âWhere does he walk normally?'
She uttered a sort of hiss which issued from the sides of her mouth. âJust round and about. He can't go far, not with his hip.'
âOh?' Markby smiled innocently at her. âI'm sorry to hear that. Does he have a stick?'
âHe's got one of them.' She nodded her head and Markby was reminded of all the tinned salmon sandwiches he'd been obliged to eat as a child. âBut what he needs is one of them new hips. Doctor says so. Only he's obstinate, is Dad. He won't go in no hospital.'
She glared at Markby and in the ensuing silence came a diversion. From the far end of the narrow hall, behind a door, another door slammed. They could hear someone wheezing and a sound like a stick tapping on flagstones. There must be a back entrance, an alley or such running behind these cottages.
Markby smiled at the woman again, something which
seemed to alarm her. âIt sounds as if your father's come home. Why don't you go and see?'
He moved forward as he spoke and she retreated, allowing him to squeeze into the hall. As he did, the door at the far end opened and the sturdy outline of an elderly man appeared, filling the aperture. He raised his stick and jabbed it aggressively at the stranger.
âWho's this feller, then?' he asked.
âPoliceman, Dad,' said his daughter. âDon't know what he wants. Well, he says he wants to talk to you. Can't think why.' This was accompanied by a sidelong contemptuous glance at Markby. âI suppose they've got to look as if they're doing something. There's been a bit of bother, someone's died. I told him, you've got nothing to do with it.'
âMurder,' declared the old man with some satisfaction. âI met someone on my way home as told me about it. Well, Mr Policeman. You'd better come into my parlour, as the spider said to the fly.' And disconcerting Markby considerably, he burst into a cackle of laughter.
His daughter shot forward and bundled him back into the kitchen. âYou got to take them dirty boots off, Dad!' she said loudly. Over her shoulder to Markby, she added, âYou go on and wait for him. He'll be with you direct.'
Markby obediently went into the parlour. The room in which he found himself spoke of poverty, not a recent lack of income but a generations-long want. Poor people begetting poor people, trapped in a narrow existence not only by lack of cash but by lack of education and a deep mistrust and fear of the outside world. He wasn't surprised Billy Twelvetrees didn't want to go to hospital. He suspected the very idea was terrifying to the old
man. He'd lived here for his entire life and he had no wish to be surrounded by strangers at this late stage.
He knew he had a few minutes to examine his surroundings. Billy and his daughter would be exchanging information and arguing what was the best thing to do with the visitor. Billy's curiosity might make him eager to chat. His daughter's instinct would be to tell him to button his lip and get rid of that copper, that it was nothing to do with them. The woman was a not unfamiliar type. It would be a mistake to think that because of her appearance and manner she didn't have a sharp brain. She also had the instincts of her type, which were to round up and protect her young at any hint of danger from an intruder by physically placing herself between the threat and her charges. Her elderly parent had become, due to age and infirmity, her child. It was that curious and sad reversal of roles so often observed when the carer becomes the cared-for.
The room was cramped and full of furniture, all of it rickety. By the fire was an armchair with faded loose covers and the look of having been much sat in. Billy's chair, he guessed. Above the mantelshelf hung a sepia portrait of a man in First World War uniform. Beneath it, along the shelf, stood further photographs. There was one, also sepia, of two children, a boy and a girl, dressed in their best and staring miserably at the camera. Next to it, in complete contrast, was a recent picture of a plump woman, bearing some resemblance to the one who'd opened the door to him, but better dressed in a floral skirt and white top and beaming happily at the lens. The building behind her looked unreal, an extravaganza of turrets. Markby was peering at it in an attempt to identify it, when the door opened. He turned guiltily.
Billy Twelvetrees stomped in, banging his stick down on the worn carpet. Behind him hovered his daughter but he soon dismissed her with âYou go and bring us some tea, Dilys.'
Dilys went and Billy sat down in his armchair. If there'd been an argument in the kitchen, Billy had won it. Markby, guessing he wouldn't be invited to sit, sat down anyway on a straight-backed Edwardian dining chair which didn't feel too safe under him.
âYou were looking at our pictures,' said Billy with a certain pride. He raised his stick again and used it to point in the manner of an old-fashioned schoolmaster. âThat big âun, that's my father. That one there is me and my sister, Lilian. Her son, Norman, he runs the pub here now. Done well for himself, Norman. That one is my elder daughter Sandra taken in Floree-da, at Disneyland. That one on the end is my wife and my kids, took when my boy was just starting school. We had a school in them days. It's houses now.'
Markby looked at the photo which showed a plump sullen woman holding a baby on her lap. To either side of her stood two other children, a boy about five and a girl a little younger. The baby must be Dilys.
âYour daughter, the one I've met, she lives with you, Mr Twelvetrees?'
âLived with me for years. I gave her a home. Her husband, Ernie Pullen, done a bunk. He was gone six months after their wedding day, run off with the barmaid at the Fitzroy Arms. Never saw hide nor hair of either of them again. I don't know why he married our Dilys in the first place. She was never no oil-painting.'
The door opened as he spoke and Dilys entered with the tea. Her red face indicated she'd overheard his disparaging remarks. She put the tin tray down with unnecessary force on a small table and withdrew silently.
Billy chuckled. He picked up a mug and sipped from it though the amount of steam rising from it suggested it was very hot. Markby touched his mug tentatively and withdrew his hand.
âHester Millar, as I hear,' said Billy, abruptly introducing the reason for Markby's call. âDead murdered.'
âThat's correct. You would know her, of course.'
The old man nodded, slurping more hot tea. âHer and Mrs Aston, they look after the church. Mrs Aston is the old vicar's daughter.'
âYou like to go in the church and talk to them, I hear.'
âDid you?' Billy glared at him. âAnd where did you hear that, I wonder?'
Markby only gave a bland smile.
âI might do,' Billy agreed grudgingly.
âWhen did you last talk to one of them in the church?'
âThat's a bit of a daft question, ain't it? I don't know. Maybe yesterday, maybe the day before. One day's much like another to me. You'll find that out when you get to my age.'
âBut not today?'
âNo,' Billy's small malevolent eyes met Markby's without flinching. âI wasn't in there today.'
âDid you see Miss Millar outside the church, say walking towards it?'
âNo, why should I?'
âBecause I understand you were in the churchyard.'
âNo, I wasn't,' said Billy promptly.
âA witness saw you hurrying away from the building, over in the far corner of the churchyard.'
Billy scowled. âWho's your witness? He wants spectacles, whoever he is.'
Markby waited silently. Billy turned the matter over in his mind. âI might,' he said. âOnly might, mind you! I might have cut across the corner of the churchyard on my walk. I often do that. I can't recall exactly. At my age, your memory gives out. But I know I never went near the church itself. And I never saw no one.'
Billy appeared pleased with this somewhat contradictory statement. âThat's it,' he said and picked up his mug again.
âDoes anyone else have a habit of dropping in the church?' Markby asked him.
âNo.' Billy shrugged. âUnless it's visitors. They come to see the monuments. We got some very good monuments. They was nearly all put up to the Fitzroys. They used to be the big family around here. There's none of 'em left now. There was a visitor in only the other day, tall good-looking woman. She and her partner, as she called him â¦'Billy sniggered, âthey'd come looking to buy the old vicarage. Wants their heads seeing to, darn great place like that. It's what you'd call a white ellyphant.'
âYes,' said Markby, discomfited. âI don't think we need count them. No one else?'
âWho else,' countered Billy, âcomes to Lower Stovey? It's the end of the world is Lower Stovey.'
âBut you've lived here all your life?' Markby contemplated him.
âIt used to be a good deal livelier,' Billy grumbled. âBefore they took our school away and never replaced the old vicar. We had a couple of little shops, and all. They've gone. Now a feller comes a couple of times a week with a van selling groceries. He charges the earth. Mrs Aston, she takes Dilys with her into Bamford once a week and Dilys does our shopping then. Dilys cleans for her. She's a nice lady, Mrs Aston.'
âAnd Miss Millar? Was she a nice lady?'
âShe was.' Billy sucked his discoloured teeth. âBut she wasn't a local. Mrs Aston, she's one of us.'
Whether poor Ruth Aston liked it or not, reflected Markby, she was for ever to be associated with Lower Stovey in the minds of its native population.
âShe went to the village school for a bit,' went on Billy. âShe went to school with our Sandra and Dilys.'
Markby couldn't help but think that time had dealt more kindly with Ruth Aston than with Dilys, who must be the same age but looked ten years older.
âI remember when the village had a school,' he said.
Billy stiffened. He put his mug down slowly. âHow's that, then?'
âI was here before, oh, a long time ago. Twenty-two years. You still had the school then and a post office.'
âOh, yes?' said Billy, treating him to a wary look. âThey never ought to have taken away our post office. I got nowhere to draw my pension. Dilys has to draw it for me when she goes to Bamford.'
There was a note of genuine resentment in his voice. Markby wondered if this meant that having got her hands on his pension money first, Dilys put most of it towards the housekeeping,
and doled out tiny amounts to her father which limited his spending power in the local pub.
âThere were a number of attacks on women in Stovey Woods,' he prompted Billy. âThat's why I came here before.'
âSo they said,' mumbled Billy, gazing into his empty mug. He looked up and his withered lips twisted in an unkind smile. âI never reckoned to it. Them girls give it away and then they took fright in case they found themselves in the family way. They made up that story. You ask anyone in the village.'
Markby well remembered this attitude at the time. It angered him as much now as it had then. He snapped, âTwo of the victims were from outside the village, a hiker and a cyclist on the old drovers' way.'
âThere you are, then,' returned Billy unrepentantly. âWhat were they doing up there, all alone, a couple of young girls like that? Not decent. Asking for trouble and they got it.' He jabbed a finger at Markby. âThe police never found anyone, did they? Stands to reason they didn't. There never were no Potato Man.'
âYou remember his nickname then,' Markby observed drily.
ââCourse I do. But that don't mean he ever was real. He weren't Ever since I was a boy there's been stories about Stovey Woods. People used to reckon it was haunted. They said the old Green Man was up there. You know about him?'
âI've heard of the Green Man,' Markby told him.
âRight, then you've heard all you need to. Folk have always believed there was something in those woods and when those girls started telling their stories, people remembered the old tales. Only instead of Green Man, they called him the Potato Man. But it's the same feller and just as much twaddle.'
Billy pointed at the photograph of Sandra outside Disneyland. âIt's all as real as anything you'd see at that place. Dwarves and fairies and the like. In the old days, people believed anything. They was simple,' concluded Billy, dismissing his forebears. âDaft as a brush.'
Markby got to his feet. âI don't think you're daft as a brush, Mr Twelvetrees. I want you to think carefully about today, about your walk, about the churchyard, about whether or not you went into the church or saw Miss Millar or anyone else. The police will call on you again. Not me, probably, but someone else.'
âI'll tell him the same as I told you,' said Billy sourly. He brightened. âHere, tell âem to send one of the young policewomen!' He gave Markby a cunning sidelong look. âI might talk to one of them.'