Poppy Redfern and the Midnight Murders

by Tessa Arlen

  I quickly poured her a glass of water from the pump in the kitchen sink. “Where is Mr. Wilkes?”

  “Him and Percy are mending the fence up at the north end of the cow pasture.” The expression on her face was so distressing I couldn’t think of a thing to say, other than I needed to use her phone. I left her sitting there alone at her kitchen table, with her heart full of dread, and went into the stuffy narrow corridor and telephoned Constable Jones. It took me seconds to get through to him and seconds more to let him know that Audrey Wilkes had been missing since seven o’clock yesterday evening. Then I went back into the kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table next to her mother.

  SIXTEEN

  I waited in the kitchen with Mrs. Wilkes as morning turned into afternoon. For such a laborious and slow-moving individual, our local police constable had been quick to summon the people he needed to turn out on a cold, wet autumn day to search woods, fields, farms, and their outbuildings for Audrey.

  I had wanted to join the search party too, but I knew I couldn’t leave Mrs. Wilkes alone in her kitchen. As the afternoon hours crept by, she did not move from her chair by the kitchen table. It was as if she had been frozen into immobility and would remain rooted there until she heard news of her daughter.

  At about four o’clock, as I made yet another pot of tea, she looked up at me. “Thank you, dear. It is very kind of you to stay with me,” she said. “Audrey always liked you.” She smiled. It was a poor specimen to be sure, but my heart lifted to see it. Mrs. Wilkes is one of those cheerful, busy women, as farmers’ wives so often must be. It was awful to see her silently waiting to be told that her daughter would not walk through her kitchen door again.

  “They’ll find her soon, Mrs. Wilkes. It will be all right.” I tried to block the image that had insidiously crept into my head, of Audrey lying dead in a ditch, ever since Mrs. Martin had said she had not turned up at the crypt even after the drill.

  I had callously made Audrey my prime suspect based on some careless assumptions. Now I knew that far from being Doreen’s and Ivy’s murderer, she had possibly joined them as the killer’s next victim.

  I murmured the usual things we say to comfort and encourage as I poured more tea. But Mrs. Wilkes wasn’t listening. She was looking at the kitchen door, and Bess, who had waited patiently under the table for fallen scraps, was up and standing to attention, her head cocked on one side. I got to my feet as the three of us listened to the heavy steps of what sounded like a small army of people tramping up the crazy paving path to the Wilkeses’ kitchen door.

  * * *

  —

  “OH GOD, OH dear God.” Her tightly held self-control had vanished; Mrs. Wilkes wept in the arms of her husband as, gray with fatigue, he patted her gently on the back.

  “She’ll pull through, Doris,” he reassured his wife. “She’ll be all right—she’s a healthy, strong girl.”

  “Did she say anything?” Mrs. Wilkes lifted her tearstained face.

  “No, love, she was unconscious. Now, put on your coat and I’ll drive us over to Wickham General.”

  “Where was she?”

  “The old lambing hut on the edge of Bart’s Field.”

  “How long had she been there?” Her daughter was not dead, but she was badly hurt—on her way to hospital, perhaps already there. Mrs. Wilkes was desperate for details.

  “Dr. Oliver thinks she was there all night. She must have crawled into the hut and then blacked out. They’ll take care of her at Wickham General, you’ll see. She’ll be as right as rain in no time.” But Mr. Wilkes didn’t look too convinced. After all, he’d been one of the first on the scene when Jones had found his daughter.

  As I listened with half an ear to Mrs. Wilkes’s frantic questions, my mind went to the old lambing hut on the edge of Bart’s Field—not far, I remembered now, from the badgers’ sett. I stored this nugget away for later consideration. The Wilkeses, struggling to understand how and why their daughter could have been so brutally attacked when the Little Buffenden Strangler was locked up on the American base, were still standing side by side, their hands clutched together, as the search party gathered in their kitchen doorway, desperate to reassure them that their daughter was in good hands and that she would pull through.

  Mrs. Glossop’s pale face, screwed up with determination to bring comfort, peered into the kitchen. She saw me and nodded as if she was confirming something to herself. It was Constable Jones, hero of Little Buffenden’s most triumphant hour, who ushered the well-wishers down the drive in a steady downpour and the failing light of day.

  I knew I was intruding on the constable’s inquiry—ordinarily he would have asked me to leave too—but I had waited the long hours with Audrey’s mum, so in a way I was almost family. Percy Frazer came in through the kitchen door, hat in hand, and crept into a corner of the kitchen next to the Aga, where he meekly held out his hands to warm them and then took a seat out of the way. I caught his eye and felt even more guilty for considering him as a possible suspect when he gave me a shy, tentative smile before concentrating his surprised gaze on the large puddle of rainwater growing at his feet.

  “Now then.” Jones stood before us, a comforting and solid presence with water still dripping off his nose. “Detective Hargreaves will have some questions for you, and he should be here momentarily.”

  Mrs. Wilkes started to protest. “Tonight? But why can’t he wait until tomorrow? We have to go to Wickham.” Of course she didn’t want to talk to a policeman; she wanted to be at her daughter’s bedside in Wickham’s general hospital.

  “Audrey’s in good hands, Mrs. Wilkes, and they wurn’t let you see hurr till tomorrow marnin’ anyways.” His soft West Country burr had a reassuring effect. Mrs. Wilkes sat down at her kitchen table again and drank a glass of what her husband called “something a bit stronger.” It was parsnip wine, the old country standby—every farmer’s wife in England knows how to make the stuff: strong and thick, with a treacly consistency. I accepted a glass but couldn’t bring myself to take even a polite sip.

  “What had he done to her?” Mrs. Wilkes, fortified by alcohol, was almost belligerent. “What had the beast done to her?”

  “Best as I could judge . . .” Jones was cautious, and his accent thickened. “He had tried to . . . probably tried to . . . urr. Well . . . our best guess is that Audrey ’ud managed to fight him off. And . . . so, more than likely . . .” His eyes wandered over to Mr. Wilkes as if asking for help in explaining the next part, and then, pulling himself together, he finished in a rush. “Her attacker had hit hurr over the head with a brick, or probably summat like it.”

  Mrs. Wilkes groaned and, clenching her hands into fists, lifted them to her forehead. Mr. Wilkes was at her side, his arm around her shoulders. “She’ll be all right, love, just you wait and see.” He turned an anguished face to Jones and shook his head. But Jones had steeled himself to finish. “It looks like she ’ud crawled into the old lambing hut, which wurr a good thing, because otherwise she woulda died from the exposurr. Dr. Olivurr says they’ll exur-ray her at the hospital.” Mrs. Wilkes began to sob, and we were saved from any more of Jones’s floundering explanations by the arrival of Detective Hargreaves.

  * * *

  —

  I WAS SPARED the inspector’s interview. As he came into the kitchen, he didn’t look in the least bit surprised to see me. All he said was, “It’s getting dark out, Miss Redfern. Constable Jones will see you home.”

  “Please don’t worry about me—I’ll be fine,” I said, getting to my feet, anxious to be on my way.

  “No, Miss Redfern, you can’t go home alone. There’s a very dangerous person at large. Constable Jones will see you home.”

  It had stopped raining, and I picked up Bess and stowed her in the bike’s grocery basket strapped to the handlebars. It made the going slower, but I found the silhouette of her round head and upright ears in front
of me soothing.

  Jones was silent as we biked up Water Lane, past the now empty building where our German spy Mr. Ponsonby had once lived, and then Dr. and Mrs. Oliver’s house. We were both out of breath as the gradient steepened past the Ritchies’ house. Their kitchen window was open, the blackout tightly closed behind it, and we could hear England’s favorite radio program, It’s That Man Again, or ITMA as it was affectionately referred to. I heard a burst of laughter from Sid, and his mother called out something to him and he laughed again and imitated the program’s popular catchphrase: “After you, Claude—no, after you, Cecil.” Hearing him from outside, I could have sworn it was the radio and not Sid.

  Constable Jones laughed. “He’s got them down to a T. You know, he told me that’s what RAF pilots say to one another now, before they go in for an attack! Bet they don’t do it half so well as our Sid, though—that boy’s got real talent. You should hear him take off Tommy Handley—really good, he is.”

  I realized, with a mixture of exasperation and affection, that I would be patrolling with Sid again, now that, in the parlance of Hargreaves, there was a “dangerous person at large.” How will our village receive that news? I wondered. Will they feel guilty that they had lumped all our allies in together as a “bad lot”? I was too tired to be bothered thinking about what the outcome of the day’s events would be. I got off the bike and lifted Bess down. “Thank you, Constable Jones, for finishing my patrol,” was all I could manage.

  “Don’t mention it, Miss Redfern. Your grandfathurr would have something to say if I didn’t—and it shouldn’t take me that long—everyone is worn out what with the drill and then the search for young Audrey. And don’t you fret yourself about hurr neithurr—she’ll be as right as ninepence in a couple of days—you’ll see.”

  I watched Jones’s solid shape cycle off into the night as I wheeled my bike up the front path. What on earth had Audrey been doing up at Bart’s Field? My tired mind couldn’t help but run through the few men in the village who might be strong enough to tackle Audrey: Mr. Angus and Bert Pritchard both had arms like tree trunks and could overpower any woman, even Audrey. I was so exhausted and disturbed by the attack, I even considered Cedric Fothergill, who though slender was undoubtedly fit, as he is captain of our cricket team and is an athletic batsman. It was laughable to imagine our vicar hiding in bushes and then jumping out and strangling young women. And even though he was getting on in years, hadn’t Dr. Oliver wrestled for Oxford in his distant youth? And what about Sid—while I was at it, why not consider Sid, who wouldn’t be caught dead in Bart’s Field or anywhere he might fall into a ditch full of stinging nettles or catch a terrible cold.

  The gossip mill would be hard at work tomorrow morning. I could almost hear Sid quoting Mrs. Glossop’s latest opinion that the village would never be safe with the American Air Force base as its neighbor. And perhaps she was right. If Griff could crawl through the badgers’ tunnels, then anyone under six foot two could have done the same. I counted back. Had it been seven or eight days since Ponsonby’s arrest? Surely the badgers’ sett had been filled in by now and the perimeter secured.

  I remembered Bud Sandusky, who had dated Doreen. Could he have pretended his food poisoning and left the airfield using the badgers’ sett? It was such a harebrained idea that I almost laughed, and so did Ilona: Give it up, darling. You are simply not thinking straight. Go inside and have a stiff shandy or whatever it is you drink, she ordered.

  I opened the scullery door and a grateful Bess skittered over to her food bowl to polish off the scraps from supper, leaving me to blunder into the comforting light of the drawing room. Now that the search for Audrey was over and she was safe in hospital, my other worry emerged. It had been nearly three days since Griff had been reported missing, and so far we had heard nothing. As I opened the drawing room door I decided that if there was no news from the base tomorrow, I would ask Grandad to go up to Reaches and talk to Colonel Duchovny.

  The first fire of the season, blazing on the hearth, lit up the two joyous faces of my grandparents in a golden rosy glow. Grandad got to his feet—he was smiling. “Nasty night out, come and warm yourself—it was good of you to wait with Mrs. Wilkes. Thank God young Audrey is safely tucked up in hospital.”

  Granny tossed her knitting to one side and said, as if she could hardly contain herself, “Griff is back, darling, just a few small injuries!” And I put my head on Granny’s shoulder and wept. Sometimes life is just too overwhelming for words.

  SEVENTEEN

  Bess heard him first. When I looked up, he was standing in the entrance to the orchard trying to fend off her joyous welcome. How I envied her doggy honesty. I would have loved to run across the orchard into his arms, but my restrained upbringing together with our island reserve kept me planted, straight-backed, in my old wicker lawn chair.

  “Go easy with me, girl,” Griff said. As wan and battered as he was, he was still the most vital being I had seen for days. But even though his cap was perched back on his head at a jaunty angle, I noticed that he was listing to the right as he tried to fend off Bess’s high-spirited greeting. “And what have you both been up to while I was away?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. When did you get back?” I flinched at my polite maiden-aunt tone.

  “On the evening of your air-raid drill. I was in the infirmary—recuperating.” He straightened up from Bess as if it hurt and leaned up against the gatepost. “Impossible with that air-raid siren howling away half the night.”

  I had been sitting in the orchard all morning, too tired to write, as I waited for him, and now here he was and all I could come up with was the attack on the night of the drill.

  “Did you hear about Audrey?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes, I did. Is she conscious yet?”

  “She wasn’t last night, but apparently she is doing better this morning. She was found in that old stone hut—the one in Bart’s Field.” He looked puzzled. “The top of the wood cuts through Bart’s Field, the lambing hut is on its west side, and our badgers’ sett is on the east side.” He ignored the reference to our badgers’ sett.

  “How did she get there? Did someone take her to the hut?”

  It had not occurred to me that someone might have the gall to try to take Audrey anywhere, but something else did, and it was that Audrey’s brush with the Little Buffenden Strangler could wait. Here was Griff O’Neal propped up against my gatepost and looking all in. Feeling less tongue-tied, I got to my feet. “I am so very glad you’re back, Griff. How long was it before they got to you?”

  “I think I was in the water for about six hours before they fished me out. Told you the good ones are hard to kill,” he said, and winced as he pushed himself upright from the gatepost. “Three broken ribs,” he explained, “so please don’t rush over here and hug me.”

  “You have a pretty spectacular black eye too.” I stayed where I was, and to my disappointment, he looked relieved.

  “Never jumped for real before: no one told me how much a parachute bounces around if there’s a strong wind.” Bending so I couldn’t see his face and careful to guard his left side, he fondled Bess’s ears and talked loving nonsense to her. “I’m grounded for the rest of the week. So I thought I might come with you on patrol this evening. I could ride shotgun,” he said as he straightened up again.

  Nothing could have pleased me more—so why on earth didn’t I show it? “Thank you, that would be nice, but only if you’re up for it. It’s getting chilly out here. Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll make you a nice cup of ersatz coffee, and as a special treat we’ll open a tin of Carnation.”

  “Gee, thanks—nothing better than a splash of the old evaporated.”

  I made Camp coffee, and to his credit, he didn’t wince or shudder as he took a tentative sip. “See what you mean about Carnation being a treat,” he said. “How did your air-raid drill go? And I want to hear all about Audrey.”<
br />
  I told him about our flop of a drill. About Mr. Angus in his pink-striped pajamas, and the rest of them struggling up the High Street with their cuckoo clocks, fishing rods, and birds in cages. About Mrs. Glossop’s voice being the only one to be heard above the air-raid siren. “That Mrs. Glossop.” He was holding his side and trying not to laugh. “I can just see her shrieking at the Girl Guides to stop messing about—I love the way you tell it.”

  Encouraged, I told him about Sid standing at the ready to shoot Jerry out of the sky, and then we stopped laughing, and I settled down to fill him in about Audrey.

  “I think she was meeting someone on the night of the drill,” he said when I had finished. “I just remembered you telling me that she was all dressed up when you last saw her. I mean, really dressed up—right?”

  The same thought had occurred to me—that Audrey had a secret admirer. “Yes, but just because a woman gets dressed up, does it have to be because she is meeting a man?”

  He looked puzzled for a moment. “I don’t know. I’m just going by what you told me about her. If she usually scruffs about in old clothes and her dad’s sweater, and then suddenly she is dressed up to the nines and wears lipstick, what does that mean? What would make you put on lipstick and curl your hair?”

  I wasn’t going to answer that dangerous question. “I can’t imagine that she was meeting anyone from the base. Audrey told me she would never date an American.”

  “She might say that—she might pretend she’s not interested, but I bet you anything you like she was meeting a Yank. You British girls are so reticent—you never like to let on if you are smitten.” I glanced up to see if he was joking, but his face was quite serious, and I blushed. Flushed cheeks on a brunette are enchanting; on a redhead they are a disaster. “Unless of course she has developed a crush on Sid Ritchie.” He seemed to find this thought inordinately amusing because he laughed in a most uncharitable way.