by Cathy Ace
‘Mavis? Is that you?’ Mavis spotted Althea Twyst walking up the incline that led from the lower copse to the Dower House. Standing atop the ha-ha that prevented the animals that had once grazed the rolling landscape from gaining access to any of the human-only buildings, she waved to her friend below.
Mavis could see Althea instructing McFli to run toward her, which he happily did. She waited with McFli who raced around her in delighted circles, pleased to have captured his quarry. Eventually Althea reached Mavis and the pair continued their walk to the Dower House together. McFli ran ahead of them, then scurried back to herd them along.
‘Any news?’ asked Althea, seemingly keen to hear from her friend what had been decided at the WISE Enquiries Agency meeting.
‘Aye. We’ll do it. Though Christine is off to London today for a memorial event she cannot miss, so it’ll be mainly just me, Annie and Carol working on this one. Annie and Carol went off to the village in the car. Carol will enquire about Aubrey Morris among the women gathered at the market hall, and Annie’s been sent to the Lamb and Flag to talk to Tudor Evans about the missing man. As for me? Well, I’m here to talk to you about him. I’m guessing there’s a lot you can tell me, so what about a nice pot of tea and a wee natter?’
‘Are you going to “grill me”?’ asked Althea looking excited.
Mavis looked down into the elderly woman’s face – not something she could do very often, given that Mavis herself was only just five feet in height. She had to admit that being with Althea made her feel quite tall and youthful. Strange but welcome feelings. ‘Althea, you know very well I’m not going to “grill you”. Have you been talking to Annie? She’s wont to speak that way sometimes. If we left it to her we’d all wear belted mackintoshes and fedora hats pulled down over our eyes. She reads entirely the wrong type of books and watches worrying films. If she refers to me as a “dame” one more time, I might not be responsible for my actions. And we won’t be hunting for clues, either. We’ll approach this case as we do all our cases – professionally. Understand? No sleuthing for you. We’re happy that you like to help with cases, but you must realize you are not a legal member of the agency. Agreed?’
Althea sighed and nodded. Mavis hoped the petulant look on her face meant she understood the ground rules, and she was glad to see Althea cheer up as they entered the spacious, portrait-bedecked hallway of the Dower House where McFli’s excitement gained the attention of Althea’s aide, Lindsey Newbury, who promised a tea tray in the morning room within ten minutes.
Finally settled in front of the roaring fireplace, Althea sipped her tea as Mavis pulled out her notebook, hooked her hair behind her ears and addressed her housemate/landlady quite seriously.
‘As I told you, Althea, we’ll be charging for our time on this matter, so I want to be professional and economical with our efforts. I hope, my dear, that you’ll forgive me if I am blunt.’
‘I always do,’ answered Althea with a smile and a twinkle that Mavis didn’t miss.
‘Thank you, you’re very gracious, Your Grace,’ quipped Mavis. ‘So – to work. Could you please begin by telling me everything you know about Aubrey Morris?’
‘How far back do you want me to go?’ asked Althea.
‘How far back can you go?’
‘To his grandparents.’
Mavis paused. ‘Let’s begin with Aubrey as a man – your knowledge of him, your impressions of him. Then we can work back if we need to.’
Althea nodded and patted her leg, encouraging McFli to snuggle at her feet, where he lay quietly, his head on his paws, his amber eyes reflecting the flames in the hearth. ‘I believe Aubrey’s about twenty-five, by now, and I believe he’s reliable and hardworking. I have never heard anyone say otherwise. He was a boy, and is now a man, who keeps his own company and prefers books to people.’
‘Books? That might not be a bad thing.’
‘Very amusing, dear. You know what I mean. Aubrey read a good deal, and I don’t think he favored romance novels. It is merely an aspect of his personality I happen to know about, which is why I mention it. He is a regular at church, a gifted musician – I know he plays for the Morris, but he’s also a lovely singer – and he comes from a long line of Morrises in the area, who go back for many generations. Not quite as far as we Twysts, but not far short. A few hundred years, maybe. But you said to speak of him as he is now, and I’m afraid that’s all I really know.’
‘Girls?’
‘Not that I am aware of. He was never habitually in the company of anyone I can recall. Which doesn’t mean he didn’t have a girlfriend, or girlfriends. However, I do know that, since the death of his father, he has grown his handyman business far beyond the confines of Anwen-by-Wye. I believe newcomers to the area like the idea of a handyman with a heritage, and, of course, they have the money to pay for more works to be carried out on their properties. They might be newer buildings, but they seem to need even more upkeep than something as old as this place.’
Mavis thought for a moment about challenging Althea’s certainty on this point; she was pretty sure the dowager had no real insight into the amount of work done by Ian Cottesloe in and around the Dower House to keep it functioning in all respects, but it seemed churlish to point that out.
‘So, he’s local, he’s quiet, he likes books and is generally thought of as reliable,’ observed Mavis, her eyes narrowing as she added, ‘so why would he take himself off when he’d made arrangements to help represent the Anwen Morris at Chellingworth Hall last evening?’
Althea shook her head, and reached to rub behind McFli’s ear. Mavis had noticed she did this when she herself needed reassuring, rather than the dog having shown any signs of wanting to be acknowledged. Mavis judged Althea to be worried.
‘I don’t know,’ said the dowager quietly. ‘It’s most peculiar.’
‘You said you knew the family right back to his grandparents?’ Mavis wondered if she could find out something useful with a different approach.
Althea pulled her hand away from McFli, who looked quite disappointed. She picked up her cup. ‘His grandmother. She bred Border collies, I bred Jack Russells. We moved in similar dog-breeding circles. Must be forty years ago, maybe more. Nice woman. Quiet. Intelligent. You have to be with collies. They know, you know.’ She winked at McFli. ‘You all know, don’t you?’ McFli nuzzled his nose with his paws in agreement. ‘She started the breeding to make some extra money and turned out to be good at it. Good lines, she had, and she made the most of them. An excellent, natural puppy trainer.’
‘Why did she need extra money?’
‘Ah yes, the farm. Aubrey’s grandfather was one of two brothers. The younger of the two. Of course all the land goes to the eldest around here, so he’d always known, growing up, that his elder brother would get the farm and he’d have to make his own way. But the great grandfather died young. Some sort of accident with farm equipment. I’m not sure about that. But I do know Aubrey’s grandfather had to make a living for himself a lot earlier in life than he’d expected. Aubrey’s grandparents only had one child, Aubrey’s father. I don’t think she could have more. Aubrey’s father married young and they had Aubrey very quickly. Gossips counted only six months between the wedding and the birth. The child could have been early, of course, but I don’t think so. Aubrey’s mother was never a strong girl. She went when Aubrey was about three years old. Just him and his father since then, and he shuffled off this mortal coil about five years ago.’
‘It sounds like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel,’ said Mavis.
Althea smiled. ‘I suppose it does. But it’s really just Welsh country life in the twentieth century. You don’t have to go back to the 1890s to see life on the small scale, just look around the village. And the estate. Traditions hold fast. Time is allowed to pass us by as we choose. We grasp only at those parts of it we want. The 1890s or the 1990s – it’s all much the same around here.’
‘I cannae agree with that, Althea. The children in
the village sit at home and watch the telly the same as children all around the world do. They’ll grow up using keyboards, not slates. They’ll understand the world in a way that we never will.’
‘Louis Armstrong singing in your ear, my dear? It is indeed a wonderful world, and they might very well know much more than we ever will – but here, in Chellingworth and in Anwen, all those external influences will be filtered through Welsh mothers who carry their children on their hip, not in some wildly expensive sling that they hump around in front of themselves. Fathers will toil in the fields, will work the hours the animals and the crops demand in all weathers, and will be there for lambing quicker than they’ll be wanting to see their own children born. It’s the way around here.’
‘Och, come now, Althea, don’t be such a Luddite. Social media means the young people hereabouts are in contact with others like themselves all around the world,’ said Mavis tartly. ‘Just because they live in Anwen-by-Wye, young people, and even people like Aubrey Morris, do not live in a bubble of time set aside from the rest of the world. Ach! Now there’s an idea!’
Althea grinned at her friend. ‘You’ve had a thought, haven’t you?’
Mavis scribbled excitedly in her pad. ‘If only we could get into Aubrey’s house we could see if he had any online relationships. If he was quiet and reserved, as you say, that might be more his sort of thing than meeting up with a local girl. He might have found true love half a world away, and simply packed his bags to go to meet his virtual sweetheart. Carol said she couldn’t find anything about him online, but he might have some sort of alias he uses for that type of thing. If only there was a family member who could let us see his home we might be able to discover some useful information, or even if there were to be a neighbor with a key and the right to enter it would be fine.’
Althea appeared to give this matter some serious thought. That was one of the things Mavis liked most about the dowager – she was intelligent enough to know that a new idea might be worth considering. She took Mavis aback when she said. ‘I have a key to his house.’
‘Och, away with you!’
Althea stood up and put her hands on her hips, closing her eyes. McFli also stood, ready to act. ‘Now, let me think. Where did I put it? Aubrey’s grandmother gave it to me, and I’d have put it somewhere safe.’ Mavis watched as the elderly woman pursed and pressed her lips almost as though she were chewing something.
‘You mean you’ve had this key for decades?’
Althea stopped munching and said, ‘I suppose so.’ She moved to the hearth and pulled the bell rope. ‘Maybe Lindsey will know where it is. She’s reorganized so much since she got here. I think it used to be in with my smalls.’
Mavis had been excited to think she might be able to gain access to the missing man’s home, but now she wasn’t so sure. ‘Can you even be sure the key would still work?’
Althea shrugged. ‘They might have broken the lock at some point, I suppose, but why would you change one that worked perfectly well?’
Lindsey Newbury, Althea’s large-limbed, terribly sensible lady’s aide entered the morning room. ‘Can I help, Your Grace?’
‘I had a key. Mortice, not Yale. It was about this big—’ Althea indicated a couple of inches in length – ‘was made of dull iron and had a plain, solid lump of metal at the top. It was on a piece of bright yellow string long enough to hang about one’s neck. Do you know where it might be?’
Mavis’s heart sank. Well, that was that than.
‘Yes, ma’am. It’s in the kitchen with the spare knives. Would you like me to fetch it?’
‘Yes please, my dear. Then Mavis and I will be going into the village. Could you tell Young Ian I’d like him to drive us, please? As quickly as you, and he, can. Thank you.’
‘I’m impressed,’ said Mavis with admiration.
‘I’m amazed,’ laughed Althea.
Not much more than an hour later, Althea, Dowager Duchess of Chellingworth and Mavis MacDonald, retired army nurse and enthusiastic enquiry agent, sat in the back of Althea’s favorite vehicle – a Gilbern Invader estate, which the late duke had given her as a wedding anniversary gift in 1970. Ian drove the vehicle with the respect it was owed as the only car ever manufactured in Wales, and was, as Althea often remarked, a genius at keeping it roadworthy.
As they made their way toward Aubrey Morris’s home Althea ventured, ‘Ian, I wonder if you could tell us anything of use about Aubrey? I am guessing you must have attended the same school as each other?’
‘Yes, Your Grace, I was a couple of years ahead of him. Quiet boy, and a quiet man. Lovely tenor voice, but no interest in football, or rugby, or anything involving activity of any sort, as I recall. Not a slothful boy, but not active, if you know what I mean.’
‘Do you see much of him these days?’ pressed Althea.
‘Other than at church, not really. Like I say, you always know he’s there ’cause he does the harmonies so lovely, and the choir misses him on the Sundays he can’t make it. But, otherwise, no. Tudor’s your best bet.’
‘So you wouldn’t know if he had a girlfriend?’ Althea gave it one last go.
‘I can’t imagine him having the gumption to talk to a girl,’ said Ian tellingly. ‘When I say “quiet” I suppose I mean “shy”.’
‘Thank you, Ian,’ said Althea as she and Mavis shared a knowing glance.
It wasn’t long before the pair stood outside the small stone-built house, set back from the road to Builth Wells, that Aubrey Morris had called home for his entire life. In the car from which they had just alighted sat a nervous young man; Ian Cottesloe was fit, well-built and ready for anything – but he had to do as he was told, and the dowager had told him to wait for them in the car.
‘Your Grace, you might find – anything,’ he’d spluttered, unused to disagreeing with the woman for whom he, his father and his grandfather before him, had worked. As general factotum his duties were wide-ranging, but seemed to not include preventing his mistress from encountering possible danger.
‘There is no vehicle here, and no signs of life at the house. We will be perfectly safe,’ reassured the dowager.
‘Aye, we’ll be fine and dandy,’ winked Mavis as she shut the car door behind her, then whispered, ‘just pop your head around the corner as we go and keep an ear cocked, right, my boy?’
The house was rather rundown. It suggested Aubrey Morris wasn’t interested in doing odd jobs when he returned from his handyman work in the environs. The paint on the Victorian wooden sash windows was a hideous green and peeling badly, the front steps had seen better days and the front door itself had taken many a knock and ding in the hundred or more years it had hung on its rusty hinges. Mavis noted that, nevertheless, the overall structure of the house seemed sound, but she wondered what the inside might be like, if this was the advertisement for his skills Aubrey Morris was happy for the world to see.
‘The front door’s the same as it always was,’ observed Althea. ‘Let’s try the key.’
‘Just to reiterate – you were given that key by the homeowner to be used when and how you saw fit, is that correct, Althea?’
Althea tutted. ‘Yes, it’s correct. And I also happen to own the land upon which the house stands. Or at least Henry does, which is the same thing. It’s as good as my house.’
‘Now come along, you know the law doesn’t see it that way, and I have a license as an enquiry agent to protect. But, since the police don’t think he’s missing, if anyone ever has any cause to ask, let’s agree we’re just checking that he meant to go. Let’s try it.’
The key turned silently in the lock, though the opening of the heavy old door was anything but. It screamed fit to wake the dead.
‘Good heavens, you’d think a handyman would own a can of oil or something,’ said Althea as the two small women entered the gloomy, tiled hallway.
Flicking a switch Mavis said, ‘There. That’s better. I don’t know why they never do that on those TV programs. It would p
revent so many unfortunate situations if they could only see where they were going. Aubrey? Aubrey Morris? Are you here?’
Althea jumped. ‘You might have warned me you were going to shout like that.’
‘Sorry, dear. Best to check.’
A vague suggestion of fried onions hung in the damp air, and the house was not at all warm. Indeed, Mavis fancied it was colder inside it than out. ‘Thanks for getting us in, Althea. Now could you just stay here while I have a quick scout about? Thank you.’
‘I’ll wait in the parlor,’ replied Althea, opening the door of the room to her left as Mavis headed for the back of the house, where she was pretty sure she’d find the kitchen.
Generally speaking the house was tidy, if somewhat sadly filled with shabby old furnishings. As she moved from room to room Mavis could discern no signs of a struggle, nor any sense of the personality of the man who lived there. Every item, every piece of furniture, seemed to be at least fifty years old, some of it much older. All the photographs were faded and displayed in old-fashioned frames. Many showed a bonny baby, then a gradually ageing boy she could see grow into the adult Aubrey. Dust had been moved about a bit, but had settled again, leaving every surface covered with a film of age.
‘I’m off upstairs,’ called Mavis when she was outside the front parlor.
‘Very well, I’ll stay here,’ replied Althea.
Mavis approved of the cleanliness of the bathroom as she checked inside the small medicine cabinet on the wall above the sink. Poor boy must be allergic to something or other, she thought noting the almost empty bottle of over-the-counter antihistamines. The bathroom contained all the accoutrements one might expect a clean-shaven man to use each day – a telling sign – and there was a toothbrush in a glass beside a tube of toothpaste.
The house had two bedrooms – one at the front, and one at the back beside the bathroom. It was clear to Mavis that the back bedroom was Aubrey’s. No more than what would be called in a modern house ‘a box room’, here, at least, was evidence that someone under the age of one hundred lived in the house; the wallpaper was relatively modern – maybe 1990s? – and the bedspread almost matched the curtains, all of which were a sludgy gunmetal color. Masculine? Maybe a single father’s idea of a boy’s taste, or maybe Aubrey’s own?