Hand of Death

by Margaret Yorke

  He came in at nine-forty.

  He had thought out his story as he walked back to the van, deciding in the end that a version of the truth was the only solution, for if he made out that the van had broken down or that he had had a puncture, Nancy might find him out by checking at the garage where his repairs and servicing were done.

  ‘I popped into the Plough and Mrs Wyatt was there,’ he explained. ‘You know – Mrs Wyatt from the Manor House.’ This should impress Nancy. ‘She collects jugs – we’ve sold her several,’ he reminded her. ‘She wasn’t feeling very well, so I took her home. I couldn’t leave her until she seemed all right, as she lives alone,’ he said. Then he rushed on. ‘A lovely place it is, and she’s got some stuff, too. It’s a wonder she hasn’t been burgled.’

  There’d been a beautiful walnut commode on the landing; then, in the bedroom, a four-poster, the curtains white with little sprigs of flowers on them.

  They’d had drinks first, sitting on the sofa – he’d had a scotch, half a tumbler of it poured from a cut-glass decanter, just splashed with soda. She’d had two large gins herself, one after the other. Then she’d turned off the lights, all except a lamp on the table by the sofa, and told him how lonely she was.

  ‘After nearly thirty years of married life, being a widow isn’t easy,’ she’d begun.

  Ronald had nervously gulped his drink down, intent on leaving, but she had poured him another, and one for herself, then sat close to him. She wore some sort of flowery scent. Ronald forgot the lines and imperfections on Dorothea’s well-made-up face. He knew only that her hand, as earlier in the Plough, was straying, and this time he was the target.

  ‘We’ll be more comfortable upstairs,’ she’d murmured quite soon, and had led him there. She’d left one soft light on in the bedroom and finished undoing his shirt. His tie had gone already. Without any apparent effort her own clothes seemed to come off, even her long zipped boots. He saw pale, naked shoulders, and breasts that were large and soft. Everything that happened after that was a dazed memory, as in a dream. She was asleep when he left, stepping round the room collecting his clothes, remembering his tie from the sitting room. He’d locked the front door from outside, posting the key in through the letter box that was fitted in the post at the side of the door. A place like that shouldn’t be left unlocked, easy prey for thieves.

  He looked at Nancy now. She had been a pretty girl, and was still good-looking, but she lacked something that Dorothea Wyatt had in abundance. Style – that was it. And something else, too, was missing: the power to give and receive intense physical pleasure; yet the potential must be there, locked up in her compact body. He thought that there could be no two more different women. The experience he had just had was like nothing he had imagined, even when poring over his magazines.

  ‘Mrs Wyatt,’ Nancy was saying consideringly. ‘The Manor House—mmm. You did right, dear. Did you call the doctor?’

  ‘No. She insisted that it wasn’t necessary,’ Ronald said. ‘I left her as soon as I could.’

  He’d covered her with the white quilt, as she lay there breathing through half-parted lips.

  He’d go back, of course. She’d be expecting him. She had told him that he was wonderful, and indeed he had felt that he was.

  ‘I said I’d value some of her pieces for her,’ he said, amazed at how easy it was to invent. ‘The insurance may need stepping up.’

  ‘You might look for things for her, if she collects furniture as well as jugs,’ said Nancy. ‘It could be quite useful.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Ronald smoothly. ‘I hope you weren’t anxious, dear, when I was so late?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Nancy. ‘Why should I be? I knew it couldn’t be anything serious.’

  3

  Ronald woke early the next morning. He felt instantly alert, eager for the day ahead. He looked forward to Saturdays, because for nearly a year now, Lynn Norton, the daughter of Hilda and Keith Norton who lived next door in Number 16, Sycamore Road, had helped in the shop each week. Ronald and Nancy had known her and her older brother since they were small children.

  Lynn was nearly sixteen now, and had grown into a pretty, quiet girl, neat in her school uniform of navy skirt and white blouse. She drew well, and wanted to study art; she was saving her weekly pay towards a trip to Italy. Sometimes Ronald would give her a lift to school in the van. Her brother was now in the Merchant Navy and seldom home; Hilda Norton had a job with a building society in Tellingford and Keith Norton went to Middletown every day, where he was manager of a firm of builders’ suppliers. He left home before his wife and daughter, for his office opened early.

  It was Nancy who had suggested Nanron’s, when she learned that Lynn wanted a Saturday job.

  ‘It would give me more time at home,’ she said. ‘I could get the place straight for the weekend, and catch up with repairs.’ She was skilled now, and did them for other dealers too, but the work was slow and needed space where objects could be spread out, propped up while they set. The small second bedroom was given over to it, with bench and glues and mixes.

  Help in the shop was essential on Saturdays, for Ronald had to go out then to see the dealers who were not available during the week.

  Lynn had thought of a coffee bar or a dress shop as a suitable place to earn money for her travel fund, but when she was offered a job at Nanron Antiques she took it at once. She liked working among the old pieces in the shop, and would wonder who had owned a cup and saucer, or a fan, or an elegant chair, before it reached the sale room. She was learning about the stock. Ronald liked it when she asked questions and he took trouble to explain. Sometimes they looked things up together in the large reference books he kept in the cellar on the flat desk where he did the accounts.

  He’d slept so soundly last night! He lay for some minutes in his single bed, separated by a wide bedside table from Nancy’s, recalling what had happened the previous evening. It was like a dream, one of the solitary fantasies he indulged when he looked at his magazines. He’d assumed that most people’s marriages settled into a routine like his and Nancy’s. She was a wonderful wife, he knew. Without her, the business would not exist. She was a faultless housewife and was always bandbox-neat herself in modestly becoming clothes. Her life pivoted around him. If there were times when he felt that something important was lacking, he pushed such disloyal reflections from his mind.

  Their intimate encounters had always been disappointing to him, joyless, and soon over. Now he knew how different things could be! But it was impossible to imagine Nancy abandoned, as Mrs Wyatt was last night. Mrs Wyatt. Dorothea. He tried the name in his mind. He’d use it next time. He’d called her ‘Darling,’ he recalled with pride, but had not used her first name.

  Meanwhile, there was the day ahead with little Lynn, whose shape was filling out; whose arm or thigh he sometimes brushed against; whose hair, if they bent together over some object in the shop, or to consult a reference book, smelled fresh and fragrant; Lynn, who was like a daughter to him.

  That Saturday morning, Dorothea Wyatt was woken by the telephone. It had rung several times before her groping hand managed to find and lift the receiver. The caller was her daughter Susan.

  At first, Dorothea could not understand what Susan was saying; she felt as if she were surfacing from some long submersion a great way from reality, and her head was pounding. But at last she understood Susan to be telling her, with impatience now, that she was coming for the weekend.

  ‘I’ll be there for lunch, Mummy,’ she heard, in a cross tone. ‘I said lunch, Mummy. Mummy? Are you there? Can you hear me? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Lovely, darling,’ Dorothea managed. ‘Lovely to see you. What train will you be on?’

  ‘I’ve told you already, Mummy. I’ll catch the twelve-twenty.’

  ‘All right, darling. I’ll be there to meet you,’ Dorothea said. ‘Twelve forty-five it arrives, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Of course, Mummy. It always has. I’ll wai
t, if you’re late.’ Susan, replacing the receiver, sighed. You’d think your mother would be pleased to see you, she reflected, whereas hers had sounded strange. At this hour she couldn’t have been at the gin. Susan had decided to make this duty visit when Leo, her current boyfriend, had revealed that he meant to spend the day tinkering with his Porsche which needed work done on the carburettors. Leo loved his car – more, she feared, than he loved her. He drove it in races for standard cars which she had to watch from the pits, half deafened. She was not sure that their relationship was secure enough to become permanent.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Dorothea aloud, hand to head. Now she must get up and root round for something for lunch. And be at Tellingford station by a quarter to one. But it would be lovely to see Susan.

  She sat up. Immediately, her head throbbed harder than before. Round her, the bedclothes were in disarray, the sheets crumpled. What a restless night she must have had.

  Then she remembered that she had woken in the night with her body, for once, at peace. Someone had been here with her. It had happened before; one of Harry’s business friends had needed no invitation, and there was Colin Hampton, married to her own childhood friend Molly, who had been in her bed more than once. Who was it this time?

  Dorothea had crawled out of bed in the night, dragged on her dressing gown and gone downstairs. Every light was on and the radio was playing. She checked the front door and found the key on the hall floor.

  ‘Must have dropped it,’ she had muttered to herself, pushing home the heavy bolts.

  She had felt hungry. Had she eaten any supper? She couldn’t remember. She went into the kitchen, found some bread and buttered it, and cut a slice of cheese. As she ate, she tried to remember who her visitor had been.

  She’d been to the Plough, she recalled. Who’d been there? Faces swam before her, but none seemed to fit. She had a vague memory of diffidence, of uttering encouragement.

  He’d had crisp, wiry hair on his chest. She’d always liked hairy men – Harry had a forest of dark hair on his chest.

  Then she remembered.

  ‘My God! Mr Trimm!’ She said it aloud. She often talked to herself. Sometimes she pretended Harry was there, and talked to him. With an effort she conjured up in her mind a picture of Mr Trimm with his neatly brushed sandy hair, streaked with grey – pepper and salt, almost – the corduroy jacket he always wore in the shop, his polite manner. Then she began to laugh. ‘Well, at least he always looks clean,’ she told herself.

  She had stopped laughing quite suddenly.

  ‘Oh, Harry, Harry,’ she mourned, starting to weep.

  How could she go on without him?

  Harry had seemed dull to some people, but he was her tender lover and her dear companion, who had brought her joy through so many years, their first ardour only heightened by the comfort of familiarity. He had died so suddenly, with no warning and no chance to say goodbye.

  To bring Mr Trimm into Harry’s bed had been a terrible betrayal.

  Still sobbing, Dorothea had dragged herself across the hall, back to the sitting room and the gin bottle. In the end, she’d taken the gin up to bed with her.

  And now she had another day to face.

  Lynn enjoyed Saturdays at Nanron’s. She liked seeing what was new since the week before, and what had been sold. Stock changed all the time.

  Uncle Ron would set off at about half-past nine on his various errands.

  ‘The business is in good hands when you’re in charge, Lynn,’ he would say, and would pat her shoulder.

  The shop premises had once been part of an inn. There was a narrow front room with a bow-fronted window on to the High Street, where the best items were displayed.

  Upstairs was another room, where china and glass less immediately striking and other oddments were shown. At the rear was a scullery, with an electric kettle and small geyser for washing up mugs and teacups, and downstairs was the cellar, where the book-keeping and other paperwork was done.

  Furniture restoration and repair work was done by Will Noakes, to whom Ronald took broken chairs to be given new backs, damaged chests and tables and sometimes pieces whose sole use was to supply wood for renovation. These were the quality jobs, but often at the back of the shop Lynn would see a shabby painted chest or a chair or table. Some weeks later the same items would reappear, the paint stripped, the surfaces smoothed and polished to show the natural wood. Valerie Turner did these for Ronald in the garage of Primrose Cottage, in Ship Lane.

  Nanron’s customers, in the main, could not afford perfect pieces; they were happy with old furniture that was reasonably priced, even if the legs were wrong or there were other flaws – it would match their renovated cottages.

  In a sense, Lynn relaxed on Saturdays. The rest of the week, it was off to school as soon as she finished her cornflakes and then it was all go, but in the shop there was no pressure. The customers never hurried, and Uncle Ron was nice to work for. He’d told her to call him Ron, now that she was his colleague, but somehow she couldn’t do it. She managed by not addressing him directly; if she needed his advice for a customer, she would say, ‘I’ll just ask Mr Trimm.’

  He was very cheerful this morning. Perhaps it was because the weather was better.

  Lynn began dusting the stock as soon as she’d hung up her coat at the back. She always did this, and polished the horse brasses which hung on a beam; they were in constant demand. There was rarely a customer until getting on for ten o’clock, for food shopping was the weekend priority and only when that was done did people find time to saunter. On Saturdays, Nanron stayed open through the lunch hour, catching people on their way to or from the Plough, which did a brisk trade in bar lunches.

  Mr Fortescue came in that morning. Lynn knew him by sight; she and Uncle Ron had seen him several times when they were walking to the van after locking up on a Saturday evening. He’d jog by in his black outfit, seeming old to Lynn because he was bald, his arms bent to his sides as he lolloped along. Uncle Ron knew that he lived at Orchard House.

  He wanted a present, he said. Something easy to post.

  ‘For my wife. She’s gone away,’ said George. ‘Left me. After twenty-two years of marriage. It’s her birthday on Wednesday. I can’t just ignore it, can I?’

  Lynn felt very embarrassed at hearing these personal details and a blush spread up her neck and over her face, but George did not notice. He had a compulsion, these days, to make people aware of his circumstances; he’d nothing to be ashamed of, after all. It was Angela, not he, who had behaved badly. Every year since they married, he had given her a bottle of Chanel No. 5, the size increasing with his salary, but he couldn’t post scent.

  ‘Would you like to look round?’ said Lynn. ‘I’ll ask Mr Trimm what he can suggest.’

  ‘Mm – thanks,’ said George and began prowling about the shop, peering at china ornaments and pieces of silver while Lynn murmured to Ron who was rearranging objects in a glass case.

  Ronald conducted George Fortescue to the open case. Within, some pieces of antique jewellery were set out: a garnet brooch, amethyst earrings, a cameo pin, various pendants. There was an old locket, still containing plaited strands of faded hair.

  George thought that macabre.

  ‘Someone’s mother,’ Ronald explained. ‘It was quite usual once to wear a locket like this after the death of a relative. They make pretty ornaments. You could take the hair out. Lynn, my dear, would you put this on to show Mr Fortescue?’

  Lynn stepped forward, and Ronald slipped the locket, which was on a narrow silver chain, over her head. She lifted her heavy hair to let the chain slide round the back of her neck. The locket rested on her softly rounded bosom, shining against the severe navy sweater she wore with her school skirt.

  ‘Very nice,’ said George. ‘But I hardly think—’

  ‘Try this,’ said Ronald, motioning to Lynn to remove the locket. He picked a piece of amber on a gilt chain from the velvet tray in the case, and slid that over Lynn’s h
ead.

  There was no doubt that the silver locket looked better on her than the irregular lump of amber, but the amber would be more appropriate for Angela, who had a dress that sort of colour, George recollected. He could not have described her clothes with any accuracy, but had a vague sense of prevailing browns and greens.

  The amber pendant was not as expensive as the silver locket. George paid for it by cheque.

  4

  Ronald was seeing everything through new eyes.

  Though the weather on Sunday was chill, the skies grey and the air raw, he perceived beauty in the pale spears of bulbs thrusting through the cold ground. There were snowdrops in bloom under an apple tree. It was dry enough to do some digging, Nancy had pointed out at breakfast, and he obediently went off to clear the patch where the sprouts had been.

  While he dug, his thoughts could roam.

  It had been a good day yesterday. He was glad to be rid of that amber pendant; it had been in the shop some time, too large for most people’s taste, and it wasn’t good to let stock linger. He’d bought it, with some other jewellery, from a house clearance. He had an arrangement which worked well with a couple who cleared houses, buying from them china and porcelain objects which needed repair, battered chests and chairs, and obscure grimy ornaments which often turned out, when cleaned, to be attractive pieces of jewellery. The amber pendant had been dull, covered in dust and grease, when it came his way, and the silver locket was black.

  The locket had looked well on Lynn. He wondered if she would like it for her birthday. He knew just when it was – the fourth of May – and she would be sixteen.

  He lit a bonfire later. The smoke spiralled straight up, then drifted across the Nortons’ garden, but that didn’t matter today because the Nortons had gone to visit Hilda’s mother.