Marsh Blood (The Endel Mysteries Book 2)

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘I expect you’re right. You always used to be right. Just flu. You don’t have to push off tomorrow.’

  ‘Let’s talk about that one tomorrow, love.’

  The outburst of notes from the first rising lark was a glorious relief. The birds subscribed to the established order and, once the larks had declared the new day, at first sleepily, then in full voice, the others joined in. The chorus was interwoven by the croaking of the frogs, the goat-like grunts of the snipe on the wing and the cynical ha-ha-has of the wheeling gulls. And the plaintive peewits and pee-ip, pee-ip, pee-ips of the lapwing and plover sang a requiem for the ducks.

  With a little less luck this morning two dead men could have earned that requiem. By sheer luck Johnnie had stooped for that bird; by sheer luck David had been so tired he had forgotten to lock his door and flaked out.

  Daylight came wrapped in a gentle mist. Then more glorious sounds. Motor-bike and moped engines and human voices saying good morning and wasn’t it shocking about poor Mr Evans-Williams and didn’t it just go to show there wasn’t no telling there wasn’t.

  I got up and had a long bath and when I got back found a morning tea-tray by my bed. No newspapers yet. The papers came out with the bread in the milkman’s van at mid-morning. I saw the mail van coming down the road from Harbour as I drank my tea and felt much more normal. My post at home came out twice a day in the mail van from St Martin’s that called first at the Denvers’, then Walt Ames’s house on the farm, last at Endel, then turned back to the village. We all used the postman-drivers as our private pony express as they never minded delivering verbal messages with the mail, invariably did so correctly, and so often our telephones were dead, as gales, or the wide wings of swans, had brought down the wires.

  My mind drifted off to a black and white drawing of a swan I’d bought at last year’s Cliffhill Art Soc. exhibition ‒ oh, my God! It was this afternoon. If I didn’t show up Mrs Smith would never forgive me. She was a good, God-fearing, well-meaning, stupid, insensitive woman and didn’t like me, though for social reasons she made a civilized pretence of so doing. Unless I were on my death-bed, her umbrage over my absence would be beyond bearing, and tough on Mr Smith, whom I liked. I felt he liked me, even if he didn’t always like my decisions. His one consolation over my will had been his conviction that women invariably changed their minds.

  There was no sound from David’s room when I stopped outside his door on my way to breakfast and the postcard he had inscribed in capitals PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB hung from the handle. I looked at it momentarily, then knocked. ‘No tea, thanks,’ he grunted. I breathed out, told myself to stop being so damned neurotic and went on down. The front hall was empty. I had a solitary meal in the dining room served by a chubby, fresh-faced young woman in a pink nylon button-through over hand-knit and jeans. She said her name was Hilda, and that she was from Harbour, came out weekday mornings with Doreen who did upstairs, and nothing else. She knew only ignorant foreigners talked at breakfast. Her silence was amiable, the food even better than at dinner, and the atmosphere even better still. I would have enjoyed my meal much more had that second improvement not been so noticeable.

  David’s notice was still up when I got back and Doreen was cleaning my room. She was considerably older than Hilda, and wore the same pink over a different-coloured hand-knit and the same jeans. Breakfast was over so conversation in order. ‘From Midstreet aren’t you, madam? You have come to a home from home, haven’t you? Wasn’t it shocking about poor Mr Evans-Williams? Could’ve been killed, Harry says, and the cruel turn it give that poor young Mike. Sensitive he is. Teenager. Well, I mean some of ’em are and some of ’em aren’t and I should know having the three and the noise ‒ you’d not credit it, madam ‒ but like hubby says you’re only young the once ‒ and it’s a wonder to him, he says, as there’s not been more accidents down Harbour Marsh what with all these poachers coming down from Astead and Cliffhill and London, hubby shouldn’t wonder, and not paying no shooting dues neither nor knowing one end of a gun from the other proper.’

  ‘So you’ve had a lot of poachers down here?’

  ‘That’s what the men says up the Anchor at Harbour ‒ but you know men, madam, say anything they will when they’ve had a few ‒ but where’s the harm a working man enjoying his pint? Sleep well, did you, madam? That’s good. Been poorly, Mrs Evans-Williams says, needing a nice rest and you’ll get that here. Ever so quiet once the guns gone.’ She nodded her curly grey head at the door. ‘I left your gentleman friend be. You leave him till he wakes, Mrs Evans-Williams says, been travelling he has and needs his sleep. All right if I do your bathroom now?’

  ‘Sure.’ I followed her in to admire the decor. ‘Very attractive wall tiles. Same in all these bathrooms?’

  ‘In different colours, madam.’ She scattered scouring powder as the sower his seeds. ‘Mr Evans-Williams had a firm down from London do the lot. He’s asked first for Biggs of Cliffhill but they couldn’t fit the time with him. Nice enough chaps he fetched down and hard workers, but I’m glad as wasn’t me as had to foot the bill. Nothing but the best for Mr Evans-Williams. Ever so particular, he is.’

  ‘Shows. I suppose they did six as well?’

  ‘Finished up in there. Well, he says, don’t want to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar and could come in useful having the extra private bath if we’ve to let it special.’

  ‘So it’s often let?’

  ‘I’d not say often. Just when Mrs Evans-Williams obliges special like for your gentleman friend or one of the business gentlemen as come down to see him.’

  ‘Reps?’

  Doreen was shocked. ‘Oh, no, madam! Not Harbour Inn. No commercials, no coaches. Rule of the house.’ She turned on the bath taps.

  I left her to it, went back into the corridor, closed my door and knocked loudly on David’s. ‘David. Rose. You awake?’

  ‘No,’ he groaned, ‘dead. Hold on ‒’ I heard him cursing for his glasses then stumbling for the door. ‘Christ, woman, can’t you read?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve had breakfast. Can I come in a moment?’ I pushed him back without waiting for an answer, went in, closed and leant against his door. ‘I ‒ I thought I’d take a walk,’ I invented, ‘then wondered if you’d rather I stayed around when you report’ ‒ I glanced towards his bathroom ‒ ‘that lot.’

  He ruffled his untidy head and considered me quizzically. ‘Thanks, love, but I’m a big boy now. I can wash behind my own ears and mend a fuse. You take a walk and draw some pretty bird pictures.’

  I looked him in the face. ‘And give you a chance to ring the nearest psychiatrist? Okay. I’ll take my walk.’ I only then noticed his pyjamas. ‘My God. Where did you get those?’

  His pyjamas were black silk, piped and monogrammed on all three pockets in gold.

  He said reproachfully, ‘I’d have you know these are Hong Kong’s best custom-built jobs.’

  I shook my head sadly. ‘You were quite right not to marry her, David.’

  He held open the door, grinning. ‘Get out and leave me to me beautiful memories.’

  I pushed a small sketching pad and handful of pencils into my anorak pocket. I wasn’t in my da Vinci mood, but sketching usually helped me to think more clearly and my mind was badly in need of clarification. The hall was still empty when I deposited my key on the counter, and somewhere behind the swing door Mrs Evans-Williams was discussing a laundry problem with Hilda. ‘… If the van doesn’t arrive on time you must re-lay with red damask all round as we must have matching cloths and napkins. Do try and remember, please, Hilda, napkins not serviettes. These little details make all the difference and you know how particular Mr Evans-Williams is about little details ‒’

  Very particular man, Mr Evans-Williams, but not one to fuss over the identity of the person who just missed blowing his head off. I wondered how particular he would be over a little detail such as death by electrocution?

  He came out of the side door by the garages
when I walked into the otherwise empty yard. His right arm was in a sling and from his appearance and walk he had aged ten years overnight. After we’d exchanged civilities and I had had his version of what had happened ‒ which tallied almost word for word with Renny le Vere’s account ‒ he added, ‘Talk about being hoist with my own petard after warning you, eh?’

  ‘I thought that last night. Very tough on you. Should you be up today? Forgive me, but you look as if the shock’s not yet worn off.’

  His bloodshot eyes were grateful. ‘Many thanks for the kind thought, Mrs D. Between ourselves and that sign up there, nothing I’d like more than today with my feet up. But young Nick McCabe said it wouldn’t hurt me to potter around and could do what remains of my lungs some good as I refuse to stop smoking. I can’t slack off today. Not fair to leave Helen to run the shop alone when we’re full. Three hands are better than two, especially today. Brewer’s delivery’s due. Cellar’s my pigeon. We’ve got to get all the empty barrels up and leave new space below. The lorry’s due out this morning but most likely won’t appear till afternoon unless we’re not ready for it! No peace for the wicked eh?’ He nodded at David’s white car. ‘Mr Lofthouse still got his head down?’

  I watched his face closely in the gentle sunlight. ‘I’ve just woken him.’

  ‘Thank you for it?’

  ‘Not effusively.’

  He grinned boyishly and again, as yesterday, I was conscious that something about him struck a chord. I still couldn’t place it. ‘Travelling by air exhausts the strongest. Has he decided to stay on?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He was far too tired last night to think of anything but sleep.’

  Had I not been watching him so closely I would have missed the relief that flickered at the back of his eyes. ‘Far as we’re concerned, he’s most welcome as I’m walking wounded. Where are you off to now?’

  ‘Just taking a stroll till he’s up and about. Where shouldn’t I go?’

  He cocked his head, then twisted it around so like an Alsatian scenting danger that I expected his ears and hackles to shoot up. ‘Harry took the dawn patrol to meet the flights coming in north-east ‒ just a few miles south of Lymchurch. Thataway. If you keep sou-east you should have the old harbour to yourself. Should be pleasant walking now the sun’s breaking through.’

  I paused on the bridge beyond the cinder road to look back at the inn buildings lying peacefully in the morning sun. The weatherboarding was freshly whitewashed, the black cross-beams and doors were freshly oiled; the ancient, dark-brown roof-tiles of the inn and new ugly grey slates on the outhouses were in good repair and the grey-white stone flags of the yard were swept clean. It only needed roses round the doors and the oldest inhabitant in his smock with his pint on the black wrought-iron bench drawn up against the bar wall to be a natural for a Come To Beautiful Britain poster.

  I recognized the workmanship of that bench. It had been made by the blacksmith in Coxden, the mainland village nearest the marsh that lay roughly midway between Astead and Cliffhill. I thought the Evans-Williamses had been wise to patronize local craftsmen where they could. Any incomers who spent money locally and provided regular jobs for local labour were far more likely to overcome the initial resentment towards newcomers that was an instinctive reaction in close-knit rural communities, and gain, if never acceptance, at least a not inconsiderable degree of respect. And then as I strolled on I found myself recalling that, while marshfolk were seldom averse to making a fast buck out of strangers and had their vices, these did not usually include biting the hands that fed them.

  Of course, that poacher could’ve come from Astead, Cliffhill, London … and if he had come from the mainland Harry Wattle would have had him in the nick last night. Possibly one could hide a battalion in those dunes once the light went, but not a solitary or small posse of strangers from a crafty, experienced old marshman on his home marsh.

  Walt Ames was about Harry’s age; at any hour of the day or night, unless there was a real mist, Walt could pinpoint to within a few yards the whereabouts of every stranger on Midstreet Marsh. I once asked him how he did it. ‘Either I smells ’em,’ he said, ‘or me dogs do.’

  Dogs. Harry had had his dogs last night. Why hadn’t he used them? Obvious. No stranger. Still more obvious, Harry hadn’t wanted him found ‒ which was precisely what Renny had said. Maybe I should find that psychiatrist for myself.

  The sun had dispersed the mist and left behind a queer greenish undersea light that hung over the flat fields and topaz dykes. The self-planted hawthorn and wind-stunted willows that trailed into the water and the orange heads of the reed-mace looked stiff as coral and as if they sheltered fishes not birds. But in every dyke the moorhens scuttled over the water, rootled in the rushes, and in every field the lapwing and plover were black and white smudges. High above, the wide empty sky reflected the pale-blue serenity of the murmuring sea. I counted five herons, each fishing one-legged in its own private dyke, and lost count of the pheasants ambling on to the road, and the magpies. To see just one magpie was bad luck; a pair, good luck. I saw so many pairs stomping over the grass like elderly clerics soberly conversing at some massive ecclesiastical convention that my marsh blood was convinced God was in his heaven and all was right with my world. Unfortunately, I was only half marsh. I stopped on another bridge for another anxious look back at the inn and immediately had that uncomfortable sensation of being watched by someone unseen. Then I remembered that was only too likely as I was in sight of the inn and Doreen or anyone else might quite reasonably be watching me from an upper window.

  I lost interest in the subject in my new interest in the outline of the old harbour that from where I stood was as clear as a line drawn on a map. The inn and two old nethouses marked the left arm, a trio of even more derelict nethouses, the right. Those nethouses had been built by the fishermen who used them to dry, make and store their nets, were shaped much like stone beehives about six or seven feet wide at the base and not much more than five feet high. The men who had built them had been the men who had walked with ease in and out of the old doors of the inn. There were similar old nethouses dotted all round the coast and most were used by shepherds to house fodder for straying, hungry sheep.

  A footpath ran down from the left of that bridge to skirt the inland edge of a cross-dyke, meander round a nethouse and then stop abruptly in the middle of the field beyond. The field on the far side of the cross-dyke stretched to the sea road and was less green and much more broken with patches of sand, pebbles, sea-pinks and saltwater pools. I took the footpath and my time. The sun was warmer; the greenish light had gone; the air was crisp with salt, and alive with the soft cries and chatter of birds and the soft whisper of the sea. The beauty and the tranquillity seeped into me and dispersed all confused thoughts of dangers past and present, as the sun the morning mist.

  I pushed open the rotting wooden door of the nethouse and peered inside. The pile of stale fodder seemed to have been flattened into a mattress by human hands and was oddly patched with a greenish-purple fuzz. I propped open the door to let in more light and touched one patch gingerly, thinking it must be a fungus I didn’t recognize. I was glad there was no one around to see my error and grinned at myself. The ‘fungus’ was mohair and had obviously rubbed off some girl’s coat. Young love from Harbour needing privacy and shelter when it was too cold for haystacks and Dutch barns and the blood was too hot to be bothered by the musty smell, and the fleas and spiders in that fodder. I wasn’t in love and I was terrified of spiders. I ducked back outside, and absently thrust my handful of mohair into one of my anorak pockets as the moorhens scurried for cover. I sat down on a sandy patch outside, leant back against the hut and after a very few minutes the moorhens forgot I was there.

  I had spent over an hour making desultory sketches when a cormorant suddenly poised on the bridge wall with bronze-black wings displayed. His brownish-white instead of pristine white headdress showed that winter was near and his mating season temporarily over
. He had vanished, and I was shading the head and wondering if I would wear brownish white permanently, when David loomed over me hugging himself in his overcoat. ‘Why aren’t your hands too frost-bitten to draw, Rose?’

  ‘My, my, that Australian sun has thinned your blood.’ I closed my sketching pad. ‘Meanwhile, back at the ranch …?’

  He smiled apologetically, ducked to look inside the nethouse, ducked out and sat by me. ‘I’ve just left old Johnnie blowing all fuses and his lovely wife having hysterics. He’s threatening to sue the electrical firm, the South-Eastern Electricity Board, the Government, the architects, the decorators, the plumber, the plumber’s mate and the lad who makes the tea ‒ just for starters. Can’t say I blame him. The coroner’s remarks wouldn’t have done his trade too much good. As he said, he’s the bloke that foots the bill.’

  ‘Genuine faulty fixture?’

  ‘From all the evidence I’ve seen and I’ve had a good look. I’d say they cut corners in that bathroom as in the bedroom, finished off in a hurry and weren’t too fussy checking the beams were strong enough to hold the fixture. Old beams. Look strong enough until you start shoving in a knife. After a slightly sticky start my penknife went in like butter.’ He looked at me. ‘You know how these very old beams can look tough as hell on the outside and be crumbling inside.’

  ‘Just that?’

  ‘That’s how it looks and what I’ll have to say on oath if it comes to court. Johnnie asked if I’ll speak up for him. I’ve said I will. Not that I think it’ll come to that unless I sue for my damaged nervous system, which I won’t. Thanks to you, I’m still the lad I’ve always known and loved. I can’t see either party wanting the bad publicity. They’ll settle out. Incidentally, I’m giving you the news now. Johnnie was so worked-up at the prospect of your reaction that I didn’t want to make certain of his stroke by telling him the truth.’