by Ellis, Kate
The coroner concluded that Horace died of natural causes yet with each passing day I grow more and more certain that somebody ended my dear gentle husband’s life.
Since those terrible murders of 1919 it is as though a cloud of distrust and suspicion hangs over Wenfield like the mist that so often shrouds our Derbyshire hills. It would put my troubled mind at rest if you were to advise me as to my best course of action. While I have no doubt that Sergeant Teague and Constable Wren are good men, I do not trust them to understand my fears or to act upon them.
I await your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Caroline Bell (Mrs)
Albert found it hard to absorb the letter’s contents on the first reading so he read it through again. When he looked up he saw that Sam was still there, watching him as though he feared the letter might send him into a state of shock. Sam was the only person in London who knew the truth of what had happened in Wenfield. He was the one person Albert had been able to trust to keep the information to himself. And he’d had to share his burden with someone.
‘It’s from Mrs Bell, the widow of the vicar of Wenfield. Remember I told you he’d passed away last September?’
Sam nodded. ‘What does she want?’
Albert hesitated before answering. ‘She thinks her husband might have been murdered. I met her, Sam. She’s a sensible woman – not the sort to let her imagination get the better of her. She was very well thought of in the village … and … the woman always spoke highly of her.’ He found he couldn’t bear to utter Flora’s name. ‘Mrs Bell was one of the few people to stand up to that Society for the Abolition of Cowardice – those dreadful women who sent white feathers to soldiers suffering from …’
‘I know, sir. Some people had no idea. What does Mrs Bell expect you to do about it?’
Albert sighed. ‘She’s asking for my advice but I’m not sure how to reply to her. The coroner’s verdict was natural causes and she has no proof that it was wrong. Not that I’d ever want to set foot in that village again anyway.’ His last words were half-hearted and the possibility that Mrs Bell might be privy to information about his lost son kept flitting through his mind, even though he tried his best to ignore it.
Albert pushed the letter to one side and picked up one of the files on his desk, a signal the subject was closed. Mrs Bell’s communication had taken him by surprise and he needed time to consider his response. Sam sidled out of the office and shut the door behind him.
Albert stared at the file in his hand without really seeing it. Mrs Bell suspected, rightly or wrongly, that the coroner’s verdict was wrong and that her husband had been murdered. However, she was over two hundred miles away and if she had any doubts about her husband’s death it was only proper that she should share them initially with her local police. Besides, he had his duties to attend to … not to mention the heaviest duty of all: his duty to Mary, his wife.
He put the letter out of sight in his in-tray, resolving to consider the problem tomorrow. Perhaps his mother’s old adage, that things always seemed clearer after a good night’s sleep, would prove correct in this instance.
The following morning, however, he was to receive a message that would take the decision out of his hands. The late Reverend Bell would most likely have said it was Divine Providence. But Albert blamed coincidence.
Chapter 4
Rose
Bert went to the mill first thing as usual, complaining that his shirt cuffs were still grubby. He said he was senior clerk and the slovenly way I keep house makes him look bad in front of his juniors. I was afraid he’d hit me again but he didn’t. I promised to have a word with Betty about the laundry but, to be honest, she frightens me. I am the mistress and she is the maid, but she is older than me and more confident. She knows I haven’t been married long and I’m sure my inexperience exasperates her. I’ve seen her watching me as I sit in the parlour reading my book and I wonder if she thinks of me as a spoiled child. A child who has nothing to do all day but read tales of romance while she blacks grates, sweeps crumbs and cleans clothes.
I imagine it’s hard to get Bert’s cuffs clean when there’s so much soot in the air from the village fires and the mill chimneys belching out smoke. But I’ve never tried to wash a shirt so that’s all I can do – imagine.
Mind you, it’s probably a good thing Betty’s always kept busy. While she’s busy she can’t poke her nose in where it’s not wanted. She can’t know what I do or who I meet when I leave the house. I know she can’t be trusted to keep my secret and I think she’d most likely take my husband’s side and betray me. I think she’s a sly one; an enemy to be feared just like the wicked housekeeper in the book I finished yesterday.
I close my eyes and think of my lover. My Darling Man. He’s so attentive; so exciting. He makes me feel alive again, as if I were a corpse risen from the grave into the marvellous light the vicar talks about in his sermons.
When I think about the loving words in my darling’s letters a smile comes unbidden to my lips. The very thought of him warms my heart and he’s told me he’s willing to do anything for me. Anything.
Bert doesn’t like me going out and if he wasn’t at work he’d probably try to stop me. But I promise him I only visit the shops and the library and what would I do all day if I didn’t have books to read? When he sees my books he gets annoyed and talks as though the library is a den of sin and iniquity filled with dangerous ideas, but he hasn’t forbidden me to go there, provided I’m always home when he comes in for his dinner at twelve thirty.
I confess that his restrictions have made me cunning and the library provides the perfect excuse for me to communicate with my Darling Man. He too has his obligations, but we have learned to overcome all obstacles. And we write to each other such loving words and such secret plans. Plans of freedom. Plans of murder.
Before I set off for the library I have to speak to Betty. I can hear her clattering pans in the kitchen and I hold Bert’s shirt, summoning the courage to tell her about the cuffs. But it has to be done or I might suffer for it. Bert doesn’t like to be thwarted, especially by women. Especially by me.
When I walk into the kitchen Betty looks up from her work. She is peeling potatoes for tea and her hands are filthy with the soil that clings to the skins. I mutter Bert’s instructions, expecting to see contempt in her eyes. But instead I’m surprised to see pity and she says she’ll see to it after dinner. Perhaps Betty has begun to realise what my husband is. Perhaps she will be my ally. Although I won’t trust her until I know for sure. If Bert were to suspect the truth, I might be called upon to pay with my life, for he has a terrible temper.
Before I leave the house I adjust my hat in the mirror. My hatpin is long and sharp, lethal in murderous hands, and as I push it into the fabric of my hat to secure it onto my head, I fantasise about pushing it into Bert’s heart. Perhaps I’m a wicked woman for having such thoughts but my life with him is hard to bear.
I leave the house, carrying my basket over my arm like any other housewife making for the village shops. I pass the library, which is a grand building built of red brick rather than the local stone. The words Public Library and the date 1897 are picked out in ornamental brick above the entrance and at once I feel as though I am being drawn inside that place of stories and escape. But today I have other plans. I hurry past, glancing round, relieved when I see that everyone in Wenfield seems to be absorbed in their own business so I might as well be invisible. I walk on, making for the edge of the village, passing the mill where my husband spends his working day, and taking the footpath out to the open countryside.
If I had been raised in Wenfield my actions would no doubt be fraught with danger because everyone would know me and report back to their family and neighbours. But as it is, I was born in the village of Cheadle in the north of Cheshire so my face is unfamiliar. How I long for Cheadle and those days before my marriage, but I can never go back there because my parents are dead and my brothers were both killed at
the Somme. I thought marriage to Bert would give me a new and happy beginning, but it wasn’t long before my hopes of bliss were shattered.
But now I have fresh hope. If everything works out as I want, Bert will soon be gone and I will have a new husband; a kind, clever, wonderful man who will carry me away from Wenfield and love me for the rest of my life. One big sin will set me free for ever. Though the smell of smoke clings to my clothes and hair long after my husband’s mill with its belching chimneys has faded from view, I find myself skipping over the grass like a child.
I’ve heard people talk about the place we’ve agreed to meet, but I have never been there myself. It is some way from the village and when it was described to me I felt a chill, as though I had encountered something evil. The place is known as the Devil’s Dancers; a circle of stones so ancient that nobody knows their age or how they came to be there. The Devil stands in the centre with his fiddle while the dancers swirl in a circle around him. I don’t know why anybody would go dancing with the Devil. Perhaps they were witches. Or maybe it’s just a fanciful tale because people love stories. I’ve heard there’s a curse on the place and that anybody who goes near the stones at midnight will be dragged down to hell. I wonder if it’s ever happened.
There is a sharp chill in the March air and I pull my coat around me. The grey clouds glower over the tops of the hills and as I climb the hill I look back at Wenfield. The houses look tiny now, like dolls’ houses, and I can see people, small and diminished. From here everything seems so harmless.
There are sheep in the fields I walk through but they show more interest in grass than in a faithless woman meeting her lover. They ignore me and carry on grazing. I had thought to see some sweet little lambs but there are none. Perhaps they and their woolly mothers are in another field. These sheep I pass look thin and their fleeces are dirty grey and hung with mud – or something worse, as if the Devil has put a curse on them too.
The ground dips and I find myself running down a hill into a valley. On the other side of the dip a grey cliff face rises up like an impenetrable barrier and in front of it I can see the circle of stones: the Devil’s Dancers cavorting to their eternal tune.
As I approach, I pause to glance back. Wenfield is on the other side of the hill now, I can see nobody and nobody can see me. My heart beats faster as I lift my watch to check the time. I am five minutes early but I don’t care. The stench of smoke is gone and the open countryside smells of freedom.
I walk slowly around the circle and I understand how the place acquired its name. There is a movement in the stones, as though they are dancers frozen suddenly in the course of their dance. The stone in the centre looks like a thin, bowing figure towering over the others and the protrusion from its centre has the look of a fiddle. I close my eyes and the sound of the crows becomes the raucous tune of a violin. But that is my imagination. My mother used to say it was my curse.
My Darling Man has arrived and my heart beats faster as I watch him hurrying down the hill into the hollow to meet me. I hold my breath and wait, holding out my arms. There is a smile on his lips, although he looks wary, as though he fears discovery.
‘Did anyone see you come here?’ he says breathlessly, taking both my hands in his.
‘No. I was careful.’
‘Good. You know what villages are like.’
I put my hand up to his head and remove his trilby. ‘You worry too much.’
He takes the hat from me and smiles. ‘You could be right. But we can’t take the risk. We have to be discreet. You’re a married woman.’
I long to remind him that if all goes to plan I’ll soon be a widow. A respectable widow with a house and a good income. In his letters he says he longs for that day as much as I do, but now we are face to face his boldness seems to have vanished. But feelings can often be expressed better in the written word.
‘We haven’t much time. It’s almost eleven and Bert will be back for his dinner at half past twelve.’
‘Last time I was walking here I noticed a cave in the rock face. We’ll be safe there.’ His voice is thick with longing and I feel a thrill of excitement. My heroines never describe the moment in words, just feelings. A warm oblivion. A sweet surrender.
He leads me towards the towering rock face and points to a small circle of darkness. ‘In there,’ he whispers. ‘We can lie on my coat.’
He takes my hand gently and I follow in a dream, the basket still in the crook of my arm. He has to stoop to access the cave, but the entrance is high enough for me. There is an unpleasant odour that I can’t quite place but I try to ignore it. He takes out his cigarette lighter and sweeps the light around our new refuge. Then I hear him gasp.
‘What is it?’ I ask. I haven’t been paying attention to my surroundings, only to him and what we are about to do.
When he doesn’t answer I hold my breath, hoping all my plans aren’t about to be thrown into disarray. He walks towards the back of the cave, his body blocking my view. Then he kneels and holds the lighter aloft.
I follow him slowly and then I see it. A body, grotesquely swollen and the colour of a bruise. It is a man and he is naked. How did he come to be here, I wonder, and where are his clothes? Why did his life end in such a lonely place? Did he take off his own clothes or did somebody strip them off him? There are so many questions and I want to know the answers.
As my eyes adjust to the gloom I see that the face is a mess of dried blood and broken flesh and something has gnawed at his fingers so that here and there white bone pokes through. Then the smell hits me hard. The stench of rotting meat. I feel sick. As I turn away, I notice a dried-up pool of vomit near the cave entrance. It horrifies me that I must have stepped in it and I recoil, shuddering.
‘What are we going to do?’ I ask. My voice is feeble from shock and I feel ashamed. The heroine I want to be would know what to do.
He turns to me, his eyes gentle and patient. Bert would have mocked my confusion; told me I was useless.
‘We must tell the police,’ I say. ‘We have no choice.’
‘But how do we explain …’
‘I can say I was walking in the hills; that I needed fresh air and solitude. I will say I looked into the cave out of curiosity because I’ve never been to this spot before.’
‘I won’t let you do that. What if your husband gets to hear? If anybody reports it, it should be me.’ He pauses and smiles. ‘Then your name will never be mentioned. Your reputation won’t be sullied.’
‘People will guess.’
He thinks for a moment. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps there’s some other way. Or maybe someone else will find him so we won’t have to become involved.’
I touch his back; a fond touch. Grateful. He understands everything. My position; my fears; my terror of discovery and punishment. He is the man I will kill for.
He studies me earnestly in the flickering lighter flame as though he wishes to remember every feature when we are apart. He stoops to kiss the top of my head. He is so much taller than me and I feel protected. But I know that he cannot protect me from Bert.
‘Go now. Go home,’ he whispers.
He kisses me, a kiss that hints at the potential bliss our grim discovery has prevented.
I obey at once without question and run out of the cave across the damp grass. The clouds have thickened and the stone dancers stand out stark against the grey sky. The Devil is still in the centre, still giving out his eternal, infernal tune. I swear I see him move but I run on, up the slope and out of the little valley, back towards the village. I almost trip on a small outcrop of granite and drop my basket. But I manage to stay upright and when I reach home I take a deep, calming breath before I open the front door.
I must play the innocent. I have been to the village. I have not met my lover. I have not seen a dead man.
Chapter 5
Since his return from the war in 1918 Albert hadn’t slept well. The pain in his leg and injured hand more often than not robbed him of sle
ep until he fell into a fitful slumber in the early hours of the morning. Then he’d wake with a start, the sound of gunfire ringing in his ears, and it would take him a while to understand that he was safely in his small house in Bermondsey and not in a trench sliced into the French mud.
These days each morning began the same way. He woke up alone, just as he’d done since Frederick’s death. In her grief, Mary had banished herself from the bed they’d shared in happier days to sleep in Frederick’s bed, saying it made her feel closer to him. And now Mary wasn’t there at all. She was in a sanatorium in Margate where she could benefit from good sea air well away from the London smoke.
When the doctor had prescribed fresh air, Mary had argued against it. She hadn’t wanted to leave London because in London she was near to the man who called himself the Reverend Gillit, whose League of Departed Spirits claimed to be able to contact Frederick in the hereafter. In spite of Albert’s insistence that the man was a charlatan, Mary was in his thrall, egged on by her mother, Vera, who was also a member of Gillit’s so-called ‘church’.
Albert had struggled to persuade his wife that the move to Margate was for the best. Although there were times when he wondered whether he’d encouraged her to heed the doctor’s advice because their home had become a sterile wasteland since Frederick’s death, devoid of all affection and hope. In some ways it was a happier house without Mary’s burden of misery, but this very thought caused Albert another pang of guilt.
It was a Wednesday, four days to go until he paid his weekly Sunday visit to Mary, whose sole topic of conversation these days was the Reverend Gillit and what Frederick was doing in the Afterlife. Even the move to Margate hadn’t been enough to extract her from Gillit’s oily clutches. Vera insisted that Gillit was Mary’s only comfort now that Albert was incapable of supporting her. Vera was a poisonous woman, but he knew there was some truth in her words.