by Ann Purser
It seemed odd to have Derek sitting beside her in the car, and Lois was on edge, driving particularly carefully so as not to jolt him too painfully. “Car goin’ all right?” said Derek conversationally as they proceeded at a steady thirty miles an hour on the empty road between Tresham and Long Farnden.
“Yep…why? Can you hear something wrong in the engine?” Lois had an instant picture of them stranded without help, and Derek suddenly bleeding profusely and unexpectedly, and she not able to do anything about it.
“Just wondered what had happened to my speedy wife,” he said mildly.
Lois relaxed, and put her foot firmly on the accelerator. “It’s not easy, you know,” she said. “You’ve been really poorly, and now you’re my responsibility. Bound to be a bit nervous for a bit.”
“Don’t you worry, me duck,” said Derek. “I shan’t fall to bits. You just be yourself…I don’t want no special treatment.” She was silent, and he added, “I mean to be careful, don’t you worry. Now how’s the kids and Gran? Can’t wait to see them all, and get stuck into some of Gran’s home cookin’.”
As they approached the house, Lois could see the double gates had been shut, and something white was flapping in the wind. The weather had cleared, and the bright sun shone on the boys’ newly washed hair as they sat on the wall, waiting patiently. Lois drove up to the gates, and Derek started to say something, then choked. Across the gates a banner had been attached. ‘WELCOME HOME DAD’ stretched across a long piece of white cloth, the red letters uneven and wobbly.
Once inside the garden, Lois helped Derek out. By the back door stood Gran and Josie, both wearing pinnies of the old-fashioned sort Gran loved. Josie ran round to take Derek’s other arm, and together, in an awkward huddle, the whole family moved into the kitchen. There, on the embroidered heirloom tablecloth, Gran and Josie had set out the best tea any of them had ever seen. The centrepiece was a huge, iced cake, bearing the same message as the banner. They stood in silence for a few seconds, and then Derek, having a hard job to keep control, said, “Thanks. Thanks everybody. And now, Gran, if that kettle’s boiling, I’m dying for a cup of good strong tea – no more of that hospital gnat’s piss for me!”
∨ Terror on Tuesday ∧
Thirty-Eight
Lois knew straight away that the major’s house job would be for her, and for her alone. There would be no one in the house, nor would anyone be likely to return unexpectedly. Lois could arrange to go in herself, at a time to suit herself, and know that she would not be disturbed. She had briefly considered taking Hazel with her, but she was still not quite sure about sharing all she knew with the girl. No, if there were any discoveries to be made, it would be better to be on her own.
Derek had been enthusiastic about Josie joining New Brooms for the holidays, and this morning Lois had driven her to Dalling Hall to join Hazel. “Now you be sure to ring me, Hazel, if there any problems, won’t you? Forget that I’m Josie’s mother, and treat her as you would a new member of the team. All right, then, I’ll come and pick you up at the usual time, Josie.”
Hazel said that it would be quite easy for her to drop Josie off in Long Farnden after work, and so Lois left them to it, not quite fully at ease, but confident that as far as professionalism went, Hazel could not be faulted. She would see that the job was completed up to the usual standard, even if it meant doing overtime to make up for Josie’s inexperience.
The morning was then free, and Lois went back home to keep Derek company. He was sure to be bored, sitting reading the newspaper and going for a stroll round the village. This was Sunday stuff for Derek. And even on Sundays he spent a large part of the day up at his allotment or in the garden. She walked into the house and was immediately aware of a loud banging coming from upstairs. “Mum?” she shouted.
Derek’s voice came down the stairs: “Gone to the shop to get some bread.”
Lois frowned. “Then what are you doing up there?” she shouted.
“Nothing,” said Derek defensively. Lois started up the wide staircase, and he appeared in front of her, hammer in hand.
“What on earth…?” Lois could not believe it. He had on his working clothes, and held a couple of long nails in the side of his mouth, a habit she had long discouraged but without success.
Now he took them out, and said, “I’m being very careful, Lois. Just fixing that loose board in the bathroom. No effort involved. Just a few taps, and it’s done.”
“But…” Lois paused. She was sure the doctor would not approve, but what could she do? She couldn’t be here every minute of the day, and in any case, it might be good for him to feel useful. She had wondered how he would manage being a convalescent, a man who was normally for ever on the move, fixing and mending. Now she knew.
“Are you sure that’s all?” she said. “Not thinking of putting in a new bath, or maybe rewiring the entire house before dinner?”
He shook his head. “I’ll put the tools away, and then you can make us all a nice cup of coffee, and we’ll sit in the front room and read the newspaper and talk.”
“Mmm,” muttered Lois. “Go on, then. And if you’re not going to be sensible, I shall have to give up work and be your minder.”
That word was a nasty reminder of the day when Derek had nearly been taken away from them for good, and she took his hand. “You won’t be daft, will you,” she said. “Just take it slowly, and then you’ll be back at work in no time.”
Half an hour later, coffee drunk and the sports pages thoroughly gone over, Derek stood up. “I think I’ll walk up to the allotment and see if there’s anybody about,” he said. Gran, the traitor, said, “That’s a good idea, boy, the fresh air will do you good.”
Lois sighed. “Oh well, then, I might as well go over to Waltonby and have a quick look at the major’s house. Might even make a start, depending on what state it’s in.”
She had told Derek and Gran about this new job, and they’d been interested. Derek had also been a bit concerned. “They’ve never found the bloke who did it, have they?” he said. “Better be a bit careful, Lois. You never know who might be lurking. You’ll be taking someone with you?” She had not mentioned that she intended to go on her own, and did not answer.
♦
Lois drove down the main street in Waltonby, and passed the school. The children were out to play, and she could see the suited figure of Mr Betts talking to a woman, both holding mugs. Playground duty. She used to do it herself as a volunteer, when the kids were small. But their school in Tresham had been a chilly place, overshadowed by big industrial buildings and with large numbers of children milling about. Certainly no time to stand in the sun and drink coffee and chat to another adult. She’d needed her wits about her then. And eyes in the back of her head.
She pulled up in front of Bridie’s semi, and parked the car in the lay-by that served the two houses. She was so used to walking up Bridie’s garden path that she nearly opened the wrong gate. No good calling on Bridie, anyway. She was off on jobs in Ringford and wouldn’t be back until that afternoon.
The major’s gate stood ajar, and Lois pushed her way up to the front door, through long grass and weeds rapidly talcing over the path. She hesitated. Would it be a good idea to look around outside first? She started off again, round the corner of the house and through a narrow passage. It was difficult to open the rickety gate across the passage, the latch being rusty and crooked. A shed opposite the back door was locked, and the dirty window had been blacked out by something dark hanging inside. Behind the house, the garden was a wilderness. It must have been like this in the major’s time, Lois thought, and remembered looking over from Bridie’s and seeing a neglected patch. Dick had often complained that the nettles and ground elder came through the fence and invaded his own immaculate garden.
She looked at the keys on the ring the estate agents had given her. Three keys. Front and back doors, and what else? The shed? She tried it, but it was no good. Oh well, might as well go into the house. The key
to the back door turned easily, and she stepped inside the kitchen.
The smell was the first thing that struck her. It was overwhelming, and disgusting, and seemed to be coming from a cupboard next to the sink. Holding her nose, she opened the door and was nearly sick. A rat lay on its side, swollen, covered in maggots, and very dead indeed. Poisoned, she supposed. Last time she had seen a rat, it had been in Long Farnden vicarage when she was cleaning for that poor Peter White, and it had been a powdery skeleton, ancient and just about tolerable. This one was horrific.
Even so, Lois, she told herself, you have to deal with it. “We can tackle anything,” she would say cheerfully to potential clients. Now’s the test, my girl. She looked around and found a bundle of old newspapers by the bin. Pulling on rubber gloves, she knelt down with brush and dustpan and eased the rotting object forward. She gagged, recovered, and continued the dreadful task. Finally she had it wrapped in several layers of newspaper and took it out into the garden. It would be no good putting it in the wheelie-bin, since that would not be emptied until a new owner moved in. Bury it. That was the only solution, but she needed a spade. She tried the shed door once more, shoving hard with her shoulder. This time it moved. It was not locked, after all, and she looked apprehensively inside. Nothing sinister here, and on the wall hung the usual garden implements, including a spade.
“We tackle anything,” she said aloud, and dug down deep into the hard, unyielding soil in the back garden. As she shovelled earth back over the corpse, it did occur to her that the police might be very interested in newly disturbed ground, should they return to have another look. Well, good luck to them! Let them come across the body in question, and see if they had stronger stomachs!
At last she returned to the house and opened all the downstairs windows wide. An absolute giveaway that she was here, she thought, but never mind. Better to be healthy and visible, than safely hidden and infected with whatever it was that people caught from rats.
She walked upstairs, opened doors and looked around. All the furniture was as he’d left it. The agents had said it was easier to sell a furnished house than one with bare boards and patches on the walls where the pictures had been. Even his toothbrushes were still in the tooth mug on the bathroom windowsill. Have to get rid of those, and the rows of bottles and jars. She picked one up. Hair restorer. Another was skin lotion, another a guaranteed mixture for improving eyesight. She looked along the row. Every possible remedy for the ageing male! How pathetic, thought Lois. She turned away and opened the medicine cabinet. Of course, the police would have been through all this, but she was curious. Nothing there except innocent painkillers and lozenges for coughs and colds. Mouthwash and plasters, nail scissors and ear drops. The average contents of the average householder’s medicine cabinet.
But he had not been the average householder, that was certain. Lois left the bathroom and walked down the landing to a door at the back of the house. She tried the handle, but it would not move. Locked? She took the third key on the bunch and fitted it into the lock. It turned smoothly, and she entered another world.
Dozens of Lois Meades greeted her. She stepped back in alarm, until she realized the room was lined with mirrors. Nothing but her own reflection on walls and ceiling. And the room was empty except for various pieces of gym equipment. An exercise bike, a walking-on-the-spot thing. Weights for lifting, stretchers for pulling on, a punchball in one corner. And hundreds of punchballs disappearing into infinity through the mirrors.
Lois shuddered. What kind of man had he been? All she remembered was a smartly-dressed old bloke standing at the bar in the pub chatting up Prue Betts. Chatting up Prue Betts…and Hazel Reading…and, no doubt, Joanne Murphy in Tresham…
She closed the door with relief, locking it carefully. It was strange that the police had locked it up again. Still, maybe they prided themselves on leaving everything as they found it, unless anything had to be taken away. Had they taken anything? Perhaps it was a forlorn hope that she would find any helpful clues of any sort. She opened all the windows upstairs, and went back to get her cleaning things. In her experience, it was easier to work from the top down, and she intended to start on the bathroom. A door into a cupboard under the stairs caught her eye, and she opened it. An ancient Hoover, box of dusters and a broom were neatly stacked away. Any more rats? It was dark in the far corner, where the underside of the stairs met the floor. She took the broom and stretched it along. It seemed to hit something before it reached the end. She jiggled the broom around, and finally got it around the back of what seemed like a heavy box. But the box disintegrated as she pulled it forward, and became a pile of dog-eared, stained magazines.
Oh yes. So this is it, thought Lois, as she leafed through one pornographic picture after another. She felt sick again, and quickly put back the pile. She noticed that several were the same issue. He had customers, then, and who knows how many helpers doing his particularly nasty paper round. One fell from the bottom on to the floor, and she picked it up, glancing at the picture on the cover. Her nausea turned to alarm. A blonde child, simpering, with her thumb in her lipsticked mouth, postured suggestively at the camera. A brief bikini barely covered the immature little body, but the expression in her eyes was frightening. Lois shoved it back into the pile, and put the whole lot where she had found them.
Something new to tell Cowgill, and maybe something important. It was possible there was more stuff hidden that the police had missed. Well, the best thing would be to clean as thoroughly as she knew how, in every nook and cranny, and then she’d come across it, if it was there. She shut the cupboard door, and began to climb the stairs. A sudden slamming door stopped her in her tracks and set her heart thudding. It seemed to come from the kitchen. The back door? There was very little wind, but it could have been the draught made by all those open windows. She froze, and listened. A footstep on the tiled kitchen floor, and then another. Hesitant footsteps, but coming towards the hall.
“Who’s that?” shouted Lois loudly, but there was no reply.
∨ Terror on Tuesday ∧
Thirty-Nine
Hazel Reading had dropped Josie off in Long Farnden, and called in to make sure Gran was there and that everything was going smoothly with Derek. She was expecting to find Lois. “Gone over to Waltonby,” said Derek. “You’ll probably meet her. She was going to that house where the galloping major lived. The house agents want it cleaned ready for sale.”
“I could have done that,” said Hazel, surprised. “It’s right next door to me. Me and Mum could have gone through like a dose of salts. Mind you, it would’ve been first time in there. He never invited the neighbours in for a drink!”
“Perhaps Lois thought you’d got enough to do,” said Gran placatingly. Privately, she agreed with Hazel. It was obvious. Still, no doubt Lois had her reasons, and it was Gran’s job to back her up. “She’ll explain, I expect,” she said, as Hazel left, still puzzled.
As she pulled up outside her house, she saw Lois’s car. She was still there, then. There was another vehicle, too. An old taxi, with lettering badly painted over. She looked at it curiously, not recognizing it as a regular in the village. Before she opened her car door, someone began to get out of it. Hazel recognized the figure at once. A burly, bald-headed man, with shoulders like a bull. She tumbled out of her car as quickly as possible, and began to walk towards him. His eyes were on the major’s house, and she almost reached him before he turned and saw her. “Bloody hell!” he said, “Not you again!” He wrenched open the taxi door, crashed into the driving seat and started the engine with a dreadful rasp. Then he was away, his foot down hard to achieve only a modest exit, and disappeared.
Hazel thought of following him, but decided her priority was to check on Lois. Had the Gorilla just arrived, or was he making a second check on whatever he had found? She pushed her way up to the major’s door, noticed the open windows and knew that Lois was still there, dead or alive. She stepped carefully through the kitchen, avoiding slimy pat
ches, and then stopped. She was more or less sure that that was Lois’s voice. But if the Gorilla had been around, maybe J. Murphy was still on the scene. She waited in silence, and then Lois clumped down the stairs and saw her.
“Hazel! For God’s sake, why didn’t you answer?”
“Not sure it was you, Mrs M.” Hazel hesitated. Should she tell Lois about the Gorilla, or would it alarm her unnecessarily? No, Lois had to know, in order to watch her back from now on. Since the unsavoury pair had apparently disappeared from the area, she sensed Lois had relaxed. Well, they were back, and now was clearly not the time to be off guard.
“Oh Lord…are you sure it was him?” Lois sat down heavily on the stairs.
“Certain,” said Hazel. “Though how he knew you were here, I can’t think. I didn’t know, and I can’t see him calling on Gran and Derek.”
“Damn and blast,” said Lois fervently. “I’d given up watching out for them. Thanks, love, for scaring him off.”
Hazel suggested she should fetch a cup of tea for them both from next door, and then they could decide what to do. She did not ask Lois any questions, thinking that answers would probably emerge in a chat. “Better lock the door behind me,” she said, “and shut the ground-floor windows. You never know.”
When she returned, Lois had cleared a space in the scruffy sitting room, and they sat down gingerly on rickety chairs. “You’d never think he lived like a pig in shit, not from seeing him all dressed up at the pub, would you?” said Hazel, looking round. “Have you made a start? Need a hand? I don’t have to be at Mrs Jordan’s until this afternoon.”
Lois thought for a minute and drank her tea slowly. “Well,” she said, seeing the mug shaking in her hand, “perhaps it would be a good idea if we do an hour or so together. Break the back of it. Then I can do the rest myself. You’re pretty stretched at the moment.” They chatted about the need to employ more staff and Lois sounded out Hazel about the future.