A Pattern of Lies (16 page)

Surprised, I said, “Thank you.” I'd wondered how to discover where Miss Rollins lived, if for no other reason, to find out what she might have told her brother about events in Cranbourne, and if her version of them had helped turn him against the Ashtons. And if he had told her anything about having been shot.

“And would you mind taking Nan with you? Her lead is hanging on a hook in the hall. You can't miss it. I'm afraid Mark hasn't had time to walk her properly, and somehow I haven't had the heart to drag her away from the study. If the door's ajar, she's in there before we can stop her.”

“I'll be happy to.”

I found the directions, and studied them for a moment. I didn't know Cranbourne well, but I thought perhaps I could find my way to both women without too much difficulty.

But what was I to say to either of them?

Setting out with Nan on her lead, I found my first quarry easily enough.

Betty Perkins lived on a side street not far from the village square. It was an older house, already showing signs of needing a new coat of paint and new steps at the door. Another of the war's victims, I thought. There were not enough painters or plasterers or carpenters or thatchers or roofers or chimney sweeps left to keep such houses in good condition. The tradesmen were at the Front, recovering from wounds, or doing other war work instead. I mounted the steps carefully, knocked, and waited for someone to answer my summons.

Finally a young woman came to the door, opened it narrowly, and said, “What is it you want? If you're collecting for the wounded, there's nothing to give you.” Her hair was a stringy brown pulled tight to her head, and she looked very tired, circles beneath her brown eyes. Her hands were red, as if she'd been doing washing. There was a faint yellow tinge to her skin. I'd heard this was the price of working with cordite.

“Betty Perkins? My name is Bess Crawford. I'm a friend of the Ashtons. Would you mind terribly if I came in and spoke to you for a bit?”

“What about?” she asked warily.

“About the explosion at the powder mill. About the whispers circulating that blame Mr. Ashton. I'd like very much to know why these rumors ever got started.”

She glared at me. “You weren't here, were you? You didn't send your brother off to work, and then have someone tell you there wasn't enough of him left to bury. I don't know how he died. Nor the man I was to marry. Was they blown to bits, as I was told? Or was they badly hurt and left to burn alive, with no one to save them? You tend the wounded. How does it feel to have your legs blown off, and not be able to move as the fire comes toward you? How long does it hurt?”

I had no answer for that—­it would only have made her nightmares worse. But I said, “I would be surprised if anyone survived the blast. They wouldn't have known about the fire.”

“You don't
know
. I dreamed about it for the longest time. Terrible dreams, where I could hear them calling, and I couldn't help them. I would run through the fire and not be in time—­all I'd find were blackened bits, like a roast left too long in the oven. But I could see their eyes, pleading with me, even though it was too late.”

“Do you blame Philip Ashton for what happened?”

“I don't know,” she said wearily. “But if it wasn't for the war, the mill wouldn't have been running flat out. They wouldn't have tons of TNT waiting to be sent to the munitions factory. It was very hot for an April day, and the leaves hadn't fully come out on the trees that were put in to shade the mill. My brother said it wasn't like the old ways, it was harder to make the cordite. So many stages. Everyone had to learn the new methods. It was easy to make a mistake. I work now filling shells over on Sheppey. Killing Germans in the only way I can. It's better than housework any day.”

But very dangerous. Those women were extraordinarily brave, I thought, to take such risks. They wore garments that were unbecoming, nothing metal, even their hair in a cap. Hardly stylish, but who was there to see them? Only the other women and a handful of men.

“Have you heard the rumors about Mr. Ashton?”

“I have. But they don't do me any good, do they? They won't bring Joey back, nor Bobby, will they? At least I can have a taste of revenge, filling shell casings. That's more satisfying.”

“But who started these rumors? Where did they begin?”

She shrugged. “How do I know? I just hear them from time to time, and then whoever is telling me the latest gossip remembers I worked for the Ashton family, and they stop.”

“You've never wondered who could hate your former employers so much?”

“If you're asking if I'm curious, the answer is no. I don't really care. It's no longer my business, what they say about the family. The Ashtons let me go, after all. I don't owe them any loyalty now, do I? Besides, I have more important things to think about than whether the grates are cleaned properly or the beds tidy and smooth, a room aired. I put the bands on every shell, and I think, ‘This one's for Bobby. That one's for Joey.' And it's important to get it right, to see the shell isn't a dud. I don't want to make duds. They don't kill anyone.”

I thanked her for her time and left. Betty Perkins had moved on. The fate of Philip Ashton didn't weigh with her. She would not go out of her way either to help him or to condemn him. It was her feelings about every shell that mattered, and I thought that must explain the fatigue taking its toll on her body and her spirit. She hadn't died in the explosion, but it had killed more than her brother and her fiancé.

I turned back the way I had come, reached the abbey wall, and followed it toward the part of Cranbourne where Agatha Rollins lived. But it took me several minutes to put Betty Perkins and her pain out of my mind.

Stopping to let Nan sniff a particularly interesting clump of grass by the abbey gates, I forced myself to think about my next approach.

Should I tell her that I'd encountered her brother in the course of my duties? Like Mrs. Ashton, I had no desire to make matters worse by alienating her. I knew her brother avoided her, but I had no way of knowing how she felt about him.

I was suddenly reminded of a woman I'd known in our village in Somerset. Surely Miss Rollins couldn't be any more ferocious than Mrs. Clegg—­I remembered as a child believing she must be a witch, poor woman.

Waiting for Nan, I looked through the abbey gate at the ruins. It must have been a small monastic church compared to the extensive ruins I'd seen elsewhere. Nothing to match great cathedrals like Canterbury or Winchester or Salisbury. I wondered if it had been a way station for pilgrims, a place where the poor could find alms and the wealthier travelers could find lodgings on their way to pray at the shrine of Thomas à Becket. Pilgrimages had not only been popular, they had also brought money into the coffers of the church. And Chaucer had made Canterbury famous as a destination.

Nan, finally satisfied, turned and trotted politely by my side, quiet and well behaved.

Thinking about Chaucer, I didn't notice a group of young boys standing on a street corner watching me from a distance. It was Nan's low growl and pricked ears that made me look in their direction.

Ages twelve to fifteen, at a guess. They made me uneasy, staring at me. Having already run the gantlet of their elders on market day, I had the feeling they might prove to be more troublesome. Like dogs that minded their own business when trotting down a street alone, only to turn dangerous when in a pack of four or five.

They were of an age, too, to have heard their parents talking about the Ashtons, and then consider it something of a lark to tear down pasture walls or throw rotten eggs at a house door in the middle of the night. Constable Hood had referred to high spirits, and he might have known what he was talking about. Although high spirits in this case was little more than pure vandalism.

Speaking softly to Nan to calm her down, I was debating what to do if they crossed the road.

And then Alex Craig turned into the same street, slowed as he saw them, and with a few words, scattered them about their business. I couldn't tell if he'd seen me or just the prospects for trouble of some kind.

I came to the end of the abbey wall, where it turned down toward the water. A long drive went in through a plantation of trees that obscured the house at the end, and I thought it must be the other surviving building from the abbey, whose present owners were living in London. Indeed, there was a heavy chain across the drive farther along. I walked on, staying on the main road until I'd come to a pair of lanes, one running back into the village and another snaking through high grass toward a row of cottages leading down toward the distant blue of water. I thought these might belong to fishermen, because one or two had nets spread to dry on racks and left there to rot when the fishing fleet found itself shut in by the German raiders and the men who manned it went off to fight in France. In the distance now, beyond a line of what appeared to be sheds, I could see the sturdy fishing boats themselves pulled up out of the water for the duration and left like driftwood along the shoreline. High grass grew up their sides and caught in the rudders, even as vines had run up and over the gunwales.

The fifth cottage in was a little larger than its neighbors, and I wondered why the Rollins family had prospered enough to build on. The addition had settled, indicating it was probably a good thirty years old, but it had nearly doubled the size of the original cottage and could well have cost more than a fisherman earned.

Nan and I went up a walk set off by seashells and the dying stalks of marigolds and petunias on either side, and I knocked lightly on the door.

 

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

N
O ONE ANSWERED
at first, and I thought perhaps Miss Rollins wasn't in. Then the door opened a crack and a woman's face peered out.

“And what may you be wanting, Sister?” she asked in a cold voice.

“Miss Rollins? May I come in?”

I didn't expect her to let me set foot through the door, but to my surprise, after a moment she stepped back. I looped Nan's lead around a boot scraper, and followed Miss Rollins inside. I had to bend my head a little to pass through the door, and I thought with amusement that Simon would have had a narrow miss with the lintel, even ducking to pass through.

The smile was still there as I straightened up, and I met with a scowl, as if she thought I was judging her home.

The room was immaculate. Colorful rag rugs carpeted the floor, and the furnishings, while of another generation, gleamed with polish. There was a lovely old nursing rocker by the hearth, and through a doorway I could see the glow of copper pots hung on a rack above the cookstove. A spinning wheel stood in a corner, and all the chairs had lace antimacassars where one's head and hands might rest. There were lace curtains at the three windows, and several pots of herbs sitting on the ledges.

House proud
was the expression that came to mind.

Nor was there even a hint of masculinity, as if Miss Rollins refused to acknowledge the fact that her brother also lived here.

Leaving the door open to indicate that she expected the interview to be brief, she grudgingly offered me a seat. As I thanked her and took it, I had my first really good look at Miss Rollins.

She must have been quite pretty when she was young. She had good bones, as my mother would say, the kind of structure to her face that would carry over well into age. But disappointment and bitterness had soured her, her mouth turning down, her hazel eyes hard now. And the lines bracketing her lips were deeper than they should be at what I guessed to be her age: thirty-­five, although that might be off by a year or so either side. She was still slim, but I guessed that she no longer cared about her appearance, for the dress she was wearing was tight at the waist and across the shoulders, as if she had gained weight since her brother's enlistment.

“I've just arrived in Cranbourne last night,” I said. “I was told you lived here in the village. I thought you might wish to know that I saw your brother while I was in France. He'd burned his hand, but otherwise he was well. He's in the tank corps, I believe?”

She stared at me. “Is that what brought you here?”

It was unexpected.

“Knowing a loved one is safe is good news to many.”

“And you went about the village, did you, spreading this cheer?”

“I'm afraid you misunderstand me, Miss Rollins. I treat any number of patients, and I do what I can for all of them. Whether they live in Cranbourne or not.”

“And what are you to him, might I ask?”

“The nursing Sister who dressed his hand,” I replied, in Matron's no-­nonsense voice. “He passed through the forward aid station where I was posted. He's quite a hero, and everyone seemed to know him.” A slight exaggeration, but it didn't matter.

“And so you have come to call.”

Through the open door I could see Nan from where I sat. She had stretched out with her nose on her front paws.

“I'm afraid so.”

That gave her pause. She hadn't expected me to agree with her.

When she said nothing, I added, “I'm told in the village that your brother was the only witness when the Ashton Powder Mill went up.”

“To his sorrow.”

“I'm curious. What did he see?”

“He didn't see Germans, if that's what you're asking.”

“I didn't suppose that he had. My father is in the Army. He knew a little something about that inquiry into the cause of the explosion. He told me so.”

She hadn't expected that, either.

Sitting down across from me in the other chair, she said, “What really brought you to my door?”

“I told you. Curiosity. The explosion, coming just before the First Battle of the Somme, cost the Army dearly. Every shell and cartridge we could make was sorely needed. For the artillery, for the rifles, for the machine guns. Not even taking into account the loss of life.”

“The Army concluded it was an accident.”

“Yes, I'm sure it was. Manufacturing gunpowder of any kind is dangerous work. A dropped tool setting off a spark, a moment's lapse in concentration, can make a difference. It's just that the Ashton mill had been luckier than most. Over the years it hadn't had a serious accident, much less a calamity, to mar its record. I'm told that was because of the stringent rules regarding each step of the process. But it was a Sunday, of course.” I left it there.

“What does a Sunday have to do with it?”

I shrugged. “Some ­people enjoy their Saturday evening a bit too much. You never know.”

Goaded, she said, “There was another witness. Just come forward.”

I raised my eyebrows to let her see I was shocked. “Was there, now?”

“Oh yes. Closer than my brother. She saw the whole thing. Start to finish.”

“Why didn't she speak up at the time?”

“She did. The Army wasn't interested in what she had to say. They only wanted to hear about the Germans. Besides, she was a woman. What does she know about such matters?”

Was that true about the Army? “Women worked in the mill.”

“They did. Her sister was one of them. Only she wasn't working that Sunday.”

“What is her name?”

Miss Rollins gave me a sly smile. “It's for the police to know. You don't even live in Cranbourne.”

“Well, if it wasn't saboteurs, then it doesn't matter what she saw, does it?” I said.

“The
police
listened. This time. And there were other depositions before she spoke up.”

“I can't imagine why. It's been nearly two years, for heaven's sake. A little late to be bothering them with such stories now.”

“That's what you think. They were that eager to hear what she had to say.”

“I don't see that it would do anyone any good to rake it all up again.”

“That's what the Ashtons would like to believe. Well, they've had it their own way for long enough.”

“Surely you aren't saying she saw the owner do anything wrong? I can't think why he'd blow up his own source of livelihood.”

“That's just it. The Army wasn't paying him enough. He wanted more. It was one thing when they made the original agreement, he and the Army. They thought the war would be over by Christmas, didn't they? But when it dragged on, he thought he'd have the Army over a barrel. That they'd give him what he asked. And when they wouldn't, he arranged for the fire. Only it didn't go as planned, did it? All those men died.”

“Oh, I'm sure you're wrong. It's unthinkable.”

“Unthinkable or not, that's what happened.”

Putting suspicion in my voice, narrowing my eyes, I said, “And how is it that you know so much about it?”

“I was the one who encouraged her to go to the police,” she said triumphantly.

“What did the Ashtons ever do to you that you should make so much trouble for them? You don't pay them rent, do you? This isn't their land?”

“My family has lived in Cranbourne as long as they have. Longer. My family served the abbey for generations. They manned the fishing fleet that brought in the fish the abbey salted and dried. They owned the coasters that traded up and down the shore, from here to Norfolk and all the way round to Hastings and beyond. They even made a foray now and again to the coast of France and brought back goods. Salt, French wines from Normandy and cloth from Nantes, and even gold coins that could be melted down for collars and rings. The abbots liked fine things. And they were grateful to us. Until King Henry brought down the abbey and gave the Hall to the Ashtons—­hangers-­on at Hever Castle, the Ashtons were. Nobodies. Jumped-­up connections of the Whore. Anne Boleyn. For her sake they turned out the monks and the lay brothers, and burned the boats to the waterline. They took away our livelihood without a thought for what might happen to us.”

That was when? Nearly four hundred years ago. Surely the Rollins family hadn't nursed such a grievance for hundreds of years?

Then what had stirred up this ancient history, and made Agatha Rollins so bitter about her family's ruin? Hardly ruin, I realized, looking about me. But then who was I to judge what it was that Agatha Rollins wanted? And if she had been convinced that the Ashtons had wronged her, it would take more arguments than I could muster to change her mind.

Still, I said, “It wasn't an Ashton who turned out the monks and burned the ships. It was Henry VIII. If you have a quarrel with anyone, it's the Tudors, although I don't think there are many of them left today. Henry would have given the property to someone in his retinue. Better, I should think, for it to be someone from Kent, than an absentee landlord who lived in Leicestershire or Hampshire and simply collected the rents. Besides, the Ashtons themselves built the powder mills, and through the years employed a good many ­people. That had nothing to do with the Crown.”

“That's what you'd like to think, isn't it?” she retorted darkly. “I know better.”

I rose. “It's none of my concern, anyway. Holding grudges is a tiresome business. All the same, I can't help but wonder what your brother would have to say about this new piece of testimony. Have you even asked him? Perhaps he knows more about the witness than you do.”

I could see from her face that she hadn't told him. It had very likely never occurred to her. A shadow of uncertainty appeared in her eyes.

“It's none of his business,” she said stoutly, but with less conviction than I would have expected.

“And coming so late in the day, one does wonder if it's trustworthy. What this new witness might have to say. It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Rollins.”

She got to her feet with alacrity, and followed me to the door. “Your kind always stick together. I shouldn't have let you in, to start with.”

“My kind? I'm a nursing Sister, Miss Rollins. I'm trained to care for the wounded, as I cared for your brother. I don't ask where he came from or how much money he has on deposit in a bank, or what connections he might have socially. When a man is bleeding and in pain, such things don't matter, do they?”

With a smile, I gathered Nan's lead in one hand, turned, and walked up the path to the lane. Nan seemed to be as glad to go as I was, trotting beside me with no desire to linger. But I could sense Miss Rollins standing there in the doorway, uncertain what to make of my visit—­and whether she might have said more than she had intended to.

But as I reached the lane and turned to look back the way I'd come, she shut the door smartly. I didn't look back again.

Miss Rollins hadn't mentioned her brother's head wound. And so I had decided against saying anything. It was very likely the Army hadn't notified her yet, which meant it was not my place to meddle. Still, I found it very curious.

However good the grammar school in Cranbourne, I couldn't quite believe that the lessons taught there included such a detailed history of Henry VIII's assault on Cranbourne Abbey and the Ashton family's connection to Anne Boleyn's career—­even if the stories were true. Even if Hever Castle, the Tudor home of the Boleyns, was not all that many miles away from here. Of course some account could have been passed down in a few of the families, but it was oddly complete, down to naming the Ashtons as throwing out the monks and burning the boats.
Personally
. If such hard feelings had existed for centuries, surely the Ashtons would have been seen as the local villains long before 1916, and it wouldn't have taken such an intense campaign of lies to draw the attention of the police to their latest crimes?

Then who had filled Agatha Rollins's head full of such tales?

It was a very good question, but one I had no answer to.

What appeared to be a concerted effort to bring down the Ashton family had to have its roots somewhere. But I didn't think it was the Rollins family that had started the lies.

Who could hate them so much that even someone like Miss Rollins had been drawn into the fray? Or her brother?

I walked back toward the Hall, thinking about this.

The instigator would have needed a surrogate. And yet someone from the police or Canterbury or even a neighboring village would have stood out as a stranger here in this poorer part of Cranbourne. There would have been gossip, talk about whoever it was. Arguments over whether to believe him or not. As I was sure there would be gossip about my visit to Miss Rollins.

Constable Hood? Would he have been a willing representative of someone intent on making life wretched for the Ashtons?

Possibly. He'd been determined not to find the culprits who had been wreaking havoc around the Ashton property. He'd blamed it on high spirits, which could be true—­I'd seen that group of young boys, looking bored and ready for any mischief. How many more were there like them? Harmless until fed by what they'd heard at the dinner table or around the schoolyard and finding an outlet for their boredom in the Ashtons. Still, even they couldn't be held accountable for all of it.

I was back to the main point. It all had to start somewhere.

And it must have begun with a hatred that would be satisfied only by the destruction of a family.

Who had Mrs. Ashton believed to be responsible for the candle that burned her chair? I didn't think it was Miss Rollins, for Mrs. Ashton had helped me find my way there.

Alex Craig? Did he hold them responsible for Eloise's death, or was it just the fact that Mark Ashton had won her hand?