Foxglove Summer (14 page)

I started up the Asbo and pulled out of the car park.

‘How did you get a room there, anyway?’ I asked. ‘I heard it was rammed.’

‘Oh,’ said Beverley, ‘the nice lady from Sky News let me have her room.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Not just like that, actually,’ said Beverley. ‘I had to ask twice! I hate being this far from the Thames Valley.’

After a moment she said, ‘Where are we going?’

‘I want your professional opinion about someone.’

‘My profession in this instance being what?’

‘Goddess of small suburban river in South London.’

She nodded and then reached over to brush the side of my face, which was beginning to swell nicely.

‘When did you do this?’ she asked.

‘Yesterday evening,’ I said. ‘I walked into a tree.’

After finding the phones we still had a couple of hours of daylight, and it wasn’t like the POLSA was going to need us looking over his shoulder. So we’d split up. Dominic went east onto the common with our favourite sexual pervert as guide and I went west into the woods.

‘And you thought that was clever,’ said Beverley.

‘It’s a National Trust property,’ I said. ‘It’s not like there were going to be giant spiders. The locals call it Fairy Wood. So I had to check it, didn’t I?’

‘You think they were abducted by fairies?’

‘I don’t even know if that’s a thing,’ I said.

I’d asked Nightingale once I’d got back to the cowshed, and he’d said that while he’d never had a case in his lifetime, there were always rumours that it had happened. He promised to look through books and see what he could find.

‘Is it a thing?’ I asked Beverley.

‘Not that I know about,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Mum doesn’t hold with it, so someone would have to be pretty stupid to tell me about it.’

‘And fairies?’

Beverley hesitated and then – ‘Peter,’ she said, ‘some things you don’t talk about.’

‘Not even to me?’

‘Especially to the feds,’ she said. ‘Double so the magic feds.’

I cordially hate the use of the word feds – I’d rather be called the filth, at least that would be English English. It’s the lack of imagination that pisses me off.

Just short of a crossroad hamlet called Mortimer’s Cross we rumbled over a stone bridge and Beverley jolted in her seat and asked whether the river we’d crossed was the Lugg.

‘I think so,’ I said, trying to remember the map on the GPS. ‘Is that important?’

‘Nah,’ said Beverley. ‘Just professional curiosity.’

I turned right onto the A410 which went north with suspiciously Roman straightness towards Aymestrey, which is less a village than a diorama of the last six hundred years of English vernacular architecture stretched along either side of the road. Then another stone bridge across the Lugg where it curved west towards Wales and then a tricky little turn-off that took us through Yatton and the weirdly named Leinthall Earls, where Stan the strange lived. To our right a steep escarpment reared up, topped by the ancient hill fort of Croft Ambrey and Whiteway Head – although our view would have been better if the hedgerows hadn’t been higher than our car.

‘I’m not totally comfortable with the tops of hills,’ said Beverley as we climbed up a steep wooded incline.

‘Why’s that?’

‘You know water,’ she said. ‘Tends to flow downhill, tends to accumulate at the bottom.’

‘That make sense,’ I said. ‘How do you feel about bees?’

‘Why do you ask?’

I told her about Mellissa Oswald’s unusual affinity for anthophila.

‘And you think she’s a bee?’ she asked.

‘Let’s just say I think there’s more going on there than an interest in grow your own honey,’ I said.

‘And that helps us how?’

‘Bees cover a wide area. Maybe they spotted something.’

‘And told your bee girl?’

‘Possibly.’

Beverley kissed her teeth.

‘Not unless the missing girls were covered in sugar they wouldn’t,’ she said.

‘They might have seen something and not known what it is.’ It was beginning to sound pretty thin even to me.

‘Have you ever dissected a bee?’ asked Beverley. ‘One look inside its head and you’d know that not knowing what stuff is is practically the definition of how a bee operates.’

‘When have you ever dissected a bee?’

‘I did biology at A-level,’ said Beverley. ‘Mum insisted. She’s still hoping that one of us will qualify as a doctor.’

‘And?’

‘I’d rather eat a frog than dissect one,’ she said. ‘And I’m certainly not going to start putting my hands on any sick people.’ She shuddered. ‘But since I was stuck in the country,’ she raised her fist and I dutifully flinched, ‘I did pick up a bit of ecology, if only because that’s what all the Thames boys go on about.’ She punched me in the arm, but gently this time, leaving hardly any bruising at all.

‘And let me tell you that I wouldn’t be reading too much into the eusocial behaviour of bees if I was you – they’re little honey-making machines, that’s all.’

‘Why don’t you wait until you meet Mellissa?’ I said. ‘And we’ll see what you say then.’

It was breathless, bright and hot on the flint road outside the Bee House. I left the windows on the Asbo wound all the way down, because it would be better for it to get stolen than to have the dashboard melt off its frame.

Beverley paused to look at the tower.

‘This is nice, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Nightingale should live here – it’s a proper wizard’s tower.’

The front door opened before we could reach it and Mellissa stepped out to greet us. She was dressed in orange Capri pants with a fake tie-dye pattern and a matching sleeveless T-shirt that revealed the soft blond down on her upper arms and shoulders.

‘Hello, Ms Oswald,’ I said. ‘I wonder if I could have another word with you and your granddad.’

Mellissa crossed her arms. ‘And what do you want this time?’

‘First off,’ I said and indicated Beverley, who gave Mellissa her best friendly smile, ‘let me introduce my friend Beverley Brook.’

‘Hi, Mellissa,’ said Beverley and took a step forward.

Mellissa’s eyes narrowed and then she relaxed and smiled in a sort of delighted way that I was sure she wasn’t aware she was doing.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, and they shook hands.

Interesting, I thought. There’s instant recognition, but only if they look for it – they could slip past each other in a crowd.

Mellissa remembered that she was supposed to be hostile and glared at me.

‘What is it you want?’ she asked.

‘We need your help.’

‘And why should we help you?’

‘Two eleven-year-old girls are missing,’ I said. ‘Their names are Hannah—’

‘I know their names,’ said Mellissa sharply, and then softened. ‘What is it you think we can do?’

‘Provide local knowledge,’ I said. ‘Of a particular kind.’

Mellissa nodded.

‘You’re not to over-tire him,’ she said and turned to lead us inside.

As Beverley crossed the threshold, I swear I heard a deep rumble from upstairs in the tower. Mellissa sighed and rolled her eyes.

‘Just a second,’ she said to Beverley, and then slammed the bottom of her fist into the wall. ‘Stop that,’ she said and the rumble cut off. ‘Some of us are not used to visitors here.’

‘Family?’ asked Beverley.

‘You might say that,’ said Mellissa and gestured for Beverley to follow her in.

‘I know all about that,’ said Beverley.

I followed them both in and tried not to look too obviously smug.

‘He’s upstairs in his study,’ said Mellissa. ‘If you go up, I’ll bring some tea.’

I made my way up the cool dimness of the spiral staircase to the first floor where I found Hugh Oswald behind his desk, reclining comfortably in a cracked brown leather chair. He looked better than he had the last time I’d seen him, his face more animated and less drawn.

‘Ah, if it isn’t the starling,’ he said. ‘Are you going to introduce me to your friend?’

‘I’m sure she’ll appear,’ I said and, remembering this was a man prone to falling asleep at random intervals, I got on with it. ‘I was hoping you could help me,’ I said.

‘Of course, dear boy,’ said Hugh. ‘Pull yourself up a pew.’

I cleared half a metre’s worth of
Bee Improvement Magazine
off a wooden swivel chair and sat down.

‘Nightingale suggested that I talk to the local vicar because they often take an interest in local folklore,’ I said.

‘I believe that many did,’ said Hugh. ‘But once upon a time being a pastor was a great deal more leisurely occupation than it is now.’

‘But then I thought, why chase down the poor hard-working vicar when I have a fully qualified practitioner living in the area?’ I said. ‘Taking an interest.’

‘That’s assuming I took an interest,’ said Hugh. ‘I have broken my staff, after all –
lignum fregit
.’

I nodded at the nearest bookshelf. ‘You kept all your books.’

Hugh smiled.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Hugh. ‘Nightingale’s starling. Tough and clever, that’s what he always said he was looking for – had he been looking for an apprentice at all.’

I didn’t get a chance to ask who Nightingale had said this to, or when, because we were interrupted by Mellissa and Beverley arriving with tea and toast. While Mellissa set down a tray on top of a precarious pile of books I introduced Beverley – by her full name.

Hugh looked a bit wild eyed as the implications sank in, but recovered enough to be passably charming. Beverley was charming back and, after giving me the side-eye for no justifiable reason that I could see, accompanied Mellissa back downstairs again.

‘Good Lord,’ said Hugh. ‘Where did she spring from?’

‘Nightingale sent her,’ I said, watching as he buttered his toast with painful slowness. I was tempted to do it for him, but I didn’t think he’d like that.

‘Things must have changed back at the Folly,’ he said and, toast finally buttered, he lifted the lid on a little white china pot and scooped out some orange marmalade. ‘Still, the Nightingale was always a little bit unorthodox in his friends. There used to be this creature, slip of a thing, worked below stairs – never spoke.’ He paused looking for the name.

‘Molly?’

‘Yes, that was her name,’ said Hugh. ‘Molly. Used to terrify all us New Bugs, but not the Nightingale.’ Hugh smiled. ‘There were rumours, of course,’ he said. ‘It was scandalous.’

He bit decisively into his toast.

‘Why does everyone call him
the
Nightingale?’ I asked.

Hugh chewed industriously for a moment, swallowed and caught his breath.

‘Because he was so singular, so extraordinary – or so the seniors said. Of course most of us didn’t believe a word of it, but we used it as a nickname – irony, or so we thought.’

He was looking in my direction, but his gaze was somewhere back in time to his young self. My dad does the same thing when he talks about seeing Freddie Hubbard with Tubby Hayes at the Bull’s Head in 1965 or being at Ronnie Scott’s and hearing Sonny Rollins solo live for the first time.

There were so many questions I wanted answered, but I began to fear that he was drifting off – or worse.

‘You should have seen him at Ettersberg,’ he said softly. ‘It was like standing before the walls of Troy.
Aías d’amphì Menoitiádei sákos eurù kalúpsas hestékei hós tís te léon perì hoîsi tékessin,
but Ajax covered the son of Menoitios with his broad shield and stood fast, like a lion over its children.’

He grew quiet again, and I saw that I’d worn him out and utterly failed to get the information I’d wanted. Lesley would have been well pissed off with me for that.

Children are missing
, she would have said,
and you’re sitting around talking ancient history.

‘I was going to ask you about local magic and folklore,’ I said.

Hugh was obviously relieved to change the subject, because he brightened right up.

‘I may have just the thing,’ he said.

It turned out to be large shabby hardback book with
Folklore of Herefordshire
picked out in gilt on a burgundy cloth cover. It was Ella Mary Leather’s classic 1912 work and I had a copy of it on my tablet – after a recommendation by Nightingale. I was about to politely refuse on the basis that it was obviously a valuable antique, when I opened it up to find that the inside pages were covered in handwritten annotations, some in pencil, many in a spiky cursive hand. There was also a stamp that indicated that the volume had been nicked from Gloucester City Library.

‘When I first moved up here my doctor encouraged me to go for long walks,’ said Hugh. ‘But I’ve always been a bit of an explorer rather than a traveller.’

I wanted to ask more, but I could tell that I’d worn him out. I gathered up the tea things and took them downstairs leaving Hugh alone to ‘rest his eyes for a moment’.

There was no sign of either Beverley or Mellissa in the kitchen or in the garden, so I texted Beverley that it was time for us to go. I let myself out the front door just in case she’d gone back the car, and heard her voice from the other side of the hedge.

I looked over to see Beverley and Mellissa emerge from the cottage next door. The older man with the Australian accent and his sons followed them out to say goodbye. As they did so I got a sense of intimacy between Mellissa and the men – nothing overtly sexual, but a lingering touch on the arm of one of the younger ones, the brush of her shoulder against the older man’s chest. Beverley saw me and waved, then she turned back to Mellissa and they had a quick exchange. One of the men was sent back inside for a pen and Beverley wrote a number on the palm of her own hand. Then there was another round of goodbyes and Beverley joined me by the Asbo. We paused for a bit with the doors open to let the inside temperature fall below the boiling point of lead.

‘Is she . . .?’ I nodded back towards the cottage.

‘None of your business,’ said Beverley.

‘What, all three?’

‘Like I said,’ said Beverley, ‘none of your business.’

‘Damn,’ I said.

‘You should be so lucky,’ said Beverley.