Marsh Blood (The Endel Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  ‘You said she was steamed-up. People do odd things when they are. Couldn’t she have forgotten her hair and just shoved it on?’

  ‘Sue? Forget her appearance? Only over her ‒’ I broke off. About a minute later, I said, ‘Her looks were the big thing in her life.’

  ‘One of the two big things.’

  I winced. ‘Hell, she’s dead. Skip the porn.’

  ‘I’m not recalling it for laughs. I’m just stating the fundamental cause of her death. If poor little Hot Pants hadn’t had ’em, she wouldn’t now be a stiff on a morgue shelf. She’d be home with hubby, he’d be putting the cat out and saying how about bed, and that poor sod Gordon would be slapping out another blob for posterity. Instead, I’ll bet Francis is now well into his first bottle of whisky and Gordon well into his second.’

  ‘Gin,’ I corrected mechanically.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  It took me a few seconds to remember. ‘Sue was griping this morning about his not being able to afford gin. Must’ve been his gin. She only drank wine. Spirits give a girl bags under the eyes.’

  ‘That’s for sure. Gordon must’ve been south longer than I assumed.’

  I didn’t want to think of Gordon. I had to. We had reached Coxden bridge. Astead crossroads were only just under twelve miles off and beyond the crossroads were the three miles of Astead woods. I waited until we had turned on to the main marsh road. ‘Charles always forgot the time when he was writing. I suppose artists do when they’re painting.’

  ‘Like hell you think Gordon forgot the time. You were so sure what he was doing in his lunch hour you nearly had old Wenden tipping off his chum the Chief Constable to dispatch a couple of lads in raincoats to ask him to give them a hand with their inquiries.’

  ‘Hence your dirty look?’

  ‘Personally,’ he said dryly, ‘I believe in doing a bit of thinking before I suggest sending someone up for a life stretch. Admittedly, I hadn’t then seen your point about the hairdresser or realized you’d gone on to the question, who put the hat on for her. You had, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why was it put on?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Why put it on her head?’

  ‘How ‒ how do I know?’

  ‘No. It is a problem. I haven’t come up with the answer either.’

  ‘Come?’ I felt both sick and relieved. It was a nasty combination. ‘Been bugging you too?’

  He nodded. ‘Nearly as much as the clout that seems to have killed her. I’ve been reminding myself we got it third-hand from an old boy who got it second and might’ve got it wrong, though I doubt that.’

  ‘He’s on the ball.’

  ‘So I thought.’

  ‘And he seemed quite sure it was just an accident and that that’s how the cops see it.’

  ‘Yep. The cops’ view is important. The ordinary cops mayn’t be forensic experts, but by God they’re experts at fishing bodies out of dykes down here and picking up the pieces after road accidents everywhere. They’re first on the spot and their first impressions of what caused the spot are right more often than not. At the same time, if they do have reasons for doubt, they don’t commit themselves until they’ve had their pathologist’s PM report. If this one’s satisfactory, once Gordon’s dried off, he can get on with his blobs.’

  ‘Oh, God, David, I hope it is.’ He was silent. ‘Now you spell it out, man! Why do you think that crack on the back of the head wouldn’t have killed her?’

  ‘I didn’t say it wouldn’t, or couldn’t. I’m just surprised that (a) it didn’t knock off her hat, and (b) that she wasn’t dead before she hit the tree. I know there’s no limit to the types of fatal injuries anyone can collect when flung out of a car crashing at speed, but as she was driving and not wearing a seat belt, I’d have expected her first to collect what’s known in the accident trade as a windscreen fracture and whiplash.’

  It took all my self-control to try to pretend we were discussing accidents academically. Without the pretence I couldn’t do it. ‘You mean she should’ve been pitched forward, not sideways?’

  ‘Yes.’ He flattened a hand over the front of his head. ‘This is usually what hits the windscreen, gets an instant fracture and the force whips back the head and breaks the neck. The whiplash.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  He hesitated and I understood why directly he began speaking. ‘That burns unit I was in, was in a hospital near a motorway junction. It had a large accident unit. Once I was allowed up and to potter more or less where I pleased, I used to drink coffee and chat up the accident staff in their breathing spells. Medics and nurses never talk anything but shop. Bits rubbed off on me.’ He jerked his head my way. ‘They used to call the seat you’re in the suicide seat. Not all that many seat belts around four years ago.’

  ‘No.’

  He was briefly silent. Then, ‘What’s Gordon’s surname?’

  ‘No idea. Could be Gordon. That’s how he signs his pictures.’

  ‘I saw that. That bloke has problems, but, as I said, no fool. If, after she rang you, he had nipped out from behind a tree, clouted her one, shoved on her hat for some reason of his own, fixed the car to look like a crash and then beat it back to Cliffhill, I’d have thought he’d enough nous to horse straight into the Fisherman for a lunchtime booze with chummy.’

  ‘You also said there was no saying what any emotionally disturbed nut at boiling-point would do.’

  ‘Trust Lofthouse to open his big mouth too wide.’

  ‘Why the sackcloth? I’d have said that was fair comment.’

  ‘Maybe. I was still daft to make it. It’s the kind of daft comment people make when they’re letting themselves get carried away by some unproven theory that just happens to suit their ideas at that moment. We’re doing that now. If we don’t slam on the brakes, we’ll soon be hanging Johnnie’s arm, my bathroom and my car on Gordon. Whatever he was or wasn’t doing before he showed up this afternoon, from what Sue herself told you, last evening he wasn’t going berserk with a shotgun or a screwdriver in Harbour, he was driving her back to St Martin’s having a bloody row.’

  ‘No,’ I protested, ‘no! Don’t confuse me now I’ve finally agreed with you that the goings-on at Harbour have all been genuine accidents. The inn’s got no connection with Sue ‒’ I stopped abruptly. ‘I wonder why she was so keen for me to stay there?’

  ‘Was she?’

  I told him what Mrs Smith had said, then answered myself. ‘Maybe she thought she could use my spare bed as an alibi for staying out overnight. She’d tried that one on me at Endel. Couple of times when Francis has been abroad she’d even tried suggesting she brought her current love to Endel. I wouldn’t buy either. I told her Endel was my home not a brothel. She got hellish narked.’

  ‘Nothing like the truth for raising the hackles.’ From his tone his mind had gone off on a frolic of its own. We had gone a few more miles before he came back. ‘I think we should cool this till we hear the PM report. If it’s straightforward, that’ll be at the inquest, if not, we’ll hear sooner than most. You’re probably the last person she spoke to alive. Knowing your bush-telegraph, old Wenden’ll have passed that on already.’

  ‘Yes. Oh God. If the cops ask me about that call they’ll want to know what she said.’

  ‘Not necessarily. They may just want to know the time to keep their books straight. Don’t waste sweat until you have to.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I relaxed slightly. ‘I was getting carried away again.’ I looked thoughtfully at his solid profile. ‘You’ll probably want to slug me for this, as I know how men love and cherish their new cars and I’m terribly sorry about yours, but I don’t mind telling you I’m glad you’ll have to stay put a few more days till the replacement arrives. I wouldn’t much fancy this set-up on my own.’

  ‘I wouldn’t much fancy your dealing with it on your own, though I haven’t the least doubt you’d manage very well. But thanks for soothing my ego.
It can use it.’

  We drove on in our first companionable silence since his return.

  There was very little traffic on the marsh and when we reached the straight stretch to Harbour village we had the road to ourselves. We had gone about half a mile when our headlights picked up the red rear reflector on a lightless motorbike hitched on its stand so near the left edge of the road that the shadowy figure crouched between bike and dyke bank barely had footroom.

  David slowed the car. ‘Looks just a kid with a broken-down bike, but take a good look round.’

  I did. ‘I can’t see anyone else about and there’s nowhere safe to hide. Water on both sides and the banks slippery as hell.’

  ‘Don’t remind me.’ He drew up about fifteen feet from the bike. ‘Keep your door locked, get into this seat when I get out, keep her running, in gear, and your foot on the clutch. If I walk into anything don’t try and rescue me. Beat it like hell for the Harbour cop.’

  ‘All right,’ I lied to save argument.

  David got out. ‘What’s up with your bike?’

  The figure had straightened and was blinking suspiciously in our lights. It was a slight youthful figure in shiny black jacket and jeans with long damp dark curls hanging round a thin fine-boned face made garishly white by the lights. I only recognized it was a boy when he spoke. ‘You don’t need to bother. She got a leak and gone dry. Just taking a look before I push her home. I lives down Harbour.’ He flattened a hand to protect his eyes, peered more keenly at the car and exclaimed, ‘I know that job! I seen it one of the garridges down the inn. That’s the young lady from Endel’s Allegro. She back there? You from the inn?’ He peered at David. ‘I don’t know you.’

  ‘I don’t know you, lad. Leak? Let’s see. No point in giving you a transfusion that’ll run straight out.’

  I looked more closely at the boy’s face then got out. ‘Mike!’

  The boy’s head swung round. ‘How’d you know me name?’

  ‘I think I met your father last night. Harry Wattle.’

  ‘I’m Mike Wattle.’

  I switched off the engine and joined them. ‘I thought you must be.’

  He looked me up and down. ‘You the one as owns Endel?’ I nodded. ‘Cor! Me dad says you got more land than anyone down the marsh. You’re a proper little ’un for that lot, aren’t you?’

  I looked him up and down. He was about five foot seven. I quoted Walt Ames, ‘Smaller we are better we float.’

  Mike grinned. ‘Me dad says that.’

  ‘Now we have security clearance,’ said David, ‘why do you think your job’s got a leak? I can’t feel one.’

  ‘’Cause she gone dry, mister. She shouldn’t never. She gone lovely all day, same as always. After me work she takes me over to me bird Coxden way. Her dad’s got this farm two miles our side. She starts back lovely, then up the road here she splutters and stops. Dry, she is. She shouldn’t never be!’

  David investigated the main and emergency petrol tanks. ‘Dry as they come. How long’ve you been riding her?’

  ‘Since I passed me test straight off October last year. Why?’

  ‘Why, you daft ha’porth? After that time you should know to the yard what she’ll do to the mile.’

  ‘’Course I know!’ Mike’s pride was outraged. ‘Forty she does for all she’s an old job and carries the two in her main and the half in her emergency. She was full right up when I start this morning and I only done the seventy-two today. Does the hundred nicely when she’s full. I know as she was full this morning as me Uncle Joe he filled her right up last night after me dad gone spare and sends me home for saying as I see that Mrs le Vere’s fancy man back the dunes after the guv’nor ‒’ He heard himself and stopped in horror. ‘I didn’t ought to have said that ‒ me dad’ll skin me alive he will ‒ none of your business he says ‒ oh I didn’t ought to have said ‒’

  ‘Cool it, lad,’ said David kindly. ‘We’ve got bad hearing and worse memories. So you should have twenty-eight miles left?’ Mike nodded unhappily. ‘Must be a leak. Or did anyone borrow this job today?’

  ‘Not ‒ oh yes! But she’ll not have done more than six. That Mrs le Vere ‒ she borrows it when we stops for the dinner-break down Lymchurch way to nip into Lymchurch to fetch the stomach tablets for Mr le Vere. He gets this indigestion, see. Always has a few tablets in his tin but when he looks dinner-time he’s not got none left and me dad says as they have them up the post office stores Lymchurch and Mrs le Vere says if I’ll lend her me bike she’ll fetch ’em. Often borrows me bike dinner-times to do a bit of shopping when we stops near a village, she does. Used to last year. Fancies a bit of shopping she does, seemly.’ He smiled foxily and jerked a thumb at the helmet hanging from the handlebars. ‘Borrows me skid-lid and me jackets. Fancies herself in me gear, she does, but that Mr le Vere was real made-up when she come back with the new tablets as his stomach was playing up nasty and that Dr McCabe he don’t have no stomach tablets in the box he has with the syringe and needle and the stuff for Mr le Vere’s diabetes case he gets took real queer whiles we’re out, but he hasn’t never been took queer. Not the once,’ he added regretfully.

  ‘You can’t win ’em all, lad. Got a tube handy? Let’s see what happens when we transfuse. You don’t mind losing a little petrol, Rose?’

  ‘Of course not. Help yourselves.’

  Mike beamed. ‘Thanks, miss. I got me tube in here.’ He rootled in his toolbox, thrust aside a collection of rags, odd gloves, a couple of scarves, hauled out a long piece of tubing, then held up one scarf to the light. It was pale-blue wool.

  ‘That’s not mine nor me bird’s ‒ oh yes! That Mrs le Vere had it on this morning. She must’ve taken it off dinner-time and forgotten.’

  I said, ‘If you like I’ll return it for you, Mike.’ He handed it over. I went back to the car and put the scarf in my sling-bag with my still unused handblocked silk, while they shifted the bike up to my petrol tank.

  ‘I’ll suck it up, mister. Got me spit in it already.’ Mike inserted one end of the tube into my tank, sucked, spat petrol, and yelped with joy as the flow ran smoothly. ‘She’s off.’ He looked at David with new interest. ‘You staying down the inn?’

  ‘Yes. Arrived yesterday.’

  ‘You did? Oh, yes, I know who you are! You’re the one with the new French job as gone up this morning. Never seen nothing like it he hasn’t, the guv’nor tells me dad and me when we fetches ’em back. Wonder he wasn’t fried, he says. What she want to do that for?’

  ‘I’m not sure. My guess is, a combination of faulty wiring and petrol leak. I can’t find one here. That the lot? Right. We’ll keep behind you into Harbour in case she’s fooling us. Take it easy. The lady doesn’t like driving fast and nor do I. Give her a kick.’ The bike roared to life. ‘Sounds healthy. On your way, lad.’

  ‘Thanks, mister,’ yelled Mike happily, ‘thanks ever so. And you, miss.’ He roared off with more noise than speed.

  David got back into the car. ‘Three mechanical faults. Tidy world you live in, love.’

  ‘So it appears.’

  He glanced at me without further comment. We stayed silent while we followed Mike into Harbour. He drew up outside one in a row of cottages, jerked both thumbs in the air and waved us off with shouts of ‘Going lovely! Thanks ever so! ’Night!’

  The Anchor was still open, but Harbour village rose early and went to bed early and the single, winding village street was deserted. The lights were on behind the closed curtains of the upper windows, and most of the ground floors were in darkness. The small, squat, grey stone cottages and the few slightly larger houses were all crouched with their backs to the sea and their dark, slate, windowless roofs sweeping down to within a couple of feet of the back doors. And all looked to have grown out of, rather than been built on, their muddy mounds. The village was too small and too isolated to be commuter territory, and the few weekenders or retired townsfolk who managed to move in seldom stayed more than one winter. It was not xenoph
obia that drove them out; it was the wind, the mists, and the mud that from November to late March transformed the neatest gardens into a morass.

  The lights were out in Joe Wattle’s petrol pumps and in the post-office-cum-general-store, but shone intact in the telephone box on the pavement outside. In a village where everyone knew everyone else and few owned private telephones, potential telephone vandals knew they had no hope of escaping detection and instant retribution, not from the law, but from parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and neighbours.

  ‘Never seen a marsh village before, Rose?’

  ‘Just wondering where fancy man lives. Obviously, local.’

  ‘Unless our Angie’s free with the hush money. I’d say she’d need to be, whatever he is. Her old man may realize he’s only got himself to blame for marrying a woman who could be his daughter, but if he caught her at it I doubt he’d hesitate to divorce her. He’s done it once. They say divorce is like murder. Only the first that sticks in the throat and then it becomes a habit. I don’t see Angie exchanging a solid citizen who bears all the hallmarks of being a good provider for any simple village lad.’

  I thought uneasily of Sue. ‘No. Nor me. Though Renny has the odd weakness.’

  ‘She knew that when she married him. She was no wide-eyed virgin and nor was he. I’ll lay a year’s pay,’ he mused, ‘that while he’s happy for the little woman to enjoy the fleshpots while he can enjoy them, he’s taken good care she’ll never be a wealthy widow and knows it. He’ll leave his all to his daughters. No flies on old Renny. He likes to take good care of his health.’

  ‘Even to the extent of bringing his tame medic on hols. As you guessed last night.’

  ‘Wasn’t much of a problem. Angie was being so blatantly patronizing, and Linda so blatantly resenting it, that obviously there had to be a good reason for their taking their hols together. Commonest things being the most common, the reason was either money or sex. I kept an open mind till I took a look at Nick McCabe. He fancies his wife and likes shooting. Ergo, Renny’s footing their bill and why not, if he can afford it?’

  I thought about this. It made a restful change. ‘Yes. I’m sure you’re right. Linda can’t stick Angie but she’s sticking it out for Nick’s sake. She’s hooked on him. Isn’t it a relief to meet a married couple who actually love each other.’