The Stranger House (41 page)

“Queen Sam the First,” he said, “It has a ring to it.”

“You reckon? Thanks anyway. For the treatment. And the talk.”

“I was glad to talk too.”

“You were? I almost knocked on your door as I passed, then I thought that I’d disturbed you enough over the past couple of days.”

“Maybe more than you know,” he said, “I heard you hesitate outside. I’m glad I helped you make up your mind. Talking is always good.”

“Depends who it’s with,” she said. She looked at her watch, “Jeez, it’s still early.”

“Yes, it is. You sound disappointed.”

“It makes for a long night. I wasn’t looking forward to it anyway, not with everything that’s been going on. Now it’ll feel like forever. That’s another reason I almost knocked. I didn’t feel like being on my own.”

He loved her directness. It was rare to meet honesty with no hint of calculation.

“So stay then. By all means,” he said.

“Stay? Is that a proposition?”

He felt himself flushing.

“No! I mean, to talk, if you want. Or if you want to sleep, please, use my bed. I’ll be fine here.”

He indicated the rickety chair.

Sam laughed.

“Not if you want to sleep. Anyway, it’s your bed. You deserve a share of it.”

She must be suggesting he should sit on the end of it. What else could she mean?

He looked at the bed doubtfully.

“It’s very narrow,” he said.

“Me too,” she said, “See. I take up next to no room.”

She moved her hands and stood before him naked. He wouldn’t have believed clothes could be removed so quickly. Nor would he have believed that the sight of a body so skinny with more straight lines than curves and breasts that would vanish in the palms of his hands could have such a devastating effect on him. His mouth went dry, his body burnt, his knees buckled with a weakness that had nothing to do with his mountain fall. His now tremulous sight registered that she was a deep golden brown all over except for the fiery red of her pubic hair, then she was sliding out of sight beneath the duvet.

“Acres,” she said, “You could hold that meeting of the Vatican Council in here.”

Perhaps the religious reference should have had a cooling effect. Instead somehow it merely turned up the heat. He may not have matched her speed of undress, but at least he gave it his best shot.

That was his last contact with rational thought for a little while.

A very little while.

After the first time, Sam said, “You’ve not done a lot of this, have you? Here’s a tip. A gent usually tries to count up to at least twenty before he gives his all. You can count up to twenty, can’t you? Fifteen would do at a pinch.”

After the second time, she said, “You’re a fast learner. With the right training you could be a contender.”

And after the third time, she said, “That was great. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to try a bit of sleep.”

For his part, he thought he would never sleep again but just lie there savouring the endless joy of her presence alongside him. But sleep came all the same, and when it came it was full of sweet dreams and peace and quiet breathing.

Miguel Madero awoke.

He was alone.

His first thought was: It’s all been a dream.

His second: But can a dream leave the sweet odour of her in my nostrils?

Agitated, he jumped out of bed, forgot to duck to avoid the low crossbeam, and cracked his brow so hard that tears came to his eyes.

When they cleared, Sam was standing in the doorway, fully dressed, with a broad-brimmed floppy white sun hat pulled over her ravaged skull.

“Hi,” she said, “Bathroom’s all yours. Shall I tell Mrs A. you’d like a cooked breakfast? Or have you had enough of the big sausage for now?”

Her gaze slid slowly down his body. His hands came round to cover himself and she turned away and ran down the stairs, laughing. It was the loveliest sound he could recall hearing.

I must be careful, he told himself. I am the tyro here. She is the experienced woman. She was lonely, distraught. She took comfort in me as a woman of an earlier age might have taken a sleeping draught. I must not read more into this than an experienced man of my age would read.

But nothing he could tell himself, and nothing he could tell God either as he recited his morning office, did anything to staunch the spring of sheer joy bubbling up inside him, and instead of his usual soft-footed descent of the stairs, he took them at a run, three at a time.

In the kitchen, Edie Appledore heard the noise, wrinkled her brow for a moment, then a slow smile spread across her face as she turned the sausage in the pan.

In the bar Sam was finishing a bowl of cereal. She still had her hat on and when she leaned forward over the bowl, the brim hid her face.

He sat opposite her and said, unthinking, “So what shall we do today?”

She raised her head slowly. There was milk on her lower lip. He wanted to kiss it away, but her expression didn’t invite such familiarity.

She looked at him blankly then said, “You’ve got an appointment at the Hall, haven’t you?”

“So I have. You know, I’d forgotten. But I needn’t get up there for another hour or so.”

She said, “I suppose not,” and the concealing brim came down again as she took another spoonful of cornflakes.

Mrs Appledore came in with a plate of sausage and mushrooms which she placed before him. She then transferred his breakfast cutlery from the neighbouring table without comment and went back to the kitchen.

“You decided I would be hungry?” said Mig.

“I’d have taken bets on it.”

He thought about this, smiled, and began eating.

She poured herself some coffee from the jug and watched him gravely.

He didn’t speak, fearful of not finding the right thing to say.

After a while she said, “I was thinking …”

“What?”

“Your ancestor. Do you think he killed Thomas Gowder?”

“Good Lord. I don’t know. I could hardly blame him if he did. Does it matter?”

“Truth matters,” she said with absolute certainty, “In your translation Miguel says,
He came after me. As I pushed myself upright, my right hand rested on a heavy fuel log. He drove the knife at my throat. I ducked aside. And I swung the log at his temple. He fell like a tree.
But the account in Swinebank’s
Guide
says:
After some months of living at Foulgate and being nursed back to health, the youth repaid their kindness one night by assaulting Jenny. On being interrupted by her husband, he wrestled the man to the ground and slit his throat from ear to ear, almost severing the head from the neck.”

The way she spoke the words convinced him this was verbatim not a paraphrase.

“I’m impressed,” he said.

“Why?” she said, “It’s a quirk, not a talent. Like a digital camera, only the images are harder to delete.”

“A useful quirk,” he said.

“Not always. I mean, what earthly use is it for me to know that you have a small hairy mole, ovoid in shape, approximately one square centimetre in area, situated seven centimetres on a fifteen-degree diagonal to the left of your belly button?”

He took a larger bite of his sausage than he’d intended and, after a lot of chewing, managed to say, “It might come in handy if you had to identify my body.”

“No,” she said, “There are other things I’d look for. You haven’t answered my question.”

“Are you worried because it could turn out you’re related to the Gowders?” he asked, laughing.

She didn’t laugh back.

“Only if it turns out the connection’s any closer than a couple of centuries,” she said flatly.

He took her meaning and said, “But the twins would only have been young boys themselves then …”

“There was their father. He sounds to have been a piece of work. Look, Mig, someone got Pam pregnant and it certainly wasn’t the Angel of the Lord.”

Before he could reply, Edie Appledore’s voice floated through the doorway.

“Sam, telephone!”

“Excuse me,” said Sam.

In the kitchen Mrs Appledore said rather disapprovingly, “It’s Noddy Melton.”

Sam picked up the phone. Behind her she could hear the landlady working at the sink. Fair enough, it was her kitchen, but if this got private, Sam would have no compunction in asking her to leave.

She said, “Hi, Mr Melton. Sam Flood here.”

“Good morning, Miss Flood,” said the little man’s precise voice, “How are you this morning?”

“I’m fine. How about you?”

“I’m well. It occurred to me after listening to you last evening that in some important respects the case has altered, as they say.”

“Which case would that be, Mr Melton?”

“Which indeed? You ask such good questions, Miss Flood. If you have a moment this morning, perhaps I can help you find answers to match. Any time. Good day.”

Sam replaced the receiver.

“Thanks, Edie,” she said.

“My pleasure. Listen, I know you’re desperate for answers, but be careful when you’re dealing with Noddy.”

“That’s more or less what you said to me that first day in the bar,” said Sam.

“The difference is you’ve spoken with him since then, so now you’ll know what I’m talking about,” said Mrs Appledore, “I daresay he’s been filling you in on his own personal history of Illthwaite. Vigilante village, that’s how he sees us, right? The place where they killed Billy Knipp ‘cos everyone knew he was a nasty little tearaway; and got rid of my man, Artie, ‘cos he wanted to sell up here and take me back to Oldham. Above all, of course, he probably hinted that they took young Mary Croft and dropped her into Mecklin Moss rather than risk her marrying the local bobby.”

“He might have said something,” said Sam, “If he did, what’s the party line?”

“Billy Knipp came off his bike swerving to avoid a troop of boy scouts trekking along a lane he was driving down too fast. Only decent thing the lad ever did. Seventeen witnesses. As for my Artie, it was his second coronary that killed him. After the first he was told to lose weight and give up the fags. He did neither. One witness. Me.”

“And Mary Croft?”

“She was another wild one. Only took up with young Noddy to disoblige her dad, who she hated. Got on well with her stepmother, though. That’s why it was her she rang to say she was OK after she took off to London. God knows what she got up to down there, but a few years later, when the old man died, her stepmum sold up and went off to join her and split the inheritance. There
was only about eight years between them and they settled down to run a
taberna
on the Costa Brava. Still do, from what I hear.”

Sam recalled the retired policeman’s story. How his eyes had misted as he described that last passionate kiss which he’d been so sure meant the girl had already decided to come to Candle Cottage on the appointed night and give herself to him. But if what Mrs Appledore was saying were true, then its passion had been that of farewell.

“But why didn’t anyone ever tell Mr Melton?” she demanded.

“Tell him what? He was moved on not long after Mary disappeared. Did well for himself. Got married. Not much point turning up on his doorstep and telling him and his lady the truth, was there? It wasn’t till he bought Candle Cottage and came back here after he retired that we realized what had been festering in his mind all these years. We should have told him then perhaps, but Mr Dunstan said it would probably kill him. A man by himself needs a reason to get out of bed each morning and, if you take it away, he probably won’t bother. Whether we were wrong or right, I don’t know. But I do know you should take a big pinch of salt with you whenever you visit Candle Cottage.”

“Don’t worry, Edie,” said Sam, “I’ve learnt my lesson in Illthwaite. Whoever I’m talking to, I’ll add salt by the bucket-load. Look, I’ve been thinking about what you said last night. OK, I take your word for it that Sam Flood’s not in the frame. So, looking back, who do you think is? Could it have been Jim Gowder?”

Edie shook her head, in doubt rather than denial.

“He was a funny bugger, that’s true. But he was genuinely broken up by Madge taking ill and dying. She was
the best thing that happened to that family. Mind you, her being sick so long meant he wouldn’t be getting his regular comforts, and that turns some men queer. But a kid like little Pam …”

“And anybody else? Was there anyone around who specially fancied kids?”

“You don’t think we’d have put up with any of that!” said the landlady indignantly, “Mind you, with men there’s always been some as don’t much mind what age a woman is so long as she’s got two legs to open.”

“Yeah, we’ve got plenty of them too. But anyone in particular?”

Edie shook her head again.

“No one I’d put that on.”

Sam was unconvinced.

“How about the vicar, Rev. Pete’s father, I mean? My gran stayed at the vicarage, didn’t she? So he’d have had his chances. And he was a widower, so nothing on tap.”

“No! Not Rev. Paul. The way he preached he’d have had all young women corked up and all young men doctored!”

“Sounds a bit obsessive to me. And he was one of the ones keen to get my gran out of the country.”

“Out of the vicarage, certainly. Getting her on that boat to Australia was mainly down to Mr Dunstan.”

“Who was a bit of a lad himself in his young days, by all accounts. And in his not-so-young days. Was it just a charitable impulse that made him elect my gran as an honorary Catholic orphan?”

“Old Dunny?” said Mrs Appledore, aghast, “Sam, you can’t go around firing off accusations in all directions.”

“Why not? Let’s see who runs for cover. Come on, Edie, are you saying Dunstan never tried his charms on the sexiest girl in the village?”

“Yes, well, maybe he did show an interest when I first started behind the bar. But most of them did! That’s my point. I was bursting out all over from early on. When you had what I had, you soon learned it was easy to get the customers all heated up just by undoing a button and leaning forward. Dunstan was no different from the rest.”

“Maybe,” said Sam, “But I’ll keep him on my list. Anybody else you can finger?”