by Roland Moore
“We’ve just got to hang in there,” she whispered.
“Have we?” A broken voice of weariness.
“What do you mean?” There was no reply. “Henry?”
But Henry didn’t want to discuss anything. Like Connie, he was exhausted from this evening’s events and he urged his wife to try to get some sleep too. But as Henry eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep, Connie lay awake looking at the ceiling, wondering about the monster sleeping in the next room.
By the time the hammer on the alarm clock was ready to strike, Connie was still awake and ready to turn it off. Five o’clock in the morning. Now she had another dilemma: go to work and leave Henry alone with Vince or stay at home and get in trouble from Farmer Finch for not clocking in? It didn’t feel right leaving. She rolled over in bed and clutched hold of the man beside her. Henry murmured but didn’t wake. And he didn’t recoil this time, which was a blessing. Her face close to his back, Connie breathed deeply, taking in his reassuring scent. Finally she drifted off. Troubling dreams washed over her; fragments of things that she’d left behind a lifetime ago.
Connie dressed in her best frock walking into the foyer of an upmarket London hotel. Connie offering a flirtatious smile to a businessman. A gold band on his wedding finger. The businessman fumbling for the room key to open the door of his hotel suite. He can’t believe his luck. Connie leading the eager man towards the bed. Connie sitting astride him on the bed, his shirt off. His hands everywhere. And then Vince bursting through the door. The explosion of a flash bulb and the man’s startled face as his eyes frantically try to adjust; as his mind frantically tries to work out what’s going on. The impotent fury as he realises he has been caught in a blackmail scam. Finally Connie saw her and Vince leaving the room, all the man’s money and jewellery in their hands. Laughing. Another victory.
But then something unfamiliar in the dream. Something that never happened in real life.
Reverend Henry Jameson was standing halfway up the hotel stairs. As she ran from the hotel room, he looked disapprovingly at Connie, the laugh dying on her lips. Then a sudden and alarming sound:
Bang. Bang.
Connie was confused. What was that?
Bang.
Dully, she realised it was the front door. Real life breaking in. Connie woke with a start, happy to leave her troubling dream behind. She was aware that someone was trying to get their attention.
She peered a groggy eye from the bedroom window and saw a worried Iris Dawson below, looking up at the house.
“Connie?” she shouted. “It’s six-thirty.”
“Coming.” Connie mouthed the word so as not to wake Henry. She pulled her robe tightly around her and ran out of the room, pausing momentarily to listen as she passed the spare room. There was no sound.
Connie ran downstairs and opened the front door. As she did so, she immediately adopted a pained expression and a tremor to her voice. A sick voice. “Sorry. Iris, I don’t feel so good.”
Iris looked concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“I think some dodgy gammon. I’ll be right as rain with a bit of rest.”
Iris nodded. She gave her sympathies and hoped that Connie felt better soon. “I can tell Farmer Finch.”
“Thanks.” Connie winced, hoping it added to a convincing picture of someone with food poisoning. She watched as Iris walked away and then closed the front door. Leaning against it, she listened for any sound from upstairs. Nothing. In the cold light of day, were things quite so bad? Somehow Vince didn’t seem so scary and their problem didn’t seem so suffocating. She remembered how they used to be together. The exhilaration of the scams, the excitement of living a fast and loose life. But crucially she used to be able to control him. It’d be Connie who’d stop Vince getting into hopeless fights in bars. It’d be Connie who would stop him drinking and make him take her out dancing. It’d be Connie who’d draw the line when she didn’t feel in the mood for sex. She could control him then. That meant she might be able to control him again. Today she would get rid of him. Yes, he’d be sent packing today.
Connie served up breakfast. Eggs and bacon. And she and Henry watched silently as Vince lumbered downstairs to the table, dressed in a vest, with his braces hanging like dachshund ears around his trousers. On the table were three delicate china cups and saucers, a bread board with a loaf on it and a bread knife. Henry had a small, grey bruise on his cheek.
“What a lovely day, eh?” Vince filled the chair. “Praise be, eh, Reverend?”
Henry’s face didn’t move. This seemed to amuse Vince even more.
“Leave him,” Connie said, pouring the tea.
“That sounded like an order, Miss Carter.” Vince pushed his tongue into the side of his cheek, in the manner of a music hall act doing a ‘fancy that’ face. It was incongruous and unsettling, a weird camp gesture for such a thug of a man. He lent closer to Henry. “Is she telling me what to do?”
Again, Henry didn’t reply. It was up to Connie.
“Sometimes you need ordering,” she said, as lightly as she could. She was chancing her arm with a sentence designed to test the water. She was banking on it revealing some hint of the rapport they used to have. Would he respond like he used to? If he did, it would mean there was some hope for her controlling him; getting rid of him.
“I need a lot of things, Con,” he said, fixing her with a lusty look.
That wasn’t quite the response she was hoping for. Now she was flirting with her old boyfriend in front of her husband. That wasn’t good. Snapping back to that rapport wasn’t something she wanted. The door on that particular cupboard from the past was best closed forever.
Vince hungrily attacked his breakfast. Connie felt deep unease. She’d forgotten exactly what he was like: a large, lugubrious and bear-like man, hedonistic in every way. Even if Henry was eating, which he wasn’t, he would pick at his food like a thin bird. But Vince was shovelling in big greasy forkfuls.
Henry was scowling by the time their unwelcome house guest mopped the last of his egg up with a crust of bread. Connie felt strangely adrift. Henry was her rock, and despite their differences and difficulties, she’d hope that he’d help her in some way. But he was sitting, saying nothing. As useful as one of the paintings on the wall.
“So where will you go?” Connie asked, a little too sharply.
Vince shrugged, his cheeks bulging with the final mouthful.
“I don’t have anywhere to go, do I?” he said finally, wiping his mouth with his hand. “Need somewhere where I can keep a low profile.” Connie tried not to let her face show her concern. “There are lots of empty barns to the north of here,” she said hopefully.
Vince let out a sharp laugh, making Henry start in his seat.
“Once upon a time you had nowhere to go, Con. Remember that? I found you, though, put you on your way. ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’. Remember?”
Henry’s brow wrinkled. He’d heard the story from Connie last night, but to have it referenced by their unwanted lodger rammed home their shared past. They’d done things that Henry would never know about; shared times and laughter, despite Connie’s insistence that they were dark times. And then there was the sex. He couldn’t think about the sex.
Connie noticed Henry shut his eyes. She knew he wanted this nightmare to end. The bread knife glistened on the table. For a split second, Connie wanted to grab it and just press it hard against Vince’s throat. She could force him to leave. Chuck him out like she’d throw a rat out of their home. But she worried that it would lead to more violence.
“I helped you then, didn’t I?” Vince said.
“Yeah. And I am helping you here, ain’t I?” Connie protested, a look of fire in her eyes.
Vince looked malevolently at her and was about to reply, but Henry suddenly spoke. It surprised both of them.
“Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation, And in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places.”
“What’s
that?” Vince spat.
“Isaiah 32-18,” Henry replied. “You should leave us in peace. Connie had repaid the debt to you by taking you in last night, dressing your wound and feeding you.”
“Is that so?” Vince said. “And that’s the extent of the Christianity on offer, is it?”
Vince stood up and yanked his braces up onto his thick shoulders. Again, Henry flinched, silently cursing himself for his body betraying his fear of this violent man.
“Here’s the thing. You go about your business.” Vince looked at Connie and Henry. “You do your digging or whatever you have to do. You ride around tending to your flock. And then, tonight, when it’s dark, I’ll go and have a butcher’s out of the village, see where I can go next. That seems a Christian thing to do, don’t it?”
Connie glanced at Henry for his reaction, but after his outburst he had withdrawn again, looking at the table cloth and avoiding eye contact. Connie considered what Vince had said. It sounded the best offer they had on the table.
“All right.”
“No one knows I’m here. And no one must know. Got it?” Vince said. “If you betray me, I’ll shoot the first person who comes through that door stone-cold dead. Including either of you.”
Connie nodded. Henry said nothing.
Despite the threat of violence, she was more worried about whether her marriage could survive this dreadful ordeal than who might die.
As Vince went to the bathroom to shave, using Henry’s razor, Connie urged Henry to leave the house. It was best for him to be out of the way. If he and Vince were both cooped up all day, like in a pressure cooker, then Vince might become antagonised by Henry. Or that Henry might not be able to restrain himself from saying something that would make Vince explode into violence.
“So I have to leave again?” Henry hissed, resentment spilling out.
“It’s safer.”
“Maybe I should just get the Home Guard.”
“You heard what he said. He’ll kill the first person who comes through that door. We have to play it his way. But I ain’t going to let him walk all over us.” Connie hoped her words would rally Henry, but he slouched into his coat and made for the door. She couldn’t let him go like this.
“Say you don’t hate me,” she whispered.
He looked at her with a studious expression for what seemed like an eternity. “I don’t hate you, Connie. But I don’t know you, do I?”
Before Connie could respond, Vince lumbered down into the hallway. He had to move to one side for Henry to pass. He looked threateningly at the bookish vicar. This close Henry could smell stale cologne and sweat.
“Don’t do anything stupid. If you play hero and get the Home Guard or the police, Connie will be dead.”
Henry couldn’t stop himself from gulping in distress. He left. Vince waited for the front door to close before he looked at Connie.
“I never want to have to do that.”
“Glad to hear it,” Connie said as chirpily as she could manage.
Vince poured himself another cup of tea from the pot and urged Connie to sit with him.
She sensed that Vince was in the mood to talk. Maybe that could shed some light on the situation she was in. Every bit of information might be useful. And sure enough, Vince started to tell her about what had happened in London. He told her about the deal on Barnes Common, about the misdirection with the boxes; about how it had all gone wrong. He told her a little about Gloria Wayland.
“The girl – she’s young, keen. Not a patch on you.”
“Where did you find her?” Connie found herself asking. She didn’t quite know why she wanted to know.
“She wasn’t singing like you was, that’s a fact.” He breathed deeply, lost in thought. But he wanted to talk about them rather than the gangly teenager. “We had some times, didn’t we? And I don’t want to mess things up for you.”
Connie felt herself relax slightly. The words sounded hopeful, like a promise. Maybe she could just talk to him, keep him calm and then he might go.
“Remember that time it was your birthday?”
“And you got me a red dress.”
“Paid for it too. It weren’t nicked.”
“Bought with stolen money, though, wasn’t it?”
Vince chuckled. That was true enough. “Still got it?”
Connie pulled an expression that said she was struggling to remember. But she knew full well what had happened to it. She’d burnt it on a fire when she first came to Helmstead. After clearing some scrub land, Finch had entrusted her to burn some felled brambles and she’d sneaked to her room, brought down her suitcase and burnt a whole load of clothes from her past. The dresses she’d used for the scams, the shoes. She didn’t have many frocks left after that night.
“I think I might have it somewhere,” she lied. But Vince was already thinking about something else.
“We’d do all those posh hotels, make a lot of money and then we’d walk over Chelsea Bridge with a bag of chips.”
Connie laughed at the memory. “Why did we do that?”
“Maybe we thought if we spent a lot of money it’d draw attention. Who knows?” He drained his tea. Then he turned to her, his eyes softening. “I missed you when you went.”
Connie felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be talking like this, listening to this sort of stuff. This was her married home. It was like a sudden alarm call, shocking her back to her senses. This man had hit her husband, taken over their house. She had to get rid of him. Connie knew she had to steer him onto more current thoughts, rather than their shared past.
“What happened on Barnes Common? With Gloria?”
“Oh, she messed up. Nearly got me killed.”
Messed up? Suddenly, there were so many questions buzzing for attention in Connie’s head. But she knew it was like treading on eggshells. Pick the wrong one and Vince would explode, clam up, or just lie. Connie had one big burning question and she needed an answer. What had happened to the girl?
“She told me to go, save myself. So I did.” The coldness returned to Vince’s eyes. “No point us both ending up brown bread. Sad. But you know.”
Sometimes Connie knew when Vince was lying. And this was one of those occasions. From Vince’s coldness, she guessed it had been the other way around and that Vince had left the girl to die to save himself. But she knew better than to push things and ask.
“And how did you hurt the hand?” Connie asked.
“The boss had a knife. As I was fighting my way out, he lunged at me. So I put my hand up to stop him.”
Vince flexed his bandaged hand. It was wet from the shave, the white bandage stained darker from the water.
“Who were you scamming?” Connie asked.
Vince shook his head and snorted. “Another time,” he said, closing down her questioning. “I’m going up for a kip.” The audience was over.
He lumbered out of the room. Connie listened to his heavy feet on the stairs. She wanted to know more about what had happened. Who was the poor girl who’d died? And perhaps, more worryingly, who was the man who’d stabbed Vince? Was that man still alive?
The bicycle wheels clattered along the stony, unmade path. Henry felt the wind cooling his hot face and freshening his hair as he cycled to see the elderly Dr Beauchamp. He was on the lane bordering Pasture Farm and Swallow Farm – and in the distance he could see the tiny figures of the Land Girls, in their head scarves, toiling in the fields. If any of them waved at him, he didn’t notice. His mind was racing with the troubling events at home and the dark, malignant force that had invaded their lives. It was causing him many conflicting feelings. Henry had been praying silently and continuously since he left the vicarage that his wife would be all right. He felt guilty at leaving, and had even turned back at one point. But he was also angry that she had brought this on herself; on them both. Once again, she had blighted their futures with her past. Could they ever be free of it? And were those suitabl
e thoughts for a Christian to have? Shouldn’t he be doing everything he could to help his wife? Maybe he would, if it wasn’t for the fact that she had never mentioned Vince before. “Oh by the way, there’s this psychopath I used to be with”. After the Danny Sparks business, Henry assumed that their troubles from the past would be over. He felt both small-minded and petty for not helping; and justified that he had been somehow betrayed by her actions.
As he rounded a corner, ducking under an overhanging branch, Henry saw a figure coming the other way. A large man in a battered hat and a heavy woollen cardigan was swaying an unsteady path. It was Frederick Finch.
He put up a heavy hand and motioned for Henry to slow down. The vicar skidded to a shaky halt of his own.
“Padre.” Finch said, with the sureness of a man who might have had an early lunchtime drink or three whilst delivering the eggs.
“Hello, Mr Finch,” Henry replied.
“I heard about your missus. Hope it’s all sorting itself out,” Finch said.
Henry’s mind raced. How could Finch know? Had he somehow seen Vince coming to their house the night before? Finch was incalculably nosey, but there was no one who knew about Vince Halliday, surely?
“Hopefully,” Henry said, offering a cover-all-bases reply. Was it enough?
“I remember the last time. It dragged on a bit then,” Finch said.
What was he talking about now? Danny Sparks? Was he referring to when Danny turned up before the wedding?
“We’re hoping it’ll all be better soon,” Henry said, unsure about how long he could keep this up. It was like one of the Crazy Gang’s crosstalk routines. Only with more serious consequences and no one in the mood for laughing.
“Well, I’ll be on my way. See if Esther can be persuaded to put the old kettle on, eh?” And Finch started back on his uncertain journey. “Hope Connie feels better for tomorrow!” he shouted over his shoulder.