lucy now. ‘Probably in the pubs. They were drunk, broken bottles, everything, and we hadn’t had a drop. We went into the drive, and we no sooner got there than Mr Blooming Bloomfield threw open the front door and him and his two precious sons came storming out to meet us, demanding to know what the hell we were playing at disturbing the peace. Terence told them good and proper how they were breaking the law doing away with ancient rights . . .’
Lucy began to choke, but continued: ‘They wouldn’t stop to listen. I was with Olly and Mr Scraggs at the front, the Bloomfields charged up to talk to us, and then the Elgins suddenly appeared in front of us. Hundreds of them, pouring through the far entrance, coming straight for us. You get home, Luce, Oily said. This is no place for women, and he pushed me back and me and the other women got out of it. What with us peace-marchers pushing forward and the Elgins charging us we were lucky to get out of it. We heard the police sirens coming and we hung around for a while on the Green, until most of the men joined us. Not Olly, though. The police wanted to talk to him, being one of the organizers. So I went home, and Oily didn’t come for another hour. I couldn’t sleep a wink till he was back safe. But when I heard what had happened! Oh, it was awful, Olly said. It took ages to break up the fig
ht even with the police and Olly doing all they could to stop it and when there were only Olly and a couple of others and that George Elgin White and his cronies they found poor Mr Scraggs half hidden by the bushes. It was dark and no one noticed till the crowd went. All Oily said was the knife was still in him. Oh poor Olly. And poor Mr Scraggs. All he wanted to do was fight for right and justice for the village and look what happens. He’s murdered for it. Those Elgins have got a lot to answer for.’
Peter leapt on this. ‘Do the police think they know who killed him then?’
‘Olly didn’t know. He had to leave, didn’t he? But it stands to reason it was one of them Elgins. Can’t see the Bloomfields bloodying their hands, though they’re the cause of all this. Oh poor Mr Scraggs. He died for us.’
Peter shot a glance at Georgia, who interpreted it correctly. ‘Lucy, you need rest. Why don’t you have a lie down?’
‘I can’t. Olly’s had to go to the shop, and the police said they’d be coming to look at his room. They told Oily to lock it, so I’ll have to be here.’
Georgia grimaced at Peter. Too much to hope for! ‘Look, we’ll rouse you if they come within the next hour or so. Then we’ll be going out –’ She made it deliberately vague – ‘so we’ll rouse you then.’
‘But your breakfast,’ Lucy wailed. ‘Won’t you want your full English, Georgia? And Mr Marsh?’
‘Thank you, no,’ Peter said in lordly manner. ‘The use of your loo would oblige however.’ Between the two of them, this was accomplished fairly easily, since the Country Stop toilet was a reasonable-sized room on the ground floor, and once they were on their own Georgia replenished the coffee and produced some cereal.
