The Wild Wood Enquiry

by Ann Purser

  “You could spend your whole life cleaning,” agreed Rose. She had picked up a fallen branch and broken it into pieces to have a strong stick for whacking her way through bracken and thorny twigs. “Some people say the curled tips of new bracken are edible,” she said, and then suddenly stopped with a gasp.

  “What’s up?” said Miriam.

  “Oh my God, look here,” Rose said in a hoarse voice. “What’s that, under the bracken? Look, just there!”

  Miriam walked forward gingerly, and peered down. “Ah, I see,” she said calmly. “Looks like a hand, doesn’t it. Perhaps we’d better—”

  She got no further but turned back to where Rose swayed, deathly white. Miriam reached her, arms outstretched, and caught her just as she fell.

  Eight

  MIRIAM HAD LOOKED back at the whitish glimpse of the hand but decided the most urgent thing was to help poor Rose back to her own house. She had settled her down in a chair by the window and now busied herself arranging for a friend to pick up and keep the boys until Rose could collect them. This done, she bustled about like the community nurse on a visit.

  “I’ll put the kettle on and make you a nice cup of hot sweet tea. That’s for shock. And then I’ll phone the police.”

  “Shouldn’t you do that first?” Rose whispered. She could not get out of her mind the sight of that hand, sticking out so pleadingly from the bracken. Miriam wouldn’t touch anything but said they must leave it for the police. She was so calm! Of all people, Rose would not have thought Miriam a heroine in an emergency. She was usually all of a dither at the slightest thing. But now she was making tea as if a dead body in the wood was an everyday occurrence.

  “Now, you drink this,” Miriam said. “And I’ll dial 999. I suppose I should ask for police rather than the ambulance. It’s not as if that woman’s in a hurry.”

  “How do you know it was a woman?”

  “I don’t, but it’s usually women who get murdered. Hello? Police, please. Well, yes, I suppose you’d say it was urgent. Murder is usually urgent, isn’t it? All right, all right! Keep your hair on. I’m not joking. It’s in the woods up Hangman’s Lane in Barrington.” Miriam gave her name and address and said she would be at home for the rest of the day.

  “That’s that, then,” she said tidily, filling up Rose’s cup. “Drink that up, not too quick. There’s plenty of time before you collect the boys.”

  “I don’t want them frightened by the police,” Rose said anxiously. “You’d be the best one to show them the, um…”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll certainly do that. And anyway, I don’t suppose they’ll be in Farnden all that soon. They obviously thought I was having ’em on. Practical joke, you know.”

  In Rose’s imagination, the hand was already being attacked by foxes and carried off to their earth. Ugh! She wished David was not miles away helping with a neighbour’s harvest.

  “You’d better go now,” she said. “I’m feeling okay, thanks to you. I mustn’t alarm the boys, though I expect there’ll be police cars and all that quite soon. Thanks for helping me out, Miriam. I’ll be fine now. Bye. Oh, and if you want, you can come up and have supper with us later. Don’t sit there brooding on your own. Bye.”

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR FROBISHER was weary from a long interview with a woman who was clearly guilty of repeated shoplifting but had clever excuses and explanations for each crime. He only half listened to the latest reports coming in but caught the name Barrington and knew immediately that it was somehow significant. Then he remembered. “Enquire Within,” he said aloud.

  “Sorry?” said his fresh-faced young assistant.

  “Enquire Within,” Frobisher repeated. “An enquiry agency consisting of two ancient pensioners, one jolly divorcée, and a mystery man not long arrived in the village of Barrington. That’s the name I recognised. Barrington, a lovely Suffolk village on our patch, and up until the last case solved by Enquire Within, with no help from the police of course, it was a quiet, law-abiding place, never requiring any attention from us.”

  “Ah, yes, now I’ve got it, sir. Barrington. That was the call that came in an hour or so ago. Hoax call, we reckon. Some woman reporting a dead body found in the woods. I blame the telly, sir. Gives people ideas they’d never think up themselves.”

  “Speaking from long experience, are you, Paddy?” Frobisher said blandly. “So who’s gone to investigate?”

  Paddy was embarrassed. “We sort of hoped you’d look in on your way home. Not far from your village, is it, sir? I’ll give you the woman’s address.” He checked his watch. It was past his off-duty time, and he had planned to meet his girlfriend after work.

  “Right. Get us a car, then, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Um, sir.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing, sir. Ready when you are.”

  MIRIAM WAS IN her kitchen, sitting at the small, scrubbed table, cleaning odd pieces of silver her mother had collected over a lifetime of service at Barrington Hall. She heard the rat-tat-tat at the front door and knew at once it would be the police.

  “Good afternoon, madam,” Inspector Frobisher said. The woman looked familiar, and he was sure she had figured largely in that Enquire Within case. “I understand you reported finding what purported to be a dead body in the woods at the end of this lane?”

  “It didn’t purport anything,” Miriam said. “It was past purporting. And it wasn’t a body, it was a hand, as I reported. I could see where it ended. And it was dead.” She had decided not to mention Rose at this point. After all, there was no need to involve her in these early stages. Miriam would not have admitted it, but she was enjoying herself, feeling important in the eyes of the police. It was heady stuff. No doubt Rose would have to be questioned, but that could be later.

  “Very well,” said Frobisher, taking a deep breath. “Would you be kind enough to accompany us to the exact spot where you found this, um, hand?”

  “I’ll just lock up,” said Miriam. “You can’t be too careful these days, Inspector.”

  Frobisher wished he could say that if her story was true, then that was a statement of the obvious. But he nodded politely and said he would wait by the gate.

  In no time, Miriam reappeared and led the way to the woods. “It was just along here,” she said, a hundred yards into the trees. “I remember where it was exactly, because I was looking for the tightly curled ends of bracken and had just found some.”

  In God’s name, thought Frobisher, what is the woman talking about? He began to sympathise with the others back at the station. A right nutter, this one!

  “You can eat them, you know. But when they’re older, they can poison you! Funny, that. Maybe the woman had—”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Frobisher sharply. He had had enough of this and for two pins would go straight home and release poor young Paddy. “Are we anywhere near the spot?”

  Miriam looked about her. She saw the place where Rose’s shoes had trampled down the undergrowth and then stopped short. “That’s it,” she said, triumphantly pointing. “There’s the bracken I was telling you about. See the curls?”

  “That’s all I can see, Miss Blake,” said Frobisher. “No hand. Perhaps you could show us?”

  Miriam peered down into the bracken, frowned and parted the fronds with her boots. “It was here, right here!” she said. “It’s gone!” She began to stamp down the surrounding brambles.

  Frobisher took her arm. “Please don’t do that, Miss Blake. We may need to inspect this whole site. But for now, as you so perceptively observe, the hand has apparently gone.”

  They returned to the cottage in silence. As the policemen prepared to depart in their car, Frobisher leaned out of the window and said, “Miss Blake, over here, please.” Miriam walked towards him and stood abjectly by the car.

  “I’m very sorry, Inspector,” she said. “I know you think I’m having you on, just for a joke. But I promise you there was a hand sticking out of the bracken. It was a horri
ble whitish colour, sort of dead looking.…”

  Miriam tailed off, as the car began to move away.

  “Let us know if you have anything else to report,” Frobisher called back to her, and then they were gone. It was not until Miriam was back in her house that she remembered Rose. Of course! She could back her up. She’d seen the hand and had fainted at the sight. She was going to look a right fool, not telling the police about Rose straightaway. Well, the hand had gone, so a phone call could wait until tomorrow.

  Nine

  MIRIAM ARRIVED AT the Budds’ cottage in time for an early supper before she and Rose set off for the WI meeting. She had spent the last few hours turning over in her mind what she would say. Rose would certainly have told David about the hand in the woods and would want to know what happened when the police arrived. They would have been expecting an ambulance and police cars and sections of the lane cordoned off from the general public. The whole business, in other words. But there had been nothing, just a police car driving away and not returning.

  “Hello, Miriam! Come in—we’re dying to know how you got on with the police!”

  So, thought Miriam, in at the deep end. She had finally decided to tell the exact truth; then there would be no complications when the police would be bound to return.

  “Let the poor woman sit down, Rose!” said David Budd. “And you two boys, sit still and behave yourselves at the table. Pepper and salt, Miriam?”

  She began slowly, explaining how she had intended to spare Rose from police questioning until they had seen the site. Rose had been so upset, she told David, and she was hoping to avoid both of them having to go back to the grisly scene. So she had escorted the two policemen up to the woods, and—here she paused dramatically—the hand had gone. There was no sign of it. “I could see then that they didn’t believe me. They had me down as one of those nutty spinsters with nothing to do but make up fantastic stories. They couldn’t wait to go off home.”

  “Didn’t they suggest talking to Rose? She could have supported your story,” David said.

  Miriam flushed. “I still hadn’t told them about Rose. I was going to, and then the fact that the hand had disappeared made me look a proper liar and knocked me sideways, so I forgot. I remembered after they’d gone that all they would have had to do was ask Rose. I’ll ring them tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”

  David looked at Rose, and she frowned. “Well, I suppose that’ll be all right,” he said. “If the hand really had gone, the police will keep until tomorrow. It is possible, I suppose,” he continued, looking from one to the other, “that a person might have been alive and hiding under the bracken for some unknown reason. I suppose there weren’t any film cameras about? Sounds like the plot of a horror film to me.”

  “What’s a horror film?” piped up one of the boys.

  “Never you mind. Just eat your supper, and then we’ll go out and shut up the chickens.”

  WI MEMBERS HAD gathered in the village hall, most of them carrying bunches of nettles and a few tentatively handing in mushroom-shaped toadstools. The expert on foraging for food in the wild, a hairy man with deep blue eyes and a winning smile, tactfully pointed out suspect features of these and put them to one side.

  “Later, in a month or so,” he said, “the hedgerows will be full of colourful berries and leaves, but I am glad to see someone has found wild garlic, and—” He stopped and picked up from the table a ready plucked and drawn pheasant. “Now, did this fall or was it pushed?” The ladies laughed, and one of them said she was driving along, and the pheasant ran across the road and under the wheels of the car in front of her.

  “It’s okay to pick it up if you didn’t run over it yourself,” she said, winking at the expert, who nodded and suggested they move on to a heap of fresh dandelion leaves. “Delicious with a little lemon juice and olive oil,” he said.

  Miriam could not concentrate, until Ivy Beasley announced firmly that if anyone asked her, it was asking for trouble, picking up dead things from the road and nasty poisonous plants from the woods. Miriam, along with the rest, listened with bated breath to hear what Miss Beasley would say next.

  “In fact,” said Ivy, “if you stick to things in packets and tins, you can’t go wrong. That’s what I always say.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked pointedly out of the window.

  Miriam smiled. She was reminded of Miss Beasley and her friends in Enquire Within. After she had telephoned the police tomorrow morning, she would go to see Ivy at Springfields and ask for help. She did not accept David’s suggestion that it might have been anybody, alive and well, hiding under the bracken. Although she had seen only the hand, there was something unquestionably dead about it.

  After the business of the meeting, when the expert had dismembered the pheasant, braised it and served it up with a dandelion salad and nettle sauce, and each member, except Miss Beasley, had had a taste and pronounced it delicious, Miriam and Rose walked back to Hangman’s Row together.

  “So will you let me know what the police say tomorrow?” Rose said. “I do need to go into town to do some shopping, but I can put it off if necessary.”

  Miriam had thought long and hard about tomorrow and now said she wondered if Rose herself should make the call to the police. “They’ll realise you’re a young mum with two boys to look after and a farm-manager husband and be more likely to take you seriously. Do you mind, Rose?”

  “Um, no, I suppose not. Can you come round, and we’ll do it together. I’ll do the talking and you can stand by.”

  “That’s great,” Miriam said, as they reached the cottages. “I’ll see you tomorrow—about ten? You’ll be back from taking the boys to holiday club then. And then I have to go out myself, unless the police have other ideas!”

  She returned to her house and turned on the television, now feeling much more relaxed. It would be much easier with Rose making the call, willing to describe what they had seen. She looked at her watch and saw that it was nine o’clock. Too late to telephone Miss Beasley? She feared Ivy’s sharp tongue and decided to do it first thing in the morning. The idea of private enquiries going on, whatever the police decided to do, appealed to Miriam, and since her lovely Gus next door was part of the Enquire Within team, she looked forward to working with them.

  As she locked up the house, she remembered Katherine Halfhide. She went upstairs to check the spare room and found no sign that she had returned. Miriam guessed she had gone back to London, without saying good-bye or offering to pay for her bed and board. Well, good riddance! It was unlikely, but if she came back and was unable to get in, she had been told where the spare key was hidden. Miriam continued to lock all the doors and finally went upstairs to bed. With a violent murderer about, she was taking no chances.

  Ten

  IVY AND ROY had finished breakfast and were sitting in the lounge reading the newspapers. A royal engagement had just been announced, and all the papers were full of photographs and details of the couple’s private lives, down to the brand of toothpaste they used.

  “If you ask me,” Ivy said, “they should be stopped.”

  “Who?” said Roy, peering at Ivy over the top of his Times. “And what should they be stopped from doing?”

  “These newspapers, of course. How would we have liked it when we announced our engagement, if journalists had come pushing in here, wanting details of our private lives? And look at these family trees! What does it matter if dozens of her ancestors have been street sweepers? Jolly good thing, I say. Put a bit of new blood into that family. It’s like dogs. If you interbreed them, they end up weak in the head.”

  Roy started to shake, and then he put down his paper and roared with laughter. He leaned forward and took Ivy’s hand. “I don’t think the big wide world is in the least interested in us, my beloved,” he said. “But as to dogs, you are quite right.”

  At this point, Mrs. Spurling approached. “Telephone call for you, Miss Beasley,” she said. “Will you take it in your room, or wou
ld you like to come into the office?”

  “I’ll take it in my room, thanks. I am safe from eavesdroppers up there.” She got to her feet and made her measured way up to her room. “Hello? Who’s that? Speak up, do!”

  “Good morning, Miss Beasley,” said Miriam. “I wonder if I could come to see you on a possible job for Enquire Within. It is quite urgent, so if you could see me this afternoon it would be really helpful.”

  Ivy had known Miriam for some while and was familiar with her overactive imagination and love of drama. “Better come straightaway, if it’s that urgent,” she said. “And I hope you won’t be wasting my time, Miss Blake,” she added. She contacted reception and told them to show Miss Blake up to her room when she arrived and also would they please ask Mr. Goodman if he could come up at once.

  “You’d think we had nothing more important to do than run around after her!” Mrs. Spurling said to her assistant. “Go and tell poor Mr. Goodman he’s wanted upstairs, please, Miss Pinkney.”

  Miss Pinkney obeyed, wondering why Mrs. Spurling had not yet realised that Roy Goodman would happily do Ivy’s bidding, whenever and whatever it proved to be.

  MIRIAM SET OFF from her cottage, calling in to tell Rose not to ring the police until she was back from Springfields. “Shouldn’t be late,” she said. “Miss Beasley isn’t a great one for idle conversation.”

  She passed the shop and then stopped and turned back. Juicy Jellies might be a good idea to sweeten up the old thing. James was in the shop, stacking supplies and listening to news of the engagement on the radio. He turned it off and greeted Miriam. “Not your morning here, is it?” he said, smiling. Miriam was a good shop assistant, and he relied on her completely.

  “No, I’m a customer today. Juicy Jellies for Miss Beasley,” she said. “Most of the old ladies like these.”

  “That’s why Miss Beasley loathes them. I recommend these Devon clotted cream toffees.”