by Maggie Hope
‘It’s a good idea,’ said Cath. ‘Pity they didn’t always do that with the juniors, anyway.’
‘They were always perfectly safe anywhere,’ said Sadie.
‘Annie wasn’t,’ Cath reminded her. ‘Mam, our Annie’s all right, isn’t she?’
‘Of course she is. Now she’s out, Patsy watches her all the time.’
‘I’ll see you on Friday, Mam. Cheerio.’ Cath put the telephone down and dropped a sixpence in the box Pete had recently put beside it.
‘Charges are getting higher and higher,’ he had said when he got the last bill from the post office.
Cath packed her bag for the weekend so that she could take it to work on Friday morning and go straight from the office. She didn’t like staying in Durham over the weekend now because, by accident or design, Mark always managed to bump into her.
‘We can have a meal together or go to the pictures,’ he would say. ‘We are brother and sister, and there’s nothing wrong in that, is there?’ But there was a look in his eyes that made her uncomfortable and she couldn’t forget that they had nearly become lovers.
As she took the bus to Half Hidden Cottage her thoughts returned to Carol White’s murder. The papers were saying she had been ‘interfered with’, and a full-scale hunt was on for her attacker. Cath’s thoughts turned to Eric Bowron. Could it possibly have been him, and not his cousin Ronnie, who had attacked Annie? No, it couldn’t be: there had been no attacks on girls for years, not since Annie, and there would have been, surely?
Cath got off the bus at the drive for Half Hidden Cottage. There was an outside light now by the cottage, she saw, an imitation old-fashioned street lamp that shone out on to the grass, showing that there was already a touch of sparkling frost. It showed something else: the clumps of snowdrops by the gate, and sown at random in the grass, were now scattered about as though someone had slashed at them with a knife or something.
‘Mam! What happened to the snowdrops?’ Cath called as she went into the house and through to the kitchen, where her mother was sitting at the table smoking a cigarette and drinking tea.
‘Heck, Cath, you made me jump coming in like that. What are you talking about, any road?’
‘The snowdrops. Someone has cut them. They’re all dead.’
‘How could anyone have done that? I haven’t been out all day. Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure, come and see for yourself if you like,’ said Cath.
Sadie followed her out of the front door. ‘Well, blow me,’ she said. ‘I never heard a thing. It’s a bit creepy, isn’t it?’
‘I told you to watch out. That Eric Bowron has it in for us because of his cousin Ronnie. Next time it could be worse.’
‘Aw Cath, stop trying to frighten me, it’s likely just some kids done it. Little vandals, all of them. Howay in the warm. By, I don’t know what kids are coming to nowadays.’
‘But did you say anything to Henry? I bet you didn’t.’
‘I did. That’s why he had the lamp put up outside. He looks after me, does Henry.’
She wasn’t worried, but disquiet ran through Cath’s thoughts. ‘Please be careful, Mam,’ she said earnestly.
Sadie shook her head impatiently. ‘You always were full of doom, our Cath. Come on, help me with the dinner. Henry’s coming down.’
Cath had decided to have a word with Henry, tell him of her concern about Eric Bowron. But it was driven out of her mind when Henry came and they went into the dining room to eat the meal – rabbit in herbs, courtesy of Henry and cooked into a stew by Sadie. He walked over to the fireplace and held his hands out to the blaze.
‘A bit parky out there,’ he commented before his eye fell on a letter propped up against the clock. ‘Hello, there’s a letter here for you, Cath. And do you know, it looks like Jack’s handwriting.’
Cath went hot and cold all over; she stared at the envelope. Henry was gazing steadily at her, she was aware of that, but of little else that was happening.
‘Oh yes, sorry Cath, I forgot about it,’ said her mother. ‘I meant to tell you. It came a day or two ago. I would have sent it on but I knew you would be coming home this weekend probably.’
‘Why is my son writing to you?’
For a moment Cath couldn’t think of an answer for Henry. Then she said, ‘I wrote to him and said I was sorry he had been hurt.’
Henry looked sceptical but said no more. Cath took the letter and stared at it before putting it into her handbag, which was on the sideboard.
‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ asked Henry.
‘Later, I think. It won’t be about anything in particular.’
‘Well, forget about it for now. Come and eat before the food gets cold,’ Sadie commanded, coming to Cath’s assistance without realising she was doing so. The meal seemed interminable to Cath, but at last it was over and the washing-up done and she could make her excuses and go to her room.
‘Dearest Catherine,’ she read when at last she could open the envelope and fling herself down on her bed to read the letter:
As you will see by my address I am back in England. I was wounded a few weeks ago and the medics have sent me home for treatment in England. Soon I am to be transferred to the RVI in Newcastle. It is nothing serious, just a facial wound, but I need further surgery.
I don’t know what happened before I left, Catherine, I had to go so suddenly but I sent a message with Mark and I expected to hear from you. Mark told me that he gave you the message, so why? I did not think, Catherine, that you were the sort of girl who would change her mind so easily and so quickly.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that as a recrimination, but I think you owe me an explanation at least. The weekend we had together meant so much: I thought you loved me, as I loved you. In fact, I would stake my life on it.
I do not mean to badger you, Catherine. But please write to me to let me know what is happening with you, if you still think of me. If you are happy now with someone else, then so be it.
With love,
Jack
A surge of joy ran through Cath that he still wanted her. But it was quickly followed by a rush of fury that Mark should have withheld Jack’s letter from her. She felt like murdering him … She remembered her letter to him – in the end she had not posted it. She ought to have done.
Chapter Thirty
Eric watched from behind a thicket of dense holly as Henry opened the front door of Half Hidden Cottage and frowned at the dead and dying snowdrops scattered over the grass. Though Eric was well hidden, he could see Henry through a small gap in the prickly branches. He grinned as he saw Henry’s expression of anger.
‘I’ll catch whoever did this, see if I don’t,’ Henry said loudly, punching the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. ‘I’ll have the law on them!’
‘It’s nothing, Henry, nothing to get upset about. I’ll tidy it up and the bulbs will still flower next year.’ Sadie came into Eric’s line of vision. It was Sadie who had started the witch hunt against poor old Ronnie, when the lad hadn’t done anything at all to Annie. It was just because the lad was simple. Well, Ronnie couldn’t get revenge for himself but he intended to get it for him, oh aye, he did. Sadie would be sorry for persecuting poor old Ronnie, who was still in Winterton and not likely to come out neither. It just wasn’t right.
‘It would just be bairns from Eden Hope or maybe Winton Colliery,’ Sadie was saying. Henry shook his head in disagreement but he bent and kissed her on the lips. Eric shuddered at the thought of anyone, even an old man like Henry Vaughan, kissing the withered lips of an old woman like Sadie Raine.
He waited until Henry got into his car and drove away and Sadie had gone back into the house and closed the door. There now, she was on her own. Eric had seen Cath Raine come out an hour earlier and go off for the bus to Bishop Auckland. He had given the woman a warning last night when he’d chopped the heads off the flowers. It was her own fault if she had taken no notice. He pulled his white scarf up
over his nose so that only his eyes were visible and stretched his legs from their cramped position.
Sadie went into the kitchen to begin the washing-up. She was happy: her life had improved so much since she had been with Henry she couldn’t understand why she had yearned to have Alf back. Gerda was welcome to him. Soon she herself would be mistress of the Hall.
She turned on the portable wireless that Henry had bought her and dance music poured into the room. Her feet moved to the music as she put the last plate on the draining board to dry and spread the tea towel over the edge of the sink. Washing-up was no trouble when there was hot water on tap. She switched off the two-bar electric fire that Henry had put in here and went into the sitting room, carrying the wireless with her.
Oh, it was grand, with its comfortable furniture and velvet curtains. She stirred the fire into a blaze with the poker and settled down in an armchair to read the paper. She didn’t hear the door to the room open.
Cath came back late afternoon. Letting herself in the front door, she hummed to herself as she took off her coat and cosy crochet cap, which came over her ears and was all the rage that year. It was similar to the one worn by Sonja Henie, the ice-skating film star, and framed her face becomingly. She had enjoyed her day. She had bought a new dress in a soft rose colour for her visit to Jack in hospital when he was transferred to Newcastle. It had a V neckline with slight gathering at the V and going down to one side: very figure-flattering, she thought.
‘Mam?’ she called, suddenly realising that there was no sound in the house. It was cold too. Henry had decided not to install central heating as he had planned to do for, after they were married, Sadie would be moving into the Hall.
Cath glanced in the kitchen but it was empty. Of course, Henry must have decided they would go out somewhere. She would just have to wait to try it on when Sadie came back.
She had written another letter to Jack, hoping it would catch him before he left the hospital in the south. Oh, she was so happy! She couldn’t wait to see him. Her anger at Mark had faded; she was too happy to be angry with anyone. Jack was coming home and he loved her.
Cath opened a tin of mushroom soup and emptied it into a saucepan to heat on the stove. While she waited for it to warm through, she cut herself bread and laid out a tray to carry into the sitting room. There was a television there now, a fourteen-inch screen set in an imposing oak console. She might as well watch the six o’clock news while she ate her meal.
She opened the sitting-room door and with the tray in her hand, backed into the room. Switching on the light, she stared in surprise. The fruit bowl was on the floor, fruit scattered all around. A juicy pear was squashed into the carpet where someone had stood on it. Had a cat got in? There were cats up at the farm and in the stables at the Hall, and sometimes one wandered down to the cottage. She would have to clean up the mess before it dried into the carpet.
She turned to put the tray down on the occasional table that stood by one of the armchairs but it was overturned and the ashtray was on the floor beside it, cigarette ends and ash scattered over the new hearthrug. Her heart beat fast and furious as she took a good look round the room. Sticking out from behind the sofa were her mother’s legs, one slipper still in place on her foot and the other, oddly, balanced on the arm of the sofa.
‘Mam!’ Cath dropped the tray down on the sofa and the soup slopped out of the bowl on to the tray. She ran round the sofa; her mother was lying behind it, her arms raised as though she were trying to defend herself. Her eyes were closed and on her forehead ‘Whore’ was written in pillar-box red lipstick, the end of the ‘e’ smeared down by the side of her left eye.
‘Mam! Oh, Mam!’ Cath knelt down beside Sadie and cupped her cheek in her hand. Sadie’s skin was very cold but then the room was cold, for the fire was dead and must have been out for hours. There was a bruise on her temple and a trickle of blood had run down to her ear and dried.
Cath felt for a pulse and found it – after an agonising few moments. She went to the telephone in the hall and called the operator. Luckily Saturday afternoons and evenings were usually quiet and she got on straight away and gasped out her request for an ambulance. Then she ran upstairs and got an eiderdown and covered her mother, then put a cushion under her head but took it out again as she remembered hearing from somewhere that that was the wrong thing to do.
Sadie moaned and moved her head. Cath flew to the kitchen for a cloth and came back to clean the lipstick from her forehead before anyone else saw it. She rubbed as gently as she could but Sadie moaned again and her eyelids fluttered.
The ambulance didn’t come; it seemed like hours since Cath had called. She went back to the telephone and rang Henry. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Oh God, she thought, standing by the telephone in the hall, answer, Henry, please answer! After it rang out a few times, he did.
‘It’s me mam, Henry, she’s been attacked. She’s unconscious, Henry!’ she blurted then, without waiting for him to answer, put down the receiver and ran back in to her mother. Sadie was still lying in virtually the same position as before.
Henry came just before the ambulance and the police. Cath heard his car racing down the track from the Hall and then he burst into the house.
‘What happened? Where is she?’ he asked and didn’t wait for Cath to answer but followed her glance towards the sitting room and strode through. ‘My God!’ he cried. ‘I’ll kill him, I swear I will!’
‘Kill who, sir?’ A policeman had followed him in and caught Henry’s exclamation.
‘Whoever did this, of course,’ Henry snarled.
‘Don’t touch her, sir,’ advised the policeman as he knelt beside Sadie and patted her face.
‘Sadie? Sadie?’ Henry said.
‘Leave her to us, sir,’ one of the ambulance men said and reluctantly he stood up and moved to give them room.
‘Is she dead?’ he asked.
‘No, she’s alive. Make way, sir, please,’ the man replied, for Henry was edging forward again.
They put Sadie on a stretcher and covered her with a red blanket before taking her out to the ambulance.
‘I’ll come,’ said Cath.
‘No, I will,’ said Henry.
‘Only one can come in the ambulance. In any case, I need you to answer a few questions,’ said the policeman to Cath. ‘I’ll take you after that. I promise you, it won’t take long.’
It was a nightmare. Left with the policeman, Cath tried to concentrate on his questions but all she could think of was her mother.
‘I didn’t think he would go this far,’ she said, more to herself than the policeman. ‘I thought he just meant to frighten us all. I warned her but she wouldn’t take any notice.’
Cath kept walking to the door, hoping he would follow her. ‘I can talk in the car,’ she suggested. ‘My mother might die, and you’re keeping me from her.’
‘Who are you talking about? Mr Vaughan? Do you think it was him?’
Cath was impatient. ‘No, of course not, he wouldn’t hurt her.’ She went to the door again. ‘I’m not saying another word until we are in the car on our way to the hospital.’
The policeman gave in. ‘All right, we’ll go. But I want a full statement from you about this man you were talking about. It is an offence to withhold information.’
‘Just let’s go!’ Cath shouted.
‘I understand you are upset,’ the officer said stiffly as they got into the police car. ‘So I will not mention your attitude in my report.’
Sadie was in the end bed of Ward E, Women’s Surgical, in a similar cheerless prefabricated hut to the one in which Annie had lain, in the General Hospital at Bishop Auckland. There were screens, too, placed around the bed and Cath was stopped at the door to Sister’s office by a staff nurse.
‘I’m afraid you can’t go in, not yet,’ she said. ‘The doctors are examining your mother.’
A policewoman was at the opening to the screens and Cath stared helplessly. She could hear pe
ople talking there and after a moment she heard Sadie’s voice, weak and faint. She sagged against the doorpost of Sister’s office, faint with relief.
‘Come and sit down,’ said the staff nurse and led her into the office. Henry was already there, his head in his hands. He stood up when Cath came in.
‘She’s awake,’ he said. ‘Thank God for that. She’ll be all right.’
‘I told her, I told her he was after her,’ said Cath. ‘She said you would protect her.’
The policeman who had driven Cath to the hospital put his head round the door, murmured something about a word with his colleague and withdrew.
‘I don’t know who you mean,’ said Henry.
Cath told him about Eric Bowron, about his relationship to Ronnie Robson. She told him about his threats to her and how she believed he had frightened Annie so badly she had taken ill again.
‘Mam wouldn’t take much notice when I told her,’ she said. ‘Even last night when he slashed the snowdrops she refused to believe it was him. She said it would just be hooligans from the village.’
Henry was violently angry. ‘I’ll kill him, I will,’ he kept saying. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Cath was saved from answering as a doctor and the ward sister came into the office.
‘Well?’ Henry barked, and the young surgeon looked startled. ‘How is she?’
‘Mrs Raine has recovered consciousness but she is suffering from concussion. I think she has a fractured rib and I believe her wrist is broken, probably when she put up her hand to protect her head and face. We’ll know for sure after she has been X-rayed.’ He paused and looked at Cath. ‘It was a very brutal attack. She is lucky in a way she’s not more seriously hurt.’
Henry snorted. ‘Lucky? I don’t call it lucky. When they catch the fellow who did it I hope they lock him up and throw away the key. I—’
‘Yes, well, of course it is a terrible thing to happen. Now I must get on, other patients to see. You may go in to see her for a few minutes before she goes to X-ray, if you wish.’ The surgeon hurried out and Cath and Henry went into the ward.