A Restless Evil Page 25

  ‘Does that matter?’ she asked simply. ‘The result’s the same. They might have been told by their families not to go near the woods, it wasn’t safe. They might have gone there anyway and then been afraid to own up. They’d be blamed because they disobeyed. The family would say, the girl had brought it on herself.’ Her gaze met his briefly, ‘There’s no way out,’ she said. ‘Not living in a small place like this. Clever people living in towns might say differently. But here, well, certainly twenty-two years ago, we all knew each other so well. We all had to live cheek by jowl. No one wanted to believe there was something – someone – so evil here, in Lower Stovey, so they had to believe it was somehow the victim’s fault, do you see?’

  He did see. After a moment, Markby said, ‘The young man, the girl’s boyfriend, you spoke of, he might have guessed what had happened?’

  She gave a faint travesty of a smile. ‘Oh yes, he might have guessed. And he might have said, so long as no one knew, he’d not speak of it again and I – the girl wouldn’t speak of it and it’d be forgotten.’

  ‘And has it been forgotten?’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘The knowledge is like some kind of growth, like a fungus that you get on rotten wood. It gets bigger and smells fouler and you can’t do anything about it because you’ve agreed to pretend it’s not there. After a while, you can’t speak of it but you’re aware of it, oh, you’re aware of it there at your shoulder all right. I can’t speak of it, Superintendent, I’ll never speak of it.’

  Markby’s gaze drifted to the birthday cake.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘It’s possible, but I don’t know, no more does Kevin. You see, we were courting at the time and we – well, we were going to get married anyway when I was eighteen so we sort of jumped the gun, if you like.’

  ‘So that’s another thing between you that you never speak of?’

  She gave that sad smile again. ‘How can we, now?’

  Markby got to his feet. ‘I’m truly sorry to have bothered you.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s just, I’ve been remembering the Potato Man for over twenty years, too. He’s never left me. I failed to find him. That matters to me. Because I failed to find him after the first reported attack, on Mavis Cotter, other women became his victims. It is, if you like, on my conscience. It’s the thing at my shoulder which doesn’t go away. I’ll follow up any small clue, even now. Goodbye, Mrs Jones.’

  As he reached the door he thought he heard a muffled sound behind him, as if she’d spoken, and he looked back.

  She had taken sausage meat from a bowl and was rolling it into a long snake.

  Without looking up at him, she said, ‘He had a working man’s hands.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘Oh yes. And they weren’t young hands, if you see what I mean. They’d calluses on them from years of work.’

  Old Martin Jones was still in the barn as Markby passed by but he didn’t look in. He’d no wish to buy a conveyance. He got in his car and drove slowly down the track to where it joined the road. There, instead of turning left up towards the village, he turned right and drove the remaining two hundred yards to where the road terminated and the woods began.

  Switching off the engine, Markby sat back and stared through the windscreen at the dark mass of the woods, shivering in the wind. Meredith would be at Ruth’s by now and they’d be waiting for him. He didn’t want to be involved in tea, cake and chatter. He had to come here again. The woods drew him to them, the woods and their secret. He was right. He’d begun to work it out on the day of Hester’s death, the conviction growing ever stronger, just the details blurred. But what he hadn’t got was any kind of proof. And would he ever get it? Which was worse? Not knowing? Or believing he knew and not being able to prove it? And why Hester? If anyone had died, should it not have been Ruth Pattinson Aston, the local girl?

  Markby got out of the car, slammed the door and made for the stile. He climbed over it and jumped down on the damp earth. He sniffed, able to smell the rain. The noise made by the wind in the trees was so loud now, it sounded like the angry roaring of some creature roaming in there. He had to force away the idea, remembering with a wry grimace his words to Meredith, that whatever lurked in the woods had only ever been entirely human. Markby turned up the collar of his jacket and set off down the narrow track between the trees.

  When Alan’s car had disappeared from sight, Meredith turned in under the lych-gate and walked towards the church door. It was unlocked. Ruth had been here today. Ruth had courage. Before she went into the porch Meredith turned her head and glanced back at the Fitzroy Arms. No one stood in its doorway now but she fancied something moved behind one of the windows. She didn’t doubt she was being observed and another black mark being put down against her.

  She opened the wire door and went down the few steps into the old church. It was cool and smelled a little musty, the odour of dust in old fabric hangings and piled up in nooks and crannies where Ruth’s duster couldn’t reach. By the place where Hester had been found someone had put flowers in a vase. Hester’s story would become part of the story of this church, related to visitors in years to come.

  The Fitzroy monuments in their splendour looked forlorn, forgotten, out of their time and their place. In their boastfulness of a lost grandeur, they put Meredith in mind of Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’. Nothing lasts for ever, she thought, not a great name nor great wealth nor a social system which put the squire securely at the top of the local heap. She tried to imagine Sir Rufus in his periwig, proceeding majestically to his appointed seat between obsequious rows of other worshippers, the majority of whom would’ve depended on him for their livelihoods. Or, to go further back, wicked old Sir Hubert, wheeling and dealing with the bishop, offering a church for a pardon. ‘I can’t say better than that, your grace, now, can I?’ And the bishop, knowing he’d got Hubert on the run, insisting that the new church must be large, splendid, well-appointed. Seen in the context of all the past, Hester’s murder was just one more event to be absorbed by St Barnabas and relegated in time, like the others, to history.

  Outside the church again, the wind ruffled her hair and the uncut grass growing long on the untended graves swayed like a hayfield. Meredith walked around to the south side and stared up at the carving of the Green Man. There was a look of malign mischief on his face still, even though the stone was weatherworn. Meredith shivered, perhaps because of the carving, perhaps because the wind pierced the thin fabric of her shirt. Then she heard behind her a sound which wasn’t the wind or the rustling grass, a heavy, laboured breathing.

  The hairs on her neck prickled. Meredith turned slowly and looked around her. The churchyard appeared empty. But she could still hear that eerie breathing. It came from the direction of a mossy tomb. For a few seconds she froze in pure panic. What was in there, trying to get out? Then, pulling herself together, she told herself firmly that it was in the middle of a Saturday afternoon and whatever was making its presence known in this deserted place, it was of this world and no other. Of course the sound didn’t come from the tomb. It came from behind it. Cautiously she picked her way towards the spot.

  Behind the tomb, slumped on the ground, his back to the monument, was Old Billy Twelvetrees. His stick lay on the ground beside him. When his eyes fixed on her, he opened his mouth, but then abandoned the attempt to speak, merely pointing feebly at his chest.

  He suffered from angina, Meredith remembered Ruth telling her so. She stooped over him, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Twelvetrees. I’ll get help. I’ve got my mobile and I’ll call an ambulance.’

  Alarm crossed his face. He waved his hand in a gesture of negation. His mouth opened again and he wheezed, so quietly she had to stoop right down beside him to catch the words, ‘I don’t want – to go to – no hospital.’

  ‘You can’t stay here, Mr Twelvetrees.’

  ‘I – got – my pills. All I want – are – my pills.’ His hand dropped to his side and he tapped the pocket of his jacket.

 
‘Are they in your pocket?’ Meredith hunkered down and prepared to search his jacket pocket. She didn’t particularly relish pushing her hand down among the fluff and bits of sticky rubbish but there was a small bottle. She pulled it out and held it up. ‘These?’

  He nodded.

  Meredith scanned the wording on the bottle, opened it and tapped out a small white pill on her palm. ‘Just open your mouth a bit, can you?’

  She pushed the pill through his withered lips.

  The muscles of his face moved as he sucked on the pill. After a bit he wheezed, ‘I can get up now if you—’ Another wave of his hand.

  ‘I’ll help you. Look, here’s your stick and you can brace yourself against this tomb.’

  Somehow she got him upright. A flush of colour had returned to his cheeks. He said, more clearly than before, ‘I get took sometimes like it. I just sat down for a minute because it come on bad.’

  ‘Perhaps we can get you home, Mr Twelvetrees, and then I can phone your doctor.’

  ‘I got pills,’ he repeated stubbornly.

  ‘Yes, I know, but I still think – let’s get you home first, shall we?’

  With his stick to support him on one side and leaning heavily on her arm on the other, he progressed slowly to the path and down it, under the lych-gate, out into the street.

  ‘I live along there,’ he gasped, indicating the left hand row of cottages.

  At that moment, Evie appeared in the pub doorway. ‘Summat wrong with you, then, Uncle Billy?’ Her round face wrinkled in alarm.

  ‘He’s had an angina attack,’ Meredith called to her. ‘Do you know his doctor?’

  Evie gaped at her. ‘Oh, it’ll be Dr Stewart.’

  ‘Can I bring your uncle inside?’

  Evie dithered and then stood back as if to allow them into the pub. But Old Billy gasped, ‘I can get to my house.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ Meredith told him doubtfully. To Evie she called, ‘He wants to go to his house. Can you call Dr Stewart’s surgery and tell them what’s happened? I think someone should call on Mr Twelvetrees today.’

  Evie blinked at her, then turned and went inside, with luck to ring the doctor.

  She and Billy made an ungainly progress to his ramshackle cottage. Meredith propped him against the wall by the door and rapped the fox’s head knocker as loudly as she could. No one came.

  Old Billy said, ‘Dilys will be about somewhere. You can leave me here.’

  ‘No, I can’t, Mr Twelvetrees. Haven’t you got a key?’

  ‘Don’t need no key. Back door will be open.’

  Meredith’s gaze searched the row of cottages, seeking some access to the rear. She spied a narrow alley, little more than a wide crack, between the next cottage down and the one after that.

  ‘Down there, Mr Twelvetrees?’

  He nodded. ‘Gimme a minute or two and I’ll be able to get myself round the back.’

  She couldn’t abandon him, not in this state. ‘You stay here. I’ll go round and if I can get inside, I’ll go through the house and open the front door for you.’

  ‘No – Dilys—’ he began and grasped at her arm but let it drop to put a hand to his chest. ‘It’s coming on again.’

  Meredith didn’t wait. She ran to the alley and squeezed down it, her shoulders rubbing the rough stone walls of the cottages to either side. It led between the two gardens and then, sure enough, at the end debouched into a muddy lane which ran past the rear of all the cottages in the High Street. Meredith turned right and found the rear of the Twelvetrees’ home. It was secluded from the lane by a ramshackle fence of corrugated iron sheeting and a wooden door. To it was nailed, as if some ghastly talisman, an old, dried and dirty hairy object which she realised was a fox’s brush. She shuddered. To what purpose had it been fixed here? To keep away what unwished visitation? Avoiding it, she pushed the door. It creaked open and she hurried across the garden which appeared entirely given over to cabbages and smelled pungently of rotting greens. She fumbled at the back door.

  It swung open beneath her touch and she found herself in the kitchen. The air there smelled of fried bacon. She called, ‘Dilys?’

  There was no reply. She was half-way across the kitchen and almost at the door into the hallway, when her eye caught a jumble of objects on the kitchen table. Despite the urgency of her errand, curiosity made her turn aside to see them better.

  All appeared to have been taken from a battered cardboard shoebox which lay to one side. The objects had been laid out in a kind of pattern as if some human version of a bower-bird had been setting out its hoard of bright-coloured garnerings to lure a mate. There was a string of beads. It had broken and the ends roughly reknotted. Beside it lay a very nice male signet ring, another ring with a large fake stone, a pearl earring, a woman’s wristwatch, a copper bangle and a blue plastic hairslide shaped like a butterfly.

  The kitchen seemed unnaturally quiet. Meredith picked up the signet ring. It was heavy, expensive. On the shield was engraved, in Gothic lettering, SH.

  She put it back gently, as if it might break. As if in a trance, she walked down the hallway and pulled open the front door. Old Billy still stood where she’d left him, propped against the doorjamb.

  ‘You’d best come in, Mr Twelvetrees.’ Her voice sounded distant, not her own.

  She took his arm and led him into the hall and after a momentary hesitation, into the tiny parlour to the right, which gave on to the street.

  Old Billy subsided into his armchair and leaned back with a sigh.

  ‘I’ll be all right now. You don’t need to stay. Dilys will be here in no time. She won’t have gone far.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure!’ He raised the stick and gestured towards the door. ‘You go on! Our Dilys, she won’t be far away, just nipped out to see a neighbour most like. I’ve got me pills. I’m all right now, sitting here quiet.’

  She left him, going out of the front door and pulling it shut behind her. A glance up and down the street showed no one but an elderly woman, unknown to her. She didn’t think that could be the absent Dilys who, Alan had told her, was Old Billy’s daughter. That old dame was at least seventy. The woman went into another cottage and shut her door. So that was that. Dilys cleaned for Ruth Aston. Could she have gone there?

  Meredith wrestled with conflicting responsibilities, her mind reeling. In Old Billy’s interest, she ought to go back to the pub to tell Evie that she’d left Mr Twelvetrees alone and check that the woman had called the doctor. But time was of the essence. She knew that the person she wanted to see was Alan and that it was imperative she see him as soon as possible. She had to get him back here before anyone else came, Dilys, Evie, Dr Stewart, anyone. Any of them might tidy away the objects on the kitchen table. Alan had to see them there, just as they were.

  He’d driven to that farm, Greenjack. Meredith fumbled in her bag for her mobile phone and rang his. For some reason she was unable to make contact. She pushed the phone back in her bag and thought furiously. If she walked in that direction, towards Stovey Woods, she’d probably meet him driving back. Meredith set off down the street.

  Soon she’d left the houses behind and the track led on between the drystone walls towards the woods, dark and hostile on the near horizon. The wind ruffled her hair. It carried a few spots of rain on it. Meredith stepped out briskly.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The distant woods had seemed nearer to the naked eye than they were in reality. As Meredith trudged along the uneven single track road, they began to take on the characteristics of a mirage, always just ahead. There was no sign of Alan’s car coming towards her as she’d hoped. The further she got from Lower Stovey, the lonelier it became. The wind whipped across the open fields and buffeted her face and clothes. Even the sheep huddled under the shelter of the drystone walls. The rainspots were getting more frequent and stronger. She hadn’t so much as a scarf and was going to get soaked. A curious and unpleasant sensation was assailing the spot bet
ween her shoulderblades, as it can do when one senses one is being followed. She began to glance behind her but the road was as empty behind as before. A couple of times her attention was taken by the sheep, suddenly uttering loud bleats and scattering across the field in a panic. Perhaps the sight of her had alarmed them, though she couldn’t think why. She had the feeling, and couldn’t get rid of it, that she was being watched. By whom? Only the sheep. The few cows were all lying down, chewing placidly as they awaited the rain. They had no interest in a solitary human hurrying along the road. ‘Get a hold of your nerves!’ she told herself sternly.

  There was no avoiding the rain now. It had begun to fall steadily. She had to put up with it as the animals were doing. It trickled down her face, her shirt became wet and her jeans clung unpleasantly to her thighs. Meredith strode out determinedly, making the best time she could, but discomfort was adding to the frustration of not seeing the familiar car approaching. Where was Alan? How long was he taking at that farm?

  There was a turning ahead and a wooden sign. At last! She scanned the words ‘Greenjack Farm’ and turned down a muddy track. The farm-gate appeared barring her way forward and holding for her all the significance of a frontier post for a refugee. But her heart sank when she found no one in the yard and most significantly, still no sign of Alan’s car. Meredith frowned, puzzled. She hadn’t encountered him on the only road back into the village. He appeared to have dematerialised. She picked her way cautiously across the yard avoiding the more obvious cowpats but certain her shoes were fouled up with odiferous slime, the memory of which would linger long after the footwear itself was scrubbed.

  Her ring at the farmhouse door was answered by a woman about forty. She stared at Meredith in some surprise as well she might.

  Meredith, knowing that her drenched appearance out of nowhere probably begged explanation but unable to give it, simply asked, ‘Is Superintendent Markby here?’