by David Mark
‘Brian, I don’t understand.’
‘I were hiding in the churchyard. Playing, I suppose. And Pike went in and he had a bag with him and he opened the door with a key. He was in a minute then came out again. I don’t know if it was a mistake or if he heard something but he legged it out of there sharpish and didn’t lock it properly. I’d never been inside and I couldn’t help it. I had a little nosey. Have you been in, Mam? It’s spooky and cold and your breath doesn’t go anywhere when you breathe out – it just hangs in front of your face. I could see Pike’s boot prints on the floor. There were prayer books and cushions and pews all scattered and turned over. I don’t know what I was looking for, I just wanted to see. And I looked in the collection box by the door. I could tell there was something inside. I opened it with my penknife. There were some old coins and this tooth. I took it.’
There was colour in his cheeks, as if he’d been running, and I didn’t like how shiny his eyes were becoming as he spoke about it.
‘Brian, that must have been a donation. Or something for Fairfax. It wasn’t for you to take …’
‘No, Mam, there’s no services. And the letter would have said, wouldn’t it?’
‘Letter?’
He shook his head like he was telling himself off. He looked cross and started rubbing at his arms.
‘Just a note,’ he said, all sullen, like. ‘A bit of paper, folded over. Nice handwriting. And a reel.’
‘A fishing reel?’ I was getting agitated at how many answers I needed him to share. I wanted to shake him suddenly.
‘No, a tape reel – like a recording machine. Just one of them. It looks like what you get ribbons wrapped around at the market.’
‘Did you take that too?’
He didn’t look sheepish now. He was starting to smirk again.
‘I thought I’d better take it all, just to be safe,’ he said, getting cockier with each word. ‘Like I said, Mam, it weren’t there for anybody specific. It didn’t make any sense.’
‘The reel,’ I said, interrupting. ‘Where is that?’
He rolled his eyes at me and rubbed his hand across his mouth like he was a man checking if he needed a shave. ‘Reckon Pike had it, don’t I?’
‘How do you think that?’
‘I’ve got a place for stuff like that. Somewhere nobody looks. I put the tape in there and the note and the coins. I kept the tooth on me ’cause I liked it.’
‘And Pike took the reel?’
‘Must have. Went back to the tree and it weren’t there.’
‘Which tree?’
‘Doesn’t matter now,’ he said, back to being a bugger. ‘The sweet chestnut just over the boundary wall. Climb up and look inside and it’s hollow, Mam. I kept a few bits in there. Pike must have seen. Took it.’
I could hear my breathing was becoming shorter. I felt like I’d been running.
‘What did the letter say?’
‘It were foreign,’ he shrugged, as if this made it little more than nonsense. ‘Just a couple of lines.’
‘So how do you know what it said?’
‘I asked, din’t I?’
I rubbed my hands through my hair, exasperated. It was like pulling teeth, but that’s an awful thing to say, considering.
I heard John’s voice drifing up the stairs then felt the draft that meant the front door was open. I felt like screaming. A few days ago life had felt like it had a rounder shape. Things led back to themselves. All my friends and family and the things I had to do – it was like they were all connected to me with wool and they twisted around each other as if we were all Maypoling. Now my life was jagged edges and sharp lines and it felt as though the wool was tangling me up and cutting in.
‘Get your pyjamas on,’ I said, trying to sound stern. ‘We’re not done.’
I left the bathroom before he could think of a clever reply and as I came down the stairs I saw John was talking to Heron in the doorway. Heron had that look about him. Looked like a soldier or a cowboy or somebody who rides a horse and swims in waterfalls in the films. If he’d given a damn about such things he could have been in any one of the magazines. He was the sort who would make your tongue twist over your words and I honestly couldn’t think of a single thing to say as I stood still on the stairs.
‘Thought it might be better to bring her ’ere,’ said Heron, and John must have heard the stairs creak ’cause he turned around. He was wearing his cardigan over his vest and braces and holding a mug of tea in his hand. From where I stood I could see how thin his hair had got on top. He seemed smaller, too, though everybody looked small next to Heron. I felt such a cow for thinking it but you can’t help your instincts, can you? And I’m shamed to say it but that were the first time I thought that John were starting to look a bit knackered. Starting to look like he was going to look when he got old.
‘Felicity,’ said Heron, and he touched a knuckle to his forehead. ‘Your friend. She could use a bit of company if that’s all right. Bit of a run-in with somebody passing through.’
I changed my position and saw Cordelia. She seemed somehow less solid than I had seen her before. I got the impression that it would take weights in her shoes to stop her floating away. She was like a breath that hung in the air in a cold church. I hurried down the rest of the stairs and pushed past John.
‘Come in, come in, you’ll catch your death,’ I muttered and Heron gave me a nod, like we were the grown-ups, as he handed her to me. I had my arm around her and folded her into me. ‘You’ve been wet a week! You’re costing me the last of my towels! Goodness it’s a job you’re not made of sugar.’
I fussed her down the corridor to the kitchen. She made no protest. Her hair was soaking against my cheek and her coat squelched against my arm. As I steered her into the kitchen she stopped and looked at me. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and it was an effort not to let myself down. I could have cried for the sadness in her.
‘You coming in, Heron?’ I asked, over my shoulder.
‘No, I’ll away, thanks love. Leave you to it, eh?’
‘Thanks for Brian,’ I said, looking back at the bulk of him in the doorway. ‘He said you saw Pike off.’
‘Don’t think on it. I’ll be away. Talk to you when you’re settled, eh?’
I left him talking to John. Brought her into the warm and sat her down at what I was starting to think of as her chair. There was tea in the pot and I poured her a mug. She watched me the whole time and for once, I think she would have liked to have offered to help. She just didn’t know any way to contribute.
‘Brian got home safe?’ she asked, all sad and small.
‘Aye. That’s boys for you.’
‘No trouble with Pike?’
‘Seems like it’s done.’
We made small talk as I pottered about. There was so much to talk about and yet it somehow seemed as if there were things that should be left unsaid. I had run from Fairfax’s house like a child. She’d seen Brian save my life and the last I’d seen of her I’d been limping off after him. Where had she been since? Who had frightened her?
‘I phoned my husband,’ she said, out of nowhere.
‘Yes? Is he well?’ I didn’t know what to say so just tried to be polite.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, and she started nibbling the skin around her thumb. She had lovely nails and I almost wanted to tell her to stop it. It was beginning to feel like having a little sister. A little sister who was cleverer than me and prettier than me but who always managed to get me into trouble.
‘A man spoke to me,’ she said, at last. ‘I think he was security services.’
I turned, me eyes like teacups. ‘A spy? Like from the films?’
‘I don’t know. But he knew things. Said things about me. Where I’m from. How I got here.’
I wanted to push her but she seemed so wrung out it would have been cruel. I started drying the dishes that had been left on the draining board. She spotted a way she could be helpful and picked the hand towel off t
he back of the pantry door and joined me at the sink. Close to, she smelled of her nice perfume and rain. Smelled a bit like Heron too. I wondered if she would be the one to turn his head. Heaven knew she was good at it.
‘Can I tell you something?’ she asked, her voice not much more than a whisper. ‘Something that I’ve always thought was a secret?’
I nodded. Wiped the tea towel around the inside of a mug and looked down at the metal draining board so I wouldn’t have to stare into those big eyes of hers as she spoke. I was glad I did. I know for sure I’d have cried. When she were finished I had a hand on her forearm and she was stiff as a statue: both hands flat on the counter and her whole body rigid. I think it half killed her to tell me who she was and where she’d come from. I’ve wondered many times since whether the words I chose to say next were the right ones, but I know they put a bit of life in her eyes and that was better than seeing her as she was.
‘I’ve found some more of Fairfax’s writing,’ I said, under my breath. ‘In the church. Under the floor.’
It was as if somebody had lit a fire in the attic window of a deserted house. Whatever she had been through, all that mattered to her in that moment was a chance to read the words on the sheaf of papers.
‘Have you read it? Where were they hidden? Exactly? Show me, oh please, Flick, are they here?’
I found myself smiling. It was wrong of her to be so gleeful about such a thing but her excitement was contagious. I pulled a face of admonishment but couldn’t keep it up.
‘I haven’t read them. I thought I should wait …’
‘Wait for me? Oh, that’s so generous of you. I don’t think I could have forced myself to wait for you.’
I didn’t tell her about the panic that had been gripping me during Brian’s absence and that it took an effort not to throw the damn papers on the fire. They hadn’t seemed important, as I sat waiting for my son to return home. Yet in Cordelia’s company they represented another piece of a puzzle and I was becoming as keen as she was to see what the finished picture would look like.
‘You thawed out?’ asked John, opening the door. Cordelia flashed him a look of annoyance and I found myself breathing a sigh of relief. I’d had it my head she was a little soft on him and there was no way I could stop him if he took a fancy to her. She had that quality – men just can’t do anything about it, or at least, that’s what it seems. Sometimes I wonder if they don’t just like pretending to be weak so we don’t expect more from them. Brian was like that when I asked him to mow the lawn. Did it dreadful just so I’d stop asking.
‘Heron’s got a long night ahead,’ said John, sitting down on the sofa and looking at Cordelia without showing the annoyance I knew him to be feeling about her presence in his chair.
‘Aye?’ I asked, refilling his mug.
‘Thon hunters that were in the paper. Reckons the moon’ll have them out in droves.’
Cordelia looked to me for explanation and I obliged.
‘Dead deers being left in the river. Nasty business. They reckon they’ve suffered plenty. Legs cut off before the poor beasts had died. Hearts and lungs taken too. Been in the papers, surprised you didn’t hear about it. Heron’s taken it awfully personal. He not tell you?’
She shook her head and water ran down her neck. I watched it disappear into the throat of her jumper.
‘I wouldn’t fancy being in their shoes if Heron does catch them. He says there were a stag he found up Crammel Linn had his antlers hacked off with a saw. Caught in a wire snare, see. Heron had to end its misery, poor sod. I reckon he’ll do worse to whoever done it.’
Cordelia sat back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling. I was conscious of Brian up there, just a few feet above. James too, though he’d no doubt be drawing or having one of his adventures in his head. He’d been the only one of us who looked a bit disappointed when his brother came home safe.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said John, and ticked his thumbs into his braces as he spoke. Cordelia and I shared a little smile and it was a nice, sisterly moment. I instantly felt bad for what I’d thought about her. Of course she knew what men wanted. Of course it showed in the way she was. Poor girl had been through more than I could tell you.
‘Thinking, John?’ she asked him, a bit flirty. ‘No need for that.’
‘Yer a cheeky one,’ said John, wagging his finger. He seemed in a better mood for his chat with Heron. Or perhaps it was the way I walked down the hall that set him right – I wasn’t too badly hurt from my brush with the lorry. He could stop worrying.
‘Go on then, we’re all ears,’ I said.
‘Ye’re both convinced of what ye saw,’ he said. ‘And don’t tell me ye’ve been in ’ere talking about knitting patterns because I won’t believe you. So, tell me honest – were there a body on that grass after the tree came down?’
He said it so simply, so flatly, that I had no time to prepare an answer. I simply spoke honestly. Yes. Yes, there was.
‘Hmm,’ he mused. ‘And you, Mrs Hemlock, you came here to get out the rain and told poor Fairfax what you’d seen, yes?’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ I answered for her.
‘Then he gets his car and sets off for goodness knows where and he crashes and dies, God rest him, and the body in the churchyard has gone when you go back to check, yes?’
We both nodded. I didn’t want to speak in case I spoiled it.
John kept sucking on his thoughts like they were boiled sweets.
‘Fairfax has spent years asking people for their memories and their stories and writing down people’s secrets, yes?’
‘Yes,’ said I, wishing he’d get on with his point.
‘So …’ he said, musically.
Cordelia and I were both looking at him but there was a smugness I didn’t particularly like so I shook my head and gave my attention to her instead. She was looking at me earnestly, as if waiting for permission to say what was on her mind. Then I realized that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted to say something unkind about Fairfax and she didn’t want to upset me. I gave the tiniest nod.
‘You know what I’m driving at,’ said John.
‘Aye,’ said Cordelia, and it sounded odd in her accent.
‘Go on,’ I said, sighing.
‘Fairfax moved the body,’ said Cordelia, and for a moment she stared at the bare wall and it was like she were watching it all play out on a cinema screen. She had a mind like a rocket.
‘It’s the only explanation,’ said John.
‘It’s not,’ muttered Cordelia. ‘There are lots of explanations. But that’s the one I believe. He knew who the body was. He knew he didn’t have much time. So he got in his car …’
‘There were tyre tracks by the church,’ I said, quickly. ‘Thin ones, like from that silly car of his.’
‘Well he drove to the church, took the body and grabbed whatever it is that was so important in the church. Then he put it in his car and headed off through the storm. He got himself on the Spadeadam road. The peat bog. Miles and miles of ground that will hold its secrets forever. But the storm got too much and he had the crash that killed him.’
I didn’t like hearing it but I couldn’t stop her. Not now.
‘The man who spoke French,’ she said. ‘The one with the recording device. He went to Fairfax’s. He matches the description, give or take. He must have told Fairfax something he shouldn’t have. Maybe he upset somebody by accident. Perhaps he fell or something …’
She shook her head, angry at herself for sounding so vague. She took a breath like she was trying to order her thoughts.
‘Fairfax doted on Christopher, yes? Never got over his death. Well perhaps this Frenchman had something to say about the war that Fairfax didn’t like. So Fairfax loses his temper and the man in blue ends up dead. Where would he stash the body? How about a mausoleum that won’t be opened for years and that Fairfax has the only key for …’
‘No,’ I said, sharply. ‘No, Pike had a key. He’s been stor
ing stuff there. I found guns. Not shotguns. Military rifles.’
She looked confused. ‘Pike? Why would he …?’
‘Fairfax might have given him it?’ said John.
‘Why?’
‘He thought the best of people. And he and Christopher were pals, near enough.’
It looked to me as if Cordelia were reading lots of different books all at once. Her eyes seemed to be darting everywhere as she spoke.
‘Could you imagine Fairfax hurting somebody?’ she asked, directly.
‘No,’ I said, and meant it.
‘But he would protect somebody, yes? Somebody he cared about?’
I could see what she meant. I’d been able to see it before she even started speaking.
‘Where was Pike when the storm hit?’ she asked. ‘Could Fairfax have been going to warn him?’
‘Probably up to mischief,’ I said, trying to make light of it. ‘He deals in cigarettes. Beer. Has some friends who are up to no good. Over Newcastle way.’
‘So Pike’s been either storing guns in a safe place for some bad men, or he’s been ripping them off. They send some heavy to ask around and he ends up dead. Can’t you see it?’ she asked, and it was like there was energy fizzing off her.
‘I dunno,’ said John, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know if Fairfax would cover up something like that. He cared for Pike but not to that extent. He knew right and wrong and that’d be wrong. But there doesn’t seem any other way to account for the body going missing. Do you think he might have taken something from the church? Something he wanted to keep safe?’
I looked at the swirling pattern on the floor and listened to the rain on the glass. It felt as though I were listening to a hundred conversations. I knew it would only be a matter of time until she put it together. I saw it happening – saw her thoughts moving and drifting into a picture that she could clearly define.
‘His car,’ said Cordelia, at last, and it was all I could do not to close my eyes and hang my head. ‘Who has Fairfax’s car?’
‘It were towed,’ shrugged John. ‘After the accident. It’ll be at the garage, like as not. Be sold when the solicitor gets it all sorted out, though it were in a bad way as I hear it.’