“Like I told you, I been expectin’ somethin’ like this to ‘appen…” she began, in a firm, quietly confident voice, reassured by the accuracy of her wisdom and foresight. No-one in the room knew exactly what had taken place and were relying on Mrs. Flint to tell them. Her opening words had guaranteed their undivided attention and she played her audience like a professional, “…ever since she came to Willow Cottage.” Nobody stirred. There was no shuffling of feet or clearing of throats, each individual intent on catching every word she said. Samuel Handysides looked from one face to another, around the room, seeing the concern etched into each and every one of them, finally settling his gaze on the solid bulk of the woman at the opposite end of the table as she continued.
“Miss Foxton is nobody’s fool,” she let the words sink in, to give them full effect. “She notices things that, per’aps some of us wouldn’t. She experiences things that might not happen to us.” Mrs. Tinker let her eyes roam slowly around the room, alighting on each of them, in turn. “An’ she’s been askin’ me to make sense of the goin’s on at the cottage!” She lifted her head slightly and the features of her face were defined in light and shadow by the illumination from the wall lights. It gave her a spectral appearance, lending emphasis to her words, as a babble of conversation erupted. Samuel Handysides grabbed a nearby glass and banged it on the table several times.
“Come on now! Quieten down, an’ let’s ‘ear what Cora’s got to say.” It took a few moments for complete silence to be restored. “Continue in your own time, please Cora, and let’s have no more nonsense,” he added, looking at them all over his glasses, “until Mrs. Flint’s finished.”
“I was called to account, yesterday mornin’, by Miss Foxton,” continued Cora, squaring her shoulders and folding her arms in front of her, “and asked if I could give a meanin’ to a dream she’d been ‘avin’. Not just the once, mind, this dream. My lord, no. Several times now, she’s ‘ad it, an’ it’s always the same thing.” She leaned forward now, in a show of intimacy, spreading her arms and resting her hands on the table, then lowered her voice in a conspiratorial manner. “The way of it is, she gets to thinkin’ she’s bein’ chased, purr-sued, she called it,” Cora explained, in a hoity-toity voice, but no-one laughed. “An’ those that are chasin’ ‘er gets closer an’ closer, lookin’ like they’re about to catch ‘er, when she trips ‘erself up an’ starts to fall.” Cora stood back, as they all stared at her. “An’ that’s when she wakes up, all ‘ot and bothered.” By the look of them, with their grim expressions, taut mouths and anxious fidgeting, she knew that all those villagers seated at the table, including Samuel Handysides, were in no doubt as to the inference of her words. Cora Flint was too adroit in village matters to openly display a look which said ‘I told you so,’ as it could easily provoke a divisive reaction behind her back and nobody in the room, or in the village for that matter could afford that, by her reckoning. She drew comfort from the fact that she’d pointed the possibility out and they were all well aware of it. But it didn’t stop her silently gloating. There were some who would treat her with a new respect now and it was no more than she deserved.
“That was the main thing that was a-worryin’ ‘er.” Cora’s voice focused everyone’s attention on her end of the table, once again, after they had had time to digest the earlier information. “But it was by no means the only thing. I reckons there’s sommat that’s goin’ on inside ‘er ‘ead, chirrupin’ away at ‘er, tryin’ to tell ‘er there’s a rat in her larder but she ain’t quite got the message yet.” Maybe she hadn’t but those seated around the table were beginning to understand the gravity of what the speaker was saying. “There’s a cat’s turned up, spittin’ image of Smokey. Same colour, same size, everythin’. If I ‘adn’t ‘ave seen it with my own eyes, I’d never ‘ave believed it. ‘ccordin’ to Miss Foxton, at night it only sleeps in the small bedroom at the end of the landin’.” The silence in the room was so overpowering it weighed on them like some malignant force exerting its dark influence over them.
“I never seen a cat the likes of that ‘round ‘ere, not for some years anyways,” Cora Flint added, pointedly. “Just came in bold as brass and made itself at ‘ome. An’ talkin’ of that bedroom there’s sommat else,” she went on quickly, lowering her head briefly unable to face the cold, questioning eyes that were riveted on her. This was what she had been dreading. What would they think of her now, after she’d told them this? She could just imagine the wagging tongues, after the meeting, accusing voices speaking her name relieved to have someone else to point the finger of blame at. All the good work undone.
“Ever since I been keepin’ ‘ouse at Willow Cottage I been puttin’ flowers in that room, just as a reminder like…” Her voice died away and Cora Flint saw the immediate reaction in the narrowing of their eyes, the surreptitious glances from one horrified person to another, the disbelief so evident that to Cora it was tangible. To her there was no discrimination between feeling and touching. Their response was as obvious, as potent, as a physical blow but she had had enough experience of the miseries of life and the pettiness of people to know that if she showed herself to be uncertain or remorseful that the others would recognise her weakness, as surely as sharks sense blood in the ocean, and circle for the attack. An inner strength born out of adversity and loss suddenly fortified her and she appeared to grow a little in stature in front of their eyes as the new found confidence flooded through her.
“I puts flowers in that room,” she said, coldly, “’cos I ‘ave every right to and I dares any one of you to question that right. No one ‘ere’s suffered like I ‘ave. Many of the folk that ‘ave stayed there complimented me on ‘em and thought nothin’ of it. If Miss Foxton ‘adn’t ‘ave come along no one would be any the wiser!” Not one of them could meet her eyes, unable to accept the challenge in her hard, uncompromising stare. It took Samuel Handysides and his common sense to steady the floundering ship.
“No one’s blamin’ you for anythin’ Cora. It’d be an ‘eartless soul who said it was wrong to put flowers in that room.” He looked at each one of them in turn, daring any of them to speak out. “You been through enough, by my reckonin’, so don’t you go worryin’ youself about it. Best you just carry on, eh, as time’s getting’ away on us.”
There wasn’t much else to say, only to relate Bella’s comments about how Jane had felt, on her weekend visit. But it was the sum total of everything Cora Flint had told them by the time she had finished that left each one of them in no doubt that pigeons had appeared on the horizon and looked like they had every intention of coming home to roost. With her part in the proceedings over, Cora sat down and all eyes turned to Samuel.
“I’m sure that can’t ‘ave been easy for you Cora an’ I’d like to thank you, on be’alf of us all, for coming ‘ere tonight.” His face softened into a sympathetic, cheery smile but it was no reflection of what he was feeling in his heart. He turned his attention to the others in the room.
“There’s no point in puttin’ Mrs. Flint through any more distress tonight I think you’d all be agreein’?” A general nodding of heads, accepted his comment and he looked up at Cora.
“You can go now, m’dear, an’ I’ll let you know what goes on ‘ere tonight, if you don’t mind?” She stood up, wearily, pushing her chair back and it scraped noisily across the wooden floor where it was exposed through the hole in the ageing, threadbare carpet. With a prim nod at the gathered assembly she made her way from the room.
After she had left no-one spoke immediately. It was almost as though her departure had left a vacuum making the very act of breathing, let alone speech, difficult. In the resulting stillness each of them in their own private way were coming to terms with the fact that something from the past, something they had all by mutual consent consigned to history, had clawed its way back into their consciousness. The spectre of Willow Cottage had come back to haunt them.
Chapter Fourteen
The old silver birch had a
bifurcated trunk, devoid of any branches in its first two or three metres, giving its base the appearance of a giant catapult. Surrounded by chestnut, oak, sycamore and laurel, it stood, unobtrusively, in the densely wooded area on the right-hand side of the driveway facing Willow Cottage. The ground cover was thick with the lush green foliage of fern and bracken enjoying unbroken tenure of the area for decades, undisturbed by human intervention of any kind. Until this moment the most intrusive invader had been that insidious infiltrator of the English countryside with the most contrasting of qualities. It was yet another of nature’s quirks that provided the blackberry with its fast-growing, thorny creepers and a harvest of small, sweet berries. The figure that leaned against the gnarled, silvery trunk watching the cottage, rubbed at the smarting area on the top of his foot where it had been raked by thorns. Although the wounds were tiny they were annoying him exceedingly. No paths existed here and he had had to forge his way through the undergrowth to reach his objective, the effort of getting to the tree sucking the breath out of him. In the filtered sunlight that penetrated the canopy sweat glistened on his broad, jutting brow and along the rough, stubbled skin above his upper lip. Pain and misery plagued him, clearly reflected by the anguished look in his moist, grey eyes. His upper body was never still moving, almost imperceptibly, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, as if in time to some inner, rhythmic beat. The air was damp, humid the cloying atmosphere adding to his discomfort but he knew that he had to wait. Her bright red car was parked directly in front of him about thirty yards away outside the cottage and he never took his eyes off it willing her to come out, get in, and drive away. It would have been impossible for anyone coming out of Willow Cottage to have spotted him, cloaked as he was in the dark, shadowy confines of the wood and the thought gave him comfort. His nerves were on edge though and a sudden, raucous sound close by made him start as a cock pheasant burst from the cover of the trees its wings beating furiously to lift it over the fields and up, up into the bright blue sky overhead.
Coming out from the cool, dark interior of the cottage, Bella stood on the doorstep for a moment welcoming the warm embrace of the sun. Head back, eyes closed, her face lifted towards the sky, she took a long, deep breath and inhaled the essence of the countryside. A mingling of scents and smells. some of which she had begun to recognise and identify, wafted around her as her olfactory responses reacted to the cleaner air with a greater sensitivity. She stood, motionless, enjoying the moment totally unaware that she was being observed before finally lowering her head and reaching into her shoulder bag for the keys to the car. Even now after having spent some time at the cottage Bella found herself making comparisons with London. Turning the key in the lock she remembered her weekly visits to Sainsburys which generally took place on a Saturday morning commencing with the inevitable dual with the traffic followed by the struggle to find a parking space. Everything seemed to have an element of conflict in it she recalled as she opened the door and got in. Adjusting the rear view mirror, the memory of battling to get out of the supermarket and the frustrations of queueing at the checkout gave her cause to smile as she thought of Knapthorne’s general store and the butcher’s shop. With a sigh of relief she admitted to herself that life was so much better here, the pace that much slower, as she started the engine and released the handbrake. It was all about peace of mind she concluded as she drove away. There was just something so relaxing about being here away from all the stresses and strains of city life. Something that made you feel really safe.
He watched the vehicle disappear down the drive, heard the noise fade as she reached the junction with Spinney Lane. Muted by distance the throaty sound of the car’s engine, responding as she went from first into second along the lane, drifted back to him. Not until then did he feel safe to move, confident there was no-one else in the cottage. Pausing to give his lacerated foot another urgent rub he took a furtive look around before edging away from the reassuring bulk of the tree and making for the drive, to his left.
Reaching the end of Spinney Lane, Bella indicated then slowed the car before coming to a halt at the junction. Seeing the road was clear in both directions she executed the right turn, towards Knapthorne, and immediately remembered the letters she had meant to bring with her to post. Cursing under her breath she checked the mirror to see if there was anything behind her. Fortunately the road was clear in both directions. In a deft series of movements she slowed the car, swung into a farm entrance on her left, then spun the wheel hard to the right completing a speedy u-turn and heading back in the direction she had come from. In no time at all she was turning off Spinney Lane and cruising up the drive, a little faster than usual, in her rush to get in and out. Negotiating the last bend Bella was forced to bring the car skidding to a halt, stunned to find a figure standing facing the cottage less than five yards in front of it, his right arm raised. To her utter dismay she was appalled to notice that two of the downstairs windows were broken. The car had hardly stopped, enveloped in a cloud of dust, before she had her door open and was on her feet, running towards him.
“Stop! Stop it at once!” she screamed. “What d’you think you’re doing?” Alfie Flint stood frozen in the pose of a cricketer about to return a ball from the boundary. His left hand was held against his body, cradling a number of large stones there. On the ground, by the wall of the cottage, several more stones lay scattered around where they had hit the wall and rebounded having missed their target. Bella ran up and scooped the stones away from him onto the ground before looking into his face. What she saw there shocked her. A look of such unmitigated hatred made her suddenly fear for her own safety. Was he dangerous, violent even? What did she really know about Alfie Flint and what was he doing here? His eyes were red-rimmed and there were tears running down his pudgy unshaven cheeks. Without warning he crumpled, much as though he was an inflatable doll and someone had opened a valve releasing the air. Alfie sank to his knees, sobbing, and rested his face in his hands.
“I ‘ates this place, Miss. I ‘ate it!” The undisguised violence of the statement was quite frightening. Never before had she heard such a tortured voice and rarely had she felt so woefully inadequate. They made a strange tableau, the two of them, in front of the cottage with the car close by, its engine still running.
Bella banged frantically on the back door of The Lamb, having entered the small garden from the gate in the fence bordering the car park. Where was anybody? Samuel Handysides for one. She banged again, harder this time, and the door flew open to reveal the landlord, his usual calm self-control obviously having deserted him.
“What the ‘ell’s goin’ on?” The look of surprise on his face when he recognised Bella tempered his vexed mood somewhat.
“Miss Foxton! What on earth be you’m doin’ here, at the back door? And why all the ‘ammerin’?”
“It’s Alfie, Samuel…” she exclaimed, visibly distressed.
“You found ‘im!” he interjected, before she was able to say another word. “Where on earth was ‘e?”
“At Willow Cottage.” She told him, breathlessly. “I’d left to come into the village…” Bella paused to try and regain her composure, “…but I had to go back as I’d forgotten something and there he was!” There was a stunned look on Samuel’s face. “He was throwing stones, at the windows would you believe, and he’s broken two of them!” The landlord closed his eyes, briefly, in disbelief.
“Where is ‘e now?” Samuel asked, quietly, with a sigh.
“In my car, in your car park” she replied. “He’s in a bit of a state.” The landlord followed her as she turned away and led him to her car. Alfie was slumped, utterly dejected, in the front passenger seat muttering darkly to himself. His demeanour changed noticeably when he spotted Samuel.
“I didn’t mean no ‘arm!” he cried out, as Bella opened the door but his troubled eyes were fixed firmly on the man at her shoulder. She stood back to let Samuel help him out and her heart went out to Alfie, looking at the sorry state h
e was in as he emerged. Samuel saw the distraught look on her face, mindful of what had gone on in the room over the saloon bar the night before. Thinking quickly he knew he had to act before things got out of hand.
“Why don’t you come into the parlour, Miss Foxton? I think I might be able to explain.” Bella nodded enthusiastically more concerned about Alfie than anything else right at that minute. Samuel had his arm round Alfie’s waist, supporting him, as they retraced their steps. Waiting at the back door, her hands firmly planted on her hips, was none other than Cora Flint. The frosty look on her face turned to one of pure surprise when she saw Bella.
“Take him upstairs, if you please, Cora.” The look in his eyes told her he’d handle the situation. “I’m just going to have a word with Miss Foxton, ‘ere.” Cora didn’t even acknowledge Bella but held out her hand towards her brother. Alfie, with mournful eyes and contrition written all over his face, bowed his head and grasped her outstretched hand following her through the parlour and out of sight. Samuel turned to Bella, the look on her face indicating that she was still in a state of shock from what she had witnessed. Even so, he admitted to himself, she was still a fine-looking woman.
“’ow’s about I put on a cup o’ tea? What d’you say to that?” He was kindness itself and Bella was grateful for his concern. The parlour, as Samuel called it, was the pub’s kitchen. What caught her eye immediately was the stone floor in a black and white diamond pattern like nothing she had ever seen before. Like the rest of the building the parlour was redolent of another era with its high ceiling and varnished woodwork. She sat at the large, solid wooden table in the centre of the room and looked around while Samuel busied himself making the tea. To her left, against the wall, was an ancient free-standing kitchen cabinet painted a sickly, light green. It stood about six feet tall and over two feet wide and was curved at the top. There were two long, narrow doors to its bottom cupboard, a bureau-style pull-down door in the middle and two smaller doors to the top cabinet each of these containing a panel of engraved glass. All the door handles were fashioned from forged tubular steel about the thickness of a ball-point pen. To Bella’s mind it was one of the most hideous pieces of furniture she had ever seen. There was a work surface either side of the cabinet, with a set of two, boxed-in, shelves above each one, and the landlord was busy at the far one. Behind her, underneath the windows that looked out onto the small garden, was a stone sink, flanked on both sides by a pressed steel work surface. The only time Bella recalled having seen taps like those above the sink was in old black and white movies. Bowing to the demands of progress and, presumably, necessity there was a fairly new-looking fan oven and hob, against the wall to her right. This stood at one end of a working surface beneath long narrow windows set high in the wall. At the other end was a commercial dishwasher. Much to her surprise she noticed a microwave oven tucked away in the corner, seemingly embarrassed to have been caught out in such surroundings.
The Knapthorne Conspiracy Page 24