Marsh Blood (The Endel Mysteries Book 2) Page 12

  ‘I’m not! I’m just trying to get out of my boots. I’m not sinking fast ‒ maybe I’ll hit rock soon. Don’t come nearer!’

  He had slowed down and began putting one foot carefully in front of the other. He was about six feet away when his front foot suddenly sunk. He hauled it out by flinging himself backwards and even saved his shoe. He leapt up, pulled off his overcoat, looked swiftly around for driftwood. There was none about. ‘We’ll manage with this,’ he said calmly. ‘Just grab what you can when I fling. I’ll hang on to this end.’

  The sand was trickling over the top of my boots and seeping into my trouser legs, and I was very frightened. I could feel panic rising in waves and gripping my throat.

  Each wave rose higher and each grip was tighter. I had to lick my lips to answer. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Easy does it, love. Here she comes!’

  It was the fourth attempt and my boots had vanished when I caught one sleeve.

  It only took minutes. Years had seemed shorter. When the final heave catapulted me free and face down over the sand, he hauled me clear and toppled backwards and we fell in a heap, gasping like stranded fishes. Despite the physical effort, his face was white under the sweat, sand and tan, and for a few seconds we just stared at each other in agonized relief. ‘Thanks,’ I muttered breathlessly, ‘thanks very much.’

  He didn’t say anything. He stood up jerkily, slung the sand-sodden overcoat over one shoulder, picked me up in his arms, carried me back to our picnic place and dumped me down as if I were a sack of potatoes. He dropped on to the pebbles beside me, leant back against the wall breathing painfully, took off his glasses and cleaned off the sand. He had replaced them when he observed dryly, ‘As of now, your ancestors are known as the Revolving Endels.’

  Suddenly euphoric with the triumph of being alive, I shouted with laughter. ‘God, yes! I don’t know what happened to my Endel blood! If Walt Ames ever hears this I’ll never hear the end of it. But, hell, everyone always says there aren’t quicksands off Harbour.’

  ‘No one ever tell you quicksands are known as shifting sands because the buggers are always shifting?’ He held out a hand and I took it. His hand was much colder than mine. ‘Forty-eight hours with you and I’m turning into an old man. I haven’t your talent or stamina for living dangerously.’ His grip tightened. ‘I thought I was losing you for good. For the first time since we met I was glad you’ve never fancied me. If you’d been my young and lovely wife, the Sunday papers would’ve had themselves a bonus.’

  ‘Oh, no! I’d forgotten!’ Memory wiped the smile off my face. ‘Yes, you would’ve been in rather a spot.’

  He let go of my hand, hitched down his glasses and looked at me very keenly. ‘What had you forgotten?’

  He had saved my life twice. The shock was hitting me. I couldn’t act. I told him the truth and saw his face harden. ‘If you’re going to start taking umbrage. David ‒ cool it! I’ve no relatives. You have. Parents, sister, nieces and nephews. If you don’t want to use it, shove it on to them. In any event, if you die before me, they get it. Mr Smith’s got it all tied up.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ He lit a cigarette. ‘He approve?’

  ‘No. Purely because he’s sure I’ll change my mind, marry again, have kids, continue the entail.’

  ‘He could be right.’

  ‘No.’

  He was still watching me keenly. ‘So you’ve said. And he said not to tell me in case I was tempted to do you in for it?’

  I met his eyes. ‘He said that even although from my account you had proven yourself the most trustworthy of young men, where large sums of money were concerned as a matter of principle he never trusted anyone. He also said it would be most unfair to you to raise expectations that events might prove to be unjustified.’

  ‘Good points, both. Who else knows?’

  ‘Just him and me, and now you. He drew up the will himself. When he got in his junior partner to witness my signature with him, he covered all but the signature spaces with a piece of foolscap. After the junior left, while I was there, he locked the will in my strong-box, locked that in his office safe. Only he knows the combination. He says when he dies they’ll have to blow the lock but that way he’ll probably die more peacefully.’ It was an incredible relief to have this in the open. ‘He won’t have told anyone. I haven’t. That’s why in the car yesterday I couldn’t give you one sensible reason for anyone wanting you rubbed out. Thank God.’

  ‘That figures, but you don’t. I know how you’ve rationalized this to yourself, but it’s still daft. Why me? Nothing but picture postcards for over two years and then this turn up for the book. If you’re wanting thanks, too bloody bad, as I don’t bloody want Endel.’

  ‘Then it’s just as well you’ve stuck around to keep me alive, mate, or you’d have bloody got it twenty minutes ago! Oh ‒ that body!’ I would have jumped up had he not lunged sideways and held me down with both hands. ‘David, we forgot ‒’

  ‘Belt up, listen and look! Down there! Even I can see it clearly now. It’s no body. It’s some old rug someone’s forgotten. Floating under the water opened out like a magic carpet.’

  ‘How can I see anything in this half-nelson?’ I pushed him off without difficulty and saw the wide squarish dark patch floating in with the turned tide. The sea was nearing the quicksand. ‘If it did hold a body, that’s dropped.’ I began pulling off my filthy socks, rolling up my filthy trouser legs. ‘Soon as it’s safe, I’m fishing it out.’

  ‘ “Deal,” she said. “No paddling,” she said.’

  ‘So I’ve changed my mind. Mr Smith says that is a feminine prerogative no woman of his experience has ever allowed to fall into disuse. I’m not asking you to paddle. I’m just curious to know exactly what it was that very nearly had me killing myself.’

  He leant back against the wall, refolded his arms, half closed his eyes and spoke with his cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth. ‘Will you please tell the jury, Dr Lofthouse,’ he drawled in an Oxbridge accent, ‘if you were aware that the late Mrs Rose Mary Douglas, nee Endel, had named you as her sole heir before she entered the sea on that tragic occasion? You were so aware! Indeed. And you have just told us that this unfortunate woman had only a matter of twenty minutes or so earlier managed, with your assistance, to free herself from a patch of quicksand. You have told us it was a fine afternoon, but in early November. I put it to you, Dr Lofthouse, that in early November the English Channel is too cold for sea-bathing. You would agree? I’m greatly obliged. Yet you insist the unfortunate young woman was determined to paddle and you were unable to prevent her. Would you object to my describing you as a strong, healthy man in the prime of life, Dr Lofthouse? No? I’m greatly obliged. Would you be so good as to tell the jury your height? Just under six foot. Indeed. And your weight? Approximately thirteen stones. Now I have here the pathologist’s report that states the late Mrs Rose Mary Douglas, nee Endel, was twenty-six years old, five foot three inches in height and weighed seven stones. Yet you say you were unable to prevent her taking this rash action ‒ may I remind you, Dr Lofthouse, you are under oath?’ He removed and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘With luck and good behaviour I might be out in five years but your lot’ll have gone to the crown. You don’t collect when you inherit by foul play,’ he added in his own voice.

  I mopped my streaming eyes. ‘I expect the Duchy of Lancaster can use a little help.’ I removed the rest of the sand from my face, then pulled out a comb and did my hair. ‘Don’t forget to tell the jury I’ve tidied myself. That’ll make any woman on it certain it wasn’t suicide.’

  He was laughing too. ‘When I tell them I’ve paddled with you, they’ll exchange the five years for probation and psychiatric treatment.’ He was removing his shoes and socks. ‘This’ll teach me to make deals with women.’

  ‘No one has asked you to paddle. Anyway, you don’t have to freeze your feet yet. Sea’s not high enough.’

  ‘I want to make bloody sure all feeling’s dead before th
ey drop off in the water. I’ve got to come in with you. My neck goes with your neck and I’m fussy about my neck.’

  ‘Not always.’

  He went scarlet. ‘What the hell ‒’ he began as if he had genuinely forgotten that night three years ago. ‘Stuff that one, or I’ll get nasty. When I get nasty I play dirty and as I’ve just told the jury I’m a lot bigger than you and this is one very lonely beach.’

  ‘Okay.’ I turned my attention to the floating object and again leapt up. ‘David. It is a rug and ‒ and I think I can see the colours. Let’s go closer.’

  We walked down hand in hand and were too interested to remember our freezing feet. We couldn’t be sure until we dragged the soaking rug from the sea. Then we were so sure we didn’t say anything as we wrung it out between us, carried it up and spread it out on the pebbles. The purple and green plaid pattern of the mohair had been washed free of sand and slime but apparently it had not been in long enough for the water to remove the dyke reeds threaded and twisted through the material, or the largish darkish stain splayed over the middle of one end and the two smaller similar patches on either side.

  I sat back on my feet and watched his fair head bending over the middle stain. ‘The rug’s in good condition. Why drop it in a dyke? Or do you think it fell off the back of fancy man’s motorbike ‒ if he has one? Or she slung it to him to catch when they left the nethouse, he missed and it fell into the cross-dyke? Or vice versa?’

  ‘Not knowing can’t say.’ He sat on his heels. ‘That’s not oil. It could be that he got himself a duck after all and wrapped it in this when he made his getaway.’

  ‘Yeuk! You think that’s duck blood?’ Then I remembered something and had to shake my head. ‘No self-respecting marshman would throw away a good rug just because it got splashed with bird blood. The pockets of poachers’ jackets are usually stiff with old dried blood and so are shooting jackets. Walt’s got one that can practically stand up by itself and smells revolting.’ I examined the largest stain again. ‘You sure it’s blood? Couldn’t it be rust?’

  ‘Possibly. Depends how long it’s been in the sea. If it is blood I’d have expected the salt to shift it, though when this sort of material gets impregnated it’ll take longer to shift.’ He had another peer, then looked straight up at me. ‘If this is duck blood I think you’re right. Must’ve fallen into a dyke accidentally.’ His tone was as empty of expression as his face but the computer was flicking over at maximum speed.

  ‘What do you really think it is?’

  ‘What I really think,’ he said, ‘is that I’d like to take a look in that nethouse.’

  I was suddenly aware that my feet and I were very, very cold.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Nasty dangerous habit, smoking.’ David crouched among the cold ashes that were all that remained of the fodder on the nethouse floor, and lit a cigarette. ‘Put down your fag one moment and the next you’re dialling 999.’

  I sat gingerly on my feet that were now encased in the aged pair of spare wellingtons that with four sacks and a spade lived in my car boot from September to April. The sacks now encased the wet mohair rug. The fire seemed to have driven out or killed all the spiders, but about spiders I took no chances. ‘Drop one in stuff as dry as this was yesterday and it’d have gone up in a couple of minutes. Hardly any smoke.’

  ‘Particularly if the door was shut.’ He crawled over to examine the inside of the door. ‘Yes. Charred by flame. Come out of there, Rose. I only wanted another look at that fungus. And the joint pongs of worse than burnt offerings.’

  I didn’t query that last. I followed him out. ‘Another look? Did you see it yesterday?’

  ‘Not properly. I just noticed a kind of greenish glint and, like you, thought it was natural growth.’ He brushed ash and sand off himself while looking searchingly at the ground round our feet and over the strip of sandy grass between the footpath and cross-dyke. ‘Next time you take me on a picnic I’m wearing me full protective clobber.’

  ‘Shove in a handy Geiger counter as well.’ I walked nearer the dyke for a closer inspection of the grass. ‘Yes. Ash here ‒ here ‒ and there. He came down to wash his boots.’

  ‘Or she.’ He lunged for me. ‘Come away from those rushes.’

  ‘All right. I’ve done enough paddling for one day.’

  ‘You still haven’t done your stint of walking on water.’ He drew my arm through his and patted my hand. ‘Kindly remember (a) my neck and (b) we’re in full view of the inn.’

  ‘I’d forgotten that.’ I looked towards the inn and then at his quiet face and thought aloud. ‘Nothing like sex for a good cover story. It’s the one everyone’ll believe as it’s the one everyone wants to believe.’

  He nodded vaguely. ‘Let’s get going.’

  The short afternoon was dying fast and the sun a great red ball just touching the marsh that had lost its warmth. The land was turning sepia, the dyke water a lifeless dark brown, the birds were beginning to settle for the night, but the frogs were wide awake and so was the sea. In the west the clear sky was pinkish grey; in the east it was heavy with dark clouds that had come up with the tide. We had left the beach well before the water reached the pebbles and it was now growling softly against the wall. We walked back to the car and my mind went back to walking that same path with Francis yesterday. It seemed a lifetime away, and it was.

  Trevor, oozing efficiency in a black jacket over his porter’s waistcoat, was running the inn. ‘Got to face it, the missus she’s not as young as she was and it’s been all go all week so she gone over the flat for a bit of a kip and the guv’nor he’s driven into Astead with that Mrs le Vere. Albert’s out back, but he don’t fancy the hall as he can’t get the hang of the switchboard only he don’t like to say ‒ and a right twist he’d have been in just after the missus and the guv’nor gone what with that Mr le Vere wanting to be put through to the one daughter in Aberdeen and the other in Brussels and then his office in London. Would you like your teas now? Albert’ll fetch them into the lounge for you.’

  ‘Not just yet thanks. Baths, first.’

  He smirked knowingly. ‘Yea. Picked up a bit of sand haven’t you ‒ oh ‒ you’ll pardon me ‒ all go like as I says ‒’ He bustled back to the switchboard.

  David and I exchanged glances, I went up alone, he went back to the car for the sack-wrapped rug we had originally decided to leave in the boot until tonight. ‘Easier now,’ he said when he came up with it under the overcoat over his arm. ‘Young Trev’s still playing with his plugs and no one else around.’

  We spread the rug out over his bath to dry. I looked down at it. ‘I wish this bathroom had an outside lock.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. People take rugs on picnics and rugs often get wet.’

  ‘Someone could’ve seen us from here taking it from the sea.’

  ‘So we’ve found ourselves some treasure trove. Or have you now fixed fancy man as an inn resident?’ I shook my head. ‘Angie’s out. In any event, the only two windows that overlook where we were are yours and mine. None from the attic looks that way. I’ve checked.’

  I shuddered involuntarily. ‘Must be this bathroom that’s giving my vibes the creeps. Couldn’t we shove that chest across the door again?’

  ‘And advertise to one and all who just happens to have pass keys that we think this is important? When we’re still far from sure it is? No. I’ll just close the door. You go and have the first bath and then we both need hot strong tea.’

  The inn atmosphere was unusual when we went down. It was peaceful and pleasant and had pervaded the lounge to such an extent that even the dead stuffed birds and the flickering shadows seemed cosy. Renny had tea with us. He looked much less tired and quietly elated for a reason he couldn’t contain. ‘My younger girl has just informed me she expects to make me a grandfather for the first time next April. I must admit I’m rather pleased. She and her husband are delighted as they’ve been wanting to start a family. But ‒ er ‒ in some respects I
find it a somewhat sobering prospect. One might almost say, alarming.’

  I thought of Angie’s reaction to the prospect of being a step-grandmother and mentally agreed as we congratulated him.

  David said, ‘I’ll bet you’ll enjoy it like hell. My dad does. All the fun and none of the hard work, he says.’

  I asked, ‘Got any snaps of your twins on you?’

  Renny chuckled. ‘No more than the odd dozen, dear girl, but you two don’t want ‒’

  ‘We do!’ We chorused.

  David’s ‘Corr’s’ and my admiring clucks over his extremely pretty daughters had Renny radiating paternal pride. ‘Not bad ‒ not bad ‒ favour their father, naturally. Getting on now. Twenty-six.’

  ‘Same age as Rose.’

  Renny shot me a strange reflective glance, then replaced the snaps in his wallet as if they had just sparked off a train of thought he would have preferred not to pursue. I watched David watching Renny over his glasses and didn’t notice the door opening until Trevor announced, ‘Gentleman to see you, madam!’, and ushered in a small, thickset middle-aged man with thinning fair hair, a strong, calm, red face, and the calmest pair of deep-set blue eyes I’d ever seen.

  I jumped up smiling. ‘Walt! How nice to see you!’

  ‘Thought I’d just come over to see all’s well, madam,’ said Walt Ames in his slow, broad-vowelled, gentle voice. He nodded to David. ‘See you found your way here, Mr Lofthouse.’

  David had risen. ‘Thanks to you, Mr Ames.’

  I introduced Walt to Renny. Walt’s head only reached Renny’s shoulder but his handshake made the big man wince visibly. ‘On your holidays, sir? Good sport?’

  ‘Excellent, thank you, Mr Ames. I’m just taking a lazy afternoon off.’

  ‘And enjoy it the more tomorrow, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Walt, do sit down and have some tea.’

  He had on the best suit of working clothes he normally reserved for market days and the county agricultural show. He looked doubtfully at his newly washed boots. ‘I don’t know as ‒’