âSee you tonight, Grandpa!' said Becky Jones on Thursday morning.
She dropped a kiss on the top of the old man's bald head with its pattern of liver spots and fringe of white hair. He sat alone at the breakfast table, at the head where he'd always taken his place, in the same Windsor chair, its arms polished to the surface touch of silk by the grip of his hands over fifty or more years. But the authority this implied had long dwindled to a mere token. He was the last to finish as always, chewing slowly and methodically through his bacon, long gone cold, and thick slices of buttered bread.
âThat's right,' he replied. âListen to the teacher, learn something.' He chuckled at his own wit.
He said the same thing every schoolday morning and his thirteen-year-old granddaughter made her reply absently as she picked up her books and stuffed them into her canvas bag. Her mother's voice came distantly from out in the farmyard, calling impatiently to her to âhurry along, for goodness' sake!' Becky scurried out and scrambled into the front passenger seat of the family's elderly car.
Mrs Jones ground into gear and they lurched through the gate and down the track connecting the farm to the potholed road which to the right went to Stovey Woods, and to the left, to the village. Becky was a pupil at the Bamford Community College.
âRadio was saying there's extra traffic on the main road this morning,' Linda Jones said fretfully. âSeems it's been diverted because of some road-works or other. I do wish you'd stir your stumps of a morning, Becky. You know I have to allow half an hour to get you to school.'
âI was only saying goodbye to Grandpa,' her daughter defended herself.
Linda sighed. âThere's another slowcoach. He takes so long over his breakfast, longer every day it seems to me. It makes your dad that cross.'
âWhy should he be cross? It doesn't interfere with him. He doesn't have to clear up the breakfast things, you do.'
The car bounced over a rut out into the road through the village.
âIt's not that, Beck. Your father's got a lot on his mind lately what with livestock prices being so low and everything. He's worried about your grandfather.'
âGrandpa's all right!' Becky's voice rose defiantly. There was an edge of tears in it. âThere's nothing wrong with him. He eats slowly because his teeth aren't any good.'
Linda glanced at her daughter and said soothingly, âI realise that. I know he's all right, really.'
Which he most certainly wasn't, she thought sadly. Despite herself, an audible sigh escaped her lips.
Becky heard it. âIs everything all right, Mum? I mean, apart from the lambs not fetching decent prices and all the rest of it. Dad's not been making a fuss about Gordon again?'
âGordon? No!' Mrs Jones wrenched the wheel round to avoid a cat which had decided to settle down in the middle of the road. âNothing like that. He's been grumbling a bit about old Billy Twelvetrees.'
âPoor old Mr Twelvetrees,' said Becky.
âPoor old, my foot!' snapped her mother. âHe's a mischief-making old scoundrel, is Billy Twelvetrees!'
Becky conceded that Billy was a gossip and worse, a bit of a bore. âBut Dad wouldn't really throw him out of his cottage, would he?'
âOf course not. Not while your grandfather is still alive, anyway, and he wouldn't
throw
him out. But that cottage is worth a lot of money, you know, Becky, and well, if Mr Twelvetrees wasn't in it, we could do it up a bit and sell it on for a tidy sum. I won't say the money wouldn't come in useful.'
âSell it to second-homers, you mean!' her daughter said scornfully. They were passing the church as she spoke and she added, âI don't know why people want to buy a place in Lower Stovey. It's dead dreary.'
âIt's quiet,' corrected her mother.
âIt's the pits,' said the younger generation unrepentantly
Linda didn't argue. They'd left the village behind and reached the junction with the main road. She could see there really was extra traffic today. They'd be stuck here for ages trying to get out.
Eventually when they did manage to pull out into the main stream of cars, she said, picking up the conversation, âThere's worse places than Lower Stovey.'
She knew her voice lacked conviction. The words were a mantra she'd been repeating for more than twenty years and she'd yet to be convinced by it. She'd hoped that, by saying it, bad things would be kept away. But bad things had come back, only just recently, with the finding of those wretched bones. Linda couldn't see into the future and told herself she didn't want to. She was already resigned to what it would hold. Becky would fly the coop when she left school, just as Gordon had done. In five years' time, she and Kevin would reach that time she dreaded, when both her children would be gone, her father-in-law would very likely be dead, and she and her
husband would be left alone together at Greenjack Farm, staring at one another across the table with nothing to say. All they'd have would be memories and they wouldn't want to discuss those.
Yet Kevin was a good man, loyal and hard-working. He did his best to look after her and Becky and his increasingly senile father. He'd looked after Gordon. She wished he got on better with Gordon. It was no fun for her being piggy-in-the-middle, trying to keep the peace and sympathize with both sides. Of course, Gordon didn't want to stay on the farm. Why should he? It'd be the same, even if Gordon had beenâ
Becky's voice broke in on her thoughts, eerily echoing them. âMind you, since they found those bones, life's got a bit more interesting.'
âBecky!' Linda's voice burst out, shrill, causing her daughter to start in surprise.
âCalm down, Mum. You've got to admit normally nothing happens. Since the bones were found in the woods, my friends are dead keen to know more about Lower Stovey.'
âPity they've not got better things to talk about!' said her mother sharply.
They were into Bamford now and Becky abandoned the topic of the Stovey Wood Remains, as the local press called them.
âThere's Michele! Let me out here, Mum. I can walk the rest of the way.'
Linda felt a surge of relief. âI suppose you've got time and I've got to call by the supermarket.' She pulled into the kerb and waited while her daughter struggled to get out, hampered by her bag of books and efforts to signal to her friend.
When Becky finally reached the pavement she turned back, lowered her head by the still open car door, and asked, âCan I come home on the later bus tonight, Mum?'
âNo, my girl, you may not.'
âOh,
Mum
!'
âI'll pick you up at the bus-stop, quarter past four, same as usual. You be there.'
The door slammed on her daughter's muttered response. Linda drove on. There was no convenient bus in the morning so she had to drive her daughter to school. But there was a bus later in the day which Becky could catch at four o'clock and which stopped just before the turning to Lower Stovey. It was a blessing because it meant Linda hadn't to drive all the way back into Bamford a second time. She simply drove up to the turn and picked up her daughter there.
The disadvantage was that Becky had no time after school to socialize with her friends unless she caught the bus which ran a full two hours later. Of late, she'd been doing this more and more and Kevin had put his foot down.
âRunning round town with those silly girlfriends. You don't know what mischief they're into. Anyway, she ought to be back here at the farm, lending you a hand with the supper.'
Normally, Linda was more easily persuaded by Becky's pleas. But her daughter's words about the grisly find in the woods had annoyed her. She began to think Kevin was right and Becky was better not spending too much of her time with those addle-pated girls. If those after-school companions
were
girls and not boys. A cold fist closed on the pit of Linda's stomach. Becky was thirteen. She was pretty.
Don't throw your life away, Beck, oh, don't! And don't trust men.
This early in the day the supermarket car park was half-empty. In the store itself the girls on the cash-tills chatted to one another as they waited for customers. Linda helped herself to a basket and went to the bread-counter where she pushed half a dozen loaves into the basket to stock up her freezer. Kevin took sandwiches out into the fields most days. In his youth, when old Martin had run the place, Linda's mother-in-law, long gone, cooked a meal every day at midday except at harvest-time. It wasn't just the time and trouble which had caused this custom to be dropped. It was economy. Anyway, it made sense to eat of an evening when Becky had come home. She debated over doughnuts which today were âbuy one, get one free'. Eventually she bought the one plus one, a little treat for Kevin and the other for the old man, on the principle of it being a good offer. She didn't need one herself. On her way back to a till, she passed through the meat department, not because she wanted meat but to check on the prices. She picked up one cling-film-wrapped pack after another and put it back with a sigh. To think Kevin got almost nothing for the last lot of lambs and just look at the price of lamb chops here.
She drove home feeling depressed. As she passed through Lower Stovey, she saw a figure she recognised and tapped the horn. The walker looked up and waved.
âI wonder where's she's going?' mused Linda and, almost immediately, forgot all about it.
That Thursday Meredith came back to Lower Stovey. Fate worked in a funny old way. She'd often thought it. When she'd
left here with Alan that day some hiker found bones in the woods, she'd privately resolved never to set foot in the place again. But back, before you could say Jack Robinson, she was.
Meredith pulled her car into the parking bay before the church and got out. The slam of the door echoed round about and sent jackdaws from their tower roost to circle her head in a cawing squadron of black shapes. There was a bit of a breeze today. It knocked the jackdaws off course and rustled the churchyard trees.
She had thirty-five minutes to spend before her appointment with Mrs Scott at twelve. She meant to spend it taking a proper look at the village. Even if, on second viewing, she decided the house was a possible, it wouldn't matter if she couldn't live in this village.
Meredith jammed her hands in the pockets of her fleece body warmer and strolled down what she supposed was the main street. There was no sign of life. Where were they all? She reached the end, turned and walked back, branching off down a narrow thoroughfare marked as Church Lane. It was lined with rows of cottages, nicely painted but apparently as deserted as the
Marie Celeste
. At the far end stood a very old, uneven building which appeared to be two or even three knocked into one. A house sign bore the name The Old Forge. Ruth Aston's house. Meredith remembered her invitation and wondered whether to knock at the door. Not a good idea, perhaps. She might get talking and be late for her appointment. She walked back to the main street and glanced at her wristwatch. Her perambulations had taken a mere five minutes. The door of the pub, the Fitzroy Arms, was ajar. They must serve coffee.
She crossed the road and pushed at the stout oak door. It swung open easily and a smell of stale beer, cigarettes and lavatory cleaner drifted out. Despite this, the bar looked comfortable enough. The walls were lined with sporting prints. The beams which ran the length of the room suggested the core of the building must be old. Someone, in an excess of enthusiasm for horse brasses, had tacked dozens of them to the beams.
She could see no customers but a movement at the rear of the bar took her eye. A middle-aged man stood there. His head was oval and his hair thin and flat. The skin of his face looked soft, pinkish and abnormally clean as if it had been subjected to some chemical process. It was quite unlined and the features seemed fixed as if the eyes couldn't blink or the lips move. When she'd been a child, Sunday morning breakfast had always been a boiled egg. When she'd finished her egg, she'd pass the shell to her father. He'd upend it in the cup and draw a funny face on it for her. Now she felt she was looking at one of her father's egg faces come to life. She didn't know if he'd been there when she entered and she'd failed to notice him or if he'd arrived later, attracted by the sound of her movements. He stood watching her, motionless but for his hands which moved methodically, as if of their own volition, to polish a glass with a cloth.
âGood morning,' Meredith offered.
âMorning,' he replied. His voice was as soft as his facial skin. The cloth continued to buff the glass. She thought, irrelevantly, that he'd have made a good undertaker. He was, she presumed, mine host.
âDo you serve morning coffee?'
âDon't get much call for it. But the wife will make you a cup.' He went into a rear room and she caught a distant murmur of voices. He came back. âShe'll be a couple of minutes. Make yourself comfortable.'
Meredith chose a chair by the unlit hearth in which a pile of dusty logs awaited winter. The landlord, to her relief, put down the glass he'd been polishing. He placed his palms on the bar counter and surveyed her in the same dispassionate way he'd had from the start. It made her uncomfortable and she hoped his wife would hurry along with the coffee and that she would prove a more lively person. The silence was unbroken and seemed to stretch out endlessly.
At long last feet clattered on a tiled floor and a small, bustling woman appeared carrying a tray. She scurried across the floor to Meredith and put her burden on the table.
âCoffee,' she said cheerfully. âMilk, sugar. I thought you'd like a couple of digestive biscuits.'
âThat's kind of you, thank you,' Meredith said.
The woman's head was almost as much a perfect round as her husband's was oval. She pushed it into Meredith's face, giving Meredith a close-up of the greying roots of her dyed hair. She had small, bright, squirrel's eyes. âI like a digestive,' she said as if imparting a state secret. âYou can dunk 'em.'
With that, she retreated to whatever lair she inhabited at the rear of the place and Meredith was left alone with the landlord.
âYou're not very busy at this time of the morning?' she asked in what sounded an abnormally loud voice. She hadn't meant it to come out like that.
âTwelve,' he replied and blinked at long last. âThey'll be in after twelve.' From where she sat, it looked as if he had no eyelashes. âWhat's brought you here, then?'
He'd shown so little curiosity until then that the question startled her. Meredith opened her mouth to reply that she was just passing through, but remembered in the nick of time that no one passed through Lower Stovey as its road was a dead end. And they didn't come deader, in her book. âI'm looking at property,' she said cautiously.
He moved his head in a curious sideways twist, like a parrot inspecting something new. âGenerally a house or two for sale around here. You've seen the old vicarage?'
âYes. It's â it's big.' That was a daft reply, she thought. But for the life of her she couldn't think of anything better at the moment. She covered her confusion by sipping her coffee which was very weak but hot. Meredith nibbled at a digestive biscuit.
âOne of those little houses in School Close is up for sale.' His mouth turned down disparagingly. âNo room to swing a cat. They should never have been allowed to build so many on the site. It used to be the school, you know.'
âYou're a local man, then?' she asked.
His gaze slid away from hers. âIn a manner of speaking,' he said.
Whatever that meant, thought Meredith crossly. She was getting a bit fed up with this. If she and Alan moved to Lower Stovey â and the idea was becoming less attractive by the minute â they certainly wouldn't be drinking in the Fitzroy Arms, not if she had any say in it. Alan, however, had a liking for weird pubs. He'd probably love this one, spooky landlord and all.
He spoke again, disconcerting her once more. âMy mother was a Twelvetrees,' he said âThat won't mean anything to you.'
âAs a matter of fact, it does!' She had great pleasure in contradicting him and seeing the skin above his eyes pucker. He had no eyebrows to speak of to raise. âI met an old gentleman called Billy Twelvetrees in your church the last time I came here.'
He nodded. âThat'll be Uncle Billy. He's always popping in and out of the church when it's open. Not that he's religious, mind. He likes to chat to the ladies who keep the place clean and tidy, Mrs Aston and her friend, Miss Millar. Nothing else for him to do, is there, at his age? Mrs Aston, she was Miss Pattinson before she married. She was the old vicar's daughter.'
âI've met Mrs Aston,' Meredith told him.
âSeems you've found out a lot about us, then,' he retorted.
She had the feeling he was annoyed. Good. He'd annoyed her. Let the boot be on the other foot, as the saying went. But she didn't want to linger here. Quit when you're ahead.
âThank you for the coffee,' she said. âHow much do I owe you?'
He shrugged. âI don't know. Fifty pence be all right?'
Meredith put down a pound coin on the dark oak counter. âIt hardly seems enough when your wife had to make it specially for me and gave me biscuits as well. I don't want any change.'
He stared down at the coin. âPlease yourself,' he said. âIt's up to you.'
She left the place with unseemly haste. Outside she saw with surprise that it was still only ten minutes to twelve. What was it about this place that it seemed able to suspend time?
âIt gives me the creeps,' she muttered She glanced across at
the church. She had to waste at least five minutes before she could call at the Old Vicarage. Meredith decided on impulse to glance into the church. Perhaps Ruth Aston would be there.
She walked across the road and pushed open the lych-gate. As she passed under its wooden roof, she saw, in the far distance, a squat figure hurrying away among the graves and ramshackle tombs. The figure had a stick and hobbled but was making remarkable speed.
Meredith passed into the porch and opened an inner door made of chicken wire stretched over a home-made wooden frame which bore the words âPlease keep this door closed to prevent birds flying into the church where they might die of thirst.' The church was dark, except at the chancel end where sunlight coming through the Victorian stained glass window splashed coloured daubs across the choir stalls. It was cool, still and silent apart from a clatter above her head made by the jackdaws hopping about on the roof.
Meredith's eyes accustomed slowly to the gloom as she searched for the Fitzroy tomb. There it was. She walked to it. Here lay Sir Hubert, his stone features mutilated out of any semblance of humanity. Beside him for eternity lay the wife he'd not wanted beside him in life. Her face looked serene within its coiffed head-dress. Her long thin hands were pressed together in prayer on her breast. Someone had stuck a piece of chewing gum on her right sleeve. Meredith wished her Latin were good enough to decipher the inscription around the base. But lack of scholarship and what looked like more intentional damage meant that apart from âHubertus' and âAgnes uxor sua' she could make out nothing. Even the years of their deaths had been obliterated.
Meredith turned away and, able to distinguish clearly now, saw that she wasn't alone, after all. A woman knelt in prayer in a pew on the other side of the church, beneath the tablet commemorating periwigged Sir Rufus. Her head was bent right forward, her forehead resting on the shelf for prayer-books fixed to the back of the pew in front. Meredith, embarrassed at disturbing such intense private devotion, began to tiptoe out. But at the door, she paused and glanced back. The woman was so still. There was something not quite right about her posture. Her hands weren't clasped but dangled loosely at the end of her arms which hung down straight by her sides.
The hair prickled on the nape of Meredith's neck. She walked rapidly towards the crouched figure. As she neared, she asked, âAre you all right?'
There was no movement, no reply. The woman's slumped form lacked all bodily grace and Meredith couldn't see her face, only her coarse curling grey hair. Meredith put a hand out and gingerly touched her shoulder. Something warm and sticky smeared her fingers. She snatched back her hand and looked down at bright red blood. Stooping, Meredith tried to see the hidden face and met the unseeing gaze of one glazed eye half-open beneath a drooping frozen eyelid. Nausea rose in Meredith's throat and she stood up hastily. Round the woman's neck was wound a scarf patterned with geraniums but not all the scarlet splashes were printed flowers. There was a straight tear in the silky fabric. The blood had oozed into the scarf and from it, by a process of osmosis, down the woman's lightweight sweater. There was no doubt, no doubt at all, that she was dead.