‘You’re ready to release his body, then?’ I asked in some surprise.
‘There’s no reason not to.’
That was the same sort of response he’d given earlier about the circumstances of Mr Abercrombie’s death. I found it equivocal and worth pursuing. ‘You’re fully satisfied, then, that the man died accidentally?’
‘There were no witnesses, Mrs Martin. In an island this size, if anyone had seen the incident, they would have come forward. We may never know exactly what happened, but yes, we are prepared to release the body to whoever wants to claim it.’ He nodded to Alan and me and went on his way.
‘So that’s that.’ I sounded a little flat, which was how I felt.
‘That’s that,’ said Alan, ‘and we’re not going to let Mr Abercrombie’s unfortunate death ruin our holiday. We didn’t know the man, Dorothy.’
‘He was an American.’
‘One of – what was it, at last count – three hundred million?’
‘Something well over that by now, I expect. Okay, I take your point. I can’t claim kinship with them all.’
‘And wouldn’t want to. The United States of America has its share of felons and racists and petty criminals and plain nasty people, just like any other country. Being American is no guarantee of good character.’
‘But the people at the church liked him.’
‘One of them didn’t,’ Alan reminded me. ‘She had nothing good to say about him.’
‘She had nothing to say, period. Maybe she was just in a bad mood that day.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not being very consistent, am I? The fact is, I’ve got one of those uneasy feelings I can’t quite pin down. The kind of feeling you get when someone is staring at you, and you can’t see them doing it, but you know, somewhere at the back of your neck.’
Alan nodded understanding. ‘And sometimes the feeling is justified, and often not. You know as well as I do, love, that the way to deal with that sort of thing is not to pursue it, but to forget about it.’
I nodded somewhat reluctantly. ‘Like a name you can’t quite remember, or a tune you can’t name. Worrying over it makes it recede further. You’re right, love. We’ll forget about poor Mr Abercrombie unless he comes back to haunt us.’
‘And meanwhile let’s pop in here and see what they might have to augment our lunch.’
The bakery was full of mouth-watering aromas. Fortunately, we’d just eaten a large breakfast and weren’t quite as susceptible as we might have been. Even so, we came away with two large pasties and two strawberry tarts. ‘We’d better do a lot of walking today!’ I muttered. Alan just grinned.
SIX
We stowed our purchases in our room and then went to the information centre. Alan picked up guides to several more walks while I looked over the notices pinned up here and there. This afternoon there was a guided walk around the town, concentrating on the history of the island. That sounded interesting, and not too strenuous, so we signed up for it.
‘I don’t imagine you’ll want to try the Zig-Zag again, will you?’ said the lady at the desk. This time it wasn’t Sylvia, our acquaintance from church, but someone we’d never seen before. She smiled at our surprised looks. ‘You are the couple who found poor Mr Abercrombie yesterday, aren’t you? Word travels, you know. A tall, attractive man with an American wife who wears hats – not all that common a combination. And Sylvia Whiting is a friend of mine. My name’s Eleanor.’
‘Dorothy and Alan – but I guess you already know that. The small community here takes a little getting used to. Alan and I live in Sherebury, which isn’t all that big, really. But the Cathedral and the university provide two more or less self-contained communities, separate from the rest of the population, and the town itself is somewhat spread out. News gets around, but not as fast as here.’
‘Alderney is just like an English village forty or fifty years ago, with all the advantages and disadvantages that go with everybody knowing everybody else. There’s always someone to help in a tight spot, but of course you can’t get by with a thing.’
‘St Mary Mead, in fact.’ I was pleased when she laughed, recognizing the reference. ‘Do you have a resident Miss Marple?’ I went on.
She gave me a quizzical look. ‘Perhaps. Now let’s see what you might like to do this morning.’
‘I thought perhaps this one,’ said Alan, laying a brochure before her. ‘It’s short and not very strenuous.’
‘Yes, and you’d enjoy it, but if you’re going out with Robin this afternoon, you’ll cover a lot of the same territory. I’d suggest this one instead.’ She pulled a brochure from the rack. ‘It’s short and easy and offers some interesting little side paths you can take if you want.’
I looked dubiously at the cover, with the subtitle ‘Southern Cliffs & Wildlife Bunker’. ‘Um … cliffs?’
‘Just the tops of them,’ said Eleanor. ‘No steep climbing. It isn’t as beautiful now as in spring and autumn, but the view from the cliffs is spectacular.’
The visitor centre was getting busy, so we thanked Eleanor and left. ‘We can do one of the others if you’d prefer, love,’ said Alan once we were out in the street. ‘They’re all longer, though.’
‘No, this will be fine. Just let me get my boots and my stick.’
The first part of the walk took us through familiar territory, but we soon found ourselves out of the town proper and heading toward open country. In fact, I pointed overhead. ‘Alan, that’s the plane we came in on. And it’s headed in for a landing.’
‘Yes, the airport is just over there.’
I looked over at the single runway, the small building that comprised the terminal, the miniature planes parked here and there. ‘This whole island reminds me of one of those Christmas villages. You know, the ones people put under Christmas trees or on the mantle. Everything’s there, but to scale. All that’s missing is the little train running round and round.’
‘There’s one of those, too, though it doesn’t go round and round. It’s down near the harbour. We’ll take the ride on Sunday, shall we?’
‘It’s a fairy tale. We’ve got into the pages of a book. Alan, I’m so glad you suggested coming here!’ And then I thought about poor Mr Abercrombie.
Alan saw my face change. ‘Live in the present, Dorothy. You can’t do anything about yesterday, and it’s nothing to do with us.’
‘You’re quite right.’ I looked around. There were no houses nearby, and no other walkers. I grinned at Alan, took a deep breath and launched into ‘The Happy Wanderer’. Alan joined me, and we marched along, getting the words wrong half the time, enjoying ourselves hugely.
We passed a standing stone that reminded me of the ancient ones in Orkney. ‘What’s that?’ I asked Alan.
He consulted the brochure. ‘It’s called the Madonna Stone. It’s been moved from a nearby field, where it was used for a cattle scratching post.’
I chuckled. ‘Whatever that may be. I’m willing to bet it’s ancient and mystical.’
‘Could be.’
We followed the path down a hillside, not a very steep one, and then back up to the top of the cliffs. The view was indeed spectacular. The sun glinted off the waves far below and turned the beaches golden. ‘I wonder what this is like in winter storms?’ I mused.
‘I’ve read about that somewhere. The waves are high enough to crash right across the breakwater, and in fact in 18-something a large part of the breakwater itself was destroyed by a storm. It isn’t always idyllic.’
‘Well, it is today, and we’re not likely to be here in winter, so I guess I’ll stop thinking about it.’
We had reached the spot where a path forked off to a structure called the Wildlife Bunker. It seemed an odd juxtaposition of terms. We walked over to see, Alan reading the brochure as we went.
‘It was built by the Germans as a radio transmission station, but it’s used now as a site for information about the island’s wildlife, also a sort of museum of military history.’
It
would also, I thought, probably provide a place to sit down out of the sun. The air was cool, but the sun was hot, and I thought I was getting a sunburn, even with my hat to protect me.
It was dark inside after the brilliant sunshine. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that we weren’t alone. A woman looking at one of the displays seemed vaguely familiar.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘We met at church yesterday.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘Alice Small. And I’ve forgotten yours, as well.’
‘Dorothy and Alan.’
There was a little silence, the sort of awkward silence when no one can think of much to say. Then, abruptly, Alice said, ‘I heard you singing a little while ago. You sounded happy.’
‘Oh, dear, I didn’t think anyone could hear us. We didn’t intend to disturb anyone.’
‘You didn’t disturb me in the least. I felt like joining you. I’m happier today than I’ve been in a long time.’ She said it defiantly, and somehow not sounding happy at all.
Another awkward silence. A remark like that invites a question like, ‘Oh, why is that?’, but we didn’t know this woman at all really, certainly not well enough for personal questions.
She answered what we hadn’t asked. ‘You’ll be wondering why I said that, and especially to strangers. Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t mind telling you, of all people.’
That seemed to allow a question. ‘Why us, in particular?’
‘You found him. I don’t know if you pushed him off the cliff or not, and I don’t care. The important thing is that he’s dead!’
I remembered, then. This was the woman who had pointedly refused to join in the paean of praise for Mr Abercrombie, the one who had slipped away while everyone else was telling us how wonderful he was.
I stood there with my mouth open. Alan came to my rescue. ‘Alice, we didn’t push him off the cliff. I don’t think anyone did. But it’s obvious you feel strongly about him. You don’t owe us an explanation, but if you want to talk about it, we’re happy to listen.’
Alan said once that a policeman sometimes had to serve as a sort of father confessor, and that unless the subject involved criminal matters he was duty-bound to pass along, he had always found himself as bound to secrecy as a priest in the confessional.
There were chairs. We sat down in them and Alice told her story in a voice frighteningly devoid of emotion.
‘I hated him, and I can’t tell you how happy I am that he’s dead. I didn’t push him off that cliff, but I could have. He killed my sister.’
We waited. She had to tell this her own way.
‘Aleta lived in America. We were twins; that’s why our names are so much alike. We hated it when we were kids. People were always confusing us. We lived in a village in the Cotswolds, and we looked exactly alike, and with almost the same name … well, anyway. Our parents sent us to different schools, because they saw that we needed to establish our own identities. Then we both went to university, and it was there that we met our husbands. They weren’t alike at all. My Robert was from Alderney, and he came back here to teach at the school. I came with him. He died at sea just after our son was born. He was a volunteer with the lifeboat service. That was over twenty years ago.’
She paused to regain her composure, and again Alan and I stayed silent.
‘My sister, she married an American, and they moved to Ohio, a small town called Corinthia. He was – is – a computer technician, and she was a librarian. They never had children, but they were very happy until he came along.’
We didn’t need to ask who she meant.
‘He was the priest at their church. Aleta and Joe both thought a lot of him. He preached good sermons and the congregation grew, and all seemed to be well.’
‘But,’ I said.
‘Yes. There began to be some rumblings. A few of the parishioners began to say that he wasn’t honest. They thought he was actually stealing money from the church. Most people didn’t believe it. Aleta didn’t believe it. She went to talk to him about it, and …’
Alice was very still. It was too dark for me to see the tears I was sure were in her eyes.
‘I don’t know what happened. She would never talk about it, to me or to Joe. I think he threatened Joe in some way. A computer specialist is vulnerable to accusations of hacking or whatever. Joe says he doesn’t know, either. But I think – well, if that man had claimed to know something damaging about Joe, and said he’d reveal it if she said anything more about church funds … anyway, Aleta became more and more depressed, and in the end, she …’ Again she paused.
‘He wouldn’t even bury her. He said suicide was a sin, and he let her be buried from a funeral home, with no proper service.’
I had to swallow hard. This was appalling. I took Alan’s hand and squeezed it hard.
‘So when he turned up here, on this island I’ve loved for so long, this place of peace and refuge …’
‘I can imagine,’ I began.
‘No, you can’t. You can’t begin to imagine how it felt to see him charming everyone here as he did back in America. I very nearly left the church. I couldn’t bear to see what he was doing. I couldn’t even tell anyone; they wouldn’t have believed me. But I can tell you. You’re visitors; you’ll be gone soon. I just wanted you to know why I can’t wait to see him buried, and I’m sorry it will be in consecrated ground. He doesn’t deserve that.’
SEVEN
She slipped out of the bunker before either Alan or I could think of any response to her terrible story, but not before we saw the tears start to course down her cheeks. My mouth was dry; I realized when I tried to stand up that I was trembling.
Alan took my arm without a word and led me back the way we had come. I had no heart to continue our walk, and neither, apparently, did Alan. We didn’t speak. What was there to say?
We had passed, near the beginning of our walk, a pub called the Marais Hall. As we approached it now, Alan said, ‘I think a restorative is in order. Come, love.’
‘I think I’d rather just go back to the room.’
‘Keep me company.’
It wasn’t even eleven in the morning. I had no interest in anything alcoholic, but Alan ordered coffee with brandy, added sugar and told me to drink it down. He seldom gives orders. I drank.
‘Better?’ he said when I’d finished the cup. ‘Want another?’
‘No. I mean, yes, I do feel a little better, but no, I don’t want another. Maybe just plain coffee, though?’
When he came back with it, he gave me a searching look. ‘There’s a little colour back in your face. You have no idea how pale you were.’
‘I felt pale. I felt – Alan, what a perfectly dreadful thing!’
‘Yes, love, but do keep your voice down. There aren’t enough people in here to create privacy. I think we’d better look at the map and pretend to be planning our next little jaunt.’
‘Why?’ I did lower my voice, but I didn’t see the point.
‘You’ve forgotten the size of this community. Anything you say that is of any interest will be all over the island in about fifteen minutes. Now, we’ve still masses of time before we need to think about lunch. What if we walk down to the harbour, trying the way we were going when we got benighted?’
All I wanted to do was go to our room and lie down and try to empty my mind, but I had no resistance. I felt as though all my stiffening had been yanked out, leaving me like the Scarecrow without his straw. I nodded and followed him out the door.
Seen by brilliant daylight, the way we’d taken yesterday looked very different. We walked as quickly as the slope allowed; I don’t know about Alan, but I was trying to leave a horror behind.
‘Alan, stop,’ I said after a long silence. ‘Here’s that little garden. I want to see it properly.’
There was a sign: The Sapper Onions Peace Garden. ‘What does that mean?’ I asked Alan.
‘My dear, I’ve no idea. Odd name. It’s a pretty l
ittle garden, isn’t it?’
It was. There was no touch of the professional about it; rather it looked to be a labour of love. I noted the pictures of plants and animals worked into the low wall surrounding the central flower bed. ‘Those look like children’s work,’ I said.
‘I’d say so. Perhaps this is a project of the school.’
‘Perhaps. It is a peaceful place. I can see why that poor man came here to be alone with his grief.’
‘You’ve decided it was a man?’
I shrugged. ‘No. Manner of speaking.’
The sun began to grow uncomfortably warm in that space enclosed by trees and bushes. I drew a deep breath. ‘Let’s get down to where there’s a sea breeze.’
The road at that point seemed to lead far from where we wanted to go, so we chose a track leading through an area of underbrush and the occasional small tree. It wasn’t hard going, but I was glad for my boots and stick. The place was alive with bees and butterflies, with crickets that hopped suddenly out of our way, with tiny wildflowers lavishing their perfume on the warm air. Almost without my noticing, I began to feel better.
We reached the bottom, coming out onto a road that skirted the sea, but the harbour was nowhere in sight. Alan did one of his magic tricks and decided we needed to turn to the right, and sure enough, a few minutes of walking brought us around a curve, and we could see the breakwater. ‘I know it’s early, love, but I could do with some lunch. How about you?’
‘We’ve lots of food back in the room.’
‘The room is back up at the top of the hill. We can have our pasties for supper.’
The mention of the hill was all it took. I was suddenly ravenous, and my knees were telling me they’d had enough. I let myself be persuaded. Another bit of a walk found us at a promising-looking fish-and-chip shop. Now, I can be as snobbish about food as the next person, but I’ve always loved well-cooked fish and chips, and these were excellent. Plainly the place had a good reputation; even though it was early, there were lots of customers – enough that we could enjoy a private conversation.
Smile and be a Villain Page 4