Marsh Blood (The Endel Mysteries Book 2)

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Recognize him?’ queried David when he poured the drinks.

  ‘Too far off. Nor, to be honest, does there have to be any connection, but ‒’

  ‘It’s just our nasty, suspicious minds, love ‒ and our Angie’s lean and hungry look. Cheers, Rosie. Nice to see you again.’

  ‘And you. Tell me about Australia.’

  We forgot the time and were late for dinner. Mrs Evans-Williams had no doubts what had kept us. She flushed and announced coyly that we hadn’t seen each other for a long time. In the dining room the ubiquitous Trevor in a waiter’s suit smirked knowingly as he showed us to our table. David glanced at him, then bent tenderly towards me. ‘No regrets, Rose?’ Trevor skipped away for the menu with the back of his neck bright red. I kicked David under the table and exchanged smiles with the le Veres who were sitting with the McCabes. The latter had their backs to us and when they both turned to nod politely I recognized the face of the man I had seen in the yard. The four farmers at the only other occupied table ignored us and everyone else and only opened their mouths to shovel in more food and beer. I was suddenly very glad David was with me. Normally I never minded being alone or eating alone, but, possibly consequent on Johnnie’s injury, there was an atmosphere in that dining room that I didn’t like. The silences at the other tables were too tense and the brief periods of conversation between the le Veres and McCabes too artificial. But the food was very good and, if the service was slow as Trevor was on his own, at least he seemed oblivious to the atmosphere.

  ‘Would be Albert’s night off, wouldn’t it? Albert, he’s head waiter like and normal when he’s off the guv’nor lends a hand dinners. Other nights the guv’nor watches the bar. I mean, not a job for the missus on her own. You never know this far out, do you? The missus, she’s got to watch the hall ‒ not that we gets much visiting trade the duck season. Got our hands full, the guv’nor says, without letting in a shower of non-residents, but we always keep the three tables for when the guv’nor obliges special for dinners. Most nights we’ve the two or three taken but not tonight. The missus, she’s not got no bookings for tonight and she’s not taking none neither seeing as we not even got young Mike helping out the kitchen. Cruel shook up he was seemly after seeing the guv’nor get it. Old Harry he fetched him back home but he’s back now watching the bar. He’ll not set foot in here nor the kitchens. Reckons meals is women’s work, Harry does.’

  ‘You don’t, Trevor?’

  His pale, sharp face was intelligent and crafty. ‘Not me, madam. I’m here to learn the hotel trade proper. Have me own one day I will. Come down from London last year, see, and I not been here the year without catching on as it’s the bar as makes the lolly and the dining room as makes the reputation. Steak to your liking, madam? And you, sir? That’s nice. What’ll it be to follow? Apple pie with cream, blackberry flan, crème caramel or the cheese board straight?’

  After we’d ordered, David asked, ‘Trevor not Trev, lad?’

  Trevor winked. ‘Trevor, sir. The missus she reckons Trev not got the class and I reckons she’s right. If you wants the carriage trade, she says, you got to have class.’ He eyed the farmers disdainfully. ‘Mind you, these days, you got the lolly you got the class. Not but what the guv’nor says you’ll not find many a better shot than them four ‒ er ‒ gentlemen.’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘You’ll not find a better nowhere than that Mr le Vere, the guv’nor reckons. He was with him one time Bisley when that Mr le Vere hit the bull’s eye the fifty times out the fifty with a 303 and as good with a shotgun he is as with a rifle. Taught his missus hisself he did and the guv’nor reckons she’s the best lady shot he’s come across. That Mrs McCabe, well, she’s still learning like but coming along real nice seemly and the doctor he’s hot stuff. Seems as his dad taught him going after moose when he was a nipper ‒ moose, I ask you. Then duck. Did you ever? Cheese board, Mr le Vere? Just coming, sir!’

  David watched him skip away. ‘He’s dead keen we shouldn’t pin Johnnie’s peppering on one of this lot.’

  ‘You think?’

  His sleepy eyes met mine. ‘Just an impression. I’m suddenly too bloody tired to think.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘Delayed-action jet-lag plus that good wine.’

  ‘And that good pre-dinner whisky. Why not skip coffee and go straight to bed?’

  ‘You wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not. I won’t hang on down here much longer. I can’t take much more shooting talk. I’m not sure about this coming week.’

  ‘Let’s leave the agonizing reappraisal till morning.’

  ‘Sure.’ I looked at him more closely. ‘Poor man, you do look whacked.’

  ‘I am.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘Just as well I’m sleeping alone. Dead loss to one and all elsewhere.’

  Renny came over as David rose. ‘Leaving us, dear boy? Jet-lag? You’ve all my sympathy. I’ll see you out as I’m off to the bar for our liqueurs. It’ll save young Trevor a little running. You’ll join us, Rose? Coffee and liqueurs in the lounge ‒ but I insist! What’ll it be? Drambuie? Coming up!’

  Angie swept over and swept me into the lounge. She had changed into a black evening sweater and tight black velvet pants. She looked good, if not quite as young as I had first thought her. She acted young and she acted well. When she had poured herself into an armchair I asked about her stage career.

  Her big eyes widened. ‘Sweetie, you can’t have heard of me! How did you know?’

  ‘Your husband told us earlier.’

  She smiled widely. ‘Bless him! It’s no use kidding ‒ I was the world’s lousiest actress as I kept forgetting my words. Natch, there was a time when I thought I was the white hope of the British theatre ‒ who doesn’t think that at drama school? And I usually got work as I was quite good at character-bits as I can mimic. My first taught me. He was an impressionist.’

  ‘Your first husband?’

  ‘Natch, sweetie. He was fabulous guy ‒ hell to live with ‒ did I make a boo-boo when I married him ‒ but who doesn’t? And you’re a widow? How many times?’

  I was only momentarily taken aback, and more by the novelty of her query than anything else. It was very much the kind of thing Sue Denver would have said. ‘Once.’

  She spread her arms gracefully. ‘Don’t let it bug you. Years ahead and half the human race to pick from.’ The McCabes had come in. ‘You haven’t met Nick.’ She smiled up at him through her lashes. ‘Our fabulous Nick from Toronto.’

  ‘Ottawa,’ Nick McCabe corrected pleasantly. Linda ignored us, dropped on to the corner of a sofa and pointedly opened an erudite paperback.

  Nick sat by me, and in his slow, pedantic, but not unattractive Canadian drawl told me a little of his job in a northern teaching hospital and then a great deal about Canada. It was my night for colonial travelogues, but by the time we reached Vancouver I couldn’t have borne another mile on the Canadian Pacific railroad. Earlier, David had left me with an urgent desire to see Queensland, what he called ‘the Gulf country’ and New South Wales.

  Renny le Vere had barely spoken since he came in with our liqueurs and nor, I noticed had he or Angie looked at each other. That didn’t surprise me as I had seen so many of my married friends suffering from the same syndrome once the first enthusiasm had worn off and they had discovered they had little in common and nothing left to say to each other. The McCabes didn’t talk much together but their mutual attitude was totally different. They didn’t have to talk as their frequent mutual glances were carrying on the private unspoken conversation of two people still in love with each other. Nick’s behaviour reminded me of Francis Denver. Francis was seldom able to keep his eyes off his wife.

  Renny came out of his reverie to ask, ‘Where precisely do you live, Rose?’

  I took him over to the map. ‘There.’

  His expression quickened. ‘On Midstreet Marsh?’

  ‘You know Midstreet?’

  ‘Not at first hand.’ He studied the map more keenly. ‘Someone ‒ so
me chap in the bar a few nights back ‒ mentioned living there and told us about the village being washed away. What was his name?’ he mused. ‘Used to drop in occasionally last year ‒ slight, quiet chap with reddish hair and clever eyes ‒ Dexter?’

  ‘Denver? Francis Denver?’

  He smiled at me. ‘Yes. I think that’s the name.’ He glanced round. ‘Angie, my dear ‒ Francis Denver? Ring a bell?’

  Angie turned slowly. ‘Should it, sweetie? Oh, yes!’ She slapped her forehead. ‘I know who you mean! That guy in the bar last week ‒ something to do with mines ‒ you used to chat with him last year. Runs a Jag.’

  I said, ‘A red Audi now.’

  ‘Sweetie, I wouldn’t know. Only cars I recognize are Jags as Renny had one when we first met.’

  ‘Jags and Rolls,’ put in Renny dryly.

  She flung back her head and laughed. ‘Natch! What woman doesn’t notice a Rolls?’ She returned to the long conversation she had started with Nick. I couldn’t tell if he was enjoying it. Linda wasn’t.

  Renny asked, ‘Denver a friend of yours, Rose?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Francis and Sue Denver are my nearest neighbours. They drove over with me this afternoon.’

  He nodded pleasantly, returned his attention to the map and asked more about the marsh. We went back to our seats discussing crops and tides.

  Angie broke in, ‘Must be fabulous living on the marsh all the year, but if you don’t shoot ‒ why come here?’

  ‘Line of least resistance.’ I explained myself and used my flu as an excuse to get away. ‘Still a bit cotton-woolly. Do you all mind?’

  Renny rose. ‘I think we should follow your good example as we’ve to rise at the unmentionable hour of four-thirty. Coming, dear people?’

  Trevor arrived for our cups and glasses as we were leaving. Renny laid a hand on his arm. ‘Delicious coffee. Thank you.’

  ‘Glad it suited, sir.’ Trevor flicked his arm free and went on with his collecting. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the McCabes stare at the floor and Angie’s face harden. I was suddenly much more in sympathy with her desire for fresh air before dinner.

  The farmers were still in the bar and Mrs Evans-Williams still in the hall. She was talking to a small, leathery middle-aged man wearing an old tweed cap jammed over his eyes and muddy wellingtons with the tops turned down ‒ the insignia of a marsh-dweller. She told us Johnnie was resting comfortably and introduced me to her companion. ‘You must meet Harry!’ She used the tone others reserve for the Almighty. ‘Harry is our right hand and how we need him now! Harry, this is the young lady from Endel I’ve been telling you about.’

  Harry gave me an unsmiling glance and lifted his cap just long enough to expose his almost obscenely white bald head and fringe of grey-black at the back. ‘’Evening, madam.’ He slapped back the cap.

  ‘Good evening,’ I said.

  My companions exchanged amused glances and, on the first floor passage, congratulated me. ‘We’ve never seen Harry shift his cap to any woman before,’ said Linda.

  Angie sighed dramatically. ‘Hell, you and I aren’t loaded young widows, sweetie.’

  I felt very post-fluish. ‘It’s not that. It’s just that Harry and I are both indigenous natives. What’s his surname? Mercer, Gillion, Wenden, Wattle, Smith, Burt, Endel?’

  ‘Wattle!’ Nick McCabe was enchanted. ‘Can you imagine! Harry Wattle. Are you saying there are more Wattles elsewhere on this Marsh?’

  ‘Hordes. A third of my nearest village are Wattles.’

  Renny said it was all quite fascinating and we must have another long chat tomorrow evening. ‘Alas, dear girl, we are all ignorant aliens, but not enemy aliens, I trust.’ He held back my fire doors for me. ‘Good night and sweet sleep.’

  It was undoubtedly the flu, but as the doors swung shut I shivered and was irrationally relieved to see from the chink under the door that David’s light was still on. From the silence he was either in the bath or had fallen asleep reading in bed as he must have heard me unlock my door but didn’t call another good night.

  Someone had been into my room to wash glasses and empty the ashtray while we were at dinner. Whoever it was was honest. The level of the whisky in the bottle on my dressing-table was much as I remembered and only the twenty David had removed had gone from the carton of duty-free king-sizes. I was about to put both on my side table when I remembered the number that David smoked daily, that he used to be an early riser and as that twenty was bound to be down to single figures by now, unless I wanted to be woken at dawn by David panting to shorten his life, I had better take them over while his light was on.

  I closed but didn’t bother to lock my door and knocked on his. No answer. I knocked more loudly as he was obviously in the bathroom. No answer. I cursed him as I wanted to go to bed, and without much hope tried the door. To my surprise it was unlocked. I intended opening it just wide enough to push in his property when I saw him sprawled asleep on top of his bed fully dressed apart from his shoes. From the clouds of steam issuing from the open darkened bathroom, he had filled the bath before dropping off so quickly he hadn’t even removed his glasses and they’d fallen forward on to his chin.

  I went in quietly, took off his glasses and was putting them by his room key on the bedside table when he woke, raised himself on an elbow and blinked blearily. ‘Is this where I start believing in miracles, Rose?’

  ‘No.’ I told him why I was there. ‘Sorry,’ I went on, ‘to have woken you, but you’ll be more comfortable in, than on, the bed.’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’ He reached, groaning, for his glasses. ‘Christ, I feel awful. I was about to have a bath but put in so much hot I couldn’t get my hand down to the plug and the chain’s busted.’ He glanced at the bathroom. ‘You turn off that light?’

  ‘No. Off when I came in. You must’ve and forgotten.’

  ‘I don’t think I did. No. Sure I didn’t. I wanted it on for the piglights to heat it up.’

  ‘Piglights?’

  He got off the bed. ‘Those large round lights hanging from the ceiling double as heaters. You’ve got two over the way. They use them in pigsties in winter. Useful jobs. I’ll show you.’ He walked over in his socks, put up a hand towards the switch outside the bathroom door, then drew his hand back sharply and without moving forward peered into the darkened room. He didn’t say anything until he had found and flicked on his lighter and held it forward. ‘Correction, Rose,’ he said flatly, ‘this is where I start believing in miracles. Come here’ ‒ he grabbed my arm ‒ ‘only for Christ’s sake don’t touch that switch or go into the bathroom until we’re sure the main fuse has blown and that all the wiring in there is as dead as I’d now be had I not chosen to spend a few minutes thinking on this and that while my bath water cooled off.’

  For a moment I didn’t believe him. And then I had to believe him. In the lighter’s flickering flame I saw the wires trailing from the sagging patch of ceiling plaster to the two broad shallow objects bobbing in the bath water. ‘Oh, my God. You’re right. You could’ve been killed.’

  ‘Yep.’ He looked as shaken as I felt. ‘Me and Johnnie in one evening. I wonder who’ll collect the third near-miss before tonight’s out?’

  I was too upset for conscious thought so what I said came out of my subconscious. It astonished me as much as David. ‘Think there’ll be a third? Or that this one was meant for Johnnie too?’

  Chapter Three

  The pre-dawn sky was black and starless when I was woken with a start by the footsteps in the yard. Angie le Vere’s stage whisper floated up to my open window. ‘My God, sweeties, if this isn’t grounds for divorce I don’t know what is.’

  I hauled the bedclothes over my head until the sound of cars crawling off faded in the distance. I felt very sorry for the ducks. The poor little things hadn’t a chance with all those determined marksmen and sharp-shooting wives setting out to finish them off.

  What were Johnnie Evans-Williams’s chances of surviving a third? Or was David r
ight and all that ailed me a combination of post-flu depression and the ghosts his return had raised for me? ‘Maybe I should’ve stayed out of your life,’ he said. ‘Maybe the kindest thing I can do for us both is to move out tomorrow and stay out. Obviously, that’ll be the most sensible thing to do if the sight of me has you seeing murderers lurking behind every door, even although, as you’ve just said, until tonight it’s not occurred to you to so much as smell skullduggery since Endel caved in. But if it’ll ease your mind for the moment, let’s play this your way. Give me a hand shoving that little dressing chest across this open door to stop me stumbling in half-asleep. If it was set up, whoever did it set it to look like an accident and won’t be back tonight. He or she’ll have to sweat it out until the result in your imagination is announced by the screams of Mrs Wassname-Wassname or the room maid using the pass key to find out why the gaffer hasn’t showed up and finds him starkers in the bath with his head touching his heels. Right?’ I said nothing. From the look he gave me he thought I needed a very good psychiatrist. ‘After I’ve had some sleep,’ he continued, ‘I’ll report this in daylight, insist on taking first look at the main fuse box and then I’ll make a thorough check’ ‒ he jerked a thumb ‒ ‘in there. All right?’