At the sound of her voice Tanner threw up his hands and gripped her by the arms, peering through the rain. He had no hat and water slicked his grizzled hair to his head; she could smell alcohol on his breath, hot and sour. His eyes were red and swollen, so that it looked as though he’d been crying, but it was hard to tell with his face wet from the rain, and drunk as he was.
‘You’re his wife, ain’t you? Came to the house with the doctor’s girl before,’ he said, roughly. Too alarmed to speak, Irene merely nodded. ‘You found it. You found that doll up there.’ He pointed up to the farm behind them, and Irene nodded again. Tanner’s face creased peculiarly, and Irene was puzzled for a moment until she realised that he was crying, and that he was furious with himself for letting her see. ‘It didn’t ought to have happened,’ he said. Swallowing, Irene found her voice.
‘What didn’t?’ she said. Tanner gave her a shake.
‘None of it!’ he said. He shook his head like he was trying to clear it, his fingers still gouging into Irene’s arms.
‘Please let go of me,’ she said, feebly. Her heart was hammering but at the same time she felt no specific threat to herself from Tanner – only that he was unravelled with drink and what appeared to be grief, and she had no idea what he might do next.
‘I was glad of it, at first; now part of me wishes you’d never found it. For what good does it do? What good is any of it?’ He shook her again, and the eyes that glared into hers were raw, and half mad.
‘I … I don’t know.’ She gathered her wits. ‘What … what did the doll mean to you?’ she said, but Tanner ignored the question.
‘What’ll happen to the lad?’ he demanded instead.
‘Who? What lad?’
‘The simpleton they’ve fingered. Will he swing for it?’
‘Donald Cartwright? I … I don’t know. If he’s tried for murder then he’ll most likely hang. That’s what Pudding’s afraid of.’ Tanner stared at her for a moment then dropped his hands and pushed past her, stumbling towards the gate and leaving Irene with the hiss of the rain on the grass, and the soughing of her own breath in her ears.
She watched Tanner make his lurching way down the hill and vanish towards Thatch Cottage, and only then did she begin to relax. She had to tell Pudding. She clenched her fists because her fingers were tingling peculiarly. It seemed that her prescient feeling about the doll being important, and somehow the start of things, had been completely right. But there was absolutely nothing she could think of that the Tanners could have held against Alistair – nothing that Nancy knew of, or George Turner; nothing that she’d found in his paperwork; and they had checked Tanner’s alibi themselves. She looked down at the smoking chimney of the mill, and knew she’d have to do as Pudding had asked, and look for clues in Alistair’s papers there as well. Tanner himself hadn’t been the only one employed there, after all – several members of his immediate family worked at the mill as well. Two of his sons, in their late teens or early twenties, had been with him the day she and Pudding had taken the doll to show Ma. Irene had been so fixated upon their father, she hadn’t seen what the sons’ reactions to it had been. Perhaps there was something else – some other feud or dispute, not related to Tanner’s recent laying-off for drunkenness.
She turned away at last, and went around to the side of the church that Tanner had come from. There was usually only one reason a person might be found weeping in a churchyard. There were four gravestones in the narrow space between the wall and the church itself; the names on two of them meant nothing to Irene, and the names on the other two had been obliterated by weathering. Only the year was visible on one – a small stone, plain and leaning forwards towards the turf – and it caught Irene’s eye: 1872. And at the foot of this neglected headstone, a fresh bunch of wildflowers had been laid – blue forget-me-nots. Irene stared, and shivered in the rain, and felt a small, anonymous piece of the puzzle find its place in her mind.
9
Dead Ends
‘But that can’t be it,’ said Pudding, tumbling down from another wave-crest of hope. Pete Dempsey shrugged apologetically. He’d come to the farm in his official capacity, sweating slightly in his tall helmet and fiddling now and then with the strap that cut into his chin.
‘I was surprised he even let me look into it, Pud. So at least … that’s something,’ he said, lamely. Pudding stared down at the sheet of paper on which Pete had written a scant summary of the 1872 case, and the hunt for the girl’s killer, which concluded: Though a member or members of the Tanner family were initially suspected and questioned, all had reliable alibis for the time of the murder. No other suspects were identified, and the case remains unsolved.
‘How can that be it, though?’ Pudding demanded. ‘I mean – there’s a summary of her injuries here, and they were just as … just as awful as Alistair’s. Whoever killed her – and Alistair – is clearly dangerous. But they just …’ She waved a hand in frustration. ‘Didn’t even find anybody else to question?’
‘Well, just like with Mr Hadleigh, nobody could think of a reason for the killing, and nobody saw anything. Her sweetheart, if he existed, never came forward to identify himself. The shovel that did for her was dropped by her body, and they weren’t so good at collecting fingerprints back then. There was something in her … in the blood on the floor that they supposed at first to be a footprint, but then decided that it wasn’t.’
‘Wasn’t a footprint?’
‘No. So they had nothing to go on, see?’ Pete ran a finger under his chinstrap again, rubbing the red welt it left in his skin.
‘Oh, just take it off, Pete,’ said Pudding. ‘I won’t tell anybody.’ Relieved, Pete took off the helmet and scuffed a hand through his damp hair.
‘This heat,’ he muttered. ‘Makes it hard to think straight, doesn’t it?’
‘Why did they decide it wasn’t a footprint?’
‘I don’t know, Pudding! It was too small, or something like that. Look, Blackman – I mean, the superintendent – listened to what I had to say, and he read the story in your book, and, well, it went as I thought it would. He let me fetch the old file out of the cellar – mouldy and half eaten-away it is too – and he read that as well. But as far as he’s concerned, the only thing connecting the two killings is the description of the first in your book, which was most likely read by the perpetrator of the second.’
‘It isn’t at all likely that Donny read it! Well … could I see the actual file?’
‘No, ’ee can’t, Pudding. And it don’t say a thing worth noting but what I ’as put down there,’ said Pete, his accent thickening with agitation.
They were standing on the yard outside the cob house, beside a handcart of mucky straw that Pudding had just loaded. She leant on her pitchfork and took a deep breath, trying not to feel defeated.
‘Well, then,’ she said, but she didn’t know well what. Every dead end was exhausting, and the effect of them seemed cumulative. ‘I shall have to think of something else.’
‘Have you spoken to any of the older folk?’
‘Yes. None of them knows a thing. They all remember it though – they remember the girl, Sarah, mostly because she was very pretty, by all accounts. And because they were all scared for a while, thinking there was a killer in their midst – people walked their children to school for a time, and that kind of thing. Old Hilarius was here then, but he just looked at me oddly when I asked him about it, and asked to borrow my murder book again; even though he read it before and didn’t seem to like it.’ She shrugged. ‘But if he knew anything he’d tell me. I know he would.’
‘He’d read it before, but he didn’t say anything about the similarity between the two murders?’ said Pete.
‘No,’ said Pudding. ‘He didn’t.’ She frowned, thinking of Irene’s odd reaction to the groom. She thought about the first time Hilarius had seen the murder book, when she’d left it lying around the tack room – his odd demeanour, and the way he warned her off reading it. She stifled a
n uneasy feeling about it. ‘He probably just didn’t think of it, like I didn’t. He is ancient, after all.’
‘How old is he, anyway?’
‘I don’t know. Eighty? Maybe even older. I’m not sure I’d have the guts to ask him, and what does it matter, anyway?’ Pudding straightened up and handed the sheet of paper back to Pete.
‘No, you keep it. I wrote it out for you,’ he said.
‘But it doesn’t say anything remotely useful,’ said Pudding. Pete sagged slightly.
‘No, I suppose it doesn’t. But keep it anyway.’ They stood for a while in awkward silence. Behind them, the swallows’ nests in the rafters were now empty and quiet; Nancy and the giant farm manager, Mr Lake, walked across to the rickyard, deep in conversation. Pete nodded in their direction.
‘Miss Hadleigh’s back up and running then?’
‘I think she needs to keep busy,’ said Pudding. ‘To distract herself from how awful it all is.’ As she spoke, Pudding was aware of Pete watching her with that infuriating, understanding, sympathetic expression, and she suddenly saw that everybody thought exactly the same of her as well – that she was simply keeping busy, to distract herself. She blushed. ‘Well, I’d best get back to work. Thanks for trying, Constable,’ she said.
‘Righty-ho. Well. I wanted to ask as well, Pudding, whether you might like to …’ He turned his helmet in his hands. ‘Perhaps. Another drink, perhaps, one evening. To discuss … everything. Or a walk?’ Pudding frowned at him, puzzled.
‘Well, have you got anything else to tell me that you haven’t told me now?’ she said.
‘No,’ Pete confessed.
‘Well then.’ Pudding shrugged, laid the pitchfork across the handcart and began wheeling it towards the muck heap. She looked back when she reached it and began forking out the dreck. Pete was still standing where she’d left him, looking down at his feet. Then he put his helmet back on and walked away at the speed of a man with nowhere in particular to go.
* * *
Pudding had already gone home when Irene got back from the rain-sodden churchyard, and dinner had been ready to serve. Nancy had given her a fishy look when she’d suggested going off to find the girl groom at that hour, and then, in the morning, asked Irene to go into Chippenham with her, to visit the pharmacist, the bank and the dressmaker. She made Irene drive the Stanhope along the quieter roads.
‘It’s no good you always having to be driven, Irene. You’re a Hadleigh, and Hadleighs can manage. If you’re staying on, you’ll need to learn, and it’s easy enough,’ she said, in that way she had that made it impossible to argue. And it proved fairly easy, in fact, even though Irene had barely got used to being in charge of a horse she was sitting on, let alone one she was only connected to by two lengths of leather rein and a whip. ‘Use your voice, like I told you,’ Nancy coached. ‘Look – see how his ears flick back like that? He’s waiting for your next instruction.’ The errands took well over an hour, and then they stopped to have coffee at the Bear Hotel before setting off back to Manor Farm, so Irene didn’t get a chance to speak to Pudding about what she’d seen and heard before lunch. By then, she knew better than to say anything about it to Nancy.
When lunch was over Irene watched from a window until Nancy had gone out with Lake, and Constable Dempsey had wandered off, disconsolately, and Pudding was finally by herself, shovelling horse manure onto the heap and turning ruddy with the work.
‘Pudding! Hello – did Constable Dempsey have anything new?’ she called. Pudding stopped shovelling and leant on her fork with two hands, catching her breath.
‘No.’ She thought for a moment and frowned. ‘Or maybe – something he’s not saying, perhaps. He keeps suggesting we go for a walk, or a drink,’ she said. Irene stared at Pudding for a moment, but her incomprehension was complete.
‘Does he really? And … you can’t think of any other reason he might want to do that?’
‘No. Why? What do you think he wants?’
‘Well … Never mind that for now, perhaps,’ said Irene, smiling slightly. ‘I have to tell you what happened yesterday.’ Pudding came down from the heap to listen, and Irene told her about Tanner, and what he’d said about the doll, and the gravestone from 1872 with fresh flowers on it. ‘And then he asked about Donny, and what would happen to him. But he said “the one they’ve fingered for it”. That means he doesn’t think Donny did it, don’t you think? That the police have just arrested him to solve the case?’
‘Does it? Yes, I think you’re right!’ Pudding gripped Irene’s hand in excitement, and Irene tried not to mind how filthy it was. ‘He must know more about it. The police will have to speak to him again – they didn’t press him, or his boys, once they’d given their alibis, they just took Donny away and that was that! Well, they’ll have to now, won’t they? There are still a few days until Donny’s hearing – it’s not too late, if we hurry!’
‘But if Mr Tanner’s arrested he’ll know it was me that reported on him,’ said Irene, alarmed.
‘I doubt it.’ Pudding shrugged. ‘He was blind drunk, you said.’
‘Yes, but still. I should hate to get on the wrong side of him.’
‘Irene, the truth is far more important. And in any case, Tanner might end up in jail himself! Then nobody needs to be scared of him any more.’
‘Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But isn’t it just the queerest thing about the doll? What do you think it could possibly mean?’ said Irene.
‘It’s certainly queer – and just as queer is that you knew it was important. I mean, right back when you found it, somehow you knew,’ said Pudding.
‘But I still don’t know why,’ said Irene, cautiously.
‘And the flowers on that grave – he must have put them there. Do you think it was this girl, Sarah, from the first murder?’
‘Well, the year is certainly a coincidence, if it isn’t. Do you think we could find out?’
‘Yes, of course. It’ll be in the church register – we’ll have to see the vicar about having a look. Do you think Tanner killed her, and is racked with guilt? Do you think he feels guilty about killing Alistair now? And about Donny being arrested?’ said Pudding, avidly. She paused, counting under her breath. ‘He’s old enough. He’d only have been a lad in 1872, but he could have done it!’
‘Now – just hold on. No more accusations without good grounds,’ said Irene, and Pudding looked chastened. Her need to act seemed to fizz around her like a static charge.
‘All right, but we have to talk to the police again – you have to go and tell Superintendent Blackman, Irene,’ she said.
‘Me? Can’t you?’ said Irene. She’d found the policeman strange, and difficult, even before Pudding had accused her of colluding in Alistair’s death.
‘He’ll need to hear it from you – first-hand, you see. And, anyway … I don’t think he’d listen to anything else I had to say.’ Pudding took a deep breath and hitched up her britches. ‘He just thinks I’m a nuisance. And I have to go and talk to Tanner.’
‘Pudding, no – leave it to the police!’
‘But he might disappear before the police get to him – he’s done that before, when something’s happened around here that they might want to talk to him about. No – I need to go and catch him unawares.’ Pudding swallowed, not sounding half as sure as her words, and Irene saw how nervous she was.
‘I really don’t think it’s a good idea. Just … wait a bit. Wait until we find out something else … why don’t you come with me to the mill, to look through Alistair’s papers there?’
‘Haven’t you done that yet?’
‘I haven’t had the chance. And I don’t want Nancy to know – she wouldn’t approve one bit.’
‘All right. But first let me run after Pete, and get him to take you in to see Blackman.’
Superintendent Blackman’s eyes, behind his round glasses, were as dark and inscrutable as Irene remembered them. He sat her down in front of his desk with a few stiff words,
offered her refreshment politely enough, then sat watching her with his hands loosely grasping the arms of his chair, all the while making her feel like a guilty schoolgirl. Perhaps it was the way he never smiled, and hardly blinked.
‘I understand you have something you’d like to tell me,’ he said, his eyes never leaving her face, and Irene wondered if he thought she’d come to confess to something. She cleared her throat.
‘Yes. I think … I think Miss Cartwright might be on to something, linking my husband’s murder to the earlier murder she’s uncovered, in 1872,’ she said, as calmly as she could.
‘The investigation into your husband’s death is closed, Mrs Hadleigh.’
‘Well, perhaps it oughtn’t to be,’ she said. Superintendent Blackman continued to stare, but Irene thought she detected a subtle interest kindling in him. He didn’t speak, so she hurried on, and described everything in the graveyard, just as before. When she got to the end, and could think of nothing to add, Blackman still hadn’t moved or said a word. Irene waited, uncomfortably. When Blackman suddenly reached forward and picked up his pen, she jumped.
‘This would be Mr Tanner of Thatch Cottage, Germain’s Lane, Slaughterford?’ he said.
‘Well, yes. You must know him? I thought the police—’ Irene cut herself off.
‘It never pays to make assumptions, Mrs Hadleigh. From what I’ve learned, a good deal of the Tanners’ reputation is based upon rumour and … grudge. A community needs villains – scapegoats, if you will.’ He gave her that blankly piercing look again, and Irene’s pulse picked up.
‘I only came to relay a conversation I thought might be relevant. For no other reason than that … well, it might be relevant,’ she said, trying not to sound rattled.
‘Indeed,’ said the policeman, adding something to the notes on his jotter. ‘But perhaps Donald Cartwright being cleared of suspicion would also clear suspicion from other people of his acquaintance.’
The Hiding Places Page 32