The Skeleton Tree

by Diane Janes

  ‘Do either of yous take sugar?’ Peggy appeared in the doorway to enquire.

  Neither of them did.

  A moment later she appeared again, this time carrying a plastic tray on which three cups rattled in their saucers. The tea was incredibly strong and unmistakably laced with sterilized milk.

  ‘Now then.’ After handing round the teacups, Peggy slid herself into a black vinyl armchair, which received her with a sound somewhere between a squeak and a sigh. ‘Tell us all about this book you’re writing.’

  To Wendy’s astonishment, Joan launched into a potted history of Bishop Barnard – how much was made up and how much genuine, she had no idea – quite quickly reaching a point which implied that they had stumbled on the story of Dora Duncan pretty much by accident. ‘Although,’ Joan said, favouring Peggy with a winning smile, ‘I would love to know more about it because I’m distantly related to Dora Duncan.’

  ‘But you never knew she was murdered, like?’ Peggy seemed surprised.

  Ha! Wendy thought. You’ve slipped up there. But Joan never faltered. ‘Well, I knew she’d disappeared, but I never knew the details. And I didn’t know it had happened in Bishop Barnard, the very place we’re writing about. When I first saw it in the old newspapers I gave quite a jump, didn’t I, Wendy?’

  Wendy smiled and nodded, uncomfortable in endorsing these lies. Peggy Jones seemed such a nice, ordinary woman. Had the subterfuge really been necessary? Mightn’t she have agreed to talk with them even if they had explained their actual connection to the case?

  Joan had clearly missed her vocation. ‘“My goodness,” I said. “That’s Dora. She was my mother’s cousin’s girl, or something like that.” I wasn’t sure of the relationship. One never is in big families like ours.’

  ‘So how did you find out about me? Old newspapers, you said?’

  ‘That’s right. The report said you came forward to say that you saw Dora on the day she disappeared.’

  ‘Eee … how funny, that you should come asking us after all these years. Mind, I cannot tell you owt what I didn’t tell the police at the time.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Joan agreed. ‘But we’d like to hear first hand from you what you remember.’

  Peggy seemed to be in no hurry to impart what little she knew, firstly pressing them to have more tea (which they both declined) and then apologizing about the lack of biscuits, which, she explained, had all been eaten by visiting grandchildren the day before. Wendy noted that Peggy appeared much older than her forty-six years and had evidently embraced motherhood at an early stage in her life. Once they had surmounted the topic of refreshments, Peggy wanted to know how one went about looking things up in old newspapers. The idea that her brief moment of fame was preserved for posterity on microfilm seemed to appeal to her. At last she began to relate her story, scanning the faces of her visitors for a reaction, slowing almost involuntarily when she noticed Joan jotting down a word or two.

  ‘Well, I’d been bad, you see. I was often poorly as a bairn, on account of me chest, so the day it happened, I wasn’t out playing. Usually we’d have all been playing out. There was three of us. Me, I were the eldest, then our Joey, then Roger. Our Peter wasn’t born until after the war. There was big families in all the houses round by us, so the streets was just full of bairns the whole day long, only that day while they was all outside, I was up in the bedroom, on me own.

  ‘It were a lovely sunny day, so I were kneeling up, looking out of the window. We used to live in one of those houses off Chester Place, in Bishop Barnard. They’re still there, but there’s that new estate at the back of them now. I wouldn’t mind a house on there meself. Very nice they look, but they’re nearly all private, and even if we could get one, our lad would never agree to move from here. Too far from his club and his darts team …

  ‘Anyway, when we lived in our old place there was nothing at the back of us. You could look right across the fields. You couldn’t see nothing from downstairs, because of the hedge, and it were all blocked off at the back to keep the chickens in and all. You weren’t supposed to keep chickens, the landlord said, but they turned a blind eye when the war was on. Upstairs, though, you could see right across to the farm. We used to watch them getting the harvest in. They often used to bag rabbits and stuff, when they cut the last of it.’

  ‘That would be Holm Farm? So you could see the farm track?’ Joan prompted.

  ‘Aye. Part of it, not all. We couldn’t see the start of it, like, where it came off Green Lane, nor the end of it up by the farm, because there was trees and stuff in the way, but you could see a good long stretch of it, and I saw that Dora, all right. They said old Mrs Gregory was wrong, because of her eyes, and they said I was probably wrong too, being so young and probably just romancing, but it was her all right and some chap was following her.’

  ‘Did you know Dora?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Not properly. Not to speak to. They were a right stuck-up lot. Lived in a big house on Green Lane. I recognized her, though. It was the hair. Blonde and curly. The opposite of mine. Course, I have to help mine now or I’d be mostly grey. By, I’d look a right mess if I didn’t dye it.’ Peggy chuckled to herself.

  ‘Did you recognize the man who was following her?’ Joan asked.

  ‘I can’t say that I did. It’s a pity I never got a better look at him, because it must have been him what done it.’

  ‘So you think she was murdered?’

  ‘Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? If a girl goes out and never comes back.’

  ‘They never found a body,’ said Joan.

  ‘Not looking in the right place, was they? I reckon that fella had got it all sorted out by the time the police started looking. Short-handed, they would have been, I suppose, what with the war and all.’

  ‘Do you think Dora knew she was being followed?’ Wendy asked. ‘I mean, was the man close behind her? Did she look back or anything?’

  Peggy paused, as if attempting to replay the faded memory in her mind. A black cat emerged from behind the chair and began rubbing its head against her legs. ‘I know she never spoke to him or owt like that. I remember the police asking me and me saying no. He wasn’t all that close behind her, not really. In fact, he was a good long way back, so she might not have known he was there. Old Mrs Gregory, she said she was cleaning her top window when she saw them, though no one really believed her – she was blind as a bat, poor old thing. Anyway, she reckoned this chap weren’t following Dora at all. Said she thought he turned off towards the bridge what goes over the beck while that Dora carried on along the track. There was a couple of paths led off the track before it reached Green Lane.’

  ‘But you don’t think he turned off?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I never saw him turn off. Not that I saw him doing anything else either. They was both just walking. Her pushing her bike and him just walking along, ordinary like.’

  ‘And they just carried on walking until they both went out of sight?’

  ‘I suppose so, yes. But you see I only saw them when they was partway along. Then I went back to playing. I mean … I suppose he could have turned off without me seeing.’

  ‘And you never saw anyone coming back … later on?’

  ‘How do you mean, coming back?’

  ‘Well, if Dora and the man were heading along the track towards the farm …’

  ‘Oh, no. They wasn’t walking towards the farm when I saw them. They was both walking back in the opposite direction.’

  ‘Back towards Bishop Barnard?’ Wendy couldn’t conceal her surprise. That wasn’t how she had pictured it in her mind at all.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Peggy. ‘I suppose she must have walked the other way first, but you see, I wasn’t looking out of the window the whole time. Some of the time I was playing in my bed. I would’a had my doll and some books to look at and that.’

  ‘So really,’ Joan said, ‘it was lucky you just happened to be looking out at that particular time and saw them
.’

  Peggy laughed, startling the cat, who shied away and disappeared behind the chair again. ‘I don’t see that it was very lucky. It didn’t do her much good, did it? Nor the police. Questioned me left, right and centre, they did, but it didn’t make no difference. I couldn’t tell them what I didn’t know.’

  Joan nodded. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, why did it take you so long to tell the police what you’d seen?’

  ‘That weren’t my fault.’ Peggy’s swift, defensive response suggested someone accustomed to having the world’s wrongs unfairly heaped on her shoulders. ‘That was our mam. She never told bairns anything, our mam, so when I saw the police searching all along the track and in the fields and that, she pretended not to know what it was all in aid of. Said somebody must have lost summat on the farm.

  ‘It wasn’t until a day or two later, when I was better and playing out again, and some of the kiddies in our street said they still hadn’t found that Dora Duncan, and the mams was all telling everyone not to go over to the farm, that I realized it must have been her what they were looking for. I knew it were no use asking our mam anything, so I went and asked me grandad. He was a grand old chap, me grandad. He used to tell me all sorts. Well, when I told him I’d seen that Dora on the day she went missing, first off he told me to keep quiet. He didn’t hold with the police, didn’t Grandad. Never had no time for them. Only then our mam got to hear about it and it was straight into her best hat and coat and down the police station with me.

  ‘There was a lot of chew over it after, what with policemen coming to the house, traipsing all over, wanting to look out of our back bedroom window. Our mam wasn’t happy about that. In the end I think she wished she’d listened to Grandad. It never did any good anyway. They never found that Dora, did they?’

  ‘Even so, you did the right thing, going forward,’ Joan said. ‘It could have been very important.’

  Peggy shook her head, half smiling at the recollection. ‘It didn’t half start some trouble between Mam and Grandad. Grandad lived with us, you see, and he liked to think he was the man of the house, with our dad being away in the army. Grandad was that mad at having the police in the house, he threatened to tittle off to me auntie Margaret’s. He was swearing under his breath when the police came looking round.’

  ‘Perhaps he’d had some trouble with them,’ Wendy suggested hesitantly.

  ‘Oh aye. He didn’t like them. Our Uncle Billie got put away during a pit strike before the war. He was a miner, Uncle Billie, and there’d been some trouble over the men stealing coal. Me grandad told me all sorts. I was his favourite, see? Being the only girl and a bit sickly, like. Wouldn’t think so, to look at me now.’ Peggy’s bosom heaved up and down with laughter. ‘He used to tell me all sorts of stuff from when he was a boy. Lived in Bishop Barnard all his life, he had. You wouldn’t have needed to see anyone else for your book if you’d have had me grandad.’

  ‘I daresay his memory would have gone back to the last century,’ Joan said.

  ‘Oh aye. He died just before VE Day, and he were a fair age then. He used to tell me all about the hunt. They used to meet up at the Green, where the old Grange was. All the nobs from the big places round and about used to come riding up the lane, Grandad said, expecting you to get out of their way and touch your cap when they passed you. Grandad wouldn’t do it, mind. “Sod ’em,” he used to say. “Stuck up buggers. They ain’t no better than us, they’ve just got more bloody money, that’s all.”’ Peggy laughed again.

  Joan had closed her notebook and replaced it in her handbag. She caught Wendy’s eye, but Peggy was still in full flow.

  ‘Mind you,’ Peggy continued, ‘he could be a right old scrounger, Grandad. I remember he thought that Dora’s family should have given me something. A reward for coming forward. They didn’t, though. Not that I expected anything, but Grandad said they should have done. Them not being short of a bob or two and our mam at home with three bairns and the breadwinner away fighting for his country and all. Mind, he said he didn’t envy them their luck, losing a daughter like that. Unlucky house, Grandad said it was. And it was funny, when you think about it. Two murders in the one house.’

  ‘Two murders?’ Joan looked up from her bag, interest abruptly rekindled.

  Wendy stared at Peggy but said nothing.

  ‘Two murders?’ Joan repeated. ‘Are you sure? At The Ashes, where the Duncan family used to live?’

  ‘The Ashes … Aye, that was the name of the place.’ Peggy nodded to herself.

  The cat had slipped out from behind the chair and began clawing the upholstery.

  ‘Stop it, you naughty girl!’ Peggy batted the cat away. ‘I thought you’d know about that already,’ she said. ‘Seeing as how you’re looking into the history of the village and all.’

  ‘No,’ Joan said. ‘You’re the first person who’s mentioned it.’

  ‘Well, me grandad told me, so it must have been fairly common knowledge.’ Peggy regarded them doubtfully, like a child who is starting to question stories about Santa Claus.

  ‘We haven’t long begun our research.’ Joan was fishing in her bag for the notebook as she spoke. ‘Do tell us what your grandfather told you about this other murder.’

  ‘It was years before that Dora Duncan. Grandad didn’t tell me too much. It was our mam, you see. She didn’t like him telling us anything like that. Grandad reckoned everybody knew that house was unlucky. The people what owned it before the Duncans lost their son – or was it their grandson? – in the first war. Grandad used to say that the old chap what owned the house died of a broken heart after that. Just shows that money doesn’t bring happiness, I suppose. Not but what a bit extra wouldn’t go amiss now and then.’ Peggy chuckled again.

  ‘But the other murder …’ Joan prompted.

  ‘It must have happened a long time ago. Grandad was only a little lad, I reckon.’

  ‘But who was murdered? Did they catch anyone?’ Joan persisted.

  ‘It was something to do with a young girl. I think she had a tiff with her fancy fella and did him in, in a fit of temper. All the bairns round about used to say the place was haunted. Not that any of us was ever inside there. Them Duncans kept to their own sort. They went to boarding schools and didn’t mix with the likes of us, not even in the school holidays. I suppose it was the ghost of the fella what was murdered. There’s probably two ghosts in there now, keeping each other company.’ Peggy’s bosom heaved in time with another chuckle. ‘Me grandad had heard some tale about that Dora getting in wrong with her mother for hanging about with a lad from the village. “Her folks wouldn’t have liked that,” he said to me. “Thought they were too good for the likes of us.” But it were just gossip. I don’t suppose there was anything in it.’ Peggy laughed again.

  Wendy joined in nervously. She wondered what Peggy would say if she discovered that the present owner of The Ashes was sitting barely a yard from her.

  Joan attempted a few more questions, but it soon became clear that while Peggy would have been more than happy to devote the whole afternoon to sharing recollections of her childhood and her grandfather, she could add nothing more about past events at The Ashes.

  ‘Well,’ Joan said, when they were back in the car and Peggy had waved them on their way. ‘What did you make of all that?’

  ‘It’s incredible. We’ve got to get to the bottom of it. You don’t suppose she was making it up … or had got the wrong house?’

  ‘I don’t think she was making it up. Of course, her grandfather might have been romancing. You know how some men do love to tease children with tall stories. And I suppose he might have mistaken the house, although she said he’d lived in the village all his life and actually remembered it happening.’

  ‘She said he was getting on a bit. Old people sometimes get very confused.’

  ‘One thing’s for sure. Ronnie’s story must have come from the local children – though goodness knows how he got hold of it. As she said, they didn’t really
mix with the village children. But it can’t be a coincidence because it fits so neatly with what Peggy told us … except that in Ronnie’s story it was a young girl who was doing the haunting and in Peggy’s version it’s supposed to be the murdered boyfriend. I say, Wendy, it’s jolly lucky you’re not the nervous type.’

  ‘There’s nothing to hurt me at The Ashes. I don’t believe I’ve ever known such a welcoming house.’ It was true that the house had seen more than its share of tragedy, but every run of bad luck had to end sometime.

  ‘Well, there we are.’ Joan nodded approvingly. ‘Nothing hysterical or imaginative about you. Or indeed Aunt Elaine. I shouldn’t mention it to any prospective new owners, though. Not everyone’s as sensible or down to earth as you are.’

  ‘These ghost stories can’t still be current,’ Wendy said. ‘My kids have all been to school in Bishop Barnard and they’ve never mentioned them.’ She pushed aside the recollection of Jamie’s talk of footsteps in the attic. A few creaking boards – that was all it was.

  ‘I suppose a lot of local people have moved away since the war and the stories have died out,’ Joan said. ‘People are far more mobile these days. It’s not like the pre-war generation, where all the agricultural labourers had lived in the same parishes since Domesday. It’s also a very long time ago. Let’s face it, my dear, you were barely born when Dora disappeared. And the first murder – if there was one – happened even longer ago than that.’

  ‘How do we find out about it? Another trip to the archives in Durham, I suppose?’

  ‘If there was a murder, it would be sure to have made the newspapers,’ Joan speculated.

  ‘The problem would be where to start looking,’ Wendy mused. ‘We knew exactly when Dora went missing. This time it’s much vaguer. It was at some point during her grandfather’s childhood, according to Peggy, but we don’t really know when that was.’