The Stranger House (52 page)

“I think you’re thinking of the wrong kind of war,” said Thor, “No, he didn’t dash about in a lovely uniform waving a sabre. On the contrary; as he was in the SAS, I suspect he did more crawling than dashing, and more quiet garrotting than noisy swashbuckling.”

“Did you do a mosaic for his medal too?”

“No, despite my evident antiquity, I wasn’t quite into my artistic stride in 1945,” laughed Thor.

“No, sorry. But the papal award thing, when did you do that?”

Thor thought a moment, then the animation went out of his face.

“That would be 1961,” he said shortly.

“In the spring? In
that
spring?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. But what does that signify?” asked Thor, regarding her suspiciously.

“I suppose it helps explain Dunstan’s defensive tactics when he heard what his son had been up to,” said Sam, “Family just honoured with his title, and I’m sure Mig said something to me about Father Simeon getting an approving mention in some Vatican statement—that was probably at the same time. So, the Woollass family on the up and up, a nasty old rumour finally put to sleep—old Dunny must have shit broken glass when he learned his son and heir had committed rape!”

It made sense, even though it was mainly verbiage to divert Thor from the real trend of her thinking. Sense or not, he was still regarding her doubtfully when the phone rang in the house.

He turned and went inside, passing Mig emerging from the kitchen into the courtyard.

Sam slipped the stones into her bumbag and gave him a welcoming smile.

He said, “Sam, I was wondering. When you go back to the Hall, would you like me to come with you? Your decision, of course. I just want you to know I’m available.”

“If I’d thought for a second you weren’t, I’d punch you in the throat,” she said, “I think I need to see them alone. Especially Gerry. But it would be nice to know you were in screaming distance. Anyway, we’ve still got well over an hour. Tell you what I’d like to do …”

Before she could finish, Thor reappeared.

“That was Edie,” he said, “Fred Allison, local farmer, just dropped into the Stranger. He hadn’t heard anything about what happened this morning, but when he did, he told Edie he’d picked up Laal Gowder a few miles down the road from the hospital and dropped him outside the pub. He never said a word all the time he was in the car and, when he got out, he ignored Fred’s invitation to come in and have a drink but crossed the bridge and went along the river bank as if he was going up the fell path to Foulgate.”

“Well, that’s good. At least he’s got back safe,” said Mig.

“It’s what he might do now he’s back that bothers me,” said Thor.

“Harm himself, you mean?”

Thor barked a humourless laugh.

“Doubt it. Not big on self-destruction, the Gowders. But when it comes to simple destruction … Look, I think I’d better head round there. He shouldn’t be alone and he’s used to me talking straight to him.”

“Do you want us to come?” said Mig.

“Perhaps not,” said Thor, “Somehow I don’t think the sight of Sam is going to calm his troubled mind.”

“Of course not. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” said Mig.

“That’s why you almost became a priest,” said Sam kindly, “Not thinking’s a condition of service. Tell you what you can do, Thor. You can drop me and Mig off up at the top of Stanebank. I fancy a breath of air and he said he’d take me up to Mecklin Moss.”

Mig looked slightly startled at this news, but Thor said, “OK, if that’s what you want. Let’s go then.”

A few moments later they were in the pick-up, rattling up the track. There was no sign of life as they passed the Hall. Perhaps, thought Sam, they’ve all done a runner.

On second thoughts, it didn’t seem very likely. Dunstan didn’t strike her as the running type. Frek neither. As for Gerry, perhaps by the time she’d finished with him, he’d be wishing he had run while he still had the chance!

A couple of minutes later, Thor brought the pick-up to a halt.

“Here we are, folks,” he said, “Though what you’re going to do in that dreary place, I can’t imagine. Unless you’d like to borrow a groundsheet, that is.”

He managed a twinkle, but they could tell he wasn’t looking forward to whatever awaited him at Foulgate.

They watched the pick-up bump away along the track.

“He’s a good man, I think,” said Mig softly.

“Yes,” said Sam, “I do believe he is. But now he’s gone, I suppose I’ll have to rely on you for guidance. Beggars can’t be choosers. Lead on and show me this Moss.”

They set off up the narrow sheep-trod towards the Moss. As they got nearer and the character of the place became more and more apparent, Sam said, “Thor wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was dreary.”

“I did tell you. Yesterday when I was here at least I could lift my eyes to the hills, but not much point today.”

He was right. The storm’s battle plan was clear. It had sent its cloudy columns probing out of the west to occupy the high ground and now most of the surrounding hills were visible only as dark islands in a sea of billowing greys. Directly above them the sun still shone, but it gave at best a lurid light. The shadows they cast seemed to move around them with an independent life. The wind had dropped and the air felt menacingly heavy.

“Good day for Ragnarok,” said Sam, “With as many k’s as you like.”

“You’ve been talking to Frek,” said Mig.

“Well, she is my auntie,” said Sam, trying to keep things light. But her attempt fell flat, even for herself, and they walked on in silence over increasingly boggy ground till Mig stopped abruptly and said, “This I think must have been the site of Mecklin Shaw.”

“The wood where they crucified your namesake,” said Sam, “And up ahead where those big pools are, I presume that’s where my namesake was drowned.”

“I think so. There is nothing to mark either spot,” said Mig.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Sam, “Seems well enough marked to me.”

He turned to face her, looking very serious.

“Sam, what exactly are we doing here?” he asked.

She said, “Look around you. See any stones?”

He looked, with a little satirical exaggeration.

“Stones? No. I don’t believe I do. I should have thought your scientific mind would have worked out that anything of any weight would have sunk into this stuff aeons ago. Why do you keep going on about stones?”

“Because,” she said with the patience of a teacher explaining something to a slow child, “the inquest record says that Saintly Sam, the curate, had filled his pockets with stones to make his body sink more quickly when he topped himself.”

He put his hand to his brow as if to massage away a headache.

“What inquest record?”

“The one on Sam Flood, dummy!”

“You’ve seen it? But how … ? Why … ?”

“I’ve got connections,” she said, echoing Noddy Melton, “So where did the stones come from? That was one question no one seemed to ask.”

“Why should they?” he said dismissively, “He probably picked them up as he came up Stanebank. I didn’t pay much attention, but I seem to recall the surface of the track consists largely of fragments of rock. I presume that’s
what stane
means. Stone.”

“Thanks for the linguistic lesson,” said Sam dismissively, “I did pay attention. Yes, you’re right. Fragments, lumps, slivers, broken pieces ground down over the years. Nothing like these.”

She reached into her bumbag and grasped the stones she’d removed from the tub in Thor’s yard. Then, cupping them in her hands, she held them out for Mig to examine.

It was, she felt, a minor
coup de théâtre.
The way Mig reacted, it could have been the end of
Don Giovanni.
She reminded herself he didn’t get out much. He was staring transfixed at the shiny smooth ovoids. When he spoke, there were two false starts before the words came out.

“What are these?” he asked.

“These are the kind of stones Sam had in his pockets to weigh him down. I’ve seen the actual stones, and believe me, they look just like these.”

She spoke triumphantly, but Mig’s reply was uttered so softly he seemed to be speaking to himself.

“Stones,” he murmured, “Stones, not eggs.”

“Sorry?” she said, “What the hell have eggs got to do with it? Not much point stuffing your pockets with eggs if you want to drown.”

He raised his eyes from her hands to her face and said with a quiet urgency, “When I saw the portrait at the Forge, the only thing that wasn’t quite the same was that he had a nest in his hand, full of fledglings bursting out of their eggshells. My ghost was showing me what I thought were whole eggs, and big ones too, more like hens’ or ducks’ than songbirds.’ But now I see it wasn’t eggs he was showing me … it was stones … like these stones …”

She shook her head impatiently. Here she was doing important detective work and all he could do was go drifting off into his dream-world.

She said, “Look, the point is, where did curate Sam get these stones from? One possibility is he picked them up from the Forge, which is where I got these three. Thor uses them, or used to, in making some kind of mosaics. He did one up at the Hall way back. In fact he worked on it in the spring of 1961, around the time it all happened—Pam being shipped off to Oz, the suicide …”

Mig had made a visible effort to focus all his attention on what she was saying.

“Hold on,” he said, “Are you suggesting this poor devil was still so much in control of himself that he decided on his way up the Bank that it might be useful to weigh himself down, so he made a diversion to have a look for some suitable ballast? Surely if such an idea did occur, he’d simply have grabbed handfuls of broken stone from the track before he turned off and headed up here?”

Sam looked at him approvingly.

“There is a brain in there after all,” she said, “You’re dead right. That’s what he’d have done. So?”

He looked at her hopelessly and shrugged. She felt like shaking him. His mind had spent so long wrestling with the mystery of apparitions and messages from beyond that he couldn’t follow a trail of reasoning as clear and as simple as 2n
=
4. She wished she had a blackboard so she could spell it out.

But in truth she knew that it was only now, up here, in this place, that she was beginning to let herself spell it out completely.

She said very clearly, “He must have had a reason for diverting. We know that he knew Thor wasn’t at home because he’d just caught him shagging Edie down at the Stranger. It’s just possible he might have visited the Forge to find something to aid his suicide that would leave a clear message to Thor. If so, he made a lousy choice. And from what I’ve heard of him he wasn’t that kind of guy. So that leaves the Hall.”

“But why should he visit the Hall?” asked Mig.

“Don’t you listen to anything unless it’s in a burning bush or can walk through walls?” she demanded, “Here’s what we know. Sam goes to the Stranger to see Edie. Why? To talk about their future? Wrong. He goes there because young Pete has just told him that the little girl he’d tried to take care of, my grandmother, had been raped and that Dunstan’s motive in shipping her off to Australia, far from being charitable, had been to get her as far away from Illthwaite as humanly possible before she could open her mouth. Sam is furious, on the kid’s behalf, and on his own because he’s been made a fool of. Catching Edie on the nest can’t have improved his state of mind. But I don’t believe he’d be suicidal. He’d be angrier than ever. I think he was heading up Stanebank to have it out with Dunstan Woollass!”

There. The first half of the blackboard was full. She looked at her calculations and found no flaw.

“But didn’t he meet Dunstan driving down Stanebank or something?” said Mig.

“That’s the evidence Dunstan gave. Said hello, thought the fellow looked distracted, reported this the same evening, soon as he heard the curate had gone missing. What a load of garbage! Think about it: was Sam
Flood going to pass the man who’d dumped on little Pam and shut young Pete up with a nod and a hello?”

“You think that he confronted Dunstan?”

“Yes. And not on Stanebank. I think he went up to the Hall. Perhaps Dunstan was getting his car out of the garage. They quarrel. Perhaps Saint Sam is a bit more intemperate than usual. He had cause. And then …”

She paused, metaphorical chalk in hand, suddenly reluctant to record her logical conclusion on the metaphorical blackboard.

Mig, she guessed, was there too, but it was her calculation, he wanted to hear her say it.

“And … ?” he prompted.

“Dunstan tries that old silver tongue of his. It’s got him out of worse scrapes than this. But this time it doesn’t work. Sam’s not in the listening mood. As far as he’s concerned, it’s next stop the cops. He turns to go, Dunstan lays a hand on his shoulder, probably just to hold him back so they can talk more, but Sam’s so wound-up by everything, he lashes out.”

She paused again, and now at last Mig helped her out.

He said, “So they fight and Sam ends up dead, is that what you’re saying? But does it really make sense? Sam was so much younger, and can you really see Dunstan getting mixed up in a vulgar brawl?”

“Dunstan was no old man in 1961,” said Sam. “Rising forty and probably fighting fit. And the kind of fighting he was fit for wasn’t just a barroom punch-up. Thor told me he was in the SAS during the war, and got himself a medal for killing Germans!”

Mig said, “There’s a portrait of him in uniform at the Hall.”

“There you are then,” said Sam inconsequentially,
“So he’d probably have no problem. Quick squeeze in the right place and the poor sod’s lying there unconscious. Well, that’s how they do it in the movies,” she added, seeing Mig regarding her dubiously.

“And then … ?” he said, “And then … ?”

“Think about it. Now he’s got a real problem. Does he wait till Sam wakes up, then try reasoning with him again? If he fails—and in the circs that’s where the clever money would be—he faces a police investigation of his son, and a public humiliation for himself and his family.”

“No,” said Mig, shaking his head, “I can just about accept a struggle in which Sam is accidentally killed, but what you’re suggesting is cold-blooded murder.”