Farewell, My Cuckoo

by Marty Wingate

  “Selfish git.” The voice across from me slurred her words. “Lout. Brute.”

  “Pammy?” I yelped in astonishment.

  “I won’t let you two ruin my marriage,” Noel said.

  “No,” Pammy replied, “you’re doing a proper job of that all on your own.”

  No wonder Pammy hadn’t answered her phone. But how in the world did she get here?

  “You killed Bob because he knew,” I gasped, tugging against the tape to test the strength of Noel’s wrapping. It was quite secure. I twisted as I spoke, trying to get a sense of our surroundings, and noticed another horizontal shaft of light high on the wall above Pammy. The dust of the ages settled on me, and I sneezed before saying, “You bashed in his skull.”

  “I didn’t want to do that,” Noel argued. “It was his own fault—putting his nose in where it didn’t belong. My family was none of his business.”

  “You were deceiving your wife and your children. And you were found out.”

  “I never wanted to bring them to this bloody place, but I couldn’t think of a reason not to come. I’m soft that way—I’d do anything for my family.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re Father of the Year, you are,” Pammy spat.

  “What was he doing lurking about, spying on people?” Noel jeered. “We thought it was only the two of us, that no one else was near. But he saw us and he just laughed and said, ‘Good day for it.’ I didn’t think anything of it until our Sunday family outing. Tommy insisted this spot would be perfect, and the kids caught the idea from her, and I told myself surely that old tramp had gone off and would be wandering the countryside far, far away.”

  “He wasn’t a tramp,” I snapped. “He was an intelligent man who cared about nature. He was a citizen scientist, studying plants and animals and—”

  “Couldn’t he have done that in Norfolk?” Noel shouted. “But no. I show up with my family, and here he is, just as he’d been when…They all thought he was brilliant, but he made a wrong move, taking me down to the brook and telling me he knew what I was up to. Asking me was I being fair to my wife, and how was I going to make this right. He threatened me, pure and simple!” Noel’s voice echoed in the dead space.

  “Threatened your sweet setup, you mean,” Pammy said. “I can’t believe we’re forced to listen to this load of codswallop.”

  “Well, then,” Noel said, “I’ll just leave you to yourselves.”

  “Why did you meet him at the pond?” I asked in a rush. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I could make out the space now. I saw Pammy across from me—slumped against the wall, her hands, too, wrapped and tied to an iron ring. The room appeared empty. I didn’t like Noel being there, yet what would happen when he left?

  He grew still. “The family loved this spot and had determined before we’d even left that day they wanted to return the next week. Another fine Sunday,” he said bitterly. “I couldn’t talk them out of it, not without saying why. And I just knew when we returned, he would be here. And he would tell Tommy. I couldn’t let him do that—I had to convince him not to do it. So, I drove out early the day before—on the Saturday—and came here and waited for him to appear. I didn’t know where he stayed or if he was sleeping rough, but it was all I knew to do. Hours—I waited hours. There was no one about. Until at last, here he came, out from behind those bushes at the top of the stairs, as if he owned the place.”

  “If you planned to kill him, why didn’t you do it here?” Pammy asked.

  “I didn’t plan to kill him—I only wanted to make sure he moved along, was well out of the way when I came back with Tommy and our children. But he wouldn’t talk to me—of all things, he said he had a wedding to attend, and he’d meet me over by the churchyard later. Giving me orders—and there was nothing I could do, because all at once a great load of ramblers came out of the field, acted surprised to see the place, and settled down for a picnic. Bloody walkers,” he spat. “I tried to follow him, but he took off across the fields on a bicycle, and so I thought, fine with you, I’ll see you at the churchyard.”

  “Reverend Eccles said he saw Bob outside the church that afternoon,” I said. “I think he wanted to get a glimpse of Lottie, and he hoped she would be at Vesta and Akash’s wedding.”

  “Poor sausage,” Pammy said in a mournful tone.

  “I saw him among the gravestones. I tried to reason with him, but he only talked about lichen and orchids and linnets—and then he walked away, out toward the pond. I followed him. I had this big stick in my hand—a broken piece of a limb I’d picked up along the way.” Noel looked down at his empty hand. “I only wanted to stop him.”

  He didn’t have the branch in his hand now, but I could well imagine he could find another. I shuddered. “There are witnesses, you know. Not us—other people saw you. Other people saw Bob. What will you do about them?”

  In the dim light, Noel looked from one of us to the other. He shook his head. “No, it’s you two that are the problem. You”—he pointed at Pammy—“stopping and asking directions on that Saturday, and you”—he stabbed his finger at me—“you filmed me.”

  “I what? Are you mad?”

  “You brought Tommy out here. You deceived her into thinking you were looking at birds. You held your phone up and filmed me. Yesterday—here—you and Tommy. You were trying to catch me out, weren’t you?”

  It took a moment before I knew what he was talking about. “Filming you? The world doesn’t revolve around you, Noel—I was recording the call of a cuckoo.” But had I caught him in my video? Would police find my phone and see it?

  “A cuckoo?” Pammy asked. “Do you have one that lives nearby?”

  “People know we’re here,” I said to Noel in my best TIC manager voice. “Including the police—you do know that DI Callow has her entire team out searching the estate for you. And for us. We’re expected—in fact, we’re late.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Noel said. “No one knows you’re here.”

  “I happened to be at a nearby farm before I stopped here. This will be the first place they’ll think of to look for me. And Pammy.”

  “That’s a lie, and you don’t even do it well,” he snapped. “To be convincing, you need to set up the same pattern, you see. If you’re mostly found where you said you would be, then it doesn’t matter when you aren’t—no one will check, because they’ll believe you are.”

  I blinked at his nonsense. “Are you giving lessons on how to cheat on your wife?”

  “You have to think,” he continued. “Ask yourself ‘Where should I be?’ ”

  That gave me pause. I should be at the cottage by now—Michael had probably arrived. Wouldn’t he wonder where I was, and would he try to contact me? My phone—lost somewhere outside—would ring and I wouldn’t answer, just as Pammy hadn’t answered Gavin. And no one knew I had stopped at the abbey ruins.

  “You’ll stay here,” Noel said, as if settling an argument. “You’ll stay until I sort out what to do with you two. No one comes to this place. And if they did, who would hear you? You sit tight.”

  He walked out. The metal door creaked closed, echoing in the darkness, and I heard metal against metal as he slid a bar across, followed by the snick of a lock and the twirl of a dial. We were alone.

  Chapter 34

  The combination lock was a bit of overkill, I thought—as if we could break free and try an escape. I yanked at my duct-tape shackles.

  “We’ll be here forever, won’t we?” Pammy asked. For the first time, the anger had leaked out of her voice. It quavered.

  “They’ll find us,” I insisted.

  “Who? How? He’s right—no one comes here.”

  “People do come to visit the abbey ruins. Just not that many of them.” What time was it? Probably seven o’clock by now. “If not this evening, then tomorrow. Saturday is always busy on the estat
e.”

  I strained my ears, but heard nothing, only the silence of the centuries. The air smelled of cold earth and dusty stone, and I could quite imagine the ghost of a monk floating by. I shivered.

  “How did he catch you?” Pammy asked after a moment.

  “I’m not a trout,” I said. Pammy laughed, and that made me feel better. I explained about the tin and what I’d figured out. “I came here to have a shufti, as they say—look round for where Bob might’ve set up house. And I remembered Tommy saying Bob thought Noel had been here before. And he had. At the moment I realized it, Noel grabbed me. How about you?”

  “A wrong turn,” she answered glumly. “I was in the cottage, and it was about four o’clock, and I thought I’d nip out and give Gwen the news of my job.”

  “And Helen. And the chemist. They’re all quite happy for you.”

  “Yeah, well. On my way back to the cottage, I saw Noel driving up the high street. What’s he still doing here, I thought. Isn’t he in trouble? Shouldn’t someone find out where he’s going? And before I could think anything else, I got in my car and followed him. It was exciting at first—like a car chase, you know, only slower, because of the traffic. He drove straight out of the village, and turned in to the lane, and so, I did, too—but there were no other cars about, and I looked obvious. When he drove past the car park here and pulled in behind some bushes, I kept going a bit further, before I did the same.”

  “You should’ve phoned Tess immediately.”

  “I thought I should find out what he was doing—make sure it was worth phoning the police. I crept out and sneaked up to a pile of stones, but before I made it any farther he appeared from nowhere and grabbed me. I got loose, but I fell and hit my head, and I got all woozy and he dragged me here.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No—although I tried my best to hurt him. I might’ve got a good kick in, I don’t know. Mind you,” she added, “I’ve a right lump on my head. And I don’t have my bag—he must’ve taken it.”

  “Maybe it’s out there. That’s what I heard when I called you—I heard your phone ringing from somewhere nearby.”

  “We’re completely cut off,” Pammy whimpered.

  “I talked to Gavin just before Noel got me—he’s been trying to reach you.”

  She sniffed. “He thinks I’ve stood him up, doesn’t he?”

  “Not quite. He’s still slaving away at the pub.”

  Pammy clicked her tongue. “He works too hard, that one.”

  There’s a comment I never thought I’d hear about Gavin Lecky.

  We were silent. I tugged again at my restraints, but the tape round my wrists was so tight I couldn’t bend my fingers down close enough to pick at it. I tried to get hold of it with my teeth—could I gnaw my way out?—but succeeded only in biting the back of my hand.

  I sighed heavily and shifted my bottom on the stone floor, thankful that I was sitting, although I could feel the cold seeping through my skirt. I stared at the shaft of light, trying to gauge the time of day. I’d never noticed these thin ground-level windows from the outside, but my exploration of the abbey ruins had been cursory at best. Occasionally, students would come out from the University of East Anglia to admire the piles of stones and the low vaulted ceiling of the undercroft, but no one had ever made a fuss over underground rooms. Perhaps those slits had been ventilation and a bit of daylight for the monks and their supplies. Over time, the soil might’ve been pushed up against the outer walls, and when the hollies and blackthorns grew, their roots held the soil in place against the opening. The windows could be bigger than they looked from the outside—trouble was, who would even notice them now?

  Panic began to overtake me, and I inhaled deep, even gulps of the dank air to refocus. Had Bob slept in this chamber? I peered into the dark corners, looking for signs of habitation.

  “Does Tess suspect it’s Noel, do you think?” Pammy asked at last.

  “Tess suspects everyone,” I replied. “She’ll zero in on Noel in no time, if she hasn’t already. He’s not long for freedom.”

  “What if he doesn’t tell them we’re here?”

  “They’ll find us.”

  “Maybe, but how long will it take them? Days? Weeks?” She sobbed. “It isn’t going to be pretty, is it—the end?”

  “Pammy! Don’t be so dramatic.” I spoke with more force than I needed, but I had to convince myself, too. “The problem is, this entire case was all about the abbey ruins, but we were distracted because Bob was found at the pond near the church. You’d think if he was going to tell Willow anything, it would’ve been about Noel and the abbey.”

  “He? You mean Bob? Are you saying Bob talks to Willow?”

  “I’m saying nothing of the kind. It’s just that Willow gets…feelings.”

  “Right, well,” Pammy said, sounding considerably brighter, “then won’t she have a feeling about us?”

  “She did about you,” I said. “When I stopped at Lottie’s shop after work, she asked me if you were alone. And then I got all these texts from people asking where you were.” How odd—had Bob sent out the spirit version of a police BOLO—“Be On the LookOut for”? We could only hope.

  “Must be nice to live in a village like this,” Pammy remarked. “Where you all keep an eye on each other.”

  “Yes.” I sighed.

  In the ensuing quiet, I found myself growing sleepy. I rested my head against the wall—it was cool and dry—and closed my eyes. Were the police looking for us? Was Michael driving round the estate searching for my car? Wouldn’t they question everyone? How long would that take? No one knew Pammy had driven off after Noel, and no one knew that after I left Guy Pockett’s farm, I came to the ruins. But eventually they would surely piece it together. And they would think to search the grounds.

  The thin shaft of light went out.

  “What happened?” Pammy cried.

  “Nothing happened,” I said. “The sun must’ve gone down behind the trees, that’s all.”

  “Night—we’ll be in the pitch black for hours and hours.” Pammy’s voice trembled. “Oh, Julia, what do I do if I need to have a wee?”

  I shivered as I realized Pammy was right—this night would seem forever.

  “You do what you have to,” I said.

  * * *

  —

  No stars, no moon, no sound—nothingness.

  Disturbing images floated through my mind. I stood with Michael in the sunny back garden at our Pipit Cottage as he protected me from a cuckoo the size of an elephant. I sat perched on the corner of my dad’s desk as he explained I had an endangered lichen growing on my face, and he would now use me as an example of biodiversity. I was seven and playing upstairs with Bee on a rainy day, and I heard Mum calling up to say a young fellow named Bob Brightbill had moved into the beech hedge along the drive. And next, I was living in the darkness of a badger’s sett, and I heard the animal digging his way in.

  “What’s that?”

  I woke with a jerk, breathing hard and staring into the dark.

  “Pammy?”

  “What is that?” Pammy asked again, her voice shaking.

  “Did you hear something?” I asked.

  “No…it’s…” I heard her thrashing, and the iron ring she had been lashed to squeaked in resistance. “I think something’s crawling on me. A spider—yes, yes, a spider and it’s crawling up my arm!”

  She screamed—high-pitched and at a volume guaranteed to shatter my eardrums. It echoed round the space and went on and on, filling my head until I thought I, too, would scream. I tried to stick my fingers in my ears, but could only manage one at a time, and as I switched back and forth, I rammed my nose against the iron ring and yelled in pain. I felt a tickle on my lip and wiped something away. At last, it was quiet—apart from my ears ringing—but I heard her take a
deep and ragged breath, and I feared the worst.

  “Pammy, don’t, please!”

  It began again, and if I had been in my right mind, I would’ve marveled at her ability to start and end on a note so high and loud and sharp it shredded every nerve in my body.

  “Get it off! Get it off!” she howled, before launching into another inhuman shriek.

  If she kept this up, I would be driven crazy long before we were dead.

  She paused to inhale—and that’s when I heard them. Voices. Or had I gone deaf and was imagining it?

  “Get it off!” Pammy wailed.

  “Listen!” I shot back at her. “Be quiet and listen!”

  She gasped and held her breath. Silence, blessed silence—and in the silence, someone shouted words I could not understand.

  “He’s coming back.” Pammy’s voice was flooded with fear. “He’s coming back to kill us. He’ll use the same branch he used on Bob—he’ll bash our skulls in and then he’ll burn it and there’ll be no evidence and—”

  I opened my mouth to comfort her, but my throat constricted as I heard noises outside the door.

  “Pammy!”

  But that voice came from above. We listened—I, for one, afraid to believe what was happening.

  Dirt sifted down from the thin horizontal slit high up on the wall as the soil was dug away like a badger digs a sett. I watched as the opening grew and behind it lights flashed across the darkness. I could see movement.

  “Pammy?” Gavin yelled again.

  “Julia?” Michael called.

  “Yes!” we screamed. “We’re here!” I could see two heads with halos of bright lights behind them.

  The door rattled, and Pammy squealed.

  “It’s the police,” Gavin shouted. “I’m coming down.”

  He disappeared. Michael’s face filled the gap—I recognized the outline of his hair, always a bit shaggy.

  “Julia! Are you all right?”