Pascoe's Ghost

by Hill, Reginald;

  I could, of course, merely have rejected the breakfasts, but Alice was a very touchy person. She distrusted me on principle, as she distrusted all men who showed an interest in her poor widowed niece, Sally. But if distrust ripened into dislike, I was finished. So I praised the breakfasts and ordered The Times whenever I came to Millthwaite.

  I stood and looked at the tarts, cooling on the kitchen table. There were two dozen of them, intended, I surmised, for the Women’s Institute Fête that afternoon. I breathed in the rich seductive smell of warm pastry and hot jam. And I was tempted.

  Why a man as eager to be liked as I was should have let himself be tempted is hard to explain. All I can say is four-and-twenty looks pretty like an infinity of tarts and also I was very hungry. After all, I’d had no breakfast.

  I picked one up. It made a single delicious mouthful. I had a second in my hand when I realized I was being observed.

  Standing outside the window was the monster, Lennie. His wavy jet black hair curled down over his brow, almost hiding the cold grey eyes which I felt rather than saw staring at me accusingly. At five years old Lennie gave every promise of becoming as morally unscrupulous as his father.

  I smiled reassuringly at him and offered him a tart. He was, after all, Sally’s son and the apple of Alice’s eye and I would do well to keep in his good books. But the little monster shook his head and said “Fête,” or it might have been “fate.” Either way it sounded like a threat.

  With a sigh I reached into my pocket and found it was empty, an all too common discovery of late. I had never realized how much our little contracting business depended on my partner, Leonard, until he fell off the scaffolding. I had tried to keep Sally’s share up at the old level as I didn’t want Alice to get a sniff of my inefficiency, but it left me perpetually short. Young Lennie did not have the mien of a child ready to be fobbed off with promissory notes. Debating what was best, I glanced idly round the kitchen and my eyes fell on a fifty-pence piece in a saucer on the shelf behind the cellar door. I picked it up. Lennie brushed his black locks aside to get a better view and when I lobbed it through the window he plucked it out of the air like an on-form slip fielder. Then he was gone.

  Just like his father, I thought as I went upstairs. You didn’t have to spell things out for him.

  I met Sally coming out of the bathroom. She liked rising late when she could, which was useful to me as it meant I could breakfast alone. Sally was almost as sensitive on Alice’s behalf as the ancient beldame herself, and I wouldn’t have cared for her to catch me at my sleight of hand with The Times. I’d never thought of Sally as a particularly “loyal” person; in fact, as far as Leonard went, my experience had pointed quite the other way. But it turned out that she was a scion of one of those old blood-is-thicker-than-water bucolic families and after Leonard’s death she hadn’t hesitated to accept Aunt Alice’s invitation to come and stay till she “got herself sorted.” I had done all I could to help Sally bear her tragic loss and would have done a great deal more, but her sojourn at Millthwaite had somehow reawoken a whole ocean of sleeping Krakens, notably a sense of family and (worse still) a sense of propriety. No, she hadn’t gone off me, she explained, as I tried to arrange a tryst in her bedroom on my first visit, but it wasn’t right, not here, in Aunt Alice’s house. And when I suggested what Aunt Alice might care to do, our relationship almost came to a close there and then. Left to herself, I had no doubt that in the end she would marry me. But Leonard’s death hadn’t left her to herself. It had left her to Lennie and to Alice and I wasn’t about to get my share without their express approval.

  There was, besides, a more comfortably mercenary motive. Alice’s small fortune (“in the funds,” would you believe?) was going to come Lennie’s way, via his mother—but not if she rushed into a foolish second marriage. And even after three visits to Millthwaite my suitability was still very much under scrutiny—and (though it hurt to admit it) not only by Alice!

  Sally looked very fetching in her nightie and I couldn’t resist giving her a passionate embrace, which she permitted only because we could hear Alice in the hall below trying to make contact with the idiot girl who looked after the village’s tiny telephone exchange. My own recognition of the need for caution couldn’t survive such close contact with that soft flesh and I was trying to manoeuvre Sally back into the bathroom when Alice’s voice rose sufficiently to penetrate even the drumbeat of hot blood in my ears.

  “Constable Jarvis!” she bellowed. “That’s who I want … No reply? What if I was being assaulted? … No, I’m not! I’ll try later.”

  She slammed the phone down as I descended the stairs, having abruptly abandoned my assault on Sally much to her surprise and, I hope, disappointment.

  “Anything wrong, Alice?” I asked casually.

  She regarded me with distaste. She was a big-boned, grey-haired countrywoman in her late fifties and anger turned her face a greyish-purple and drew the sides of her mouth down till they almost touched her chin.

  “You didn’t eat any of my tarts, did you?” she demanded.

  No one in his right mind would have admitted it at that moment.

  “No!” I said emphatically. “Are some missing?”

  “Four,” she said.

  Four! I’d only taken two! The monster, Lennie, must have returned and taken the others. How like his father, to add theft to blackmail!

  Without compunction I suggested, “Perhaps Lennie helped himself?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “The milkman’s money’s gone from the shelf, too. He’d not do that.”

  But you still asked me! I thought indignantly. What a world it was where children received more trust than their elders. Especially a child whose criminal inheritance stood out like a love-bite on a nun.

  “No, I know who it’d be,” she continued grimly. My blood chilled. “I saw that tramp, the one they call Old Tommy, hanging around earlier. He kept going when he saw me, he knows there’s nothing for the likes of him at my house. He must have come back through the kitchen garden later. I’ll get Jarvis after him as soon as he bothers to answer his phone.”

  So saying, she picked up the telephone once more. I went through the kitchen, avoided the temptation of the depleted but still heavily loaded tray of tarts, and strolled out into the morning sunshine. It seemed like a good time for a walk. If I could have spotted young Lennie, I’d have invited him along not because of his sparkling conversation but merely to have him out of the way when PC Jarvis arrived. But he was nowhere in sight, so I had to be content with making myself scarce. Not that there was much to bother about. I’d seen this tramp, Old Tommy, pretty frequently on my egg-disposal expeditions along the country by-ways and he looked a natural suspect for all petty crime in the district. So I strolled along enjoying the warm sunshine, the lush green fields gilded with buttercups, and the warbling of innumerable birds. Even the distant pop of a shotgun as some unsentimental fanner tried to cut down on the warbling seemed to blend in with the overall rich sensuous pattern of Nature.

  The pattern became a little threadbare round the next corner. There, sitting in the hedgerow like a pile of house-hold rubbish dumped by a passing vandal, was Old Tommy. Some tramps are picturesque at a distance. Close or far, Tommy was revolting. Such skin as could be seen through the layers of rags and the tangles of lank gingery hair was a mottled grey, like mouldy bread. He was stuffing some sort of food he held wrapped in an old newspaper into the mouth which doubtless lay beneath the beard and he didn’t even look up as I passed. I would have ignored him also if it hadn’t been for a sudden shock of recognition.

  That was no ordinary food he was eating! That was one of Alice’s solid fried eggs!

  Surely a man could get no lower than this? I stopped and shared the horror of his degradation.

  Now he looked up and acknowledged my presence.

  “I would appreciate a little more salt,” he said. “If you could manage that one morning.”

  Now my sho
ck was doubled, or even trebled. He knew who I was! No wonder I’d seen him so frequently on my post-breakfast trips. Whenever I was at Millthwaite, it must have been like room service to him!

  But worse still was his voice. This was no mumbling, half-witted derelict, but an educated man. The Times was not just a container. He was holding it the right way up and reading the grease-stained news.

  “Watch it, mate!” I blistered. “I’ll have the law on you.”

  I dare say he looked surprised beneath the hair.

  “What for!” he said. “Stealing your breakfast? You shouldn’t leave it lying around in ditches, should you? Now push off, will you. I want to get on with my paper.”

  So saying, he opened it wide and I observed the words “Rose Cottage” scribbled plainly on the front page. If Jarvis questioned him about the money and the tarts, not only did he have the articulacy to defend himself, he had the evidence to support a counter-attack. If this got back to Alice, her fury would be formidable.

  I could see that there was little profit to be gained from arguing with Old Tommy. Threats weren’t going to work and I lacked the wherewithal to bribe him. In any case, as I’d found with young Lennie, bribery only got you in deeper. So with an affectation of indifference, I began to retrace my steps.

  The countryside round Millthwaite is thickly wooded and it was easy to step off the road round the first bend and find a vantage point among the trees from which I could observe what Old Tommy did next. The ground sloped sharply here. Far above me I could still hear the farmer stuffing pigeons full of buckshot. Behind me in a small field carved out among the beechwoods, a couple of dozen sheep grazed, baa-ing contentedly as they chewed the lush grass. Bees buzzed, birds chirruped, leaves rustled. And over all the sun shone hotter and hotter.

  God, how I hate the bloody countryside!

  My fear was that Old Tommy might succumb to the general somnolence, but after only a minute or two, I saw him rise. If I read him aright, he was very willing to argue the toss with impotent civilians, but empty though he believed my threat of the law to be, he preferred not to run the risk of an encounter with PC Jarvis. Or perhaps it was my connection with Rose Cottage and the ultimate deterrent of Aunt Alice which inspired him. Whatever the case, he began to walk with unwonted briskness along the lane in a direction which would ultimately bring him to the arterial road about two miles distant, and once over that he was off Jarvis’s patch.

  I watched him out of sight with a lightening heart and whistled merrily as I strolled through the sheep in the little field and out of the gate back on to the road.

  But it seemed to be the fate of my bubbles of joy that summer morning to be rapidly burst.

  As I came in sight of Rose Cottage again, I saw the lean and hungry figure of Constable Jarvis leaning on the gate in deep conversation with Alice. But it wasn’t just the sight of the constable that bothered me, it was what accompanied him.

  On all my previous visits, Jarvis had moved majestically around the countryside on a very old, very upright and very slow bicycle. The young and the hale could leave him far behind, and many of the old and the halt could give him a good run for his money.

  But now a profligate state had seen fit to provide him with a shiny new motor-scooter! Since Leonard’s death I had frequently come into close and unpleasant contact with the Inland Revenue, and this blatant waste of taxpayers’ money filled me with rage.

  It also filled me with apprehension. If Jarvis set off in the right direction, he could easily overtake Old Tommy before the tramp was safely over the arterial. I hadn’t been seen by the pair at the gate, so I quickly retreated. It was my simple intention if Jarvis came this way to flag him down and engage him in conversation as long as I possibly could. But when I came in view once more of the little field nestling among the wooded hills, I saw that not all the sheep were safely grazing inside any more. Some fool had left the gate ajar. It was probably me. I was never very hot on the country code, I’m afraid. Anyway, two or three sheep were already out on the road and the others were queuing up to follow. Guiltily I set about trying to shoo the escapers back in. Then it struck me that here was the perfect excuse for delaying Jarvis if he came. Not that a couple of sheep would cause a country policeman much trouble. Was that the distant putt-putt of a motor-scooter I could hear?

  Acting with sudden resolution, I opened the gate wide, went into the field and began waving my arms and shouting. For a few seconds, the stupid animals merely regarded me indifferently. Then as if someone had pressed a panic button, suddenly they turned as one and stampeded out of the gate and down the road.

  At exactly that moment PC Jarvis came sailing round the corner. They must have used more of the tax-payers’ money to give him a first-class training, for he displayed a high degree of skill, gently colliding with no more than four or five of the leading animals before his machine came to rest in the hedgerow as, shortly afterwards, he did himself.

  It was no time to come forward and pretend I had been trying to restore the sheep to their field, I decided. A quiet withdrawal was best. Jarvis was on his feet. He was bleeding slightly and looked rather dazed, but in the best traditions of the great force to which he belonged, he was applying himself instantly to the immediate task which seemed to involve viciously kicking every sheep that was foolish enough to remain within range.

  It would be a long time before he was ready to resume the chase after Old Tommy. Well satisfied, I climbed out of the field into the surrounding wood and began to make my way back towards the cottage across country. I smiled as I walked at the thought of all those sheep running wildly in all directions. They would take hours to round up. Foolish animals! Unlike the rational part of creation, their only reaction to danger was flight. Had I been a sheep and not a man, I would doubtless have been running madly towards the railway station by now (I smiled at the thought), instead of which I was going to stay on at Rose Cottage, conquer Alice’s suspicions, win Sally’s hand, and live happily ever after.

  Another bubble! Townie though I am, I have a sharp enough ear for danger to catch a discordant note in the great symphony of Nature. And now I paused and listened.

  I was right. Something was approaching fast, some large heavy beast galloping down the slope towards me, paying scant attention to the undergrowth or any other obstacle. A wild boar? I wondered, ready to believe anything of a landscape which could house Aunt Alice.

  Then I saw a figure and heard a distant voice. It was almost incomprehensible with anger and the thick local accent but I heard enough to catch his general drift.

  “… -ing bugger … ! my -ing sheep … ! -ing shoot … ! -ing police … !”

  This might have been the not totally unattractive programme of some new anarchist party, but I guessed not. No, it seemed more likely this was the same pigeonshooter I had heard earlier, probably one of the local farmers, a fearsome tribe of primitives, fit consort for the likes of Alice. And I guessed from his broken speech that the sheep were his, and from some vantage point on the hill he’d observed my apparent attempt to rustle them!

  I could only hope he’d been too distant for identification. From the time he’d taken to appear on the scene, it seemed likely. Without further ado, I took to my heels, scrambling madly through the undergrowth which, innocuous a moment earlier, now seemed to coil thorny tentacles around my calves and thighs at every step.

  Behind me the voice ceased its abusive babble and a single more terrible sound filled its place, the soft explosion of a shotgun cartridge. The leaves above my head hissed as though drilled by jets of boiling rain, frightened birds rose noisily into the air, and I fell to the ground with all the speed I could muster.

  “Come on out, you varmint!” roared that awful voice. (He may or may not have said “you varmint,” but this was in fact the kind of thing these local farmers were able to say with no self-consciousness whatsoever.)

  I had no intention of coming out. I knew enough about country matters to recognize that he had le
t loose only one barrel of his shotgun and I felt sure that the other was anxiously seeking the slightest sign of movement on my part. My best bet was to lie low. The undergrowth around me was so thick and rustly that I should be able to keep close track of his movements if he began to approach.

  Why this should have seemed a comfort I don’t know! When next he moved, I certainly heard him, but he was so near that he must just as certainly hear me if I attempted to retreat. Now he’d stopped again. I pictured him standing close by, beady eyes gleaming, ears and gun cocked for my slightest movement.

  I could bear it no longer. I had to get out of there!

  Slowly I rose, using a Walt Disney beech tree for cover. I had a strange sense that he was directly on the other side of it, but it didn’t matter. Nothing could be worse than this terror of waiting!

  Then from under my feet a rabbit started! The poor beast must have been crouching only a couple of feet away from me, petrified by an equal terror. Now it was off in a noisy panic-stricken dash through the dark brush. I leaned against the tree startled half out of my mind, and suddenly the farmer, attracted by the noise of the rabbit’s flight, jumped out from behind the beech.

  He looked exactly as I’d imagined him. I held my breath. He peered after the rabbit, gun levelled. I thought I was going to die. He hadn’t seen me yet, but he was only a yard away. I felt myself choking. Any moment he must turn!

  I did the only thing possible.

  Raising both my arms I leapt forward and brought my clenched fists crashing down on the base of his thick red neck.