Murder is in the Air

by Frances Brody

  ‘I came back from Scarborough on the train. I went to Bedale on Friday night and stayed in the attic room.’

  ‘You’ve never done that before.’

  ‘I had to build up a certain person to come and see you on Pathé News on Saturday.’

  Ruth’s eyes widened. ‘And did she?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Ruth danced in a circle, punching the air like a boxer in the ring, with cries of triumph, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

  Harriet was astonished. Ruth always appeared serene, remote almost. Now she was a whirling dervish. ‘We’ll do it, George! We’re almost there.’

  He shrugged. ‘I said we would.’

  Harriet did not know what they were talking about, but they weren’t doing it in a way to make her feel left out.

  Ruth’s mood suddenly changed. ‘You won’t have heard then, about Joe?’

  George stood stock still. ‘It’s true then? Abe told me, but he’s gaga.’

  Harriet listened while Ruth told George what she knew about yesterday’s events. ‘And we were there, George, by the stables, with no idea that poor Joe was lying in the fermentation room.’

  George closed his eyes and lowered his head. ‘Abe didn’t tell me that.’

  Ruth said, ‘And our old man, he came to Oak Cottage last night. He said you were the only man in Masham not queuing up to give your alibi for yesterday.’

  Harriet was still not used to hearing them talk of their dad as the old man.

  George coloured up. ‘And where was the old man? He was the one wanted to knock Joe’s block off after the trussing.’

  ‘He’d fight Joe, but not kill him.’ Ruth’s joy of a few moments ago had vanished. ‘There’s only one person he’d like to kill. One day, I might be his second choice.’

  ‘Ruth!’ George looked at Harriet, signalling to her not to say too much in the presence of an outsider.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Ruth said. ‘We can trust Harriet.’

  ‘You can trust me because I’ve no notion what you’re talking about.’ Harriet felt pleased and proud. She had never expected to make friends here.

  Harriet did have a vague notion of what they might be talking about, but it was their conversation and she would keep out. Ruth was saying that their father would like to kill their mother.

  George said, ‘Where are you two going anyway?’

  ‘The Druid’s Temple’, Ruth said.

  ‘I’ll come with you but I’m not walking.’ he said to Ruth. ‘Fetch your bike.’ He turned to Harriet. ‘Would you ride pillion on my bike?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet said. She’d be happy to ride pillion on his bike anytime. Harriet wished George hadn’t looked so moonstruck at Miss East Riding.

  They cycled along country lanes, under a blue sky with a single great wash of streaking cloud, passing shabby old thatched cottages and a couple of farmhouses, lots of trees and fields of sheep. After the novelty of being cycled, Harriet wished she could pedal instead of just sticking out her legs to avoid the wheels.

  At the edge of a wood, that might be a forest, they stopped and climbed off the bikes. George and Ruth propped their bikes by an oak tree.

  They left the bright sunshine for the shade of the wood, going deeper and deeper, startling rabbits and birds, coming across clumps of bluebells and wild garlic. Shortly after that they stepped into a clearing that took Harriet back through time. It was an arrangement of standing stones, like in a picture of Stonehenge, but smaller. These stones were not much taller than George Parnaby but the place still gave her the shivers. Harriet thought of her dad, a stonemason. Unhewn, that was what he would have called these stones. Four stones edged what looked to Harriet like a mounted gravestone. There were altars where a pagan might make a sacrifice. But most astonishing of all was a brown and white Shetland pony, all alone at the top of the oval. Harriet went closer. The pony was suddenly nervous and backed away, until George came over and patted its neck and said, ‘Billy, what are you doing here?’

  Harriet watched, to see what they would do. They both went quiet, and seemed scared. Ruth said, ‘Look in the hermit’s cave. See if someone is hiding, the person who brought Joe’s pony here.’

  George said, ‘You look.’ He took something from his pocket. ‘I’ll stay with Billy. He knows me best.’ He patted the pony. ‘I saved you a sugar lump.’

  Harriet stepped forward. ‘Where is the cave? I’ll look.’ She thought they might be a little wary. She guessed neither George nor Ruth knew Jujitsu.

  Ruth pointed out the cave and walked along behind her. ‘The old man told us he would leave us here one dark night and the wolves would come.’

  So that’s how they deal with having a weird father, Harriet thought. They put him at a distance. “The old man”, even though he was not so very old, simply crazy and frightening.

  Harriet could not see far into the dark cave. George passed a box of matches to Ruth who threw it to Harriet. Harriet struck a match, and another as she went farther in. There was no one there. An eggshell lay on the floor of the cave, recently cracked. Someone had guzzled the egg but not long ago because soft white of egg still bonded to the shell. A discarded tab end felt warm to the touch.

  ‘Whoever it is, they’re nearby, waiting for us to go so they can come back for the pony.’

  ‘Or steal our bikes,’ Ruth said.

  This made them hurry back the way they had come, George encouraging Billy, jollying the pony along because he had no bridle.

  The bikes were where they had left them. There was now the question of the pony. George looked through his saddlebag. He felt sure there was a length of rope in there.

  ‘Give me a hand up and I’ll ride him,’ Harriet said.

  George smiled at her, as if she was not all there. ‘No saddle, no bridle, no reins?’

  Harriet put her head on the pony’s neck. ‘You’ll let me ride, won’t you?’

  It was that or climb on George’s boneshaker and cling on. She knew which she preferred. The novelty had worn off.

  The pony whinnied. George made a stirrup of his hands, to help Harriet onto the pony’s back.

  She was up.

  Harriet whispered to the pony. ‘We’ll show them, Billy. They aren’t the only ones brought up in the country.’ Harriet never had a pony of her own, but she had known someone who did.

  On the journey back, she asked Ruth about the Druid’s Temple.

  ‘They call it a folly,’ Ruth called to her. ‘Early in the last century a landowner, William Danby, designed it. I don’t know whether he had nothing better to do or whether he did it on purpose to provide jobs. A lot of people were out of work, like now, so he paid local men a shilling a day to build it.’

  ‘Did anyone live in the cave?’

  ‘Someone was paid a wage to live there for seven years, but after five years he went mad.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  George slowed down. ‘It was the old man. I’m thinking of having him sent back to complete his seven years.’

  Ruth said, ‘He’s just being silly. If it was dad, he’d have to be a hundred and fifty years old.’

  As they came closer to Masham, the talk turned to where they should take the pony, and who should tell the police.

  Harriet had the answer. ‘We’ll take him to the cottage. No one will look for him in the garden. There’s a shed where he can spend the night.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to the police station.’ George began to pedal a little faster. ‘I’ve somewhere else to go.’

  ‘We’ll tell Auntie Kate. She’ll know what to do.’

  The front gate of the cottage was too narrow to lead the pony through. Billy Boy backed away. The place was unfamiliar. Harriet sympathised. The animal did not know where he was being led. Harriet walked round to the back garden and opened the bigger gate.

  Ruth and George stayed on the track, talking. Harriet called to them. ‘Would one of you fill a bucket from the well? There’s plenty of grass for Billy.’

&nb
sp; George called back. ‘I have to go now. I’m off to see Mrs Finch!’ He went, pedalling over the bumps.

  Ruth called after him. ‘I’ll follow on. Don’t go in without me!’

  But George was already gone, calling, ‘Come when you’re ready.’

  At the sound of voices, Miss Boland came out of her back door, leaning on her stick. ‘Where did you find the pony?’

  Harriet told her. ‘He was at the Druid’s Temple.’

  ‘He was taken by the gypsies then. They must have got into the brewery stable.’

  Ruth clanked along with a bucket.

  Harriet was astonished to see their dog appear, making a fuss of her and then taking a sniff at the pony. The bloodhound then pushed his way through a gap in the fence towards Miss Boland. He was sniffing at her stick, and then leaning back with front limbs outstretched and head down.

  Harriet laughed. ‘He wants you to throw your stick for him, Miss Boland. He doesn’t know it’s a walking stick.’

  Miss Boland shooed the dog away.

  He came back, sniffing again.

  Ruth said, ‘Your dog would get on well with the old man. They could have a sniffing contest.’

  Kate came out to see what all the fuss was about.

  Harriet went to fetch the dog. ‘How did he get here, Auntie?’

  Kate said, ‘You missed Mrs Sugden! She came on the coach and brought him.’

  ‘She got tired of walking him,’ Harriet said.

  ‘That’s not how she put it. Mrs Sugden thinks that in a remote cottage, we need a dog, but I will take him for a long walk tomorrow.’

  ‘Go to Roomer Common,’ Ruth said. ‘That’s where we always went when we were little. The old man took us there before we knew he was mad.’

  The dog grabbed Miss Boland’s stick again, ran to Auntie Kate and presented it to her ready for throwing. Miss Boland tried not to show how annoyed she was. Auntie Kate took it from him and passed it back, apologising to Miss Boland and asking about her ankle.

  Ruth and Harriet went to stand by the pony, watching him drink.

  Ruth said, ‘We might have saved Billy’s life. What if someone was going to sacrifice him at the Druid’s Temple?’

  Harriet had noticed that in spite of her grand ideas about winning through, keeping her tiara straight and conquering the world, Ruth always expected the worst.

  ‘That’s daft,’ Harriet said. ‘Why would anyone sacrifice a pony?’

  ‘People make sacrifices to the gods, believing their future depends on it.’

  ‘In the olden days, not now.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Ruth had set off with Harriet for an official engagement. I had just sat down to look at the Ordnance Survey map when the dog barked. Moments later, there was a knock on the door. Sergeant Moon stood just a little way back from the doorstep. ‘Mrs Shackleton, you have a dog?’

  ‘Yes, my housekeeper brought him over yesterday. Do come in, or he won’t let us talk.’

  ‘Ah, a bloodhound.’ The sergeant stepped inside, patting the dog.

  ‘He failed as a police dog. My father is on the West Riding force. When I was growing up, we had a police bloodhound called Constable. My mother wanted another dog but forgot she would be left with the job of walking him, so this one found his way to me.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  This was a little awkward. I hoped the sergeant would not take the name as a slight. ‘Well since our first dog was Constable, we thought a promotion would be in order. This is Sergeant.’

  ‘What a good name!’

  ‘There’s tea in the pot. Will you have a cup, Mr Moon?’ It would be best not to give the sergeant his title while the dog was here. Our dog also likes a drink of tea, in a saucer with milk, no sugar.

  ‘I will have a cup of tea. Thank you.’ The sergeant took off his cap and sat at the table.

  I moved the Ordnance Survey map.

  ‘You’re going for a walk?’

  ‘Yes, to Roomer Common. Ruth recommended it. She used to walk there with her family. I assumed it must have been in happier times, before Mrs Parnaby left.’

  The sergeant eyed the cake. ‘I was just passing along the lane and thought I’d let you know that someone will be coming to collect the pony later today.’

  Sergeant Dog sniffed at Sergeant Moon’s leg, lost interest and left by the back door.

  I poured tea. ‘Does Mrs Finch want the pony back?’

  ‘No, she does not. But we need to take Billy into custody, at our own stables. We’ve made an arrest for the theft, and we don’t want to lose the creature again.’

  Sykes was right to suspect the horse dealer. I wanted to know, and it was worth a try, ‘Might the thief be facing more than one charge?’

  ‘You wouldn’t expect me to answer that, Mrs Shackleton, but I can give you a few tips about how to find your way to Roomer Common. That dog of yours will like it. Doesn’t chase sheep, does he?’

  ‘He doesn’t chase sheep.’ I cut two slices of cake and slid a plate towards him.

  ‘Thank you.’ He sugared his tea and stirred. ‘So, Harriet and Ruth found the pony at the Druid’s Temple?’

  ‘Yes, they and George.’

  ‘Did George say where he’d been on Saturday?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to him.’

  ‘Not important. Everyone who works at the brewery is being asked to account for their movements up to the time of Joe Finch’s death, just a matter of paperwork.’

  At that moment, Sergeant Dog returned with Miss Boland’s walking stick. He dropped it in front of his human counterpart.

  ‘Bad boy!’ I said. ‘Miss Boland won’t get far without that and Sergeant Moon isn’t going to throw it for you.’

  Sergeant Moon patted the dog. ‘Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll give it back to Miss Boland, and just say hello, see how she’s getting on.’ He picked up the stick and leaned it against the table. ‘It’s unsettling when we have two deaths in so short a time. We have never known anything like this in Mashamshire. Not to alarm you, but I want to make sure you and Miss Boland are locking your doors.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Harriet did not reckon much to this idea of a procession. A procession called for brass bands and banners, carnations, rows of girls in white satin and boys in uncomfortable jackets.

  Combining a procession with beer deliveries must be Mr Lofthouse’s way of saving money. He had said this was a good way of ensuring landlords, landladies and bar staff would see Queen Ruth.

  Harriet, acting as companion, was to sit between Ruth and Phil Jopling. To Harriet’s thinking, the dray ought to have been decorated but that was not possible because it was loaded with barrels.

  Ruth was no help. All she knew was that she must wave, and then give a short speech at Bedale House over lunch. The procession had been announced in the newspaper so could not be cancelled out of respect for Joe Finch, as Ruth and Phil Jopling had wanted.

  The seat was draped in red velvet. Caesar and Cleopatra’s manes had been plaited with red, white and blue ribbons, decorated with white rosettes. Phil adjusted two large black bows that he had attached to the horses’ collars, to remember Joe.

  Ruth was to sit holding. Cleopatra’s reins. Jopling would hold Caesar’s. Harriet would be pig in the middle.

  ‘Why didn’t we call it off?’ Ruth said again as she eased off her rubber boots.

  Jopling sighed. ‘That’s what I said, but there wasn’t time to get word to everyone who will turn out, or to cancel the lunch you’re to have with bigwigs at Bedale Hall.’

  Ruth put on her satin shoes.

  Jopling gave Ruth a quick set of instructions regarding the reins, adding, ‘Don’t fret. The horses know where they’re going. They’re the real workers. Me and Joe, we just do—did—the heavy lifting.’

  People who came out to watch the dray leave Masham did so in silence, for Joe Finch. The horses clip-clopped their way along Silver Street, towards the river.

  Ru
th suddenly asked Jopling to stop by the draper’s shop. ‘I need a black scarf. I’m not going to pretend nothing has happened.’

  Jopling whoa-ed the horses. ‘You do right, lass.’

  Harriet knew this was her job. ‘Let me pass, Phil.’ She squeezed round, hopped down and went in the shop, taking her purse from the deep pocket of her coat dress. When the draper knew who the scarf was for and why, she said, ‘She can fetch it back, or settle up later.’ But Harriet paid. She had spotted the sign in the draper’s window.

  Please Do Not Ask For Credit As Refusal May Offend.

  As they continued their clip-clopping journey, a stillness settled around the three of them.

  By Masham bridge, a group of people had gathered. Several farmers’ wives waited, with a batch of children. Ruth knew them all. A sheepdog wagged its tail. The young shepherd with the dog, sheepish as his occupation, watched from behind the hedgerow. Ruth waved and obligingly climbed down, so that the children could take a better look at her medallion. Harriet noticed that Ruth seemed to have the ability to switch something on inside herself when she spoke to “her public”. She was good at putting on the right face. Had she learned that from Miss Boland’s coaching, or was that switch always inside her? Perhaps Harriet would ask later, if a person could find the words to ask about something like that.

  They now seemed to Harriet to be in the middle of nowhere, nothing but fields on either side, cows on one side of the road, sheep on the other, and a solitary farmhand, mending a gate. It reminded her of where she had grown up, and of helping on the land, picking potatoes, blackberrying, even playing the part of a human scarecrow when seeds were scattered.

  As they arrived at the first pub, Harriet said, ‘Ruth, don’t get down and talk to people. For one thing, we’ll take all day. For another thing, queens don’t do that. It’s not dignified.’

  Phil unloaded casks. The landlord and his wife came out to say hello, congratulate Ruth, and give her a bar of chocolate. Harriet took the chocolate for safekeeping, in case it melted on Ruth’s dress.