Marsh Blood (The Endel Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  Mrs Evans-Williams twisted her beads and her husband tugged at his moustache. ‘Be grateful if you would,’ he admitted. ‘Can’t be too careful when the guns are out and ‒ well ‒ frankly ‒ problem is, we’re having a bit of poacher trouble pro tem. Not surprising. Bound to happen when incomers lease the rights over land the locals have regarded as their birthright for centuries. You get this trouble?’

  ‘Not really,’ was all I said. There was no need to explain that I didn’t lease my shooting rights or use them myself, but left them by unspoken agreement with my farm manager, Walt Ames. Walt was a very reliable and tough local man, who respected without sharing my anti-blood-sports view, and on the side allowed his farm workers, relations, friends and neighbours to shoot for their own consumption and to keep the stock in hand, but not for sale.

  My views here had made my response to Mr Smith’s suggestion for this week one of horror. But my GP had ganged up with him and together they had reminded me they had known my late father as a boy, of their responsibilities for my welfare, of my lack of protective relatives, of the sleep they would lose and the sorrow it would occasion their wives if I failed to take their advice. Not feeling strong enough to stay in the fight, I’d given in and comforted myself with the reflection that at least coming to Harbour would save me from having to use more energy than was necessary for slinging a few clothes in a suitcase and driving over.

  In the event I hadn’t to do either for myself. Sue Denver had insisted on organizing my departure and packing. ‘Francis must drive you and I’ll bring yours. Don’t worry about that, as my Allegro’s your twin.’

  ‘If you bring mine, how’ll you get home from Cliffhill? Francis won’t want to spend the afternoon helping the Art Society set up its exhibition.’

  ‘Darling, don’t be thick! You know Francis loathes arty-crafties and anyway the poor darling’s got a business date in Astead at four. Mummy’s bossing the show as she’s this year’s Chairman of the Organizing Committee. She’ll run me home or ‒ um ‒ if she’s too hectically busy I’ll cadge a lift off Gordon. He’ll have to hire a van. He can’t cart his pictures around on his motorbike. I don’t suppose he’ll mind.’

  ‘Gordon?’ At the moment the name meant nothing to my cotton-wool brain. ‘For God’s sake, Sue, which one’s Gordon?’

  ‘You must remember! You met him at last year’s show. That Scotch painter who lives in Cliffhill ‒ the real painter ‒ rather gorgeous in an uncouth sort of way. Black beard and most dreamy eyes ‒ and don’t look like that, Rose! You know very well Francis never minds my having my own friends ‒ so why should you? Now! What clothes do you want to take on your hols?’

  I looked at my unpacked suitcase while Johnnie continued his anxious spiel on the dangers of poachers. The prospect of tomorrow’s annual ‘do’ of the Cliffhill Art Society, worried me far more than the thought of my accidentally collecting a load of shot. ‘I’ll be careful,’ I promised, ‘though, to be honest, I don’t think I’ll be in much danger. I doubt I’ll go out of sight of this inn and I imagine from some window here you can overlook the whole isthmus. The last thing any poacher wants to do is advertise his or her presence and, from all I’ve heard, they only pop up once the light’s begun to fade. I won’t be out sketching at dawn or dusk. But thanks for giving me the picture.’

  ‘Cards on the table, that’s our motto!’

  ‘Always.’ Mrs Evans-Williams let go of her beads. ‘Now how about a nice pot of tea? Up here? Or in the lounge by that lovely log fire?’

  I took the hint. My room was pleasantly warm, but I preferred logs to central heating and from what they had said I should have the lounge to myself for a few more hours. I said I’d be down once I’d unpacked, they removed themselves and I spent a minute or so looking at the closed door and wondering why flu left one feeling so suicidal once it was over. Perhaps the old boys were right. This was my first break in over two and a half years. It would be soothing to sit and stare for a week. There was never time for either at Endel now that I did all the bookwork for the farm and the rest of the estate; and for most of the year the rebuilt house was filled with disabled children and their attendants on what, for the children, was a country holiday by the sea.

  A glint of white drew me to the marsh window. I went over and watched a white car turn off the sea road and up towards the inn. I couldn’t see the solitary driver clearly but from the care with which he was negotiating the turns and low-walled humped stone bridges, he was aware of the deceptive innocence of the gentle orange reed-mace sticking up above the quiet brown water. All those dykes could swallow a lorry and hold it down in the deadly reedy slime. He slowed to crawl over the final bridge on to the few yards of cinder road that ran down into the yard. I had moved away and glanced incuriously out of one of the front windows when the driver got out, flexing his wide shoulders as if he had been driving too long. I stiffened as if I’d had an electric shock.

  The very fair-headed man in his mid-thirties below didn’t notice me at the window. He looked around with the bemused expression of someone wondering if he’d come to the right place. I knew he had and I knew his name. David Lofthouse. What I didn’t know was why he wasn’t in Australia. He was a physicist and had gone out there to work on some project for his firm the day following our farewell dinner in London on the last evening of my last break.

  Outwardly, he hadn’t altered much. His hair was more bleached and his square face had a colour-supplement tan, but he still wore the same-shaped black-rimmed glasses and still hitched them down to look over the tops when he wanted a better look at a close object. He was studying the inn sign roughly four feet below when I opened my window. He glanced up and for several seconds we looked at each other in the same guarded way and then, slowly, we both smiled.

  He raised a hand. ‘Hi, Rose! Just passing.’ He still used the short northern ‘a’.

  ‘Hi, David. Birmingham by way of Beachy Head?’

  ‘Yep. Thought I’d stop by and buy you a drink.’

  ‘You’ve been in the colonies too long, chum. Welcome back to Britain’s licensing laws. Bar’s closed.’

  ‘Oh, God. I’m not stopping.’

  ‘Hang about before you take off for another couple of years. How did you know I was here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back? When did you get back?’

  ‘Six hours back.’ He turned up the collar of his tweed overcoat. ‘I drove straight from Gatwick to Endel like I said on my postcard ‒’

  ‘I never got that one ‒’

  ‘That’s what your manager bloke Walt Ames said. “If she’d had it, Mr Lofthouse” ’ ‒ he mimicked Walt’s gentle, broad-vowelled voice very well ‒ ‘ “she’d not have gone off leaving an old friend to find the door closed.” He said,’ he went on in his own deep North-Country voice, ‘you’d just left for here with some neighbours.’

  ‘Sue and Francis Denver. I expect you remember them ‒’

  ‘Can’t remember if I do or not, though I did old Ames. Way back we supped more than the odd jar at the Crown in St Martin’s. He said why didn’t I follow on, so here I am. Are you going to come down or do I have to climb up? And if I do, I’ll tell you straight I’ve forgotten me bloody guitar, I’ve no bloody head for heights and, what’s more,’ he added reproachfully, ‘I’m bloody freezing to death.’

  I laughed. ‘Freezing? A Yorkshireman on a nice November day in the soft South? It’s even stopped raining. This’ll teach you to take off for the outback. Go on in and tell them ‒’ but Johnnie had bustled out below. I explained the situation. ‘I presume Mr Lofthouse can be my guest for tea in the lounge?’

  ‘Naturally, ma’am. Any friend of yours, more than welcome.’ He offered his hand to David. ‘Johnnie Evans-Williams. Mine host of this humble hostelry. Come on in, sir ‒ car locked? Wise chap! Not necessary here, I’m thankful to say, but better safe than sorry, eh? Watch your head on that door and all the doors, Mr Lofthouse. Big sturdy chap like you could do yourself a nasty mischief if
you’re not careful!’

  I sat at the dressing-table intending to re-do my hair and face and instead gazed at my reflection. I didn’t see it. I saw a face David had never seen but glimpsed every time he shaved. And then other men’s faces, Endel faces, with my own colouring and bone-structure. All the Endels had dark eyes and first names that began with ‘R’; all the Endels had Endel blood. Fine old blood; some of the finest blood in England. Everyone said so. Only two people, David Lofthouse and myself, knew that in the last three generations three Endel men had died undetected murderers. My grandfather had tried to murder my father, his younger son, and succeeded in murdering David’s uncle; his eldest son had been an accessory to both facts; his only grandson, my cousin Robert, had tried to murder me a few hours before he murdered his brother-in-law and the roof of Endel buried his body and the secret of his illegitimacy. David and I alone had known the truth and, since I was then the only living legal heir, there had been no point in saying this had been the case since my grandfather’s death, as both his sons had been killed in the last war. Endel was entailed and could only be inherited by the legitimate children of born Endels. It would have gone to the crown three years ago had David not risked his life to save mine.

  My friends knew he had saved my life, knew he had gone to Australia, and were convinced he was why I was still a widow. Several, from time to time, and especially Sue Denver, lectured me sternly, ‘If you won’t think of yourself, think of poor David having to go off big-game hunting abos or whatever and think of Endel. If you don’t remarry and have kids, the entail and family will die out with you. I can’t imagine why you won’t write and ask him to come back. Everyone knew he was absolutely sold on you ‒’

  Walt Ames was a quiet man and, in common with most quiet men, a great talker. Ten minutes after he dropped in for his nightly pint at the Crown this evening, every friend or foe I possessed would either be drinking David’s and my health or reaching for the hemlock. Even the foes, if they suspected, had never dared hint about my late relatives’ nasty habits. The Endels had always known how to keep their own and other mouths shut. So did I. Strong stuff that Endel blood, I decided, and grimaced. Then I did my hair carefully and put on some lipstick.

  Johnnie was just leaving the lounge. ‘Tea along in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ He closed the door on David and myself.

  The lounge faced north and at this time of the year needed artificial light all day. There were no overhead lights. The small lamps fixed to the dark-panelled walls and the larger reading lamps on the coffee tables all had dark-yellow shades that threw golden pools on to the bronze leather armchairs and sofas and thick brown carpet. The low black ceiling beams and the cases of dead stuffed birds that lined the walls were in shadow; the flickering logs filled the room with more and moving shadows; none was as tangible as the shadows we had brought in with us.

  He was standing by the fire still in his overcoat and threw away a half-smoked cigarette. ‘It’s not often one’s fantasies fall short of reality,’ he remarked conversationally. ‘You’re even better to look at now than you were.’ He came over, removed his glasses and kissed me. That hadn’t changed either. He always kissed very well. ‘If you’ve decided to wed me,’ he said ‘feel free to ask.’

  I put my hands on his shoulders. ‘I still have the option?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ He replaced his glasses. ‘Well?’

  ‘Sorry. Once was enough.’

  ‘Hell, love, you don’t have to make an honest bloke of me. I’m not fussy. Just bloody frustrated.’

  I smiled. ‘Two and a half years unbroken celibacy in the Antipodes, of course.’

  His grin exposed his very good teeth. ‘I’d to remember company rules. British Chemicals Consolidated get hellish nasty with employees who neglect their general health.’

  ‘For God’s sake, man, why didn’t you marry one?’

  ‘I’ve this problem. Allergic to white gloves.’

  ‘To ‒ what?’

  ‘White gloves. And putting on hats for stepping out to the shops. And all those lovely bronzed sexless bodies and all those hearty outdoor sports. Where’s me weedy, white, decadent Pom Sheila who only fancies the one indoor sport same as me, I cried ‒ piteously. And got the first flight out soon as BCC let me off the hook. So once is still enough?’

  ‘Sorry. Yes. But I’m delighted to see you.’

  ‘That’s good.’ He kissed me again. ‘Remember when one look at your late’s doppelganger and you all but ran screaming? We progress.’ He moved away and lit a cigarette. ‘If I vanish a couple more years, when I next show up you might even kiss me back. Ten years from now you’ll be asking me to have you ‒ and it won’t have to be nicely.’

  I sat on the sofa. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

  ‘You do that.’ He sat by me. ‘Too bad I can’t twist your arm. You’re the only loaded bird I know. How else can I lay my hands on all that lovely lolly?’

  I could’ve told him. My Mr Smith didn’t think that a good idea. ‘Tell me about the postcard I should’ve had and why nothing but postcards even at Christmas?’

  ‘I am,’ he said with dignity, ‘public-spirited. Why deny the St Martin’s post office and the neighbours the pleasure of knowing I hope this finds you as it leaves me which is in the pink with the nasty upset stomach quite settled? Or of knowing the wandering lad was still hoping? Best way I knew of keeping tabs. If you’d wed again and forgotten to tell me, half your neighbours would have sent me joyful cables with the bad news. This card you’ve not had I posted the day I flew from Brisbane. It said BCC were arranging to have my new car waiting at Gatwick, that I’d come straight to Endel and hope to cadge a bed there for tonight and maybe a few more. I don’t have to show up at the Coventry office till next week. You’d said on the card you’d a spare room in the flat you’ve made for yourself on the ground floor of the old homestead.’ He paused. ‘I see you’ve used most of the old bricks and tiles.’

  ‘They were there. How ‒ how do you feel? Seeing the house back up on its mound?’

  He looked into the fire. ‘Like a ghost from my own past ‒ till I heard the kids laughing.’ He faced me. ‘Walt Ames held open the front door for me to see them playing chuck-the-bean-bag in the hall. Their wheelchairs weren’t doing a lot for the floor polish but their presence was doing one hell of a lot for the atmosphere. What gave you the notion to lend it out to these kids’ societies?’

  I needed time. He didn’t hurry me. ‘You’d been gone about a month when the insurance assessors finally settled the figure. It wasn’t the full amount as so much of the house was still repairable, but quite enough to rebuild all that had come down. The farm was doing well, other rents coming in and ‒ and all mine.’ I looked at him. ‘David, I felt so guilty. I’d done nothing to earn any of it. Just by sheer chance I happened to be born my father’s only child.’

  ‘And from what Walt said, most of those poor kids just chanced to be born disabled and, as you’re not allowed to sell or give it away because of the entail, you lend the joint.’

  I was grateful for his quick comprehension. It was impossible to remember that once this had frightened me. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘That took guts, love.’ He reached for my hand. ‘Why didn’t you write me about the kids?’

  ‘Not enough room on a postcard.’

  ‘That’s for sure. But you should’ve got the one from Brisbane. Posted it myself over three weeks ago.’

  ‘You’ve not taken that time to fly back?’

  ‘No. BCC wanted me in West Germany first, then Paris. I flew over from France this morning. So it’s got held up or lost in the post. So what else is new in beautiful broken-down Britain? Tell me all. For starters’ ‒ he stood up to remove his coat, then sat down again ‒ ‘tell me what you’re doing in this ornithological mausoleum. You used to be anti-blood-sports. Why come here for a rest cure?’

  The fair-haired Trevor had come in with our tea. I waited till we were alone to explain. ‘I wish,
’ I added, ‘I’d had your card. We could’ve stayed at Endel.’

  ‘Let’s work on that later. Old Smith? Tall, gaunt old boy with white hair and face like a wet Monday in Wigan?’

  ‘I’ve never been to Wigan, but ‒ yes. Sue Denver’s father. Remember the Denvers now? They’ve got that lovely converted Elizabethan farmhouse on the Endel side of St Martin’s. The Smiths gave it them for a wedding present.’ He frowned, then grinned hugely. ‘Blonde bird with legs and silent Pre-Raphaelite hubby on a string? Sure. I remember Hot Pants Susie.’ He chuckled. ‘If you didn’t fancy me, time was when she just might’ve ‒ but I didn’t fancy hubby’d like it. He get his blue Jag as a wedding present?’

  ‘No! He earns good money doing whatever consultant mining engineers do in foreign parts. Got a red Audi now.’

  ‘He’s doing all right.’ He looked around. ‘So are they here from the look. Must cost a bomb to stay here. Not that you’ll have to worry.’

  I said quietly, ‘No. Though there are many times when I still don’t believe that.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’ He looked at me over his glasses. ‘How many blokes have offered you hand and heart for a share in the loot. Three figures?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘Know something, love? I’m just thanking God for the late Charles D. and that’s one pat on the back I never thought to hand the poor bastard. He rates it. If he hadn’t bashed some sense into you by marrying you, you’d be a bloody sitting duck. Twenty-six, lovely and loaded. What more could any bloke ask.’

  ‘You’ve never asked.’

  ‘Nor will I.’ He smiled into my eyes. ‘I’ll just simper coyly and let you seduce me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Mrs Evans-Williams fluttered in the doorway. ‘There’s a telephone call for Dr Lofthouse ‒ at least the man said Doctor and I think he’s from the BBC.’