Dead in Devon

by Stephanie Austin

  It was no good my trying to eavesdrop and it was none of my business anyway. I was just moving away from the door to go back to my work when I unleashed a mighty sneeze. It must have been the dust I’d raised with all that polishing. The conversation by the door cut short and swift steps thumped down the corridor. I retreated to the cellaret as if I’d never left it, just as the door was flung open.

  The stranger blocked the doorway, staring at me from eyes that were iceberg blue, and just as cold.

  ‘Hello,’ I said weakly and gave a little wave with my polishing cloth. He didn’t move but continued his icy glare, silent and hostile. I felt frost crackling down my spine and suppressed a shiver. Nick was hastily shuffling down the corridor, making soothing noises. He appeared in the doorway and began talking. The stranger never took his eyes from mine, except once to demand something of Nick and jerk his thumb forcefully in my direction. He was wearing gloves, I noticed, black leather gloves. I couldn’t understand the conversation that ensued but I got the general gist. He wanted to know who I was and what the hell I was doing there. Once he spoke to me directly, aggressively demanding something. I shook my head and shrugged. I think he was trying to trick me into a response, to assure himself that I didn’t speak his language, that I could not have understood the conversation I’d overheard. It might have been in Transylvanian, for all I knew.

  He spoke again, taking a step towards me, jabbing the air with his gloved fist. I can’t say I didn’t feel threatened, because I did: he was compact, strong and muscular, and together with his belligerent attitude and ice-zombie stare, seemed like a man who could do me damage and wouldn’t think twice about it. I named him Vlad. I was considering the broken leg of a nearby chair as a weapon to smash over his skull if he invaded my space any further, but Nick managed to calm him down, talking to him in hushed, conciliatory tones, and coaxed him upstairs.

  I went back to my polishing, trying to ignore the loud voices I could hear from the room above, and concentrate on the job. About twenty minutes later Nick’s visitor came thundering down the stairs.

  ‘Nice knowing you,’ I muttered, thinking he was on his way out.

  But then the door into the storeroom crashed open again and he stood in the doorway, scowling. I rose to my feet and held his stare, determined not to be intimidated, not to look away first. After a few moments he muttered something that sounded like a curse and swung out, slamming the door into the street behind him.

  I noticed he had been carrying a small cardboard box under one arm. I’d have loved to have known what was in it.

  Nick was hurrying down the stairs by then. ‘Is everything OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes … of course!’ he answered breathlessly, but he looked flustered, and seemed anxious to reassure me, taking my hand and patting it. ‘My friend, he get excited. Is nothing.’

  ‘He didn’t seem to like my being here.’

  ‘Is nothing. No worry.’

  I could tell he was uneasy. I felt a little shaken myself.

  ‘We finish today, Juno − more another time, yes?’ He pulled a fat roll of banknotes from his cardigan pocket and began to peel them off.

  ‘That’s far too much …’ I began but he hushed me, pushing them into my hand.

  ‘You work hard, Juno.’ He hesitated and then glanced at me slyly. ‘My friend … you forget you saw him, yes?’

  ‘If you want,’ I told him. ‘But he’s none of my business, you don’t have to bribe me.’

  ‘No. No. You keep!’ he insisted. ‘I see you another day.’

  ‘I need to look in my diary.’

  ‘Yes, yes. You ring me,’ he nodded, and couldn’t hustle me towards the door fast enough.

  ‘So, you never found out who he was?’ Ricky asked, tucking into his Eton Mess.

  We’d got through the sea bass, baby spinach and crushed potatoes by then. Morris and I were on to the crème brûlée.

  ‘Nick’s visitor?’ I shook my head.

  ‘Are you going to work for Nick again?’

  ‘I think so. He’s got tons more stuff that he wants me to clean for him, things he wants to send to auction.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he open his shop? I’d love a poke around in there.’ Morris was an enthusiastic collector of teapots. The dresser in the breakfast room contained an army of them, all pointing in the same direction, spouts to attention.

  ‘I think he’s tired. Just doesn’t want the bother of it. I’m giving him Chloe Berkeley-Smythe’s slot on a Wednesday afternoon until she comes back from her cruise. After that we’ll have to see.’

  ‘Don’t get too involved with him, Juno.’ Morris wagged a finger at me. ‘You don’t want to get mixed up in anything dodgy.’

  I should have taken his advice. But back then I didn’t know then how dodgy things were going to get.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Verbena Clarke is not my favourite client. She lives in an expensive barn conversion on the Widecombe road, at a place where the countryside around begins to change. The trees thin out, the land opens up on either side as the hedgerows give way, replaced by grass verges and low, drystone walls. In the distance the green firs of a Forestry Commission plantation turn the horizon into a dark and spiky line. This is not yet the moor proper, but the land has lost the lush softness of the valley below. It has grown harder. Still beautiful, it has sharper edges, as if the moor’s underlying granite is trying to push up from beneath.

  I parked the van by the side of the road. Mrs Clarke does not allow me to drive in through her gates and park in her courtyard next to her Porsche and her Range Rover. She says my vehicle is an eyesore. So I park it a hundred yards down the road, on the grass verge, where I’m certain she cannot avoid seeing it from the windows of her studio; although this small satisfaction is no compensation for having to stump back down the road in wet and windy weather.

  Only a tantalising glimpse of the barn is visible, hidden, as it is, behind a high wall. Only as I come around the granite gatepost into the courtyard, is it possible to appreciate the beauty of the building, old walls and oak beams wedded seamlessly to modern screens of glass. Mrs Clarke is a design consultant, and what she has created from a cluster of derelict farm buildings is remarkable. Rumour has it – and by rumour, you understand, I mean Ricky and Morris – that there is an ex-husband lurking in the background, an ageing rock star, who stumped up the money for the barn development as a pay-off for dumping Verbena and her teenage girls and running off with a younger version.

  To my surprise there was another vehicle parked beside the Porsche, an old lorry, surely not smart enough, I thought peevishly, to be permitted entrance to the courtyard. The tailgate was down and I peered nosily into the inside. It was empty. The front door of the barn was flung open, but I didn’t know whether something was coming out, or something had just gone in. I got the answer when I stepped into the glass atrium and found a large, old-fashioned dresser, unattended, and blocking most of the hall. I called out a yoo-hoo as I squeezed my way past.

  The lovely Mrs Clarke was sitting in the living room with a visitor. At least, with her halo of soft blonde hair and big blue eyes, she would be lovely, if she didn’t have an irritating Home Counties schoolgirl accent and was so resolutely unsmiling. I couldn’t help noticing that the visitor, presumably, judging from the overalls he wore, the man who had just delivered the dresser, was clutching a mug of coffee. Over the last two years I have worked two hours every week for Mrs Clarke, trudging in from the road where she makes me park in all weathers, and I have never been offered a cup of coffee, tea or any other form of refreshment.

  ‘Hello!’ The visitor hailed me in a loud and cheery voice. He was a pleasant-looking, elderly man, and judging from his loud voice, possibly deaf.

  Mrs Clarke cast a look over her shoulder. ‘Oh. Juno,’ she greeted me in a desultory tone. ‘Bedrooms.’ Having given me my instructions, she wasted no more words on me, and turned back to her visitor.

  ‘Aren’t you joining us for cof
fee?’ the visitor asked.

  A questioning glance at Verbena’s stiffened countenance told me that I wasn’t paid to waste my time on pleasantries and I’d better get my ass up the stairs. ‘’Fraid not!’ I told him and beat it up the staircase.

  ‘Shame!’ he said. As I reached the landing, I heard him enquire loudly, ‘Who’s the Titian-haired beauty?’ Despite my ears being on stalks I only caught the end of her reply: ‘cleaning woman’. She might as well have said ‘serf’. Perhaps she’d like it branded on my forehead so future visitors would appreciate my lowly status and not attempt to engage me in conversation.

  In the master suite I found the most pleasant member of the Clarke family, Perdita the pedigree Persian, stretched out on the bed. She rolled around luxuriously, showing off her gorgeous fluffy tummy and allowing me to adore her. I suspect that Perdita was only purchased because she looks so fabulous reclining on the furniture, although if she keeps bringing in dead voles and chewed-up baby rabbits from outside, she may well find she’s on borrowed time.

  When I’d finished in the master suite, with its white-marble bathroom, there were two more for me to clean. Frankly, I think Verbena’s teenage offspring should be made to clean their own bedrooms’ en suite. Picking up dirty knickers and grubbing long hair out of the shower plughole with a bent paper clip is character-building stuff.

  By the time I’d finished, and came downstairs, the dresser was in situ in the breakfast room and Verbena’s cheery visitor had obviously been gone for some time. Verbena was standing before her new purchase, considering the exact placement of a piece of chunky pottery. When she saw me, she reached reluctantly for her leather wallet. Every time she pays me, she goes through the same ritual, a sigh and a little shake of the head, as if I’m bankrupting her.

  One day I pointed out to her that I cost a lot less than the plumber she’d just cheerfully handed over a wad of cash to for ten minutes’ work. She had replied, somewhat reproachfully, that a plumber is a qualified professional with specialist skills. I didn’t argue, just suggested that the next time she blocked up her waste disposal, she sent for me.

  Afterwards I called on Maisie. They say that dogs and their owners look alike but this is not the case with Jacko and Maisie. Jacko is a bristly barrel of coarse fur on four short legs, an incompatible mixture of nasty terriers. I can’t walk him with other dogs because he’s a psychopath. Maisie, with her apricot curls and button black eyes, resembles a poodle more than anything else. She’s ninety-four, and my job for her is to shop, walk her dog, fetch prescriptions and occasionally, clean. It’s a flexible arrangement.

  Her cottage is in Brook Lane, so called because of the Ashburn, a little tributary of the River Dart that slides sneakily under much of the town, emerges here and there to show itself as a tiny rill running along a ditch beside the road. It was possible to reach Maisie’s gate only by stepping on a tiny bridge made from an old flagstone. Hers is one of just four cottages in the lane, and like many roads in country towns, once past the last house the tarmac degrades into a rough track, leading between fields.

  Maisie was sitting on the cottage floor when I walked inside, her back propped up against the sofa, her little legs stretched out before her. I could see the soles of her pink sheepskin slippers, shiny with wear.

  ‘Hello, lovey!’ she sang out cheerily.

  ‘What are you doing down there?’ I kicked Jacko away as he ran forward, barking shrilly, and tried to hump my leg. ‘Have you had a fall?’

  ‘I skidded on a teabag.’ She pointed towards the culprit, squashed damply on her kitchen lino. It was one of several littering the area around her overflowing pedal bin. I knelt down beside her. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Oh, an hour ago or so.’

  ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

  ‘No!’ She began laughing like a pixie. ‘I just couldn’t get up, so I shuffled me old bum over here against the sofa to see if I could pull meself up on the seat, but I can’t quite manage it. Hopeless, I am!’

  ‘Heave-ho, then!’ I grabbed her little hands, blue-veined and skeletal as claws, and pulled her up on to her sofa. She weighed next to nothing. ‘Why are you still in your dressing gown? Hasn’t the girl from the agency been?’ It was close on twelve o’clock and an agency carer was supposed to come in between eight and nine each morning to help Maisie bathe and dress. She had difficulty getting her old bones going in the morning and if someone didn’t give her breakfast, she’d forget to eat. She’d happily go through the day on a diet of tea and biscuits if I let her get away with it.

  ‘Not yet,’ she answered, unconcerned, ‘but she comes a different time every morning. And it’s not always her. Sometimes it’s another one.’

  ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ It wouldn’t be the carer’s fault she was late. I’d worked briefly for a care agency and I knew the timetable was impossible.

  ‘What do you want for breakfast?’ I picked up soggy and dried-out teabags from around the kitchen floor. ‘You’re not very good at lobbing these in the bin, are you?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted happily. ‘I’ll have a piece of toast.’

  I popped a slice in the toaster, bagged up the rubbish and took it outside. By the time I’d returned and put a fresh liner in the bin, the toast had popped up and Maisie had used her remote to switch on the television news. ‘Who’s that?’ she pointed at the screen. ‘He’s always on, I don’t like him.’

  I glanced over my shoulder at the television as I spread the butter. ‘That’s the foreign secretary, Maisie.’

  ‘Wanker!’ she pronounced darkly.

  I paused in mid-spread. ‘What do you want on this toast?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind.’

  ‘We’ll make it marmalade, then.’

  I don’t know what the foreign secretary was talking about, but he caused Maisie to nod wisely and declare, ‘Bad blood will out.’

  God, I hope not, I thought to myself. When you’re not sure what’s running in your own veins, it’s not a comforting thought.

  At that moment a pretty girl in a blue overall hurtled in through the front door. Jacko launched an immediate assault on her ankles but I distracted him by rattling a packet of dog biscuits and hauling him off by his collar.

  ‘Hello, Maria!’ Maisie called out, waving her toast. ‘You all right, darling?’

  ‘Hello, Maisie! Sorry I’m late. I had to call an ambulance for Mr Wilson and I couldn’t leave him, and that’s put me behind. I’m sorry. I’ll run your bath.’ And with that, she rushed off into the bathroom.

  I gave the kitchen floor a wash, checked the contents of Maisie’s fridge, examining the sell-by dates for anything life-threatening, and then sat down with her to sort out her shopping list. ‘How about a new pair of slippers?’ I suggested. ‘Something with a bit more grip?’

  Leaving Maisie soaking in the bath under the watchful eye of Maria, I set off for town with Jacko on the lead. Once outside of his own territory, Jacko is not too bad with people. But he seriously objects to sharing his pavement with other dogs or anything on wheels. Before we’d reached our destination he’d launched a yapping assault on a girl pushing twins in a buggy, frightened a kiddie on a tricycle, and given a nasty shock to an elderly spaniel and its equally elderly owner. By the time I’d dragged him around the shops in search of Maisie’s ham and lettuce, I was fed up with apologising for him and tied his lead to a hook in the wall opposite Mr Singh’s so I could go in and buy her jar of Ovaltine and bag of lemon drops in peace.

  ‘I won’t get you your pig’s ear if you don’t behave,’ I threatened him darkly.

  Suddenly he began to growl, deep in his throat, not his usual jaunty posturing, but a primeval rumble of fear and loathing. I saw Micky rounding the corner, dressed in his woolly hat, ancient mac belted round with string, and I understood. For where there was Micky, inevitably, a few moments later, there would be Duke.

  Micky was a gentleman of the road − by choice, rather than the vagaries of fate − and roa
med the moor at will, dossing down in a variety of hideaways of his own construction and shying away from people in general. He came down into town only when necessity compelled him. If he was heading to Mr Singh’s, he was probably in need of some Rizlas for his roll-ups.

  He raised a hand to me in silent greeting. A while ago he’d been involved in a misunderstanding with the police about the ownership of some recreational drugs, and had spent a month inside. I’d gone up on to the moor every day to find Duke and feed him.

  No sooner had Micky disappeared through Mr Singh’s swing doors, than Duke came limping around the corner. Duke was a cross between a Great Dane and a mastiff on one side and … well … something else … on the other, something huge, something a darker shade of black than any ordinary dog. His powerful body was battle-scarred and his massive head hung low. He’d have been perfect casting for The Hound of the Baskervilles.

  By now Jacko was frantic, lead stretched taut, choking himself on his collar in a frenzied attempt to lunge across the road at Duke, who, oblivious of his presence, barged his way through Mr Singh’s swing doors like a gunslinger heading into a saloon. Inside the shop was a stand of pick’n’mix, the bowls of sweets set temptingly at toddler height, the lids easy for a doggy snout to nudge aside. I began to count.

  I’d only reached six when Duke emerged from the shop pursued by Mrs Singh in her sari and green cardigan, yelling ‘Bad dog! Bad dog!’ whilst hitting him across the back with a broom. She might as well have stroked him with a powder puff for all the notice he took. He flopped down on the pavement and concentrated on spitting out a shower of shiny sweet wrappers.

  ‘He always goes for the Quality Street!’ she informed me indignantly and scurried back inside.