The Winter Ground (20 page)

‘I can only apologise, sir,’ said Alec, who had reddened, as he has a tendency to do – such a trial for a gentleman, who has no recourse to powder. ‘It’s exactly as you said. We simply got caught up in the … Gosh, in the conspiracy to cover up a murder, I suppose you would say. I for one feel utterly—’

‘Don’t bother about all that,’ said Inspector Hutchinson. ‘This isn’t the officers’ mess and I don’t have time for speeches.’ Alec blushed even deeper and although I gobbled for a retort – such rudeness! – he had a point and there was no answer. ‘What I would like to know is why you are here.’

We told him. Pacing around the edges of the pond by torchlight, the frost crackling under our boots, we told him all about Ma’s premonition of doom, about the tricks played on the hapless Topsy and the tricks planned, although scuppered, for poor Anastasia.

‘This Topsy needs to be careful now,’ said the inspector. ‘She could be next, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I can see the sense in that,’ I said, ‘but I have to tell you, Inspector, our suspicions were tending in quite another direction before tonight.’

‘That Topsy did all the mischief, you mean?’ said Hutchinson. ‘That she played tricks on herself to cover her tracks? And were you alone in thinking it or was that the general view? And what might she have rigged tonight? Because she was still in the ring when it happened, wasn’t she?’

‘No, no, no,’ said Alec, with an agitated note in his voice. Stopping the inspector’s stream of ideas was a little like trying to catch up with a runaway train. ‘We didn’t mean Topsy … Quite the rev—’ His voice faded and he stood blinking. ‘But Topsy does make just as much sense, actually, Dandy. A lot more sense now, when one thinks about it.’

‘Alec, you weren’t there the day of the rope,’ I said. ‘Topsy positively hurled herself at the ground, Inspector. No one could have done that if she had known what was waiting at the bottom. I can’t think of it now without blanching.’

‘What was waiting at the bottom was a leap upwards and a bit of a sore hand,’ said the inspector. ‘And leaping around on ropes is Miss Turvy’s idea of a quiet day at home, is it not now?’ I shook my head again. ‘And if she really did “hurl” herself as you say, Mrs Gilver,’ went on the inspector, ‘she must have quite a temper.’ I fought hard against the feeling of being scooped up and swept along.

‘On the contrary, Inspector,’ I said. ‘We think, that is, Mrs Cooke voiced a suspicion to me, that it was Anastasia behind all the trouble.’

‘And so who more likely than this Topsy to pay her back, eh? Still, I need to speak to these clowns, this Bill Wolf, Topsy, your boys – with your permission, of course – and the rest of them. Any point trying to track down all the guests from the big house, do you think? Could you give me their names?’

‘Ahhh, most, I think,’ I said, checking with Alec. He nodded.

‘I should say so,’ he said with one eyebrow hooked up. ‘I’ve only been in these parts a year or two, Inspector, but even I’ve heard most of the names who were here tonight.’ He rattled off a few and Hutchinson’s eyebrows lifted too, until they were almost vertical.

‘Phew!’ he said. ‘Lady Maude MacAlpine? Really? The Stirling woman? I thought these Wilsons were the sober, respectable type, from all I’ve ever heard of them. A businessman and a schoolteacher’s daughter, aren’t they? Made their fortune and came to the hills for fresh air and views to sketch. But should I be having a look at
them
?’

Now, at this point, my duty was clear; at least the inspector would have said so. While assuring him that the Wilsons were the very souls of propriety, although a little odd each in his own way, and that this evening’s party was quite out of character for Benachally, I should certainly have passed on the interesting fact that when Anastasia upset the smooth running of the spectacular with her early exit, Ina Wilson was not in her seat where she should have been, but was back, breathing heavily and trying to hide it, by the time I addressed the gathering and bid them all return to the castle, their motor cars and home.

Yet all I did was shake my head. Ina Wilson? Preposterous! I looked forward to asking her just where she had been, of course, but I thought I could shield her from the inspector’s rather scorching attentions, in the meantime anyway. My conscience demanded it, for what would the man who had so efficiently cut Alec down to size make of the Wilsons if he got them in his view? After the mortifications of the early evening and the eventual travesty that the circus treat became I did not want to heap insult on them, the poor silly pair.

Watching him at work on Charlie Cooke made me very glad that my conscience had a greater measure of compassion than scruple. The inspector and his sergeant trundled into the ground the next morning in a BSA and sidecar which made even the Belsize tourer of the previous evening look sleek by comparison. Sergeant McClennan hopped off the motorcycle spryly enough, but to see the inspector unbuttoning himself from the covers and struggling out of the contraption like an overturned tortoise trying to shed its shell was a sight to be savoured.

‘Blasted thing,’ he said, tugging and twitching at his overcoat, once he was finally upright. ‘Well I remember my cosy wee perambulator when I was a bairn, and I had a sleigh ride once that was like sitting in an armchair, but that thing? Pure torture.’ He gave it a swift kick. ‘Now, Mr Charles Cooke Esquire, for you and me, madam.’

I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

‘For he won’t know what to make of you,’ Hutchinson explained to me.

‘So then won’t taking me along make him more careful than ever?’

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Hutchinson. ‘He’s been well coached by that sister-in-law, but he knows she’s had her claws into you too and he won’t know which way to play it if we face him together. He won’t know if you’re there for Ma Cooke or for me. He’ll be tossing like a cork on the tide.’ The inspector beamed at me.

‘You are very happy in your work,’ I remarked drily.

‘Well, Mrs Gilver, it’s not a mile off your work,’ he replied, ‘and I’m assuming you weren’t conscripted.’ Once again, I was left like a trout on a bank, my mouth opening and shutting but to no purpose. It was a feeling with which I was to become familiar while Inspector Hutchinson’s path marched along with mine.

‘Mr Cooke,’ he said in the same ringing tones, when Charlie answered his knock. ‘I think you are the man I need.’ He ushered me into the wagon and followed me. ‘Mrs Gilver needs no introduction, I know,’ he went on, settling himself down with great rearrangings of the skirts to his tweed coat. As the inspector had predicted, Charlie Cooke glanced rapidly between the two of us and a frown spread over his face. I felt a little pity for the man; he could not have slept a wink in the night if his pale cheeks and red-rimmed eyes were to be believed.

‘A very sad day for you, Mr Cooke,’ said the inspector.

Charlie nodded and there was a fresh welling of tears which he scrubbed at roughly. Then he looked up at Hutchinson and frowned.

‘What do you mean “for me”?’ he said.

‘What is there for me to mean?’ Hutchinson shot back.

Then Charlie seemed to realise, rather late, what the inspector was at and he countered it.

‘It’s a sad day for all of us. Me no more and no less than anyone,’ he said.

‘Quite so, exactly,’ the inspector said. ‘Now then.’ He opened a notebook and snapped the band smartly into place, then held up a slim silver propelling pencil and twisted it vigorously until a good half-inch of lead protruded. I wondered if he knew that he looked exactly like a doctor rather too enthusiastically preparing his smallpox vaccine while a toddler trembled before him. I rather thought he did. ‘Start from when you and the other clowns came out of the ring,’ he said, and although Charlie Cooke
was
a clown and so there was no insult in saying so, still I got the impression that the inspector had prepared the line in advance and greatly relished delivering it.

‘Aye, well,’ said Charlie, struggling to regain composure. ‘Yes, well, off we came, as you say. Tiny and Andrew went to our stall.’

‘Your stall?’ said Hutchinson.

‘Our table and boxes – our props like.’

‘And where exactly is that?’

‘Second one along from the ring doors, flush against the walling. Equestrian director’s table is first, only proper, and then the clowns’, always, on account of all the quick changes and all the multitude of props we have to take on and off. Then it’s the strongman and the others have their stalls wherever they can fit them in.’

‘Wherever they can fit them in,’ the inspector said slowly as he wrote it down. ‘I was going to ask about the layout of your backstage. It’s a gey queer set-up, is it not? Are all circuses that much of a rabbit warren?’

‘That’s Tam’s idea,’ said Charlie Cooke. ‘My brother. Says it calms the animals to have a passageway straight to their stall and not just have them milling.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Hutchinson, with real appreciation in his voice. ‘But tell me,’ he went on, and then stopped. Charlie Cooke was shifting around on his perch on the edge of the box-bed. (It appeared that every living wagon came with exactly two chairs, no more and no fewer, no matter the size of the household, the way that every kitchen I have ever seen has had a single Windsor armchair (and what feuds betwixt cook and housekeeper could be laid to rest if the mistress just delivered one more).)

‘Is something troubling you, Mr Cooke?’ the inspector asked, his voice bland and his eyes round and blinking. Charlie Cooke could hardly answer. What was troubling him was plain to see: he was distressed and exhausted but he had a job to do, a tale to tell, and could not be easy until he had told it, but here was the policeman chit-chatting away about the backstage and thwarting him. My pity flared again and perhaps not mine alone this time, for Hutchinson relented.

‘So you came off,’ he said. ‘Then what?’

‘As I say, Tiny and Andrew went to our stall and I carried on round the passage to the back door to have my smoke, like I usually do.’ Charlie was looking over our heads at the wall behind us as though his words were written there.

‘You didn’t help with the props?’ said the inspector.

‘I leave that to the youngsters,’ said Charlie. ‘On account of how I’m the boss.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Hutchinson. ‘Do you know, your sister-in-law said almost the same thing last night. Almost exactly the same words. I should have taken more notice of that.’

Charlie Cooke tensed his jaw a little but carried on.

‘Well, I was there at the back door, as I say, and I heard the pony coming. That’s funny, I thought to myself, for it wasn’t nearly time for anyone else to be off yet. I drew in to the side of the door out of the way, thinking Harlequin would go straight through and then she … she come round the corner and he went over. He just went over and she come off and there she lay, never moved, not a sound out of her. There she lay.’ His voice cracked and he stopped talking.

‘You’re telling me you saw the whole thing?’ Inspector Hutchinson said. Charlie Cooke swallowed hard and brought his eyes down to meet the inspector’s. He nodded.

‘But why—’ I began before I could stop myself.

‘Then what happened?’ said Hutchinson.

Charlie Cooke looked down at the floor as though working to remember.

‘Andrew and Tiny went rushing up to where she was lying. Andrew took off after Harlequin. Tiny made as if to follow but by then Topsy was off and she cried out when she saw what had happened so then Tiny wheeled round and came back, sort of as if to comfort her. Then the Russians come off and Tam’s prads. My God, the time we had! Trying to get they twelve horses past her and not have her trampled. For they were straight to their stalls no stopping them. A brick wall couldn’t have stopped them. What a to-do. And then when the prads were away one of they wee Russian raklies seen Ana and screamed like a train. That’s when you showed up, missus, you’ll be able to tell him all about it from there.’

‘And where was Mrs Cooke all this time?’ said the inspector.

‘I can’t say,’ said Charlie. ‘I don’t right know. All the confusion.’

‘Now ask your question, Mrs Gilver,’ said Hutchinson. ‘I’d like to hear the answer too.’

‘Mr Cooke,’ I said, trying to be gentle, to balance the hard note in Hutchinson’s voice, ‘why on earth didn’t you say any of this last night? Right at the start. If what you say is … Well, what I mean is that we really didn’t need to call in the police at all, did we?’

‘I was too shaken up,’ Charlie said. ‘I don’t think I could have said a word.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Hutchinson. ‘That’s what your sister-in-law thought it must be. That’s almost exactly how she explained it to me.’

I was trying to remember whether Charlie had indeed spoken while we were all gathered in the tent. I could not say with any certainty. It was Ma who said most, Pa who did the shouting, and to my best recall Tiny and Andrew were the only others who had had a view to share.

‘He
was
very upset, Inspector,’ I said, remembering the way he had sat with his head in his hands.

‘Can you understand,’ said Charlie, ‘wishing so hard that it wasn’t happening, you could make yourself believe that if you just keep quiet, it wouldn’t be?’

Both the inspector and I were silenced by that. The pain in his voice could not be other than real. When Hutchinson spoke again, his voice was softer.

‘You were particularly close to her then? Miss … Tchah!’ He had clearly not found out Ana’s surname yet and it was troubling him.

Charlie roused himself.

‘No,’ he said, carefully. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘You’ve never seen an accident before, then?’ the inspector went on. ‘Is that it? Lucky, surely? How long have you been a circus man?’

‘Born and bred and ten generations before me,’ said Charlie, stung by the implication. ‘And sure I’ve seen plenty mishaps in my time. When we had the big cats I saw things that would lay you out, I’d wager.’

‘So …?’ said Hutchinson.

Charlie shook his head a few times and began to speak almost to himself. Both the inspector and I keened forward to listen.

‘I’m getting old,’ he said. ‘I was an aerial acrobat, you know. Trapeze, tight rope, slack rope, perch and pole. I used to play a fiddle, standing on a chair on a rope, pretending to be drunk, brought the house down. And now? I can see a young lass heading straight for trouble and I’m too slow to do a thing about it. I just stood there and watched it. It was all over before I knew it had begun. I just stood there. So no, Mr Policeman, you’re right. I wasn’t too upset to talk, I was too ashamed. There. You happy now?’