A Dark and Stormy Night

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Mrs Bates, as usual, was efficiency itself. Coffee and tea were standing ready, along with ham (cold) and eggs (boiled), toast, and a steaming pot of oatmeal at one corner of the fireplace.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you proper eggs and bacon, Mrs Martin,’ she said when I walked in, ‘but the fire in the Aga’s just about cold, and John’s out with the search party. There’s porridge if you fancy it, just for something hot.’

  ‘We used to call it oatmeal back where I come from, and it’s always been my ultimate comfort food. And I think you’re marvellously inventive, coping as you have with a non-functional kitchen.’

  ‘I enjoy a challenge,’ she said as she ladled out a generous portion of oatmeal. ‘I must thank you, by the way, for dealing with lunch yesterday. John and I were both needed elsewhere, as you could see.’

  ‘Was it only yesterday? It seems like an eternity ago. I hated to invade your kitchen. It’s good of you to take it so well.’

  Having thus completed the civilities, I asked her to sit and have some coffee with me. ‘Is no one else up yet? Except for the searchers, I mean.’

  ‘Joyce went out with them. And the vicar was down a bit ago. He took some coffee and toast back up to Mr Upshawe’s room. I think he doesn’t like to leave him.’

  ‘Did he say anything about how the poor man’s doing?’

  ‘Only that he’s still unconscious.’

  We sat in companionable silence while I demolished my bowl of oatmeal and poured myself another cup of coffee.

  ‘Mrs Bates – what is your first name, by the way? If you don’t mind my asking.’

  ‘Rose. No, I don’t mind. It’s John who’s so stubborn about being called Mister.’

  ‘Well, then, I’m Dorothy. Are you from these parts, Rose?’

  ‘Born in Branston village, but they closed the village school before I was old enough to start, so I had to go to the comprehensive in Shepherdsford. My father had flown the coop by that time, so mum moved us to Shepherdsford to be closer to the school. There were three of us kids. She had to take a job as a cashier at Tesco.’

  Rose sipped her coffee.

  ‘Not an easy life,’ I said.

  ‘Not easy, no. That’s why I worked so hard in school. I was determined I was going to have marketable skills. I got four A-levels – you know what those are?’

  I nodded. ‘Advanced examinations for the college-bound. University, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, well, I actually won a scholarship to uni, but by that time I knew I could cook. Really cook, you know. So I went to the Cordon Bleu school in London instead, and once I got out I could take my pick of jobs.’

  ‘I admit I was a little surprised to find a cook of your calibre in a private home. I’d have thought someone with your incredible skills would be at the Ivy or somewhere like that – some posh London restaurant.’

  ‘I don’t care for London. Oh, I could make more money there, but believe me, I do all right here, and I prefer the country. I suppose you could say my roots are here.’

  ‘Is your mother still living?’

  Rose’s face lit up. ‘She lives in Branston, in a lovely new house we bought her, John and I. Fresh as new paint, all the latest labour-saving devices, and a beautiful garden. Mum always loved her flowers, but she didn’t have time for them when we lived in Shepherdsford. Nor the space, either. Our front garden in that nasty little house was about three feet square, and wouldn’t grow anything but weeds.’

  ‘And your husband, is he—’

  A commotion at the back kitchen door interrupted me. Rose ran to see what was the matter, and opened the door to Alan and the other men, two of them bearing between them a blanket-wrapped bundle.

  ‘Julie?’ I cried.

  ‘Julie,’ Alan answered.

  ‘Is she—’

  ‘She’s all right, except for being nearly frozen to death. Mrs Bates, can you heat some water, please? We’re going to need lots of warm compresses.’

  The next hour or so passed in a blur. John brought in enough wood for several fires and kindled one, first, in the Aga, and then in all the downstairs fireplaces and Julie’s bedroom. Meanwhile Julie was tucked into bed with lots of blankets, with Rose spooning hot, sweet tea into her a teaspoon at a time.

  When she was finally warm she was left to sleep, with Joyce at her side, and I was able to question Alan in the privacy of our room.

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘In an old shed, or hut of some sort, a couple of miles away. I suppose it must have belonged to a farm on the estate years ago, or maybe it was a shepherd’s hut, but it’s obviously been derelict for a very long time. There was nothing in it but a few rusted pieces of iron, bits of ancient tools, probably.’

  ‘So what on earth was she doing there?’

  ‘Hiding,’ said my husband laconically.

  Julie had, he said, been too cold and confused when they found her to say much. But from the way she had shrunk against the wall of her shelter when they entered, Alan could tell that she saw them as pursuers rather than rescuers. She had, in fact, tried to run from them, but she was too weak to get out of the hut.

  ‘Does she know about Dave?’

  ‘Nobody’s told her.’

  The answer was ambiguous. My eyes met Alan’s. ‘So you think . . .’ I said slowly.

  ‘Love, I don’t think anything yet. Too much has happened too fast. First the body under the tree—’

  ‘Sounds like the title for a mystery novel,’ I interrupted, flippantly. ‘There was one like that, actually, some years back. My Foe Outstretch’d Beneath the Tree. V. C. Clinton-Baddeley.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said my husband patiently. ‘Stolen from William Blake, I believe. Then Harrison after the skeleton – and Upshawe – and now Julie. There has to be a connection, but I’m blest if I can see it.’

  ‘It was the skeleton that started it all. Finding him, I mean. Somebody buried that man and never wanted, or expected, him to be found.’

  ‘And let’s face it, Dorothy. The most logical person to be upset by the man’s premature resurrection is Upshawe.’

  ‘But he was attacked himself! He’s a victim, not the villain.’

  ‘Yes? Or did he simply slip and fall while fighting with Harrison?’

  ‘Alan, none of it makes any sense. Why Harrison, of all people? Just because he’s – he was, I mean – a boor and a thug and all the rest of it? His character, or lack of it, was a good reason to dislike him, to heartily wish him elsewhere, but surely it wasn’t enough reason to kill him.’

  ‘You’d be surprised at how little motive murder sometimes requires. But if you don’t like that scenario, turn it around. Harrison started the fight; Upshawe was defending himself.’

  ‘But why, Alan, why? What could Harrison have against a man he’d barely met?’

  ‘Harrison was drunk, remember. Well, we won’t know that for certain until the autopsy, but it seems a reasonable conclusion, since he was last seen with a full bottle of whiskey in hand.’

  ‘The bottle, Alan! Jim said it wasn’t in their room. You haven’t found it, have you?’

  ‘I’ve been a bit too busy searching for Julie.’

  ‘Oh, I know, and I didn’t mean to sound . . . anyway, if you could find it, it would tell you something about where Dave went, and probably Julie, too. It could be a clue!’

  ‘Yes, Nancy.’ He grinned at me and ruffled my hair.

  ‘OK, make fun. But I’m far too old for Nancy Drew. Jessica, if you must. Now look, my dearest love. We’re cut off from any of your normal resources. No medical examiners, pathologists, crime lab people. All we have to work with is our minds. And— oh, wait! We do have one essential scene-of-crime man.’

  The light dawned for both of us at the same moment. ‘Oh, good grief! Dorothy, I’ve been an idiot. Why didn’t I think sooner – we have a photographer!’

  ‘Yes, and a really, really good one. I don’t suppose he’s trained to do police work, but I’ll bet if you tell him
exactly what you want, he’ll get great pictures. He brought lots of film; he said so. And he’s got a digital camera, too, if necessary.’

  ‘He could be a godsend,’ said Alan fervently. ‘As soon as we’ve had some lunch, I’m going to sic him on the skeleton.’

  ‘And I,’ I said firmly, ‘am going out in search of that bottle.’

  ELEVEN

  Naturally Alan tried to dissuade me. ‘There could be someone very dangerous out there.’

  ‘I thought we agreed it was either Harrison, who is dead, or Upshawe, who is unconscious. The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat, except they didn’t quite eat each other up.’

  It took him a moment to get that one. ‘Ah. The American version of the Kilkenny cats, I presume.’

  ‘Probably. Anyway, I’m in no danger from either of them at this point. And if you’re still worried about me for some obscure reason, I’ll take someone with me. Lynn, maybe. She got me – got us – into this, she can jolly well help out.’

  ‘Your English is coming along, my dear,’ was his only response. I assumed silence meant consent.

  I cornered Lynn while we ate our lunch (a chicken curry, which was superb), and she agreed to go for a walk with me in the afternoon. I didn’t tell her why until we were on our way. Probably everyone in the house was honest. Probably. But on the off chance, I thought it was better not to broadcast my intentions.

  ‘And what do you think it’ll prove if we do find it?’ Lynn asked, reasonably enough.

  ‘Well – where one or both of the Harrisons had been yesterday after they left. Maybe no more than that. But at least the bottle is something tangible, and there isn’t much else about this thing that is.’

  ‘Yes, well, it’s a lovely day for a walk.’ She shivered ostentatiously as she spoke. The sun shone brightly, but the wind, which had picked up a bit again, was freezing.

  ‘Pampered American! I thought you’d lived here long enough to become inured.’

  ‘In London, my dear, not in the country. My walks usually consist of the four yards from my front door to a taxi. I don’t mind walking a little on a beach in high summer, but this, I remind you, is November.’

  I sighed. ‘And tomorrow is Bonfire Night. I was so looking forward to the fireworks, but I don’t suppose they’ll have them now.’

  ‘I don’t think they can, even if they wanted to. They were going to have a pyrotechnics expert in, and he’d have brought his own van with a battery and a computer and all, to set off the rockets electronically. No expert, no truck . . . no fireworks.’

  ‘So that’s that. Maybe they’ll burn the guy, anyway. I suppose they have a guy?’

  Lynn laughed. ‘You bet they do! Joyce hinted that it’s a really funny one. They wouldn’t show it to me, though. It’s supposed to be a big secret.’ She sobered. ‘It really is a shame. They invited the whole village to come, you know.’

  ‘The old lord-of-the-manor bit? And would the village have come? If they were stand-offish about the Upshawes, I can’t imagine they’d exactly warm to a couple of genuine foreigners in their midst.’

  ‘I get the impression things have changed quite a lot since the middle of the nineteenth century when the Upshawes were the incomers. I believe the village has lots of non-English living there now. A Pakistani couple run the shop-cum-post-office, I know, because I was in there the first day we came. Not a trace of an Asian accent, either, so they’re probably second- or third-generation. But I don’t think Jim and Joyce are trying to be the village squires. It’s just friendliness. But now nobody can get here. Look, where are we going?’

  I had led Lynn through the walled kitchen garden and out the gate. We could more easily have stepped over the wall; it had collapsed in several places, and the gate hung crazily from one hinge. But to treat the wall thus cavalierly seemed, somehow, to give in to the devastation. So we had edged through the gateway.

  Now we were headed downhill, southward toward the place where Harrison and Upshawe had been found. I shrugged. ‘They ended up here. They might have gone this way. It wouldn’t have been as dark as heading north, for one thing, or as hazardous. This part is mostly open meadow, with no trees to block the starlight or lie in one’s path.’

  ‘I can’t figure why they left at all, any of them,’ said Lynn. ‘The Horrible Harrisons must have understood they couldn’t get very far. Jim made it plain enough. And Upshawe didn’t seem to have any reason to be out here at all.’

  ‘The Harrisons are, I think – were – I don’t know what the right tense is – anyway, I don’t think logic is a big part of their make-up. They were furious and wanted to get away; therefore they left. Maybe they thought they could ford the river down that way, or something.’ I retied my headscarf; it was much too windy for any hat. ‘Upshawe is a harder one to figure out. Alan thinks maybe he went after the Harrisons for some reason, and ended up pushing Dave into the river. But he can’t come up with any compelling motive, or any motive at all, really. And neither can I.’

  We fought the wind all the way down to the ‘bottom of the loop’, as Upshawe had described it, and stood, awestruck.

  It was impossible here even to guess that there was a separation between the east and west arms of the river. An angry yellow torrent rushed past us, carrying tree limbs with it. As we watched, one limb snagged on something, rotated wildly in the current, and then broke free and sped on downstream. The wind tossed up waves, giving the illusion of rapids.

  The river was still rising. Ripples spread closer and closer to us, drowning here a patch of coarse grass, there a clump of dead weeds. ‘Those dead branches will have dammed up somewhere downstream,’ Lynn said, shouting above the noise of the wind. ‘The flood is going to get worse.’

  I nodded. ‘We’d better get back. I think Alan wanted Ed to take some pictures, and I’ll bet the footprints on the riverbank would be something he’d want. And they’ll be gone soon.’

  We hurried up the hill, moving as fast as my new knees would take me, our quest for the liquor bottle forgotten. It had always been a silly idea, anyway. As Lynn had suggested, finding it wouldn’t tell us anything relevant.

  But we did find something. As we neared the house, we passed a clump of gorse, that thorny shrub that is so beautifully yellow in an English spring. Low, sturdy and compact, and somewhat protected by a stone bench, it had escaped the devastation of the storm. It wouldn’t have many blossoms left now, but—

  ‘Look, there’s still one little gold flower clinging here,’ I said, charmed. I reached out a hand to it and then pulled back.

  ‘What’s the matter, stuck by a thorn?’

  ‘No. Look. It isn’t a flower.

  Hanging from an inch of broken chain that had caught on a thorn, a small gold cross shone brightly in the hard wintry sun.

  ‘Alan needs to see this. And look at the way the wind is tugging at it. It could blow away any time. Lynn, could you find him and bring him here? And Ed should come, too, to take pictures.’

  I thought I would freeze into an ice statue before Lynn returned with the two men. ‘They were taking pictures of the skeleton,’ she said, panting. ‘I ran all the way. Is it still there?’

  I had protected the cross as well as I could without touching it. Alan and Ed approached and looked it over, and Ed pulled out his digital camera. ‘Because,’ Alan explained to me, ‘we’ll need to show this around, to see if anyone recognizes it, and we won’t be able to get prints from the film shots for a while.’

  ‘Won’t be too long,’ said Ed, busy all the time shooting. ‘I brought chemicals with me; didn’t know if the village would have a photo lab. Not many places do, nowadays. And I wanted to see prints of the house pictures before I left, to make sure they turned out.’ He guffawed at that, and I joined him. I wondered just how many decades it had been since one of Ed’s pictures hadn’t ‘turned out’.

  ‘Any closet can be a darkroom,’ Ed went on. ‘I even brought a safelight. Don’t know for sure how well that’s gonna work, with
no electric. These OK, do you think?’

  He handed his camera to Alan and showed him how to page through the images.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Alan. ‘We’ll show these to everyone as soon as possible. Meanwhile, though, we’d better go down to the river and see if any of the footprints are still above water. Dorothy, take this up to the house and seal it in an envelope for me, will you?’ He pulled the cross free, using his pen, and put it in my gloved hands. ‘Handle it as little as possible, and don’t touch it with your bare hands. I want to keep this very safe until we can identify it as someone’s property.’

  ‘It’ll probably turn out to be Joyce’s, lost months ago,’ I said crossly to Lynn as I walked on up to the house. I was cold, and my knees hurt.

  ‘You don’t really think so,’ said Lynn calmly. ‘It’s as shiny as the day it was made. It hasn’t been out in the weather for more than a day or two.’

  ‘Gold—’ I began.

  ‘Even gold gets dirty.’

  It was, thank God, tea time when we got to the house. I would have headed straight for the kitchen, the fire, and some boiling-hot tea, had not Lynn reminded me. ‘You need to seal that up, don’t forget.’

  In martyrly fashion I detoured to the library, where I found an envelope in a drawer, dropped the little gold ornament in, sealed it, and stuffed it in the pocket of my slacks.

  Our ranks were sadly depleted around the tea table. With two of our number confined to their beds and two out documenting the scenes of various crimes – and one beyond the need for sustenance – we were only eight. I was glad to see that the vicar had joined us.

  ‘How are your patients, Mr Leatherbury?’ I asked when I had one cup of hot tea inside me and had poured myself another.

  ‘Mrs Harrison is feeling much better,’ he said. ‘There was, I think, nothing much wrong there except exposure, and she was found before any permanent damage had been done. That is, I’m not a doctor, but her skin seems healthy, and she has no fever.’