by Eric Brown
The professor reached out for the decanter, splashed himself a generous measure, and went on, ‘Then I met Xandra and despite everything – warnings to self to be ruddy careful – I fall head over heels.’ He stared at Langham with watery eyes.
‘Don’t know if you’ve heard,’ he went on, ‘but Xandra’s dying. Kidneys are packing up. Only a matter of time now. I did my best in the early days, nursing her.’
‘That can’t have been easy, along with what happened to your brother and his wife.’
‘So you’ve heard about the blasted Barnes prang?’ He shook his head. ‘We adopted Nancy, and I took a back seat and left the looking after my wife to the girl.’
Langham said, ‘She’s a nice kid.’
‘But she’s a female, goddammit, and how the blazes do you communicate with ’em is what I’d like to know. P’raps I’m a trifle hard on the filly …’
The silence stretched, and Langham said finally, ‘Well, I really should be pushing off. Thank you for the whisky.’
‘Don’t mention it. I take it you’ll be attending the Wellbournes’ bash this evening?’
‘We are. And you?’
‘I’m not sure. Richard’s as batty as hell, but I’ll give him this: for a mud-grubber, he keeps a fine cellar. I might drop by.’
‘Do you know if it’ll be a formal do?’
The professor laughed. ‘At the Wellbournes’? Far from it. Casual – very casual. Oh, and the food will be excellent. Harriet might be loopy, but she’s something of a wizard in the kitchen.’
Langham climbed to his feet. ‘I’ll see myself out. And just as soon as you receive another note, please get in touch.’
The professor nodded. ‘Will do, Langham.’
He left the overheated living room and proceeded down the draughty hall just as the front door opened and Nancy hurried in. ‘Mr Langham! I’m late. Unc will have my guts for garters! How was he?’
‘I was expecting a dragon and discovered a pussycat,’ Langham said.
Nancy rolled her eyes. ‘He’s as nice as ninepence with men. It’s us of the fairer sex he has something against,’ she said. ‘Tally-ho! Into the breach once more! Isn’t that what they say, Mr Langham?’
‘They do, or something similar. And it’s Donald, all right?’
The girl smiled. ‘Excuse me, Donald. I must dash.’
He watched her put her words into action, then pulled open the heavy front door and hurried home through the snow.
Back at the cottage, he found Maria upstairs in the second bedroom, unpacking boxes.
‘Be an absolute sweetheart and make me a cup of tea, Donald, would you?’
He made two cups of Earl Grey and carried them upstairs. He lay on the bed while Maria sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, and blew on her tea. ‘And how was the horrible man?’
‘Do you know, I rather liked him. His bark is certainly worse than his bite.’
‘No? You liked him? But he was perfectly horrible to Nancy when I met him.’
‘And I think perhaps he knows it,’ he said, and reported what the professor had told him about his hapless marriages.
‘So do you think that’s the excuse he makes for acting as he does?’
‘Well, perhaps it’s a contributory factor to his curmudgeonliness.’
‘You’re too generous, my darling.’
He sipped his tea, then recalled something. ‘Oh, and why on earth did you tell the professor I was teetotal?’
‘I’m not at all sure. Perhaps I said it to take the wind from his sails – make him question his assumptions that all men were like him and liked a drink.’
Langham smiled. ‘Anyway,’ he said, fishing the note from his inner pocket and passing it to her, ‘what do you make of this?’
She read the brief missive, a frown buckling her forehead. ‘What Vickers mentioned last night, about the professor having an affair …’ She waved the paper. ‘Could that be behind this?’
‘That was my first thought, although I didn’t broach it with Robertshaw, of course. The thing is, he swore blind he didn’t know what the note was driving at. He claimed he wasn’t having an affair.’
She looked dubious. ‘And you believe him?’
‘I’m not sure. And, of course, there’s always the possibility that the note wasn’t meant for him. He told me he’d burned the envelope, assuming it was for him, and he can’t recall reading the addressee.’
‘So who else might it be for?’
‘Obviously not Nancy, because of that “Nancy will find out” line.’
‘The professor’s wife, then? Xandra?’
‘Or his son, Randall. He lives at the manor, though he’s away at the moment.’
She passed the note back to him. ‘What did you advise?’
‘That he waits till he receives the next one, then contacts me pronto.’
‘And then?’
‘There’ll come a point when whoever sent this will make a demand, and that’ll be when the blackmailer will be at his most vulnerable.’
Maria leaned her head back against the wallpaper, making a contemplative moue with her full lips.
‘You’re wearing that “I wonder” look, my darling,’ Langham said.
She tried not to smile. ‘I wonder … What if the professor is having an affair, and when Roy Vickers saw them, he decided to turn his hand to blackmail?’
‘Do you believe he would?’
She shook her head. ‘My instinctive feeling is that Roy Vickers is not that kind of person. Granted, there’s no love lost between him and Robertshaw, but I’d like to think Roy wouldn’t stoop so low. What do you think?’
‘I’ve no idea if Roy’s the kind of person to try it on or not. But I think the professor was telling the truth when he claimed to be blameless. Or else why would he drag me into this in the first place? Surely if he thought he was being blackmailed for having an affair, he’d keep mum about it.’
‘Either that or he’s bluffing you.’
Langham sighed. ‘I tend to think the note is aimed at either Xandra or Robertshaw’s son, Randall.’
Maria finished her tea and climbed to her feet. ‘And I dreamed of a quiet life when we moved to the country!’
Langham laughed, rolled off the bed and pulled her to him. ‘What are you doing now?’
‘Trying on something I might wear this evening.’
‘According to the professor, it’ll be far from formal. What about that off-the-shoulder thing I bought you for Christmas?’
‘Far too sophisticated for a farmhouse soirée,’ she said. ‘But I have one or two outfits that might suit.’
‘Can I come and watch?’
‘You’re incorrigible!’
He followed her to the master bedroom.
FIVE
Snow had started to fall again by eight o’clock, and as they approached the farmhouse, Maria thought that the scene, with the house mantled in snow and its coach-lights glistening in the darkness, resembled something from a Christmas card. It was so quintessentially English that it made her smile.
‘Stop,’ she said.
They did so.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Listen.’
Donald cocked his head. ‘I can’t hear a thing.’
‘Exactly. The silence. I don’t think I’ve experienced such silence for … oh, for years.’
‘Certainly not in London, hmm?’
‘I’m so glad we moved!’ she said, tugging him onwards.
A tall, well-built, stooping figure dressed in shabby tweeds greeted them at the door, introducing himself as Richard Wellbourne and taking their coats.
‘Harry!’ he bellowed, and a small woman came scurrying into the stone-floored hallway. ‘Harriet, they came! I didn’t know if you’d be put off by the weather,’ Wellbourne explained. ‘This is Harriet.’
Donald made the introductions.
Maria liked the woman at first sight. A greater contrast to her husband could not be imag
ined. While Richard Wellbourne was a big, shambling, untidy bear of a man, Harriet was tiny, neat and impeccably attired in a grey two-piece – almost mouse-like. She had silver-grey hair cut very short and a fey, fairy-like face. Maria judged the couple to be in their late fifties.
‘I told you they’d come, Richard,’ she said, shaking their hands. ‘My husband has this thing about city dwellers. He thinks they can’t hack life in the country.’
‘Tosh, Harry. The woman spouts complete baloney! That said, the Grahams only lasted three months. They bought the old Compton place on the hill,’ he went on, ‘but soon missed the amenities of London.’
Harriet kept hold of Maria’s hand and smiled up at her. ‘I know you’ll love the village,’ she said. ‘I can feel it in my blood.’
‘Harry feels everything in her blood,’ Wellbourne said. ‘In a previous century, she’d have been burned at the stake.’
‘Really, Richard!’ Harriet trilled happily.
They were one of those rare couples, Maria thought, so secure in their relationship that affectionate persiflage came as naturally as endearments. She noticed they were forever seeking each other’s hand and gripping with a kind of intimate reassurance when they exchanged their banter.
‘We love the village already,’ Maria said, ‘and the cottage is a delight.’
‘The folk of the parish aren’t a bad bunch, either,’ Wellbourne said. ‘Come and meet some of them. And let me get you a drink.’
He led the way along a stone-flagged passage towards a room from which came a hubbub of conversation. ‘What’ll it be?’
A dozen people filled the long, low room, which was hung with oil lamps and illuminated at the far end by a blazing log fire in a huge hearth. Maria recognized Flo Waters from the post office, and Newton, the publican from the Green Man. The young vicar, so toweringly tall and thin in his clerical garb that he resembled a cormorant, was in animated conversation with a shrivelled gnome of an old man. People turned and smiled as they entered.
Wellbourne fixed them up with a gin and tonic and a whisky and soda, and Harriet escorted them around the room, introducing them to the locals. Maria watched Donald as he fell easily into conversation; he had the enviable ability of being able to talk to anyone, and the even rarer gift of listening with interest.
They found themselves in a group consisting of Reverend Evans, Newton the publican, and the shrunken gnome whom Harriet introduced as Wicketts Blacker, the local odd-job man.
Before setting off, Donald had told her of Professor Robertshaw’s assertion that Newton dealt in stolen goods, but the big, balding, genial man didn’t strike Maria as belonging to the criminal fraternity. The publican described how he’d taken over the Green Man thirty years ago, when it was no more than a derelict blacksmith’s hovel, and rebuilt the place almost single-handedly. Beside him, Wicketts Blacker nodded his wrinkled head from time to time, commenting, ‘That ’e did, bor. That ’e did. And durin’ the war, bor – those locks-ins! Remember the pig roast, Christmas o’ forty-two?’
‘I remember no pig roast, Wicketts,’ Newton said, winking broadly at Maria. ‘You’ll get me arrested, you will.’
At one point Wellbourne cleared his throat and tapped an iron poker on the metal rim of an oil lamp hanging from a beam. As the hubbub died down, he said, ‘I’d like everyone to raise their glasses to Donald and Maria, our honoured guests tonight. It’s always a happy occasion to welcome fresh faces to the village. To Donald and Maria!’
Glasses were raised, their health toasted, and the Reverend Evans said to Maria, ‘Do I detect a trace of an accent? French, perhaps?’
She scowled in good part. ‘And I thought I’d managed to eradicate every last trace of the Gallic vowel!’
‘Not quite, but your English is excellent, I must say.’
‘Well, I have lived here for almost twenty years,’ she countered, trying not to smile as Donald rolled his eyes.
Wellbourne joined them. ‘I understand you’ve made the acquaintance of Professor Robertshaw, Donald. What did you make of him?’
‘News travels fast,’ Donald said.
Beside the vicar, Wicketts raised his hand like a guilty schoolboy, acknowledging himself as the source of the intelligence.
Donald said, ‘Fascinating chap. Gave me a little talk on the history of the standing stone.’
‘Did he mention his crackpot theory?’ Wellbourne asked.
‘About the possibility of there being a stone circle at some point? Yes, he did.’
Wellbourne cocked an eye at him. ‘Buy it?’
Donald shrugged. ‘I’m really in no position to say one way or another – knowing next to nothing about the Neolithic era. Robertshaw seemed to know what he was talking about.’
‘Poppycock,’ Wellbourne said. ‘Excuse me, but the professor’s an amateur when it comes to British history.’
Reverend Evans said, ‘But I understood Robertshaw was a professor of archaeology?’
‘Chap’s a Greek specialist,’ Wellbourne said. ‘He’s merely dabbling with the stone. Also, the man’s a liar. Can’t believe a word he says.’
Maria exchanged a glance with Donald.
Harriet gripped her husband’s hand and piped up, ‘Richard’s like a bear with a sore head when it comes to the professor! And all because of the dispute.’
Donald looked from Harriet to Richard. ‘The dispute?’
Wellbourne waved this away, clearly not wanting to speak of it, but his wife, gripping his big hand and almost swinging from it, said, ‘It’s all because the professor is digging on Richard’s land, and the big angry bear doesn’t like it.’
‘You do exaggerate, Harry,’ Richard grunted. ‘Fact is I own the land over the river, abutting the edge of the land where the stone stands. The area where he’s started his tomfool trenches is actually mine.’
Maria sipped her gin and asked, ‘Did he ask your permission before he started digging?’
Harriet rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose conspiratorially at Maria.
‘Not a word,’ Wellbourne said. ‘First I knew of it, I saw a ruddy great pit in the ground one spring a couple of years back. I moseyed on over and pointed out that he was digging up my land.’
‘What did he say?’ Reverend Evans asked.
‘Said he’d give me twenty guineas a year as rent for the next ten years.’
Harriet tugged his hand. ‘And you jumped at it! Go on, tell the truth.’
‘Balderdash, Harry. I accepted his offer, but I wasn’t best pleased. It was the principle of the thing. He should have had the courtesy and good manners to come and see me about it before turning a sod.’
‘But you must admit, Richard,’ Harriet went on, poking him in the ribs, ‘that, as farmland, the paddock is almost useless.’
Wellbourne sighed. ‘That’s not the point, woman. It’s the principle of the thing, as I said. And I had plans for the place.’ He grunted and looked around the group. ‘Anyway, he’s castigating a deceased mule—’
‘He’s what?’ Maria asked.
Harriet said, ‘One of Richard’s pet sayings, my dear. He means “flogging a dead horse” – pursuing a hopeless cause, in other words.’
‘Ah, I see,’ Maria said. ‘And why is that?’
‘Because the standing stone is a singleton,’ Wellbourne said, ‘and anyway, it isn’t as old as the professor believes. Isn’t that right, Wicketts?’
The little gnome winked sagely. ‘You’re right, bor,’ he said.
As old as Wicketts might have been, Maria doubted that his knowledge extended back to Neolithic times.
‘Tell ’em,’ Wellbourne said, with evident satisfaction.
Wicketts grinned. ‘I knows ’cos me gran’father tells me, and his gran’father told ’im, and his gran’father afore ’im. Stone were raised just afore the village here were founded, and that ain’t be four thousand year ago, no way.’
‘When was the village founded?’ Maria asked.
‘It’s me
ntioned in the Domesday book,’ Wellbourne said. ‘Historians reckon there was a settlement here around 950.’
Donald asked, ‘And what does Professor Robertshaw think of this? He’s been told, presumably?’
‘Oh, he’s been told, all right, but he won’t hear a word of it. Calls it ignorant gossip and sticks to his theory that not only is the stone Neolithic but that he’ll unearth more of the things.’
Newton guffawed. ‘Had a right shindy in the taproom a few months back, he did. The professor popped in for a quick one and ends up in a blazing row with Piggy Pawson and his crowd.’
‘Piggy?’ Maria said.
‘On account of his resembling a hairy old boar,’ Wellbourne explained.
Harriet caught Maria’s eye and made an expressive face, as if to say boys will be boys.
She clapped her hands. ‘But enough of the chatter, ladies and gentlemen. Richard, if you could announce that dinner will be served in five minutes.’
‘No sooner said than done,’ Wellbourne said, and in lieu of a dinner gong he employed his poker on the oil lamp. ‘I’m given to understand that the good lady is about to serve dinner,’ he called out. ‘This way, ladies and gentlemen, please!’ To Harriet, he said, ‘I’d better fetch Roy – I said I’d tell him when grub was up.’
Wellbourne slipped away and Harriet led the guests into the kitchen with a leaded Victorian range at one end and a long, scrubbed pine table taking centre stage.
The guests took their seats and Harriet, assisted by another woman, dished up a huge steak and kidney pudding and roast vegetables; the wine flowed. Roy Vickers arrived – evidently having been instructed to dress for dinner, as he was wearing a tired-looking blue suit – and slipped into the seat beside Donald with an acknowledging nod. Maria noticed that he’d gone to the trouble of shaving, though his lean chin was blue with fresh stubble.
Wellbourne sat to Vickers’s right and chatted amiably with the young man as dinner progressed. At one point, Maria mentioned that she worked as a literary agent; evidently, they were thin on the ground in Ingoldby-over-Water, and she had to explain what the job entailed.
Harriet asked Donald what he was currently writing, and he told her he was taking a break while they knocked the cottage into shape.
