A Dirty Death (15 page)

With a sigh, he led the way back to his room. She followed him out of the barn, across a corner 
of the yard, past Miranda’s modest front garden, still weedy and unimpressive, and up to Sam’s door. As a young girl, she had gone in and out freely, visiting Sam as if he had been a brother or uncle. It had been Guy who noticed this one day, and ordered her to knock in future. ‘Give the man some privacy, damn it,’ he’d said angrily.

Sam had his own small cooker, a sink and tiny shower room. He had a bath in the big main bathroom every Sunday morning, a ritual for which Miranda heated the water specially. He kept everything clean and tidy, his bed under the far window, a table and upright chair close by the door, and a chest of drawers filling most of the remaining space.

‘There,’ he pointed. The gun stood discreetly in a narrow space between the bathroom door and the chest of drawers. ‘So I can grab it quickly.’

‘Is it loaded?’

He looked uneasy, and chewed his lips. Finally he nodded.

‘Sam! Daddy would be furious. He never left it loaded.’

‘I thought I might need it in a hurry,’ he said. ‘It’s only for a bit, till all this is settled. Nobody’s going to see it there. I’ll clean it when I’ve got a minute, too. There’s a pull-through thing in the barn.’

‘I’m going to pretend I don’t know about this,’ 
she said. ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’

Back in the farmhouse, Miranda slowly opened her remaining mail. A long white envelope proved to be from the solicitor, containing the contents of her husband’s will. It took five lines to convey:

Amos surprised himself at the effectiveness of his acting. Ignoring his pounding head, he began his campaign for release early next morning. Smiling cheerfully at the nurse who came to wake him twenty minutes before any possible reason could be found for doing so, he expressed a desire for a bath. Baths, he had observed, were held in high regard by these people.

He visited the lavatory, and untruthfully announced success in moving his bowels – another bizarre obsession amongst the nursing staff. When the interminable doctors’ round finally reached his bed, he squared his shoulders, widened his eyes, and answered the brief questions clearly. It was amusing to see the surprise on the faces 
of the white-coated people. ‘Well,’ said the man in charge, ‘you’ve certainly taken a turn for the better.’ Amos managed a proud blush at this approval.

‘At this rate you’ll be able to go home in a day or two,’ the doctor said. Then, abruptly remembering something of the story attached to this case, he switched on an expression of concern, and lowered his voice. ‘Will you … er … be going back to the same house as before?’

Amos pouted a little, suggesting self-pity and indecision. ‘Oh yes, sir, I think so,’ he murmured. ‘No choice, come to that.’

‘Well, see Sister about it. She’ll sort something out with the social services, if you need her to. Won’t you, Sister?’ He beamed down on a rotund woman of dark colouring who responded with the most imperceptible of nods.

It seemed to Amos that from then on he was on some kind of helter-skelter. Forms were brought for him to sign; the policeman visited yet again, trying to assure him that his house had been cleaned up and there was nothing for him to worry about; a woman with frizzy, grey hair bustled to his bedside at mid-morning teatime, smiling patronisingly and talking about post-traumatic stress, which he made her repeat three times, in revenge.

Next day, they took all the bandages off his 
head for the last time and replaced them with a neat sticking plaster. He was instructed to present himself at his local doctor’s surgery in a few days for stitches to be removed and the whole wound examined. A young female doctor shone a torch in his eyes and said he was fit to be discharged. Just before lunch, they wheeled him into a lift, and out to the front entrance, where a car was waiting for him.

The house was scarcely recognisable. Nothing was as he’d left it. The toppling pile of official documents from Mum’s bureau now sat squarely in the middle of the kitchen table, tied up with odd-looking tape; drawers which had been pushed in crookedly, overflowing with string and paper bags, were now closed properly, flush with each other; the kitchen, always cluttered with unwashed crockery and greasy pans, coats and boots kicking around on the floor, was impossibly clean and tidy. Amos sat down at the table, on a chair that had been brushed clear of cat hairs and mud, and laughed. It was the complete reversal of what he had expected. Every television show he could remember had depicted the aftermath of police investigations as a total mess. They hacked things down with axes, turned everything out onto the floor, tore pages out of books, tipped sugar, tea, rice in heaps onto the table. Was it 
possible that the reality could be so far removed from what he’d been led to believe? If so, surely those film people had a lot to answer for. He could hardly give credence to the idea that the new government, elected only a year ago, would have bothered to make such drastic changes as to insist on police time being spent on tidying up the scene of a murder. He laughed again at the procession of crazy ideas marching through his head.

The obvious explanation, of course, was that some friend from the village had come in and cleaned the place up for him. The presence of a vase of forsythia and long white daisies from the garden reinforced this idea. The only flaw was that Amos had no friends in the village. Amos and Isaac had made themselves into recluses, and apart from obligatory nods in passing, nobody visited them, or cared what became of them.

Fleetingly, he wondered whether Miranda Beardon would have taken the trouble to do all this. His heart lurched with excitement at the thought. Now that her husband was gone, she might be free to do that kind of thing. But regretfully he dismissed the notion. Miranda wasn’t a cleaner, or a flower arranger. She would never even have given him a thought, so deeply immersed in her own troubles would she be.

Cautiously, he climbed the stairs. His own bedroom was much less changed than the
downstairs rooms had been. The rug beside the bed had disappeared, and the sheets and blankets looked oddly smooth and flat, like those in hospital. The windows had been cleaned, and the cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling had disappeared. But his clothes were all in place, as were the ornaments on the shelf beside the bed.

It took considerable reserves of courage to enter Isaac’s room. Amos’s first inclination was to ensure that the door was tightly closed, and then never go in there again. His brother had lived in that room from a small boy, little changing apart from the size and nature of his clothes. Amos had passed on some of his own things to brighten up the room a bit – a model ship that he’d made, a dish to keep loose change in. Isaac had been fond of hoarding money, counting it carefully and planning small treats for himself.

But eventually Amos forced himself to look, prepared for almost anything. Splashes of blood on the ceiling, the smell of death, an uneasy ghost. What he found was quite an anticlimax. The bed was stripped down to the saggy old mattress. Isaac’s clothes were neatly folded and piled on his big chair. The room smelt of some synthetic cleaning substance, perfumed with pungently artificial pine. It was nicely done, more as if Isaac had gone away on holiday than was dead and never coming back. 

Downstairs again, he found cheese and eggs in the fridge, and a packet of cracker biscuits which had not been there before. A few tins – beans, tomatoes – had been added to their slender stores. He fingered them, moving them about to admire the breathtaking cleanliness of the cupboard. Other things had disappeared – ancient jars of chutney with the metal lids rusting through; leaking bags of sugar; jellies, which Isaac had been so keen on at one time, and then perversely refused, and which had softened and oozed and stuck themselves to the shelf. Well, he decided, from now on, he would keep it like this. No more mess or dirt. He was a reformed character. Looking round, he realised how free he felt, airy with relief and pride at the way his neglected house could look, with a bit of effort.

He ate crackers and cheese and made himself some black coffee. Then he remembered the cats. There had been five of them, at least, all Isaac’s special darlings. They had run at will through the house, adding to the smell and untidiness, leaving muddy footmarks and hairs wherever they went.

So where were they? Who had fed them while he’d been away? Had that tortoiseshell hussy had yet another litter of kittens out in the barn? She’d looked imminent when last he saw her. Cramming the last biscuit into his mouth, he went out into the yard, glancing automatically down at Redstone as 
he did so. Most of the house was visible, just the lower half hidden by the swell of the field, down which he had hurtled on that dreadful morning. He could see the milking parlour, and the bright red splash of the smaller car sitting in the yard, close to the farm gate. He had thought of the Beardons as ‘neighbours’ ever since they’d come to Redstone, even though it must be a good five hundred yards from one house to the other.

‘Kitty, kitty,’ he called, in a low voice. He could scarcely remember a time when he’d been here alone, and it made him nervous. ‘Where are you? Cats! Come on.’ There was nothing but silence. All the cats had gone. Perhaps they’d simply decided to seek hospitality at some other farm, or perhaps some officious RSPCA person had rounded them all up and impounded them.

They had other livestock: fifteen ewes, two Aberdeen Angus heifers and a donkey, all but the donkey kept for breeding and a small income realised from their offspring. In summertime, they would have come to no harm, grazing the few acres left to the Grimsdales after Guy Beardon’s land purchases. Amos postponed the short walk necessary to check that all was well with them. His head was aching, the bruised flesh nagging for peace and calm and a cool flannel. Instead he turned back to the house, only to be arrested by the sound of a motor vehicle coming down the 
bumpy track which led nowhere but to his door.

He waited, forcing down an apprehension that it might be his attacker returning to complete the job. The policeman in the hospital had been reassuring, though vague. He had mentioned ‘surveillance’, with regular trips made to the area, and a close eye kept on any strangers. Surely no one would be daft enough to repeat the assault, at least not in broad daylight …

A battered yellow van came into view, then stopped beside his gate, so he could not quite see the driver. He dithered between retreating back into the house and waiting where he was, on the assumption that his visitor would eventually find him whatever he did. A few seconds’ hesitation made the decision for him. The newcomer had already climbed out of the van and was striding towards him.

It was a woman, black hair flowing loose, a cotton dress tight across breast and thighs, a sturdy-looking forty-five or thereabouts. Amos stared. It had been five years or more since he last saw her as close to as this. Longer than that since they’d last spoken.

‘Hello, Amos,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘You’re home then.’

He spread wide his arms, leaving himself open, a gesture saying, ‘As you see.’ A gesture which also betrayed his bewilderment. 

‘They haven’t buried Isaac yet, you know,’ she said, hands on her hips. ‘That’s for you to see to. Time you shifted yourself, old man.’

He shook his head. ‘Someone’s supposed to be coming to see me. I ha’n’t thought about it yet.’ He stopped the head-shaking quickly as the pain intensified and gazed intently at his tormenter, still bemused at the sight of her. ‘Why—?’ he began.

She laughed. ‘Someone had to see to the place, feed the cats, check those straggly ewes. Their bottoms are filthy, I might add.’

‘But,
you
. What’s it to you? I’m nothing to you.’

‘Amos Grimsdale, don’t act daft. You were never the daft one. Not that Isaac had so much wrong with him.’ She laughed again, the sound jarring on Amos, making him want to cover his ears. Tears gathered, scalding, behind his eyes and nose.

‘They were glad when I offered. The police. Awkward buggers, they were, leaving everything in a mess.’

Dread seized Amos. He felt weak like the newborn kittens which he knew now had been destroyed. She’d offered to feed the cats and then done away with them. She
would
. He searched his mind for what else she might have done to hurt him. What else did he have that he was afraid to lose? It was with a strange, wry relief that he 
realised there was nothing. And the realisation gave him strength.

‘Did you kill the cats?’ he challenged.

‘Not all of them,’ she retorted. ‘You know yourself there was too many. The rest went to new homes.’

‘Was it your business?’ he said, as if he genuinely wished to know. ‘They’d have got by.’

‘Cats do no good,’ she decreed. ‘Messy, selfish, mean-minded things. My Elvira hates ’em.’

‘And what’s she got to do with it?’

She shrugged. ‘You’ll see. Now, I’m off. Will you come and visit me one day? There’s a matter to talk over. But you’re not fit for it now.’

‘What matter?’ he asked tiredly. ‘Phoebe, I have nothing to speak to you about. You’re not meaning me any good, that much I can see.’

‘Ungrateful bugger!’ she laughed. ‘After I wore myself out cleaning this pigsty for you. Took me three whole days, and nothing from you but moaning about cats.’

‘You didn’t do it for me,’ he said flatly. ‘So what was it for?’

‘I’ve told you. Come and see me when you feel better and we’ll have a talk. And get that funeral seen to. It’s not proper to leave it so long. After that, you should get those poor sheep shorn. They’ll have maggots otherwise.’

Amos shrugged. Funeral rites were of scant 
importance to him. Phoebe glanced round, throwing a brief, passing look at Redstone, and stood still for a moment, a hand held oddly to her chest. ‘I’ll be off then. You needn’t thank me for straightening the house, or getting in something you could eat. I don’t expect thanks. But I’ll be seeing you, Amos Grismdale. Don’t think I won’t.’

She left him, almost running back the way she’d come. But at the van she stopped and looked back, throwing him a smile of triumph that stayed with him throughout that day and the long sleepless night that followed it.