Murder in the Afternoon
Read Murder in the Afternoon Online
Authors: Frances Brody
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Traditional, #Women Sleuths, #Historical, #Cozy
:
Dying in the Wool
A Medal for Murder
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-748-12374-2
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 Frances Brody
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
To my young assistant, Amy Sophie McNeil
12 MAY, 1923
Great Applewick
Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end of Solomon Grundy.
Old rhyme
Harriet held the cloth-covered basin in her thin hands, feeling the warmth. She and Austin trod the well-worn path from their long strip of back garden on Nether End.
Mam wasn’t home. She’d hurried off to Town Street, to buy the Woodbines that Harriet accidentally on purpose forgot when she and Austin went to do the Saturday shop. Mam wanted a new house. She was sick to death of living in the back of beyond’s backside.
The path led through a meadow of primroses, buttercups and daisies. Far off, the church clock struck five.
Austin puffed at a dandelion clock. ‘It doesn’t work. This dandelion says three o’clock.’
Harriet, never short of an answer, sighed at his babyish ideas. ‘Dandelion clocks have Saturday afternoons off. They belong to the dandelion clock union.’
He always believed her, believed her every word.
‘Why is Dad still at work?’
‘He has a special job to finish.’
‘The sundial?’
‘Yes.’
When they reached the stile Harriet handed him the basin, till she got to the top. He passed it back to her and she climbed down. Some of Conroys’ sheep grazed here with their new lambs. One of the sheep would let you pat her, because she was hand reared, and called Mary; but Mary ignored them today, busy with her lamb. In her composition at school, Harriet had written, “Autumn is my favourite season”. But perhaps it should be spring, or summer, or even winter.
When they were halfway across the field, a dark cloud covered the sun, turning the world to gloom. A thrush made a fuss in the hawthorn bush, complaining about the dust that turned leaves white.
From here, you could smell the quarry – stone and dust. There would be no one working, except Dad. At this time on a Saturday, no blasting would hurt your ears. No crushing machine would puff itself up, ready to swallow kids and grind their bones. Austin dragged his feet.
‘Can you do this?’ She clicked her tongue to make the sound of a clop-clopping horse.
He tried.
In silence, blown by the east wind, they slip-sloped to the quarry mouth. The quarry grew and grew, like an inside-out monster, bigger and bigger – hungry jaws ready to snap you up and turn you to stone.
Keep out!
the sign said.
The ground dipped and rose, puddles here, rocks there. On the far steep slope, a tree clung hopelessly to the side of the blasted rock. Next to it was a new mountain of fallen stone.
They walked the rough path passing the foreman’s hut and big wagon that blocked the view when you were close enough. Beyond came emptiness, the dark shapes of huts and the far slopes.
The first drop of rain fell.
Shielded by the wagon, Harriet put her fingers to her lips and whistled, one long whistle, one short – their signal. If Dad heard her, they would not need to pass the empty sheds where goblins played hide and seek.
No whistle answered hers, only an echo.
‘I don’t like it.’ Austin clutched her arm with his small, fierce hand. ‘Whistle him again.’
She whistled.
On a weekday, or Saturday morning, there would be quarrymen with big voices, to yell to Ethan that his bairns were here.
No reply. When Dad worked, he shut out the world. He heard nothing and no one. So Mam said.
‘Whistle louder,’ Austin whined.
‘Don’t be scared. The goblins aren’t here.’
‘Where are they?’
‘They go to Yeadon on Saturdays. Come on.’
The sloping, bumpy ground turned walking into a half run, eyes down, not looking at the crushing shed, the towering crane, the dressing and sawing sheds. A person’s shadow grew longer in the quarry than anywhere else on earth. Pushing Austin to avoid a puddle, she stepped into one herself. Bomnation! Now her boots would be soaked through.
By Dad’s mason’s hut, the blue slate sundial shone grandly. Austin reached out and touched it. He traced the lines on the dial, placing his palms flat as if the slate would feed him a story through his skin.
Harriet put the plate of food on the sundial. ‘Wait here.’
Afterwards, she could not say why she went into the hut. First she saw his boots, toes pointing to the corrugated roof.
Why would Dad be lying down?
Her head turned strange, as if it might split from her and float off like a balloon. She could not breathe out. Quarry dust dried her mouth. Something funny went on with her knees. Her skin prickled. She remembered the time when old Mr Bowman lay in the road outside the Fleece, and the greengrocer’s horse and cart went round him.
Harriet dropped to her knees.
Dad’s hard hand felt cold. His face looked away from her. His cheek was not so cold. His hair stuck up. She did what she sometimes did: combed her fingers through his hair, smoothing it. Some wetness from the hair came onto her hand. His scalp and hair smelled the same but different. She picked up his cap but it did not want to go back on his head, as if it had taken a dislike to him, no longer recognised him. She set Dad’s cap down on the bench, but it slipped.
From a long way off, she heard Austin making little sounds of fright. Harriet shoved herself to her feet, pushing against the bench to help her stand.
She hurried to her brother and pulled him close.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, in a weepy little voice.
She said, ‘Just … Come on …’
‘No!’
She placed her hands firmly at the top of his arms and turned him around, to point him homewards. He would not or could not budge.
‘Shut your eyes, Austin. Shut your eyes tight and I’ll lead you through dreamland.’
He did as he was bid, letting himself be spun round and round into dreamland. She guided him over bumps and hollows, telling him about the gingerbread house to his left, all trimmed with barley sugar. No, it wasn’t raining. The fairy fountain spurted dandelion and burdock.
And she told herself that the dampness on her hand was raspberry sherbet, not blood.
But a country child knows a dead thing when she sees it.
Pipistrelle Lodge, Headingley
Time goes by turns and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.
Robert Southwell
The railway carriage lurched, flinging me forward. Bolts of lightning struck as the carriage toppled. Gasping, I grabbed for something to hold onto. The screech of brakes jerked me awake. I opened my eyes to find myself in bed, the journey from King’s Cross to Leeds completed hours ago, and safely.
What woke me was the persistent, loud knocking at my front door. Since my room is at the back of the house, overlooking the wood, whoever had summoned me from slumber was hammering the knocker as if to tell me the house was on fire.
The clock on my bedside table said four o’clock. Sookie had made a pillow of my dressing gown and did not take kindly to having it pulled from under her; an unseemly intrusion for a cat in her delicate condition.
At the bottom of the stairs, I stubbed my toe on the portmanteau, dumped there last night by the taxi driver. I flicked on the light switch.
Turning the key in the lock and opening the door, I peered into the gloom, expecting some messenger of doom.