Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  Then came silence, save for the odd passing vehicle and other ponies and traps travelling in both directions, giving us a wide berth. With Will off guard, I seized the reins from him and flung them over Silver’s head. Then, before he could react, I climbed down to the road and fetched the water bucket from under the trap.

  “Get back up with the kids!” Will shouted. “He’ll get colic.”

  “Rubbish. Look, his tongue’s hanging out.” As I spoke, I realised with dismay there was just an inch of water left. Poor Silver finished it with one long draught, before picking at the dried-up verge, still listing badly to the left.

  Suddenly Will’s big hand was around my neck. His hot, stale breath in my face. His anger. “Like I said, and you seem to have forgotten, we’re going to Diss with the trap. No more tricks.” But he knew - war damage or no - that if I had to, I could fight back.

  And I did.

  It was while he was gripping my hair and I striking his chest, there came a stranger’s voice from behind the trap. Male and educated by the sound of him.

  Matthew Crane? No, never.

  “Can I help you good people? You seem to be having trouble and by the look of him, your horse doesn’t look too chipper either.”

  Will let go of me and I spun round to see a tall, middle-aged man sporting a large moustache and wearing a lightweight suit with well-pressed trousers. Alongside stood a younger, dark-haired woman wearing a fashionable wide-brimmed hat leaving half her face in shadow. A pale pink sleeveless dress clung to her full figure Neither stranger wore any ring. Behind them stood a new-looking black car with a folded-down hood. Its engine still running, adding to the heat. A Wolseley Tourer.

  “We’re fine,” said Will. “Just having a spat like most married couples. And as for the cob here…”

  But this young woman had already placed herself by Silver’s head. His reins in one hand, while the other…

  What in God’s name…?

  “Just giving him a sugar lump,” she said, having seen the surprise on my face.

  But it was no treat that came from her pocket. Something else entirely. Small, black, glinting in the bright sun and pointing our way.

  “Any of you move and you’re dead,” she snarled, still the gun facing me. “We need to be quick.”

  “For what?” Will glowered. He’d seen enough action in the war not to over-react. “You touch one hair of my wife’s head and I’ll see you spin in Hell.”

  “Best do as your told, then.” added her companion. Also armed, no doubt.

  I glanced at Will’s cheek muscles pulsing in and out while his eyes tried telling the children behind us to get down on the trap’s floor.

  “What about Billy?” whispered Buck to him.

  “Sssh,” Mollie hissed. “You’ll see.”

  “Who’s that?” said the man. “Someone you’re hiding?”

  “No,” said Will, turning a dark puce colour as the sun seemed to grow cold. Had the war turned him into a coward? Was that it? For a moment he caught my eye, then turned away.

  “And who the Hell are you?” I squared up to the woman with the gun. “Local or up from London? And what do you really want?”

  Then I remembered the cash we’d withdrawn from the bank. Two hundred pounds exactly.

  All we had…

  I felt light-headed. Sick. Anything could happen and neither Will nor I were close enough to protect the children.

  “Coward,” Mollie snapped at her father. “Give Billy to me.”

  I saw his fists clench. His eyes as if on fire. She’d be in trouble later, and it wasn’t the first time she’d burrowed a hole through his armour. But where was the Will Parminter of old? The infantryman who’d won a medal for gallantry? Who’d saved four of his comrades’ lives…

  “No. And,” he turned to the young woman, “we don’t talk to scum, nor will we be threatened, so be on your way. If you harm a hair on our heads we’ll see you punished.”

  “Brave words,” sneered the stranger with the moustache. “But we didn’t come here to waste our time listening to them. Where’s your money box? Hand it over before I’ve finished counting to ten. Or else… One, two…”

  Had they followed us from the bank in Guildford? No. Impossible…

  “Go away!” screamed Buck. “We’ve no money. Can’t you tell?”

  “Three, four…”

  Will lunged forwards but was pushed down into a ditch of dead nettles. I tried to help him then felt the gun in the small of my back. Hard. Deadly…

  “With both of them gone, you’d be re-homed,” the hatted woman addressed the children. “So, try and help yourselves in the future by helping us now.”

  No…

  I noticed a dark green car approaching and did the only thing I could. I let out the longest, most piercing scream since the night Mollie squeezed her way out of me. But the car passed by. Its occupant barely noticing us. The gun dug harder against my backbone.

  “Not very helpfiul, that,” snarled the woman. “Now make amends.”

  “There’s no money, I told you!” Buck began wheezing, worse than ever. I just wanted to hold him and his sister tight against me. Until Mollie spoke up.

  “Yes, there is.” She avoided my eyes as Will struggled to get up from the steep ditch. “It’s under the seat in front of us.”

  *

  Her companion clambered up into the trap as if used to doing nothing else.

  “Mister whatever your name is, we saw you leaving the bank in Guildford, and stashing it away. You really should be more careful.”

  I was right. Not for the first time.

  He lifted out the locked leather box, tucked it under his arm, jumped to the ground and ran towards his car. “A long way for us, but worth every penny,” he gloated, signalling to his accomplice to hurry. But then something terrible and equally unforeseen happened, which changed everything, leaving us huddled together by the roadside, weeping. Aware that from then on there was no God. No kindly angel hovering overhead. Just us against a wicked, wicked world.

  17. NICHOLAS.

  Monday 14th November 1988. 10.30 a.m.

  Golf was out of the question. Not that I could have accomplished even the shortest, easiest putt before lunching with Leslie Horncastle, soon to be retired Bishop of Cavenham. Whose recent and final decision recently aired by Geoffrey Dobbs, was still affecting my balance and co-ordination.

  From New Year’s Day 1989, my services were no longer required at St. Michael and All Angels church in the parish of Lower Meltwood. This was little short of a calamity. The second since Friday, and I could still see Dobbs’ devilish lips move on his falsehood.

  “We are all deeply regretful, Nicholas, but will do our best to support you in your future ambitions.”

  Fuck him.

  *

  While arriving back home, I wondered if my lunch host was already in the know. If not, who was I to spring the surprise?

  Forewarned is forearmed.

  I should change my clothes. Take a shower, scrub myself clean. Not that I had sinned but was clearly less than perfect. Been found wanting. Not only by those few parishioners ticking the wrong boxes, but by someone other than God who was out to turn my remaining life into the proverbial bed of nails. Who’d not had the balls to face me around Geoffrey Dobbs’ table. Who’d lied about his absence.

  George Chisholm.

  I parked badly enough to graze my nearside wheel arch on one of the large boulders that edged the drive.

  Goddammit again…

  For My next appointment, my appearance - both of myself and the Peugeot must be unimpeachable. In fact, Bishop material, despite the inner turmoil. Not least the copies of those two damning letters my sister had so kindly sent me.

  Catherine…

  I checked my watch. I still had time, even after my ablutions, to sort her out.

  *

  “Piotr?” I called out up the stairwell once I’d opened the front door. “You there?”

 
But only silence replied. Where the Hell was he? He’d normally be washing up, tidying the kitchen diner - a room Vivienne had engineered to be twice the size of the original. Overlarge. Overcomplicated. For some reason, he must be hiding.

  Aware of minutes slipping away, I went upstairs to his room. The door was ajar, when usually he kept it locked with his own key. The deal he’d insisted upon when I’d taken him on. Forgetting to breathe, I went in and immediately noticed the darkness. His lined curtains were still drawn. His bed, normally neatly made, was a mess, but worse, his double wardrobe, complete with full-length mirror, was empty. All that remained was a small resin replica of a Madonna and child icon hanging from the headboard.

  No…

  My mind whirred back to the day he’d called here out of the blue, from a part-time waiter’s job in Watford. Rosary beads between his fingers. A crucifix pendant glinting beneath his collarless shirt. Willing to do anything for a bed and a wage. Vivienne would have liked him immediately, but then she would. He was young. His skin-tight leather trousers left nothing to the imagination, whereas with hindsight I’d noticed the occasional shadow behind those luminous green eyes. The mark of shiftiness or a legacy from the unhappy background he’d briefly mentioned?

  What I did know, was that he’d gone, and I had to find a reason. Yesterday morning, he’d proved very useful indeed, but it could all fly back in my face like the proverbial monkey who pissed into the wind.

  *

  The phone rang.

  I pounced on the receiver expecting to hear him apologising in his usual broken English, but no. It was the man who’d called himself John Lyon, and I didn’t like his tone at all. Especially when he asked if Vivienne’s old car had been in Hecklers Green station car park yesterday morning, adding that my sister was still missing from home.

  “Who exactly are you?” I said, finally, keeping my fear buttoned up, as whenever I approached the various pulpits of my three churches.

  “A former Detective Inspector in the CID. An old friend of your brother-in-law. Does that pass muster?”

  Another silence. A different and worse one.

  “Which CID?”

  “In the Midlands?”

  “Leicester? Derby? Cov…?”

  “Nottingham. For thirty years. I retired in ’86. Anything else?”

  Yes, but that was my business.

  “I really don’t know why you’re phoning me, and your aspersions could result in my consulting my solicitor.”

  “Where’s your wife’s car?”

  “Why?”

  “Did you drive it to Tidswell Station near Hecklers Green yesterday morning?”

  My hesitation was a mistake. He jumped in.

  “You don’t have to answer now, because I’d like to call in later this morning, if that’s convenient for you,” he persisted. His voice carrying more than a trace of the flat-vowelled region where I’d never have soiled my footwear. “Will you be in?”

  Damn.

  “I’ve an important meeting to attend at twelve-thirty. In fact, a very important meeting about my future.” I noticed the young postman slouching up the drive, with at least three items in his hand. “I can’t believe I’m even having this ridiculous conversation. Ask the fragrant Stephen where his wife is. They’ve been at loggerheads for years over him not letting her adopt…”

  A pause, as if that had done the trick.

  “I’ll phone again later,” said the nuisance. Then the dialling tone took over and I was left with Piotr’s bright eyes boring into my skull, and the urgent need to get organised.

  *

  Wearing a long mackintosh to protect my best suit, I drove the recently-cleaned red Fiesta round to the back of the house to a paddock that had been sold with the house but remained unused. Piotr had often suggested strimming the rampant nettles and brambles and using the plot for chickens and pigs as even urban dwellers did in Poland, but after Vivienne had died, I’d felt more secure leaving it to nature.

  To the left, and half-hidden by a cluster of bare hawthorn bushes, lay an abandoned stable whose wooden door was still usable and lockable. Thankfully, the car fitted neatly inside its dark space and I found a tarpaulin, rotted in parts, which neverthelss made a good cover. At least for the time being.

  11.20 a.m.

  As far as I knew, Piotr didn’t own a cell phone. I’d have to call his parents whom he’d said lived in Cracow and pretend to be a friend. To casually ask if he’d recently been in touch. Of course, I’d block my own number and speak in what I hoped would be a passable Lancashire accent. Then I realised he’d never given me any family phone number. Plenty of promises, but it hadn’t happened.

  Buggeration…

  *

  The postman had delivered a water board bill, a handwritten card from the Chair of the Young Wives group in Melton, saying she was standing down and wishing me all the best in my bid to be Bishop of Cavenham. That cheered me up, but not the narrow, manila envelope bearing only my initials which I recognised all too well. My tormentor. My nemesis?

  I’M RELYING ON YOU, NICKY, AND TIME’S RUNNING OUT.

  Bastard.

  As if to punish me further, the rain became a vicious downpour as I drove south towards Cavenham. Several times I felt the nearside tyres hit the kerb while I kept a frantic look-out for any male figure clad in black, whether huddled in a bus stop or sheltering by the various small shops that I passed. Drab and empty, half-lit against the gloom.

  Like the basalt sky overhead, my thoughts grew even blacker. In fact, unbearably so. If Piotr should get drunk - as he’d done on several occasions - and regurgitate about his special errand for me to the wrong ears, what could happen then? And this more than anything, occupied me as I turned into Hartshorne Close where the Bishop’s house reared up in front of my windscreen, glistening grey like a headstone, whose mean, dark windows seemed to bore into my uneasy soul.

  I immediately reversed out of sight and picked up my cell phone. The Bishop’s answerphone took my genuine-sounding message about stomach ache. Perhaps he was busy getting ready. Even turning over the roasting Welsh lamb himself. A man who revelled in the rituals of sacrifice.

  18. JOHN.

  Monday 14th November 1988. 2p.m.

  By two o’clock, cabin fever had set in, relieved only by a trip to the Gents and a hurried visit from Stephen bearing a coffee and cheese roll for me, to say he’d been roped into another last-minute meeting on final year dissertations and students who were behind schedule. He’d seemed more tense than usual, glancing first at the few books on the rare occurences of leprosy in Norfolk since the Crusades. On windmill restorations and livestock slaughter practices that I’d been studying, and then at the door. When I’d asked what was wrong, he’d said “nothing.” But I knew that was a lie.

  I glanced out of the window nearest to his desk, where a thickening, grey mist had replaced the rain. I was waiting for Greg Lake to call me back. Also, busy working out the best time to land on Nicholas Beecham’s doorstep, when the phone rang.

  “Yes?”

  “Professor Vickers?”

  “I’m a friend of his. Who’s calling?”

  “Are you that ex-cop who came with ‘im to Tidswell station earlier on?”

  I could hear voice outside the office door. People sharing a joke.

  “I am. John Lyon. And you’re Arthur Stock?”

  “Sir.”

  The annoying jollity subsided. I could hear my own pulse. “Have you some news?”

  “The young man who drove that red car here on Sunday morning, has just bin here again. I swear it were him.”

  More background noise, down the phone this time. Some train rushing through. A sound I’d hated since the age of ten. I felt more trapped than ever and stood up to face that grey blanket of sky while stretching the phone’s cord until it was taut.

  “You never mentioned any young man before,” I said, careful not to sound accusatory. Witnesses were too easily lost that way. “Can you plea
se describe him?”

  “Hard to say, ‘cept he seemed a bit rum. Fair-haired, black leathers, but his eyes struck me the most. Green as could be.”

  “Was he with anybody? Please think hard.”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “So, there’d just be a record of the one ticket?”

  Ought to be, but me machine’s on the blink at the moment.”

  “Did he pay with cash or by cheque?”

  “We don’t take them.”

  “Did you see any ID?”

  “ID?”

  I sighed. This crowded little office was getting to me. “Identification. Did he use a pass of any kind?”

  “Not that I noticed, but he wore a crucifix round his neck. I thought it looked odd.”

  “How did he arrive? Did someone bring him, or has he left another car there?”

  “Not that I could see. Wet through, mind, like he’d walked…”

  “OK. All really useful, thanks.” I returned to Stephen’s desk to jot something down, yet with every word, felt this, like my hunches in Poitiers last spring, was becoming more tenuous. More of a risk.

  “Got to go,” the official said. “Inspector’s due any minute and I’ll get bollocked if I’m on social calls.”

  Hardly a social call, I thought, before giving him my cell phone number.

  “Something I missed,” he added.

  “Go on.”

  “He wanted a timetable of trains.”

  “Norwich to Kings Cross and back?”

  “Anything,” he said, which I thought odd. Oh, and he weren’t English, get me meaning?”

  “You mean Scottish? Welsh…?”

  “Nothin’ like that. Me son went out with some Romanian girl he’d met in Peterborough. She sounded similar…”

  Then he was gone.

  No sooner had I replaced the phone’s receiver, I heard a key tentatively clicking open the door. I leapt up from the swivel chair but needn’t have worried. Except that I should. Stephen’s face was a bleached, tense version of itself as he handed me a printed sheet of A4 paper and slapped the Extenuating Circumstances folder he’d been carrying, down at the far end of his desk.