by William Shaw
‘When is your husband coming back?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘When we came here the first time, do you know if your husband contacted Bill Milkwood immediately after we’d been?’
‘I have no idea. Have you finished? I’ve had enough now. Can you leave?’
‘He did, didn’t he? What did he say to Bill Milkwood? Was he concerned that I’d been here?’
She went to the door and opened it. ‘I’ve wasted enough time.’
‘What frightened him, Mrs Fletchet?’
‘You will leave now,’ she said. She pushed Breen out of the door into the hallway.
Helen followed them. ‘Your husband. Have there been many women?’
Mrs Fletchet glared. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’
‘What about in 1964?’ said Helen. ‘Do you know who he was sleeping with in 1964?’
‘Helen,’ interrupted Breen.
‘What?’ And she looked at Breen, head slightly cocked, challenging him to stop her. Careful Breen.
Breen met her eye. ‘Nothing. Go ahead,’ he said.
Mrs Fletchet said, ‘I don’t like you being here and I don’t like your questions. I shall report you.’
Helen said, ‘In 1964, he was sleeping with my sister. She was sixteen. Did you know that?’
Mrs Fletchet didn’t flinch. She simply looked Helen in the eye. ‘Well, she must have been a bit of a whore, then.’
Breen wondered if Helen would try and hit her, but she just stood there, glaring at Mrs Fletchet, who strode to the front door and opened it.
‘Why do you put up with it? All the women?’ said Helen.
‘Get out,’ she said, not looking them in the eye.
She pushed the big front door shut behind them.
They stood on the doorstep. They could sense Mrs Fletchet on the other side of the door, listening for the sound of them departing.
‘What a cow,’ said Helen, loudly enough to be heard.
They drove back towards the farm more slowly than they’d come.
‘What if he killed Alex because he was scared of her finding out?’ she said. ‘What if Milkwood was covering up for him all that time? All that alibi thing was concocted?’
She paused at a crossroads.
‘It adds up, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘And then he’d be worried that Milkwood would spill the beans, so he killed him.’
‘Why torture him?’
‘I don’t know. Because he’s a sadist? Because he wants to throw the police off the scent?’
‘The trouble is there’s no way of proving it. And if they’ve arrested someone for Mikwood’s death that investigation is at a dead end. If he goes to ground in Kenya, there’s no way we can get at him.’
She accelerated, filling the road behind with black exhaust smoke.
Breen walked up the steep lane towards the farm gate.
Hibou was working on the hedge in the top field. Breen checked his watch. He had a few minutes before the bus. He worked his way across the grass, careful not to put his shoes into any dung.
Hibou moved slowly along the hedge, hacking at loose branches and saplings that had grown too tall. He watched her for a while. Her moves were confident and strong.
She turned, smiled at him. ‘You off?’
‘Just going into town. I need some clothes.’ A lie. He wanted to go somewhere to use a phone that would be out of earshot of the Tozers. ‘Do you want anything?’
‘Does Helen hate me?’ said Hibou, holding the billhook in the air, ready to strike.
‘No. I think she’s just having a hard time. And she’s thinking a lot about what happened to her sister. She’s not normally like this, I promise. Is it true you have a boyfriend?’
Hibou blushed, just as she had at dinner. ‘No. I wish everyone would shut up about it.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I’m not going out with anyone, OK?’
‘Just pulling your leg,’ said Breen.
Hibou started hacking at a sapling, bringing the hook down diagonally onto the stem, half cutting it through. She knocked the stem sideways, down into the mass of the hedge. She looked like she’d been doing it all her life.
Breen said, ‘Helen just gets worried. Her sister had a boyfriend she didn’t tell anyone about.’
Hibou turned, billhook in the air. ‘Helen thinks she owns me. Just because she helped me get off drugs.’
‘She means well.’
‘Does she?’
Whack: into the hedge went the hook.
‘Yes. She really does.’
‘I know. Tell you what, if you really want to do something for me, can you go and get me a postal order for eight and six?’
She put the hook down, handle up, and leaned on the head of it. ‘I’m joining the Biodynamic Agricultural Association. I know you think all that’s rubbish, but old man Tozer doesn’t.’
‘Doesn’t he?’
She shook her head, smiled.
‘No. He listens when I talk about it, at least. Unlike Helen. She thinks she’s so clever.’
Old man Tozer would do anything she asked. She was his second chance.
‘What the hell’s that noise?’ asked Carmichael.
‘Sheep.’
‘What?’
It was market day in Newton Abbot.
‘Fletchet has gone,’ he said.
‘Gone where?’
‘To Africa. I can’t stop thinking it may be him. That the first investigation fumbled it.’
‘Why? Because he has gone?’
‘He slept with Alexandra. His wife was jealous. Maybe Milkwood was blackmailing him. I don’t know. He was acting so suspiciously when I saw him at Pratt’s. And now he’s disappeared.’
‘I thought you said he had an alibi.’
‘He did. But maybe it was all a cover-up by Milkwood.’
‘It would have had to be a pretty elaborate cover-up.’
Sheep crowded around the phone box, driven by old men in caps and worn jackets. They held their arms out, shouting strange words. To Breen it looked tribal.
‘No, there’s been nothing this end,’ said Carmichael. ‘Since they arrested someone for Milkwood’s murder it’s been quiet.’
‘Whoever really did it is going to get away with it, John,’ Breen shouted above the noise.
‘I can’t hear you,’ said Carmichael.
Breen put the phone down and waited in the telephone box until the tide of animals passed on down the street, towards waiting lorries.
Pushing the door open, he picked his way through small piles of droppings, fresh and shiny on the tarmac.
‘Did you get my postal order?’
Hibou, spooning down stew and dumplings at the dining table.
Breen said, ‘In my coat. I’ll fetch it.’
He didn’t mind putting off eating Mrs Tozer’s stew. The liquid in the pot was covered by a thick layer of animal grease. He returned with the envelope and handed it to Hibou across the table.
‘What’s the postal order for?’ said Helen.
‘I’m joining the Biodynamic Agricultural Association.’
Helen rolled her eyes.
‘Leave her alone,’ said her father. ‘At least she’s interested in farming. Like your sister was.’
‘She was never. Alex hated farming.’
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘First chance she got, she was going to leave this place. She told me a million times.’
Mrs Tozer tutted. ‘Don’t talk about your sister like that.’
Hibou looked down at the envelope, trying not to meet anybody’s eye.
‘Fine,’ said Helen. ‘Whatever you say.’
Before, they never even used to talk about Alexandra.
‘Well, it’s about time I said it,’ said Mr Tozer. ‘I’m going to fill in the dip in the spinney. Always meant to do it.’
Helen put down her knife and fork. ‘You can’t do that,’ she said.
‘You can’t,’ said Helen again. She looked pale.
Mrs Tozer said quietly, ‘It’s five years now. We’ve got to move on.’
‘What if I don’t want to?’
They ate in silence for a minute. Across the table, Hibou opened the envelope and pulled out two sheets of printed paper.
‘They’re pretty, aren’t they?’
One for five shillings. One for three and six. Delicately engraved patterns to discourage forgers. Breen looked down at the postal orders too.
‘Give me them,’ he said, reaching out his hand.
‘They’re mine,’ protested Hibou.
Breen stretched across the table and took them from her, staring at them. He hadn’t looked twice when he bought them at the post office in town. Now he was frowning at them.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Helen.
Breen looked at one, then the other, and back again.
‘Paddy?’ said Helen.
‘Nothing,’ he said, and handed them back.
As he dug at a bit of beef floating in his stew, Breen was conscious of people around the table looking at each other, raising their eyebrows.
‘What exactly is biodynamic farming, anyway?’ he asked, to change the subject.
Hibou said, ‘It’s about harmonising the life forces within the farm.’
There was silence.
‘It’s sort of about going back to the old ways,’ said Mrs Tozer.
‘Mum!’ said Helen. ‘Don’t say she’s got you involved in this mumbo-jumbo as well as Dad.’
‘It’s not mumbo-jumbo!’ shouted Hibou, turning red.
‘Load of superstious crap,’ said Helen.
‘Don’t you get it, Hel? They’re using DDT everywhere. That kills everything. The same chemicals they’re pouring onto the Viet Cong, they’re persuading us to buy for our farms. They’re putting chickens in big sheds to get eggs cheap. Listen to what people are saying. They’re saying how these chickens are pecking each other to death. Everything is out of balance. In a few years there won’t be farms any more, there will just be factories. People think nature is there to be exploited.’
‘That doesn’t stop putting a load of old bones in a field and planting by the moon being a load of bollocks,’ said Helen.
‘I don’t bloody care what you think,’ said Hibou.
‘We’ll have no language in this house, my dear,’ said Mrs Tozer.
There was silence for a second and then Helen said, ‘And by the way. I’m going to have a bloody baby.’
This time the silence was even deeper.
Eventually her father said, ‘What? You’re expecting?’
‘You heard what I said,’ said Helen.
The rest of the supper was pauses and embarrassment.
‘Is it Paddy’s?’ said Hibou.
Helen glared at her.
‘Would anyone like more cabbage? No? Save a space for tinned peaches,’ said Helen’s mother, as if nothing had happened.
Helen’s father muttered something.
‘I think it’s great, don’t you?’ said Hibou. Nobody answered her.
Mr Tozer pushed away his wife’s hand when she tried to ladle more food onto his plate. ‘I’m not hungry!’ he shouted, then slammed down his knife and fork on his plate. Hibou looked shocked.
Helen held out her hand towards her father, but he didn’t take it. Breen had the sense Helen’s mother was glaring at him, as if this was all his fault, but didn’t turn to look.
They ate tinned peaches with custard for pudding. Left on the cooker too long, the custard had a hard film of skin on the top.
As soon as supper was over Breen excused himself, glad to be away from the family. Nobody was talking. He went to his bedroom and started flicking through his notebooks until he found the copy he’d made of the note he had found among Milkwood’s drawerful of pornography.
The lists of numbers and letters. The numbers were postal orders.
And from there, he realised that the letters in the left-hand column were the months. N, D, J: November, December, January.
They were monthly payments by postal order, and, assuming they’d been paid this year, the last one had been made not long before Milkwood’s death. Why had he made them? Who had he made them to? And why had he hidden them in his drawer?
There was a knock on his door. It was Helen.
‘It’s like the whole house has gone bloody nuts.’
‘You can talk. You picked your moment to tell your family the news.’
‘I couldn’t help it. She’s driving me mad with all that muck-and-magic guff. I can’t believe Dad has fallen for it.’
‘You’re jealous it’s her who’s brought your dad back, not you.’
‘Oh, shut up.’ She sat on his bed, laid back against the wall and lit a cigarette. ‘You’re right, though. I gave up everything to come back here and look after my dad. But I needn’t have bothered, need I?’
She kicked off her shoes and they clattered onto the ancient boards.
‘You should be pleased he’s working again.’
‘Course I am,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t bring Hibou down here so they could bloody forget about Alex. That’s what they’re doing. It’s like she’s replacing her. Erasing her. They’re bloody bulldozing over where her body was.’
‘You brought her down here to try and help her. It’s worked. She’s happy here.’
‘Well, I’m not bloody pleased. I’m pregnant.’
He shuffled next to her, back against the wall too. ‘Do you think they’re happy about the baby, though?’
‘Mum says I have to bring it up here.’ For the first time, Breen realised she was crying. Her cheeks shone. ‘I’m never going to get away from this bloody farm. I’m going to be buried here alongside Hibou’s bloody cow horns.’
Breen reached out and put his left arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him. They sat there for a while, together.
‘What’s that you’re looking at?’ she asked. Breen had the notebook open in front of them. ‘They’re postal order numbers. I only just realised when I saw Hibou’s postal order.’
‘What are?’
He explained how he’d found the list hidden in a drawer of men’s magazines at Milkwood’s house.
‘Men’s magazines?’
‘Pornographic magazines.’
‘Dirty perv.’
‘They must have been important, mustn’t they? Why would he hide it unless it was important? I was thinking, we could find out when they were cashed. And where. If they were crossed we could find out who cashed them. They’d need to have countersigned the orders.’
‘It’s just clutching at straws, Paddy.’
‘No, look. The last one was in January. So if it’s this year he was issuing these postal orders right up to a few weeks before he died.’
‘Paddy, it could be anything. Maybe he was paying a mistress. Maybe he had a gambling habit.’
‘Come on, Helen. Don’t give up now. I’ve not seen you like this before.’
Helen said, ‘Giving up what? Tell me? I’m so unhappy, Paddy. Everything’s gone wrong. I was going to go and see the world. I was going to be so cool. Now I’m going to be stuck here with a bloody baby. I hate being a bloody girl.’
‘Stop it, Helen. Please.’
‘I can’t bear it any more. Maybe Dad’s right after all. We should just bulldoze over the whole thing and forget Alex. I’m going to live on a farm and raise babies.’
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘I didn’t think you were like that, Helen.’
She pulled away from him. ‘What am I like, Paddy? I’m like a pregnant woman whose life is over.’
He looked
at her and said, ‘When I first met you, I was scared of you.’
She laughed, clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Really? Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Seriously. I didn’t know what to make of you. You were so fierce. So determined.’
She dropped her hand down to her lap and peered at him. ‘Was I?’
‘Remember biting my head off that time in the police station? Mr Popularity Contest, you called me.’
‘Did I say that? God. I’m sorry.’
‘Another day you were so angry with me you just drove off and left me to walk back to the station in the rain.’
She was laughing now. ‘God. It’s true. I really hated you. I thought you were a stuck-up old fogey.’
‘Don’t give up, then. You were amazing.’
‘I was pretty fab, wasn’t I?’ She leaned against him again. ‘I’m just tired, now, Paddy. So fucking tired. I’ve been carrying this thing with Alex around for too long. It wears you down.’
The weight of her head against his shoulder. ‘So don’t stop. Help me…’
She lifted her head away and nodded. ‘OK.’
He leaned over the edge of the bed and picked up the notebook again, showing her the list of numbers. ‘If these are postal orders, I need to find out who cashed them.’
She slid off the bed and knelt on the floor, looking at the page in his notebook on the bed. ‘Long shot, though, isn’t it?’
‘Do you reckon you could get Sergeant Sharman to do it?’
She shrugged. ‘Course I could. I could get him to do most things,’ she said.
Breen shook his head. ‘Will you ask him?’
‘You actually think this has something to do with Alex, don’t you?’ she asked.
‘It may not be. But it’s worth a go, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know why you keep going at this. Nobody else bloody cares.’
‘Yes, they do.’
She exhaled. It was a long breath. As if she was trying to keep hold of that fury. Breen leaned forward to kiss her, but just before his lips met skin, there was another knock on the door.
A cough, then: ‘Mr Breen?’ Helen flinched away. It was her father. The door handle rattled.