The Blackwoods Farm Enquiry (An Ivy Beasley Mystery) (2 page)

GUS HALFHI
DE AWOKE
next morning from a dream in which Miriam Blake, his predatory neighbour in Hangman’s Row, had come to him in the middle of the night and offered him her lottery win of two million pounds if he would take her, clad in purest white, to the altar in Barrington Church.

He staggered out of bed, dislodging his whippet, Whippy, and went downstairs to make a bracing cup of tea. Still in his pyjamas, the lack of buttons exposing his manly chest, he was about to retreat when a tap at his back door revealed Miriam, chiding him for getting up late, and reminding him of this morning’s plan.

“Have you forgotten, Gus?” she said, with a long-suffering smile. “We were going to have a look at the Manor this morning. It’s up for sale again, and I made an appointment with the agents for us to view.”

Gus did not remember being included in this appointment, but agreed to meet her in half an hour’s time outside in the Row. A couple of minutes later, he remembered that the Manor was a few hundred yards past the farm belonging to their latest client, Mrs. Blatch. He was not entirely convinced that there was a case to be investigated there. A middle-aged woman in her circumstances could well be suffering from all kinds of delusions. Nevertheless, he told himself, it would be useful to have a look at the house, and perhaps even see her working in her garden.

“Do they allow dogs to view the Manor?” Miriam asked sharply, as he came out to greet her.

“Of course they do. The Manor’s empty, nobody living there, and, anyway, Whippy is fully housetrained.”

“Mm, well, I suppose it will be all right. I was thinking of all those posh improvements the last people did. New parquet floors, and fresh paint everywhere.”

“Odd that, wasn’t it? I don’t think they ever moved in, did they?”

Miriam, of course, knew the whole story. A couple had planned to live there, but the new wife had run off with another, and there was a divorce. “I call that really sad, don’t you, Gus?” she said.

“Well, it happens,” said Gus, unwilling to venture into another rerun of conversations he had had before with Miriam. He was a divorced man himself, and she was determined he should give matrimony another try.

They set off down the lane, and Whippy strained at the lead as they passed through a tunnel of trees. There were woods on either side for a quarter of a mile, and when they emerged in sight of Mrs. Winchen Blatch’s house, Gus slowed down.

“Shall we dawdle here?” he said. “I am curious to know more about Mrs. Blatch. I heard her being discussed in the village shop yesterday. Seems she’s a bit of a recluse?”

Miriam nodded. “Let’s sit on that stile over there, and I’ll tell you what I know. The Blatches were a farming family, and Ted Blatch used to climb over this stile to get to his herd of Jersey cows. Quite well known at the local agricultural shows, apparently. A handsome man in his youth. Won prizes for his cattle. His wife was left alone after he died, them having had no children. Most of the farmland was sold, and she stayed in the house. Had a sad love affair with a much younger man, so it’s said, and that came to a sticky end.”

Miriam could be relied on to supply such useful information, her own family having lived in the village for generations. Her father and grandfather had worked for the Roussels up at the Hall, and Miriam was said to have supplied certain services to the present squire.

“What do you mean, ‘sticky end’?” Gus said.

“It was her lodger. They went out and about together a lot. I think they even talked to the vicar about dates, an’ that. But the village noticed they hadn’t seen him lately.”

“Sad story,” said Gus. “I expect she’s a bit weird now, after shutting herself off for so long. Gets a bit mixed up in her memory, does she?”

“Goodness knows! I haven’t spoken to her for years. I don’t think she’d be of much interest to you, Augustus Halfhide!”

Gus did not answer. He now had a much clearer picture of Mrs. Blatch, and he changed the subject to the impending sale of the Manor House. “Looks like the estate agent is here already,” he said. “Come on, then, let’s go and have a look round.”

The agent took one look at Gus, tall, shabby and austere looking, and Miriam, small, perky and undistinguished, and decided they were not worth much of his precious time. But then, he reflected, you couldn’t always tell. Sometimes the shabby ones had money stashed away somewhere, whilst the ostensibly wealthy viewers who arrived in smart cars were deeply in debt and with nothing to sell.

After a quick tour round the ground floor and a cursory look at the many bedrooms on the two upper floors, Gus said that it had all been very interesting. But with the present owner having been determined to erase all traces of previous historical features, it would not be the house for him.

“Oh, I think it’s lovely, Gus,” trilled Miriam.

“Then I hope you’ve got the necessary loot hidden away somewhere,” he answered, saying he must be off, as he had work to do.

• • •

THE AGENT GAVE
them a barely polite good-bye, and then turned to look out for his next client, who was late. He had sounded keen on the phone, saying he was looking for a large house, with plenty of bedrooms, to set up a study centre. He hadn’t said what his students would be studying, but that was of no concern to the agent. All he wanted was to make a sale. The old house, with its extensive grounds, stabling and servants’ attic accommodation, had been on the market for some time and was something of a white elephant.

A large, shiny car pulled up in front of him, and a cheerful, round red face looked out.

“Hi, there! Good morning to you. Sorry I’m late. Traffic jams as usual. Still, you’re here and I have plenty of time. Come on, Stephanie, let’s do an inspection.” This last was addressed to an attractive girl sitting next to him, introduced as his daughter.

Meanwhile, Gus and Miriam walked back into the village in a chilly silence. As far as Gus was concerned, it had been a waste of time, but Miriam could see herself as lady of the Manor, with children and their ponies, and she and Gus at the head of the family table.

• • •

“WHAT DID THAT
cheery man say about his study centre?” Ivy asked Gus. He had given Ivy, Roy and Deirdre a short report on Miriam’s revelations about Mrs. Blatch, and on their visit to the Manor House, and now he sat with his feet up on the small table in Springfield’s summerhouse.

“That’s all he said. Needed a big house et cetera for a study centre. Or so Miriam said. She was, as usual, eavesdropping when she went back to find a handkerchief she’d supposedly dropped.”

“Sounds fishy to me,” said Deirdre, sitting well out of the bright sun. Good weather was forecast to last for another week or so, and she was tired of skulking in shady corners.

“Our Miriam was quite excited, but I thought it best to keep mum in case she signed me up for something.”

“Very wise,” Ivy said. “Miriam Blake must be taken with a pinch of salt. If you ask me, I think the whole place should be knocked down, and a nice little development of affordable houses put up there instead.”

This effectively halted the conversation for a minute or two, and then Gus returned to the fray. “It’s a strange old place, that Manor House,” he said. “I suppose the planning people have had their say. But inside, it’s as if it was newly built. Quite a shock, actually, with its bleached wood and cheap brassy fixtures everywhere. There’s even a telly let into the wall! In my opinion, the man who did all of that should be held in a secure place where he can’t do any more mischief.”

Deirdre laughed, and said she was thinking of having one of those giant telly screens fixed in her house. “Anyway, I must be off,” she added. “Good hairstylists are scarce, so I don’t want to offend mine.”

“In my day,” said Ivy primly, “the shopkeeper’s wife used to cut our hair with blunt scissors from her kitchen drawer. Three shillings, she charged, and sixpence extra for a cup of stewed tea.”

SEVERAL WEEKS LATER,
Katya, now with a decidedly rounded stomach, came into the breakfast room at Springfields, and approached Ivy and Roy with a big smile. “We saw people yesterday up at the Manor House with huge removal vans and big boxes—what do you call them? Full of all kinds of things.”

“Tea chests, we call them,” said Ivy. “I suppose they originally held tea, but now are used for packing crockery and glass, and all that stuff.” Ivy, usually short on patience, had always been very kind and gentle with Katya, who had arrived at Springfields as a young girl with only a smattering of English.

In spite of a willingness to take on the Blatch case, Enquire Within had met with a sudden change of heart from Mrs. Eleanor Blatch. She had cancelled the investigation, leaving them to think of nothing very much but the new lease of life for the Manor House. Villagers had monitored several weeks of builders, electricians and decorators working at the Manor House, and Gus reported that Miriam had said she couldn’t imagine what they were doing, as she remembered it as being already perfect.

James at the shop had been able to answer that one. “He’s converting the outbuildings into self-contained flatlets. The place will accommodate around fifteen or twenty students by the time it’s finished,” he had said to Gus.

Now Ivy shrugged. She had eaten an extra piece of toast this morning, and asked for fresh tea to wash it down. “So I suppose the village will be swamped with foreigners wanting to learn English? Still, I suppose it will be good for the shop. I hope James has got in a good supply of notebooks and pencils.”

Katya laughed. “Don’t forget I am a foreigner, trying to learn English,” she reminded them. “And nowadays, students have iPads and electronic notebooks.”

“I think you have lost us there,” said Roy. “What else have you heard?”

“Well, having new people in the Manor House seems to have given Mrs. Blatch a new lease of life. She has been seen looking quite clean and tidy, working in her front garden, where she gets a good view of the Manor.”

Katya returned to the kitchen, and Roy and Ivy were quiet for a minute or two. Then Ivy cleared her throat. “Um, Roy,” she said. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh dear,” said Roy, with mock concern. “What has my beloved cooked up for us now?”

“Nothing for you, or Deirdre or Gus. This would be for me. I have decided that when the Manor House study centre gets going, I am going to take a course. I shan’t need to stay overnight, as it is near enough for me to attend lectures and so on daily. Although I had an excellent education at my village school in Round Ringford, I do sometimes feel the need for some kind of further studies.”

“Ivy! This is really out of the question! You have quite enough to do with planning our wedding, and Enquire Within, and, anyway, I can’t see Mrs. Spurling agreeing to it. No, don’t you think you might take up tapestry work instead? Or watercolour painting with that artist woman who comes here on Fridays?”

Ivy shook her head vigorously. “I mean real education,” she said.

“Such as what, dearest?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I shall decide when they put out their prospectus. As for Mrs. Spurling, she can only threaten me with expulsion, and there aren’t that many queuing up to pay exorbitant fees to be cared for in this place. Our wedding, of course, takes precedence over everything else, but all the plans were made previously, and will be perfectly fine for our next date.”

“Oh dear,” repeated Roy. “As my late mother used to say, I don’t know, I’m sure.”

• • •

DEIRDRE AND GUS,
arriving for a meeting of Enquire Within, found Ivy and Roy in the lounge, sitting by an open window, with long faces and clearly not speaking.

“Hi, you two!” said Deirdre, pulling up a chair and sitting between them. “What’s happened? Is Tiddles missing again?”

Ivy’s cat had a habit of vanishing for days on end, and then appearing with a dead, mouldering rat in its mouth.

Roy shook his head. He turned to Gus, who was still standing, nonplussed. “Good day, lad,” he said. “Do sit down. It’s very pleasantly cool today, and I saw starlings doing their amazing swooping flight out of my window this morning. Autumnal sight, do you think?”

Ivy took a deep breath. “Don’t talk such rubbish, Roy,” she said. “It’s nearly autumn. Now, who’s going to take the chair?”

“Shouldn’t we go up to your room, Ivy? The lounge seems full of curious old parties today.” Deirdre was a volunteer worker for social services, and often visited elderly disabled people in their homes. But in Springfields, the atmosphere was different. She always felt like an interloper, here under false pretences.

“Oh, very well,” said Ivy, pushing herself up from her chair. “Come along, Roy, here’s your stick.”

• • •

WHEN THEY WERE
all comfortable, Deirdre said she would take the chair for once, and begin with the first item on the agenda, what on earth was the matter with Ivy and Roy? They couldn’t possibly discuss anything until that was settled.

Ivy looked at Roy. He nodded wearily. “Right,” she said. “It is not a matter of huge importance, and really it’s something to do with only me and Roy. But as you put it, Deirdre, we need to settle it. As you know, the Manor House will be a study centre, and I have decided to take up a course. On what, I don’t know yet. When the prospectus is printed, I shall select something that interests me. I shall be a day student, obviously.”

“And the problem?” said Gus.

“Roy does not approve,” said Ivy baldly. She sat back in her chair and sniffed. “Now, Roy’s side of the question, please.”

But Roy shook his head. “I don’t know what to think,” he said. “I need help,” he added, with the ghost of a smile. “I have always said that my Ivy is full of surprises, and I suppose this is the latest.”

Deirdre took advantage of Roy’s smile, and asked when Ivy was thinking of taking this big step.

Gus now chipped in with a sensible suggestion. “Terms for this sort of thing usually start in the autumn, don’t they? That would really clash with your wedding, Ivy. Unless you’re thinking of postponing it again?”

Red rags to bulls were nothing to the fierce reaction launched by Ivy. The colour rose in her usually pale face, and she said loudly that she had in no way been responsible for challenges to their banns, or accidents involving combine harvesters. She was quite ready, and, indeed, looking forward to their wedding day and honeymoon, and intended to see what the Manor House college suggested.

“If it means breaking off studies for two or three weeks, then so be it. Does that answer your question, Augustus?”

Gus, completely flattened, did not reply, but turned hopefully to Deirdre, who smiled consolingly at him. “I think you’ll find that these places do short courses all the year round, so you’ll be able to pick and choose, Ivy. I think it’s a nice idea. I might come along with you, just for fun,” she said.

“So what about Enquire Within?” said Gus, finding his voice. “Do we go into abeyance, or continue to work together?”

“Of course we shall continue. And we can do that right now, if Deirdre will get us on to item two on the agenda,” said Ivy.

Roy was quiet, digesting what Ivy had said. The discussion had changed his view somewhat, and he could now see that her plan was more in the nature of a hobby than a full-blown degree course. It could be quite enjoyable, and he now fully intended to support her, recognising that she wanted to do this alone. Something to do with being tied into a couple with him? Women! Perhaps he should have a chat with Gus privately. Although divorced, the lad had always had considerable insight into the workings of the female mind. But now, he told himself, we must put it to one side and get back to business.

“Where are we at with Mrs. Blatch?” asked Gus. “She cancelled our investigation, I know, but rumour hath it that strange lights have been seen there in the middle of the night. Has she shown any further anxiety about the mystery of her night visitor? There’s been a lull in activity, what with Deirdre’s holidays and Springfields outings. Do you think some sort of contact would be a good idea?”

“Funnily enough,” said Deirdre, “I have been asked to visit. I have met her once or twice, and she asked me in to see her improvements. Nice lady, I reckon. Apparently she went into the office the other day, and asked for help with grants. She wants to do up her house, but can’t afford it. So they said. Anyway, I said I’d look in again, as I sort of know her, and make a report.”

“Excellent!” said Roy, relieved that the air had cleared at last. “So you can tell us next week how you got on. She might well mention her earlier dealings with us.”

“We really need something more challenging,” Ivy said. “Mrs. Blatch has probably forgotten all about her phantom lover.”

“Something will come up,” said Deirdre comfortably. “It always does.”

• • •

LATER THAT NIGHT,
in the dark, silent house belonging to Mrs. Winchen Blatch, she sat up in bed suddenly, sweating with fear. The same shadow was materialising into a distinct shape. Ted! She held the bedclothes up against her chest, and waited for him to speak.

“Eleanor, my angel,” he said. “You are looking as beautiful as ever. I have come for you, as promised. Come to me, my love, it is time to leave.”

At this point, Eleanor Blatch made a near fatal move. She lowered the bedclothes, still half asleep, and began to laugh. “For God’s sake, Ted!” she said. “You sound like a really bad B movie! Time to leave, indeed! It’s time you left, right now. You’ve been gone these twenty-five years. And don’t come back.”

Through the darkness of sleep she saw a man in a dark overcoat move menacingly towards her. Sitting up sharply, she put up her arm to defend herself, but failed, falling heavily to the floor and catching her head on the metal frame of the bed. As she began to lose consciousness, she thought she saw Ted, waiting with arms outstretched.