by John Gardner
‘It’s Emily Baccus.’
‘It’s not any Emily Baccus I know,’ he said, his eyebrows arched and all quizzical. ‘What’s the joke?’
‘There’s no joke. Obviously some wires’ve got crossed. You’ll definitely have to see Detective Chief Superintendent Livermore. My Guv’nor. I’ll get him to ring you.’
‘Tell him to wait until Friday, when I’m sober.’ Squadron Leader O’Dell showed no concern or worries about not being able to recognize a photograph of Emily Baccus. But why should he be worried? Suzie reasoned. As far as he’s concerned it’s just a photograph of another woman.
He was very polite, seeing that she was only a sergeant. As she drove away in the RAF Humber he stood to attention and saluted her.
*
It was Suzie Mountford’s day for discovering things. First she had realized whom Emily Baccus reminded her of. Now it was the painting — the one with the view that she had spent almost an entire day trying to recall. The one she’d seen in Joshua Dance’s bedroom: the small oil painting of a low, long country house, perhaps fifteenth-century, in grey stone. A clutch of chimneys at one end, mullion windows, leaded lights and an elaborate ironbound door, the whole place glowing at dusk on a summer’s evening. In the distance, behind the house, cornfields rose to meet a stand of trees.
That afternoon as the RAF Humber came to what villagers always called ‘the back road’ into Overchurch, she saw that very view and so knew she’d seen it before, many times. It was slightly changed of course because none of the trees were in leaf and the cornfields were the dark grey of the local ploughed earth. The house was a manor house, long and elaborate, a clutch of Tudor chimneys at one end, the grey stone hit by the dying, weak winter sunlight, and she knew the place well: Overchurch Manor, now in this brutal war turned into a hospital for wounded eyes.
She caught a glimpse of this view and gave a surprised little gasp that so startled the driver that he swerved while turning to look at her, making sure she was all right. Nearly went off the road. He was shaken and slowed down to a crawl.
‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I haven’t seen that particular view for a long time and it looks lovely in this light.’
‘That’s a good old house,’ the driver said. ‘Nice old house. Beautiful.’ His stomach was still full of butterflies. Could have had them all dead in a ditch.
That’s odd, Suzie thought. Really strange, Josh Dance having a little oil painting of Overchurch Manor and the cornfields that rose up right to the village. That stand of trees was just at the back of Falcon Cottage as well. That’s an odd coincidence.
Ten minutes later they pulled up at Falcon Cottage, across from what was known in the village as the Keepsake — a small piece of common ground given to the village by Miss Harricky in 1919. That’s where the War Memorial had been built with the names of the twenty-two lads who had gone from Overchurch in rural Hampshire to die in Ypres and at the Somme.
Already there were three names to be inscribed on whatever they decided to erect after this lot was over. Old George Bunce’s grandson, Harry Bunce, had died in a plane crash while he was training for an air gunner; Maurice Axton and John Burdon — friends since their schooldays, joined the Royal Navy together — had both drowned when HMS Royal Oak went down in Scapa Flow, torpedoed by a submarine that had sneaked into her anchorage.
And in front of Falcon Cottage, Suzie Mountford thanked the driver, who helped carry her cases to the door where she embraced her sister, Charlotte, her nearly four-year-old niece, Lucy, and her little nephew, Ben, who struggled to the door on the knees of his twisted legs; made his ‘uh-uh-uh’ sounds of pleasure, grinned his tilting grin and waved his arms and hands around in delight, greeting his aunt.
She wrapped her arms around him, ‘Merry Christmas, Ben.’ Then, ‘Merry Christmas, Lucy.’
God bless us every one.
*
Much later when little Lucy was tucked safely in bed — ‘Auntie Suzie, it’s the Eve of Christmas Eve, isn’t it?’ — and Ben had been quietened, soothed and had finally drifted off to sleep; when Suzie and Charlotte had talked themselves to a standstill, and gone their way to bed, happy, safe and warm with the temperature falling like a stone outside, far away in London, in Soho, close to Rupert Street, Lavender did not finish work until after midnight. She was happy though, because there had been no raids for several days and it had tempted the punters on to the streets again. Tonight she had climbed the stairs every half-hour, spreadeagled herself for ten plus men to make use of her. So her Christmas purse was full. They were willing to pay top whack close to Christmas and she extracted almost all they had. It’d be a good Christmas if Jerry stayed away.
‘He won’t come. Not at Christmas, Edith.’
She kissed Golly goodnight and said she would be in for a little while tomorrow.
‘Lavender. I go away tomorrow. See my mum.’ He was worried about leaving her alone with only Edith the Maid for protection. But she said that she would be fine.
‘We won’t be staying this late, Golly. Not tomorrow. Not Christmas Eve. You want your present now, Golly?’ So she led him through to her bedroom and gave him her best shot and a crisp, white five-pound note as well.
When she’d gone, Golly got into her bed, cuddled her bear and finally went to sleep.
Time passed.
‘Golly ...? Golly ...? Golly ...?’ The beautiful voice whispered in his ear. Crooned close to him. ‘Christmas is coming, Golly. You must go ... Kill the lady policeman with the wire ... Go to Overchurch on the train ... Kill her dead, Golly.’
‘Yes!’ he said aloud and sat bolt upright, his eyes snapping open, and he saw her standing by the bed. Turned his head. Recognized her and opened his eyes even wider. Looked at her and smiled.
‘I go, Miss Baccus, don’t worry. Thank you, Miss Baccus. I go to do what you need doing, Miss Baccus. I go.’
And Emily Baccus smiled her sweet smile on him and then sank back into the darkness from whence she had come.
Eighteen
Back in July, when the risk of invasion was very high they removed all the place names. The names on railway stations were obliterated, and every signpost in the land was taken away, which made it especially difficult for Golly on the morning of Christmas Eve 1940, going to kill the lady policeman at Falcon Cottage, Overchurch, Hampshire.
Nobody saw his face on the train from Waterloo. He kept it well covered with his mask and hat, or buried himself behind the Daily Express. He thought they used a lot of long words in that newspaper, so he also spent a lot of time in the lavatory, as the train rattled through the countryside, sending its plume of smoke out into the frosty air. It was a stopping train so they went through a lot of stations including Overton, Whitchurch, and Overchurch before they got to Andover. He remembered the stations from when he’d lived in the area once upon a time.
He began walking when he got off the train at Andover. Nobody bothered with him. He had his little suitcase with the underwear, razor, toothbrush, a clean shirt, two extra masks and spare pair of socks. He wore his corduroy trousers, the good blue shirt, the pullover his mum knitted for him last Christmas, and the jacket Lavender had bought for him in the summer at St Anne’s jumble sale. It was a really good jacket that some toff had left for the used clothes stall. Kept him nice and warm. He also wore the duffel coat that Mickey, Bruce and Billy Joy-Joy had given him last week. They said it was Navy Surplus and that they had won it. They were very lucky lads because they were always winning stuff. Anyway, the duffel coat kept him warm as toast. He wore the stout boots that Mickey the Mangle had given him in the autumn last year. Mickey had shown him how to break those boots in, and now he didn’t like wearing anything else on his feet during the winter. His mask was pulled well up so with the hat on nobody could see his face. Golly had thought of using the duffel coat’s hood instead of the hat. The hood would come right forward round the sides of his face, and it would frighten people if he came on them unexpectedly
with the hood up.
The new piece of wire was especially for the lady policeman, and he’d bound the ends most carefully with the insulating tape. The wire was in the right pocket of the duffel coat, and of course he wore his brown gauntlet gloves.
Soon he was striding out along the back roads of Hampshire and, as it was Christmas, he sang a carol he had known from school. It was about the three Wise Men and their journey to worship the Baby Jesus. The carol had been written by the music teacher, Mr Avery, and it had a lovely rumpty-tumpty tune that was good to march along to: Tah-rumdum-tah-rumdum-tah-rah-rah-rum. Ta-rahrah-rahrah-rah-rum-rum.
Golly marched through the cold country lanes, admiring God’s handiwork, seeing all sorts of wonders, like the thick hoar frost melting on the hedges, the squirrels, the voles, weasels, a lone badger near the river, even a fox; and the birds were out in force. As he walked singing, passing the fields, hedgerows and ditches, he sang to every creature. Perhaps they were all there to greet him. He felt like a god.
Over hill and over dale.
See we come together.
He knew three carols really well. This one: ‘O little town of Bethlehem’; and most of ‘Good King Wenceslas’, because at the school — at St Hilda’s Special School — they made him sing the Page’s part in ‘Good King Wenceslas’, and Mr Gregory said he did it well, but some of the boys laughed at him and called him forbidden names and they got the cane from Mr Gregory, and one of them, Arthur Keep, cried. Well, old Gregory didn’t half lay it on when he told you to bend over the big chair and gave you a good four, or even six, on the backside. When Golly got eight strokes for playing around with one of the girls, Mr Gregory made it really hurt and gave him an extra one for trying to stand up in the middle of being beaten. Hated Mr Gregory after that. Put salt in his sugar basin. Got caught out. Got beaten again. Didn’t care.
He had his head up high as he walked along the lanes, and at last he got on to the back road to Overchurch, right up and through the village. Nobody took any notice of him because when he got to the Keepsake the Andover Salvation Army band was out playing carols, and people were singing and buying stuff, and there was a postman with a wicker cart delivering letters and parcels. He saw Falcon Cottage, and knew he was right because there was the sign, done in pokerwork, saying Falcon Cottage. It was one up from Rose Cottage. Everyone was laughing and telling each other ‘a merry Christmas’.
We’ll see.
Golly walked right on through the village, along the side of the Common, then to the White Hart, down by the church where he could cut across the churchyard and over the farmland, in a wide ark across the fields until he reached the little stand of trees just behind Falcon Cottage, about forty yards away.
Below, and behind to his left was the splendid Overchurch Manor with its honeyed stone and the walled kitchen garden. Higher up the rise the old stables with the remains of a three-bedroom cottage for the head groom in days gone by, the woodwork decrepit and a door swinging off its hinges. The new stables had been built and they hadn’t yet demolished the old. He could stay in that cottage: curl up and sleep there for a time. No, he wanted to see his mum. But it was there if he needed it.
But here, among the trees, he could see right into the back of Falcon Cottage, its back door round the side and everything. He would come here in the morning and maybe the lady policeman would come to him. If not he would go to her. Right into the cottage he would go, Christmas morning. He would frighten her to death with the wire. Kill her.
Over hill and over dale,
See we come together.
*
Suzie finally got to speak to Dandy Tom at half-past ten in the morning. She had rung him at the FLAxman number when she failed to get him at the Yard late yesterday. When she first rang, this morning, just after nine, Terri Abrahams had answered and said he was out all yesterday afternoon and half the night on a murder that had come in yesterday lunchtime. A bad one in Harrow. A young mother beaten to death in her own kitchen.
‘He got the whole thing sorted in twelve hours flat,’ Terri said. ‘Suspect arrested. Banged up. Everything. When he gets his teeth into a case his feet don’t touch the ground,’ which seemed to be an odd way of putting it, a good mixture of metaphors.
‘Oh, Sergeant Mountford,’ Terri said just as she was signing off. ‘Thought I’d tell you. The Guv’nor really rates you. Said you were going to be the bee’s knees before you’d finished. Brahma, he said.’
So Suzie came off the telephone very happy.
Dandy Tom rang her at ten thirty. ‘You okay, heart? What’s up?’
She told him about Fordham O’Dell and his claim to have known Emily Baccus, the intimation that he’d known her very well indeed — as in ‘You lie there with Jo and I’ll cosy up on the other side.’ Then him not recognizing her photograph.
It’s not any Emily Baccus I know. What’s the joke?
‘I’d better come down and sort him out.’
‘You’ve got to go and flog your peasants, sir. To be honest, I suggested that you’d be in touch and he asked that you not ring him until Friday. His actual words were, “Tell him to wait until Friday, when I’m sober.”’
‘You think he meant it?’
‘I’d say your best bet was to go and flog the peasants, or see to Grace Poole before she burns the place down.’ This last was something she often did to men, checking out if they were readers or not. Jane Eyre was a favourite.
‘Yes, Grace Poole is a handful. And I can’t trust the servants these days. If she asks they just give her matches.’
‘It’s a tough old life, Guv.’ Then she told him about the odd coincidence: Josh Dance having a small oil painting of a view of Overchurch Manor. ‘Doesn’t quite show the village, but on the horizon there’s a stand of trees that’re only a spit and a stride from Charlotte’s back door.’
Tommy Livermore grunted, said something about taking another look at Dance, heart. Then they exchanged Christmas good wishes once more. Maybe she was imagining it but she got the impression that he was lingering on the phone. There was something uncertain, unfinished about the end of the conversation.
When she had been at home, with her siblings, Charlotte and young James, before Daddy was killed, there was a routine they followed slavishly on Christmas Eve. Their mother had been a stickler for cleanliness and they would bring in the tree first thing in the morning — it never went up before Christmas Eve — and spent most of the day trimming it, arranging the cards and such-like before cleaning the house from top to bottom, in between helping their mother in the kitchen. Helen Mountford, as she was then, prided herself in having everything prepared before she went to church late on Christmas Eve. ‘It’s one of the secrets for the success of a brilliant Christmas,’ she would say, and certainly Suzie could not remember a year when her mother did not have the presents wrapped, the turkey stuffed, the vegetables prepared, the ham baked, mince pies at the ready and the house shining by the time they were shepherded off to Midnight Mass. Made Charlotte’s and Suzie’s heads reel to even think about it.
Like many people, Suzie associated certain smells with Christmases of bygone years, the scent of the pine needles of course, but the clean fragrance of Johnson’s Wax Furniture Polish came a good second.
Here, in Falcon Cottage, Charlotte was trying to emulate her mother, and failing badly. Lucy had been shown how to do important little jobs around the house and kitchen, but lost interest very quickly. After all it was an exciting day for any nearly-four-year-old.
By mid-morning they all began to set about trimming the tree, with Ben cheerfully lying on the floor, colouring picture books, of which Charlotte seemed to possess an inexhaustible supply, bought, begged or borrowed from whoever she could.
One source was from the manufacturers of Gibbs’ Dentifrice Toothpaste, who produced free colouring books telling tales of adventures with the Dentifrice White Knight, who fought the Demon Decay. Charlotte was never too proud to ask Mr Burt the chemist for more o
f these books. He had a roving eye, Mr Burt, and could have spent all day looking at Charlotte, who was well aware of the lust that could not speak its name. ‘As long as he just looks,’ she told Suzie. ‘He can look to his heart’s content.’
This morning she had told her sister that you could gauge Ben’s moods from the way he coloured. ‘If he’s content, Ben’ll take great pains to try and stay inside the lines and use bright colours: reds, blues, greens — what we call his happy colours.’
If he was put out or angry about something it would be blacks, browns and greys, with no attempt to follow the picture: just great scrawls and scribbles. ‘They say he probably won’t advance much beyond a mental age of five,’ Charlotte said. ‘But he has shown another new skill since you were here last.’
Ben, she said, had taken to doing jigsaw puzzles and was already completing puzzles with up to a hundred pieces.
‘But he doesn’t do them like we would. He doesn’t make the straight outside framework and then fill it in. He starts at the bottom and works his way up. It’s quite extraordinary.’
For Lucy this was a unique and explosively exciting day because, as the youngest in Father Harris’s Sunday School at St Michael & All Angels, she had been chosen to be the one to place the baby Jesus in the crib after the Midnight Mass tonight.
Miss Palmer was coming over from Rose Cottage — where she lived with her friend Miss Wren, inevitably ‘Jenny’ Wren — just to be in the house while they were at church. Miss Palmer was a Nonconformist and went over to the Baptists at Whitchurch on Christmas Day. ‘Ben knows her so he won’t be frightened if he wakes up. Which he probably won’t, but you never can tell.’ Miss Palmer was a small woman with a smiling rosy-cheeked face. A Mabel Lucie Attwell woman.
Long before mid-morning, when the Sally Ann came calling, Charlotte and Suzie had just about given up any hope of having the house clean and tidy, or getting everything ready in time for Christmas. ‘At this very moment,’ Suzie declared, ‘our mother is sitting down to morning coffee with the Galloping Major in a house that’s almost blinding them it’s so clear and bright.’