Hate Bale

by Stephanie Dagg

  Martha was being unduly negative and she knew it. The majority of the time people were nice enough and, apart from the odd minor grumble, said good things about the cottage and its owner. But the unpleasant, unjustified vitriol, although in the minority, seemed to swamp the nice stuff. Finding bits of a dismembered corpse in a hay bale tended to put you in a bleak mood, she reminded herself. Keep busy, don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything.

  She stripped the two single beds and put the bedlinen into the washing machine in the cottage. She set that going, then stripped the double bed. A gold charm bracelet tumbled to the floor. Darn, this would mean further correspondence with the ghastly Carol, and expense in returning the jewellery to its owner by recorded delivery. Carol didn’t strike Martha as the sort of person who would offer to pay for the postage to return the item she’d forgotten. Muttering, she stuck it into her pocket, and then she tutted as lifting a pillow revealed a pile of dirty tissues. She hadn’t got on the rubber gloves she usually wore for household chores in the cottage so she nudged the tissues into the bin with her elbow, then carried on with linen removal.

  Arms full, she fumbled open the front door to take the bedclothes round to her own washing machine. She uttered an “Oh!” in surprise as a large gendarme stood there, arm raised to knock on the door that had suddenly swung away from him.

  “Sorry to scare you, madame. Just to let you know we’ve finished up. You can move your tractor now. My colleague Philippe Prudhomme said to remind you to contact him at any time if you think of anything else to tell us, or if you need any help.”

  “I will. Thank you.” Martha longed to ask him if they’d come across the remaining bits of Martial Lecerf yet, and if they had a suspect, but being British she reined in her natural curiosity so as not to come over nosey and ghoulish. She’d find out from Philippe soon enough anyway.

  “Don’t hesitate to report any suspicious activity,” the gendarme continued ominously, “and please make sure someone knows where you are at all times. Good day.” With that he turned and left.

  Martha suddenly felt petrified. Did this mean they thought she might be on this homicidal maniac’s hit list too? She scuttled to the house. Bother getting on with the changeover jobs. She’d feed the animals, lock up and go and stay with Lottie. She’d ask her friend to come back here with her tomorrow until the next set of guests arrived. Martha would feel a lot safer with other people around. She had Flossie, of course, but guard dogging wasn’t her thing. The only way she’d protect her mistress from a knife-wielding attacker would be if she accidentally tripped them up when coming over to greet them, tail wagging. Flossie’s friendliness made her a hit with visitors and vets, but at the moment Martha wished she’d give viciousness a go.

  No sooner had she balanced the washing on top of the already-full laundry basket than her phone rang. Hoping this was Philippe with news of an arrest, she grabbed it out of her shorts pocket without even glancing at the caller ID.

  “Hello?” she gushed breathlessly.

  “Hi, Martha? This is Denise.”

  Martha frowned. Denise? Who the heck was Denise? The only one she could think of was a skinny, rabbit-toothed girl in the year below at junior school. It was hardly likely to be her. Martha decided on her usual approach to puzzling phone calls. She got plenty of those. Someone would begin pounding her ear with rapid-fire French. Martha would play along with interested noises until at last she could seize upon a few key words that helped her work out who was calling. For example, “Collège” or “lycée” in the past had meant it was a call concerning the children at school, whereas “cotisations” meant that the sécu, the social security, had made another cock-up over the generous amounts they helped themselves to from Martha’s earnings every three months. Realising what the call was about allowed her to get into full French mode and so she could usually, but not always, go on to have a sensible conversation.

  At least this call was in English.

  “Denise!” Martha replied with false cheeriness. There was a pause. Clearly Denise expected more. “How nice,” she added, rather lamely but optimistically.

  “We haven’t spoken before so yes, it is nice to do so at last, Martha. How are you?”

  There were doubtless many millions of Denises with whom Martha had never previously conversed, but she plunged on gamely.

  “Well, things have been a bit hectic this last couple of days,” she admitted with commendable British reserve.

  “Yes, most of our clients are well into the busiest time of the year with the dreaded Changeover Saturday to deal with each week.” Denise gave a jolly high-pitched laugh.

  Finally the moment of revelation arrived. This call was in connection with the holiday cottage rental agency. Suddenly Martha recalled that a new person had joined the existing team of Delphine and Diana about six months ago. Martha’d had a vague idea she was called Deborah, but now she knew that it was Denise. Presumably it was company policy only to employ people with names beginning with D.

  Her heart sank. Carol Cuthbertson must have already been onto the agency with her complaints and she could only be a few kilometres down the road. She opened her mouth to launch into her own defence, but Denise beat her to it with, “In that case, this could be good news for you. The Devonshires have had to cancel their holiday.”

  “Oh dear,” said Martha, battling to keep the relief out of her voice: relief that it wasn’t about Carol and relief that she had a week’s breather to pull herself back together.

  “Yes, poor Mr Devonshire collapsed in severe pain while packing the car ready for the off. He was rushed to hospital and had an emergency appendectomy. It’s gone well and he’ll be up and about soon.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “They are really keen to stay with you, and Mrs Devonshire was wondering if they could reschedule to early October. You’re free the week beginning the 7th. Would it be OK to book them in for then? I know, and they know, we’re under no legal obligation to do so. They’re the ones breaking the contract and should be claiming off their insurance over it. But they’re loyal customers and really nice people so it would be great if we could accommodate their request.”

  “Absolutely,” said Martha cheerily, still on a high at having the next week free. Once that bike race was over she could totally unwind and allow her nerves, somewhat tattered after encountering one and a third corpses in three days, to heal. “I don’t have any problem with that at all.”

  “We’ll give you their payment at the end of this month so you’re not left waiting for that money until October,” Denise went on.

  “Thank you.” That was a bit of a surprise. The agency usually hung onto every penny for as long as possible. They received each client’s deposit anything up to a year in advance, and collected the balance two months before the holiday date. However, they sat on the money until the end of the month after the month in which the holiday took place. That had always been something of a bone of contention, but they did a good job in advertising the cottage and dealing with queries, which was something Martha didn’t have the time or patience for.

  “Great!” chirped Denise. Vibes of all being right with the world pulsed from the phone.

  Martha didn’t like to burst the woman’s happiness bubble, but since she had the opportunity, she should forewarn her of the inevitable complaint that would be coming the agency’s way from Carol.

  She took a deep breath. “Um, this week’s crowd have left early. They weren’t happy. Well, three of them were but not the lead booker.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Who was staying?”

  That was clearly a rhetorical question as Martha could hear the rattle of computer keys over the phone as Denise checked the records. However, she answered anyway, at the same time that Denise found her information.

  “The Cuthbertsons!” they declared in unison.

  Denise carried on, “That name sounds familiar. The lead booker was…” more key clattering, “Carol C
uthbertson. Omigod! I remember her now. She used to book through my last agency, until we blacklisted her. She was nothing but trouble. Caused so much upset and stress.”

  “Well, she hasn’t changed,” said Martha with feeling.

  “Don’t worry about her. She’s never been able to produce any material, actionable grievances. It’s all just spite. She sued us once but lost. I heard on the grapevine that after we stopped taking her bookings she went to independently-run holiday cottages and sued a couple of them through the European small claims court, but lost those as well. She’s a slow learner.”

  Martha felt comforted that she wasn’t alone in being the object of Carol’s loathing.

  “What was she griping about this time?” asked Denise.

  Martha gave a potted version of the week’s events.

  “Omigod, omigod, omigod!” squealed Denise when she’d finished. “How dreadful! Are you OK? Do you want me to cancel the booking after the Devonshires too, to give you more recovery time? I can find them an alternative venue. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “No, honestly, I’m coping. Please don’t cancel any bookings.” Martha needed the money. “It’s best to keep busy anyway.” That was probably true too, and it sounded less mercenary.

  “Well, if you’re sure. And don’t worry about Carol Cuthbertson. I’ll deal with her. I’ll advise Diana not to take any more bookings from her.” Diana was the owner of Holiday Cottage Happiness. “You take care of yourself.”

  After a few more pleasantries, Denise ended the call. Martha fist-pumped the air, which got Flossie all excited. The old dog began to dance around, whining. So Martha did a little dance too, but without sound effects. A minute later Flossie was exhausted and Martha’s outburst of high spirits sagged. She felt exhausted. She’d been starting to plan a week of indulgence, with maybe a day off to go to Versailles, a sightseeing treat she’d been promising herself ever since they’d arrived in France. Or if she could get Etienne or Adrien to do the stock feeding for one evening and one morning, she could manage an overnight stay in Marseilles with Jared and Blandine. She could do with seeing a family member, to reassure herself that the world wasn’t really going crazy. That there was goodness and love in it. But right at this minute a week in bed was the most appealing option. A week hiding away from all the evil that was out there…

  Flossie sensed her mistress’s mood change and thrust a cold wet nose onto Martha’s hand. Martha jumped, roused herself from her gloomy reverie and ruffled the dog’s hair.

  “Come on, we’ll do the farm jobs then we’re going to Lottie’s. In the car.” At the sound of ‘car’ Flossie started another dance. “But first, work.” That word didn’t dampen the dog’s spirits as much as it did Martha’s.

  Chapter 11

  Lottie was still out when Martha arrived unannounced at the house. Roger welcomed her warmly, thrust a glass of wine in her hand then took Flossie round to join the Labradors in the back garden. Much as both he and Lottie loved dogs, they didn’t allow them in the house. Canine companions slept in a shed overnight. Martha, and thus Flossie, had stayed before and so both knew the routine. Flossie enjoyed a change of scene and tolerated the boisterous Morris and Minor, although the endless playing with them left her exhausted these days.

  Roger was clearly bursting to hear the latest corpse-related developments but he kept conversation to generalities. He wasn’t solely being gentlemanly. There was an aspect of self-preservation involved too as he knew Lottie would never forgive him if he got hold of any gossip before she did. When he bustled off to the kitchen to start cooking tea, Martha pulled out her phone and Messengered the kids. Once again they’d been neglected, what with all the day’s ghastly happenings. She didn’t mention those, or the fact that she’d decamped to Lottie’s. No point in alarming them unduly. One of the beauties of mobile communication devices was that parents and children could keep their exact whereabouts a secret from each other. Finding Daniel’s body at the farm shop had been one thing, and awful enough, but bits of a dead body dropping out in a field at home was quite another. She therefore told her daughter a white lie and said the internet had been hopeless at lunchtime. Fortunately, but also unfortunately, that was all too plausible an excuse. Their satellite net connection was severely oversubscribed and thus slow at best, and add in any slightly aggravating weather conditions such as heavy rain, thunderstorms, strong winds, heatwave or extreme cold, then it gave up the ghost. That didn’t leave a whole lot of fully operational days out of the year.

  Lily was awake, having got up for a drink of water, so they had a quick ‘chat’, and then Martha confirmed her continued existence with a quick message to Jared. He replied with one of his many puzzling faces composed of punctuation marks. This was a capital X followed by a close bracket. Presumably a happy face? Then came two carets. Raised eyebrows? Martha sent a smiley face from the insanely huge array her phone offered her and turned her attention to her wine. It was beautiful. Roger was really into his wine and sought out new, interesting and delicious ones all the time. Martha simply grabbed anything that was less than €2 off the bottom shelf at the supermarket.

  A crunch of gravel and a few excited woofs from the dogs announced Lottie’s arrival. She burst into the living room and enveloped Martha in a hug and a cloud of Chanel No. 5.

  “So you’ve come across another body!” she declared, stepping back and removing a miniscule bit of hay that had transferred itself from Martha’s tee-shirt onto her cream Calvin Klein suit. “Well, bits of one at least.”

  “How on earth do you know about that?” exclaimed Martha, sitting back down, stunned.

  “News travels fast,” shrugged Lottie, sitting down too and kicking off her Jimmy Choo stilettoes. “What time this morning did you find your portion of Martial Lecerf?” Lottie smiled ghoulishly.

  “Lottie, try and be respectful,” chided Martha. “About half nine or ten, I guess. Why?”

  “Well, that was seven hours ago now. I expect the Chancellor and her husband are talking about it by now.”

  “Lots, we have a President, and he’s a he,” Martha pointed out.

  “I meant Angela wotsit, the German Chancellor,” smirked Lottie. Then she added, “Thank you, darling,” as Roger delivered her glass of wine. “Sit,” she instructed, patting the sofa at a non-suit-creasing distance from herself. “Now, spill the beans. Every detail.”

  So Martha began her narration of the day’s dramatic and ghastly events.

  “Almost worth it though, wasn’t it, to get rid of that cow?” Lottie butted in when Martha got to the bit about Carol leaving early.

  “I’d have preferred something less grisly.” Martha pulled a face and took another sip of wine to wash the unpleasant metaphoric taste of the day away. Then she continued. “Philippe called by with an update just as I was leaving to come here.” They’d met at the top of her drive. “The police know now that Daniel Frobart, my first corpse, had been receiving some weird phone calls. Murielle Frobart said they’d been surprised by them, rather than alarmed. Muttered curses and whatnot, but they have a lot of elderly farmer clients and some of them are a bit eccentric, to put it mildly.”

  “Complete basket cases, half of them,” Lottie opined.

  Martha ignored this harsh judgement and ploughed on. “And Lecerf had been getting hate mail.”

  “Omigod, cut out letters from newspapers?” Lottie leaned forwards in fascination.

  “No, these were handwritten. Three of them. But Monsieur Lecerf hadn’t opened them.” Lottie and Roger shot each other a confused look. “He hadn’t been opening any mail for about the last six months by the look of it, Philippe says. There was a pile of mail in a corner of the kitchen. Poor old boy, he must have been depressed or something.”

  “So he didn’t even know he’d been threatened,” Roger remarked.

  “No.” Martha shrugged. “Not until it was too late.”

  “How was he despatched?” Lottie enquired with far too much enthusias
m. “And how on earth did he end up in chunks?”

  Martha gripped her glass tightly and drained the rest of her wine.

  “It’s not been officially confirmed by the ME yet,” she reported, “but apparently it looks like a blow to the head killed him. The chopping up was post mortem.”

  “Yes, but what with? I mean, it’s tough enough cutting up lumps of boneless pork and beef sometimes,” Lottie remarked.

  Roger gave her a look. “When did you last cut up meat, apart from cooked stuff on your plate? You always boast that you haven’t cooked a meal since you were eighteen.”

  “I watch those chefs on telly. I’m basing my statement on my observations,” she replied snippily.

  Roger rolled his eyes.

  “Never mind how they cut him up,” said Martha firmly. “The police have taken away an assortment of sharp farm implements to inspect.”

  “And how did he get into the hay bales?” pressed Lottie.

  “I was coming to that,” Martha assured her.

  “She means, shut up and listen,” translated Roger with a smile.

  “Martial had been mowing, tedding and raking his hay over the last few days.”

  Lottie looked blank.

  “He’d cut it, turned it over to dry, and then lined it up into a long, tidy heap for the bailer to process.” Roger again acted as interpreter for his wife. “So, the murderer had been watching him?” he deduced.

  “Looks like it,” nodded Martha. “When the stage is set, he swoops in, bumps off poor Monsieur Lecerf, dismembers him,” she shuddered, “lays the bits out in the windrows and then gets busy baling.”

  “So he knew about farming machinery,” nodded Roger thoughtfully.

  “But how come no one saw somebody carting bits of legs around and dropping them in a field?” Lottie wanted to know.