The Black Country (3 page)

A
nna Price shivered and hugged herself against the cold breeze from the open door. A few brave snowflakes circulated through the room as Constable Grimes slammed the door shut, and Anna edged around the small crowd to get closer to the fire. When Peter touched her shoulder, she jumped, but before she could turn around, he said, “Where’s the other policeman? The one from London?”

“Mr Grimes has his bag,” Anna said.

The children watched Constable Grimes cross the room, stamping snow from his boots, a black suitcase dangling from one meaty hand.

“So he has luggage,” Peter said. “I don’t care about luggage. Where’s the detective?”

“If he has the detective’s luggage, then the detective must be close behind him. Use your head, idiot.”

Peter ignored the insult. He was practically thirteen years old, but his sister often treated him like a baby, even though she was a year younger. “He could be out there talking to her even now,” he said.

“How would he even know to talk to her?”

“He’s a detective, isn’t he?”

“But he’s just now got here.”

“What if he does talk to her?”

“She’ll be quiet.”

“There’s evidence.”

“What evidence? A shriveled eyeball? That means nothing.”

“And there’s Hilde. He’ll talk to Hilde.”

“God, you’re such a numpty,” Anna said. “Let him talk to Hilde. All she knows is that she found an eye and then she fell down onto her great round bottom and broke it.”

“Be nice,” Peter said.

“Yes, let’s do be nice. Let’s be as considerate as we can be to the constable’s new friend from Scotland Yard and, while we’re about it, let’s tell him all we know. Then we can continue to be nice to all the people in prison for the rest of our lovely nice lives.”

“You’re in a fine mood today.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “but this is all such a mess, and now we have this new policeman to muck about in it and make everything ever so much more difficult for us.”

“Well . . .”

“Well, what?”

“There’s the reverse of that to consider, isn’t there?”

“The reverse of what? Oh, please do speak in complete sentences, would you?”

“That was a complete sentence.”

“But it made no sense whatsoever.”

“Only because you’re too busy pouting to use that pretty little head of yours.”

“Do you really think I’m pretty?”

“Do shut up,” Peter said.

“Tell me,” Anna said.

“All right, if the detective can make things difficult for us by stomping about in it and asking questions, then can’t we also make it difficult for him by answering his questions?”

She almost hugged him. Instead, Anna smiled for the first time in weeks and clapped her hands. “Of course. I mean, of course we would have lied to him if he’d asked us anything, but it didn’t occur to me . . . We can lead him round in circles by the nose, can’t we?”

“Right. We’ll be ever so helpful.”

“I’ve never felt more helpful in my life.”

“And when he tires of chasing his own tail, he’ll retreat back to London and everything will return to normal.”

“As normal as it can ever be again.”

“Right. Not very normal at all, but at least the fuss will die down.”

“I’m almost looking forward to meeting him now.”

And, as if he had been listening to them speak, a man opened the front door and entered the inn. He was tall and earnest-looking, his shoulders broad and his eyes wide. His hands were clean and his back was straight, and it was clear that he had never set foot inside a coal mine. He appeared to be taking in everything around him, as if memorizing the room, and she took a step back to avoid his gaze. The detective stepped aside and held the door, and a moment later, a second man entered. Anna gasped. There were two of them. One detective was bad enough, but two was simply too much. This second man was thinner and quite handsome in an oblivious sort of way. He seemed more intense than his companion and, after shaking the snow from his damp hair, he peered about the room as if he suspected everyone of wrongdoing.

Anna sucked in her breath and the second man turned and looked directly at her. Then his gaze moved on to some other random spot in the room, and she slowly let the air out of her lungs in a long sigh.

The fire at her back felt almost unbearably hot.

H
ammersmith surveyed the inn’s great room. There was a long bar across from him on the back wall and two large fireplaces, both of them lit with cheery fires that cackled and whispered at each other across the long room. To his right, a stag’s head over the far fireplace stared back at Hammersmith and, beneath it, a roast dangled on a chain, twisting and swinging as it cooked, a big copper pot set under it to catch the drippings. Dark lamps hung from the high vaulted ceiling, but windows filtered the fading sunlight that had seemed grey outside, and here the walls glinted with orange and yellow and green from glass panels set above the bar. There was an inner door between the bar and the farthest fireplace that presumably led to a dining room and a kitchen, and on the other side of the bar, next to the fireplace on Hammersmith’s left, was a wide arch with a staircase leading up to a gallery above. Everything was scratched and faded wood, scarred leather, and smoke. The room was huge, plenty of space for the handful of villagers gathered at the farthest fireplace. They stole glances in his direction and murmured amongst themselves. The air hummed with their excited energy. Hammersmith shuffled his feet back and forth across the rug to get the snow off and then he hurried after Day, who was talking to a heavyset bearded man.

“You’d be the sergeant,” the bearded man said when Hammersmith joined them at the bar. The man’s shoulders were broad and rounded, and he stooped forward as if the weight of his gleaming pink head were nearly more than he could carry. He reached across the bar and pumped Hammersmith’s hand up and down. “Name’s Bennett Rose,” he said. “This is my place. Mine and the wife’s.” He turned back to Day. “Like I was sayin’, we only put aside two rooms, one for Mr Day and one for the doctor what’s comin’ tomorrow. But we’ve got plenty others. Only got one other guest right now, so it’s no trouble to make up another room.”

“It seems nobody here expected me,” Hammersmith said.

“That might be my fault,” Constable Grimes said. “Could be I read the cable wrong. But we’re glad enough to have you here. The more eyes out there lookin’ for the missin’ family, the better.”

Hammersmith tried a smile, but he feared it looked insincere.

Bennett Rose reached to untie his apron, his thick fingers fumbling with the knot under his belly. “The missus would be glad to meet you herself,” he said. “But she’s not feelin’ well.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Day said.

“Lotta people round here have taken ill since the Price family disappeared.”

Hammersmith pointed to the gathering of people at the fireplace. “These people look healthy enough. Who are they? You say you’ve only got one guest.”

“And he’s one of ’em there. The big gentleman watchin’ us. The others are here to get a look atcha.” Rose pointed here and there among the gathered crowd. “The vicar and his wife, the schoolteacher, and—”

Hammersmith produced a small pad of paper and a pencil from his breast pocket. “Names, please,” he said.

“Ah, yes, well, the vicar’s Mr Brothwood. He’s the older gentleman, right over there. Miss Jessica’s our schoolteacher. She’s got two of the Price children here with her. The boy is Peter. The girl Anna’s a year or two younger than he is.”

“It’s their brother that’s missing?”

“That’s right. Little Oliver.”

“Isn’t there a fourth child in the family?” Day said.

“There is,” Rose said. “I haven’t a clue where Virginia is today, but I’d imagine she’s probably back home with the housekeeper.”

“What about your daughter? The girl who found the eyeball? Is she here?”

“That’d be Hilde. She’s my youngest. She’s in our rooms upstairs, tendin’ to her mother.”

“We’d like to talk to her,” Hammersmith said.

“You might wanna put your bags away first and get somethin’ warm in your bellies. I’ll have some of that roast sent up to your rooms. Or I’ve got some groaty dick back in the kitchen, still pipin’ hot from the oven. Hilde’s not goin’ nowhere.”

“Thank you,” Day said. “Something to drink would be nice.”

“Of course,” Rose said. “What kind of host am I, not offerin’ it already?” He pulled three mugs out from under his side of the bar and set them on the long counter. He walked to the other end of the counter and came back with a tall thin glass, as big around as a stout rope and at least three feet tall. He filled it with beer from a keg on the wall behind him and handed it across to Constable Grimes. “Run that out to Freddy, would you? Must be freezin’ his knickers off out there in the carriage.”

Grimes took the glass and carried it across the room and out the door into the snow.

“That has to be the tallest glass I’ve ever seen,” Day said.

“Gotta be that tall if you’re to hand it up to a carriage driver, don’t it?” Rose said. “Otherwise, the poor gents’d allus have to be clamberin’ down and back up just to get a bit of refreshment.”

“Ingenious,” Day said.

Rose filled the three normal-size mugs with beer from the keg. He handed two of them to the men from London and set the third mug at the end of the counter in anticipation of Grimes’s return.

Day raised his mug in a silent toast to the innkeeper and gulped half of the beer at once. He set the mug on the counter and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Your daughter Hilde,” he said. “Doesn’t she have friends?”

“Course.”

“But she likes to play by herself outdoors.”

“What’re you gettin’ at, Mr Day?”

“The report we have says that she was playing alone, climbing a tree, when she found the evidence. It might help us to know more about her habits.”

The innkeeper suddenly leaned across the bar and grabbed Day’s wrist. An excited murmur passed through the people watching from the other end of the room. Hammersmith’s hand went immediately to the nightstick at his waist, but Day shook his head. Hammersmith left his hand there, hovering above his belt, waiting.

Rose’s voice was low and hoarse, barely above a whisper. “Let’s talk honest, while Mr Grimes is outten earshot. You can see my Hilde when I says you can see her. That might be never. Folks round here know what’s happened, and we’ll deal with it ourselves. Not a one here wanted Grimes to send for you lot, but here you are and you’re under my roof and that makes you my responsibility. But that don’t make me your friend. And it don’t give you free rein here.”

Day nodded. Rose let go of his arm and took a step back.

“What did happen?” Day said. He sounded unfazed. It was as if Rose’s outburst hadn’t occurred. Hammersmith knew that the inspector could be infinitely patient when he was asking questions.

“I’m sorry?”

“You said you know what’s happened to the missing family. What was it, then?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“We can take care of our own, and we can bury ’em, too.”

“Then you think they’re dead?”

The innkeeper blinked. “Hilde found an eye. Said so yerself.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re all dead.”

“Just ain’t found the bodies yet.”

“Where have you looked for them?”

“Dunno. Ain’t looked very hard since everybody knows what we’ll find when we find them.”

“Pretend we don’t live in this godforsaken hellhole and give us a fact we can use,” Hammersmith said. Day looked at him, eyes wide, but there was a small smile on his lips.

“It’s a good village we got here, mister.”

“I’m sure it is,” Day said.

Rose nodded. His shoulders slumped and the hostility drained from his face. “Oliver, the missing boy, he was a fine boy, too. This whole village is in mournin’. You’ve got no part of that. And this place is dangerous for you.”

“Why is it dangerous?”

“There’s somethin’ at work out there. It’s not here for you, it’s for us. But all the same, don’t be wanderin’ about by yerselves.”

“You have Scotland Yard here to deal with anything you think you have,” Day said. “So let us help you.”

“Why did Grimes bring us here if you don’t need us?” Hammersmith said.

“That’d be a question for Grimes hisself,” Rose said.

“What’s all this?” Constable Grimes said. His cheeks were bright red from the cold outside and he’d left a trail of slush behind him, but the two detectives hadn’t heard him reenter the inn. “You’ve a question for me?”

“How many able-bodied men can you muster for a search tonight?” Day said.

“There’s not much daylight left,” Grimes said.

“Will you not listen to me?” Rose said. “I’ve told you there’s danger. Nobody should be goin’ out there tonight.”

Hammersmith turned on him. “It’s time you listened to us. Right now there are people who need us in London. But we’re here and we’ll be here for the next two days. We’re not leaving until we’ve found that little boy and his parents. If you won’t help us do that, then you’ll at least stay out of our way.”

Rose sniffed. “You think I don’t want the boy found?”

“You’ve made it clear that you don’t.”

“Then I’ve made the wrong thing clear. What I’m tryin’ to tell you is that the boy’s dead as sure as we’re standing here. There’s nothing you can do for him, except find his tiny body out there. But if you’re not careful, you’ll end up dead, too.”

“Is that a threat? Because if it is—”

“Oh, stop this, the lot of you.”

Day turned at the sound of a reedy voice behind his left shoulder. A painfully thin older gentleman stood there, dressed all in black except for a thick woolen oatmeal-colored sweater that had bunched up under his ribs. He extended a hand, and Day shook it. “Mr Rose means well,” the old man said, “but I’m afraid he’s liable to run you off if he can.”

“And why would he do that, Mr . . . ?”

“Brothwood. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Of course. The vicar.”

“Indeed.”

“And why would Mr Rose try to run us off?”

“Please, Mr Scotland Yard,” the vicar said, “come and meet the others. I promise we’ll do our best to explain everything that we can.”

Brothwood gestured toward the farthest of the two fireplaces, where the handful of villagers watched them. Day nodded. “Lead the way, Mr Brothwood.”