Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  I could tell the man had stepped back. Was probably looking up at our open windows at that very moment. Mine especially. I had to act fast or this bed would soon be a prison. And what if that southern family shud hear about the missing school girl or The Monkey? Why else were the cop trespassing so early?

  *

  From me window, I saw he’d removed his cap, showing him almost bald ‘cept for a few strands of gingery hair sticking out like bits of old barley. He knocked even louder, this time calling out me name. Just to hear it brought another shiver. I shud never have let mesen be brought back inside, but then last night, Ma’s offer of a bowl of soup and slice of bread had weakened me defences. Me left leg had swollen some more and hurt like buggery. Me gut cramped with fresh hunger and eyes bleary as I worked out where else to hide. However, just as I’d almost reached me door, there’d come a sudden squeal. Not from any pig, that were for sure.

  The Parminters, already?

  I soon recognised the man from last night, wiping his forehead with his shirt sleeve, but not the woman in a blouse and skirt, whose dark hair were tied back, nor the skinnier little runt still squealing at the pigs in the barn. But it were the owd gal Parminter I fixed on. Thick, fair hair, skin pink all over, and smooth as a plucked chicken down below, I didn’t wonder, which got me soldier all excited again.

  Not now, Stan. That copper must still be around somewhere…

  Too right. He watched Pa shake everyone’s hands but not his.

  “Not now,” Pa said to him, as if he’d heard me thoughts. “Whatever ye want here, it’ll surely keep.”

  “It won’t, Mr. Bulling. Where’s your Stanley?”

  “He’s bad, and I need him to get better. Quick as possible.”

  “What’s he got?” Chipped in the woman, pulling her blouse away from her armpits where the white cotton had turned dark grey.

  “Not sure.” grunted Pa. “He’s a good son.”

  At this, Toft produced a piece of card from his breast pocket. “I’ve a warrant to search your premises for the rest of Angelid Menelos’ body, and if you resist…”

  *

  I didn’t wait to hear any more, and with a struggle, left me prison and found Ma in the kitchen still in her nightdress, cutting up a loaf. Back and fore went the blade and the thick slices fell in a heap. Food for the workers I thought, while a piece of ice touched my heart.

  A whiff of piss from under her skirt reached me nose. I sneezed. Couldn’t help it. And there she stood, knife still in her speckled hand, turned to face me. That mean, little mouth open like the black hole in Angelid Menelos’arse.

  All rotting in the hot earth…

  “What you doin’ here?” She hissed. “Get back to bed this minute!”

  I pulled out me own knife. Older, not so well cared for, but just as sharp. I knew which veins to go for. I’d killed enough pigs and runt lambs. hadn’t I?

  “Pa’s just told that coppper out there that I’m ill indoors. But I’m not, am I?”

  Spit had gathered in the corners of that unmotherly mouth as she glanced at me bad leg and runny eyes before wobbling and dropping her knife. I picked it up, which gave me a blade in each hand and a feeling of real power. Just then, a bulky shadow loped by the window above the sink, followed by another and another, all different sizes.

  “Upstairs you say?” Came that same copper’s question.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Remember?” I whispered to the one I’d bin ashamed for too long to call Ma. “Not one word, and while I’m at it,” I paused, pointing the breadknife’s tip at her stringy throat. “Where’s the money? I heard ye and Pa talk about it.”

  “There is none. He was lying.”

  “Didn’t sound like it to me. So, where?”

  My blade touched that blue stream jerking down the side of her old neck. A speck of black blood bubbled up while her eyes just stared at me like I were the stranger, not that lot of pikeys just turned up.

  “You’ll never know. Not even on my death bed. Same for your Pa. And as for promises, neither him nor me owe you nothing.”

  Those shadows had gone, replaced by sounds of footsteps and chatter. The back door which we never kept open ‘cos of flies, began to budge against the stone flags.

  “Ye’ll disappear. The both of ye, ne’er to be found. Just ye wait,” I said.

  “And you’ll swing.”

  Before I could escape the kitchen, Toft were on me. And the other cop, who’s name I didn’t know, both sweatin’ in excitement. Heavy on me, like a pair of cow carcasses. Breath stinking, clicking me wrists into handcuffs. Knocking both knives from me grasp.

  “Ailing or not, you’re coming with us.” The younger cop squeezed me ear, but the four incomers’ faces behind him, told another story. Not the welcome they’d bin expecting, obviously. I were going. Them staying. But there’s a motto I’ve always remembered from calving or waiting for the not-yet-horny hog to mount the sow. ‘Patience is a virtue.’ And with that owd gal eyeing me up and down, her plump lips half-open to show me the tip of her pink tongue, I hobbled past them all and out into the heat.

  “If you plead guilty and show remorse, you’ll be spared the rope,” said this same cop. “And I know for a fact you’re not as dull as you look.”

  “Guilty of what?” I said, ignoring the slur.

  “The murder of a nigger who’s been seen working on your land for at least a couple of months,” Toft butted in. “Angelid Menelos. No need to search the farm for any more clues. That was just to get us inside the door. Get you banged up good and proper. The marks on the poor bugger’s neck exactly match that of the spade’s blade you hoped would never be found.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I’ll make a note of that insult.” He pulled me along towards the police car, while his helper pushed me from behind. “All helps.”

  “I need the stank. Now.”

  “That’s an old trick.”

  Damn his soul.

  “Were it Ma or Pa bin spinning lies about me? Or that Dennis Chubb lummox from The Grange?”

  “You’ll soon find out.”

  “Where’s the fecking evidence?”

  “Plenty still coming in. As we speak, in fact.”

  With that, they manhandled me into the back of the car, joined by handcuffs to the nameless cop who smiled at the group still standing outside the farm, as if he’d bagged a trophy. A gutted fox or pheasant with a hole in its head.

  28. JOHN.

  Monday 14th November 1988. 10 p.m.

  So far so good. The public footpath off Vicarage Road, although wet and strewn with loose stones, was at least passable. I kept my torch beam close to my feet, especially as I suspected Nicholas Beecham, a man of secrets and lies, might have a gun. Might well be on patrol.

  The evening drizzle, now rain, blurred the way ahead, and trickled down the back of my neck. When I was a kid, Carol and I would tilt back our heads to try and capture it in our mouths until Peggy Lyon warned us that rain contained all sorts of rubbish and was more harmful to humans than too much sun. But just then I didn’t care. My sandpaper throat needed a drink.

  I calculated I’d walked at least half a mile and was about to leave the track and cut west across the uncultivated field when I spotted The Vicarage’s shape between a line of bare trees to my left. All in darkness. All silent. I stopped to work out where its rear boundary might be. Then, forgetting about my good shoes, my new Aquascutum mac, switched off the torch and entered a black world of molehill pyramids and knee-high weeds. Here also lay abandoned junk, probably from some long-abandoned gypsy camp, and the sudden trough of standing water.

  Rather than risk using my torch, I lit a match. Always useful, and noticed to my left a high, ramshackle fence some hundred yards long. I felt my way along it, registering the gaps and various loose, rotting slats, surprised that the Reverend Nicholas Beecham had left this valuable part of his property unrepaired. But then hadn’t I seen the same on my travels with the CID?
>
  Immaculate frontages but dodgy round the back.

  Just like people.

  Halfway along, I moved one wobbly plank to one side, then its neighbours, creating a gap big enough for me to squeeze through. I heard my mac tear on a stray nail but was too focussed on what stood in my way, looming up against the night sky.

  Some shed.

  I struck another match and its flickering flame showed a black, galvanised steel barn blocking the view of The Vicarage beyond it. The kind of structure more typical of a large farm, rather than in the garden of a suburban home. A wall of bare bushes stood on either side. The prickly variety, catching on my sleeves and trouser legs.

  Blind in the rain and the November night, I probed around the entrance and soon discovered two padlocks. One newer than the other, rusted and less secure. What in God’s name was I doing here? I asked myself, when I could be back in my lounge in Lea Villa, listening to Handel arias with a glass of Rjoca to hand…

  But then like countlesss times before, I’d had a hunch. They’d cost me the things I’d valued most, including Alison McConnell.

  Hang on…

  I’d picked up the creak of some gate. A wavering torch beam accompanied by laboured breathing.

  “Who’s there?” Wheezed a man’s voice.

  Nicholas Beecham getting closer, yet before I crept away to crouch behind the thickest growth of bushes, I’d spotted parallel tracks leading to that very barn. Car tracks?

  I held my breath while he set down his torch and began unlocking the padlocks. One fell to the ground.

  “Damn and blast.”

  He was scrabbling around on hands and knees, trying to locate it, when I left my hiding place.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” I handed him the shiny, new device. “And while we’re at it, I’d like to take a look in there.” I knew I was breaking every rule in the book, but tough. “Won’t take a minute.”

  Surprise seemed to silence him, but not for long.

  “Get off my property before I call the police.”

  “I am the police. So, open up.”

  “You were. Not any more,” he snickered, shining his torch beam into my eyes. A smile still twitching his fleshy lips as I dug around for my old ID card.

  “I don’t like liars, Mr. Lyon,” he held up something I immediately recognised. My card. Proof he’d helped himself earlier. “You left Nottingham CID in August 1985. You’re a sad nothing. Now get lost!”

  “Who told you?”

  “My secret.”

  But I was back in Hendon. In the gym, facing a bobbing punch ball. My right fist met Beecham’s chin. He yelled, fell backwards and lay spreadeagled on the wet grass, giving me time to retrieve my stolen card, claim his torch, and sneak inside the barn.

  *

  My hunch was correct. Beneath several old curtains and a cheap carpet, stood a red Fiesta. Eight years old, judging by its plate which I memorised. It was also taxed until next June. Handy little runabout, I thought, casting the torch’s beam through each window.

  Someone had obviously done a good job of cleaning it inside out. Recently, too, judging by the still obvious whiff of valeting fluid. There were neither scratches on its bodywork nor the wheel hubs. Showroom condition. One careful owner. Its bonnet cold.

  A sticker inside the rear window advertised Bewdley House, a National trust property in Warwickshire. That was all.

  Still smarting after the recent put-down, I wanted this to be the car Miss Harding had seen yesterday morning. Now so clean, so securely hidden, there had to be a reason.

  There was.

  Rain slapped aginst the barn roof, adding a percussive beat to my unanswered questions as I finished a quick recce of its interior, before going outside. Where had this runabout taken Catherine Vickers? And why had she gone to Myrtle Villa on Sunday morning, before getting in it? What had become of the driver who’d picked her up there? A man who’d most likely been the same guy Arthur Stock had spotted at Tidswell Station…

  I pulled the heavy man to his feet and gave him back his torch. I’d got something on him. He’d soon forget the punch. He wasn’t stupid.

  “This Piotr. Your factotum. What does he look like?” I said, stepping back.

  “He’s nothing to do with anything.”

  No denial, then. Perhaps he is stupid after all.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “I’ll get you for assault.”

  “I don’t think so, Reverend. Not given your ambitious plans.”

  Silence save for the rain, then from somewhere, a dog’s bark.

  “He’s fucking up my life if you must know. Sly little shit.”

  Hardly Bishop material, I thought, taking the advantage. Thinking too, how he and his sister seemed to be polar opposites.

  “So, what does this sly little shit look like?”

  His description came weighted with envy. This Pole was blond, slim but hard-muscled and above all, young. Twenty-two to be precise, and a devout Catholic. Never without his crucifix. So, Arthur Stock’s description was a close enough match.

  “How does that religion sit with your faith?” I enquired.

  “We co-exist. Or we did.”

  He pulled his stained mackintosh tight around his trembling bulk. In the torch’s peripheral light, I saw his eyes close.

  “Look, Mr. Lyon,” he began in a tone I recognised from years spent interrogating in ‘The Box’ at Sherwood Lodge HQ in Nottingham, when there’s nowhere else to go. When bluff and bluster has failed. “I’ve struggled to get where I am. From school to school. From Germany and back, because father was an Army major in the Suffolk Regiment. And later, I was ostracized for wanting to study Theology. I may as well have said pornography. I now realise why.”

  “So, where’s Catherine?” I melded my tone of voice to his, showing no reaction to that last statement.

  “Trying to wreck my career as she’s always done. She found things out about our paternal grandfather. Things that any decent human being, let alone a Christian, would abhor. But instead of letting them stay buried in the past where they belong, they’re her sticks to beat me with because I want more than she does. To beat me until I’m as…”

  “Go on.” Feeling drops of rainwater trickle down inside my collar.

  “Unsuccessful as she is.”

  Sibling rivalry writ large, I thought bleakly.

  “So, she had herself picked up in that car you’re so keen to tuck away here?”

  “Must have. Piotr was in and out of The Vicarage like a Jack rabbit. I couldn’t keep track of him all the time.”

  “Your landline phone may hold a record of any conversations between them both. I could get it checked. We do need to find her.”

  He stiffened. A flash of panic in those bleary eyes. “Piotr had his own cell phone. Off the black market, no doubt.”

  “And Catherine?”

  “You keep saying her name.”

  “She’s your sister.”

  “You’re getting nothing more out of me without my solicitor being present. The law doesn’t take kindly to intimidation and harassment. Now, if you don’t mind, Mr. Lyon, I have work to prepare for tomorrow. I’d like you to leave my property now. This instant. You may go the way you came.”

  With that, he turned his torch beam into my eyes before making for the barn and re-locking its padlocks.

  “You’ve got two minutes,” he added. “And if you’re still here after that, I’ll call the real police.”

  Real police…

  That stung.

  “Two seconds is up.”

  “I want Piotr’s phone number.”

  “Dream on, Mr. Has-Been.”

  “I can inform the Bishop of Cavenham if you like. Also, that your Fiesta’s number plate matches exactly the one seen at Hecklers Green yesterday morning.”

  He quivered.

  “Who says?”

  I didn’t want to land the helpful Rosemary Harding in any possible trouble. Her vigilance h
ad already been most useful.

  “A passing tractor driver phoned the police to complain about the badly-parked car almost obstructing the road. You see, squire, I do still have some friends in useful places.”

  Within a few seconds, and certainly with no divine intervention, the elusive Pole’s cell phone was in my hand.

  29. SARAH.

  Wednesday 28th July 1920. 9 a.m.

  If Sergeant Toft and young Constable Lambert were to be believed, we’d arrived at the possible scene of a hideous crime, where both Ann and Walter Bulling had been showered with their son’s curses while the police had driven him off in a cloud of yellow dust.

  How I wished then, more than anything that we’d all stayed on with those kindly Goldmans in North Hillingdon. Wished too, that my husband had never gone away to fight the invisible enemy and come back such a stranger. But what good was wishing? We were here, at Wombwell Farm and within five minutes, with our few belongings still lining the narrow hallway, were in the Bullings’ front parlour whose thick brown curtains were completely drawn against the morning sun.

  Buck and Mollie perched on a threadbare piano stool, whispering to each other. Heads close together. I couldn’t help but notice certain of her mannerisms were so unlike his. In fact, times without number, she really did seem to belong to someone else.

  Mr. Bulling, having apologised for the recent police intrusion and his son’s bad-manners, then asked Will if he ’d kindly write out a contract of employment, to be counter-signed by his wife of fifty years. He set two sheets of lined paper, a fountain pen and sheet of blotting paper down on the table amongst three dying bluebottles and summoned her from the kitchen.

  Will glanced at me with a question in his eyes. But what could I say? Something in me had already broken. There was probably nowhere else to go. We were here. Best to get on with it.

  *

  “Three months to start with,” began the pig farmer. “Fair on both sides as I see it. And after that, once the job’s done…”

  “What job?” Will said, puzzled.