Dead on Dartmoor

by Stephanie Austin

  Morris arrived, looking slightly flustered after hurrying down the stairs. He and Ricky are as much of a contrast as Sophie and me. Ricky is tall, with iron-grey curls and completely wasted, rugged good looks. Morris is short, fat and bald with little gold specs perched on his nose. They’ve been together since they met in the theatre as chorus boys.

  ‘What’s up?’ he puffed.

  I recounted my adventures whilst they fussed about making tea and Morris produced a chocolate cake he’d baked the day before.

  ‘Moorworthy House? We’ve been there!’ Ricky told me. ‘We did a concert there a few years ago, didn’t we, Maurice?’ He and Morris performed as Sauce and Slander, a musical double act, usually to raise money for charity. ‘We’re going there again in a few weeks.’

  Morris nodded. ‘We are. But you should have phoned us, Juno,’ he stared at me reproachfully over his specs, ‘we could have popped down and picked you up. You needn’t have walked all the way up this hill.’

  I had meant to phone them the night before, just hadn’t got around to it. Jamie had been wonderful, driving us first to Elaine’s house, so that I could deliver EB, and waiting while I explained what had happened and made necessary enquiries about her brother. He was quite prepared to take me and Sophie to our respective homes, but we felt we’d troubled him enough and got him to drop us both back at the shop.

  The lights were still on in Old Nick’s and Pat was on her own, tidying up.

  ‘Has Gavin gone?’ I asked, although the answer was obvious.

  She gave a grunt of disgust. ‘He went half an hour ago.’

  We told her about our exciting afternoon. She gasped and looked horrified in all the right places. ‘What about you?’ I asked her eventually. ‘Any customers?’

  She shook her head. ‘None that bought anything, but that creepy bloke came in again.’

  ‘What creepy bloke?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think Juno will have come across him,’ Sophie told Pat. ‘I don’t think he’s been in here when she’s been here.’

  ‘What bloke?’ I repeated. ‘In what way creepy?’

  ‘He only comes in when Gavin’s here,’ she went on. ‘He never buys anything, just sort of hangs about, around Gavin.’

  ‘Lurks,’ Pat confirmed, nodding mysteriously. ‘And he walks ever so quietly. You never know he’s there until he’s right behind you.’

  ‘Is he some friend of Gavin’s, then?’

  ‘We’re not sure,’ Sophie went on. ‘Gavin’s really awkward when he’s around. They talk in whispers. You can tell, whenever this man comes in, that Gavin wishes we weren’t here.’

  ‘He tried to get rid of me this afternoon,’ Pat told us, voice hushed with drama. ‘He said to me, “Why don’t you go upstairs and have a tea break, Pat? I can look after the shop.” Well, I wasn’t falling for that, I stayed right here. I wouldn’t leave that pair alone down here. God knows what they might get up to!’

  ‘But this creepy bloke has never tried to steal anything?’

  Pat’s eyes narrowed. ‘No, but I don’t trust him.’

  ‘Haven’t you asked Gavin who he is?’

  ‘That’s just it, he won’t say,’ Sophie explained. ‘If you ask him, he changes the subject.’

  ‘What does this man look like?’

  She wrinkled her brow in a frown. ‘Small and sort of ferrety.’

  ‘Shifty,’ Pat added.

  I wasn’t sure I’d be able to identify him from that description, but I was certain that he hadn’t come into the shop when I’d been around. And it wasn’t really any surprise to me that Gavin had weird friends. ‘Oh, let’s go home, girls,’ I begged, ‘it’s been a long day.’ And Pat dropped the pair of us off at home.

  My flat occupies the upper half of a decrepit Victorian house and the bathroom lacks the facility of a proper shower, so I soaked for a long time in the old enamel bath, repeatedly washing the smell of smoke out of my hair. Then, wrapped in my dressing gown, I flopped down in my chair with a mug of tea. I knew I ought to concoct some kind of supper from whatever scraps were in the fridge, but after apple cake and tea-bread I wasn’t that bothered. This was unusual for me as I have an appetite so healthy it glows. I’m not a great cook. My dietary needs are mostly taken care of by my landlords, Adam and Kate, who run a vegetarian cafe, Sunflowers, and are very generous with leftovers. Little plastic boxes and parcels wrapped in foil are often left on the table on the landing outside my door, like offerings for some gluttonous god, and I am rarely at a loss for a vegetable samosa or a helping of bean casserole. As I like a balanced diet, and Kate and Adam provide the healthy stuff, I get the unhealthy stuff from Ricky and Morris who are always stuffing me with cake. I don’t put weight on. Ricky says this is because I have hollow legs, but really it’s because I work too bloody hard. But that night I couldn’t be bothered with food: I had more urgent things to think about.

  The following morning, as every morning, I had to walk the Tribe. On a Friday, there were usually five of them. I wouldn’t be taking EB; he’d be staying at home for a few days, resting his paws. Of the remaining four, two would be easy to fetch because they lived in Ashburton, within walking distance of the town; the other dogs I always collected in the van because they lived further off. I rang their owners and explained I couldn’t pick them up in the morning and why. Then I sat with my diary and worked out what I could and couldn’t do next day without transport. Thank God the weekend was coming up, but I needed a new vehicle by Monday. I couldn’t afford to wait around for the insurers.

  I spent a couple of dispiriting hours comparing prices of second-hand vans on the Internet and got so depressed I weakened and ate a banana. I knew I could always ask my cousin Brian out in South Korea for money, but he had already been so generous with funds for the shop, money I intended to repay, that I cringed at the idea of approaching him for more.

  By the time I’d slogged up the hill to Ricky and Morris’s place that afternoon, I’d already spent most of the morning with Maisie, unclogging the drain of the sink she swore she wasn’t responsible for clogging. I went into town to do her shopping, her beastly terrier, Jacko, on the lead. I refuse to walk him with the Tribe because he’s so badly behaved. As usual, he growled filthy language at any other dog we saw, lurching at anything within snapping distance.

  I took him on a detour along a path that sweeps in a curve behind St Andrew’s churchyard. On one side, ivy clings to ancient gravestones leaning at odd angles, their carved epitaphs worn smooth by age; on the other side of the path brightly painted play equipment stands in the recreation ground, together with the sweeping concrete lines of the new skateboard park. It’s as if Ashburton’s past is on one side of the path, its future on the other.

  The lane led me to a small commercial estate where I was sure, a few days before, I’d noticed a van with a ‘for sale’ sign in its window. It was still parked there, a little white Peugeot Partner, with ‘£500 ono’ written on a notice on the windscreen. It was an older model, but big enough for me to get the Tribe in the back, or carry stock about. It also had windows in the back doors, which the old van hadn’t, and would give me a decent rearward view as well as allowing the dogs to see out. I scribbled down the seller’s number so that I could phone him later.

  ‘So is little EB all right?’ Morris asked, cutting me a slice of chocolate cake.

  ‘He’s fine.’ I’d rung Elaine that morning to enquire after both the invalids.

  ‘What about you, Juno?’ He blinked at me anxiously. ‘Are you fine too?’

  I’d had to trim off a few frazzled ends of singed hair but otherwise I was unscathed.

  Ricky lit up a cigarette and strolled to the open door to aim his smoke into the garden. ‘You know we’ll run you anywhere, Princess, if you need a lift.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve arranged to meet the man selling the Peugeot tomorrow morning so I’m hoping I’ll be mobile again by Sunday.’

  Morris flicked a sly glance at Ricky. ‘You kn
ow, Juno, we’ve had an idea.’

  ‘We have.’ Ricky came back to the table and drummed his fingers on it in excitement. ‘It’s brilliant!’

  I groaned. I’d heard their brilliant ideas before.

  ‘We’re going to rent a unit in your shop.’ They were both grinning at me broadly, waiting for my reaction.

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  Their faces fell.

  ‘This is just an excuse to help me out,’ I went on. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I’m not letting you do it.’

  ‘But we’ve got lots of stock we want to get rid of,’ Morris argued, ‘vintage sixties and seventies stuff that we don’t get much call for theatrically.’

  ‘Its lovely stuff,’ Ricky put in, ‘all very saleable.’

  ‘Then sell it on the Internet. You’ll get more money.’

  ‘Can’t be arsed!’ he said flatly. ‘And let’s face it, you’ve got sod all to sell at the moment, your bit of the shop is half-empty!’

  This was true; the back room I occupied was practically bare. What little stuff I had was spread out to make it look less empty. I didn’t have much spare cash and didn’t get time to go hunting for stock. As a result, I was spending far too many evenings in front of the laptop, trawling through auctions, hunting for stuff I could afford to buy online.

  ‘You’re not paying me rent,’ I insisted.

  ‘No, and nobody else is either,’ Ricky retorted. ‘You’ve let Beatrix Potter have her unit for nothing.’

  ‘Sophie needs a chance to establish herself without all her money going out in rent,’ I argued. ‘She can barely afford to buy paintbrushes, as it is. And we’ve agreed to review the situation at Christmas. As for Pat, she sells her stuff to raise money for the animals. If I took money from her, I’d just be taking it from them.’

  ‘Juno, love, it’s not your responsibility to solve other people’s problems,’ Morris told me. Ricky nodded frantically.

  This was rich, coming from them. They were always trying to solve my problems. Ricky pointed his fag-hand at me, his cigarette trailing smoke. ‘You’re always doing it, you silly cow, and it’s what gets you into trouble.’ He took a long drag as if to underline his point.

  It was time to divert their minds from my failings. After all, selling the vintage clothes was a good idea and would help to fill some empty space. ‘How about this?’ I suggested. ‘I’ll put the clothes on my unit and sell them for you, just take a commission.’

  It was a compromise that seemed to mollify them. After a few moments of slightly sulkily tossing the idea back and forth, they agreed. ‘But you’ll have to price everything,’ I warned them, ‘because I won’t have a clue.’

  Morris clapped his hands together like an excited child. ‘We’ll sort out the clothes this afternoon.’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m here to help you pack up those uniforms.’

  ‘Well start packing, then.’ Ricky rose and stubbed out his cigarette in the sink. ‘The sooner we’ve got ’em finished, the sooner we can have some fun.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  If Thursday was a weird day, what with Judith-Marianne and the van catching fire, Saturday contained elements of the surreal. It started off well. In the morning I took the white van for a test run. It had new tyres and a year’s MOT, but it also had a few miles on the clock and I managed to buy it for £450. I was to become a White Van Woman. Perhaps an anonymous-looking vehicle wouldn’t be such a bad thing. In the past, the advertising on my yellow van had made it easy for the wrong people to find me and nearly got me murdered. Anyway, I shook hands with the vendor and agreed to bring the money around to his house first thing next morning. White Van would be mine.

  When I got to Old Nick’s, I found a more expensive vehicle parked outside: a brand-new soft-top Mazda MX5, in powder blue with beige leather interior, was blocking most of the pavement. I squeezed past it, barely able to get in through the door. Inside, who should be in conversation with Sophie but Jamie’s sister, the lovely Emma. I suppose her brother must have told her where to find us. She was wearing a summery dress, her pale gold hair loose about her smoothly tanned shoulders. She’d dazzled Gavin into an awed, slack-jawed stare.

  ‘So can you do it?’ she was demanding of Sophie, as I came in. ‘You can work from photographs, I take it?’

  Sophie was leafing through a thick sheaf of photos. ‘Oh yes,’ she replied, nodding, ‘no problem at all.’ She smiled and held out a photo for me to see. ‘The Old Thunderer,’ she explained. ‘He’s a Highland bull. Isn’t he wonderful?’

  ‘Hello, Emma.’ I took the photo from Sophie. The Old Thunderer was certainly impressive, his massive head crowned with thick, curling brown hair and wide, wicked-looking horns. Beneath a long fringe one baleful eye glared at the camera.

  ‘Does Jamie have a herd of these?’ I asked. Highland cattle were often to be seen grazing on the moor, imported from Scotland because they were hardy enough to stand up to Dartmoor weather. I’d have preferred to see Ruby Reds or South Devon cattle, but I can hardly complain about imports when I’m a bit of an import myself.

  ‘No, Thunderer was Sandy’s, really just a pet.’ Emma spoke the last word almost with contempt. ‘He sired a lot of champions of course,’ she added by way of compensation.

  ‘It’s Sandy’s birthday on 29th October,’ she went on. ‘Jamie and I thought it would make a wonderful surprise present. You can get it done by then, I suppose?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sophie answered brightly, determined to ignore her haughty tone. ‘How big do you want this portrait?’

  I prayed Sophie wouldn’t undersell herself and wandered away. Pat was putting up pictures of her own, papering the wall behind her with printed sheets showing the latest waifs and strays at Honeysuckle Farm looking for a home. I snapped my fingers under Gavin’s nose, breaking Emma’s spell and whatever fantasy he was weaving in his head.

  ‘Don’t drool,’ I whispered. He blushed and went back to the newspaper he was reading.

  I glimpsed a headline over his shoulder: Batman Dies. I should have known he wouldn’t be reading anything sensible.

  I was disappointed with Gavin; perhaps that was why I found him so irritating. When he’d rented his unit, or I should say when his parents, Mr and Mrs Hall, had rented it for him, the understanding was that he would be selling their collection of second-hand books. I’d been delighted at first. We currently have only one bookshop in Ashburton, a specialist dealing almost exclusively in classic comics and graphic novels. It’s a wonderful place, full of beautifully crafted illustrated volumes. I’d bought a lovely book in there for Sophie’s birthday. Gavin haunts the place, not because he appreciates graphic art, but because he’s obsessed by superheroes and spends most of his time reading the adventures of mythical kingdoms and warrior queens, and not doing what he’s supposed to be doing: setting up his own bookstall. Ashburton has a library but it’s small and can’t provide for everyone’s needs. I was convinced that second-hand books would have really helped to drag the locals into Old Nick’s. But I was hoping for books with general appeal. Trouble was, Gavin wasn’t interested in mainstream and frankly, I doubt if his own collection of cheap and tawdry comics, mostly obtained from dubious sources on the internet, would be of much interest to anyone. I’m sure his parents had only forced him into renting space in the shop to prise him away from his computer, drag him from the darkened tomb of his bedroom into the daylight.

  To an extent I couldn’t blame him for his lack of enthusiasm. The Halls’ book collection consisted of the kind of stock that charity shops end up throwing away: old and unfashionable cookery books, yellowing paperbacks, mostly turgid hospital romances, a few dry academic tomes from the days when Mr Hall was a student, out-of-date atlases and little else. Basically, they had cleared out the contents of their loft. I’d offered to take Gavin to the market in Newton Abbot, where he could see how some really thriving bookstalls had set up their businesses, but he wasn’t interested. I looked at his shelve
s, only half-filled, most of the stock still in boxes, and sighed.

  ‘Is there a toilet I can use here?’ Emma’s voice cut in suddenly. She and Sophie had finished striking their deal and judging by the grin on Sophie’s face she was happy with her end of it. I was going upstairs myself and pointed her in the direction of the bathroom on the landing. I went on up to the kitchen. I’d replaced Nick’s old cooker with a microwave and toaster, which was all we needed. Gavin had tried to persuade me into investing in an expensive coffee machine, but I told him if he wanted posh coffee he could buy it himself. As I extracted the milk from Nick’s ancient fridge, I heard the bathroom door slam and looked out of the kitchen, down the stairs, calling out a goodbye to the descending Emma. She didn’t answer. She was sniffing heavily, her hand up to her nose. Summer cold or hay fever, I wondered naively, or was she upset? I went to the bathroom myself.

  I’d locked the door and was just about to flip up the lid of the loo when something glistening on its surface caught my eye. I bent down and peered at a line of very fine white crystals. It was the straightness of that line that riveted my attention. I switched on the bathroom light and hunkered down, peering. I wanted to be absolutely certain about what I suspected I was looking at. I could see a pattern of tiny cut marks on the lid’s plastic surface. I flipped open the pedal bin under the basin. Sure enough, there was a razor blade and a little scroll of paper in there; it looked like one of Sophie’s business cards, rolled up. And one end of it, I was now perfectly sure, had been stuffed up Emma’s horrible little nose. No wonder she was sniffing.