The Skeleton in the Grass

by Robert Barnard

  It was a very local train, when it slowly drew up—rather dirty carriages, with no corridor. Oliver’s friend was called Chan, which sounded Chinese rather than Indian to Sarah, and he was quiet, be-suited and friendly. Sarah had never met an Indian before, and was somewhat in awe. He spoke a beautiful, precisely articulated English, and when she got used to his misuse of the continuous present tense she had no difficulty in following what he was saying.

  At first he did not say much at all, but when Dennis asked him about the meeting, he became more voluble.

  “The government is not listening to what we are saying, Mr. Hallam. That old Baldwin, he is not interesting himself in the question of India. So the question we are asking ourselves is: how are we to make him listen?”

  “Passive disobedience, you mean?”

  “That is what we are discussing. But among other things, because we have many other options, and there are many who are arguing for something stronger.”

  There was something unreal for Sarah about driving through the narrow country roads of Oxfordshire in the gathering dark, and talking about ways of achieving independence for India. She resolved to have a good talk on the subject with Chan while he was there, but meanwhile she switched off. Dennis drove carefully and well, and Sarah thought about Roland, and when she would try to go with him to the picture show. As they drove through the gates of Hallam and up towards the house, Chan expressed his appreciation.

  “A truly English house, just as we are always imagining them to be. It is a very fine specimen, is it not, of Tudor domestic architecture?”

  “Rather good,” said Dennis, bringing the car to a halt round the side of the house. He never put the Austin in its little garage by the stables during the summertime. They got out, and Dennis pointed out to Chan the fine chimneys, the beautiful proportions, the warmth of the brick. The two of them led the way round to the front of the house.

  “My wife will have something ready for your supper,” he said, as they approached the front door. “She’s greatly looking forward to meeting—”

  Dennis stopped in his tracks. Chan stopped too, and was forced to look where Dennis was looking, at the front door. Strapped against the heavy Tudor oak, hanging over the brass door-knocker, was what looked like a stuffed dog. It was a yellow-coloured, mongrelish dog, and it was secured in a cradle of white webbing. Dennis, going up to the door, realized with a jolt that was physical, and visible to Chan, that it was not a stuffed one, but a recently dead one, its face twisted as if in pain. On one band of the webbing, crudely lettered in indelible ink, he read the words:

  yeLLow cuR

  Looking down, he saw that, congealing on the steps, there lay a pool of blood.

  Dennis, leaning against the doorpost, retched and retched, as if he had swallowed some terrible poison.

  CHAPTER 4

  The main thing, everybody agreed, was not to let Chan’s visit be spoiled. Some atavistic instinct about hospitality meant that, right from the first, the Hallams and their dependents tried to put the incident behind them. When they got inside Helen was told about it in a whisper by Oliver, and she suggested to him that he remove the beast at once to the garage, until they had decided what to do about it. Then she and Elizabeth took Chan off to the kitchen to meet Mrs. Munday and Pinner, and then they got him to bring in the food for the little supper that had been prepared—a move that effectively removed any sense of awkward superfluousness that Chan might have felt.

  Sarah, alone in the sitting-room with Dennis, went over to the sideboard and poured him a glass of brandy. Why brandy, rather than whisky, gin, vodka, curaço, or any of the other bottles that the sideboard carried in such lavish and useful profusion Sarah did not know. It was just that brandy was the drink always mentioned at the Vicarage in connection with shocks, accidents or upset stomachs. It certainly seemed to do the trick in this case. In a couple of minutes colour had flooded back into Dennis’s cheeks, and he was smiling at Sarah in self-deprecation.

  “I’ve really no right to go queasy at the sight of blood,” he said, shaking his head. “When you think how much those poor beggars on the Western Front saw, I’m ashamed. We had little enough of it in Egypt and the Near East. It’s some sort of instinctive revulsion, but luckily it passes quite quickly. Let’s make sure the rest of the evening is pleasant for Chan.”

  And pleasant it certainly was, in a quite unforced way. Chan ate with a will, and Mrs. Munday had prepared a delightfully dainty and English light meal. Elizabeth played the piano for a while, and her mother sang a couple of Schubert songs. Oliver promised to show Chan the house next morning and Dennis talked over with him the book he was currently reviewing, about Britain’s role in nineteenth-century Afghanistan. Only Bounce, whining and shifting his position with great sighs, showed he was uneasy. All in all it was a happy couple of hours, and though Sarah was sure that Chan was likely to remember the grotesque spectacle of the dead dog before he went to sleep, still, that memory should at least be overlaid by something less hideous.

  It had been decided by breakfast-time that they would have to tell the police. For a start Oliver said he suspected that the dog had been deliberately and not accidentally killed. Then Sarah, hesitantly, told them about Major Coffey’s veiled threats. Mrs. Munday said that if it was a yellowy-looking creetur, it was probably Mrs. Battley’s. Helen was adamant: they couldn’t have people saying that they were responsible for the death of a widow’s dog.

  “It was probably her only companion,” she said. “We’ll simply have to have somebody looking into it, even if nothing comes of it. Oh, and Sarah—please keep Chloe away from the garage until it’s gone.”

  So while Oliver gave Chan a conducted tour of the house, and while Sarah tried to keep Chloe’s mind on her story book in the schoolroom, Dennis and Helen Hallam talked about the nasty incident of the night before with Sergeant South.

  “The police” in that trio of Oxfordshire villages, and in the fields and woods beyond, meant Sergeant South. He was a tall, well-built countryman, one who had been in his time a “fine figure of a man,” and the sort of policeman whose proximity gives confidence to timid old ladies and shy children, and gives others pause to think. Now he was a few years beyond his physical prime, and beer and sausages and hearty breakfasts had led to that heavy belt being let out a notch or two. But he was still impressive, still a presence, and though he was slow, he was not stupid. It was a distinction that Helen Hallam seemed ready to make, but Dennis Hallam had to mask his impatience at the ponderousness with which the interview was conducted.

  “I have had a look at the animal,” said Sergeant South, after he had led Dennis through a recital of the discovery of the beast hanging on his front door. “There’s little doubt in my mind that there is Liz Battley’s Rover.”

  There was nothing, almost, that Sergeant South did not know about the surface life of the villages that were under his surveillance. Some of the undercurrents, it is true, were unknown to him, and inconceivable to his type of mind, but he had a brilliant grasp of facts and relationships.

  “Liz Battley?” Dennis Hallam furrowed his handsome brow. “Let me see, isn’t she widow of one of our workers on Matcham Farm? Has one of the cottages on the outskirts of Chowton, doesn’t she? On the road to Hatherton?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Her husband had a heart attack, round about harvest time one year,” put in Helen.

  “He did. She’s been a widow lady these eight, nine years . . . Never had cause to quarrel with her, sir, madam, have you? She couldn’t have any sort of grievance against you?”

  “Of course not, Sergeant. I’m sure I would recognize her if I saw her in the street, but at the moment I can hardly put a face to her.”

  “She worked here once or twice to help out, and has always been quite friendly,” said Helen quietly. “Of course she has no grudge against us. And you’re not suggesting, Sergeant, that she’d kill her own pet . . . Oh, I suppose the dog was killed, wasn’t it
?”

  The sergeant looked up, slowly and thoughtfully.

  “I can only give you a layman’s opinion, Mrs. Hallam. I’ll have a vet look at it soon as possible. It’s had its throat cut, poor beast, but I suppose it could have been done just after death—so that there would be some blood.” Dennis looked away, briefly. “So I’d not rule out that it was hit by a motor-car first. But I’d say someone just cut his throat.”

  “Wouldn’t that be difficult?” Dennis asked. “It seemed quite a big dog. Wasn’t it fierce?”

  “Not it, sir. Well, it could put up a show, like, but nobody as knowed it would be scared of it. It roamed the villages most of the time, and it was a bit of a daft animal: suddenly it’d decide to have a good bark at someone—just to let off steam, like. But if they held out their hand and said: ‘Come on, Chink—good boy,’ he’d go to them, waggin’ his silly tail.”

  “Chink?”

  “The village boys called him that. On account of him being so yellow,” said Sergeant South, unembarrassed. “And if anyone made a fuss of him, he’d follow them for miles.”

  “So that’s how he could have been brought here . . . a dog to the slaughter,” said Helen, in a faint voice.

  “Yes, he could. Well, now, sir, there’s the question of this writing on that there webbing.”

  “Yes, I think we should talk about that.”

  Dennis’s voice was very definite, but Sergeant South twisted his cap awkwardly.

  “I don’t know if you’ve any ideas about what they might mean, sir?”

  “Of course,” said Dennis briskly. “They’re an accusation of cowardice.”

  “It’s an odd accusation against a man who fought and was wounded in the war.”

  “Oh—” Dennis gestured dismissively with his arm—“I hardly saw any action at all. The war is ancient history now, and this is a matter of today. It’s a comment on my work for the League of Nations, my opposition to rearmament . . .”

  “Would you call yourself a pacifist, sir?”

  Dennis thought for a moment.

  “I don’t know if I’d call myself one, but I suppose the positions I—we—adopt come pretty close to pacifism.”

  “The question is: who in the village would bother about that, one way or the other.”

  Sergeant South had stopped taking notes, and he was sitting back in his chair, more relaxed.

  “I think you know the answer to that, Sergeant,” said Dennis.

  “You’d be referring to Major Coffey, I take it, sir . . . Well, I’d not be wanting to jump to conclusions, but the name does spring to mind.”

  “He’s been egging on the village boys to get up some nasty prank against me. He practically said as much to our new governess.”

  “As you say, sir. I’ve no evidence, but that thought had occurred to me too. The problem is, granted that that’s what happened, how to pin it down any further.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, the Major and these boys don’t form any organization, in the usual sense. The lads just go to his cottage from time to time. Then the Major, if he’s wise, won’t have egged them on to do this, won’t have organized the prank as you call it (I’d prefer a nastier word) himself. He’ll have gone about it in a much more roundabout way.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be amusing if—’ Do you get my meaning, sir?”

  “I do.”

  “And that way he’s in the clear. And even if we could be quite sure which of the village lads had actually done it, it would be far from clear what we could charge him with.”

  Dennis thought. He was a magistrate, and he appreciated the difficulty.

  “Yes, I take your point. What do you suggest?”

  “The best thing to my mind, sir, would be for me to start asking round a bit, talking to the boys, finding a likely culprit—maybe two or three likely ones—and then putting the fear of God into them. That way I’ll hope to prevent a repetition, and maybe weaken the hold Coffey has over them.”

  “I think that’s a vain hope,” said Dennis impatiently, and with a trace of bitterness in his voice. “Apparently he’s a local hero. He hasn’t exhausted his credit, as I have. He has four years’ service, not to mention his heroic action against the Irish.”

  “I think you’re mistaken, sir. Major Coffey isn’t any hero to most people in the villages, other than to the young lads who don’t know any better.”

  “Will you talk to him?” asked Dennis wearily.

  “I’ll hope to, eventually, sir. But he’s quite a different proposition from the lads, a really slippery customer. He’ll have a much better idea of the limits of the law, and what he can do within it. He has had this movement of his in London, and now and then they went pretty far.”

  “And his time with the Black and Tans will have given him a taste for independent action. Oh yes—Major Coffey will have a very good idea of how far he can go.”

  “To a degree our hands are tied, you see. But I’ll do what I can, and I’d like to say I’m sorry you’ve had this nasty experience, sir.” Sergeant South got up. “Now there’s the matter of that dog, sir. I suppose it wouldn’t be possible for your man to drive him down to the station for me, would it, sir?”

  That was what happened. Pinner put two horse blankets over the back seat of the Austin Seven, and Mrs. Battley’s Rover, known to the village boys as Chink, was driven to the council house which served as Sergeant South’s dwelling and doubled as a police station. Sarah never felt quite the same about Bumps thereafter. A vet was summoned from Banbury, the nearest town of any size, and he pronounced that the dog had had its throat cut, and had been hung on the door shortly afterwards. One day, walking with Chloe in the grounds of Hallam, Sarah came on a dry brown patch, which she discovered was not brown grass, but something sticking to green grass. It was by an overgrown bed about a hundred yards from the house. Sarah mussed it about with her shoe, and said nothing. There was no point in upsetting people by carrying the matter any further.

  Because the whole family was now preoccupied with making Chan’s stay a happy one, with erasing memories of its beginnings. They found he was rather good at tennis, and Oliver took him to tennis parties at neighbouring families. They chugged around the countryside visiting beauty spots, and they took the Wolseley into Oxford, to dinner at the Randolph and theatre afterwards. They had their political friends round for drinks, and the young Oxfordshire gentry round for tea on the lawn.

  It was one day when Chloe was away at a birthday party (she had looked enchanting in her short, frilly frock, her hair shining and be-ribboned) that Sarah managed to have her walk and talk with Chan. They did talk about Indian independence, as Sarah had planned, but they also ranged over the world social and political scene, for Chan was very well-informed. Sarah was a good listener, and genuinely interested, and Chan was by now, after a week with the Hallams, a confident and fluent talker on topical matters. As they came to the village and people passed them in the streets they saluted Sarah, by now a familiar figure, and looked curiously at Chan. Sarah saw out of the corner of her eye that little triangles of curtain had been delicately raised, to afford the inhabitants of the cottages a glimpse of that most curious of phenomena, a dark-skinned man. Sarah was sure that Chan had not noticed, and was glad. They stopped and looked in shop windows, lingered outside the baker’s to relish the smell, and they popped together into the newsagent’s to fetch the Hallam copy of the New Statesman and Nation, and to purchase a bag of bullseyes. They were, Sarah informed her companion solemnly, a very British institution.

  Many years later, in the ‘sixties, when Chan was Mr. Chandrakant Naran Desai and Deputy High Commissioner for India in London, Sarah found herself sitting beside him at a stuffy Whitehall dinner, and they laughed as they remembered the bullseyes, and the way they had walked through the village sucking them, while Chan had read to Sarah what Kingsley Martin had to say about the civil war in Spain.

  “And all the village people looking at me and then down
at the ground, and the ones inside twitching their curtains up to get a look,” laughed Chan, by now a portly figure, and one of great confidence and dignity. The other diners, who were brought together by a trade mission that seemed destined to achieve nothing whatsoever, looked at the pair and wondered what anyone at such a function could find to laugh at. Soon Chandrakant Desai became serious.

  “But you know, Sarah—may I still call you Sarah? We are such old friends!—those two weeks at Hallam were the happiest times I ever had in Britain. I look back and I remember them as all sun, and teas on the lawn, and happy games. They were—how do you say it?—halcyon days for me, the most wonderful time of all my student days.”

  “Yes,” agreed Sarah, “the Hallams had the gift of making people feel at home.”

  “Did they ever find out who killed that poor dog?” asked Chan, and Sarah realized that he was quite unaware of all that had befallen the Hallams after his departure. How strange that events which had shaped her own life, shadowed others, should have remained totally unknown to Chan.

  The topic of the dog was to surface again, on that walk the two of them took in August 1936. When they got to the end of Chowton, they turned to walk back home. There was to be tea on the lawn again that day, with friends invited. But before they had gone more than a few steps, they were accosted by a gaunt woman in a shabby frock and apron, leaning over her cottage garden gate.

  “Miss—Miss—I don’t know your name, but you’re up at the Hall, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right. I’m Sarah Causeley.”

  The woman’s manner was rough enough, in its country way, but underneath was an undertone of the desire to please, or perhaps of the old respect for the “quality.” Sarah thought she had seen her once, doing cleaning work at Hallam.

  “Will you be so kind, miss, as to say to Mrs. Hallam, and Mr. how sorry I am that my owd dog was used to play that nasty trick on them. Give them a nasty turn, that would.”