The Rhyme of the Magpie (21 page)

“Goodbye, Ms. Lanchester,” the receptionist called as I left. I offered a small wave—after all, she may not know she works for the devil incarnate. I forced myself to walk around the next corner, out of sight of HMS, Ltd., before I collapsed against a wall, breathing hard and considering my next move. I saw no reason to trust Miles to tell the truth. Did Michael believe in Dad's work or was he a spy sent by Oscar Woodcock? That was what I must figure out.

As I found my car and began the slow, circling descent out of the car park, my mind and heart played leapfrog, believing first one side then another. Michael lied to Dad and he was a spy—Michael was truly working for Rupert and against HMS and Power to the People. But this wasn't a teeter-totter, either one thing or the other—it was a triangle, and the third point, what hurt most of all if I looked closely at it, was that Michael didn't tell me. If he could feign ignorance of HMS, couldn't he also feign feelings for me? I needed to know. I'd go to him and demand a full accounting.

My phone rang. I glanced at the screen and saw Michael's number and let it go, each ring piercing my heart. Michael must be waiting at my cottage—we were going on a picnic today to the seaside. I stifled a sob. That was a lovely dream, now totally shattered.

I should go back this minute and face him, but I found that I had already turned north on the A11, away from Smeaton.
Bianca's right, I'm a coward,
I thought,
I can't even confront him
. No, not a coward, but I needed time to think this through, make a plan. I would go to Marshy End, my refuge—my unconscious had already chosen the route and I was on my way.

If I were to hole up in Marshy End, I'd need something to eat first.
No picnic for you, Julia—no roast chicken, no blanket on the sand, no romantic liaison.
I was shocked at how truly terrible my judgment was.

My phone rang twice more as I neared Mildenhall. I took a deep breath for control. I would stop at the Wheaten Cairn. A pub lunch. The WC, as the coppers had said yesterday. I distracted myself by playing with words and letters in my mind, a mishmash of Dad's field abbreviations and the text his
kidnapper/friend
Bertie had sent. JL @ ME. No, first it would be JL @ WC. Will you see a magpie on your way? MP @ WC.

You magpies and your rhymes. One for sorrow—well, we'd seen that one, hadn't we? Two for joy—that was Dad's return. Three for a girl, four for a boy—Bee's taken care of those. Five for silver. I thought on that for a while, and remembered that Beryl now wore a silver wedding ring. I had seen five magpies on my way to visit Fenny that first time, a sure sign of his anger at Dad's marriage. Six for gold—my idea of a summer supper in Suffolk; still gold as far as I was concerned, no matter what Linus thought. Seven for a secret never to be told—there you are, Michael, you are the seven. Eight for a wish—I sniffed—nine for a kiss; ten for a bird that's best to miss.

As I pulled in to the empty car park at the Wheaten Cairn, my phone went off again, and again I ignored it. It was early; the pub looked deserted. I wasn't in any shape to take a long walk, but I could at least stretch my legs, and so I got out of the car, hobbled round the back of the pub, and looked down at the field below.

Two ducks took off from Rosemere, the fen behind the trees on the far side of the field, and flapped their way across the sky.
Shovelers,
I thought. SD @ RM. I shook my head to get rid of the pile of random letters that had accumulated.

But two of the letters remained—RM. Those letters had appeared on the little square of paper the police had found in Kersey's shoe. A betting slip. Michael and I had tried to come up with the name of a racecourse using those letters. What were the other letters? Something “to show” at RM. That's what made us think it was horse racing—win, place, show. What if it wasn't a
racecourse—what
if it was a fen?

Birds would show at Rosemere—even, occasionally, a rare one. Two more of the letters on the betting slip came into focus in my mind: SW. And I could hear Val shouting after Gavin a few days ago, something about Sardinian warblers.

With a rush of clarity, I knew. SW to show RM. Sardinian warbler to show up at Rosemere, the fen behind the Wheaten Cairn—WC! Those letters had appeared, too.

As my heart raced, I scooped up every piece of information I could think of that might be a clue, spilled them all out onto the table of my mind, and began sorting through for a story that would hold together. Kersey was betting that a Sardinian warbler would appear on this fen. He lost and owed a great deal of money, and the person he owed money to took revenge.

Did he place the wager with Gavin? Twitcher Gavin had his finger on the pulse of rare-bird sightings round the country. Or was Gavin the gambler, placing the bet with Kersey?

Before I could stop myself, I wished that Michael was with me so that we could talk it through. No—I would take care of this. I'd ask the one person who might know—Valentine Spore. If this was all about Rosemere and the Wheaten Cairn, Val must know what connected those men to a bet about a bird.

A fat raindrop landed on my nose and another on my cheek, bringing me back to the moment. I walked round to the front of the pub and found the door unlocked. The place looked empty when I walked in. I stood at the bar, wondering if I should call out or wait. It looked as if Val had opened his post standing at the bar—a torn envelope and several sheets of paper lay scattered about.

I wasn't snooping; it's just that my eyes fell on the topmost paper. The letter was more than a week old. I caught the words “local authority” and “environmental assessment” and remembered that Val was hoping to build a hotel nearby.

“Julia, I didn't hear you come in.” Val walked out of the kitchen tying on a fresh apron. “Are you on your way to Marshy End?” He smiled. “Is Rupert with you?”

“Rupert's at home today,” I said.

With measured nonchalance, Val swept his post off the bar and into the sink. “Is he?”

“Yes, taking a few days off.” My phone rang again. I walked to the other end of the bar.

He noticed my limp. “What've you done to yourself?”

I brushed off the question. “My toe,” I said, “minor accident. It'll be fine. So how are the hotel plans? Are you ready to break ground?”

“Not quite ready.”

Enough chitchat. “Listen, Val, you said something about Sardinian warblers to Gavin Lecky the other day.”

Val's small eyes watched me for a moment, and then he frowned. “The Sardinian warblers—are they a Eurovision group or what?”

“No, it's a bird. You called after Gavin about them.”

“No,” Val said, his head shaking, “don't recall that. But, of course, I get so busy in here, I do sometimes lose track of the
conversations.”

“Yes, the Cairn's a popular place, isn't it?” I asked, not really caring about an answer. I glanced round politely to admire the surroundings, and noticed the paneling right next to my head held a splintered and broken circle about the size of a fist. “Was there a fight recently?” I asked, nodding to it.

“Nothing I couldn't handle,” Val replied, holding up a pint glass to me. It was a bit early in the day, but I needed something. I nodded to the Broadside, and he began to pull.

Val set my beer in front of me, reached for a knife, and began cutting up lemons. “So, what is it about this Sardinian warbler? Is he special?” He had five lemons in a tidy pile of slices almost before he finished the question.

“I…”

I lost my train of thought for a moment. Over Val's shoulder and out the window behind, I saw a magpie circling above the field.

I cleared my throat. “A Sardinian warbler is rare. I think that Gavin may have seen one near Weeting Heath, where there's talk of a wind farm. He's against it—a misplaced wind farm is lost habitat, he told me. I think someone wanted him to keep quiet about the warbler.”

As I said the words, I knew there was something wrong with them. What had Gavin said when we were standing at the side of the road? He didn't talk of a wind farm; he said that a misplaced building was lost habitat. I glanced over into the sink where Val had swept his post. Would a local authority deny permission to build if there were environmental concerns—bird habitat, for example?

Out of the corner of my eye, as if observing the stealth movements of a dunnock, I detected Val's hand hovering over the knife block. I thought of Kersey's tongue cut out.

“Haven't heard of the thing,” Val said.

But he had—I had heard him say the bird's name. Kersey's betting slip—I could see it clear as day in my mind. “SW to show 30.04 RM WC”—Sardinian warbler at Rosemere. Wheaten Cairn. Out the window, another magpie soared past.

I rubbed at the pricking sensation crawling up my arms.

“Look, Val,” I said, my voice beginning too high. I coughed. I could feel beads of sweat breaking on my forehead. I made a show of brushing my fringe out of my eyes. “Could I get a sandwich to take away—just any old thing you can put together. And while you do that, I'll step outside and phone my dad—he knows I've stopped here, of course. Just want to check in. Won't be a moment.”

“Sure, sure—you go ahead,” Val said as he selected a long, thin carving knife and checked its blade. “I'll sort something out for you. You take your time.”

I went to the door slowly, as if I had not a care in the world, but the moment I was outdoors, I hopped as fast as I could around to the back of the pub, out of sight of the window. I dug my phone out and my fingers stumbled over the screen in search of Flint's number. But movement in the field below caught my attention.

Magpies—ten of them.

There's nothing alarming in that—magpies do tend to hang about in fields where cows, sheep, and pigs are kept. But not in such an organized manner as this. Here, ten of them formed a circle round one of the pig huts as if playing ring-ring-around-a-rosy. They stood perfectly still, except for one, who cocked his head and locked a beady eye on me. I walked forward as if in a trance, edging close to where the land dropped away into the field.

“Too close, Julia.”

I jumped. Val had come up silently and stood directly behind me.

“Sorry, I…”
Words, Julia, say some words.
But the sight of the carving knife hanging at Val's side stopped me.

“Did I give you a fright?” he asked. “Not as much as the one you gave me just now. You're too clever for your own good, Julia—too close to twigging it.”

I took off, but got only a step away when he knocked my legs out from under me. My phone went flying, and I toppled forward into the long grass, bending my bad toe and crying out. He pulled a short length of rope from behind him and had whipped it round me, pinning my arms to my side, before I could right myself.

“What are you doing?” I shouted as I struggled, squirming on my stomach and trying to kick at him backward. The knife appeared an inch from my eye and stilled me.

“No use wriggling, Julia—I can catch and tie up one of my Berkshires in no time at all, and pigs are more of a handful than you.” He stood up and yanked on the end of the rope like a leash. “Now, up with you—I'll have to put you away, too, until I can sort this out.”

I scrambled up as he kept the knife across my throat, so close I was afraid to take a deep breath. Images of Kenneth Kersey—his tongue taken out by perhaps this very knife—swam in my mind. When I retched, Val moved the knife away in time, and I was sick on his shoe. “Ah, would you look at that?” he remarked as if I spilled the tea. He jerked the rope, and like a puppet I obeyed, my hands flapping uselessly at my sides.

Down the incline we went, each stumble sending cold waves of panic through me as the knife danced in front of my throat. As we made our way, I tried throwing him off balance, half-afraid the knife would plunge into my throat if I did so. But Val was short and round, with a low center of gravity and unlikely to tip over easily. Every time I slid, he pulled all the harder.

He began muttering to himself as he pushed me over the stile and held me fast against the post as he climbed over.

“For once could I get something to go my way? This bloody Sardinian warbler could ruin everything.”

“Kenneth Kersey bet a Sardinian warbler being seen here at Rosemere, didn't he?” I asked, and Val paused in our journey.

“He'd been hanging about the pub talking with Rupert or that Lecky—talking birds. I knew he was a gambler, I'd heard him at it. One of those who would put down a few quid on just about anything, from what time the rain would start at Wimbledon to what day a UFO would land on Trafalgar Square. Yeah, he won't be around to collect on that, will he?”

We started up again, into the field toward the pig hut, my trainers sinking in the soft ground where the animals had rooted round. On the other side of the field, a few brown hogs observed us.

“Next thing I know, Kersey's on about Sardinian warblers, saying one had been spotted over at Reedsmere and he'd wagered it would show up here at Rosemere next. Now, I'm a reasonable man—I told him to keep quiet about it. I was having a hard enough time getting my planning permission for the hotel without all this bloody conservation hoo-ha. The local authority finds out about it and I wouldn't be allowed to put a shovel in the ground. And what about my pigs? There's no way I'd let that happen.”

I cringed as Val brandished the knife in the air for emphasis. We were slowing up and I didn't want to know what was at the end of our journey. “You followed Kersey to Marshy End and killed him over a wager?”

“Didn't have to follow him, did I? When Rupert stopped for a coffee on Saturday, he let drop that he had a meeting with Kersey the next morning. Bright and early Sunday I waited on the road until I saw Kersey and then asked him to walk up the river a bit. I told him all he had to do was keep his trap shut. He told me to shove it. So you see, he practically asked me to shut it for him.”

“But you…you…” I hesitated to bring up his murder method with the blade so close to me. “His tongue,” I managed to choke out.

“Stopped him talking, didn't it?”

“And you sent Carl to kidnap Rupert.”

“Ahhhh.” Val's voice rose with frustration, and I shook as the knife danced. “You see why I must take care of everything myself? No one can do a proper job these days.”

“You mean, he wasn't supposed to take Rupert?”

“Not
Rupert—Rupert's
my ace in the hole. People see someone famous like him drinking in the Cairn, and they come back.” He shook his head. “I told Carl to take Lecky aside for a day or two—put the fear of God in him so he wouldn't call attention to this bird. But Carl is dumber than a box of socks—he thinks one birdman is just like another, and so when he sees Rupert, he decides to grab him. There's someone else I'll need to see—Carl the Case. You're all making a fair bit of work for me.”

Val pulled on my rope reins. We had come to a halt in front of one of the huts.

The ten magpies had stayed put until we approached, and then as one they lifted off, heading south.
Fly to Rupert,
I pleaded silently.
Fly to Michael.
Make them understand.

A wooden board fit into slots on either side of the door, creating a double barrier—any hog inside would be well secured. Val pulled the board off with one hand, opened the door, and threw me in, quickly shutting it again. I bounced on the plywood floor and my bag hit the wall as I heard the board go back. The ceiling was low, so I crawled to the door. “What do you think you're going to do, Val? You can't keep me a prisoner here—you can't keep me isolated. They'll find me—they know I'm here.”

“You're not alone,” Val shouted back, “although I daresay he won't be great company. And don't you worry, I'll come up with some use for you. Now, if you don't mind, I've got to change my apron and open my pub.”

“Help!”
I screamed as loud as I could.
“Help me!”
I continued to shout until my throat hurt, and I rested my cheek against the door, panting. I was too far away from the pub to be heard. Why had Val put me here—did he hope I'd be trampled by a hog inside this hut that was no bigger than the kitchen in my cottage? If that was the case, he'd forgot the hog, I thought, looking round. My only company was a tarp, crumpled in the corner.

Cracks of light came in between the pieces of bowed plywood, and I could just make out the toe of a black shoe sticking out from under the edge of the tarp. The shoe didn't move, and for a moment, neither did I. It was the last place I wanted to look, but I knew I must, and so I crept forward on my knees.

“Hello?” I whispered hopefully. I crawled closer and worked one of my arms round so that I could get hold of the tarp. I hesitated for a moment, plucking up enough courage to see what was underneath. I took hold of the tarp with two fingers and pulled it away. There lay Gavin Lecky's body, a trickle of blood running down his head, past his hovering kestrel earring, and into his two-day stubbly growth.

I gasped. “Gavin—oh my God.”