Dead on Dartmoor

by Stephanie Austin

  ‘Sauce and Slander,’ I told her. ‘You know them?’

  ‘They’ve done a couple of fundraisers for my charity. In fact, I’ve got a ticket for a concert they’re doing soon.’

  ‘They did say they were doing a concert here,’ I remembered. We chatted on for a bit. She turned out to be neither Mrs Superman, nor Mrs Beau Geste, as I thought she might be, but a widowed aunt of Jamie’s. ‘Is Sophie going to paint your bulldogs?’ I asked when we had exhausted the family connections.

  ‘Florence has just produced a litter,’ she answered with the beaming smile of a proud grandmother. ‘I thought it might be fun, you know, a portrait of mother and babies. Sophie’s coming to my house to make sketches and take photos. Come with her and have a cup of tea.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Mrs … I will.’

  ‘Call me Margaret.’ She patted my arm. ‘You’re a good ’un. I like the way you spoke up about the death of your friend, put Barty and Geoffrey in their place—’

  Fred Astaire came bounding up at this moment and tried to claim me for a dance he said I’d promised him and vowed he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  ‘Oh, do fuck off, Robert!’ Margaret commanded him, causing the eldest Marilyn to give a startled hiccup. ‘We’re trying to have a conversation.’

  Poor Fred shrank visibly, mumbled an apology and left, muttering something about coming back later.

  ‘Well really, Margaret!’ Marilyn protested. ‘Language!’

  Margaret favoured her with a long stare. ‘Why are you got up like an old tart, Betty?’ she demanded amiably. ‘Who are you supposed to be?’

  ‘Marilyn Monroe,’ she responded, a red flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck.

  Margaret gave a witch-like cackle and turned her attention back to me. ‘No, you’re a good ’un, I can tell. That one over there,’ she nodded in the direction of Emma, who was dancing with Charlie Chaplin, ‘she’s a bad ’un, even though she is my god-daughter and I shouldn’t say it.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know the half of what she gets up to and it’s probably just as well.’

  She was right about that. I doubt if she knew about the after-dinner cocaine. I was still angry about it, disappointed in the Bride of Frankenstein.

  ‘Is Charlie Chaplin Emma’s boyfriend?’

  ‘Boyfriend?’ Margaret’s shoulders shook as she chuckled. ‘She can’t keep ’em, my dear. She’s got the fiend’s own temper. Men don’t like it. I told you, she’s a bad ’un.’

  ‘And what about Jamie?’ He was dancing with his whip twined around Audrey Hepburn’s waist. ‘Is he a good ’un, or a bad ’un?’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ she answered me sadly. ‘I’ve never been able to tell.’

  Sophie flopped down into a nearby chair at this point. She was a bit wheezy and I judged it was time to be going home. Anyway, it seemed that Charlie Chaplin had now been abandoned and James Dean had been dragged away from her by an obviously possessive Emma. ‘Eddie!’ she’d hissed furiously, beckoning him to her. ‘Eddie!’ He’d scuttled obediently across the dance floor. I told Sophie to forget him. He was obviously a lap dog.

  We made our excuses and left, carefully avoiding being spotted by Fred Astaire. When we got to the car, I asked Sophie if she felt well enough to drive.

  ‘Well, I’m more sober than you,’ she responded, dropping the pink handbag into my lap. So I let her steer our way down the darkened moorland road and tucked happily into the petits fours.

  Next morning, Sunday, I took Rita Hayworth back to Ricky and Morris. She was carefully sheathed in plastic to avoid contact with any dog hair in the van, but actually, cat hair was more likely to be a problem. I had dutifully put the dress on a hanger before I went to bed, and hung it on the bedroom door, but the train was so long it reached the floor and lay in a big frothy cloud on the carpet. When I got up next morning, I found Bill, who’d been strangely absent from my bed all night, blissfully nesting in the middle of it. I didn’t mention this to Morris and Ricky when I gave it back. In any case, they were more interested in who’d been at the party and what they’d worn than anything else. I gave them the details over coffee and croissants, adding good wishes sent from Margaret the WWW.

  Then I drove to Olly’s, making sure my arrival was clocked by his fairy neighbour, and offered him a trip up to the moor to fly the drone around. He said it was too windy for the drone, so I asked him what he’d like to do instead.

  ‘Could we go to a supermarket?’ he asked, eyes alight. ‘A big one?’

  Ashburton doesn’t have a real supermarket. If he and his nan had wanted to shop in one they would have had to catch a bus; I suppose in Olly’s mind a visit to a supermarket still represented a day out. So I took him to Newton Abbot, where there were several such cathedrals of consumerism, and told him to take his pick. He shopped like a thing demented, racing up and down the aisles with his trolley, buying new school trousers and stationery as well as stocking up on tins, cleaning materials and foodstuffs. ‘It’s all so cheap!’ he squeaked ecstatically as he loaded up his trolley. It was true; the small independent shops of Ashburton could not compete in terms of price. Even I bought a few groceries and a T-shirt.

  After a milkshake and sticky bun for Olly and a coffee and croissant for me we escaped the supermarket and I got my reward for taking him shopping: the racecourse was holding a boot sale. I wandered around, happily accruing an armful of paperback books, a box of china ornaments, a brass coal scuttle, a three-legged oak milking stool and a set of pretty pine shelves, which, even if they didn’t sell, would look good on the wall in the shop and be useful for displaying other stuff. Olly helped me carry my spoils, along with a science annual he’d bought and a book about unexplained phenomena.

  ‘I nearly bought a jigsaw,’ he told me, as we were loading our booty into White Van.

  ‘The man was trying to sell it to me, but I told him, I got lots of jigsaws. Nan used to like them. She’d got really old ones that were her mother’s − you know, wooden ones with funny old pictures on − and he said if ever I wanted to sell them—’

  ‘If ever you want to sell them,’ I told him firmly, ‘you sell them to me.’

  ‘Why did you buy that box of stupid china animals? They can’t be worth much.’

  ‘No, most of them aren’t,’ I agreed, ‘but if you turn them upside down, some have a magic word on the bottom.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Wade. These little animal figures are collectors’ items.’

  ‘Are they worth a lot, then?’

  ‘Just a few pounds each, but that’s more than I paid for them.’

  Olly digested this in thoughtful silence for a few moments and then stuck his head in unexplained phenomena for the rest of the journey home.

  When we arrived back at Daison Cottages, his neighbour was weeding her front garden. As we drew up, I saw her sneak a look at her watch. We had abandoned Nan for hours.

  ‘Just stocking up,’ I called to her as I struggled up the front path laden with supermarket carriers and a giant pack of toilet rolls. And then I added to her in a low, conspiratorial voice. ‘Some of the essentials were running low.’

  ‘Such a good job you’re here,’ she answered, but her expression was sour. I got the feeling that the milk of human kindness had curdled.

  I’d planned to suggest a walk up on the moor when we got back, but after cruelly abandoning Nan for such a long time, I thought we’d better stay indoors, so Olly and I sat and played Scrabble. I won. For a genius his spelling isn’t very good.

  Monday was Hallowe’en. Just an ordinary busy Monday: dogs, Maisie, Brownlows, shirts, shop. Pat did quite well with pumpkins and witches. I sold nothing at all. Late in the afternoon, Pat came in lugging a box from the orchard at Honeysuckle Farm. Showers of apples had been brought down by the wind, she told me, and there were basketfuls to be picked up before they rotted in the wet grass. Olly had started his half-term holiday and was helping out.

  ‘So, who are thi
s lot for?’ I asked, as she dumped a second box on the shop floor.

  ‘You and Sophie,’ she answered breathlessly. ‘Them’s Lambournes, they’re eaters,’ she pointed at the apples in one box. ‘The others are cookers. Can’t you use ’em?’

  ‘I know someone who can,’ I assured her. And so I spent that evening seated at the big scrubbed table in Katie’s kitchen, happily chatting as we cored and sliced until nearly midnight whilst the saucepans on the stove became steamy cauldrons of spice-scented stewed apple. She told me to drop into Sunflowers next day for a free lunch.

  I took the Tribe for their usual walk in the morning and decided to take them home along the Terrace, where I had last seen the mystery lady enjoying a quiet moment with her cat. She wasn’t there this time, but I still put the dogs back on their leads before we went through the little woodland that would take us down to Roborough Lane. I was trying to keep them away from any broken glass that might be littering the muddy path, so my eyes were fixed on the ground, rather than looking ahead.

  Nookie the husky growled suddenly, stopping still, the silver fur around her neck bristling in a stiff ruff. She was staring off into to the trees, and as I peered between the ivy-covered trunks, I could see two figures standing. Lurking, you might say. Two men, one in a dark duffle coat, the other in a leather jacket. They were looking around furtively, casting anxious glances over their shoulders; but they didn’t see me. Something passed between them. I couldn’t see too clearly, but I’m sure money changed hands, and then something else.

  The other dogs had picked up Nookie’s alertness. EB began to bark, and then Schnitzel, Boog and Sally all joined in. I had to haul back hard on their leads to stop them rushing forward.

  Startled by the raucous cacophony of noise, the men parted company, hastening away in opposite directions. Leather Jacket cast a glance over his shoulder, and I saw his face clearly. His hair had lost the quiff he’d worn when he’d danced with Sophie at the party, but it was James Dean, alias Eddie. The other man also risked a look behind him; none other than Creeping Ted Croaker. So, what was this unlikely pair up to that they had to move away sharpish at the sign of anyone’s approach? The dogs were sniffing the ground inquisitively and I just snatched something that Eddie had dropped before Schnitzel’s snout got to it. It was a clear, self-seal packet glistening with white crystals, like sugar. Except of course, it wasn’t sugar and it wouldn’t have done Schnitzel any good at all.

  We dog walkers come prepared with pockets full of plastic bags. I fished one out, dropped the little bag of goodies into it and tied it up tightly. At the top of Roborough Lane I deposited the bag, along with a few others I had collected, into the evil-smelling red bin that stood there for the purpose. I shoved it down firmly, squishing it amongst the other parcels of dog poo. Let Eddie fish it out if he dared.

  I tried phoning Inspector Ford to tell him I had seen Croaker, but as usual, he was unavailable. Even Cruella wasn’t around to speak to. I left a message, without much hope that anyone would get back to me soon. So I was surprised later in the day when the inspector phoned back. They had found Creeping Ted and taken him to the police station for a little chat.

  ‘Unfortunately, we had to let him go again,’ the inspector told me. ‘To begin with, he denied ever knowing Gavin Hall, but when we told him three different witnesses could swear to him speaking to Gavin in your shop, he admitted that he did. He said he’d come in because he was interested in the classic comics that Gavin was selling. That’s rubbish, of course, but sadly, there’s no law against it.’

  ‘So we still don’t know what he was up to?’

  ‘He was almost certainly trying to sell Gavin drugs − or trying to recruit him.’

  ‘Recruit him?’

  ‘To sell drugs for him,’ the inspector explained. ‘Mr Croaker is desperately trying to claw his way up the supply chain.’

  ‘I don’t think Gavin would have got involved in selling drugs,’ I said frankly. ‘What about Eddie, do you think he’s one of Croaker’s recruits?’

  ‘We’ve arrested Eddie Coates for possession on more than one occasion. But we have no evidence that he’s supplying it to others.’

  ‘Someone supplies it to Emma Westershall.’ I told him about the little cocaine-snorting party I’d witnessed on the night of Sandy’s birthday. ‘And Eddie was there that night.’

  The inspector sighed in a way that told me this was not evidence. ‘Well, we’ll have words with Eddie, next time we catch hold of him,’ he said wearily, and bid me goodbye.

  I dropped into Sunflowers for my promised lunch and ate parsnip and apple soup so thick it was almost solid, followed by spiced apple cake with clotted cream. It was all delicious and I hoped there would be plenty of leftovers.

  I spent the rest of Tuesday looking forward to meeting Nathan Parr in the evening and finished work early so that I could glam up. Alas, Rita Hayworth’s glossy waves were long gone and the wild curls were back. I did the best I could with spritz and set out in nicely fitting jeans, ankle boots and a caramel silk shirt, to meet my pirate at the pub in the middle of the moor.

  It was when one of the pool players came over and offered to buy me a drink that I decided it was time to leave. It was getting late by then and I still faced the drive home. I left a note with the girl behind the bar. Just in case a man came in and asked for me, I told her. It read: Came. Waited. Went. Rita Hayworth. And beneath my name I wrote my phone number.

  During the evening the weather had finally broken. A gale had blown in from the west and rain was flinging itself in fitful gusts against the steamy windows of the pub. Outside, beyond the lighted haven of the car park, the night was black. Cursing, I turned up the collar of my jacket and ran across the uneven concrete to White Van, dodging puddles as I went. The wind was strafing through the trees, stripping the branches. Leaves clung wetly to the roof of the van and to my windscreen. I climbed in and got the windscreen wipers going, swishing them aside. The rain rattled on the roof, danced in the light of my headlamps and bounced up from the tarmac. I shivered. It would be a while before the van warmed up and as I turned out onto the moorland road, I cursed Nathan Parr alias Jack Sparrow several times over.

  The headlights questioned the darkness ahead, picking out the road, the whiteness of granite boulders scattered on the grassy verge and the occasional shine of animal eyes, but beyond, the moor lay in darkness, sky black as molasses, no moon, stars blotted out. I drove slowly, as always on the moor at night, for fear of hitting wandering sheep or cattle. Now and again the golden lights of a lonely house glimmered in the distance, a welcome reminder that light, warmth and comfort existed out there somewhere.

  The roaring wind stirred the gorse and heather into a shifting sea, buffeting the van as it crawled across the exposed moorland. I wasn’t in any danger of getting lost; I was clinging to the only road I could, which would take me around the edge of Holne Moor, past the gates of the Moorworthy estate, and down the hill into Ashburton. My delicious apple-filled lunch seemed a long time ago now and I wondered if the Indian takeaway would still be open when I got back into town.

  I was not far short of the gates of Moorworthy House when I hit something, or rather, something hit me. I felt it thump, bounce off my nearside wheel. I’d seen nothing in the headlights. Whatever it was must have come at me from the side, and it must have been small: a rabbit or a farm cat, perhaps a pheasant or a badger. I pulled up on the verge and got out, peering into the rainy dark. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving an animal injured. I fetched the torch from the glovebox and shone it back the way I’d come, peering through the slanting rain. There was nothing lying in the road, no sad little furry corpse. I crossed over, hunching my shoulders against the chill, against the fat wet drops rolling down inside my collar. I swept the torch beam up and down the verge, probing the bushes for any sign of an injured creature. Around me the moor was a wild thing, roaring wind thrashing the heaving gorse bushes, flailing and swishing the bracken, blowing my
hair across my wet face so that I had to clutch at handfuls, drag it out of my vision.

  I was caught suddenly in the headlights of an approaching vehicle. I ran to the verge out of its way and it pulled up behind me, quenching its tyres in wet gravel. For a moment I thought it might be Nathan, but the figure that climbed out of the driving seat was not him. It came towards me, silhouetted by the headlights behind. I could see only a stooping figure in a flat cap, but as he drew close and I pointed the torch in his direction, the glaring white light revealed the lugubrious features of Moss.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded loudly, eyes narrowed against my torch beam.

  I had to raise my voice above the roar of the wind. ‘I thought I’d hit something.’

  He grabbed my arm. ‘Put that torch out and dowse them headlights!’

  I pulled away, wrenching my arm from his grip. ‘Just a minute!’

  ‘For the love of God, maid!’ he cried, shaking me. ‘They’re coming! If you value your life, do as I say.’ He pushed past me, opening the van door, switching off the engine and ripping out the keys. Then he slammed the door shut and thrust the keys into my hand.

  ‘Down!’ he told me. ‘Get down in the ditch there, where they won’t see you.’ I stood goggling at him like an idiot. ‘Quick!’ he shouted, wresting the torch from my grasp. ‘They mustn’t see you.’ He began to hustle me towards the ditch. ‘There’s too many dead already.’

  The anguish in his voice, the desperation on his face, told me this was not a moment to argue. I did as I was told, hunkered in the ditch behind gorse bushes, out of sight of the road, seconds before the glaring lights of a large truck appeared around the bend. It thundered towards us, water spraying sideways beneath its heavy tyres and rumbled to a stop a few feet from Moss’s Land Rover. I heard the cab door open and someone jump down onto the roadway on the passenger side.