The Guardian Stones (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

Joe Haywood did not answer Grace's knock.

The front door was locked. The back door, sagging on its hinges, its lock long gone, was secured from the inside by a chain.

Grace stepped back and scanned the house. “I remember when old Jasper lived here,” she told Edwin. “Louisa Wainman's father. Even then he'd been too old to work the farm for years. He left all that to Harry Wainman.”

The crumbling walls might have been held together by the ivy growing on them. The roof, sunken in spots, was green with moss. To Edwin, the structure looked as if it might have been only slightly predated by the Guardian Stones. “His name was Jasper?”

“Oh, that's what we called him because he yelled at anyone who came within sight of the place. One of us kids read about a villain named Jasper and the name stuck.”

“There are a lot of Jaspers in the world.” Edwin wondered who Grace's childhood friends had been. He hadn't seen many women her age in Noddweir. Most of the men were off to war. A lot of young people, both women and men, didn't wait for a war to leave an isolated village.

Grace went to the nearest window and pressed her face to the glass. Edwin waited, standing thigh-deep in the weeds that ran right up to the house. Unseen insects whirred and ratcheted. Pieces of abandoned, rusted farm equipment stuck up from the weeds, the bones of mechanical dinosaurs. Where the tall grass ended, impassable brambles began. Behind the brambles lay the forest, a painted backdrop, without shadow or depth on this humid, cloudy day.

“The glass is filthy,” Grace said. “I don't think it's been cleaned since he lived here.”

Edwin forded the grass to the window next to the one where Grace stood. He gingerly cleared away a gray lace of decayed spider webs and bent his head forward until his thick eyeglasses clicked against the window pane.

This window was not entirely opaqued by dirt. In the muted light of the interior he saw a room half-filled with crates and cardboard boxes. A tarpaulin was thrown over something in one corner and several canvases were wrapped around mysterious bundles.

Grace's hair brushed his cheek and he felt her face beside his as she moved over to peer inside.

“The Wainmans might be using the place for storage,” she offered.

“I don't see any dust on those boxes.”

“You're right.”

“Do you think there might be a cellar door we could try?”

“Maybe. I don't know.” She clapped her hand to Edwin's shoulder. “Let's get back to the village. It's ridiculous, but I feel like Jasper is going to burst out of the house and start shouting at us.”

She must have been subconsciously aware of footsteps behind them, Edwin later realized, because when they turned from the window, Joe Haywood stood twenty feet away, pointing a service revolver at them. “What do you two think you're doing?”

Edwin thought it odd a conscientious objector would be armed, but if Haywood intended to frighten Grace he hadn't succeeded. “In case you haven't been paying attention, there are very troubling things happening around Noddweir lately,” she snapped. “We're checking all the houses. Now, if you will kindly let us in so—”

“You aren't anything to do with the police. Not officially. If you have suspicions, go tell Constable Green.” He wagged the revolver theatrically and gave Grace a wide, toothy, and thoroughly unpleasant smile. “Now clear off my property.”

“I'm sure your landlord would be happy to let us in,” Grace told him.

“Fine. Go ask Wainman's permission, then, and see where it gets you.”

Grace walked away around the side of the house and Edwin went after her, reluctantly exposing his back to Haywood's gun. He wasn't happy with the way weapons were suddenly popping into sight in Noddweir.

They went along a wide dirt track between a hedgerow and a fenced field.

Grace scowled down at the dusty path. “Maybe you're right, Edwin. Haywood may be storing merchandise. A lorry could probably navigate the edges of the fields, coming in from the road down further, without alerting anyone by driving through the village.”

“A military vehicle would have no problem,” Edwin said. Then added, “He can't be doing that much business in Noddweir. Maybe the house is his central storage point. It's isolated enough. The whole place could be filled with black market goods.”

“You'd think the Wainmans would know what was going on. I'm going to take up his invitation to talk to them.”

Indeed, Edwin thought. They should have some idea what their property was being used for, even if it was well hidden from their farmhouse by fields and hedgerows. They walked through a yard littered with pieces of machinery. A tractor missing a wheel sat beside a ramshackle barn.

Grace rapped at the Wainmans' door for so long Edwin was sure that it wouldn't be answered. Finally a latch clicked and there stood the plain woman Edwin recalled from the meeting at the pub. She'd been vociferously accusing Jack Chapman of maltreating his daughter, Issy. Today, Louisa Wainman was subdued, pale as a ghost, except for bloodshot eyes.

“Yes? What do you want?” Her voice cracked. She sounded on the verge of hysteria.

Grace said, “We only want to talk to you and Harry for a minute, Louisa. Is something the matter?”

She shook her head too vehemently. “No. No. I'm just a bit poorly today. Come in, please.”

Harry Wainman sat at the kitchen table. He nodded silently at Grace. His glare was not welcoming. The left side of his face looked as red as if it had been grilled.

“Harry,” Louisa said, “Grace wants to talk to us.”

“About what?” Harry growled. He made no effort to get up but rather set his elbow on the table and propped his head up in his palm, a maneuver that failed to cover the reddened area completely.

“Your tenant,” Grace said.

“What tenant?” Wainman replied.

“Joe Haywood. He's renting old…that is…Louisa's father's old place.”

“He ain't.”

“But I understood—”

“He ain't,” Harry repeated.

“He bought it off us,” Louisa put in. Harry shot her a furious look. “Well, he did.”

No wonder Haywood had so blithely invited them to talk to Wainman, Edwin thought.

“I'm surprised,” Grace said. “Mr. Haywood must be well off. I wonder where he came by—”

“Ain't none of my business,” said Harry. “Nor any of yours.”

“Sorry we bothered you,” Grace told him. “We've been checking houses, looking into the children who've gone missing.”

“Looking ‘into' or ‘for'?” Harry's eyes narrowed. “Are you thinking them Finch boys run off no further than somewhere on the edge of one of my fields? Are you're looking for bodies?”

“Oh, Harry…” Louisa groaned.

“Maybe you expected to find a corpse in that rundown ruin of Haywood's?” Harry continued, ignoring her.

“I didn't expect anything in particular,” Grace replied.

“I'm just happy to have it off my hands before it fell down.”

“You would be,” Louisa said coldly.

Harry turned his gaze toward her. “If your old man's shack has so much sentimental value to you, go and move in with Joe Haywood. He's a real toff, ain't he? Just the type women go for.”

“At least he's an adult,” Louisa replied.

Grace quickly broke in. “Louisa, how's Bert doing now he's back safe and sound with you?”

“Oh, he's—”

“Bert's fine,” snarled Harry. “He's just fine. Now you can see my dear wife is under the weather, so if I could ask you to go and mind your own business and do it elsewhere while you're at it….”

Grace gave him a piercing look. “What happened to your face, Harry?”

“Like I said, mind your own business.”

Edwin felt his face flush with anger but he bit his tongue. He didn't know these people and he didn't want to interfere with Grace's investigation, unofficial though it might be. He remained silent until he and Grace were on the road back the village, then he speculated about what was going on between the Wainmans.

“Harry Wainman's always been a surly sort, Edwin.”

“Uncouth, I'd call it.”

“He's a farmer. I don't suppose you see many farmers at your university.”

“As a matter of fact, I've taught quite a few sons and daughters of farmers. Granted, the ones who go to college probably don't intend to return to the farm.”

“Well, Harry Wainman is known as a man who isn't averse to bettering himself. People claim he only married Louisa to get at her father's land. They have a son, you know. Nobody mentions him. Particularly the Wainmans.” Grace stopped and sat on a stone wall at the roadside, where the last living limbs of a wretched apple tree formed a patch of sparse shade.

“Overseas, is he?” Edwin sat beside her. He patted the sweat off his forehead. Despite clouds the thick air felt uncomfortably hot.

“He's been missing in action a while. Neither of them want to be reminded. Last person who brought it up, Harry went berserk and broke the fellow's arm.”

That was a way to deal with grief that wouldn't have occurred to Edwin.

“All the talk about missing children must be difficult for them to hear.”

Before Grace could respond there was the ching, ching of a bicycle bell and down the road came Duncan Gowdy pedaling steadily. As he rode past, he raised a hand in greeting.

Edwin saw a box tied to the back of the publican's bicycle.

It was resembled the boxes he and Grace had seen in the back of Joe Haywood's house.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Back on the High Street, Grace told Edwin she needed to sleep in before her evening patrol. Having been up most of the night, she was exhausted. Edwin felt restless. Rather than accompanying her back to the house, retrieving his notebook, and heading for the Guardian Stones, he strolled around the village. Walking always calmed him. He'd shed a lot of nervous anxiety on the paths of Rochester parks.

The day grew hotter. He felt he was being watched, even though no one else was abroad in the dusty street. He took refuge in Emily's shop. The shop's sign had been whitewashed, presumably to avoid giving away the village name to passing enemies. Even this small cluster of houses in the Shropshire countryside was suffering from distant events.

The door was open for ventilation. Emily sat behind the narrow counter in her front room, busily knitting something in khaki wool. Edwin was reminded of Madame Defarge who sat at the foot of the guillotine, knitting while heads rolled. It was an unkind thought, he realized.

“Ah, Professor. Come to pass the time of day or to buy something?”

Edwin glanced at the shelving on the wall behind her, which displayed more bare wood than goods and a couple of glass jars half-filled with sweets. One or two tins stood sentinel on each side of obviously handmade pull-along toys. The sight touched Edwin. Despite the state of the world, children still could have toys.

He thought of buying a small gift for Grace. “I don't suppose you have any chocolate?” he asked hopefully.

“No. It was taken the other night.”

Two women outside the open door raised their voices.

“You left your kids at home alone? You should be arrested!” one said, folding her arms across an aproned chest. “'Course, with so many you probably lose count of them! However do you feed and watch over them with your man away?”

Angry at the insinuation the other retorted “If it weren't for that old witch's help, you'd have ten of your own to worry about. And as for feeding 'em, don't tell me you weren't making sheep's eyes at the butcher in Craven Arms last week! I was in the queue and we all saw how 'e gave you an extra bit of bacon!”

Eavesdropping made Edwin uncomfortable. The quarreling pair's shrill voices did not bother Emily, who kept knitting even as the women resorted to foul language. From sheer habit formed by decades of keeping discipline in the classroom, Edwin stepped into the doorway and admonished them. “Ladies….are you coming in? Please don't mind me.”

“Oh, it's 'im,” the woman in the apron sniffed. “No, I'm not coming in. As for 'er—” with a nod of a head covered in curlers “watch out she don't pinch anything, Emily.”

She stalked off up the street. Emily looked up from counting stitches. “Want something?”

“Er, no, I was just passing by.” The other walked quickly away.

“On the way to visit Haywood,” Emily observed. “See that purse in her hand? There's nowhere else to spend money in the village except the pub, and it's not in that direction. Mind, she does tipple a fair bit. All them kids would drive anyone to drink.”

Especially with the way children were vanishing, Edwin thought. Out loud he observed he had always imagined villages to be peaceful places.

“Everyone's nerves is on edge,” came the reply. “What war hasn't done, these disappearances has. People are getting suspicious, falling out. You wouldn't believe it, but them two women have been friends since childhood. Look at the way they went on just now.” Emily shook her head over busily clicking needles.

“I saw Haywood this morning,” Edwin remarked. “Bit of a mystery, I gather?”

“I can't say, since I always avoid him. You might want to ask Meg Gowdy.” The suggestion was offered with a slight, grim smile.

Never one for gossip, Edwin tried to make a graceful exit when she continued with an abrupt change of subject. “Susannah is awfully upset about Reggie going missing. Keeps asking Green what he's doing to find those kids. She'd been thinking about trying to adopt Reggie if his parents was willing. Wouldn't think of it to look at her, but she has a kind heart and the poor lad needs affection and a bit of care.”

“Some teachers look on all children as their own.”

“It just seems as if troubles never end. Speaking of which, got my own ideas on who burgled my shop. Green's useless! No idea where to even begin to look. I'm going to sleep downstairs for a while in case they try again. God knows there's little enough to steal, but some folk'll take anything not nailed down. I caught Issy at it a couple of times.”

“Oh?” Edwin had tried to help find the girl, but unlike everyone else in the village, he didn't even know what she looked like.

“She wasn't what you'd call a beauty,” Emily said in response to his query. “She's big for her age, rough in her ways. Not surprising given she was raised with no mother. Clever in a cunning way, always had a good story to tell when caught out. Bit of a tomboy, Issy was.”

“Was?”

“Is, then. Slip of the tongue.” More clicking of needles. Edwin waited patiently for further information.

“If she'd been mine, I'd have kept a closer eye on her,” Emily went on. “Wouldn't have allowed her to spend so much time with Martha. Filled her up with rubbish about spells and herbal potions and such like. Mind, Martha makes a good cough mixture and gives it free to them as needs it, which is more than you can say for the stuff you get at the chemist.”

“A wise woman, then,” Edwin said.

“You might say that. But a nasty tongue. If you think that pair just now was bad, you should hear her when someone crosses her! I don't know how Grace puts up with it, even if she is her grandmother.”

“Her mother's mother.”

“That's right.”

“And Grace's mother? Is she…um…?”

Emily gave a wave of her hand. “Mae? Went off long ago. Her and George Baxter never got on. No surprise. Married when they were practically kids and George is no prize. Martha was very angry. By running off Mae broke the chain of what you called wise women.”

It struck Edwin that a mother who ran off and left her daughter with a father who was no good wasn't much of a prize either. Apparently Grace had not had the easiest childhood. No wonder she had little time for Martha's so-called persuasions.

Edwin bought a couple of postage stamps before leaving. Emily apologized for not having postcards of either the village or the stone circle. She thought that all American visitors wished to send dozens back home from every place they set foot. Edwin assured her that there was no one to whom he particularly wished to send a postcard.