Fate Worse Than Death (4 page)

When credit was refused him Charley Horrocks could always produce a small amount of cash, although never enough to pay his debts. His demand for credit was a daily routine, no longer a serious try-on but a form of conversation. He never allowed silence to fall. When he wasn't giving commands and making assertions (‘This beer's orf,' was one of his favourites, though he never hesitated to drain his glass), he reminisced to her about ‘M'grandfather the third Earl.'

Initially, Lois had felt some sympathy for Charley Horrocks. She had seen him as a mountainous toddler, abandoned in Fodderstone by his family and making infantile demands for attention. No one seemed to know or care about him: he lived alone, did no work, had no friends. Lois was a good listener and would at first have been prepared to lend him an ear, but now that she had been forced into his company more often she had changed her mind. She found him highly objectionable, not merely an ill-mannered snob but a thorough-going pig.

Charley always took to the pub his favourite newspaper, the
Sun
. As soon as the other regulars – the ones Phil Goodwin referred to as ‘the trogs' – came in, Charley would open the paper at the page 3 nude photograph, lay it flat on the bar under Lois's eye and discuss the merits of the girl of the day in loud agricultural terms.

Then he would comb through the newspaper and read out any items that he could relate in a derogatory way to women. All women who had been murdered, raped or battered had, according to Charley, ‘arsked for it'. Any women who spoke out in public, for whatever cause and however reasonably, in his opinion deserved ‘a good thrashin”.

‘A
bloody
good thrashin',' he would add with relish, and the trogs would snigger their support, glancing sideways at Lois to see how she was reacting. She hated them all for it. Separately, Charley and the trogs were disagreeable enough; together, egging each other on, they were abominable.

The doorway darkened as two of his drinking companions slouched in, hot and permanently grimy. Both self-employed agricultural contractors, they brought with them smells of sweat and smoke, and a considerable thirst. Charley stopped boring on about his grandfather and reached happily for the
Sun
. Lois braced herself to cope with routine unpleasantness.

But today, something was different. The newcomers, Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler, thick-set men of the string-vest generation, were snuffling with laughter. Stan, the shorter of the two, whose baldness was compensated for by a thick growth of greying chest hair that frizzed out through the trellis of his vest, was carrying something behind his back.

‘'Morning, Lois,' they chorused, their stubble split by gappy grins. ‘How do, Charley.'

They paused expectantly. ‘Two pints?' Lois enquired, forcing a professional smile.

‘Ar,' said Reg. His head was well thatched and his face was framed by sideburns, but his oil-stained vest hadn't a single protruding hair. ‘Two pints o'bitter for us – and a half for Stan's new friend.'

Lois was puzzled and cross, as they intended that she should be. ‘Who do you mean?'

They nudged each other. ‘Him, o'course,' Reg snickered. ‘Gent with the beard, on the stool here.'

Lois looked where he was pointing. At first she could see nothing, but then she stood on her toes and peered across the top of the bar counter.

‘What on earth –? Good heaven's, it's a – oh, it's absolutely filthy! Take it outside, for goodness'sake!'

Reg and Stan lurched about with laughter. Charley Horrocks rumbled an accompaniment, his great shoulders heaving.

‘Take it out!' Lois repeated shrilly. Then, ‘No, wait a minute.' She hurried round to the customers'side of the bar and looked more closely. The object squatting at the stool, two feet high, battered and dirty, was a plaster garden gnome. ‘Is it Beryl Websdell's?' she asked.

Stan wiped tears of amusement from his eyes with the back of his smoke-grimed hand. ‘Reckon it must be Beryl's. P'r'aps she'll give me a reward!'

‘Bag o'jelly babies, I shouldn't wonder,' said Reg. They doubled up again.

‘Poor Beryl,' said Lois, ‘she'd be quite upset to see it like this. I'd better give it a scrub before she comes again. Where did you find it?'

The bald-headed man sobered and shrugged. ‘In a ditch, ' longside the Horkey road.'

‘How on earth did it get there?'

‘Hanged if
I
know.' He became irritable. ‘What about that beer? We've been burning straw all morning an'I'm wholly dry.'

‘What were you doin'on the Horkey road?' asked Charley.

Stan took the pint from Lois, and gave him a quick, disagreeable stare. ‘Minding me own business, bor,' he said. The deference that former inhabitants of Fodderstone had shown towards the family of the Earls of Brandon was not extended by present-day villagers to the third Earl's grandson.

Charley Horrocks glowered. He found it impossible to believe that he had no status. ‘Horkey road be damned,' he sulked. ‘Those fields were burned orf a week ago. Shouldn't be surprised if you've been hidin'the stupid gnome yourself.'

‘Are you calling me a liar?' demanded Stan, his eyes and biceps bulging. ‘Why you great bag o'guts, I'll –'

‘Leave it,' advised his friend with the sideburns. ‘What's the betting Charley took the gnome himself, eh?' He gave Stan a nudge; where the bald man was aggressive, Reg was sly. ‘Wanted a bit o' company at nights, did you, Charley?' he jeered.

‘To hell with the pair of you,' growled Horrocks. He turned on Lois. ‘This beer's orf!' he proclaimed.

Her respite had been brief. The regulars never disagreed for long when they could unite in teasing her. They began to comment on the photographic model in Charley's copy of the
Sun
, but were almost immediately diverted by the entrance of a villager who rarely visited the Flintknappers Arms from one year to the next.

‘Well, if it isn't young Christopher!' said Reg, amused. ‘How are you, boy?'

The newcomer's youth was relative. Christopher Thorold was a solid man in early middle-age. But he had such an aura of shy, clean-shaven innocence that most of his fellow villagers found it impossible to treat him as anything other than a slow-witted adolescent. His greying fair hair stood up in unbrushed tufts. He wore a striped flannel shirt, tieless but buttoned at the neck and wrists despite the heat of the day, and a pair of old grey trousers that had been torn at the knee and mended with large uneven stitches of green thread.

‘N-nicely, thank you,' he replied to Reg's question. He had no speech impediment, but shyness usually brought his first words out in a stammer. He stood uneasily just inside the door of the pub, shuffling his heavy boots and blinking eyelashes that were as thick and pale as a bullock's. ‘Er – 'scuse me, Mrs Goodwin – will you be wanting a load of firewood?'

The other men shouted with laughter. ‘Hottest August for half a century, and he's talkin'about fires!' boomed Charley Horrocks, slapping his meaty thigh.

Christopher Thorold blinked unhappily. ‘I can let you have it a bit cheaper, you see, if you order it now,' he appealed to Lois. He was another self-employed man, buying unusable wood from the Forestry Commission and hawking it from door to door.

‘You'll have to buy a drink now you're here, Chris,' said Reg. ‘Can't come into a pub without. Me an'Stan are drinking pints –'

‘And the same for me,' rumbled Charley.

Lois, who was temperamentally incapable of thinking in terms of profit, glared at the regulars. Recognizing Christopher as a fellow victim, she ordered a load of firewood from him and offered him a drink on the house. He refused; but nervously anxious to do the right thing, he took out his purse and insisted on buying a round.

‘An' don't forget my friend here,' said Stan, pointing to the gnome. ‘He drinks halves.'

Christopher stared, bewildered. ‘I thought that belonged to Beryl Websdell,' he ventured.

Lois had forgotten about it. She went round the counter, picked the gnome up – gingerly, because of its coating of dirt – and put it on the floor at the back of the bar, intending to clean it and return it to its owner. Meanwhile, Stan had seen an opening for some fun at Christopher's expense.

‘How come you know that gnome belongs to Beryl?' he wheezed with mock ferocity.

Alarmed by Stan's aggressiveness, Christopher explained uneasily that he recognized the gnome. He'd often seen it in Beryl's garden when he went to deliver wood.

‘Oh yes? Well, that's now stolen property, that is. Somebody nicked it, and threw it in a ditch. The police have been enquiring about it.'

Christopher's eyelids opened wide for a moment, and then began to blink rapidly over his pale-blue eyes. ‘I didn't know that …'

‘They must have overlooked you, then, because they've been trying to find out who knew that Beryl had a gnome. I reckon you could be just the feller they want to talk to!'

‘Very likely,' agreed Charley, wiping away from his puffy lips the foam from the beer that Christopher had bought him.

‘Definitely,' confirmed Reg. ‘When you come to think about it, Stan, young Chris is the obvious suspect. Goes in an' out of everybody's garden, so he can take whatever he likes. Fancied a little bit o'gnome comfort, did you, Chris boy?'

The hot stale air of the bar thickened with the laughter of the three regulars. Christopher Thorold stood among them like a baited bullock, swinging his head, shifting his feet, and blinking in bewildered alarm.

Pitying him, but thankful that she herself was for once not their victim, Lois slipped away from the bar for a few minutes. She took with her Beryl Websdell's Willum, and put him under the scullery tap.

The dirt came off easily enough. But whether, clean, he was in a fit state to be returned to his owner was a different matter. If Lois herself were in Beryl's position, the mother of a daughter who had disappeared, she felt that she would rather not have her missing garden gnome returned to her with the lower half of its body smashed out of recognition.

For half an hour after they landed, Martin Tait and Alison Quantrill were still flying.

Exhilarated, happily aware that they were on the way to being seriously in love, they hardly touched the ground as they went from the Cessna to the flying club headquarters. Tait relinquished Alison's hand for long enough to buy cold drinks from the bar, and then carried the glasses out to where she sat in the sun. He lowered himself on to the grass beside her, close enough to touch but not touching. Gradually they fell silent.

Mechanics were at work on aircraft in the hangar some distance away but, apart from a student pilot being debriefed by his instructor in the clubroom, and another instructor on duty in the control tower, the hutted premises were deserted. So were the acres of grass airfield. Hot air shimmered above the empty tarmac of the perimeter track. There was aerial activity at various heights – a jet aircraft leaving its silent contrail at 30,000 feet, a club Cessna climbing to 2,000, another puttering round the circuit at 800, a lark singing as it hovered at 20 – but Martin and Alison were conscious only of their immediate surroundings. Their view had contracted to the patch of clover-filled grass where they sat, their hearing was attuned to nothing but each other's breathing.

He gazed at her from behind his sun-glasses, planning an approach that would secure her as a possible future wife without at this stage going to the extent of proposing marriage. Alison didn't look at him at all. She had taken the opportunity to do that while he was preoccupied with the aeroplane, and she knew well enough the sharply intelligent contours of his face and the good shape of his fair head. She had also taken stock of what he was wearing, and she approved of it.

When she first met him, Martin Tait had been a trendy dresser. She recalled with amusement Cuban heels, a pink summer suit with flared trousers, perpetually open-necked shirts, a silver neck chain. He had liked himself so much, in those days, that she had found it difficult to like anything about him.

But promotion to inspector eighteen months ago had encouraged him to alter his appearance and wear formal, well-cut suits and good shoes. His casual clothes, too, had acquired an expensive air. Today he stayed cool in the heat in a blue shirt, white trousers, and shoes that looked like Guccis even if they were not. He had told Alison that he expected promotion to her father's rank by the end of the year, and it was clear that he intended to be the best dressed as well as the youngest detective chief inspector in the county force.

Alison welcomed the improvement in his wardrobe as a sign of maturity. It certainly made him a great deal more attractive. He was, too, far less brash. She liked him, now … was excited by his confidence, his abilities … found him really rather amazing.

But she was cautious. Her father had once said scathingly that Martin Tait seemed to think he was irresistible to women. She had found no difficulty in resisting him two years ago, partly because of instinctive antipathy and partly because, having lived with a lover who had made use of her and then moved on, she had at the time gone off men. She now felt better disposed towards the male sex in general and Martin Tait in particular, but she was in no hurry to embark on a relationship with him or anyone else.

It was undeniable, though, that the sun had shone on her more brightly in these past few weeks. She lifted her face to it, listened to the lark, watched the invisible jet spilling trails of salt across the blue cloth of the sky. ‘Isn't this a brilliant summer?' she said.

‘The best I can remember. Glad you came back to Suffolk?'

‘Of course. In London I was just a secretary at the BBC, and I love working here in local radio as a presenter. A proper career at last. And there was no point in my having a car in London, with all the parking hassle there, but now I've got wheels of my own …'