by Heide Goody
* * *
Polly, who was crouched behind a cedar tree, was becoming increasingly certain these people were not doing official work on behalf of Candlebroke Hall. The nakedness had been a big clue.
She looked back towards the house. On a cold day, few had ventured out into the rear gardens, but she wondered if anyone, perhaps looking out from a top storey window, might hear the buzz of chainsaws and see the tree wavering.
And if these men weren’t official workers, then what were they? Tree thieves? That didn’t sound like a thing, but she could easily imagine it being one.
However, Polly was definitely convinced these men really didn’t know what they were doing. The two twins had got into some sort of macho competition over who could carve the biggest wedge out of the trunk, while the older one seemed to be encouraging them.
A young woman on a bench further off got to her feet and started shouting and waving.
Two of the blokes watching the lumberjacks turned to look at her. Slowly, too slowly, they realised what she was saying.
The one with a red bandana round his head ran towards the truck and opened the driver’s door.
The tree creaked.
“The keys!” yelled the man at the truck. “Sigurd! Where’s the keys!”
The man with the plaited beard shrugged and began hollering at the chainsaw twins.
The tree groaned and began to lean. It started out looking as if it was going to fall in slow motion – an ancient thing, broad as a house, falling like a wounded warrior – then it was over very quickly. The twins scooted out of the way. The old man pegged it down the hill. Plaited-beard threw himself to the ground just out of range of the longest boughs.
What was not so fortunate was the truck. Its front wheels were high in the air as the back half was crushed beneath tree branches.
“Jesus Christ,” Polly whispered.
There was a long silence. The chainsaws were now off. The twins had seen what happened and looked both mesmerised and appalled. The driver’s door opened and the bandana man eased himself to the ground.
“Yngve! Tha backed our truck into t’ way of the blummin’ tree!” yelled one of the twins.
“Tha great idiot! I was trying ter move it, but tha’s taken the keys!”
“Yer a liar!” shouted the other twin. “It were never that close! Sigurd! Tell him!”
Moments later the men were throwing punches at each other. Up on the hill, the young woman had the exasperated body language of someone who had to put up with this kind of stupidity on a regular basis.
The oldest man waded into the centre of the fight and shouted at them, his arms raised. They peeled apart with the reluctance of sulky children.
“Chop off them blummin’ branches and see what’s left o’t truck. We came here to do a job, now get back ter work.”
Polly stifled a giggle. She recognised it was entirely the wrong response to the death of a mighty old oak, but there was something beautifully karmic about seeing the men’s truck crushed.
“What’s bladdy Ragnar up to now?” said Strawb at her shoulder.
Polly jumped in surprise, headbutting the cedar tree. “Ow! What are you creeping up on me for?”
Strawb took hold of her shoulders to steady her. “What are you doing lurking in the undergrowth?”
Polly hissed and rubbed her forehead. Strawb helped her up, turning her to face him.
“They’re stealing a tree,” she said.
“Vikings have a loose sense of property.”
“Vikings? They’re Yorkshire folk.”
“They have Vikings in Yorkshire,” he said.
Polly felt her pocket to make sure the brandy was still there.
As Polly and Strawb watched, the twins attempted to extract their truck. One of them revved the engine, while the other attempted to push at any part where he could gain any purchase. As mud splattered up from the spinning wheels, the one at the rear was sprayed in dirt. He emerged, wiping mud from his eyes and spitting it out of his mouth.
“Yer did that on purpose!”
“Rubbish! Yer not pushing hard enough!”
They leapt on each other, throwing punches until the older man split them up again. Eventually, the young girl took the wheel of the truck while all of the men pushed. It crawled free, with much swearing as trapped branches sprang back and slapped faces.
* * *
Polly and Strawb walked slowly round the gardens back towards the house and the stable block, where a picnic was apparently waiting for them. At some point they had started walking arm in arm, his large warm hand engulfing hers.
“Nice fat fish in there,” said Strawb.
“Carp,” said Polly.
“Know your fish, eh?”
“It’s called Carp Pond on the map,” she said, waggling a leaflet she had picked up. “I heard a rumour that the family have a private menagerie somewhere, too. Tigers and lions and something.”
Strawb cocked an ear as though expecting to hear a big cat roar.
Polly studied the map on the leaflet. “And this is the Ghost Walk.”
“What is?”
She swept her free hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “This is.”
“I heard this place is haunted,” said Strawb. “Even had a local psychic feller investigate.”
“The wife of Sir Something-something Lettuces,” said Polly, who half recalled the story from previous visits. “Seventeen hundreds. She had fallen in love with one of the servants, a postillion, and they were going to run away together. Lettuces found out and killed the servant, possibly his wife too. Dumped one or both in this pond.”
“What’s a postillion?” said Strawb.
“Something to do with horses?” said Polly, who really had no idea. “Anyway, Lettuces was cursed from beyond the grave: no male descendant would ever inherit the house.”
“Justice served.”
Polly stopped and turned to look at him, their arms still linked to make an L of their bodies.
“Justice? He gets to murder a man and woman, and his punishment is that his house doesn’t get inherited by— I’ve lost my house; been manoeuvred into coming to Otterside.”
“I thought you liked it.”
“Irrelevant. Point is, I didn’t get to murder someone to balance it up.”
Strawb grins. “Oh, murder balances things up?”
Polly was suddenly viewing herself objectively, as though from an outside perspective. Why was she angry? What did she have to be angry about on a day like this? Strawb had asked her a question. “Some people do deserve to die,” she said.
“Violent thoughts,” said Strawb, barely a murmur.
“Some people… The world would be a better place without some people in it.”
“Amen,” said Strawb. “And would you be the person to do it?”
An image of her niece, Erin, flashed across her mind. She shook it away, disgusted with herself. “There’s a picnic waiting for us.”
“Sandwiches’ll be getting cold.”
39
Sam entered Cat’s Café with her usual reluctance.
In many ways the café next door to the DefCon4 entrance was perfectly lovely. A café that had once been an old-fashioned greasy spoon had been brought up to date without ditching any of the things people actually liked. Eggs and bacon had not been replaced with smashed avocado on toast, but the sticky vinyl tablecloths and egg-stained cutlery had been replaced with fresh linen and cutlery you could see your reflection in. The coffee was produced by a whirring, gurgling, steam-spouting machine, but not with a range of silly Italian names that were beyond the Skegness vocabulary. The menu had expanded, but the prices had barely budged an inch.
The perfectly adequate café had only one major drawback: its proprietor. Cat was twenty-something, intelligent and ambitious, and not only wanted to pursue a secondary career as an explosively provocative playwright but assumed everyone would want to hear about it on a daily basis. Poor souls who had just
gone in for a milky coffee and a sausage bap would be treated to a forty minute lecture on Brechtian techniques in her latest play. Any fool who showed the slightest interest would find Cat as an unshooable presence by their table, prattling on about plot structures, acting techniques, and the tiniest details of her latest effort.
For once, Sam wanted to actually talk acting. Cat had cornered Vance from the Who Do You Ink You Are? tattoo shop next door at his table. He was staring at her with a buttered scone halfway to his mouth while Cat kept up a one-side conversation.
“… said to him that, if I wanted to, I could have a whole play full of nothing but Pinteresque silences. No words, only meaning. You know what I mean?”
Vance looked at her, but said nothing. Sam couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or loathing in his eyes.
“Cat,” said Sam. “Could I…? Am I interrupting?”
“Not at all,” said Cat, turning from her captive audience. Freed from her Medusa gaze, tattooist Vance almost collapsed with relief. He all but shoved the scone in his mouth. “What can I get you?”
“Um, you know actors, don’t you?”
“I’ve met a few,” Cat conceded. “I once auditioned for a role alongside that Jodie Whittaker. But then she went off to become Doctor Who and the rest is history.”
“I meant local actors. The Skegness dramatic society thing.”
“The SODS,” Cat nodded. “I’m their artistic director now. I had creative differences with the last one over my latest play. What do you think, would you say that having murdered parents makes a main character more interesting?”
“I’m sorry?” said Sam. “I was going to ask you about actors.”
“I mean, it’s not part of the story, but if it had happened in the past, would you be more likely to want to see a play about that person?”
“So is the main character going to track down the murderer, or avenge their deaths?” asked Sam, wary of disappearing into the ever-shifting world of Cat’s writerly life.
“No, it’s more like she needs to prove her own worth to herself in a post-apocalyptic romance kind-of-thing.”
“Right,” said Sam. “So the parents thing is irrelevant?”
“Uh-huh. But does it flesh her out and make her a more rounded character? I mean it works for Harry Potter, right?”
“Er.” Sam frowned and tried to recall her train of thought. “I was wondering if the Skegness drama people, the SODS, would be interested in a small event I’m organising.”
“A production?”
Sam shrugged. “It’s definitely being produced. It requires some acting. It’s more of a free-form open air exercise.”
“Outdoor theatre.”
“I’m just sorting out the costumes and the details. It’s going to be quite soon. A short turnaround.”
“Who’s the writer?” said Cat. Sam could see an excited glint in her eye.
“It’s more of an improv type thing.”
Cat nodded appreciatively. “So, I think I’ll go with the dead parents.”
“The, er, okay. Yes. Right. I’ve got to go see a man about unfiled court papers.”
Sam’s phone began ringing and she turned to go. Cat automatically, instinctively, began to drift back to Vance in the corner.
“If you could phone around now,” Sam said to her, “it would be greatly appreciated. I need to know how many of your actor buddies you can rustle up.”
“Sure,” said Cat, heading for the counter. Vance mouthed a ‘Thank you’ to Sam. There might even have been a tear in his eye.
Sam picked up the phone call before it went to voicemail.
“Yes,” said a man on the other end of the line.
“Yes?” said Sam.
“Yes you can do it.”
Sam had no idea who it was. “This is Sam Applewhite from—”
“You can do your zoo animal live action roleplay thing at Otterside.”
She realised it was Chesney, the retirement village manager. “Oh, that’s great. Thank you. If I can just explain what—”
“But on one condition.”
“Oh?” Sam paused to fish around in her pocket for the keys to her van.
“You know Mr Marvellous is coming to perform for us on that very same day.”
“Ye-es?”
“I think he needs a support act. Maybe an up and coming singer with a powerful voice?”
Sam grinned involuntarily.
“You are his daughter, aren’t you?”
“Last time I looked, but I really don’t get involved with that side of his business.”
“You could have a word with him? I think I would be an excellent fit.”
Sam climbed into the van. Time to go pay Greg Mandyke a visit and see if it was his paperwork stopping her signing off the payback work.
“And if I could get you a slot…” she said.
“A slot!” Chesney made a weird half-giggling noise.
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “Gotta go.”
* * *
Greg Mandyke had a house on Derby Avenue. Sam had no idea that he lived just around the corner from her dad’s place. It felt odd to know one of her community payback crew – an unrepentant one at that – lived so close to her home. She didn’t particularly consider herself to be a representative of the forces of authority, but nonetheless she felt there should be greater geographical distance, if not social distance, between her and the people she was tasked with overseeing.
She rang the doorbell and peered casually through the frosted glass, looking for a shift in the light indicating someone was approaching. She rang again and waited a full minute. Over the past week or more she’d phoned various times and texted.
There was the possibility he had gone on holiday.
She went to the house next door and knocked. The woman who answered looked at her suspiciously, like Sam was about to try to sell her something.
“Hi,” said Sam. “I’m trying to get hold of Greg next door.”
“You delivering something?” said the woman.
“No.” Sam showed her empty hands as evidence. “I’m just need to… It’s a work thing. I wondered if you knew if he was away at the moment.”
“His car’s still here.” The woman pointed at a Lexus on the driveway.
“I didn’t know if he went on holiday or something.”
“Oh, no. He’s definitely been around. He was cooking the other night.”
“Cooking?”
“Smelled it.”
“Oh. Maybe I’ve just missed him. I’ve got a phone number for him, but it’s ringing out. Do you have another number for him?”
The woman drew herself stiffly to her full height. “I don’t go giving out people’s private numbers to strangers in the street.”
“No. Quite right,” Sam agreed politely.
The woman was already closing the door.
Sam went back round to Greg’s house. In the good old days – the really old days – you’d be able to tell if someone was away by the build-up of post or milk on the doorstep. But who had their milk delivered these days? In fact, who received more than a smattering of post anymore. More likely to see a collection of Sorry, we missed you… notes from parcel companies than actual letters. Nonetheless, Sam levered the letterbox open and peered through.
The hallway was unlit and silent. No sign of life. A pair of moccasin shoes sat halfway down the hall, one on its side. There was a thin scattering of grass clippings on the carpet next to the shoes. Sam recalled Greg had worn those shoes on the last community payback session.
Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe those shoes and the blades of grass had been there since that day. Sam would hardly have described Greg as house-proud, but she doubted he’d leave the hall in that untidy state for so long.
“Greg,” she called through the letterbox and listened.
The silence of the house was a force in itself, blooming outward, filling the space.
“Greg!”
Once her mind was set on the idea of breaking in, the practicalities took over in her mind, pushing aside quibbles about the morality and legality of what she was doing.
She tried getting her fingers round the edges of the living room windows, but they were firmly closed. She looked at the equally closed windows on the first floor, and the sturdiness of the plastic drainpipe, before deciding she’d come back to those. There was a wrought iron gate at the side of the house, all twists and spirals. There was a padlock on the latch, but the intricate design of the gate provided perfect hand and footholds for someone to climb over. Sam gripped the gate tightly as she swung her leg over the top and assured herself she’d be fine – as long as her weight didn’t snap the gate off its hinges and crush her underneath when it fell.
Down on the other side, uncrushed, she explored the rear of the house. The summer house or sauna room, or whatever it was down the end of the garden, was an interesting and incongruous addition. Did Greg have his own heated swimming pool? He certainly didn’t seem the kind of man to deny himself anything. As for the house, there was no handy open kitchen window or unlocked patio door. There wasn’t even a cat flap for her to contemplate. There was, however, a pervasive smell in the air. It had an earthy quality to it, but its top notes were rich and meaty, like a casserole or stew bubbling on the stove.
She stood on tiptoe to better look through the kitchen window. The hob and oven were dark, off. Besides, the window was definitely closed and there was no whirring extractor fan. She looked to the houses on either side.
“That’s a strong smell,” she told herself quietly and turned to the summer house construction.
Its curved plastic walls were frosted. There was also a layer of condensation on the inside.