[Edith Horton 05] - Murder in Retreat

by Noreen Wainwright

  “I decided to try and talk to you, Reverend Wilkes because I was struck by how easy you are to approach, if I may say such a thing without over-stepping the mark…”

  “Of course.” There was a prickle on his top lip. It could be sweat. Or unease.

  “I think Reverend Fallon has been…has been…making a nuisance of himself.” Henry didn’t think that was what he’d expected her to say. “Do you mean that there’s a relationship between him and Mrs Elliott?” Ivy shook her head, her neck thin, vulnerable beneath the white blouse. Her pink twin-set looked too warm for the day and the skirt she wore was just the right side of shabby, the light tweed, knobbly at the knees.

  Part-time work, respectable but undervalued work and genteel poverty.

  “Not at all. Maybe he would like there to be. But she wouldn’t encourage that sort of thing. He’s married, you know.”

  “I do know, yes.” Henry hesitated, the prickle on his top lip became heat all over his face and neck. Whatever was he becoming embarrassed about. He had heard far worse than this - even in Ellbeck. It was the woman he was talking to—her discomfort that made him uneasy.

  “I think he has some sort of fixation on her, you see. I’ve seen him, time and time again, appearing at times he knows she is likely to be heading to the kitchen, or having her cup of tea in the kitchen. He’s been…it sounds ludicrous and demeaning to say such a thing, of a man in his position. But he has been positively lurking around corners. And Mrs Elliott has been on the edge of breaking down for days now…even before the attack on Reverend Bird. I want to help her. I’ve tried to hold out the hand of friendship but I don’t want to pry and I don’t want her to think that I’m some nosy, old spinster, looking for illicit romance where none exists.”

  What did she want him to do?

  The question must have been written on his face but he couldn’t come out with it. Why was she concerned? Undoubtedly she had developed a strong attachment to Fiona Elliott but wasn’t this taking concern for a colleague too far?

  “You’ll probably think the same thing, yourself, Reverend Wilkes.

  That I’m a frustrated middle-aged woman with an unhealthy interest in the private life of a work colleague. But that would be unfair. I am concerned but it comes from a different place.

  This is not my first job, Reverend Wilkes. Not by a long chalk. I worked in Whitehall, secretary for the higher echelons of the civil service. It was there I was introduced to the Archdeacon and the opportunity came to move to Lichfield. Both my parents were still alive at that point but becoming more elderly. My father died a year or so after I’d come back. As mother’s health and mobility deteriorated, it became clear that it wasn’t fair of me to continue working in the Close, not at that level and not full time. This post at St Chad’s came up. I have a small motor car, and drive myself out here. It’s ideal.”

  Henry wondered what it was that she wanted him to say, to do. She was a nice woman which was an inadequate word to describe her.

  She didn’t appear to have a deceitful bone in her body; that was it. But for all her show of worldliness, the talk of working in Whitehall, there was an innocence about her. Fiona Elliott, on the other hand, there was nothing innocent about her. Did she know how much of a champion and defender she had in this secretary? Did a woman like Fiona Elliott even see the likes of Ivy? Or was she deliberately planting some suspicion about Fallon. Why?

  “Reverend Wilkes, I would appreciate a word with you?”

  He hadn’t heard the footsteps because his attention had all been for Ivy.

  Canon Ephraim Richardson, stood, pale, self-absorbed in front of them. He cast the merest of glances at Ivy, who got up, still light in her movements but her head was bowed. Henry could have shouted at the selfish man. A clergyman, who not only had no way with people but who was capable of looking through someone.

  “Thank you very much, Reverend Wilkes. You’re a good listener. A kind man.”

  “Wait. Can you not hang on a moment? I’m sure Canon Richardson…”

  That was a waste of time. The elderly clergyman was going to take no notice whatever. Never mind hints. A steamroller wouldn’t stand in his way.

  “No, I need to get back to work. I’ve been away too long as it is. I have a couple of telephone calls to make and filing.” She smiled. Looked younger. “One certainty in life. There’s always filing.”

  He turned to Canon Richardson.

  Yorkshire

  Inspector Greene held the letter away from him.

  “You’re sure that’s the last letter. You didn’t stop looking once you’d found this lot, did you?”

  Bill Brown swallowed. Well, he had. How likely was it that the boy had different bundles of letters scattered amongst the other books and so on, in his bedroom. Calm down. The inspector wasn’t going to rattle him that easily.

  He’d had a good look around, hadn’t he? Before finding the letters.

  “All right. Don’t answer. I’m thinking that you’ve had a good look and I’m also thinking that the chances are that the lad packed up the last letter or letters and took them with him.”

  “His mother had no idea that his father had been writing to him, Sir. She was very put out.”

  “So, there weren’t any envelopes. We don’t know where they were sent to. Earnshaw’s perhaps? Also they aren’t going back that far. Twelve months. So, he started writing to the boy out of the blue. Something happened then to put them back in touch with each other.”

  A thought came from nowhere and Brown had a tightening in the base of his throat.

  What if they had got this badly wrong? Maybe the boy was not with his father. Since the minute it had been mentioned, they had concentrated on only that. Understandable. Boys hero-worshipped their fathers, even when they didn’t deserve it and even when they had left their sons behind. It was still the most likely explanation and the father was capable of pulling a trick like that. But, they could be wrong.

  John

  The man came back to the Bedford van after what seemed like ages.

  John looked sideways at him, hesitating. It would be easier to say nothing. The man has changed. Now, he gave the impression of someone who had what his mother used to call, a short fuse. His dad had been like that and maybe that was the reason he’d made friends with this man.

  He was desperate to ask the man questions. The first one was when would they get to where his father was? The man had said that he was up North. That sounded exciting. “Scotland, you mean?” he’d asked and the man laughed.

  “You’re right, boy. In the wilds of Scotland. Ever been there?”

  “No.” He wasn’t able to hold back. Didn’t want to seem like an ignorant boy who’d never been more than a few miles from Ellbeck.

  “I’ve read about it a lot though, Sir.” The “Sir,” slipped out.

  His mother had taught him that. Always call an older man, Sir, if you weren’t related to him.

  “What? Rob Roy and all that?” The man laughed. John shouldn’t have said anything. He was trying too hard to impress this man and he only ended up looking a stupid kid.

  “Well, you’ll like the estate. The McClaren estate. Yes, your old man fell on his feet there all right. As much game as he can eat and a cottage on the estate and the run of the place.” It sounded better than amazing. He pushed aside other thoughts rushing into his head. His mother. Cathy. Freddie and other boys too. The scholarship. Mainly his mother. But he wasn’t a kid to be tied to his mother’s apron strings—his dad’s expression. When he first used it, John was angry and it wasn’t true anyway. But the way she’d been lately… Well maybe his dad had a point. She didn’t get it at all. Didn’t accept that he was getting older and didn’t listen.

  Yorkshire

  “We need to veer away from the mother. I’m beginning to think, Brown that she doesn’t know a thing about what is going on in her son’s life. These letters are a surprise to her.”

  “I suppose, sir, that he wouldn’t be wa
nting to upset her. She and Josh parted on bad terms, I gather. She might not like it that the lad was having anything to do with him, now.”

  “Talk to the sister. Come on. Someone will know something. I can’t believe that a young lad could keep something like this all to himself. The letters, yes. I can accept that. It shows a level of slyness, mind you, getting them sent elsewhere, if that’s what he did. But, planning to bail out altogether? No. Young Earnshaw or Cathy or someone else will know something.”

  Brown couldn’t agree that the boy was sly. Greene’s lack of understanding of young people, again. He couldn’t see that the boy wouldn’t want to upset his mother. Not only that. He’d be caught up in the whole adventure of it. The consequences to others was something that only really dawned on a kid later on, in his experience.

  “There’s been a development, sir, about the boy. John Braithwaite.” PC Walters spoke as he pushed the door open. There had been a tap, barely heard by either of them. He hadn’t waited for a response and his face was lit up with it—with being the one who was passing on something important.

  Brown felt a pang of something that didn’t bear too close a scrutiny. He saw himself in the junior officer. That was all.

  “Mrs Braithwaite has come in, sir. She has another lady with her and she’s very upset.”

  Brown’s throat tightened and his heartbeat broke into a gallop as he looked over at Inspector Greene.

  “What are you waiting for, lad? Bring her straight in. You may as well bring them both through. Make yourself scarce then. Brown, I want you here.”

  Brown tried to quell the dart of satisfaction. It was neither the time nor the place for that indulgence.

  As Inspector Greene bent to get something from the drawer, Walters shot a look at Brown, which Bill chose not to see.

  Hannah Braithwaite wore a headscarf despite the warmth of the day. A blue cardigan, white blouse and grey skirt. She removed the scarf and it was clear that she’d worn it to cover her hair which she’d had no time to see to. Rats’ tails was what his mother would call it. Slightly greasy, held back with a pair of hairclips. Apart from that she looked immaculate as she always did. Miss Horton, or Mrs Wilkes, as she was now, wore a summer dress. They both looked as though the tension would burst from them like blue smoke. Mrs Braithwaite, stood as stiff as a board, scarf still in her hand, her brown handbag over the other arm.

  Greene indicated a pair of institutional brown chairs.

  “Well,” he said. Not an ounce of compassion now.

  Mrs Wilkes touched Hannah Braithwaite’s hand,

  “Go on, Hannah.”

  “I’ve heard from my husband. I made contact, you see.”

  “Without telling us, without letting us know, even, that you had a way of getting in touch with him?” The inspector’s voice was steady, not loud even but when you knew him as well as Brown did, you knew that was dangerous.

  “It were…it was…an impulse. It wasn’t that I set out to deceive anyone, Inspector. The thought came to me as I sat there in the kitchen, no bed and no sleep and hardly able to join one thought to the next. But, it came to me in the middle of it that there was his sister. My sister-in-law. It isn’t as if we kept in touch, not much. But there were Christmas cards and keep an address book and there she was, Josh’s sister, Sadie. Ivy Cottage, Hazel Road, Holm Firth. I went straight to the post office and Marjorie Sowerby sent a telegram for me. Josh’s sister had an address for him. She even had a telephone number, he rings

  her up every week. His local pub. He telephoned me at Doctor Horton’s…The thing is…he hasn’t seen John at all, knows nothing about why he’s disappeared”.

  Her voice rose and before their eyes, the colour left her face.

  “Put your head down, Hannah. Here.” The other woman had her hand on the back of Mrs Braithwaite’s neck, was pushing her head down.

  Brown knew all about first aid. She must think the woman was about to faint. Where could they put her to lie down, if that was the case? The floor?

  “Are you all right?” Inspector Greene’s voice was gruff but it was probably the case that by feeling faint, Mrs Braithwaite had spared herself the worse of the inspector’s wrath, for now, at least.

  “I’m all right. I’m sorry. It was a shock. In my heart of hearts I was convinced that John had gone with his father. Not that it was expected, but, from what Cathy said and what I pieced together in my mind, it was the only explanation…” And the best one, by a million miles. Brown’s stomach knotted and he regretted the meat pie he’d put away at dinner time.

  “He’s coming down. Been in Cumbria, working on some big farm there. He has the use of a car. He said he’d put up at the Dun Cow. I don’t really want him in the house, despite…”

  She sounded stronger, recovered.

  “You believe him, Mrs Braithwaite? He’s telling the truth, you think?”

  She looked back at the inspector.

  “I wish I didn’t.” Her words fell heavily into the room, adding to the bleakness.

  “He swore to me that he hadn’t seen John since he left Ellbeck years ago. He admitted writing to him. Straight out. But, John hasn’t gone with him and I know he’s telling the truth because, Inspector, he sounded really worried.”

  Staffordshire

  “No. I don’t believe it. None of it adds up.” Larry looked across at Henry. They had walked across to the village pub. After his disturbing conversation—another disturbing conversation—with Canon Richardson, Henry had given himself a lecture. They were hanging fire here in what was becoming a ridiculous situation.

  In the midst of unease and even an attack on a member of their group and the police requirement for them all to stay put—the retreat had lost its purpose. It might be that they needed quiet

  and contemplation and prayer but in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust like this, it was asking too much and added to the tension in St Chad’s.

  Brother Malcolm had tried to hold out. But, his heart probably wasn’t in it.

  “I see what you’re saying Wilkes but, by the same token, isn’t it going to be even more tense if we are all rattling round here, with no purpose whatsoever, merely waiting for Inspector Jardine to tell us that we are free to go?

  “I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have our quiet times and our services. It’s the silence. I think it’s putting too much strain on everybody. People need to huddle together in corners. It might not be all that edifying but it’s human nature.” Brother Malcolm nodded. “I’ll need to speak to the Archdeacon. I don’t think there will be an objection. I expect they are as much at sea as we are, here.” He hesitated.

  “I think you may be right too, about the strain. I’m concerned about the Canon.” He looked at Henry and though he opened his mouth to speak, he thought better of it. “Well, I’ll just say that I’m worried about him.”

  Henry had spoken to Canon Richardson again, listened to more of his ramblings about being frightened about someone in the house being out to do him harm. It was ramblings. Wasn’t it?

  Henry tried his theory out on Larry, because he wasn’t sure. How could you be sure? Harm had come to Stephen Bird. No explanation had been found. It had happened at St Chad’s. What if he and everyone else, because he was rapidly concluding there was nothing special about him—the canon was buttonholing all and sundry to pass on his paranoid fears and ask for help.

  “Do you think he’s really being threatened, or somehow, looking for attention?”

  “He’s frightened, whether it’s real or imaginary.” They had reached the Three Horseshoes, a small, down to earth country pub, nothing of polished horse brasses and fiddly ornamentation. In fact, it was probably better not to look too closely at the nooks and crannies of this place. The patrons were of the same ilk as the pub, agricultural workers, playing dominoes and letting it be known by the barely visible nods and slight raising of voices, that the two clergymen were here on sufferance.

  “Two pints of your most popular bitter
,” Henry asked the pleasant-faced woman behind the bar, feeling his voice too loud and too posh.

  “I had a conversation with Ivy Miller. She likes Fiona Elliott.

  It’s hard to imagine why, because the woman is as prickly as a

  thistle but she’s inspired loyalty in someone, at least. Ivy seems a decent soul, made me think I may have misjudged Mrs Elliott. She has been short with me but so what? As a clergyman you do meet that, it shouldn’t be all that unusual.”

  “Mmm, not sure, Henry. You come across it, yes, usually from people who don’t like clergymen per se but we can exclude this here. She wouldn’t be working here if that was the case.”

  Henry wasn’t sure you could take that for granted. A job was a job; something people who grew up in privilege could often fail to grasp.

  “I think you’re right, though.” Larry leaned back on the pub bench, dark hair against the smoke-stained white walls. She’s not a happy woman, troubled, angry, pent-up. I don’t know much of her background only that she was left a young widow. Husband died of that damned flu that ravaged the place after the war. It’s all a long time ago but I suppose would make a person angry...to go all though that lot and then for such a stupid thing to do what the curse of war could not.”

  Henry could understand. There had been a strong survival instinct in the wake of the war. It was necessary, more marriages, more births. But, that hadn’t been the case for everyone. The papers had insultingly talked about surplus women. Some men, too had had hopeless responses to what had happened; the writer, Conan Doyle, for instance, dabbling in spiritualism—anything to escape the bleakness of loss.

  “You’re in a brown study, my friend.” Henry smiled, shook his thoughts, commanding them to settle.

  “I think she was involved with Fallon, though and Fallon is a rum one, as they say. I think he knows more about the attack on Bird than he acknowledges. Disappearing like that…I don’t know. Far too much of a coincidence. As for Canon Richardson. I wish I knew what game he’s playing, whether there’s truth in this story he’s putting about that he’s in danger of his life or he has some other reason for wanting us to think it?”