Empty Nest

by Marty Wingate

  “And your girl?”

  Gavin’s smile turned sheepish. “Yeah, right, well. The day they let me out of hospital, she wanted to take me to her flat to recuperate. But I’d heard about a great grey shrike at Minsmere. They don’t often show up in midsummer—I had to go. She couldn’t understand and so…”

  Enough said. “You need a girlfriend who’s a twitcher herself—or at least a birder.”

  “And you?” he asked, stretching his black boots out before him. “Everything all right here in the village? You still with Sedgwick?”

  “Yes.” Not in the literal sense of the word—not often enough, at least. I skipped over news of the estate and Michael’s and my forced separation and instead nodded to my chestnut-breasted friend below the beech. “Look now, he’s early for winter,” I said.

  Gavin scanned the ground and then looked at me. “Who’s that, then?”

  I frowned. “It’s a brambling. There—can’t you see him?” At that moment, the bird flew off.

  Gavin closed his eyes tight, opened them wide, blinked rapidly, and stared at the empty ground. “Yeah, sure, of course.”

  I watched him until he felt my gaze; he looked at me and glanced away.

  “Gavin, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong—it’s only a brambling.” He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. “I’m having a bit of a problem, that’s all.”

  I looked from him to the empty ground where the bird had been and gasped. “You can’t see.”

  He leapt off the bench. “Of course I can see, Julia. It’s just my eyes, because of the…” He sat down again and gestured to the scar on his scalp. “Close up I’m fine, but far off, things aren’t right. Probably only temporary, the doctor said.”

  This had to be a twitcher’s worst nightmare—not being able to see the only object of his affection. “Gavin, how awful for you,” I said, my eyes welling with tears of exhaustion and sympathy.

  Gavin brushed off my emotions with a scoffing sound. “The doctor said it would get better, most likely—only she didn’t say when. She’s a looker, my doc,” he said with a grin. “Don’t mind it when she gets up close for an exam.”

  False bravado, poor sausage.

  “But your list, going out for birds, what will you do?”

  He sat up, all humor gone. “You can’t tell anyone, Julia—swear to me you won’t. I’ve told no one—if it got out, there would be questions. You don’t know what they’re like, twitchers. They’d like nothing better than to tear me apart.”

  I shook my head. “No, certainly not, I won’t breathe a word.”

  “I miss it,” he muttered. “It’s only that I don’t want to be out there trying to see a bird and make a fool of myself. Of course, it would be different,” he said in a speculative tone, “if I had someone with me who could keep quiet about my problem and be my eyes. I could still get out and about.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “You saved me, Julia,” he said with an offended air. “I only came to say thanks.”

  I knew what he came for, and yet I couldn’t say no. “Well,” I said, “if you ever want me to go along, just say the word. I could point out a bird for you to look at—surely that would count.”

  Gavin grinned. “I suppose that would be all right,” he said. “But I’d really have to lay eyes on the bird—not just take your word for it.”

  “Right. And you’re not dragging me off to the ends of the earth,” I said.

  Gavin nodded. And so, after striking this agreement, he walked me back to the TIC. I left him on the high street—he had driven to the village, swearing to me that he could see the road just fine. “Cars are bigger than birds, Julia.” I was so tired that seemed to make sense.

  Chapter 16

  By the time I had returned to the TIC, Willow had left, taking her art project with her. As Vesta and I waited for the kettle to boil, I said, “It’s strange, but I feel responsible for Gavin somehow.” She knew that I had kept him awake after his concussion and alerted the police to his injury. I hadn’t told her about Gavin’s eyesight, of course—I had promised, after all.

  Vesta nodded. “It’s often the case—you saved his life, didn’t you, by being captured yourself and held in that pig hut with him? And now, you feel as if his life is in your care.”

  “He’s not quite one hundred percent yet, and he’s no one to look after him. I rather feel like his big sister.”

  “And is that how Gavin feels?” Vesta asked, the steam from the teapot fogging up her glasses so that I couldn’t see the expression in her eyes. “That he’s your little brother?”

  “He knows the score.” I checked the time—just gone five. I went to lock up, but Detective Sergeant Glossop stood at the window peering in, holding a large, flat portfolio under one arm. I opened the door. “Sergeant, come in.”

  “Ms. Lanchester.” He stepped in and up to the counter. “I’m sorry to interrupt—I was hoping to have a word.” He looked expectantly from me to Vesta to the teapot.

  “Please come through. This is my co-worker Vesta Widdersham.” Glossop bobbed his head. “You’re just in time—would you like a cup of tea? And I believe we’ve a slice of cake left.”

  The appearance of the police meant news—I’d happily ply him with food if he’d answer a few of my questions.

  “That’s kind of you, yes, thanks. One sugar, please,” he said.

  Vesta served the tea and said, “I’ll be on my way now, Julia. Yoga tonight.”

  “Yes, Vesta, thanks.” I walked her to the door.

  “All right?” she asked quietly.

  I nodded. I locked the door behind her and turned to the detective sergeant. “Have you come to tell me how Freddy died?”

  “We don’t yet know all the details of how he died—we don’t think it was the smoke, but then…” He took a sharp breath and looked sideways, as if he expected someone to be lurking over his shoulder. Someone, such as his DI? His officious scowl made an appearance.

  “But you’ve stopped by to…” I let my words peter out, waiting for him to pick up on the sentence.

  “Inspector Callow has been in meetings all day,” he said. He took a breath. “I received quite high marks on my sergeant’s exam.”

  I tried without success to follow this non sequitur. “Well done,” I said, and waited for the next bit of information, hoping to see a pattern.

  “Part of the responsibility of being a detective sergeant is knowing when to take the initiative.” Glossop ran a finger along the top of the portfolio. “Inspector Callow has been in meetings all day,” he repeated.

  And the penny dropped. “You certainly can’t let an investigation languish, can you, just because your inspector is busy?” I asked. “And this is an investigation, isn’t it, Sergeant? You’re looking into Freddy’s death as…”

  “Suspicious.” His face was grim.

  “Murder,” I said, and swallowed hard.

  He took the time to fill his mouth with cake and follow it with a swig of tea before speaking. “You’re Rupert Lanchester’s daughter—Lord Fotheringill told us that. I…we were hoping you could take a look at this for us.” He wiped his hands on his suit jacket before opening the portfolio and bringing out a large, flat, plastic bag—big enough to house a coffee-table book, but holding only a single sheet of paper, a woodcut print of a bird.

  The paper, yellowed with age and scorched in a few spots, had a corner missing. The intricate etching showed the bird in detail—a dark head and gray back with a pale, barred breast and darker barred tail. He perched on a dead tree branch, his sharply curved beak open. The label read: “THE SPARROW HAWK.”

  Evidence? My heart picked up speed.

  “Was this in the room?” I reached out and touched the plastic bag with an index finger as my mind darted from the picture of a sparrow hawk to a heap of dead birds in a field. “Did Inspector Callow ask you to show this to me?”

  The sergeant nodded
, then shook his head. “She doesn’t know yet. This is my first case, you see. But my gran always told me, ‘You must show gumption, Natty, it’s the only way to get ahead.’ ”

  “Natty?”

  “And so I’m gathering evidence. I want to know if this bird is important.”

  I frowned, wondering for a moment if he was winding me up. “We reported dead sparrow hawks on the Fotheringill estate on Saturday.”

  “Reported?” The sergeant’s eyes widened. “But to whom?”

  “To you,” I said, pointing at him in indignation. “Well, at least to the Sudbury police. Two police constables came out, and Rupert was there as well as Lord Fotheringill. There were ten or more birds. Didn’t they file a statement or anything?” I dug in my bag, producing one of the PC’s cards.

  Glossop read the name and his eyebrows lifted. “Right, well—he’s on traffic school this week and might not have caught up with his paperwork. What happened to them—the birds?”

  I locked my eyes on the sergeant’s face. “They’d been poisoned.”

  Natty Glossop leapt out of his chair. “Poisoned?” he whispered.

  I jumped up as well. “Sergeant, was Freddy poisoned?”

  “How do you know those birds were poisoned?”

  “Because my dad—Rupert Lanchester—has seen it before. Gamekeepers use a pesticide to kill predator birds. It’s a disgraceful practice,” I said, my voice choked with emotion, but not for the birds.

  “I must get back.” The sergeant slid the plastic sheet back into the portfolio.

  “Wait.” I stuck my hand in before he could close it. “Please—could I see the print again? There’s something written at the bottom.”

  The sergeant’s eyes cut from the portfolio to me and back again. He gave a sideways nod and removed the print.

  In the lower right, just above a scorched corner, it read: “To my own sparrow hawk—swift, silent, sure.” At least, I think that’s what it said—it wasn’t the clearest penmanship.

  I grabbed my phone and focused its camera.

  Glossop spread his hands out in front of the print. “No, Ms. Lanchester, please don’t take a photo. Inspector Callow…that is, this is an ongoing investigation.”

  “But, Sergeant Glossop, if I can study it later, I may think of something else I need to tell you—some vital clue. Please. And besides, I know this print belongs to Lord Fotheringill.” I knew nothing of the sort. “Would you like me to ring him and ask if it’s all right?”

  The sergeant drummed his fingers on the plastic for a moment and then straightened his shoulders. “There’s no need for that,” he said. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked away. “Go on, then.”

  —

  Before Detective Sergeant Natty Glossop left, portfolio under his arm, I had made promises to contact him if anything else occurred to me—wishing I could ask him to reciprocate. I sat back at the table and stared at the photo I’d taken of the print, enlarging it so that every etched line of the bird’s wing and breast and beak stood out. I moved to the bottom, where I read the inscription over and over.

  Who would want to be compared to a sparrow hawk? Was this a compliment? Why did Freddy have this print and how much was it worth? Could it be that Freddy was not only admiring the antiques in Hoggin Hall, but also casing the joint—I remembered that phrase from watching old American detective films with my mum. I tried to picture this: he steals a priceless print, is caught, and then…gets poisoned? No, that didn’t make sense. Wouldn’t you just call the police?

  I would ring Dad—tomorrow, after Beryl had left for Bee’s. But this evening I had a meeting to conduct. And something else to do first. I drove down and stopped in at the Royal Oak, hoping to catch Louisa working.

  The swinging sign above the door of the Royal Oak displayed not only the massive canopy of its eponymous tree, but also its equally massive root system, as if the soil had washed away. It looked like a leafless mirror image of the top. The interior of the Royal Oak had a decidedly more rustic ambience than the Stoat and Hare, the other village pub. Darkness held sway indoors whether day or night, with light coming only from yellow lamps that protruded from the walls. Coupled with its dangerously low oak beams, traversing the space could be dicey, although locals had learned how to avoid both lamps and beams by walking across the room as if they were on the deck of a rocking ship, bobbing and weaving, but always keeping their pint level.

  “Hello, Hutch. Is Louisa working?” I asked the barman.

  “She’s sworn off evenings,” he growled, whipping a bar towel over his shoulder. As far as I knew, Hutch spoke only in growls. He had a mat of hair on top of his head that may or may not have been his own, a prominent brow—like a ledge hanging over a steep descent—and a mouth that looked as if he’d just removed a large slice of lemon from it. “Says she’s booked up with tutoring.”

  “Students from the local school?” I asked.

  “Not my business. All I know is she’s got them coming and going up those back stairs of hers,” he said, nodding to the ceiling where, upstairs, Louisa lived in a three-room flat large enough to accommodate students and waiting parents, but in desperate need of refurbishment.

  “It’s good she’s taking on more tutoring.”

  “She’s left me shorthanded—and me providing her housing and all,” he said.

  “She’s paying you rent for her flat, isn’t she?” I asked.

  “Yeah, well,” Hutch replied as five people wandered in the door and crowded up to the bar to place drink orders.

  He didn’t seem in the mood to offer more, so I took my half pint of Bugg’s Best and a packet of crisps and retreated to a table.

  Chapter 17

  I arrived plenty early to the church hall, but Willow had arrived even earlier. She already had set up the coffee. I drank a cup down almost straightaway, hoping it would stop me from feeling as if I were under water. I functioned best on a full night’s sleep—at that moment, I couldn’t tell the difference between the four hours I’d got and no hours at all. After a few minutes, I had another coffee, and a few minutes after that, I got the jitters.

  Willow had unfurled a paper banner—actually, successive pieces of paper taped together—that she had decorated with snowflakes and unseasonable butterflies. It read—“Welcome to the Smeaton-under-Lyme Christmas Market!!!” She had stretched it across a wall, securing the sagging middle with extra tape. Rickety wooden folding chairs were set two feet apart in six long rows, to mimic the stalls on the green. On the seat of each chair, Willow had placed a piece of paper designating which vendor where. I passed “Handle With Care—glass artist #42”; “Tiny Toes—children’s footwear #47”; and “Fox in the Henhouse Chocolates—confectionary #51.” Each had its own graphic hand-drawn by Willow.

  My intern stood talking with two women in the front of the room. As I approached, one woman pointed an accusatory finger at the other while saying to Willow, “You can’t put her next to me—she’s already stolen the design of my best-selling Christmas ornament.”

  The other slapped the finger away. “You don’t own the angel Gabriel,” she said. “He’s copyright-free.”

  “Hello!” I rushed forward and inserted myself between the two before they came to blows. “I’m Julia Lanchester. Is there a problem?”

  The women each took a step back. Willow put her hand to her chest and exhaled deeply. “Oh, Ms. Lanchester, I’m awfully glad you’re here.”

  It took a bit of rearranging, but we got the two women in separate rows, and I called for everyone to take a seat. Vendors wandered the hall with cups of coffee in one hand and plates of Nuala’s fairy cakes in the other, until they found their assigned chairs. As I waited for the noise to subside, I looked out the window for any latecomers. A car pulled in and Cecil got out. I couldn’t tell the make of the vehicle, but I knew it wasn’t Linus’s Peugeot. When Cecil kept the passenger door open, leaning over to say something, I was afforded a fine view of the driver—her hair in a ponyta
il and her slightly receding chin in silhouette. It was Louisa.

  —

  Cecil walked into the hall and stood looking about. Willow spied this lone figure and made a beeline for him.

  “Hello, how are you this evening? Are you one of our vendors? You’ve certainly come to the right place—and just in time, we’re about to start. Now, let me see—don’t tell me—are you the cheeseman from Puddledock?”

  “Willow!” I said, dashing forward.

  “Oh, Julia—well, of course you have everything in hand, don’t you?”

  I took hold of her arm to stop her, if only for a moment. “Cecil,” I said, “may I present Willow Wynn-Finch, our intern at the TIC. Willow, this is Cecil, Viscount Palgrave. Lord Fotheringill’s son.”

  I added the last just to make sure it hit home, which apparently it did. She blushed a neon pink, fumbled to free a hand from the bundle of felt markers she held, thought better of it, and dropped her gaze to the floor, bobbing a tiny curtsy.

  “Lord Palgrave, sir, I’m terribly sorry—it’s only that we’re awfully excited about the market and you see how incredibly popular it is with all the artists in Suffolk, well, all of East Anglia actually, because we have two amazing silversmiths who’ve just today told me that—”

  I broke in. “It looks like everyone is here, Willow. Why don’t we get started.”

  —

  By the end of the evening, every time I turned my head, it took a couple of seconds for my vision to catch up. This is what I get for drinking two—no, three—cups of coffee on an almost empty stomach and practically no sleep. And eating three fairy cakes. As far as I could remember, the meeting had gone well. All questions answered, all concerns laid to rest. Cecil had kept quiet, only standing and giving a nod when I introduced him.

  I began folding and stacking chairs while our intern climbed up on a table to peel her banner off the wall. Cecil looked up from his phone, rushed over, and helped unstick it for her. Willow—glowing pink—thanked him, rolled up the banner, and stuffed it into her bag.