Murder at the Maples: A Flora Lively Mystery (12 page)

‘Are you sure he’s not just cramping your style and now you want shot of him?’ said Joy with laser-like perception.

Flora put on a hurt face. ‘Can I remind you that I never wanted him in the first place, but I took him in out of the kindness of my heart after you
lied
and pretended you’d had a fall? Anyway, you’re looking after him for the rest of the morning whether you like it or not. But first, we need to have a serious talk.’

Joy and Otto turned their faces up to Flora: one with bug eyes and a dopey expression, the other panting and wagging its stubby tail.

They made a lovely pair.

‘Right,’ said Flora, settling herself down in the armchair opposite, ‘I need to know everything. And I mean everything. If you want me to take you seriously, you’re going to have to start at the beginning and leave nothing out. Warts and all, Joy. I’m ready.’

Chapter 8

The Grange was a beautiful old building. It had been some kind of manor house before they turned it into a boarding school. I think there was something like twenty acres of grounds, and we were pretty much free to explore them as we liked. Parts were out of bounds, of course, but that didn’t stop us.’

Joy took a sip of the sugary tea Flora had made. Her voice was quiet, her expression blank. Otto was asleep in his basket, making the most of being back home.

Flora listened, letting Joy tell her story in her own way. She’d said to start at the beginning, but a weight sat on her chest. Joy’s words still rebounded in her head:
I killed his dog, okay? I killed his only friend and companion
. Half of her wanted to know the truth, but the other half didn’t want to be hearing any of this at all. This sweet old lady, infuriating at times but stoical and mischievous and gentle – surely she wasn’t capable of hurting a dog?

When Joy got to the part about the Joan of Arc club, and how the girls were whipped up into a state of man-hating by their embittered teacher, Flora relaxed a little. She’d heard all this before: she got a buzz out of the rebellious teacher and her loyal troupe. But then Joy started talking about the caretaker’s son and Flora pricked up her ears.

‘He was such a sweet boy, Aubrey. Ginger hair and freckles, quite the innocent, and not into typical boy things like fishing or football. Aubrey loved books, although he said him and his dad didn’t own any, so I would sneak him stories out of the library. And we talked. He told me that his mum had left his dad and run off with an American soldier. He said his dad was a lot older than his mum, some kind of scientist, but that he had a breakdown and was really ill and he had bad moods.’

Flora nodded. ‘He was probably depressed. It must have been hard on him, and on Aubrey.’

‘It was. That the only job his dad could get was in a girls’ school can’t have helped much. But Aubrey lived in a kind of fantasy world, I think. He didn’t attend any lessons, although his dad had been offered a tutor for him. He escaped into his stories, and I was his only friend at the Grange.’ Joy paused and swallowed. ‘Me, and Jack.’

‘Jack was his dog?’ Flora’s heart was beating so loudly it was the only sound she could hear above Joy’s voice.

‘A golden retriever. Beautiful beast he was. The kind of face on a dog that always looks like it’s smiling.’ Joy stopped again. Flora sipped her coffee, waiting.

‘So you and Aubrey were friends?’ she prompted after three full minutes had passed.

‘Yes.’ Joy jumped a little, roused from her thoughts. ‘Although of course I had to keep it a secret from the others. Dizzy was the worst of them – Frances and Melody just went along with whatever she said. They were like the sun to me, Flora.’ She looked up, her eyes pleading. ‘You have to understand. All I wanted to do was belong.’

‘I do understand, Joy. I promise I do.’ Flora smiled reassuringly. ‘Go on. What happened next? Was it something to do with the club?’

Joy nodded slowly. ‘There were all sorts of loyalty tests that Dizzy thought up. Melody said Dizzy made her drink a pint of whisky, but I’m not sure that was true. And Frances had to steal the head teacher’s umbrella right out of her study. She did it, too. She was crazy, was Frances. Anything for a dare.’ Joy smiled briefly, before becoming grim again. ‘But my test was much, much worse.’

Flora said nothing. Joy’s breathing was becoming laboured; her right hand scratched at her neck. She let out a shuddering sigh and carried on.

‘There was a tree in the grounds where we used to meet. We were the Joan of Arc club, we prized strong women above all else, so Dizzy christened it the Venus Tree. Venus, she said, was the ultimate woman – Goddess of love, beauty, sex and fertility. Men were considered weaker because they couldn’t produce children.’

‘They do kind of have something to do with it.’

‘Well, obviously.’ Joy rolled her eyes. ‘Miss Lester loved Greek and Roman mythology, said the roots of all fiction could be found in the ancient myths and legends. So we learned all about Venus, and her son, Cupid. The baby with the arrow, Miss Lester called him. Concerned only with love, whereas women were strong and had more than just love to occupy them.’

‘So, this tree?’ said Flora, fearing Joy was going off at a tangent.

‘The Venus Tree was this amazing oak in the centre of the woods. Ancient, it was. Huge. We weren’t supposed to go in the woods – there were old mine shafts and it was dangerous.’

‘But you did.’

‘Of course. As soon as Dizzy saw this tree she made it the unofficial home of the Joan of Arc club. She said she could see the body of Venus in the tree’s bark, that the branches were her arms reaching out to us.’ Joy coughed, made a brushing motion with her hands. ‘All nonsense, of course. But we were very impressionable, and Miss Lester had filled our heads with tales of revolt and revolution. The whole Joan of Arc thing was based around it.’

‘I had wondered about that. It doesn’t seem a very patriotic name for a club, considering what was happening in England at the time.’

‘Miss Lester told us how diabolically Joan of Arc – or Jeanette, as she was really called – had been treated by the English. It was more to do with her being a woman than a great general, she said. A man who fought so hard would have been an enemy, of course, but he wouldn’t have been so feared. So reviled. They couldn’t cope with the fact that she was a woman, a girl, and yet was stronger and more powerful than any man.’

‘Or that her armies killed thousands of English soldiers, presumably.’

‘Well, that too. But Miss Lester only saw things through her own personal lens.’

Don’t we all, thought Flora. She said, ‘So your Miss Lester saw men as the enemy.’

Joy nodded. ‘You have to appreciate this, Flora, to understand what happened next.’

Flora said she did. She sipped her cooling coffee and told Joy to carry on with her story.

‘We built a kind of tree house in the lower branches of the Venus Tree – some of them were so thick you could sit two people side by side across the width. We snuck rugs out of the school, and we made a rope ladder so it was easier to climb up. There was an old wooden swing hanging off one of the branches so we knew we weren’t the first girls to use the tree. Dizzy would sit up there and tell us stories about pupils who’d come before us and all the wonderful adventures they’d had. She made it all up of course, but she told a great story. Very atmospheric. I had some wonderful times in that tree. It helped me forget everything else. My mum and dad. The horrible eczema and the itching and the pain, and the teasing from the other girls up at the school. The thought of not belonging anymore was too much to bear.’

Now we’re getting to it, thought Flora. ‘She sounds like one of those magnetic types. Someone who can get other people to do anything.’

‘She was.’

‘What was it she wanted you to do?’

Joy took a shaky breath, ragged on the exhale. ‘Aubrey was always asking if he could come to the tree with me. He wanted to listen to Dizzy’s stories too. So I did a terrible thing – I showed him where it was. And one day he turned up during one of our meetings. I didn’t even know he was there until we were about to go back to lessons. Frances lowered the ladder and climbed down first – she must have nearly stepped on his head. I think he’d fallen asleep, otherwise he’d surely have realised we were about to come down. Anyway, before we knew anything about it, Frances was screaming and Dizzy was sliding down the ladder and there was Aubrey, running away across the grass, Jack bounding behind him.

‘There was no mistaking who it was. There weren’t any other boys – or dogs – at the Grange. Dizzy and the girls guessed right away that I’d shown him our special place, and I was in so much trouble.’ Joy’s eyes clouded over. ‘They didn’t talk to me for weeks. Even Miss Lester noticed. It was horrible.’

Flora reached for a tissue from the box on the dresser and handed it over.

‘It must seem silly to you, an old lady crying over what a few spiteful girls did years and years ago,’ sniffed Joy, wiping her eyes.

‘No, it doesn’t. Kids can be hurtful, girls especially so.’ Why, she could tell Joy plenty of stories about her own school days. Once Flora’s school mates found out she was adopted they had teased her mercilessly. One girl even made up an entire family, claiming to know for a fact that they were Flora’s real parents, and that they had abandoned her because they were rich and clever and she was the runt of the family, too small and useless to fit in.

Oh no, Flora didn’t need to be told about spiteful schoolgirls.

‘So, anyway,’ Joy said, sitting back and squaring her shoulders as if for battle, ‘it came to a head three weeks before the end of term. We were all going home that summer, the war was well and truly over and our families wanted us back. I thought I would just die if no one talked to me, I was desperate to be accepted again. So when Dizzy came up with her plan, I felt I had no choice but to go along with it.’

Joy was far away now, in another place and time. When she spoke again, her voice was almost childlike. ‘Dizzy said I had to invite Aubrey to come along to the Venus Tree. She said to tell him he could come and listen to her stories with us. He’d be pleased, I told her. He was a nice boy, not like the men Miss Lester talked about. Dizzy just grinned at me. They would make him a nice surprise, she said. There was a mine shaft near the tree, we’d known about it since the day we made our den, and we would all work together to pull the wooden boards off the top. Then we’d cover it with branches and leaves, and mark it so only we would know where it was.

‘I went and found Aubrey. He was in the vegetable garden with his dad. He came when I called him and his dad smiled. He was happy that day – his dad was in a good mood. He asked if Jack could come. I said yes, if he liked. I didn’t tell him anything else. He followed me into the woods and out into the clearing. I made sure we approached the tree from the right direction. The others were there already, Frances and Melody leaning against the trunk, Dizzy sitting on the wooden swing. She had this bright blonde hair, I can remember it so clearly. The sun was behind her and her hair was almost glowing. She looked like Venus herself. Aubrey couldn’t take his eyes off her. He couldn’t believe he was actually being allowed to join in. I wasn’t thinking, not really. I suppose I knew what was about to happen but I’d blocked it from my mind. I was doing what Dizzy told me. It was like a joke, just like the whisky and the umbrella. A test I had to pass. So I did what I’d been told to do. As we reached the hole I stopped and bent to tie my lace. Just like we’d planned. Aubrey and Jack walked on.’

Joy stopped. Flora was hardly breathing.

‘And then?’ Flora whispered. ‘What happened then?’

Joy looked away, her face twisted with remorse. ‘They fell in, of course. Dizzy never failed in anything she did. Her plan worked perfectly. The dog went in first, he’d been pulling ahead on his lead. And then Aubrey went in straight after him.

‘I heard the dog yelp – it was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Aubrey must have landed on top of it. Hopefully it died instantly.’

Flora noticed how Joy had moved from
him
to
it
, trying to depersonalise the dog, distance herself. She couldn’t say she blamed her. But there was still more she needed to know. Although Joy was clearly wrung out, Flora couldn’t let it go just yet.

‘What happened to Aubrey, Joy? Did you help get him out of the shaft?’

He couldn’t have died, not if Joy believed Aubrey and Mr Felix were one and the same. That was something, at least.

‘That was the worst of it, perhaps,’ Joy said, not meeting Flora’s eyes.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know.’ Joy turned her face to the light, her powdery cheeks streaked with tears. ‘I never saw him again. Nobody did. We ran, Flora. Frances, Melody and me. Even Dizzy ran. We ran away from the Venus Tree and we never went back. Even though we could hear him calling and crying all the way back to the school. We never went back.’

***

Flora walked across town, heading for Shakers, trying to process her thoughts. Try as she might, she could not get them straight in her head. Images competed for attention: Otto pulling on his lead as she walked along the riverside; Mr Felix sitting on the ground beside his overturned scooter; a teenage Joy, climbing up a rope ladder to hero-worship an enigmatic girl, desperate for approval, no matter what. And the caretaker’s son, walking across a clearing, his faithful dog forging ahead, pulling like Otto, and then plunging down through sticks and leaves, down to the depths of an abandoned mine shaft, dragging its owner behind it. What a horrendous way to go. To be crushed by the one you loved the most.

Another image, hauntingly poignant: a young boy, frightened and alone, sitting at the bottom of the shaft with his dead dog. No one answering his calls.

But he had gotten out, Joy was sure of that. She’d told Flora that the caretaker had left the school the next day. And there was no search, no fuss at all. So someone must have heard his cries and pulled him out. Him and his beloved pet.

‘Did you get into trouble?’ Flora had asked, but Joy shook her head.