Secrets on Saturday (6 page)

“You should get a new chain!” Lois said angrily. “It could have done some real damage, that thing!” She could feel Jeems trembling, and did not feel so good herself.

The old man glared at her. “No good you talkin’ to me, missus,” he said, pointing to his ear. “Deaf as post.” Then he cackled like a decrepit cockerel and hobbled away back to the house.

“T
HIS GOING FOR A WALK LARK IS NOT ALL IT
’
S
cracked up to be,” Lois said to Derek at teatime. She had told him and Gran about the badger and the sheepdog, and said for two pins she’d move back to the safety of a council estate in Tresham.

“Walks’ll do you good, me duck,” Derek said cheerfully. “You spend too much time in that office, or driving about to clients. A walk in the fresh air is the best thing for good health.”

Lois stood up and walked quickly to the kitchen door. She opened it, and stood back, as if letting in a visitor. A powerful smell of well-rotted cow muck and slurry filled the kitchen. It was muck-spreading time on all the farms. “Fresh air?” she said. “You can keep it.”

Later that evening, Derek was reading the local paper, Gran watching television and Lois talking on the telephone in her office to Josie. When she came back into the sitting room, Derek looked up. “Have you seen this, Lois?” he said. “Isn’t this your cop chum?” He handed her the newspaper, pointing to a photograph of two people, the man in police uniform and the woman in an old-style wedding dress. Lois looked more closely, and then read the text. “Local Police Detective Inspector’s wife dies in road accident. Two youths detained.”

“Oh my Lord,” she said. “That’s Cowgill …” She felt dizzy and sat down heavily on the sofa.

Derek looked at her, and then at Gran, who said, “I think I’ll make a cup of tea for us.”

“Are you all right, me duck?” he said quietly, and went
to sit beside Lois, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Bit of a shock?”

“I met her once,” Lois said in a flat voice. “At a school concert evening. She was very smart, and a bit fearsome. They’d been married a long time. She looked after him well.”

“Then I expect he’ll miss her a lot,” Gran said, returning with the tea. “Poor bloke. He’ll probably retire and go and live near his daughter.”

“With any luck …” Derek muttered to himself.

But Lois heard, and rounded on him. “I don’t want to hear no more of that!” she said, half in tears. “We’ve bin through all that before, an’ it’s put behind us. So can we change the subject and get back to the telly? You’re missing your favourite show, Mum.” She stood up, leaving Derek huddled on the sofa, and said, “I need to go to the loo, then I’ll come back for me tea.”

“I wonder if the youths were local?” Gran said.

“They don’t stand much of a chance, wherever they come from,” Derek replied. “Only one thing worse than killing a policeman—snuffing out his wife.”

N
EXT MORNING
, S
HEILA AND
F
LOSS WERE MAKING
their way to Farnden Hall for a morning’s work for Mrs. Tollervey-Jones, generally accepted as the squire’s lady. Her husband had died some years ago, but she had stepped into his shoes with as much, if not more, efficiency as the head of a sizeable estate, and with an inherited sense of responsibility for her village.

“Don’t be put off by her manner, Floss,” Sheila said.
“She’s not a bad old stick at heart.” Sheila had no evidence for this, having never seen any indication that Mrs. T-J’s heart was anything but stony. Still, the girl’s first job was in at the deep end, and she wanted to help her to stay afloat. They parked around the back of the Hall in the stable yard, under the steady gaze of a large horse.

“He’s lovely,” Floss said enthusiastically.

“Do you ride, then?” Sheila said.

Floss nodded. “When I was young,” she said, and Sheila laughed.

“So you’ve given it up, now you are the great age of seventeen?” Floss’s reply was aborted by the kitchen door opening and an elegant elderly lady walking briskly towards them.

“Morning, Sheila.” Mrs. T-J looked at Floss enquiringly, and Sheila introduced her as the new apprentice cleaner.

“I shall be teaching her exactly how you like things done,” she said diplomatically.

“Shall I be paying double for this?” Mrs. T-J said brutally.

Sheila shook her head. “Of course not! Mrs. M just thought it would be good for Floss to begin with the nicest and most rewarding client we have.” Dear Lord, forgive me, she said to herself. I mean it for the best.

“So long as I am not expected to reward you with cash,” Mrs. T-J said acidly. “You’d better come on in, then. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

Floss was a good pupil. She had a natural aptitude for things domestic, and also a healthy curiosity stimulated by the splendour of the Hall’s furnishings. “Mrs. Stratford,” she said, “have you ever broken anything valuable?”

Sheila put her finger to her lips. “Ssshh … only once,” she replied, “and that was not here, luckily!”

In the large front hall, Floss looked up at stags’ heads mounted on the wall, and frowned. “Ugh!” she whispered. “Were they shot in the park?”

Sheila shrugged. “Sboudn’t think so … more likely in
Scotland. Mrs. T-J goes up every year for several weeks. Got a house in Sutherland, I think. In the far north.”

“But what’s that? That thing with tusks?”

“Some kind of pig,” Sheila whispered. “Wild boar, probably. I think it came from France. They shoot anything that moves there. Anyway,” she continued, “we’d better get on and stop talking. Mrs. T-J will have her ears pinned back, you bet.”

When Floss arrived home full of her first day with New Brooms, her mother asked her what it was like up at the Hall, and received a detailed account. “I wouldn’t mind us living there!” Floss enthused. “Except them stuffed animals … I’d take them to the dump straight away. I reckon shooting them’s cruel enough, but stuffing them to hang on the walls is grim. They’re moth-eaten, too. Ugh!”

Her father came in at that moment, and was updated with Floss’s day. “Ah, well,” he said when she described the trophies, “that’s the upper classes for you. What’s grim to you and me is a day’s good sport to them. Now then, Mother, what’s for supper?” he added. “Your favourite—venison casserole,” she replied.

A
FTER HER PARENTS HAD SETTLED DOWN IN FRONT OF
the television, Floss appeared at the door saying she was going round to her friend Charlotte for a while. “Righto, dear, said her father, without looking round. She was not, of course, going to see Charlotte, she had an assignation with young Ben Cullen, only son of a Scottish family who were the first to move in to Blackbeny Close. They referred to themselves as the oldest inhabitants, and were much liked in the village. Organizers of an event needing help could rely on Ben’s family, and his mother sang in the church choir, belonged to the WI, and helped at the Darby and Joan Club once a month.

Floss’s mother knew of the friendship, and approved, but her father had a heavy hand with boyfriends who turned up. Not that he was discouraging. It was the opposite,
with the lad being welcomed with a friendly thump on the back, and offers of drinks, meals, books to borrow, family outings to join. By this time, the boy was thoroughly put off, deciding that there must be something seriously wrong with Floss if she needed such a sales promotion.

Ben was new on the scene, and of course it would not be long before Floss’s father would hear of it. But by that time, Floss and her mother hoped the boy would be hooked sufficiently to ride out the welcome.

“So how did it go, Flossie?” Ben was waiting for her in the bus shelter near the pub.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s walk, shall we? Lovers’ stroll through the woods?”

Ben laughed. “So tell me about your first day as a skivvy,” he said.

Floss scowled at him, and was silent for a minute. Then she said, “I really enjoyed it, most of it. Mrs. Stratford was very kind to me. Which was just as well, because old Mrs. T-J is a dragon! Not surprising she has all those gruesome stuffed things on her walls …”

“Tell me more,” Ben said. They were out of the village now, heading towards the woods. It was twilight, and Floss said she shouldn’t be long, as she had once more lied to her parents. “But you’re a working girl now! You can do what you want. Stay out as late as you like … with whoever you like … except that it has to be me,” he added.

“Yukky, Ben,” Floss said, and took her hand out of his. Ben was a couple of years older than her, and had been around. “Anyway, do you want to hear about the trophies? There was one,” she continued, without waiting for an answer, “that looked like a hairy pig, and Mrs. Stratford said it was a wild boar and probably came from France. She said the French shoot everything that moves.”

“Glad I don’t live in France, then,” Ben said. They climbed the stile into the edge of the wood, and Floss stopped suddenly, a few steps along the track. “Listen!”
she whispered. Ben looked at her enquiringly, and she put a finger to her lips. They stood motionless, listening. Voices, men’s voices from deep in the wood, trickled through to them. It was dark now, and they could see nothing. Then Ben grabbed her arm and pointed along the track. Far along it, a small light, as if from a torch being carried, moved up and down, getting closer.

“Come on!” Floss said, and turning around, dragged Ben back to the stile. They were over it in seconds and running back down the road to the village. “What the hell was going on?” Floss said, when they were safely in sight of comfortingly lit houses.

Ben shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said. “Maybe alien visitors from another planet, or a secret coven of witches …”

“Witches are female. Those were men’s voices,” said Floss. “An’ I’m not stupid, you know. Not a child any more. So you can forget the aliens. I didn’t like it, because men in a wood in the dark must be up to something. But they weren’t little green men with antennae coming out of their heads.”

“Could’ve been Green Men, though,” said Ben smugly. “Haven’t you heard of them? Legendary ghostly characters who look a bit like trees and come at you in the dark. Then you’re never seen again.”

“OK, you’ve done it now. I’m off home. You can ring me, but don’t be at all sure I shall speak to you.” And Floss was off, running down the street and disappearing into Hornton House.

Ben laughed to himself. “She’ll be back,” he said, and turned into Blackberry Close. As he came to his house, his eye was caught by something moving in the garden of old Mr. Everitt’s house. Then a car started in the road outside, and drove off, much too fast. Funny, that, he thought. Still, perhaps the old boy is back. Ben opened his front door and forgot all about it.

P
OOR OLD BLOKE
,
THOUGHT
L
OIS
. S
HE WAS SHOP
ping in Tresham, and passed the police station, looking up—as always—to Cowgill’s office window. But there was no stiff figure raising a hand in greeting. Compassionate leave, guessed Lois. There was so much to do in organizing a funeral. But he had a daughter living somewhere over Waltonby way, so wouldn’t be completely on his own. She knew there wasn’t much warmth in the marriage, but they had stuck together and even a rather chilly wife was a companion. Someone who was there all the time, made the meals, talked about this and that.

“Hey, steady on!” It was Cowgill, and Lois had nearly sent him flying. “Good heavens, it’s you, Lois,” he continued. “Not looking where you were going. I could book you for a traffic offence!”

“S-s-sorry.” Lois was nonplussed for a moment, and Cowgill jumped in while she rapidly collected her thoughts.

“Got time for a coffee?” he said, and a small smile flickered across his face. Lois hesitated. Probably a bad idea for them to be seen together, if she was to go on working for him. On the other hand, it would seem churlish and hard-hearted to refuse. He read her thoughts. “I know a nice little café, dark corners and private. Mind you,” he added hastily, “I only mean …”

“I know what you mean,” Lois said. “And yes, I’d love a coffee. Lead on, and I’ll follow a few paces behind.”