The Winter Ground

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Well, that’s wonderful news,’ I replied. The unkind impulse had passed and I really was pleased, for her sake. As far as I had been able to gather, Albert Wilson had not heretofore been much given to sloping off whenever he could, as normal husbands do, but if he were to begin then Ina would surely be the better for it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ina. ‘With Robin Laurie.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘he certainly does seem to have taken you up, doesn’t he?’

  Ina gave a tight smile and said nothing.

  Refusing to be distracted any longer, even by such an absorbing mystery as this, I took my leave of her and squared my shoulders; I was about to conduct the interview which might bring me to the end of this rather peculiar case and I was not looking forward to it.

  I had, the day before, had a gentle, probing little chat with Topsy in her wagon. She had been propped up in a tiny tub-like armchair near her stove with buttered muslin on her poor hands and a cup of hot broth at her elbow. Andrew was there when I arrived and left with some reluctance, unfolding himself out of the wagon like a dragonfly emerging from its nymph.

  ‘He is a good friend to you,’ I remarked once I thought he would be out of earshot.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ said Topsy. She looked rather uncomfortable as she admitted it. Then she roused herself and smiled. ‘A good friend, like you say. We’re all good friends at Cooke’s, missus – Zoya’s gone to town to buy paraffin bandage for me and Lally Wolf’s gone along to make her get boracic lint instead.’

  ‘Golly,’ I said. ‘Your hands might be soothed but you won’t be able to breathe in here for fumes.’

  Topsy giggled.

  ‘Good friends for sure,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to listen to Ma too close, you know. She’s like a mother to us all and a kinder heart you couldn’t wish for, but she gets run away with her stories and her “funny feelings”. That rope was an accident, must have been.’

  ‘What sort of accident?’ I said.

  ‘Tent men must have put the wrong one up at the build-up somehow,’ she said.

  ‘But wouldn’t you have checked?’ I said. I could not imagine climbing a rope without checking the knots and examining every inch of it for fraying.

  ‘No need,’ said Topsy. ‘Tent men know their job and I got my own.’

  ‘Are the two ropes kept in the same place?’ I said. ‘That seems rather reckless.’

  ‘No, no, they’re not. But it must be that.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you have noticed?’ I said. ‘Haven’t you practised already since you got here and done a … one of those … I don’t know what you call what you did at the end.’

  ‘A rolling drop,’ said Topsy, and she screwed up her face. ‘I’ve been trying to remember and if I had to bet my wages I’d have said I did. But I can’t have, can I?’

  ‘You have a very sweet nature, my dear,’ I said, ‘but in this instance I think it is leading you astray. Haven’t you even con sidered the possibility that …’ I hesitated. ‘… someone changed the rope?’

  ‘No one would,’ said Topsy. She looked away from me. ‘I know I had that daft idea about Ted – Tiny, you know – but just for a minute and only because I was so rattled.’

  ‘I didn’t mean Tiny, particularly,’ I said.

  ‘If one of the tent men needed a rope for something,’ said Topsy, ‘he’d use a spare, or he’d ask the boss if there wasn’t no spare would do. No one would ever take mine. I keep my swings and rings in my prop box, but that corde lisse is up all the time and it moves with the tent rig. The tent men look after it. Tiny’s long rope stays with the clowns’ rig. The tent men would never go near it. And anyway, Pa has asked them already and they didn’t.’

  I was beginning to find her lack of suspicion exasperating.

  ‘And the damage to Tiny’s rope?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Must be some kind of mishap.’

  ‘Quite a string of mishaps,’ I said. ‘I found your swing.’ I thought my voice was laden with portent, but Topsy did not notice it.

  ‘Well, there’s some good news anyway,’ she said. ‘Where was it I had put it in the end?’

  ‘It was stuffed into one of the store-cupboards in the Prebrezhenskys’ living wagon,’ I told her. Her smile faltered slightly. ‘And one of the ropes was cut halfway through.’ Her smile disappeared completely now.

  ‘Cut?’ she said. ‘Not frayed? Cut?’

  ‘There was no mistaking it. Just like the other one. I did mean to tell you about it, but thought it could wait until after the rehearsal. I can only ask you to forgive me.’ I closed my eyes and shuddered. I am not one of those who relishes clucking over what might have happened when nothing has, but this had been such a very near miss that I could not quite banish the thought yet.

  Topsy got up from her chair and stepped over to the little window in the side of the wagon. She did not move the lace curtain aside but stood behind it, looking out at the rest of the camp, slowly letting her gaze travel all around.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who would want to harm you?’ I asked. It seemed a mere formality to me as it would to anyone who had seen the rehearsal, seen the way Ana looked at her and heard the words she spat out like venom. Topsy swung round and stared at me.

  ‘No,’ she said, but it was more as though she were forbidding me to ask than as though she were answering. ‘You don’t understand,’ she went on. ‘No one would do that.’

  ‘Someone has,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Nobody circus would ever do such a thing.’

  ‘Nobody circus,’ I said. ‘But what about someone else? Can you not think of someone else who might be angry enough to want to hurt you?’

  ‘Who?’ said Topsy, looking bewildered. ‘There’s nobody here.’

  ‘There are jossers in Cooke’s as well as the rest of you,’ I explained, but Topsy’s puzzled look dissolved and she only grinned at me.

  ‘You’re not speaking your own language, sure you’re not,’ she said. ‘Jossers is circus, or getting there, just not proper circus. I meant flatties, roughs. There’s nobody here except the folk at the house and they don’t even know me.’

  ‘Well, at least tell me when you last saw the swing in one piece,’ I said. ‘And let me start narrowing it down.’

  Shortly afterwards I had left, bidding her to be careful and getting the cheerful response that with no hands worth the name she hardly had scope to be otherwise. Outside, I shivered again, but this time it was only from the cold. The blink of winter sun had gone behind the pine trees already and a penetrating chill was seeping up from the ground as the light faded. I wondered where Bunty was and whether I should be able to persuade her to return to Gilverton with me that evening. Then I squared my shoulders, strode up to Ana’s wagon and rapped on the door.

  There was no answer from inside, but Charlie Cooke’s head appeared from his own window across the way.

  ‘She’s gone for a walk,’ he called over to me. ‘Keeping out of Tam’s way.’

  I should, if I were any kind of detective at all, have been thwarted by this, but in fact a flood of relief washed over me. From what I had seen of her so far, she was a most imposing individual and I could not quash the idea that if she were beyond Mrs Cooke’s powers of scolding and charming, she would make mincemeat of me.

  ‘Are you feeling better, Mr Cooke?’ I said, spurred on to friendliness by the good news of my reprieve.

  ‘Me?’ he said. ‘Nowt wrong with me.’

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you were very upset at what happened earlier.’

  Charlie gave me a long speculative look before he answered.

  ‘I was upset,’ he said. ‘Course I was. I’m sore fond of that little lass and I wouldn’t see a hair harmed on her head.’

  ‘How do you suppose it happened?’ I asked him. This time the silence was even longer.

  ‘I don’t like what you’re hinting at,’ he said at last.

  The next silence was all my doin
g. I had merely been passing the time of day. Was it possible that I had stumbled over something solid underfoot?

  ‘I wasn’t hinting at anything,’ I told him. ‘I know you were very shocked. I mean, you were so surprised that you stayed in your seat while everyone else rushed forw—’

  ‘You’ve no business speaking to me that way,’ he said, talking over me.

  I was now more convinced than ever that there was something amiss here. I drew myself up.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Cooke,’ I said, ‘but I most certainly do. Your brother was very clear on that point.’

  ‘My brother!’ said Charlie Cooke, almost spitting. ‘My brother isn’t the Great Panjandrum he thinks he is, missus. I could have you off this ground before you can blink.’ Then, his face thunderous, he withdrew into his wagon and slammed the window shut behind him.

  He seemed very sure of himself, but I had heard enough already about the fearsome power of the rum coll to feel rather confident myself that he was wrong. For, I told myself, if circuses are full of family connections then family must abide by the hierarchy or no one would. Well, when I returned the next morning I should find out if I were the honoured guest still or were to be sent packing. I would, though, leave Bunty at home for once. I told myself this was because an inglorious departure was slightly less so when there was no large spotty dog whining to stay, but it was more honest, perhaps, to say that I felt Bunty deserved a long boring day at home to remind her where her loyalties should lie.

  I need not have worried. When Ina and I went our separate ways the next day, Ma Cooke waved to both of us alike and Pa Cooke and his horse-whip were nowhere to be seen. Nor was there any sign of Charlie. I took a deep breath, climbed the stairs to Anastasia’s wagon and knocked once again.

  ‘Enter,’ she called from inside and so, feeling a little like a parlour maid, I did.

  ‘This is insupportable,’ she said when she saw who it was. ‘I have nothing to say to you.’

  She was still in bed, wrapped in a blanket and with a moth-eaten kind of tippet around her shoulders and drawn up over her neck. The wagon was chilly, with fogged windows and even a bloom of condensation on the paintwork here and there, and it made me begin to lose patience with her. She had at least three friends at Cooke’s that I knew of so far: Charlie, always ready to champion her; Ma desperate to help; and Tiny, like a self-appointed little jester at her elbow. Besides, ponies – like rabbits and white mice and Lord knows goldfish – simply do die. I could not see that there was any reason for her to be in such a monumental sulk with the world at large and certainly there was no call for her to be scowling so at me. On the other hand, might Charlie’s frequent leaps to her defence be designed to annoy his brother? And perhaps only professional stubbornness made Tiny Truman work so hard to make her smile at him. As for Mrs Cooke’s affectionate concern, Topsy had said she was a mother to all; there was no particular glory for Anastasia in it. With my spanking hand itching a little I forced myself to be gentle.

  ‘I hope you’re feeling better,’ I began, sinking my chin down into my fur collar and bunching handfuls of pocket lining into my fists to warm them. ‘What happened yesterday was a great shock to everyone.’

  She nodded rather reluctantly.

  ‘A very nasty accident,’ I went on. ‘Very unsettling.’

  ‘It was not an accident,’ said Anastasia. ‘It was a warning.’ She was staring straight ahead, her face a blank.

  ‘A warning?’ I echoed. Was this a confession? She shrugged. ‘And what has Topsy done that she deserves such a warning?’

  Now she turned to face me at last and frowned.

  ‘Good God,’ she said, ‘you don’t think it was me? Has someone said it was me?’ If her astonishment was an act, then it was a splendid one. Before I could think how to continue, two great fat tears surged up in her eyes and spilled on to the tippet. ‘Is that what they are saying? Haven’t I suffered enough? Exile, loneliness and grief. Being treated as though I am a nothing and having to sink lower than I can bear simply to keep a roof over my head and to have a name I do not fear to speak? And now to be accused of such cold-heartedness …’

  ‘Umm,’ I said. ‘No one has accused you of anything … dear. Only how do you know it was a warning?’ The tears were falling quite freely now. ‘And I certainly would not call you cold-hearted. Anyone could see how upset you were yesterday. But what do you know about it? If you can help me, tell me what you know.’

  She caught her lip in her teeth and managed to stop crying with a shuddering sigh.

  ‘Of course I was upset,’ she said. ‘I think that it was done purely to upset me. It is I who is being warned.’

  ‘Well,’ I countered, ‘I should imagine Topsy was part of it.’

  ‘Poor Topsy was just the pawn,’ she replied, and she turned to look out of the window, although she could surely only see a patch of milky sky. ‘If they have found me. I think they have. They are everywhere. And so, once again, it begins.’

  She sounded, I thought, not so much an unhappy girl as a girl who was absolutely (as my sons would have it) barking mad.

  ‘Who is this?’ I asked, carefully.

  ‘Before I answer,’ she said, ‘who are you? I must be careful. Trust is a luxury I cannot afford.’

  Now, I try, always, to be professional when on a case, to set aside the norms of society and care only about the questions and answers, the suspects and clues, but at that moment I could feel something rearing up inside me and I was powerless to stop it. I was sitting in a damp, chilly hovel of a caravan – and Ana’s living quarters were squalid indeed compared with the Cookes’ – being spoken to by a girl not twenty-five years old who worked in a circus, as though I were a girl, a girl behind the glove counter who had lost madam’s order and offered madam cheek.

  ‘Now, look here, Miss … What shall I call you? What is your name?’

  ‘My name is Anastasia,’ she said.

  ‘And your surname?’

  ‘My name is simply Anastasia,’ she repeated. ‘That is best for now.’ I bristled. Even Mrs Cooke with her Russian blood admitted to ‘Polly’.

  ‘Well then, Anastasia,’ I said, ‘I am here to look into some matters which are troubling Mrs Cooke and you are one of them. She is worried about you.’

  ‘She need not be,’ said Anastasia and she smiled to herself. ‘I have no choice. I have only one card left in my hand. I cannot believe that I must play it but … my life has been unbelievable to me for some time now. Mrs Cooke need not worry. She will triumph.’

  ‘I am not entirely sure that I follow you,’ I said. ‘Mrs Cooke’s concern was for your happiness not her own. She thinks you are a talented girl – she called you a star – and she does not want to lose you.’

  Anastasia smiled again. ‘As you say: she does not want to lose me. So it is lucky that her needs and mine march along together. She will help me.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘She will always be there to help you, but you must help yourself too. You could try to be a little more … Well, I noticed that you didn’t seem very pleased with the new act yesterday. You could have been more …’

  ‘You do not know how hard I try,’ said Anastasia. The tears were flowing again.

  ‘I do understand,’ I told her. ‘I know nothing about circus acts and even I could see that Reflection by Moonlight is a waste of your talents. It is a hard lesson to have to learn and rather heavy-handed of Mr Cooke to force you into it, but he’s only trying to help you too.’

  Ana, at that, gave a short, dry laugh.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘everyone is only trying to help me. Everyone has wonderful ideas about how to help me. You do not know what help I must take. Just to be safe. Just to survive. But how did it help me when that man took my horse? He told me Bisou was ill and had to be shot, but I know he sold him.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, grasping on to this one little pip of possible sense in the midst of it all. ‘He was your horse? The haute école pony who die
d? He didn’t belong to the Cookes?’

  ‘He was mine,’ she said. ‘I trained him as a child and no one but me ever rode him. Now he is gone, as so much that was mine is gone. But not everything. I am not without value, even brought as low as I am. I will purchase my protection, though the cost is to rip my heart out of my breast and lay it upon the altar.’

  I stared at her, thinking hard. I was half convinced there was a name for what I was hearing, something which had been bandied around in the newspapers of late. Hugh had probably tutted and read out passages about it in withering tones. And stealing Pa’s whip to pay him back for the death of her pony fitted all too neatly into it. No wonder Mrs Cooke was anxious about her, and one could hardly blame Mr Cooke if he did feel his circus would be in calmer waters without her, talent or no. Even her denial of guilt in the matter of the rope began to lose a little of its weight when set against the fact that she sounded just as sincere talking absolute fantastical rot about nothing at all.

  There was only one person I could think of who might have a different view of the unfortunate girl. After leaving her – still in bed, still under the blankets (and I felt the spirit of Nanny Palmer move within me; it was after eleven on a sunny morning) and with the temperature in her wagon dropping all the time as the stove grew cold – I sought another audience with Tiny, who certainly knew something. Ma Cooke had said so and I agreed with her. I had no more than that one look of his to go on, but it had been quite a look.

  He was sitting peeling onions on the steps of his wagon, with the door shut behind him, and he gave a cheery wave of his knife as I approached him and winked one of his streaming eyes.

  ‘You must be frozen,’ I said, remembering what he had said about the merits of nice warm mud and the hard frost which had now descended.

  ‘Two ticks, Mrs Gilver,’ he said, ‘and we’ll get away inside, only I’ve just got me stove going strong and didn’t want to let the heat out, only I can’t stand t’smell of onions hanging round all day either, so here I am. Poor Cinders!’ He pulled a tragic face at me and, although I had never peeled an onion in my life, I was tempted to take the knife from him and pitch in to help.