In Bitter Chill (11 page)

‘Rachel, are you all right?’

Her neighbour Jenny had opened the front door of her cottage when she had spotted Rachel making her way to the car. Not a bad ID, considering it was pitch black with only the orangey glow of a single street lamp.

Rachel halted for a moment. ‘I can’t stop, I’m on my way to the library. I’m giving a talk to the local history society. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow maybe.’

‘Yes, 
but
 I heard on the news about . . .’

Rachel waved a hand as she got into the car and slammed the door. A body found in Truscott Woods would inevitably be associated with her despite the intervening years, especially coming so soon after Yvonne Jenkins’s death.

As she drove towards the library, she prayed that the scant preparation she had given her speech that evening wouldn’t be noticed. She was usually more diligent when speaking in public. She needed the twin reassurances of preparation and knowledge. But tonight she would need to rely on her experience. Because her turmoil had left her no mental energy to do anything else.

There was a difference between local history and genealogy of course. Local history was the history of Bampton and the nearby Derbyshire towns. Some of the people attending these meetings had no interest in their own personal histories but were fascinated by the landscape and buildings that surrounded them. Those tracing their family histories, on the other hand, weren’t always interested in the physical environment but the complex relationships that emerged from developing a family tree. But there was a crossover, and when Rachel gave a talk to the society she usually managed to find a topic of interest for local historians.

Richard Weiss, whose paternal family had arrived in Britain from the Kiev pogroms in 1905, ran the group. His great-grandfather Avram, who had originally settled in Bristol, finding employment amongst the docks, had looked to move his family up the social scale and had relocated to Bampton, where he worked at the town’s tiny wharf. Despite the canal’s demise, the family had stayed and Avram’s son Benjamin – Richard Weiss’s grandfather – used the advantages offered by the now-defunct grammar school to become a respected solicitor in Bampton. One of Benjamin’s sons, Daniel, had taken over the family practice, while another had become an actor in London. In turn, the reins had passed to Daniel’s son Richard and, although there were other partners, he was the only member of the Weiss family still working in the legal profession.

One day, bored with his fill of domestic disputes and cantankerous heirs, Richard had turned his eyes on his own family and begun to trace his lineage. Fascinated by the Bampton connection, he had set up a local history society which now ran to about eighty members and met on a monthly basis in Bampton library. About half that number would probably turn up tonight.

Rachel had first met Richard about five years earlier. It was strange that their paths hadn’t crossed earlier, given the parochiality of Bampton. It was Sydney Markham, the senior librarian, who’d first introduced them. Rachel had been suspicious of her motives, sensing a potential matchmaking attempt. But Richard, with his easy manner and relaxed view of the world, had pre-empted any discomfort by confiding in her that he had recently finished with his girlfriend – which he said was just as well, given the amount of work he had on at the office – and they had fallen into a relaxed friendship which, although unthreatening had, if she was totally honest with herself, an undercurrent of something else. She certainly found him attractive but couldn’t decipher his feelings towards her beyond his open kindness.

Rachel could hear her phone ringing in her bag. She hoped it wasn’t the library cancelling the talk. With one hand on the wheel, she retrieved the phone from her bag and saw she’d missed a call from Superintendent Llewellyn. With a talk to make in front of people, she needed her composure intact. She’d call him afterwards.

At the library Sydney was waiting for her at the front entrance. This was the first sign of anything unusual. Rachel often saw her when she visited during the day, but she had never seen her before at a history group meeting. Sydney immediately pre-empted any questions.

‘I’ve come here to support you. God knows, with what you’ve been through, people should be leaving you alone, but it’s the question-and-answer session I’m worried about.’

‘There aren’t any journalists here, are there?’ asked Rachel. ‘It’s not advertised on my website.’

‘No, and I didn’t get round to putting it on the library’s site either,’ Sydney admitted. ‘It’s our usual regulars I’m worried about. Most are sensitive but there’s always one. Or in this case three. They’ll couch it in terms of “here to support you”, of course. But really they’re nosy beggars and will want to ask you about the murder today.’

Rachel stared at Sydney and felt her mouth go dry. ‘The murder at Truscott Fields? Just because it’s the same location people are going to try and link it with my kidnapping? I’ve just about had enough of this.’

Sydney was now staring back at her. ‘It’s not just the location, Rachel. Haven’t you heard who it is? Remember Mrs Lander at St Paul’s? I don’t think she was ever your teacher. But she taught both my boys and a bloomin’ good teacher she was too.’

‘Mrs Lander is dead?’ Rachel felt her legs begin to shake. She made for the nearest chair in the corridor. Sydney sat down next to her, clutching her arm in sympathy.

‘They say she was strangled. But that’s just gossip from Mrs Atkins who came in and whose son is a dispatcher at the police station. It’s not made it into the papers yet.’

No wonder those journalists had headed away from the house with such speed, thought Rachel. But now it was a dead cert that they’d be back.

Rachel looked at the librarian. ‘But why Mrs Lander? Why is she dead?’

Sydney patted her arm. ‘Don’t you worry. It’s nothing to do with you. I just wanted to warn you about some of the busybodies in this group. Richard will give you moral support. Here he is now.’

Rachel looked up and watched Richard Weiss walk towards her. He was a large man, tall and barrel-chested, scruffily dressed in a brown woollen pullover and faded once-navy-blue trousers. She heard he hardly dressed any more smartly in the office, but he was a popular solicitor in the town. He looked like he’d had a haircut for the occasion. His fair hair was cropped shorter than usual and he was self-consciously rubbing the back of his head as if getting used to the new length. As he approached her, she felt a pang of relief at his presence, his kind brown eyes reassuring her.

He smiled down at her. ‘All OK? Don’t worry yourself about any troublemakers. I know all their secrets.’

‘I’m not sure if I can do this.’

He frowned. ‘I’ll call it off if you like. It’s not a problem. People will understand.’

Rachel dug into her handbag and looked at her phone. It must have been why Llewellyn was trying to reach her. Should she call him now? In the distance she could hear the chatter of the assembled group. They’d be a more attentive audience now.

‘No, it’s OK. I’ll do it.’ Rachel got up and followed Richard down the passageway and into the room, which fell silent as she approached the front. Richard was already introducing her before the panic could begin to rise.

‘Here’s someone who needs no introduction, our resident genealogist and Bampton expert, Rachel Jones.’

Taking her prompt cards out of her bag, Rachel began to speak. She soon became aware that the silence wasn’t hostile. A sea of sympathetic faces stared up at her, and even the usual troublemakers seemed to have pulled in sufficiently to protect one of Bampton’s own. Her talk was on the trades of women in Bampton in the nineteenth century. A variation on one she’d given to a different group the previous year. Many families had been involved with a trade in the town and the mix of shopping and scandal made for an interesting talk.

During the question-and-answer session, a woman put up her hand. Red-faced and grey-haired, Rachel recognised her as one of the busybodies that Sydney so feared. Maureen something or other. She braced herself for the question.

‘My great-nan was a cobbler, in Bampton’s High Street, according to the 1881 census. Were there many woman doing that at the time?’

The silence that stretched out into the room caused a few heads to rise. Richard had noticed it too. Rachel, feeling sick, eventually managed a few words.

‘It was unusual, yes, but not unheard of. Often widows took over the shops from their dead husbands. I can give you some more information afterwards, if you like.’

As the group broke up, a few came to lay an encouraging hand on Rachel. Richard hung around while she was chatting to the people who had stayed behind, a reassuring presence. While Rachel was packing up her things after the last person had left, he stood idly by, hands in his pockets, looking at one of the library’s bookshelves. With everything stuffed into her brown satchel, Rachel called over, ‘Fancy a drink?’

She often did this with men. Anticipated what they were going to say and said it herself before they had a chance to. It was probably a control thing and something her mother would have heartily approved of. ‘Take control of the situation’ was her mantra and Rachel had learned early on that it worked. If she spoke and acted first, then she could set the boundaries of the relationship. You could stop people getting too close that way. But what had it cost her mother? Nancy had been right this morning. There had been a few men friends around in her mother’s life as she had been growing up but none had stayed around long.

Richard Weiss looked surprised but pleased. ‘Do you want to stay in Bampton or go for a drive?’

Richard’s intelligent warmth was what she wanted at this moment and it was a relief that she wouldn’t be alone this evening. And she wanted more than one drink, which meant staying in Bampton so she could leave the car behind if necessary.

‘How about the Rose and Crown?’ she suggested.

‘The Rose and Crown, formerly known as the Wheatsheaf,’ said Richard, smiling at her.

Rachel grinned back. ‘You’re as bad as me.’

They walked out of the library and slowly towards the pub. The January Bampton night was once more threatening snow. The sky hung heavily over the town and the clouds were being blown by the winds quickly across the sky. The moon dipped in and out of view, very nearly a full disc, illuminating the street when the clouds cleared. The Rose and Crown was very hot, the air streaming out every time the doors were opened. There was a quiz going on in the main room and they nearly turned around and walked out. But there was a back room to the pub, where only two men sat in the corner, reading newspapers. Richard went to the bar and came back with a bottle of red wine under one arm and large bottle of water. He hadn’t even asked her what she wanted to drink.

‘It was a good talk tonight, Rachel,’ he said, filling each glass halfway. ‘It can’t have been easy.’

‘I’d hardly done any preparation beforehand so it could’ve gone either way. But Sydney did well to forewarn me about Mrs Lander. There are other ways I could have heard about it. At least it was Sydney.’ She frowned, remembering her neighbour, Jenny. Had she wanted to tell her about the identity of the body?

‘Funny about the name changes of pubs like the one we’re sitting in,’ he said swilling his wine around the glass. ‘What’s the difference between calling the same building the Prince Regent, for example, and then the Church Inn.’

Rachel shrugged. ‘Names are changed for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes on commercial grounds, sometimes to reflect the trend of the time. Sometimes by the brewery.’

‘I suppose for the same reason people change their own names.’

Rachel looked at Richard, wondering where this was going.

‘My family changed their name, you know. My great-grandfather arrived in Bristol as Avram Weitzenbaum. Only a minor difference, you might think. But Avram knew the importance of small things and the story is that he wanted to change it immediately. Jews were reasonably common in Bristol, given that it was a busy working port, but there was plenty of prejudice. Anyway, his wife felt it important to hang on to her identity and her name was part of that. Then two weeks spent tramping the Bristol dock warehouses and seeing the contempt on people’s faces as he tried to give his name meant he was forced to put his foot down. Apparently it was the first time he ever stood up to his wife. From then on, they were named Weiss.’

‘It doesn’t sound that much less Jewish. It would still have identified your religion.’

‘These people were pig ignorant. It wasn’t the fact that my great-grandfather was Jewish. In fact, a couple of the prominent slave-trading families in Bristol were Jews. The problem was that he had an Eastern European name that they couldn’t pronounce. As I said, pig ignorant.’

Rachel could sense that he was angry underneath the calm exterior. This was a man that she’d previously written off as charming but ultimately harmless who now seemed to be something else. She could sense a passion under his calm exterior and an anger that seemed more righteous than threating. It was a powerful cocktail and, for the first time, Rachel felt the pull of desire.

‘When I heard about the teacher found at Truscott Woods I thought you might cancel. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t have known the woman’s identity. I’d have rung you and told you myself, if I’d known, rather than you hear about it from that old gossip Sydney. I’m really sorry about that.’

Rachel took a gulp of her wine. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Sydney told me. Mrs Lander. God, what a mess.’

‘She was your teacher?’

‘No, that’s just it. She was a teacher at our school but we were never in her class. So I can’t think of any connection between us. As far as I can see there are two, actually make it three, random events that some people are determined to connect somehow. The kidnapping of Sophie and me in 1978, the suicide of Yvonne Jenkins and now the murder of Mrs Lander today.’

‘It’s definitely murder?’

Rachel sniffed. ‘Well, according to Sydney.’