by Ernesto Lee
Three are middle-aged women and judging by their attire would appear to be domestic staff. Two young men are working in the stables and there is an elderly gentleman tending to the flowerbeds scattered around the property. The last person is dressed in tweeds, walking boots, and a deerstalker hat. If any further clues were needed, the shotgun confirms my suspicion that he is the estate gamekeeper. The last thing I need to be worrying about is a gun-toting gamekeeper, so I am greatly relieved that after collecting something from one of the women at the back door, he drives away in a canvas-covered open-backed Landrover.
Shortly after, another vehicle approaches the house and parks opposite the back door. The legend on the side of the Morris Minor delivery van proudly proclaims William J Tunstall, Purveyor of the Finest Fruit & Veg, Since 1898.
The driver is in his mid to late twenties and is wearing a flat cap and a light brown knee-length smock typical of greengrocers and removals men of the time.
His arrival at the back door is met with an unexpected level of enthusiasm by a young girl smartly dressed in a traditional maid’s uniform. After checking behind her to confirm that they are alone, it soon becomes apparent that fruit and veg is the last thing on either of their minds.
After breaking away from a particularly passionate embrace, the young man throws his cap and smock into the back of his van and leads the girl quickly away in the direction of the stables.
Seizing the opportunity, I sprint across the lawn to retrieve the cap and smock from the van and with two boxes of assorted veg under my arms I brazenly stroll through the back door and ask the cook where I should put them. She is busy preparing a goose for the oven, but when she sees that I am not who she was expecting, she stops and wipes her hands on her apron.
“Where’s Derek today?” she asks. “The last time he took a day off, they messed up the order.”
I shrug my shoulders and tell her that Derek has the flu, but she is already distracted in checking the contents of the boxes.
“Okay, it looks like everything is there. Put them in the pantry at the back of the kitchen. Oh, and keep your sticky fingers to yourself, young man. I know exactly how many pies are on the tray in there. Don’t think I don’t know how you boys like to help yourself.”
I push open the pantry door with my shoulder and place the boxes of veg onto a shelf next to a tray of freshly baked pies. Despite the delicious aroma filling the air, I resist temptation and leave without stuffing one in my pocket.
The cook has resumed plucking the fat goose and when I ask if she would mind me using the bathroom, she points towards the end of the hallway.
“The servants lavvy is at the end of the corridor on the right. Don’t make a mess and don’t touch anything.”
The corridor barely looks any different now to how it does in 2018. Close to the front door, my eyes are drawn to a ceramic vase filled with fresh flowers sitting on a mahogany side table. For a second I picture this same vase smashing on the tiled floor as Eddie bumps into the table in his panic to hide from me and Catherine. Then, sure that I am not being watched, I turn left and silently make my way past the main living room towards the study.
The door to the study is open and another middle-aged woman has her back to me dusting the top of the fireplace. The rest of the ground floor of the house seems to be deserted, so I turn back towards the stairs to check the upper levels. As I reach the top stair, the peace and quiet is shattered by the raised voice of a woman. Just in time, I duck behind a grandfather clock as the door to one of the bedrooms flies open and Joanna storms out followed by Eddie.
“This is not bloody working, you stupid great lump. It’s been nearly a year already. Why do I ever listen to you, Edward Wells?”
Joanna pauses until Eddie gets ahead of her and then shoves him in the back, nearly sending him tumbling headfirst down the stairs.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get outside and get some more. I want this over with today. This has gone on long enough.”
Eddie turns back to face Joanna and conscious that he might be able to see me, I squeeze myself further behind the clock. It’s not me he is worried about, though. Whatever Joanna is referring to, he tells her that it’s the wrong time of the year and that they don’t have anymore. Joanna is having none of it and pokes him hard in the chest.
“Do I have to do everything myself around here? Jenkins is outside tending to the shrubs. I should have married him instead of a useless bloody farmer.”
She grabs Eddie by his arm and pulls him down the stairs. Presumably they have gone to look for the gardener. Realizing that I probably only have a matter of minutes before they return and assuming I might find some answers in this bedroom, I step inside. The curtains are partially closed, but there is a lightly scented candle burning next to the bed.
Not for light, but in a miserable attempt to mask the scent of the dying woman lying in the bed.
I’m no doctor, but even I can see that she should be in hospital. Her face is gaunt and pale, her breathing is heavily labored, and her forehead is covered in a fine coating of perspiration. Even though I am standing right over her, and her eyes are slightly open, there is not even the slightest hint that she knows I am there.
On the side table, there are half a dozen pill bottles. The labels indicate that they are for the treatment, amongst other things, of depression, headaches, lethargy, and loss of appetite. These are hardly scientific diagnoses but what worries me the most is that despite carrying dates from as early as March 1973, the bottles appear to be almost completely full. If I am right and have arrived on the day of Beatrice’s death it would seem that she has not been receiving her prescribed medication.
Next to the pill bottles, there is a water jug and a glass. The glass appears to be empty, but on closer inspection there is a small amount of residue at the bottom. I lift the glass to my nose and breathe in. There is a faint, but slightly unpleasant odor that I don’t recognize. It crosses my mind, that Joanna might have been trying to treat her mother’s condition with a plant-based remedy.
This would make perfect sense in the context of trying to find the gardener. Unfortunately, though, and knowing what I know about Joanna already, my suspicion is that far from treating her with a plant-based concoction, that same concoction has more likely been used to create the condition.
I move to the other side of the room to see what else I can find, but my search is interrupted by the sound of Eddie and Joanna returning. I conceal myself in a wardrobe, leaving one of the thick oak doors slightly ajar so that I can see the bed and hear what is being said. As soon as the bedroom door is closed Joanna verbally attacks Eddie once again, but with even more venom than before.
“You were meant to be keeping an eye on how much we had, you bloody idiot! I told you yesterday to check, or to pick some fresh leaves and seeds. What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
“I did tell you before that foxglove is a summer plant, dear. I told you tha ...”
Joanna strikes Eddie across the face and then pulls him towards her by the collar on his jacket.
“Don’t you ever back chat me again, Edward. I asked you a question, what the hell are we supposed to do now?”
“Um, I could go to one of the garden centers tomorrow,” Eddie nervously replies. “They might have a few plants still.”
“Is that it, is that the best idea you have?” Joanna hisses. “Do you want her to wake up and tell the world what we have done? It’s your fault that she’s not dead yet. You told me that it would only take a few weeks for it to work. You have to do it now. We can’t risk her talking.”
Eddie looks both confused and terrified and when he doesn’t respond, Joanna picks up a cushion and throws it at him.
“Do it now, Edward. Do it now, or you are going to spend the rest of your life in prison.”
He is shaking like a leaf, but I can’t tell whether it is fear of Joanna or fear of spending the rest of his life in prison. Either way he bends over and picks up th
e cushion from where it has landed next to his feet and walks towards the bed.
This is clearly a scenario that they have discussed before and after a final nod from Joanna, he leans over the bed and forces the cushion down onto Beatrice’s face.
The prolonged administration of small doses of foxglove has left Beatrice so weak and disorientated that she barely has the strength to struggle and in less than a minute she is dead. My heart is beating so fast and so hard that I am convinced Eddie and Joanna must be able to hear it. It’s a completely irrational thought and with Beatrice Partington-Brown lying dead in her bed there is absolutely no reason for either of them to even look in my direction.
Joanna leans over the body of her mother and lifts her wrist to check for a pulse to confirm that she is gone. Satisfied that she is dead, Joanna takes the cushion from Eddie’s hand and calmly places it back on the chair where it came from and then claps her hands to get his attention.
“Edward, you need to concentrate. Doctor Clarke is going to come, and you need to tell him that you found her like this. Have you got that? You need to tell him that she was dead when you came to give her, her medicine.”
He nods and tells her that he understands. Joanna tells him to hold out his hands and then she pours out half of the pills from each bottle.
“Get rid of these and then meet me downstairs in the study. Don’t speak to anyone until I tell you to.”
Eddie leaves to go downstairs and through the gap in the door, I watch as Joanna moves carefully around the room tidying up. She picks up a dressing gown from the floor and my heart sinks when she arranges it on a wooden coat hanger and walks towards the wardrobe. Noticing that one of the doors is not fully closed, she momentarily pauses as if she is considering whether she had closed it earlier. There is no possible way for me to hide completely, so rather than waiting for her to open the door, I leap from the wardrobe, push Joanna to one side, and run for the stairs.
My surprise appearance causes Joanna to scream with fright, but she quickly composes herself and as I reach the bottom of the stairs she is out onto the landing calling for Eddie to help. Her screams have also got the attention of the rest of the household and I am met in the corridor by the gardener, an angry-looking cook, and an even more angry-looking delivery driver.
“That’s the fella,” the cook shouts. “He told me he needed to use the bathroom.”
The delivery guy pushes past the cook and the gardener and squares up to me with a rolling pin that he has taken from the kitchen.
“Oy! That’s my coat and hat. What’s your bleeding game, pal?”
Behind me, Eddie has appeared and when I see him loading a shotgun, the choice of which way to go is obvious. I jab my clenched fingers into the veg man’s windpipe and he goes down on the floor like a sack of spuds clutching his neck and gasping for breath. Not wishing to get in my way, the gardener and the cook obligingly step aside to let me pass.
Joanna and Eddie have no intention of letting me get away so easily and why would they? I have just witnessed them smothering Joanna’s mother after overhearing them more or less discussing slow poisoning her with the leaves and seeds from the foxglove plant. They have too much to lose and Joanna urges Eddie to get after me.
He might be an old man now, but in 1974 Eddie is still in his twenties and years of working the farm have left him trim and athletic. As I reach the tree line, he is less than twenty feet behind me when he lets loose with both barrels. A hail of lead pellets whistle past my head but miraculously none hit me. Seemingly safe for a second, I momentarily turn to face my pursuer who is busy fumbling in his jacket pocket for replacement cartridges. Not wishing to wait around to give him a second chance to shoot me, I turn again and run through the woodland towards the road.
Eddie is still following behind, but I am puzzled when I realize that he isn’t running. I slow down my own pace and look back over my shoulder. Eddie is still there and still coming towards me, but he is walking and is almost being cautious about where he steps.
The answer to this puzzle should have been obvious, but I find out the answer too late when my foot presses down on the steel pressure plate. In a split second the tension releases the springs of the man-trap allowing the steel jaws to slam shut on my leg. The pain is instant and excruciating and as I drop to the ground, I can feel my ankle and my shin bones splintering.
Eddie continues to walk towards me in the same careful fashion as I desperately try to free myself. When he reaches me, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he props his shotgun up against a tree and then calmly lights a cigarette. He takes three long puffs before stamping it out on the ground and retrieving his gun.
“The wife doesn’t approve of smoking, so I have to do it in secret. It’s a bit pathetic really, but you saw how she is.”
Then pointing to my leg, he adds.
“Bloody horrible those things, but they do the job. They were used for catching poachers, but they were banned years ago. I knew they would come in handy eventually, though. Poacher or not, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, pal.”
I’m struggling to think through the pain, but I’m determined not to pass out and disappear in front of him. Picking up on the comment about Joanna, I try to appeal to his better nature.
“It is pathetic how she treats you. No man should have to put up with that. Help me out of this and I’ll tell the police what I saw. I will tell them that it was her that killed the woman in the bed.”
Eddie smiles at my comment and then moves closer and holds a hand across my mouth. He presses the butt of his shotgun down on my shattered ankle.
The pain is even worse than before, and it is all he can do to muffle my screams. After a few seconds he releases his hand from my mouth and stands up.
“I wish it were as simple as that, fella, but I think that you know perfectly well who that woman was. The wife said that she thinks she recognizes you. You just hold tight there. She will know what to do with you.”
Eddie turns and walks back through the woods towards the manor leaving me in exactly the kind of position that I never want to be in. I am badly injured, unable to move, and if I don’t find a way out of this quickly, I will be totally at the mercy of the main suspects in my case.
I desperately try to release the steel jaws from my leg, but the pain and loss of blood has left me weak. Each time I manage to open them more than a few inches, they inevitably snap back again causing me even more pain. After trying unsuccessfully for five minutes, I give up. I lie back and close my eyes to try to block out the pain.
A few more minutes pass and when I finally hear the voices of Joanna and Eddie in the distance, I am surprised when just a second later, a shadow blocks out the sun that has been flickering through the top of the trees and a familiar voice tells me not to worry.
“This is for the best, Dad. I’m not strong enough to open the trap and they will be here in less than a minute. We don’t have any other option.”
Ben is looking down at me and I am shocked to see him struggling to lift a large rock above his head wearing nothing but his hospital gown. His feet are bare, and his shoulder is bleeding heavily from the exertion of lifting the rock. I know exactly what he is planning to do and before I can stop him, he tells me again that there is no time for him to release me from the trap.
“You can thank me next time you see me, Dad. Now, shut your eyes.”
I don’t shut my eyes and I swear to God, he is actually smiling as he releases the rock. As it slams down onto my head, my last memory is of him sprinting towards the road with his white ass cheeks flashing through the open back of his hospital gown.
Present Day – Friday, 20th April, 2018
My head is banging like crazy and it takes me a few seconds to realize that someone is also banging on my door and trying to get into the room. I struggle to get off the bed and stumble towards the door, but I am too late. The door is opened with a keycard from the outside and an extremely pissed-off-looking Catherine marc
hes in and demands to know why the hell my phone is switched off. When she sees the Jameson bottle at the side of the bed and the clothes I am wearing she loses it completely.
“Do not tell me that you have been bloody partying, while I’ve been freezing my tits off in a forest for the last five hours, Sean? For God’s sake, boss, it’s not even 10 pm yet and I can smell the booze on you from here. You had better have a bloody good explanation for this.”
Having any kind of reasonable explanation for this is beyond even my own capability to bullshit my way out of things. I am drunk, hungover, and dressed like a cross between Leo Sayer and Gilbert O’Sullivan. There is no explaining this and I don’t even try.
“Cath, I’m so sorry. I poured myself a drink whilst I was working, and things just got a bit out of hand. Has something happened?”
“Really? That’s all that I am going to get?” she replies. “There is getting out of hand and then there is getting off your face. You were meant to be looking into the death of Beatrice and instead I find you looking like an extra from Saturday Night Fever. I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour. Your cell phone is switched off and your room phone has been set to ‘do not disturb’. After everything that has happened today, I was going out of my mind thinking that something might have happened to you.”
My embarrassment at being caught out quickly turns to shame and I apologize once again for being unreachable and for causing her to worry. The second apology and my pitiful appearance calms the situation slightly and Catherine tells me to go and get changed.
“Just save it for now, Sean. While you’ve been doing whatever it was you were doing, the search team have struck gold.”
“They found the body?” I ask.
“Yes, they have. The duty pathologist is on site examining the remains now. We need to get straight back there before Lincolnshire PD get their noses too far in the trough.”