“You’re a bloody marvel,” Mr Blundy said ungraciously. “Thank you. Name the sum.”
“Eh?”
“How much?”
Mr Blundy licked at his lips. “Million nicker.”
“I see. In cash, of course, as I said?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“A little unwieldy, I think. You’d need a truck. And how do you propose I should raise that amount all at once? I’m only asking.”
Mr Blundy gaped into the mouthpiece. Fancy asking him. “Bank,” he said. “Or something.”
“Or something. Don’t be futile. Have you ever tried to raise a million pounds at short notice?”
“’Course I bloody haven’t.” The bloke was worse than Ag.
“I thought probably not. I may be rich, but … good grief, man, why should I go on?”
“I don’t know,” Mr Blundy said. “Ring you again tomorrow.” Then he cut the call. He shook like a pennant in a gale. He’d talked too long, been had for a sucker, tricked into not ringing off earlier. The Bill would be on to him like a pack of wolves, no safety anywhere unless he scarpered fast.
He scarpered very fast indeed, almost crying in his chagrin, his disappointment and his over-riding fear. He needed a drink, but not in the pub he’d been in earlier. He found another without much difficulty. He had two more large Scotches. He didn’t want to eat, he wasn’t hungry. Felt sick rather than hungry, and all clammy. Also, he found that now he had no stomach for a prozzy. Too many worries, he wouldn’t be able to perform and it would be a dead waste of money, and Auntie’s cash hoard wouldn’t last all that long, not the measly hundred Ag had let him have, the bitch, not in London at today’s prices.
Better economise on the Scotch too. Mr Blundy made his way towards Bass Street, Paddington, stopping off at Marble Arch to collect the Granada. He parked the car in Bass Street — as it was dark the neighbours couldn’t be sure if Ag was with him — then he let himself in. He shoved some lights on behind drawn curtains, in support — should anyone be looking, which they probably were, nosey sods — of his proposed story about them both coming home from Auntie’s. He made some propagandic bangings and thumpings on the floor for the benefit of Mrs Whale, then went straight to bed.
God, the things he had to keep thinking about! There was no doubt about it, Aunt Ethel had rocked the boat good and proper by going and dying on them. It wasn’t fair. Mr Blundy drew the blankets up to his chin and tried to sleep, but he couldn’t, his mind was far too active. That Barnwell Senior: the more Mr Blundy thought, the more he felt sick with worry. Likely enough that conversation had been put on tape and was even now being played back, and intently listened to, in Scotland Yard. Barnwell had sounded a right sod, no thought at all for that poor little kid. There were, however, rays of possible comfort: what about the kid’s mum? She’d have a say, surely?
And mums were mums. Softer than dads; looked at things quite differently and so they should. Mums were more concerned with kids than cash. Mrs Barnwell might talk her husband into a more feeling frame of mind.
But that still left the Bill.
The Bill could be persuasive too, in a different sort of context. The Bill would have assured the Barnwells, like they always did in such cases, that they would cope with anything the villains might do. No cash must change hands, the Bill would have said, and Harold would be perfectly all right when they leapt out from their patrol cars at Mr Blundy with their truncheons and their sharpshooters and their handcuffs and their dogs all foaming at the mouth.
What a risk it all was.
Mr Blundy didn’t sleep a wink all night.
*
“Where’s your husband gone?” Never mind what Ern had or hadn’t said about leaving the kid in the bog, Ag hadn’t, something she now regretted.
“Don’t mind asking questions, do you? He’s not gone anywhere … not far like. Just for newspapers. Be back soon, he will, so just you watch it.”
“Why should I watch it?”
“’Cos he might do you, that’s why.”
Harold considered the point, munching bread and cheese. “I don’t think he would, you know.”
“Oh?”
“He’ll want to be able to say he treated me well. When the police catch him and you. He’ll need a few good words said in his favour, won’t he?” Harold’s eyes gleamed and mocked. “By the way, how’s the old lady upstairs?”
Ag started. “She’s all right.”
“But staying in bed?”
“Yes.”
“Boring for her.”
“No it’s not. Got arthuritis she has.”
“Arthritis, nothing to do with Arthur. I’m so sorry. Is that all she’s got?”
“Yes,” Ag said viciously. “It’s all she’s got.”
“Oh. I just wondered, you see. She doesn’t seem to be eating much, does she? No breakfast, no supper last night, now no lunch. I just wondered, that’s all.” Harold cast his eyes down, the picture of innocence. “I’d like some more ham.”
“Ask proper.”
“Sorry. Please.”
“Fattening, is ham,” Ag said and at once regretted it.
Harold lifted an eyebrow and remarked, “Then in that case I’d lay off it if I were you.”
“Don’t be cheeky.” Ag raised a hand. “Want me to smack your kisser, do you?”
“Well, no, not particularly. When are you going to get in touch with my father?”
“None of your business.”
“I’d have thought it was, actually. I suppose that’s where your husband’s gone.”
“Said he’d gone for papers, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you said that. I’m not sure I believe you. It’s just a feeling, that’s all.”
Ag said angrily, “I don’t tell lies.”
There was a smirk. “Don’t you?”
“Time you had that gag on again.” Ag sucked in breath. Her hands were itching to give the little blighter what for, and inside her head her blood pressure was mounting. What with all the anxiety about dead Auntie, and the probable stupidity of Ern down in London, she felt she needed a vent. Master Barnwell’s rudeness was the last straw. She lifted an arm and clouted his head hard. That, she could see, rocked him. They’d been too soft: now the little horror had had a taste of the other side of the coin. She said, “There’s more where that came from, all right?” Then she nearly did something daft. She stared at the kid, right into his eyes, and said, “Now look. You’ve heard things, haven’t you, no good saying you haven’t. In the toilet, yesterday.”
“No, I haven’t heard anything.” There was a cautious look in the boy’s face now, a withdrawal from possible danger. “What sort of things?”
“Don’t try that on me. You heard all right.”
“I didn’t. Honestly.”
“You sure, are you?”
“Yes, I’m quite sure. Or I think I am. I may have heard something. I can’t be really sure, can I, unless you tell me what things I did or didn’t hear.”
“If you heard,” Ag said, “you’ll know what I mean. If you didn’t — well, you didn’t. See?”
Harold stared at her, an incredulous and rude look. “No, I’m afraid I don’t. I say … I really don’t think this conversation is getting us anywhere. Is it?”
Ag clenched her teeth together, doing her best not to clout him again in case she clouted him too hard and did him a mischief, which certainly wouldn’t help matters. She said, “All right. P’raps it isn’t, no. But let me tell you this, my lad: if you did hear anything …”
“Yes?” Harold asked politely. “Go on.”
“Oh, shut up,” Ag said in a high shout. She’d stopped her tongue just in the nick of time, having been about to utter threats that, had he overheard the conversation about Auntie, which, considering his questions, he very likely had, he should bear in mind that a similar fate could overtake him as well if he didn’t watch out. Not that he would have believed it, probably; he’d already made th
e point the day before, or whenever, to Era, that kidnappers didn’t do away with their victims. But the thing was, she’d almost blurted out enough to make the kid think they had murdered Auntie, and on repetition to the Bill that could have taken on the proportions of a confession. It had been a close shave, had that. Ag picked up the gag and the blindfold, reapplied them to Harold Barnwell and then led him back to the earth-closet, securing him to the ringbolt and locking the door.
When she went back to the empty cottage, empty, that was, of all but the dead, she was assailed by an unaccustomed feeling of utter loneliness. It hadn’t ever been lonely down the Smoke, London was a friendly place with all its noise and bustle and all the tourists from all over the world: Americans, Frogs, Dutch, Eye-ties, Chinks, Japs, plus, of course, terrorists, but they had never bothered her. Even the charring in Bayswater had had the bonus of bringing her in touch with people. People, that was it, not sheep and that. Her days had in fact been over-full really, what with the work, and Era was always an anxiety, but up here in the Dales the days looked like stretching interminably and Era was still an anxiety, the more so now for being a distant and uncontrollable one.
Should have gone herself.
Ag went to the window — sod Ern, she was taking no notice of his rubbish about hibernation — folded her arms on the sill and stared out, a big red face framed in old stone. No wonder people went south when they got old, if they could afford to. Rain and mist, cold and fog. Sheep, shepherds, farmers somewhere behind the veil of weather out there, plodding about their unending tasks, wallowing in mud, dung and dale, slithering down the fellsides on their arses, most likely … stone the crows! They could keep the Pennines. Give her Praed Street and the good old Edgware Road any time, or if not London then Margate or Clacton or Great Yarmouth or a nice holiday camp full of jollity and people to rub shoulders with and yack about life in general when not playing bingo.
How was Ern making out?
Messing it all up, or raking in the lolly?
Fearing the worst, since the worst usually happened and she knew exactly what Ernest Blundy was like, wishing again she’d gone south herself to take charge, she yet found herself pondering on the unlikely best. Ern, she knew, wanted to get out of London. All the talk over the years about that big country house. Hot air, all of it — yet it could be within an ace of coming true. For obvious reasons of safety after the event, they wouldn’t be able to remain in London — but, for her, she was decidedly against the country scene and she would put her foot down crushingly on that. Give her Rome, Paris, Berlin, Cairo, New York, Los Angeles, Rio — somewhere like that where you could really live. One day, when it had all died down, they might come back to London, not perhaps to live but as rich tourists en route from Paris to Buenos Aires (wherever that was, sounded like China). Just “stopping over” as they said in rich circles.
Ag came back to earth.
Bloody sheep.
Why, there was even sheep shit outside the back door — you stepped in it when you went to get Harold. Maybe Auntie had fed the sheep or something, like you fed stray cats down south. They were everywhere, the sheep, straying along the roads. You’d never get smelly old sheep in Paris or New York.
Sighing, Ag shoved the Calor gas oven door wide open and warmed her hands at it. She hadn’t lit a coal fire in the parlour because she wasn’t supposed to be here, though God alone knew how they were going to get past what the kid would say, except that it wouldn’t matter a kick in the bottom what he said once they’d got the lolly, and it was best not to make any clutter or disturb the even tenor of Auntie’s ways in any detail that might later be tricky to explain in relation to Auntie’s death.
Ag spent the afternoon warming and pacing and thinking, and feeling she was going mad. She didn’t go near Auntie: no point really and it would only depress her more. Time passed, centuries of it. Cups of tea helped, but only a little. Then supper and the temporary transference of Harold Barnwell to the kitchen. God, she even found the kid company! When Harold went back to the bog she sat on for a while then went upstairs to bed, past silent Auntie’s door, which she found spooky.
The whole cottage was silent now, apart from creaks of old woodwork and, soon after she was in bed, the disappearance of silence came with the first hint of another rising wind. Sweeping down the fellsides to circle and whine around Auntie, that wind shook the cottage with a mighty force. Ag lay awake and quaked, wrapping her large body in the bedclothes as though seeking the security of the cocoon. The windows rattled, there was a hollow booming sound from somewhere and a gale swept sootily down the unused chimney. God’s heaven was on the march, destroying a sinful world, and her with it — and Auntie too by the sound of it.
Ag found herself wet with sweat, thinking of Auntie. It was going to be very difficult to prove they hadn’t at least assisted Auntie’s departure if ever the Bill caught up with them. In the circumstances, like.
*
It was late the following evening, after another never-ending day of dale-and mist-hidden sheep-bleats, and Harold Barnwell, that Ag heard with terror the engine of a car pulling in round the back. There was a deathly flutter in her heart as she waited for the bang on the door that might announce the Bill and another visit from the nosey district nurse. What was she going to say this time, if they forced entry and insisted on a word with Auntie? But the bang when it came wasn’t really a bang at all; it was more of a gentle tap. Sort of apologetic.
Now what?
Some nosey neighbour, or what counted as a neighbour in the Dales, about a mile away?
Ag remained stock still in the middle of the kitchen while the oil lamp flickered and cast frightening shadows around her. Another tap at the door, rather louder and more urgent this time. When she didn’t open up the tapper shifted round to the window and tapped on the glass, nearly giving her a stroke. Tap, tap, tap, behind Auntie’s wartime blackout material that Ag had found tucked away in a drawer of the dresser. Didn’t show a chink, that didn’t: Auntie hadn’t wanted to draw the Nazi bombs down on the sheep.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Wouldn’t it ever bloody stop?
Ag plugged up her ears with her fingers and plumped down heavily on a chair. Could be a ghost. Could be anything up here. Imagination ran riot: could be Auntie’s spirit trying to get back in, only it wouldn’t need to tap, surely, it’d just sort of swim in, right through the solid stone walls.
Not Auntie, no; she wouldn’t have any business back inside.
Tentatively Ag unbunged her earholes. No more taps. Well, that was a mercy. But a moment later, a soft slither at the back door, then a slight crackle of paper … a note being pushed under. Ag froze. There was terror in the unknown: why should anyone want to poke a note under Auntie’s door? What had she been up to in her dotage, to draw upon herself all this cloak-and-dagger business, furtive taps, notes?
The note lay there, shifting a little in the wind that howled under the door. Then the taps started again. Feeling her hair rise, Ag inched towards the note, bent down and picked it up. At first she couldn’t seem to focus properly, she was in such a state. Then the words formed in her vision and smote her. The note was simple enough. It read: “Open the bloody door for Christ’s sake it’s me.”
Ag’s teeth banged hard together. Rotten bastard, giving her such jitters, typical it was. She unlocked the door and yanked it open.
Mr Blundy lurched in, gibbering.
Twelve
“Thought you were never going to open up, I did.” Mr Blundy collapsed on to a chair. “I’ve had a terrible time, really terrible.”
“Why all the mystery, eh? Them taps and that daft note?” Mr Blundy didn’t seem to be registering. “Precautions, like. Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?”
“Oh, shut up, Ag, do. I’m not fit.” He said again, “I’ve had a terrible time.”
“The Bill?”
“No, not the Bill, Ag —”
“Well, thank God for that anyw
ay.”
“Yes.” Mr Blundy pulled his flask from his pocket and sucked whisky greedily.
“You won’t have had time to get the money,” Ag said accusingly. “Eh?”
“’Course not.”
“What d’you mean, ’course not? That’s what you went down —”
“I know, I know.” Mr Blundy waved his arms about. “Don’t you start, Ag. Did me best.”
Heavily, Ag sat down and faced him across the kitchen table. Grimness sat heavily on her face. “You’d better tell me all about it, hadn’t you?” she said.
“Yes, yes, all right.” Mr Blundy paused. “Not been anything on the BBC?”
“Should there be?”
“I don’t know. I just asked, like. Has there?”
“No.”
Mr Blundy drew his sleeve across his forehead, seeming relieved. Then he started. He told her, stumblingly and in an aggrieved tone, about his telephone call to Haverstock House, and about Mr Barnwell’s sordid reaction to his demands. “Money,” he said, sounding very bitter. “That’s all they think about these days, is money.”
“Just go on, don’t bother to moralise, it don’t become you.”
“Well, maybe not.” Mr Blundy hesitated. “Any bother this end, was there, eh? The old lady?”
Ag shook her head. “No. Only cheek from that kid, that’s all. Don’t change the subject. It’s all got to come out sooner or later so just get on with it.”
“All right,” Mr Blundy said sulkily. “Well, that talk with the kid’s dad, it was a long one. Too long, I thought after. God, I had a night and a half, I can tell you! Talk about twist and turn, I never stopped. It got on me mind, see. Thinking about it, like. He was too … well … too composed, too sure of himself. Just like the kid. What I reckoned I’d do, what I told him I’d do, was to ring again next day — today, that is. Get his answer. What I hoped was, the kid’s mum would talk him round, make him see that to cough up was best for the kid,see?”
“Well?”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t ring, did I?”
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