‘It was none of my business.’
He bunches his fist and draws his arm back. But at the last moment he slaps his arm down by his side. He takes a running kick at the tripod. It keels over and smashes on to the ground.
‘Have you any idea how much that camera cost?’
From the look on his face he’s going to tell me what I can do with my precious camera. But in the distance we can hear the woman shouting. The man in the tracksuit bursts through the trees. The policeman barges him in the stomach. He collapses, grunting loudly. The officer kneels on him, takes handcuff’s from his pocket and secures his wrists behind his back. The man utters an obscenity then lies quiet.
~ * ~
21.13 hours
‘Natalie?’
She’s lying very still under a tree. Her dress is muddy and torn. She’s wearing one pink sandal. The other lies on the ground, exposing a smooth pale foot.
‘Natalie,’ I whisper. ‘It’s all right. It’s all right now.’
But my throat is thick. It’s not all right. It will never be all right.
I gently touch her leg. Still warm. Her arm, her cheek.
Her eyelids flutter.
‘Natalie!’ I don’t mean to shout but I can’t help it. She flinches. Her eyes shoot open with terror.
‘I’m a police officer,’ I say quietly. She puts her arms out to me and my heart buckles. I hold her tight.
~ * ~
The world has gone mad. The air is filled with the sound of sirens. Two more police cars arrive and the man in the tracksuit is bundled into the back of one of them.
The female officer emerges from the woods, carrying the little girl. The child clings to her like a young chimp clings to its mother, arms circling her neck, legs gripping her waist like a vice. She walks past me, without so much as a glance, but when she reaches her colleague I hear her tell him to get my details. She places the child in the back seat of her car and gets in the front.
The young man takes my name and address. ‘We’ll be in touch,’ he says, and spits on the ground. Not a word of apology for the injuries I’ve suffered or the damage he’s done to my equipment.
There’s a lot of noise as the cars perform complicated turning manoeuvres on the narrow track. Then they roar off towards the main road.
Peace at last.
I tentatively swing my arm. There’s some pain, but it’s not, after all, a broken clavicle. I should be able to handle the bike. I pack up the camera and tripod. If the Canon is ruined it will be a great loss. But in some ways the greater loss is my failure to get the picture I crave. These opportunities don’t occur very often. I have other cameras but who knows when there will be another evening like this?
Now the clouds have lost all definition and interest. The lake is a dark pool and in the sky, there’s just a prosaic red glow. I watch, filled with regret, until the sun goes down.
Night falls.
The golden hour is over.
<
~ * ~
EXPULSION FROM EDEN
Judith Cutler
Judith Cutler is a prize-winning short story writer and the author of over twenty novels. A former Secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association, she lives in Kent with her husband Keith Miles, a fellow crime novelist.
~ * ~
Exeter, 1813
T
eigngrace Hall, in the County of Devon, was my favourite of the Earl of Teignbridge’s establishments. Very commodious and set in extensive parkland, it lay near the main roads to Newton Abbot and Exeter. It was a veritable paradise, with not even a poacher to spoil the calm air.
My employer, Lord Teignbridge, was a most learned man, eschewing outdoor pleasures, but not denying them to his guests. Indeed, her Ladyship, quite unequal to the rigours of his Lordship’s scholarship, whipped in any of either sex who would acquit themselves honourably on the hunting field.
Both hosted the dinner parties, musical evenings and balls for their guests, though that was where their participation ended. It was rightly assumed that I, as butler, and Mrs Lacock, the housekeeper, would see to all the guests’ creature comforts.
For luncheon and for dinner, which was eaten at London hours, our honoured French chef, M. Alphonse, actually from the Isle of Man, would send up an elegant repast; my selection from His Grace’s cellar always complemented it perfectly.
The only place where guests were not welcome was Lord Teignbridge’s library - no ordinary book room. In many other establishments, a room the length of the house would have been the long gallery, the social hub of the house. In Teigngrace, however, a mezzanine floor had been installed over half the width, for the portraits and other masterpieces, great and small. The lower half became the library, the piers which supported the gallery providing bays for all the shelves of weighty tomes.
Lord Teignbridge had made the study of Italian religious paintings his life’s work. Occasionally he would permit a scholar - a man from Vienna or Rome, perhaps - to feast his eyes on one masterpiece or another, and they would refer constantly to these works of scholarship.
One, Signor Polpetti, was currently a house guest, having written imploring His Grace to accommodate him at very short notice. Unlike his fellow scholars, Signor Polpetti was a man of the world, flirting shamelessly with many of the younger ladies.
The damsels had plenty of other more eligible suitors, of course: what else is a country house party but a marriage mart in miniature? There were two heirs to titles, including Sir Harry Croyde, who might have lost an arm in Spain, but had thereby gained romantic interest, and a smattering of second sons, including Lord Fowey’s youngest lad, who had taken Holy Orders. The Reverend Dr Shaldon - he was a gifted scholar as well as a handsome young man - was unfailingly polite even to the servants, and tireless in standing up to dance with the plainest females. He was perhaps inclined to Methodism, and insisted on leading daily prayers for all the household, family, guests and servants.
At the end of each evening, Mrs Lacock and I would take tea together, while we reviewed the day’s work, and the accomplishments or failings of our underlings. Today, however, it was not a servant but a guest who was remiss.
Mrs Lacock leaned forward confidentially. ‘I have received a welter of complaints about one of His Grace’s guests, who seems to lurk in every corner. My girls are all good, virtuous creatures, and deserve to be treated as such.’
‘Signor Polpetti?’
She nodded.
‘I thought as much. But he, being a foreigner, may not understand what is expected of him - or rather, what is not expected.’
‘I hear he is as free with the young ladies - but at least they have their mamas to protect them. These innocent country girls have no one. What can we do?’
‘It’s no use my speaking to His Grace, Mrs Lacock - I sometimes fear he does not understand what a young girl is, unless she is mother naked and in a gilded frame. So a word in Lady Teignbridge’s ear, perhaps?’
‘Since he doesn’t ride, she probably doesn’t know him from Adam - except, of course, that he is better dressed.’ She permitted herself a smile. ‘He is particular in his attentions to two girls, neither more than fourteen. Pretty young Nan, who used to be his chambermaid. Needless to say I have moved her to other duties, out of harm’s way. And that new girl, the quiet one. Molly Abbott. I thought, since she was so plain, she might escape his attentions, but it seems I was mistaken.’
‘Plain? I had not thought her plain. Serious, maybe,’ I mused. ‘As if guarding a secret, even.’
‘Secret! Let me tell you straight, Mr Dawson, I like to know where those wenches are every hour of every day - and night. I want no harbouring of secrets!’
~ * ~
I dropped a hint to the footmen: if they felt a guest were stealing kisses or more from any of their female colleagues, they should consider it their duty most discreetly to intervene. Just a cough, perhaps, to indicate that the would-be seducer did not go unseen. Perhaps, even, a false mess
age that the maid was wanted elsewhere. The girls’ virtue must not go unprotected.
As I had spoken out for her, I felt it incumbent on me to watch out for young Molly Abbott. And I fear I did not like what I saw. Or rather, did not see. For all Mrs Lacock’s strict timetable, there were definitely moments when she was not where she ought to be. But next moment, it seemed, there she was, doing exactly what she had been told, and doing it well. In fact, it would be hard to have found a more efficient girl. She would finish her task quietly and swiftly and then, bobbing a polite curtsy, head off for her next, minutes early. But she would arrive minutes late to start it. Once I thought she might be concealing something under her apron, but I might have been mistaken. Certainly I could see nothing missing, or even out of place. I should have reported her to Mrs Lacock, of course. Call me soft-hearted, but I just could not do it. So one morning I resolved to do what I should have done earlier. I would tail her.
Before I could start on this humiliating mission, I was summoned to the library. Never had His Grace sounded his bell with such urgent passion. I found him in the greatest distress. Indeed, he could not speak. Seizing me by the hand, he almost dragged me up the stairs to his gallery.
He pointed.
Against the silk wallcovering, a small, brighter rectangle stood out. A picture was missing! Not only had Adam and Eve been expelled from the garden, they had left the gallery altogether, and not by his choice.
An immediate summons went out to our parish constable, and ere long we heard the peal of the great doorbell resound through the house. However much I wished that Mr Voke should present himself more properly at the tradesmen’s entrance, I could not fault him on his punctuality.
I attended him immediately.
Jedediah Voke, summoned from goodness knows what parochial transgression, was red in the face with his exertions. Without waiting for an invitation, he sank on to one of the heavily carved chairs in the hall, staring about him. He removed from his coat pocket a disreputable clay pipe, but, interpreting aright my astonished cough, he put it to his lips unlit. The family portraits gazed down, the Lely eyebrows lifted in surprise that such a low form of life as Jedediah Voke should be seated beneath them.
Indeed, he might have stepped straight from a comedy by the Bard, his red face, sleepy eyes and slow delivery giving the impression that he was naught but a yokel. Therein lay his strength as an investigator. No one suspected how shrewd he might be. If you put him, however, in the old-fashioned powdered wig and well-cut coat of a magistrate, you would be struck by the intelligence of his brow.
‘Let me take you to His Grace,’ I said quietly.
‘All in good time. Tell me all you know, Mr Dawson,’ he said, lowering his voice not a jot.
Aware of all the unseen ears, I ushered Mr Voke swiftly behind the green baize door. It is said that while a member of the nobility is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, a good butler is born with a brass padlock to his lips. Silver bends, of course, but never underestimate the strength of a butler’s discretion.
Before I could speak, there was a soft tap at the door. Mrs Lacock slipped in. Her underlings as much as my own would be under suspicion.
‘Now, tell me all you know - and then Mrs Lacock can do the same. I want to address His Grace with the authority of knowledge,’ he declared. ‘This picture. What was it of?’
‘It was indecent, if you ask me. I didn’t like my girls going anywhere near it. Not that His Grace let them. He said it was too precious to endanger with even a feather duster. Did you ever hear the like’?’
‘So it had people in it in a state of undress?’ he suggested, licking a pencil and applying it firmly to his notebook.
‘Naked but for well-placed tendrils,’ I said, loftily, as befitted a man of the world.
‘The subject was . . . biblical,’ Mrs Lacock agreed. ‘The Fall of Man. Aye, and woman too.’
‘I didn’t see a gap in the pictures in the hall.’
‘It was in the gallery, almost His Grace’s private room.’
‘Private? A man likes to show off his pictures.’
I nodded. ‘Many are the acres of naked limbs I have seen, Mr Voke, struggling with this monster or that, or being chased in battle. Indeed, you may find the like in many of our corridors. But this small item was one of His Grace’s favourites. He spoke of it being by a man called Michelangelo.’
‘Did he indeed? And who might have been a-looking at it lately?’
‘Signor Polpetti,’ Mrs Lacock and I said as one.
He pulled a puzzled face, but inscribed the name. ‘And anyone else?’
‘That you would have to ask His Grace,’ I said.
‘And what about these here maids, with or without their dusters? Who is responsible for cleaning the room?’
Mrs Lacock said firmly, ‘The older, most experienced ones. But let me see - because this signor cannot keep his hands to himself, I took the girl who normally sees to it and sent her to do his chamber instead. The new girl ended up in the library.’
‘And the new girl is?’
‘Young Molly Abbott. From Moretonhampstead originally. I thought I could trust her not to have an attack of the vapours every time she saw things she ought not to.’
Voke made another note. ‘While I am speaking to His Grace, I would like all the men and maids gathered together so I might speak to them. And find some excuse to keep the ladies and gentleman in. The weather, I should think. ‘Tis like to be mortal bad, tell them. And that’s no lie, either,’ he added, as I raised an eyebrow at the bright sunlight outside. ‘You mark my words.’
~ * ~
His Grace had made rare inroads into the brandy decanter.
‘The work is priceless,’ he said, ‘and eminently portable. Though others dispute it, I believe it is Michelangelo’s original sketch for the masterpiece now in the Sistine Chapel! Original Sin. The expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Everything about it speaks of its quality - it must be, is, by the greatest of the Italian masters! And now it is gone! It may be halfway across the Channel by now!’
‘And a lot of good it’ll do the thief to end up in Old Boney’s hands,’ Voke said, carefully measuring the bright space left behind. ‘But I’ll send my best lads to alert the harbour authorities in Newton, Teignmouth and Exeter. Though it’d puzzle a foreigner to find any of them the way the weather’s closing in. You won’t see your hand before your face within the hour, you mark my words.’
As one we looked out of the window: Devon mist was indeed swirling around, as if someone were waving a giant grey scarf in the air.
‘Your Grace, have any of your guests lingered over this picture longer than most?’
‘They are guests! They are gentlemen!’
‘Even this Italian man?’
‘Polpetti? A gentleman and a scholar. An honourable man!’
‘Any others?’
‘Fowey’s lad.’
‘That’d be Dr Shaldon,’ I explained. But as a Methodist, what would he be doing looking at such papist stuff? Anyone else?’
‘One of the tweenies - she seemed mighty taken with it. No idea what she’s called.’
Of course. They were trained to be invisible. But for all that I could see one face in my mind’s eye - that of Molly Abbott. And things were not looking good for her, not at all.
~ * ~
They looked even worse when I saw her gathered with the other staff in the servants’ hall. She kept pressing her hands to her little white face, and looking anxiously out of the window.
Jedediah Voke looked sternly about him. I had no doubt he noted Molly’s pallor too, and made the same damning assessment as I did. But he said nothing, simply explaining what had happened and asking for help: ‘Folk like you aren’t supposed to be seen, but I warrant you see more than you let on,’ he added.
To my amazement M. Alphonse stepped forward. ‘I can tell you one thing for nothing,’ he said, his French accent much lighter than usual. ‘That Signor Polpetti is n
o more Italian than I am. Polpetti, indeed. What sort of man goes round calling himself Mr Meatballs? A charlatan, Mr Voke, that’s what our Signor Polpetti is.’
Voke jotted swiftly.
No one else stepped forward, so at last, with an adjuration to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut, I sent them about their business.
Molly Abbott hung back - no doubt about it. Voke noticed. ‘Many’s the guilty party who wants to get the crime off their chest,’ he said, in a hoarse whisper. ‘Let’s talk to her.’
Guilty Consciences - [A CWA Anthology] Page 5