The Smog

The Smog

 

First published in 1970

© John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1970-2014

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

 

The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

 

This edition published in 2014 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

 

Typeset by House of Stratus.

 

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

 

 

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author's imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

 

www.houseofstratus.com

 

 

 

John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as
Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron
.

Creasey wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the 'C' section in stores. They included:

 

Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

 

Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the
One Party Alliance
which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

He also founded the
British Crime Writers' Association
, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing.
The Mystery Writers of America
bestowed upon him the
Edgar Award
for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate
Grand Master Award
. John Creasey's stories are as compelling today as ever.

 

 

 

As dawn broke, the air was so clear that distant hills could be seen, tall and soft breasted, in a clarity of outline which came, perhaps, once a year; certainly no more than twice or thrice. And to greet the dawn the birds, blue jay and sparrow, house-martin, thrush and eager starling, woke earlier and sang more loudly – unless it was that the air carried the sound more distinctly so that it seemed louder.

Only two people were up at dawn that day, one too busy to greet it, the other too preoccupied. One, Grace Drummond, with her husband and three children to get up, feed and make ready for the day, had little time for welcoming the morning. Yet, even beset by duties, when she opened the kitchen window to shake the crumbs off the tablecloth, she was almost startled by the closeness of the hills, though she knew them to be thirty miles away.

The other was David Costain, a clear if slow thinking man, regarded locally as a gentleman farmer, on his morning milk delivery and heading for the Manor, where they seemed to drink more milk than the rest of the villagers' frugal half-pints put together.

“No doubt the two women bathe in it!” quipped the postman Worral. “Good for the complexion I hear tell, and both rivals, I shouldn't wonder, for the Professor's attention!”

And Worral – pronounced Wurrall so that his nickname of Worry-guts was almost automatic – had gone up the hill, laughing uproariously at his own joke.

Costain turned his small van into the driveway of the Manor, aware of but not consciously thinking of the changes which had taken place in this house in the last few years. For one thing, the big iron gates, beautifully wrought three centuries ago, had been cleaned and restored and coated with a flat paint which showed them at their best. The banks on either side were trim, now. Joe Taylor was as proud of his mowing machines as if he owned them, instead of working for the Professor and living in a converted barn really fit only for cows. The drive, too, was weedless.

“Never seen a weed killer like it,” Joe had boasted at the Sparrow Hawk, the only inn within miles of the village – but compensatingly near its heart, opposite the tiny Norman church, with its castellated tower and age-old stone walls. “Spread the mix one day, next day the weeds be dying, day after that they be gone. Like magic it were.”

Joe Taylor, so proud of his new-found job of gardener and handyman at the Manor, talked at the drop of the hat about the tools, the grounds, the house itself, but seldom about the Professor or his staff, if staff was the word for them. There were four people besides the Professor living in the house; an elderly man, a young man who moved about most of the time in a wheel chair and two young women; sisters. No one knew but the village guessed that both were in their twenties. No one knew but the village guessed with a mixture of prurience and excitement, that one or the other or both of these were the Professor's mistresses.

No one knew …

That was true about everything except the obvious things, since Professor Storr, an American, had bought the Manor. There had been great excitement when he had first arrived, with loads of furniture and carpets large enough to spread from wall to wall even in those huge rooms. Gradually the excitement had died down, as the women in the village became reconciled to the disappointment of finding that no domestic help was needed. The new occupants, it appeared, looked after themselves, so it was assumed that some, at least, were ‘staff'.

“They don't mean to allow anybody to see what goes on there,” one of the once-hopeful women had said darkly.

Certainly no one knew.

David Costain reached the point of the drive where it branched left towards the side and back entrances, and slowed down as he always did, because the view of the Manor from there was so beautiful. Built of local stone, against a line of pines, it stood three stories high on the crest of a hill overlooking the village and the surrounding countryside. This was Southern England at its agricultural loveliest.

The drive swept round, towards the porticoed front door, the grass before it trim and closely cut.

The air, this far above the village, seemed absolutely clear; as if all the dust and the mist, the insects and the pollen, had been drawn out of it. Costain lingered, then was about to put on speed when he saw one of the upstairs windows open. Marion, one of the young women, was standing there deeply breathing in the morning air. Costain could see the upper part of her body, naked and beautiful enough to make him catch his breath.

He was early today; perhaps she did this every morning, without fear of being seen; certainly she was quite oblivious, and Costain did not know what best to do. If he raced the engine she would realise that he was there, a Peeping Tom for all she knew; but if he did nothing, and she or one of the others saw him, what would they do but be sure he had come – or at least stayed – to stare?

Uncertain, held by an unwilling fascination, he could see the rise and fall of her breasts, as if she were challenging the day while filling herself with the pristine sweetness of the air itself.

At last, she drew back and closed the window.

David Costain, in his early forties, ten years a widower, sat in the pale-yellow cart, still seeing, in his mind's eye, the body of Marion Kemble.

At last, slowly, wishing the engine to silence, he eased off the brake, went on his way, delivered his milk and then moved across to the barn, where several empty bottles were in yesterday's wire cage. More often than not, he saw Joe Taylor, but it was barely half-past six and usually he was not here until after seven.

Today was a special day; he was going to the cemetery.

He had debated with himself, for the past two weeks, whether to make the annual pilgrimage or to give it up at last. He no longer felt the deep hurt, still less the anguish, of the first few years, although there had been a time when he had thought forgetfulness, even for a few hours, impossible. Yet here, in Sane village, he had won through to a certain relief from the nagging remorse – not for anything he had done but for what he had not done.

It was his terrible and unescapable fear that he might have been responsible for the death of his wife and their three children.

Doctors had told him not to be a fool; so had relatives and so had friends; but even now, thinking about what had happened, he felt the ache of the old agony. He
must
forget it!

He had a dozen more calls to make and the glimpse of Marion at the window had delayed him, so to be in time he must hurry. There was one bus, which would leave at seven-thirty sharp and enable him to catch the eight-fifteen train from Winchester to London. He must not sink into one of his old moods of melancholy which, sad and hampering, always slowed him down.

As he left the grounds of the Manor and turned sharply uphill towards the hamlet beyond, Upper Sane, he was caught once more by the almost unbelievable clarity of the morning, and when he reached the top of the hill and looked over the countryside, the picture was so breathtaking that yet again he paused.

“Anyone would think I want to miss that train,” he said aloud; but once the significance of what he had said struck home, he began to do everything with determined speed. If he ever stopped this anniversary visit to the dead it would be deliberately, not the result of some half-sensed subconscious desire.

 

Almost at the same moment that David Costain made his purposeful speed, Grace Drummond dropped an egg and it cracked, smashed on the edge of the stove, splattering a sticky trail down her dress. Exasperated, she decided she would have to change it, and there was so little time, at the most fifteen minutes before leaving the house. Then suddenly Geoffrey's arms were round her waist, his strong fingers pressing against her in an oft-used, familiar, heartwarming way.

“Oh, Geoff,
don't!
”

“I certainly shall,” he said, gaily, making no attempt to lessen his hold. “It
would
happen this morning! A hundred leisurely mornings and not a cracked egg! One with a train to catch, and this—” His head was thrust over her shoulder, his unshaven cheek was rough against hers. “Leave it, darling, I'll clean it up and although you'd never admit it I scramble quite an eatable egg.”

He let her go.

She twisted round and gave him a hug and a touch of her lips, before she fled, her mind already deciding that it would have to be the yellow linen dress again, she never seemed to wear anything else when she went to London. She heard giggling, from the two girls, and then a loud: “That's mine!” from Geoffrey II. As she reached the main bedroom Geoffrey, older than the girls by two years, stormed onto the landing. “Mummy! They've taken my Napoleon hat again, they know I hate them playing with it!”

Because of her hurry, it would have been easy to be sharp with him, or at least peremptory, but he looked so forlorn, a little ugly duckling of a child, fair hair hanging almost into his eyes, his mouth quivering in lines of despair.

“Mary-Jane!” She called. She often made the two names sound like one, as now, and from the time they had begun to share their twin secrets, and go off together, they had responded as one. They did now, two pyjama clad figures, one with hair dropping to her shoulders, the other with it cut much shorter, the only certain way of telling them apart for most of the village, the school and even close friends.

“Yes …”

“Mummy?”

They would answer together, one with one word, one the other, and she wasn't quite sure whether, at the age of seven, they were beginning to do this out of mischief rather than from habit.

“Give Geoffrey back his hat,” she ordered, “and don't touch it again. You're both on your honour while I'm away.” She was sure she could rely on them.

She had not dreamed of the reaction.

“Away!” gasped Mary.

“You're going away?” cried Jane.

“Mummy, can I come?” pleaded Geoffrey II with sudden inspiration.

And then Geoffrey I came bounding up the stairs, as lithe and energetic at thirty-five as a man ten years younger. How could so handsome and virile a man have sired a son so plain as Geoffrey II? His chestnut-brown eyes were glowing as he lifted his two daughters in one arm and his son in the other, and at the same time roared: “No one's going with Mummy today but you're all three coming with me—I'll take you to school. Mummy has about ten minutes to catch her bus.”

After nine of those minutes had passed in frantic rush she raced out of the house and along the lane towards the bus stop. At every step there was a cry.

“Goodbye, Mummy!”

“Bring me something back.”

“Can we come and meet you?”

She reached the corner and turned, to see them all waving, Mary and Jane perched on Geoffrey's shoulders, Geoffrey II standing on the garden gate, the Napoleon hat squarely on his head. In one way she was glad that her husband was home all day. He was, he told her, writing a scientific book, based on experiments he was making in the garden shed – but writing it as vaguely and casually as a more than adequate private income allowed him. His interests were many – geology, agriculture; anything that took his fancy. Grace reached the bus stop, still smiling, as happy as she had been for a long time. Only one man was waiting there, and she didn't, at first, recognise David Costain in the well-cut suit and trilby hat.

“Good morning, Mrs. Drummond. You catching the London train, too?”

“Yes. I don't think I've ever seen you on the bus before,” she said, and then laughed. “Not on any one of the four times a year that I catch it.”

He smiled, and she thought: He's much better-looking than I realised.

Then the bus came in sight and they stood in companionable silence until they got on, when they sat opposite each other, paid their fares, and then gradually became absorbed in the beauty of the morning.

 

They were walking along the platform at Waterloo, two of hundreds, mostly hurrying, when the first wisp of yellowish fog showed in the village of Sane.

The first child coughed; and the first child cried from pain which stung his eyes.