Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel) (25 page)

“This was more than dislike. Gabby looked positively ill about the moment she saw the tattoo—drained of color.”

Max thought back to the dinner party, remembering the look he’d seen, her face going rigid at the sight of the painting.

What was up with that? He could see no pattern.

A tattoo. A seascape painting.

He idly wondered aloud who would have known about the dinner party—known who was invited. It was the only thing out of the ordinary in Thaddeus’s life, so far as he knew, in the days leading up to his death.

“I think everyone knew about it. I myself mentioned it in talking with Mrs. Watling at the post office.”

That explains it, he thought.

Awena again nestled against him. “Oh, and Miss Pitchford was there also.”

That really explained it. MI5 is the UK’s domestic spy agency and GCHQ is its eavesdropping agency. To Max’s certain knowledge, neither held a candle to the combined might of Miss Pitchford and Mrs. Watling, the local postmistress. It’s not that either of them had too much time on her hands—far from it, in fact, for Nether Monkslip was home to the most industrious group of women Max had ever encountered—but that the pair were so plugged into the village doings that Max sometimes felt every heartbeat was being monitored as on an EKG. They operated out of various headquarters: the post office and local store, of course, and the beauty parlor. When their updates reached the local pubs at either end of the village, the men generally took over the news analysis and dissemination.

“What was it a tattoo of?” Max asked, circling back to the earlier topic.

Awena tilted her head, gazing at him from under her exquisitely arched brows. Max wished he had the talent to paint her portrait, just as she was at this moment, the firelight gleaming in her hair and eyes, casting the left side of her face into shadow.

“Nothing too rare or unusual,” she said. “A dragon or serpent—a very elaborate design. But Gabby couldn’t finish what she was doing, and she said she wasn’t feeling well. Annette covered for her.”

“Gabby is as strong as an ox,” said Max.

“I’d have said so, too.” Awena shook her head. “It really was the most enormous tattoo. Why do young people do that to themselves? I will never understand. I guess I’m getting old.”

“Thirty-eight is not old. You think now it was the tattoo that bothered Gabby?”

“It had to be that or the prime minister’s plans. Not likely, that. He often surprises us, but not to that extent.”

“And it was a dragon?”

“I think so. Some mythical creature anyway. Breathing fire—you know the sort of thing. The flames sort of wrapped around the girl’s neck. It was pretty, in its own way—colored in blue or black, with green and red highlights, is what I recall. Oh, and there were initials, letters, sort of intertwined with the creature’s scales.”

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,
thought Max. Could Gabby have been put off by the image of something that didn’t exist except in fantasy? Something from his MI5 course-work training flashed into his mind. A lecture on—what was the word?
Steganography?
A lecture that referenced Herodotus, of all people. The ancient Greek historian. And now Max remembered Herodotus had been mentioned in connection with the art of the hidden code, for Herodotus had recorded the story of a man who had shaved the head of his slave, then tattooed a secret message on the slave’s skull. Once the slave’s hair grew back, the message was of course hidden and the slave could safely be used to transmit a warning message of enemy plans to invade.

Steganography was still used by modern terrorists and very recently by Russian spies. Photos containing hidden text files were uploaded online, and then someone knowing where to look used special software to “coax” the words out. What appeared to be an innocent color photo of a flower, for example, might in fact have every five hundredth pixel changed to correspond to a letter of the alphabet. The human eye could not detect such a change, but of course a computer could.

During World War II, the Resistance used good old-fashioned invisible ink to send otherwise innocuous-sounding messages. A bill for horse manure could hide the plans for Allied troop movements.

He wondered: Could it be something like that? Gabby as a spy was hard to reconcile in his mind, but the hallmark of a good spy—as he well knew—was that no one ever suspected him or her.

“Did she appear to know the tattooed girl?” Max asked Awena.

Awena lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “She didn’t seem to be a regular customer, no. In fact … hold on.” Awena thought a moment, trying to bring the scene back into her mind. Then, slowly, as if reading from a teleprompter, she said, “The girl said she’d only just moved here. From Swansea, I think it was. From Wales, at any rate, judging by her accent.”

Awena would know, thought Max. She was herself from Wales.

“Did she say how she’d come to be at the Cut and Dried? I know some people go to Monkslip-super-Mare for a haircut and make a day of it.”

“I’m not sure this girl’s budget would stretch to some of the places in Monkslip-super-Mare. I heard her tell Gabby she’d been recommended by a friend. That was a bit of a laugh, actually, but Gabby took it in her stride—she can do even the wildest haircuts and colors; that doesn’t phase her. She’s very modern in some ways—good at what she does. Anyway, I heard the girl say she lives in one of the council houses. Maybe Mrs. Hooser knows who she is. I don’t know the girl’s name, but I’ve seen her around the village, pushing a baby about in a pram. And Max—”

He interrupted her, intent on mining her memory while the images were still fresh. “You don’t remember what the initials were, on the tattoo?”

“I don’t, Max. I’ve been trying to remember. BRT? BRP? It wasn’t a
word,
if you know what I mean, or it might have been more memorable. It was more like a license plate number. Whatever it was made Gabby jump—that’s true, the more I think about it. She had all she could do to take a deep breath and continue with her work, or try to. Then she said she wasn’t feeling well, and took Annette up on her offer of help. But she
was
feeling well. I mean to say, she had been fine a few moments earlier, and she was fine a few minutes later.”

Awena added musingly, “Gabby is what Lucie calls
vieux jeu.
Old-fashioned, despite her ability to keep up with trends for her work. Not only in her mode of dress and her own hairstyle but in her worldview, too. There is purity about her; I suppose that is the way to express it. She sees the world clearly but wishes things were not as they are. It is surprising. That someone her age could still have that air of … of innocence.”

Max thought that might be a condition much to be desired, although he could imagine the drawbacks, too.

Awena said, “I’m going to stop by later with some dried herbs Gabby wanted. I’ll see what I can find out. She would tell me what’s up, I think.”

Max nodded absently. Then he said, “No.” He screwed up his eyes, thinking hard about dragons. Absently, he added, “No, don’t do that. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. And until we do…”

Her fine clear eyes flashed, as she searched his face. “You don’t suspect Gabby! That’s too wild. What motive could she have?”

“None that I know of. And until we know the motive in this case…”

In her soft voice, Awena continued: “She is someone to confide in, Gabby. That is the quality she exudes. A good trait for a hairdresser. She might know quite a lot about what goes on around here that she isn’t telling.”

“Do you know,” said Max, “I have never felt compelled to confide anything in my barber.”

Awena smiled. “You just don’t understand. Women go to the hairdresser’s to focus just on themselves, even if just for an hour every few weeks or months. Men don’t need that sort of outlet.”

“Yes, they do. It’s called a pub.”

She smiled. “Okay. You win.”

Max held her hand lightly in his own, then said, “You say Melinda seemed to be getting on?”

“Yes,” replied Awena. “Too well, if you know what I mean. It is hard to imagine how those two ended up together, Thaddeus and Melinda.”

“Isn’t it just.”

“I mean, do you feel overall that Melinda has or has ever had a great interest in the theater? In playwriting?”

“No. No, I shouldn’t have said so. The
trap
pings of theater, perhaps. The clothing and the costumes and the opening nights.”

“And the drama,” said Awena.

“Perhaps a bit of that, as well.” Max paused, then said, “I keep wondering: Could Thaddeus have known something he wasn’t supposed to know? Is that why he was killed?”

“It’s possible. By that criterion, half the village would be dead by now, though.”

“True.”

“Starting with Miss Pitchford.”

“I’m afraid that’s also true,” said Max. “Thaddeus was ‘from away,’ so whatever anyone knows is probably from that time and place.” A sudden thought occurred to him. There had been a time he himself had posed as a barber, helping MI5 collect DNA from hair cuttings to ensure they were following the right man, a double agent.

“Thaddeus had that glorious mane of hair,” said Max. “Hair that had never turned gray. Was he a customer at the shop?”

Was he going off on complete tangents now? Max wondered. The image of Gabby collecting hair samples for MI5 was a nonstarter. But again, she might just be the perfect agent—the undetectable kind.

“His hair never was allowed to turn gray, perhaps,” Awena said. “I’ve no idea if he was a customer. His hair color looked completely natural to me, but it can’t have been—can it?”

“That goes with the actor’s territory, that sort of vanity,” said Max. “And with some politician’s. They rely on their looks. It’s only natural.”

Still, Awena’s comment gave Max pause to think. Most crimes could be traced back to the victim’s disposition or character. Could Thaddeus’s vanity have been a factor contributing to his death? And what sort of motive was that? His vanity had been annoying, nothing more.… Unless over time it had become the sand in the oyster. Max’s thoughts kept coming back to Melinda, a woman living with such an irritant, day by day—and seeing a way out, in the shape of Farley.

Awena looked around the snug little room, then said, “It’s so much quieter around the vicarage without Luther.”

“I assume you mean the cat.”

“The Bad Seed. Yes.”

Luther, the church mouser, was back on the job after a temporary hiatus over the Christmas holidays. He was meant to be locked away in the vestry during services, but more often than not he was nowhere to be found when the time came for his incarceration. Max, glancing up toward the choir loft, would catch a glimpse of him through the railings, sitting quietly with his tail curled around his front paws, his green eyes following every movement of the service.

“He shows no sign of wanting to return to the vicarage. Mercifully, for Thea’s sake. And mine.”

“Ye-e-ess,” said Awena slowly. “Not entirely domesticated is Luther.”

An hour had passed without either of them realizing it. Looking at her watch, Awena sat up and said, “I need to get to the shops—I’m out of fresh food after being gone a week. Also…” She hesitated. “Also, I thought I’d pick up what bits of information I can. I doubt anyone will be in the Cavalier for a while yet. They’re still under the dryer, most of them.”

“Awena…” It was said with a warning note, the same sort of note he was used to hearing from Cotton, who both encouraged Max’s contributions to investigations and worried about the consequences for Max, in equal measure.

“There are things the police will never hear,” she said with quiet assurance. “Trust me on this. If you want to find out what is going on—and you do want to find that out, don’t you?”

“Not at such a cost—”

“Then leave it to me. I
am
anxious to get home, though. I hope my herb garden wasn’t completely destroyed by rain.” She stood to go. He might not have spoken. At the door, she turned and said, “Whom do you suspect?”

Max answered indirectly. It was a trait of his that, she knew, drove Cotton quite mad. Awena was more accepting that all would be revealed in time.

“I suspect everyone,” Max said. “But I have a question for you: What do you know about poisonous plants that grow in this area? What’s locally available, in a poisoning sense?”

“Well, foxglove, to name one. It’s a poison, of course, but it also has homeopathic uses: Digitalis can be a lifesaver, and it also can be deadly. That is true of many things, of course. The dosage is what makes the difference, and the way it’s administered.”

“What about mushrooms?”

“What comes to mind first is the death’s cap mushroom. I’ve seen it in Raven’s Wood quite often. There is no real homeopathic use for the death’s cap. Best not to go near it.”

“I wasn’t planning to.” Max looked at his watch. The time change was still playing havoc with him.

“Lucie is coming over in a minute,” he told Awena. “She wanted to talk about something. She seemed a bit upset.”

“That’s not like Lucie. Ironic and detached, yes. Upset, no.” Awena paused. “I missed you, Max. Maybe you could come over tomorrow evening? I’ll have some groceries in and I’ll have caught up on the laundry and things by then. We can have a quiet evening in, with all the time in the world.”

He kissed her. “All the time in the world sounds wonderful.”

They left it that he would be at her house by eight the next evening. They stood apart at the vicarage door, saying their goodbyes and husbanding their body language on the chance they were being observed—a very good chance in a village as tightly woven as Nether Monkslip. Max leaned casually against the doorpost with arms crossed, watching her. Nothing could hide the contentment on his face from the most casual observer.

Awena left, and he went inside to keep watch as she passed by the vicarage window. He felt his heart expand at the sight of her, although she’d just left his side, stepping smartly out with her basket swinging from her arm.

A few minutes later Max again picked up his thriller, and once again put it down. Halfway through the telling, the author began to describe the torture and killing of innocents, and Max realized he’d never get through this particular book. He had, after all, had to live among maniacs, and had come to understand the twisted rationalizations that guided their choices. That reality had been enough for several lifetimes.