Bury Her Deep

11

‘Molly?’ said a voice in the dark.

‘Miss Tweed to you, if you don’t mind, son,’ said Sergeant Doolan.

Slowly, my eyes were adjusting. The room we stood in was no more than ten feet square and was divided into two halves by a set of stout bars running all the way from floor to ceiling. On our side of the bars was a kitchen chair with a newspaper, open at the racing pages, lying on it. On the far side was a small camp bed with a thin blanket folded neatly on top of the equally thin pillow, and a young man sitting bolt upright facing us and staring.

‘Stand up, son,’ said Sergeant Doolan. His voice was far from friendly; I expect the epithet was habitual more than anything, since most of those who passed through his hands must be young men and he had to call them something. ‘Now, Miss Tweed. Tell me, is this the man who knocked you over in the yard that moonlit night in May?’

Molly, letting my hand fall away from hers, took a step forward and peered through the bars at Jock Christie. He was a striking figure, even in his present humbled state, standing there in his laceless boots, clutching at the waist of his beltless, braceless trousers. He was perhaps twenty-five, perhaps not as much as that, with fair hair brushed forward in a shock, and those jug-handle ears which I have always found rather endearing in a young man, perhaps because they remind me of my sons, newly shorn for their return to school which is when I love them best. He had the look of a farmer, hands swollen and roughened, arms and legs slightly bent while at rest as though braced against the weight of a hay bale or the pull of the plough horse, but he was far from bulky, even in his heavy clothes. Would anyone say he was snaky? Molly was hesitating, saying nothing at all.

‘Miss Tweed?’ said Sergeant Doolan, and his voice betrayed a little of the hopeful excitement her hesitation must have been affording him.

‘Molly?’ I said, wonderingly. She turned to face me and her eyes were wide and dark in her stricken face.

‘I dinna ken what to say,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, why did I ever come here?’

‘You mean, you’ve changed your mind?’ I breathed. She stared hard over my shoulder for a minute or two, remembering I daresay, although there was a calculating look on her face rather than the expression of effortful concentration which might be expected. At last, her brows unknitted and she turned back to face the sergeant and the prisoner.

‘It wasna him,’ she said in a clear voice.

‘You’re sure?’ said Sergeant Doolan.

‘As sure as I’m standin’ here,’ said Molly. ‘It wasna John Christie that jumped oot at me that nicht.’

The young man in the cell sat down heavily on the camp bed again with his shoulders slumped forwards and his hands hanging down between his knees. He looked up at the sergeant from under his shock of hair.

Sergeant Doolan glanced between him and Molly once or twice and then cleared his throat importantly.

‘Aye, well,’ he said. ‘There’s still the matter of what you were up to tonight, though, isn’t there?’

‘I was out a walk,’ said John Christie. ‘I told you that.’

‘Out a walk in a field in the dead of night with no lantern?’ said Sergeant Doolan.

‘It was nine o’clock,’ said Christie. ‘And I like walking in the fields. I like to feel the earth under my boots. I’m a farmer.’

I could see that Sergeant Doolan had trouble swallowing this and it did not ring quite true to me either, for every farmer I have ever met – and that is many – has been only too desperate to put the horse in its stall at the end of the weary day and shut the door against the crops and the beasts and the endless troubles they bring. Even Hugh, who charges around the fields and woods from dawn until dusk in all weathers, is ready to turn his back on them after dinner and settle into an armchair.

‘So you’re admitting you often do this, are you?’ said Sergeant Doolan. ‘Tramp about in the cold and dark when every other buddy wi’ any sense is by his own fireside?’

‘My own fireside is gey lonely,’ said Christie. ‘I’m happier out under the sky, day or night the same.’

And troubled as he was, certain as he was that something here did not add up, Sergeant Doolan had no choice but to let him go.

We delivered Elspeth back to Easter Luck Farm, making no mention of the sudden attack of dainty disinclination which had beset her – there was no harm done after all – and then rumbled around the back lanes to Luckenlaw House to return Molly to her kitchens. Once again, a party from above stairs turned out to greet us, the Howie men this time accompanying their wives to the door, and much to Mr Tait’s disgust and my slight exasperation all four of them were now rather drunk. Still, it was the first time I had ever seen Irvine Howie on his feet and he had even left his newspaper behind, bringing with him only a brandy glass and a half-smoked cigarette.

‘Hurrah for Molly!’ Nicolette chirped as Mr Tait opened the side door of the motor car and she stepped down. ‘Well, was it him?’

Molly shook her head and, giving a kind of flying curtsey as she passed, scuttled round the side of the house to the back door.

‘No, it wasn’t him,’ said Mr Tait sternly. ‘You’ll be very pleased to hear, Mr Howie, that your tenant will soon be back at the farm.’

Johnny Howie had the grace to look sheepish at this; after all, one might have expected a little more solicitousness from the menfolk at least when a young man in their bailiwick was clapped in irons.

‘Yes, steady on there,’ he said to his wife. ‘It’s a serious matter, you know.’

‘Oh, don’t be so utterly dreary,’ said Nicolette. ‘Come on, Vash, let’s go and ask her about it. Such a scream!’ With that, the sisters disappeared giggling into the house.

‘… excuse our wives,’ said Irvine, taking a last lazy draw on his cigarette and flicking it onto the gravel. ‘… more sense than a pair of geese, sometimes.’ And he too strolled unsteadily away into the lamplit hall without so much as a farewell, much less a thank you.

Mr Tait was beginning to look thunderous, his jaw stuck out and his eyes for once without the merest hint of a twinkle.

‘Yes, I must apologise for them,’ said Johnny, who was unfocused around the eyes but otherwise seemed in a rather better state than the rest of them. ‘They are beyond any pale, but there’s no harm in them really, you know.’ His words sparked a memory in me, but I could not catch at it. ‘Just high spirits.’

‘It’s hardly a matter to raise the spirits!’ said Mr Tait.

‘No, no, you misunderstand me, sir,’ said Johnny. ‘Their spirits were high anyway, and simply failed to come down to a seemly level for this nasty business.’

‘Well, there are worse crimes than being too cheerful, aren’t there?’ I offered, thinking that anyone who managed to hoist their spirits off the ground at all when incarcerated in this spot with these husbands deserved some credit for it.

‘Poor things,’ Johnny Howie went on and he leaned against the doorframe as though settling in for a lengthy chat. Perhaps he was just as intoxicated as the others after all, but rather better at hiding it. ‘When we married, you know, they thought life was going to be one long round of parties. No wonder they’re so excited about putting this bash on for Lorna.’ It was perhaps an innocent remark, but still it served to remind Mr Tait that he could not afford to be absolutely disapproving and superior, and he grunted in a conciliatory kind of way.

‘Aye well,’ he said. ‘A quiet life in the country is not for everyone, right enough.’

‘How true, how true,’ said Johnny Howie. ‘When I think of those two girls who arrived at Balnagowan all those years ago, stuffed to the brim with the thrilling history of the Rosses – they weren’t joking, you know, when they said it was our ancestress who was the chief attraction – when I think of them reduced to finding diversion at village meetings and an artistic new tenant in a damp little cottage… my heart aches for them, really it does. I could refuse them nothing it’s in my power to give.’

Neither Mr Tait nor I could think of an answer to any of this and so urging him to go inside and showering him with goodbyes we hurried back to the motor car and left.

‘I’m not at all sure I’m happy to see Lorna get any closer to that lot, if I’m honest,’ said Mr Tait, speaking loudly over the thump and screech of the engine as we trundled down the drive.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘They have very fashionable manners – that is to say no manners at all – but they’re terribly fond of Lorna. She might even be a good influence on them in the end.’

‘What did you make of young Jock Christie?’ said Mr Tait, and it is quite something when giving one’s impression of a prisoner and possible prowler can be seen as moving on to safer topics.

‘He seemed rather dejected to find himself behind bars, as might be expected,’ I said. ‘And while I am sure he wasn’t “prowling” really – what good would prowling round a field be, anyway? Unless to poach rabbits – he wasn’t absolutely convincing with his tale of a blameless stroll either, gave the rather feeble excuse of finding it lonely at home and being happier out. But it’s hardy less lonely, is it? And that makes me think, Mr Tait. Why is his fireside lonely? I should have thought that a fine young man like that, with a farm to boot, would be married. There’s certainly no shortage of single girls for him to choose from.’

‘Who’s to say?’ said Mr Tait. ‘I was forty myself before I married.’

‘Yes but…’ I began and then stopped, unable to think of a way to phrase my meaning that was not blunt to the point of coarseness. I decided just to say it anyway. ‘But it was different then. Before the war, I mean. There were… well, enough men to go round, weren’t there? Now, at Luckenlaw the same as everywhere else, there are scores of young women – Miss McCallum, Miss Lindsay, Annie Pellow, Elspeth, Molly – and those are just the ones I’ve met in a day or two.’

‘Not to mention…’ said Mr Tait, thinking of Lorna, I am sure.

‘Not to mention all the others whom I haven’t,’ I supplied, thinking of Lorna too. ‘So I simply don’t see how Jock Christie has managed to live here for five years and stay single. And I’m sure there’s something behind it. Something Johnny Howie said just now reminded me. Aha!’

Mr Tait turned to look at me, making the motor car swerve. We were back in the village by now, headed for the manse drive.

‘Aha?’ he said.

‘Yes. Mr McAdam said a very strange thing earlier this evening. When he was entreating you to help, he said of Jock Christie that he “had done no wrong, not really” and so he didn’t deserve to be in jail. Johnny Howie just said something very similar about his wife and sister-in-law: that there was not really any harm in them. Now in the case of the Howie ladies, I can see what he meant. No harm in them although they are rude and silly. But what did Mr McAdam mean about Christie? If he has not really done any wrong, what is it that he has done? Do you see what I mean?’

‘I do, I do indeed,’ said Mr Tait, letting the motor car roll to a stop in front of the old stable in the side yard of the manse. ‘But you are being carried away by your detective’s nose, my dear Mrs Gilver. I am afraid that Logan McAdam was merely thinking of the farm. As I mentioned before, what the lad did was take over a farm that he had no business taking over, not at his age and with his college learning and no farming in his blood.’

‘Ah yes,’ I said, remembering. ‘I’ve heard a bit more about that now. Hadn’t all the neighbouring farmers more or less moved in and helped themselves? It seemed like fearful cheek to me, but I can understand why they hoped it might go on for ever. Whoever it was who sold the estate to the Howies sold it not a moment too soon if a good farm was lying empty, don’t you think?’

‘That’s not how it was seen at Luckenlaw,’ said Mr Tait, and his voice was rather cold, to my surprise. ‘Farmland cannot lie useless and it was a lot of hard work for the neighbours to keep the place in good heart, and as for old Lady Muirie – well, she had a lot of respect for the old ways and no taste for change.’

‘I apologise, Mr Tait,’ I said. ‘I seem to have said something that’s upset you.’ At this, he softened again and the twinkle came back into his eye. I could see it quite clearly in the light of the lamp the manse servants had left burning for us above the door.

‘Not at all, my dear,’ he said, patting my knee through the travelling rug folded there. ‘I am being too sensitive by far. Only, it was my wife’s family’s farm, you see. They had been the tenants there as long as anyone could remember, connections of the Muiries away way back. And since she had no brothers or sisters, when her father died and she was all the way up in Perthshire, there was no one to run the place.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said again, but it still sounded most peculiar to me. Why, it must have been empty for decades, and no matter how fond of tradition this Lady Muirie might have been, I was on the side of the Howies (and of Hugh, I would wager) in thinking that a farm needed a farmer, even if he was a slip of a lad whom no one knew and for whom no one much cared. It was shocking, somehow, to think that nothing more than parochial gossip and sour grapes lay behind all the mutterings of Jock Christie’s name in the case of the dark stranger.

The next morning, putting all thoughts of the farming dynasties of Luckenlaw out of my head, I turned back to the question of the missing victims and set off resolutely after an early breakfast to beard Miss Lindsay when her den was about to be overrun by cubs. (I had decided that she probably kept her SWRI records all together somewhere and that if I landed on her unannounced just before school began she would have no choice but to leave me with them and tend to her charges.) The skies had cleared before the ground had dried last night and now there was a crackling glaze of frost underfoot, the fallen leaves picked out in white along their veins and stuck fast to the ground. Bunty pranced ahead, as skittish as always when she felt the earth unaccountably tingle and splinter under her paws, and I huddled inside my Persian lamb coat and Beefeater’s hat hoping that I would not slip as I picked my way down the drive and across the green to the school lane.

‘Here she comes, there she goes,’ sang the girls, at play inside the railings waiting for the bell.

‘Torn stockings and hairy toes,

A broom in her hand and a wart on her nose,

Here she comes, there she goes.’

I decided not to take it personally and gave them a benign smile as I passed them. Bunty made a few feinting darts towards the skipping rope but thought the better of it and followed me to the schoolhouse door.

Miss Lindsay was too polite to do other than greet me and usher me in, but she glanced not all that surreptitiously at her fob watch as she did so, and I made haste to explain that I was on a quest to view her Rural register the better to pin down those farms and cottages where I should look to find my audience for the talk.

‘What a good idea,’ she said. ‘You certainly do seem to have a talent for organisation, Mrs Gilver.’ With that staggering remark – one I had never heard directed my way before – she slapped a stout cardboard file on the table before me, took up her hand bell and left. The summoning clangs had sounded and faded away before I recovered myself and bent to the file, unwinding the ribbon tape holding it shut and feeling a thrill of anticipation for what I would find there.

I was in luck. The list of members was practically the first document in the – not inconsiderable – pile and, Miss Lindsay being Miss Lindsay, not only were the departing members scored off and the newcomers added in at the end but the dates for these comings and goings were included in her clear, round, schoolteacher’s hand. I opened my notebook and began to copy it down, fearing that when the morning prayers which I could hear droning away in the schoolroom were finished she might leave her class at work and return to me. Bunty, having padded around the sitting room and subjected everything in reach to a thorough sniffing, had decided that although there were no biscuits in the immediate offing this place was otherwise acceptable and had curled herself in front of the fire and gone to sleep.

Elspeth the dairy maid, Mrs Fraser from Balniel, and Mrs Muirhead had resigned their memberships exactly when one would have expected they might – immediately after the meetings which had ended so horribly for each of them – but I noted as I was copying this down that although there were other fallings away – a Mrs Gow, two Misses Morton and a Mrs and Miss Martineau – none of these had left after the July or September gatherings and so did not seem likely to be the missing victims. Besides, surely a Mrs and Miss Martineau must be mother and daughter, must live at the same address and must therefore have walked home together and kept one another safe. The same had to be true of the Miss Mortons, or at least it would be easy enough to find out. Mrs Gow was certainly worth a visit, even though it was the August meeting which had seen her off, after which it had been Mrs Fraser of Balniel who had succumbed to the stranger and sent him packing with her deserving goodness and her prayers.

So much for the droppers-off. As for the joiners-in, a Mrs Torrance had come along for the first time in June; the Howies – famously – had turned up in July to witness whatever cataclysm the preacher’s wife had unleashed on the gathering and how I wished I knew! Mrs Hemingborough had finally fallen into step only in time for the meeting in September, which was rather hard luck when one considered that it was after the very next get-together, in October, that she was ravaged in the lane. September, in fact, showed rather a flurry as Mrs McAdam also had her first experience of the Rural meeting and Mrs Palmer, Elspeth McConechie’s mistress, too.

A very fruitful exercise, I concluded rather smugly to myself, tucking my notebook into my pocket, and now I should tidy the papers back into their box and be on my way. Instead, however, I continued to leaf through the pages in the file, mostly rather dreary official communications from the grandly titled Federation Headquarters or else carbon copies of earlier talks, which made my heart sink: I was no more able to pound out my talk in triplicate upon a type-writing machine, than I was able to dream up anything to say. Towards the bottom, things got marginally more interesting again, with photographed displays of handicrafts and recipes copied out in handwriting upon decorated cards. One of these, I noted, was for a concoction called Boiled Dressing (to be used in place of salad oil) and its long list of ingredients began with flour, vinegar and hot sour milk. I shuddered, praying that Mrs Tilling would never come across such a thing, and quickly turned it face down.

I was nearly at the bottom now, just a page or two to go and then something lumpy underneath. The very last sheet of paper bore some sketches in watercolour, rather nicely done, and since the notes which accompanied them were in Miss Lindsay’s writing I surmised that the painting was her handiwork too. I stared at the sheet and my heart began to bang so hard in my chest that I was sure I could hear it and glanced down at Bunty to see if she could hear it too. All of the pictures were of a heart shape or a pair of hearts entwined, some with a banner across them, some with crowns above them: in short they were sketches of the jewel that Lorna Tait, Miss McCallum and Miss Lindsay herself wore as brooches, that Nicolette and Vashti Howie – to Miss McCallum’s disapproval – had rendered in crochet-work for themselves. What was causing my heart to bang so painfully under my ribs, however, was not the sketches but the title, emblazoned across the top of the page in an extravagant copperplate with illuminated capitals and curlicued underlining. The Witch’s Heart, it said.

I lifted the sheet out of the box and reached for the final item – the heavy, irregular shape I had felt – sure that I knew what I should find. It was a roll of stiff leatherette tied with a strap, something like a needle case, which creaked and crackled impossibly loudly as I opened it. I looked warily at the door and then again at Bunty, knowing that if footsteps were approaching even from a distance she would have an ear cocked by now.

When the last fold of squeaking leatherette was released, I gazed down at what lay before me. It was set out like a travelling salesman’s display case, which was fairly close to the truth, and the sales had been going rather well. Quite half of the little loops were empty with only a couple of pinpricks on each to show where the pins had been pushed through when the roll was full. There were still plenty left though, done in blue enamel, with some white and some gold; row after row of witch’s hearts waiting for takers.

My fingers steady, although my heart continued to imitate a carpet beater, I folded the roll up again, tied the strap, and carefully replaced the pile of photographs, recipes, and documents on top. Then I closed the lid, wound the tape tightly around the fastening and pushed the file to the middle of the table. I was still regarding it, trying to digest what I had just seen, when the handle of the sitting-room door turned and the door itself swung towards me. I shrieked and shot out of my chair, joined by Bunty, who sprang up half in response to my shriek and half just in the normal way of things whenever a door was opened. Miss Lindsay, for of course it was she, gave a small squeak of her own and leapt backwards before we both laughed, apologised, flushed a little and busied ourselves with the hair-patting and hem-straightening which always ensues when one has made a chump of oneself or, in Miss Lindsay’s case, witnessed a near stranger doing so.

I thanked her profusely for letting me see the register, apologised for making so free with her sitting room as to drowse by the fire long after I had finished and, grabbing Bunty, made an undignified exit. My head, owing to holding onto a dog collar and to a desire for invisibility, was down and so I could not help but see a glint of sunshine off the enamelled hearts and crown points on the brooch pinned to Miss Lindsay’s black serge lapel.

Outside, before I had even passed beyond the schoolyard railings, certainly before I had begun to think calmly about what any of this might mean, I was hailed in hearty tones and I turned to see Miss McCallum stumping up the lane from the ford in stout walking shoes and a capacious hairy coat, like an Afghan.

‘Beautiful morning, Mrs Gilver,’ she cried. Bunty waggled her entire rear end and whined. She adores people who speak very loudly.

‘Oh, quite. Indeed. Where have you been? Is the post office not open today?’ I gabbled. I have noticed more than once a tendency in myself to turn waspish when flustered.

‘It’s not quite time yet,’ said Miss McCallum. ‘I always try to get out for a good long tramp on dry days before opening time.’

‘Jolly good for you,’ I said, trying to sound a bit friendlier and succeeding only in patronising her, I fear. ‘Rather cold this morning though, wasn’t it?’

Miss McCallum put her hands on her hips and straddled her legs, looking like a little round principal boy. ‘Not once you get your pace up,’ she said. ‘I’m as warm as anything under here now.’ And to prove it she undid the bone toggles on her coat and threw it open to reveal her grey flannel postmistress’s dress underneath. There it was, on the breast pocket, glittering in the sun. I am afraid I did not manage to stop my eyes flashing when I saw it and Miss McCallum looked down, squashing her many chins against her chest as she peered at it.

‘Admiring my brooch?’ she said. I nodded, dumbly.

‘It’s your SWRI badge, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘Now it is,’ said Miss McCallum, ‘but it’s been around a fair bit longer than the Rural, believe you me.’ She gave me a broad smile and with a look towards the church clock, she scuttled off, her boots thumping.

Could this be real? Three of the leading lights of the Luckenlaw Rural emblazoned with the secret symbol of a witch’s heart. But had not Lorna Tait said that her brooch came from her mother? A minister’s wife? What did any of it mean? I headed down the lane, meaning to walk on just long enough to give Miss McCallum time to get to the post office before I retraced my steps, but when I stopped and turned, Bunty refused to follow.

‘Come on, darling,’ I cajoled, in that way that turns Hugh purple with rage. Bunty ignored me. She was standing stock still in the middle of the lane, with her ears pricked and her tail wagging.

‘Come on,’ I said rather more sharply. ‘I don’t care how many R-A-B-B-I-Ts you smell.’ She wagged her tail even harder at me; Bunty knows how to spell ‘rabbit’ very well. ‘Heel,’ I said. ‘Now.’ She paid no heed and, looking closely at her, I began to think it could not be rabbits after all. Her nose was not twitching; she was listening to something. I put my head on one side and listened too. Very faintly, from down by the ford, the sound of whistling could be heard, but Bunty is not usually so very interested in whistling. I listened again. It grew slightly louder as though the whistler had come closer – come outside, perhaps – and then it broke off as he coughed a luxurious and rather disgusting morning cough.

Bunty yelped and before I could stop her she raced off down the hill into the trees, her paws thundering, more like a greyhound at a track than a carriage dog of impeccable breeding.

‘Stop this instant!’ I bellowed. ‘Bunty! Bad dog! Come to heel now!’ but I sprinted off after her, knowing that the commands alone would achieve nothing. Down here the frost was as thick as midnight, since no sun ever shone to melt it, and it was frost over moss which is a uniquely treacherous combination down which to sprint in polite shoes, so it was no surprise to find myself skidding, bumping down onto my behind and finishing the journey to the ford in a long, graceful slide.

Bunty had jumped the stream and was in Ford Cottage garden, wriggling with delight, and threatening to knock over an easel and some water pots set up there, as she submitted to having her ears tickled by a young man in a pink canvas smock and a silk neck scarf, wearing a soft grey hat stuck with a peacock feather. This feather waved flamboyantly as he crouched over Bunty, kissing her head and letting her lick his face joyously. I shuddered. Much as I adore Bunty, I should never let her lick my face. Hardly anyone would; in fact only one person in her acquaintance ever did. I exclaimed and he looked up at last.

‘Dr Watson, I presume,’ I said drily. ‘Or – sorry – it was Captain Watson, wasn’t it?’

‘My dear Holmes,’ said Alec, wiping his face with a handkerchief and walking towards the little footbridge. ‘What an entrance, Dan. Let me help you up.’