As he read the statement given by Miss Valerie Pennington, Sykes got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Mrs. Shackleton might, for once, be out of her depth. She would hate it if he went barging in to the rescue and jeopardised some delicate investigation. But what more could there be to investigate?
Chapter Forty-Three
After leaving Mrs. Dell’s house, I came to a fork in the road. Turn left for the White Swan and Sykes. Turn right for Thorpefield Manor.
My business there was not over. I turned right.
The dining hall at the manor was thronged with people. Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright had the vicar cornered. Gertrude was surrounded by several ladies I recognised from the Holy Trinity service.
Eliot Dell stood by the window, talking earnestly to two men. He acknowledged me as I passed by. “Good investment,” I heard him say. “The deepest mine in the country.”
Milly circulated with a tray of sandwiches, Raynor with a tray of drinks. “My rock and friend,” Mrs. Dell had said. “I have Maggie. Benjamin Brockman has Raynor.”
Had Raynor been beside Benjie when he was shown the drawing of the unfortunate Harry Aspinall?
“Drink, Mrs. Shackleton?”
“No thank you. I’m hoping for a word with Mr. Brockman.”
“He has paid his respects and retired to his study, madam, asking not to be disturbed.”
“Thank you.” I went into the hall, and along to Benjie’s study. He did not answer my knock. Knowing he was there, I opened the door.
He was at his desk, and looked up as I entered. “Benjie, excuse the interruption but I shall be going soon.”
“Ah Kate, come in, come in. I’m just puzzling over my coins. You know when you have to count twice, and then count again.” He scratched his head. “Is everything all right?”
I took the seat opposite the desk. This room had an air of calm, oak desk with baize top, brass lamp, and row upon row of bookshelves.
“Benjie, something’s come up that I want to ask you about.”
“To do with coins? Stamps?”
“To do with Harry Aspinall.”
“Aspinall?”
“Your fellow trustee for the Bluebell Home.”
“Ah, that Aspinall. I’m not well today, Kate, not well at all. Dislike funerals. And she was a good old soul, Mrs. Farrar.”
I placed the drawing of Harry Aspinall on the table. “You were shown this and asked if you recognised him. You said no.”
Benjie picked up his magnifying glass and looked at the drawing. “And I’d say no again. I’ve no great memory for faces, unless it’s someone I know well, like you.”
“If there’s anything you know about his disappearance, please tell me now.”
“Disappearance? Chap never appeared so he couldn’t very well disappear—unless you’re talking about long ago, when he took up with a French woman.”
“More recently than that.”
He shook his head. So that was how he intended to be, slightly dotty, forgetful, unaware that he knew the murdered man. As deputy to the Lord Lieutenant of the County, he might just get away with it.
“I’ll leave you to your counting.”
I went back into the hall, just in time to see Eliot saying goodbye to Gertrude. He gave me a wave, and left.
“Where did you get to, Kate?”
“I took Mrs. Dell home.”
“That was such an imposition. Some aged people do rather take liberties. Give them a walking stick or a speaking trumpet and they consider the rest of humanity to be at their beck and call.”
“I was happy to do it.”
She took my arm. “The vicar wants to say hello, and I’ve hardly spoken to you today.”
“Sorry but I have to leave in about five minutes. I have an appointment.”
“Ah, your essay?”
“That’s finished. Something has come up—a case. I’m meeting my assistant.”
“Goodness, that sounds important. You will come back?”
“Either that or I’ll send someone. It’s been really kind of you to put me up.”
It was likely, once I reported what I knew, she would never want to see me again. I hated the thought that it would be mutual. The sooner I left the better. I felt such a surge of regret and I had a sudden hope that Mrs. Dell was wrong.
“Well if you must go.” She stepped outside with me. “Before you go, is my embroidery pouch with those dreadful letters in your room?”
“Sorry, no, but I will return it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought to help solve the riddle of who wrote the letters, but you’ll know that already.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you wrote them. What I don’t understand is why.”
“You’re wrong.”
“There was one set of fingerprints, Gertrude.”
“Yours then.”
“Why did you do it?”
She gave a small smile. “I thought you’d hear things. I wanted you to know there are vicious people about. People are blaming us for closing the Bluebell Home. God knows why. It was good all the time we had it, and after we’d found placements there were only eight children left. No one blames the authorities about the home in Rothwell where the children are known to be cowed and miserable. It couldn’t go on. It’s as simple as that.”
“So you blew up a few trees one night, caused a commotion, said the site was dangerous and must be demolished.”
She was silent, her face stony, and then she gave a bitter laugh. “Holier than thou. You’ve never had to provide a living for a whole community. You don’t know what it’s like when everybody looks to you for a livelihood. Miners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers, railwaymen, all on your land, all wanting a living whether they can earn it or not. What about me? What kind of life do you think I have?”
“You have –”
“Benjie, that’s what you’re going to say. Of course I have. You were there. You witnessed the vows. I’ve kept my part of the bargain, and more. Old houses suck you dry, they make demands, and you cannot leave because there is an obligation. It’s not even my house. If Benjie dies, it would have gone to a cousin, but I hope to soon have a son and heir.”
It would be foolish to challenge her here and now about what Mrs. Dell saw and heard. Such hearsay would not stand up in court, and Mrs. Dell would rather die than damn her son in public. They must have had help. Raynor would have done Benjie’s bidding. Benjie stayed in the background covered with his cloak of respectability.
“It must have worried you that Benjie might have acknowledged Alec Taylor and made him his heir.”
“I thought you saw the family resemblance. Every day I look at a stable boy, who is very bright, good-looking, turning into a clever mechanic, and that’s all he will ever be.”
“At least Alec Taylor looks like Michael, not Benjie.”
“You mean no one will know. But I know. Raynor knows. He pities me. I can’t bear pity, and I loathe that boy.”
“That boy” was outside the window, talking to a man with a pushbike. An advertisement board on the cycle basket proclaimed a shop name: Picture This. When the man turned his head, I saw that he was Maurice Lewis, here in person to deliver my remaining photographs. But there was one secret I wanted to crack.
“Gertrude, how did you know that Mrs. Farrar had written to Harry Aspinall about the closure of the Bluebell Home?”
“Who told you that she had done so?”
“It doesn’t matter who told me.”
“Everything was done properly. Mrs. Farrar was outvoted. It was too late. Harry Aspinall had notice of that meeting and every other meeting. He took no responsibility. I wish he had come. He might have shared the blame for closing the home, instead of it all being directed at me. Though of course men are allowed to be prudent and consider the balance sheet. A woman is simply hard-hearted. Believe me, I’ve done nothing wrong.”
And I wanted to believe her. Perhaps Mrs. Dell was m
istaken.
She took my arm. “I’ll walk you to your car. And don’t leave it so long next time. If you’ve had enough of this place, let’s meet for one of our lunches.”
Raynor was beside us. “Shall I escort Mrs. Shackleton? I do believe you and Mr. Brockman are missed, madam.”
Gertrude sighed. “Hasn’t he come out yet?” She leaned to kiss me. “Must go, Kate.”
“Goodbye, Gertrude.”
Raynor remained obtrusively attentive. “I will have Milly gather your belongings. Shall we send them on?”
“Yes that would do.”
He missed nothing. I expected he would soon be in confab with Benjie, rejoicing in my departure.
Our way to the garage took us by the side door.
It was there that I saw Maurice Lewis, hovering near his bicycle with its Picture This sign on the basket. He smiled broadly and came towards me. Knowing of his foot problems, I couldn’t help but glance at his feet, shod in old army boots. He carried a slim parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
We exchanged a greeting. “I framed the picture of the lad reading his comic, because that was the best. I mounted the one of him by your car, and did a couple of postcards, as you asked. Do you want to look now?”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine. He’ll be delighted.”
He cleared his throat, before producing a small brown envelope. “My invoice, to settle entirely at your convenience.”
“Then I’ll call at the shop in the next day or so.” I glanced at the envelope. The handwriting was not Mr. Lewis’s careful copperplate but my dad’s scrawl. How annoying that he was sending me a note, as if I couldn’t look after myself. I would read the note when away from the watchful eye of Raynor.
Mr. Lewis presented the package.
I handed it to Alec. “Here you are—instant nostalgia. Something for your mantelpiece, to look back on when you reach ripe old age.”
Alec Taylor slid off the string without untying it and tore open the package. “Oh. Oh.” He looked at each photograph. “Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Shackleton.”
“It’s a pleasure, Alec.”
I put on my motoring coat, hat and gloves and got into the car. “Consider it a thank you for looking after my car.”
“There’s petrol in it, and I’ve filled the can.”
“Good.”
Raynor gave a small bow. “Safe journey, Mrs. Shackleton.”
“Thank you, Raynor.”
I waved as I drove off. The gates stood open. I turned onto the lane and set off at a good speed, wanting to leave Thorpefield House well behind me. I had forgotten that the lane bends so sharply and tried to brake, but even when I braked, something was wrong. The car wasn’t responding. As I turned the steering wheel, nothing happened. By the time I braked again, it was too late. The wood was coming to meet me. I heard the crash, as if it was someone else’s car, and then everything went black.
Chapter Forty-Four
For what seemed an age, I stayed still, my head against the windscreen, trying to work out what part of me hurt.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the sky, spinning, blue and white and grey, swirling down to my guts. Something was hurting. It was me.
“Are you all right?”
Hands on my shoulders. The voice again, nearer now. “Can you move?”
A different voice. “Mrs. Shackleton, you have to get out of the car.
I had to get out of the car because the car was going nowhere. It had let me down. I had let it down. If I sat still, they would go away, they would leave me alone.
The sky slowly righted itself, but it was too bright.
“Alec can’t open this. We’ll get you out the other side.”
They dragged me and pulled me, one on either side. “Hurry!”
“No!”
But they would not slow down. I knew them now, Milly and Alec. Alec was saying, “I think someone did it on purpose.”
And whether he was right or wrong, the fear in his voice touched something inside me. We were in the wood, dizzily moving through the trees. Blasts of light and shade, sun and shadow, patterns of leaves and flowers danced around us, snowdrops and daffodils. A voice that sounded like mine said, “Keep off the flowers.”
“Never mind the flowers,” Alec said.
We veered, onto a path, and another. Milly was breathing heavily. And then I had to stop. They kept running so that I was pulled along, my toes scraping the ground. Suddenly they paused, and it was because I was being sick.
Milly said, “She’ll choke.”
He said, “Keep going.”
I could see the sky revolving, and the tops of the trees and we were hurrying and I knew this must be the end.
They were walking quickly now. I wanted to sit down, to rest, even to just lean against a tree.
“We have to keep going,” Milly said.
It was the urgency in her voice as much as the words. It came back to me now. We knew too much. I knew too much.
Just me and Milly now. From a long way off the echo of what Alec said. Words were slow to go from my ear to my brain.
Milly kept talking to me, catching her breath in between. “We heard the crash. Alec saw it was going to happen.”
He would. Alec. Benjie’s son. Had he led us into the wood deliberately? What the car crash didn’t achieve, an “accident” might.
“We ran,” Milly said. “We were faster than the others.”
The others. The others would come for me.
The wood was so beautiful. Might this be the last thing I see? Now I felt steadier. My head hurt, I was dizzy, but my legs did as I wanted, one before the other.
Milly still held my arm. “I thought you’d had it.”
“Where are we going?”
“Away from the house. We’ve come through the clearing with the chair the old gardener made. We’re looking for his hut.”
The clearing with the chair was where I had taken Raynor’s photograph. It was he. He would be waiting, with a gun? Alec had led us into a trap. “How do we get out of the wood?”
“We’re not lost.” Milly was squeezing my arm so tightly, that I felt sure we were lost. I tried to break free.
She put her hand on my arm. “I’m not letting you go. You hit your head. You scared me.”
“I scared myself.” And then I smelled smoke. I stopped and sniffed. “Follow the smoke.”
“I suppose you were a girl scout, Mrs. Shackleton.”
“You suppose right, and this could be a trap.”
“Oh no, Alec likes you. You took his photograph. You were nice to him.”
Mrs. Farrar was nice to people, but someone killed her.
The old soldier was sitting on a little stool made from a log. His fire and his black pot looked like an illustration from a storybook about gypsies.
He stopped stirring the pot. “Hey up, what’s all this?”
I felt too tired to explain, not that I could have explained. On the third day, guests smell stale. This was the fifth day. Was it? The fourth, the sixth, I no longer knew.
It was a relief to me to see that Milly had my brief case. My brief case, my talisman. There was something in there that would be useful. I tried to remember what.
The old soldier handed me a tin cup. “Mind, it’s hot.”
“Do you good,” Milly said.
I took a drink, set the cup down and closed my eyes, seeing no one, feeling so alone.
It was the pong that told me he was there. “Best not shut your eyes if you’ve taken a bump.”
“I’m a nurse. I know that.”
“Then open yer flippin’ peepers.”
I felt sick again. “Milly, there’s brandy in my bag. Pass it round. I think we all need a drop.”
The old soldier grunted. “Not me. I’ve tekken the pledge.”
“Me as well,” Milly said. “What with Stephen playing in the Temperance Band. Not that alcohol has ever passed my lips.”
“Good lass,” th
e old man said.
I took the battered silver flask that had been my husband’s. Just for a moment, I forgot he was gone from the world. I pictured myself telling him how after a brush with death, I found myself in a darkening wood with judgemental teetotallers. I imagined his smile, and somehow felt better as I took a drink.
I introduced myself to the old soldier. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Herbert Wesley, and you’re safe here.”
“How do I get out of this wood, avoiding the road?”
“That depends on where you want to go.”
“I’d like to be in Wakefield, as quickly as possible. My car crashed.”
“Alec thinks someone tinkered with the steering linkages,” Milly said obligingly.
Herbert Wesley gulped. “That puts a different slant on the show.”
Part of me must have known. Even in my slightly concussed state, I had felt a sense of danger.
Herbert Wesley picked up a shotgun.
Was this the end, were we delivered to our final destination?
“I normally shoot rabbits, and game birds.” He took out a knife. “And I do a bit of this and that. But I’ll make an exception if necessary.”
So here was not our executioner, but our protector.
Pellets might be deadly against game, but not against a determined killer.
Now would be a good moment for someone to walk Sergeant Dog in this wood. He would find me.
It is against my usual habits to sit and wait for something to happen.
Given that Alec wasn’t allowed in the house, the possibility of telephoning for help evaporated. “Milly, do you know what Alec intends to do?”
“I’m not sure. We just dashed over and he said we had to be quick.”
“Why did you have to be quick?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t say.”
From his black cooking pot, Herbert Wesley filled the tin mug and now offered it to Milly.
“That’s all right. I had something earlier, after the funeral.”
He nodded. “Mrs. Farrar. God rest her soul. I’ll pay my respects when the crowds have lessened.”
The Body on the Train Page 21
