[Edith Horton 05] - Murder in Retreat

by Noreen Wainwright

  “It was in the Somme. Three of us. The best of friends, more like brothers. I look back, Wilkes and see that I was fearless back then. I was a different person. A foolish, fearless lad, because it is only fools who had no fear. Jamie, Raymond and me, in our trench, and pretending that this was a game.”

  Henry closed his eyes for a brief few seconds. He had heard this story or variations of this story so many times. He knew where it was going and like a coward himself, he wanted to block it out.

  Did not want to hear the rest.

  “Then, it was the morning of first Somme battle. Carnage. Pushing forward. Rum rations first to deaden the fear. Men falling.

  Terror, though you’re not supposed to admit to that. I had a searing realisation, Wilkes. In one second as we pushed forward.

  The madness of it. It wasn’t brave and it wasn’t patriotic. It was madness. I turned around and was overcome with the urge to turn against the tide. To turn back…”

  He sighed, a shuddering sort of sigh and took a drink from his mug.

  “Jamie put a hand on my shoulder. I’d lost track of where I was, where he was, who was nearby. The touch of his hand on my shoulder was enough to make me turn forward. There was no way of going back to the trench anyway and if I had somehow managed to escape somewhere all it would have meant was that I would have been shot. No wobbling tolerated at that stage, not when things looked so bad for us.

  The fighting intensified and Jamie fell. Not dead, not yet. I tried to stop. I tried to drag him, was pushed forward and I had to leave him. I saw his eyes and that’s what did for me. That’s the night terror, what haunts me. If I hadn’t hesitated and faltered and he hadn’t maybe hung back to encourage me…then. Oh, damn it to hell.”

  His voice rose and Henry got to his feet. He put his hand on Bird’s arm. “You’re tormenting yourself, Stephen. It was a time out of time, an aberration. There’s a choice now, though.” He held his breath. If it was that simple, there wouldn’t be men throughout the country in mental hospitals with shattered nerves or at home making a hell of a life for wives and others who loved them. Drinking too much—and worse.

  Bird answered, “You’re right and I do try. I have seen a nerve man. He helped me. The job helps me, too. Immersing myself in the lives of others. But.” He threw his right arm out, as though encompassing the room.

  “Coming here was a mistake. Too much time for reflection.

  Fallon.”

  “You and Fallon, I got the feeling that maybe you knew each other?” He paused. Over-stepping the mark, he might be. But, cliché it might be about the barriers coming down in the intimacy of the night, there was truth in it.

  He didn’t speak for a few seconds. “Our paths have crossed. It’s a small world, the clerical world.”

  He was guarded.

  “He doesn’t seem to like you.” Henry knew that was as far as he could go.

  As Henry heard the voices, he hesitated. Suddenly, he had the unsavoury image of himself as a snoop…a clergyman, lurking round corners and prying into people’s secrets. Maybe that was why Canon Richardson had sought him out. Mind you, as time went on he was beginning to believe that Canon Richardson wasn’t discerning about who he confided in.

  Now, Henry lurked, there was no other word for it, outside Brother Malcolm’s room. He had arranged to telephone Edith at ten. The door was ajar and the voice he heard first was that of Fiona Elliott but not as the woman he knew. She sounded completely different, engaged, confiding and it brought him up short.

  “The truth of it, Ivy, is that I don’t know where to turn.”

  There was a soothing murmur from the other woman. Her tone was indignant when she spoke. “It’s insupportable that you should have to tolerate this.”

  “Oh, Ivy. I don’t know what I’d do without you to talk to. I honestly don’t know which direction to turn in, and now this attack as well and police here and all of them here in the house for days and days, yet.”

  “Could you maybe take some time off? Speak to Brother Malcolm. He might not be the most effectual of managers but he is fair and you’ve had to put up with…”

  Henry reached a snap decision. Making a fair amount of noise, he clamoured into the room. Both women turned in his direction.

  Fiona Elliott frowned. “Were you wanting to speak to Brother Malcolm? He’s out. He had an appointment in Lichfield.”

  “No but I did have his permission to use the telephone. I need to speak to my wife.”

  She looked as if she had more to say but Ivy Miller broke in.

  “We’ll get out of your way. Fiona, I need to speak to you about the ordering of some more office supplies. Brother Malcolm wants a joint order to go in from now on.”

  She put her hand lightly on the other woman’s elbow, in a curiously intimate gesture, one he couldn’t imagine using on the prickly housekeeper. It was an interesting insight. Humbling.

  Maybe his version of the relationship between the two women was wrong and Fiona relied on the other woman, more than was apparent. Perhaps Ivy Miller was not the awe-struck spinster in the thrall of the more worldly Fiona Elliott. He should know better than to underestimate someone like Ivy Miller. You didn’t have to have a way with the make-up brush and the opposite sex to have strength of character.

  Yorkshire

  “Five more days,” Edith and Henry both said it before putting the telephone receivers down. They had both spoken in such a heartfelt tone and at the same moment, that she couldn’t help laughing and it was nice to laugh and feel carefree if only for a few moments.

  Edith tried to tell herself that her uneasy feeling about Henry and the retreat had lessened. It was also probably the case that, as usual in her head, all the worrying feelings became jumbled up and come to think of it, it was around the time that John went missing that she began to worry and let her imagination run riot about Henry in Staffordshire.

  “Max, come here,” She’d been neglecting her dog and she was sure he missed Henry too as he’d taken to trotting across to the back door of the vicarage at frequent interval and sticking his nose to the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door.

  Now, he ambled across to her, sat on the floor next to the old kitchen sofa and settled his head onto her lap.

  “Mind my coffee, old lad,” she said, moving it across from the arm of the sofa to the top of the adjacent stove.

  She stroked behind his ears. After marrying Henry, getting this dog was the second most life-enhancing thing she’d done in a long time.

  There would be no real return to normality until both John Braithwaite and Henry were back home in Ellbeck. She had put in a couple of hours in the surgery, this morning though, getting there early and feeling the need to get a few jobs done. The practice soon began fraying at the edges without someone completing paperwork, appointment books, and invoices.

  Though she’d doubted whether she’d be able to put her mind to useful work, it had a soothing effect. She was in control here and knew exactly what she was doing and that was a good feeling when there was so much going on beyond her control.

  Cathy Braithwaite rang last night after she and Hannah had returned from the meeting in the inn with the two policemen and her father.

  “He denies knowing anything about where John is, why he went.”

  Edith’s stomach lurched. They had all, Hannah in particular, been pinning a lot of hope on John Braithwaite being responsible—one way or another—for John’s disappearance. Now, to think that he was back, without his son and denying all knowledge of what had happened to him was insupportable. It was a stupid question but she let herself ask it anyway.

  “How is your mother, Cathy?” Cathy’s voice wobbled. “Oh, Miss Horton, she’s in an awful state. Worn out from it all and can hardly believe that John didn’t go off with our father. I made her take a glass of warmed brandy like my great uncle used to have at night and I made her go to bed. I think she will sleep because she looked exhausted, like the last few days had re
ally caught up with her.”

  Edith intended going out to the cottage after she’d had some late breakfast and taken Max for a short walk. But there was a rap on the back door and Hannah let herself in. An anxious-looking Cathy was close on her heels.

  Hannah’s expression was set and there was something different in her demeanour. “Edith, Seth Hauxwell gave us a lift into the village. I want to ask you a big favour. Josh is staying on at the Dun Cow. He tried to say that he had to go today, back to his job but Inspector Greene told him he couldn’t. In no uncertain terms. He’s to say where he is and they are talking to him later today. The thing is, I want to talk to him before they do.

  Cathy sighed. “Mam, I honestly think you should leave it to them.

  To Inspector Greene and the sergeant. I don’t think Dad will get away with anything, not with that Inspector. He won’t let Dad brow-beat him.”

  “Not like me, you mean?” The silence following Hannah’s question answered her. “I’m not going to be talked out of this, Cathy.

  It’s too important. If there’s the slightest chance I can get some information out of Josh then I’m going to try. I couldn’t live with myself, otherwise.”

  Edith knew why they had come around to the vicarage. “You wanted a lift?”

  “Yes but more that you will go to the Dun Cow, with me and Cathy.

  You see, I’m sure he knows more about John disappearing than he’s letting on. I know he does.”

  She turned to Cathy who looked white and taut with nerves.

  “You’re wrong, Cathy. I won’t be brow-beaten by him anymore because it doesn’t matter to me. I’m not bothered about keeping the peace and humouring him. I want to know whatever it is he’s keeping from us. I’m asking you, Edith, because for all Josh’s talk about not giving a fig for class and education and the rest of it, deep down he’s impressed by it. I want the backup, Edith.

  I’m sorry to put you in this position but I’ve never more wanted a favour.”

  “I’ll get my coat,” Edith said.

  There was hardly any conversation on the way to inn, the three of them lost in their own thoughts. Cathy was in the back of the Morris; she was especially quiet and Edith wondered what her feelings about her father really were. One thing was for sure was they would be more complex than those of her mother. Cathy might display strong antipathy to him and be in her mother’s corner but a part of her would still be hoping that her father would do right thing because she was tied to him by blood.

  Edith’s own relationship with her father had been difficult but she was old and wise enough now, to realise that it had been one of the most important in her life and had shaped a lot of what she had done later, apart from marrying Henry. That had been a truly grown up relationship. Edith as her own woman.

  Chapter Nine

  “I see you’ve come in force.” They had to wait while the girl at the desk sent a young boy upstairs to knock on Josh’s door and it had taken almost fifteen minutes for him to come into the lounge bar. The bar, this morning, had a displaced air about it, a bit like a good time girl before she put on her make-up and glad rags. Edith ordered a pot of tea. It felt intrusive to be here and though she had no liking for Josh Braithwaite, she couldn’t blame him for resenting her presence.

  “Edith was kind enough to give me a lift and anyway, I need a bit of back-up, Josh. I don’t want you talking rings around me.

  You’re good at doing that but this is too important. I know, in my heart of hearts you know more about our John going than you let on in front of the inspector.”

  “Yes. Inspector bloody Greene. Pleased with hisself, weren’t he?

  Having me on the end of his fishing line. Coming back again, later today, he says, to reel me in. Or so he thinks. He might find the bird has flown.”

  “Josh. I’m really not worried what goes on between you and the inspector. I’m only interested in John and what you know about his disappearing like that. I weren’t born yesterday, Josh. Don’t try to tell me that you’ve been writing to him and filling his head full of God knows what rubbish, and then he goes off and it nothing to do with you.”

  “You’re putting two and two together, Hannah and making five.

  Then you was never that good at sums, were you.”

  Edith’s discomfort at being here turned into anger. Josh Braithwaite was a difficult man. Impossible, actually. Arguing the toss and trying to score points even in a situation like this.

  To avoid saying anything and making matters worse, she tuned out for a second, taking in the bar they sat in. A girl had set a match to a small fire in the grate at the far end of the room.

  The weather had changed and it was a cool and damp day. It was amazing the difference the glow made.

  The large long room looked mellow now, and the optics and glasses behind the bar, sparkled. The wooden benches were upholstered in deep red velvet and mismatched dining chairs were on either side of the small tables. Occasional tables with potted aspidistras were a clear effort to point out that this was an inn rather than a common bar as was the uniformed staff who all had the look of knowing what they were doing.

  Goodness knew what they made of the motley crew at their table—

  two middle-aged women, at least one of whom was clearly agitated, a young girl who was tight-lipped and practically silent and the seedy-looking Josh Braithwaite. He was seedy-looking too.

  Whatever way his fortunes had gone since he last left Ellbeck, his appearance indicated a downward direction.

  “Dad, do you know someone who might have taken him?”

  Josh half-turned to face his daughter and the look on his face was of irritation.

  “Took him. That’s stupid for a start. He’s not a little kid.

  Where have you and your mother got the idea that someone picked him up and took off with him as if he were a bleeding nipper of two or three. ‘appen, he took hissef off’.” Away from his mother and you, was implied.

  “He didn’t do that, Dad. I’d put money on it. I’m not saying that someone took him, either. I’m saying that someone persuaded him and I think that it is something to do with you.” He got angry then, though in Edith’s eyes it was a feeble attempt to act angry because Cathy had touched on the truth and he knew it.

  Edith had a surge of excitement then, a real feeling that they were on the edge of finding something out. She held her breath when Hannah spoke, thinking it would have been better to leave it to Cathy.

  “If someone’s got it in for you, Josh, or someone’s trying to get summat out of you and our John’s got involved, as God is my judge, I’ll swing for you.”

  A sob burst from her and Edith and Cathy both rose and went across the table to her.

  “Oh, switch off the waterworks, Hannah. Th’lad’s old enough to look out for himself. He’ll have gone off on some cracked notion of his own. The bobby said another youth had disappeared for a bit too.”

  Edith knew with certainty that Josh was not telling all he knew, the way he was trying to divert them from thinking about his own role in John’s disappearance was as loud a signal as a train whistle. Right. She took in a big breath and held it for a second, until she felt dizzy.

  “Would there be someone who has a grudge against, you, Josh?

  Someone who would take John to get at you.”

  If you weren’t looking at him closely, you could miss the tiny shift, Braithwaite made. It was as though his chair had become uncomfortable, and he swiped a hand across his face. “’appen there might be something.”

  “Dad.”

  “Josh, what the hell have you done? If any harm comes to my son…”

  “He’s my son too.”

  A noise came from Hannah’s, a high yelp of outrage.

  “The important thing now, Hannah is that Josh tells us what he knows. There’ll be time later on to go into the rights and wrongs.”

  “There’s a fella I ‘ad a falling-out with. He might just pull a trick like that. I’ll sort
it.”

  “Sort it…sort it! We need to get Inspector Greene back here and you need to tell him everything you know.”

  “Hannah, I’m telling you this now, just so you know. You call the police back and you can kiss goodbye to getting the lad back anytime soon. I don’t want those buggers anywhere near my business.”

  He’d stood up and leaned over the table. As far as Edith knew he had never been physically violent to his wife or children. She was glad of that knowledge because at this minute he looked threatening.

  Hannah looked from her daughter to Edith, her face suffused, of incipient tears or rage, it was difficult to tell.

  “Dad, you can’t do this to us. Mam is going demented. It isn’t fair.”

  Josh barked, some sort of laugh. “Life isn’t our Cath. Not to me, any road. Every time I drag myself a couple of steps up the ladder, there’s some sod ready to stamp on my fingers and knock me back down.” Edith wondered how Hannah had tolerated the whining of him, the self-pity. But he had been gone from the dales for a long time, apart from a short sojourn those years ago. A time she didn’t like to think about.

  It was far from satisfactory, far from ideal but, he still seemed to have a hold over his wife and daughter.

  Edith tried to gauge Hannah’s expression, see how her mind was working, though she knew really.

  “Get him back, Josh. Go and get him back. You have until tomorrow. If you don’t get him back home by then, or let me know that he’s on his way home, I’ll go back to the inspector and I won’t care how much trouble you get into.”

  Staffordshire

  “No, Canon Richardson. I’m not prepared to listen to this anymore. If there’s something you’re worried about, you’d be far better speaking to the police. There’s nothing I can do.” It went

  against his instincts to turn his back on someone in need but he had to put a stop to this. Whatever was wrong with Canon Richardson and he was beginning to suspect there was more wrong than the man just being a nuisance, Henry wasn’t prepared to be dragged into it any more. Listening to him, taking all his paranoid ramblings seriously wasn’t helping the canon. Maybe it was mental illness, or a medical condition but Henry or some neighbouring farmer didn’t have the answer.