The Woodcutter (30 page)

He said, ‘What?’

Then he put his hand to his head and smiled and said, ‘Of course. Didn’t I mention the shower facilities?’

‘No, you didn’t,’ she said.

‘Well, no time now, but after breakfast if you still want one, just go out of the door, head towards the estate boundary wall, you’ll meet a beck. Turn left and follow it upstream about twenty yards and beneath a little waterfall you’ll see a pool, just room enough for one. I’ll get you a towel.’

It took a moment to realize he wasn’t joking. She thought of that frost-bound world out there and shuddered.

He took some plates out of the oven where they’d been warming, put the bacon on them, quickly scrambled some eggs in the remaining fat, spooned them alongside the rashers and said, ‘Grub up.’

The plate looked to hold more calories than she usually consumed in a day, but she cleared it without any noticeable difficulty.

He sliced a loaf thickly, impaled one slice on a toasting fork, another on the bread knife and said, ‘Now it really is do-it-yourself time.’

They sat before the fire, toasting bread, spreading it thick with butter and marmalade, then washing it down with coffee.

‘Enough,’ she said after three slices.

‘Eat,’ he commanded. ‘Lunch is a moveable feast at Birkstane.’

She remarked, but didn’t remark upon, the assumption that she’d be staying for lunch.

Their breakfast conversation was desultory in an easy domestic sort of way, touching on how old the house was (500 years, give or take); who had embroidered the Lord’s Prayer sampler hanging on the wall (Great Aunt Carrie); why toast done on an open fire was so much better than under a grill or in a toaster (how could it not be?); but finally she felt it was time to say, ‘So, Wolf, this matter of the money . . .’

‘Not before the dishes are washed,’ he said firmly.

‘This another old Cumbrian custom?’

‘Oh yes. We always washed up before going out to kill the Scots or the Irish. Whichever happened to be invading at the time.’

You can’t have been in a Celticidal mood yesterday, she thought, recalling the sinkful of dirty dishes.

She stood up and went to the sink.

‘Let’s get to it,’ she said. ‘Washing-up liquid?’

‘I seem to be out,’ he said, coming to stand beside her. ‘Look, it’s a bit crowded by this little sink. Why don’t you wander off and check that your car’s survived the night. Sneck, you go with Elf.’

In other circumstances she might have replied that she didn’t mind a bit of crowding. Instead, obediently she slipped on her jacket and set out gingerly across the yard which the frost had turned into a frozen sea.

Sneck, equally obedient, followed her. Whether his function was to watch over or simply watch her, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care to test it by diverting from the direct route along the lonning to her car.

The blankets were still in place, stiff in their folds. She sat in the car and turned the key. The engine started first time and she let it run while she opened the boot. She took out her walking boots. Had it been some kind of vanity that prevented her from changing from her smart trainers when she arrived yesterday? She did a quick self-analysis. A psychiatrist was as susceptible to mixed motives as anyone else, but needed to be a lot clearer about them! No, she decided. Yesterday afternoon the frost had thawed enough for the surface of the lonning to be tacky rather than polished. This morning, however, a bit of substantial ankle support was very much in order. An immobilizing sprain was the last thing she wanted.

Could it be that Hadda had considered the possibility when he suggested she went out to the car?

Now she was really being paranoid!

She was roused from her reverie by Sneck letting out a bark.

After a while she heard what he’d already heard, an approaching car, and a moment later a blue Micra that she’d last seen outside the vicarage came into view.

To her surprise, Sneck advanced to meet it, wagging his tail.

Luke Hollins got out and reached out his open hand to the dog with something on the palm that Sneck removed with surprising gentleness.

‘That’s a pretty convincing demonstration of the power of faith,’ said Alva.

‘Just the power of food, I’m afraid,’ replied Hollins. ‘I always bring a packet of treats with the groceries. No groceries today, but fortunately I remembered to fill my pocket with Sugar Puffs. How about you? What have you done to tame the beast?’

Sneck had returned to Alva’s side and was lying down on the icy ground with his shoulder warm against her leg.

‘Nothing, really. I used to have a dog, when I was a child. Not as wolfish as this one, but pretty crazy. Spot, I called him, but my father said I should have called him Sufficient.’

Hollins looked puzzled and Alva laughed and said, ‘Don’t you do the Bible any more in the modern church?
Sufficient is the evil!
Spot used to terrorize the neighbourhood, dig up the garden and chew the furniture if he was left in the house by himself.’

‘So you’re used to dealing with wild things,’ he said.

He glanced toward the house as he spoke.

She frowned then said lightly, ‘So, if no groceries, what brings you here?’

‘I just wanted to check that everything was OK. I called in at the Dog first thing. They were in a bit of a tizz. Jimmy Frith, that’s the landlord, always likes a glass of ale with his breakfast but when he drew it, it came out foaming.’

‘Isn’t that what ale is meant to do?’

‘No, I mean really foaming. It was the same in all the pumps and when he checked he found someone had got down in the cellar and put washing-up liquid in all the casks.’

Instantly she thought of the noise that had woken her, the spoor on the frost whitened yard, the lack of washing-up liquid in the cottage. Could Hadda have gone down to the village in the night to exact revenge on the pub landlord for his racist rudeness? It didn’t seem likely. Getting into the cellar and doctoring the beer would have required a dexterity quite beyond a man who walked like a wounded bear. But somehow the idea made her feel warm.

Hollins was offering his own much more reasonable explanation:

‘Serves Jimmy right for letting the kids who come in drink more than they should. His nickname’s Jimmy Froth, so as practical jokes go, it was pretty apt!’

He grinned as he spoke, then, as if realizing that the discomfiture of one of his parishioners was not a proper subject for mirth, he overcompensated into a tone of deep concern as he said, ‘Anyway, when I found you hadn’t stayed there, I got really worried and thought I’d better head out here straight away.’

‘Thinking Wolf might have murdered me?’ she said. ‘Well, as you can see, he didn’t.’

‘But you did spend the night here at Birkstane?’ He said it with a casualness more significant than reproach.

‘Yes. His wife . . . his ex-wife showed up while I was waiting for Wolf. We chatted briefly then she went. Wolf seemed to think my presence would deter her from coming back.’

It rang pretty unconvincingly in her own ears but the vicar seemed ready to accept it was reasonable.

He said, ‘So what was his explanation of the money?’

‘He hasn’t offered one yet,’ said Alva. ‘But he has worked out where I got my information from. I was just on my way back to the house for a heart to heart. Why don’t you join us?’

Hollins looked doubtful.

‘Don’t know if that would be a good idea. If he knows it was me who . . .’

But the issue was resolved by a cry of, ‘Is that you, Padre? Didn’t they teach you at your seminary not to keep a lady standing in the cold? Come along to the house, for God’s sake!’

Hadda had appeared at the bottom of the lonning.

He whistled and turned away. Sneck, with an appreciative glance at Hollins, raced after him and was alongside the slow-moving figure in an instant.

‘There you are,’ said Alva. ‘All is forgiven.’

As they walked together down the lonning, Hollins said, ‘So how did you find him?’

Alva said, ‘As my host or as my patient? Not that it matters. Good manners prevent me from commenting on him in the first capacity, and professional ethics in the second. I’m sorry, but as you said in your letter, our concerns here are rather different. I’m very glad however to have you present to hear his explanation about the money. In this case I think that four ears may definitely be better than two.’

Hadda was brewing more coffee when they entered the kitchen. She saw his gaze take in her change of footwear and foolishly felt glad that her boots had the well-worn, well-cared-for look that showed they belonged to a serious walker.

‘Car all right?’ he said.

‘Yes, thanks. I’m glad you suggested the blankets, though. They’re frozen solid.’

‘It was a hard night. I had to break some icicles off the fall this morning else I might have been speared as I showered. How about you, Padre? That vicarage still an ice-box?’

‘The boiler heats the cellar perfectly adequately but then seems to deny the basic law of physics that says heat rises,’ said Hollins.

‘It’s the Church of England’s subtle technique for keeping its priests moral,’ said Hadda. ‘Here we are. Coffee. Sorry, no cream, Padre. My guest polished off the last of your little store last night. By the way, I suggest you keep on feeding my dog whatever it is you’ve got him hooked on, else you’re going to lose your jacket.’

Hollins fed another handful of Sugar Puffs to Sneck, who was sitting alongside him with his nose pressed close to the provender-bearing pocket.

‘Right,’ said Hadda. ‘Now I think it’s time we dealt with the main item on both your agendas, which I take to be, am I complying with the letter and the spirit of my licence, or should I be manacled and fettered and cast back into the deepest oubliette the state can provide? So, if you are sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin.’

15

It was, thought Alva, either a consummate performance or a consummate act.

In her vocabulary the term
performance
was neutral. It did not imply dissimulation or dishonesty. Long jail sentences turn most of those who suffer them into performers in some degree or other. Ultimately, survival in jail can depend on working out what disparate groups of people want and giving it to them. The face a man presents to his fellow prisoners will probably differ from the face he presents to the warders, or his visitors, or the governor, or the parole board.

Or the prison psychiatrist.

But performing is not the same as acting a part. Or it need not be. It can simply mean emphasizing one aspect of personality over others. A performer can be the sum of his performances while an actor is rarely the sum of his parts.

So, performance or act?

It occurred to her that she probably knew more about Wolf Hadda than anyone else in the world. But she also knew that in the mental as in the physical sciences, conventional knowledge could only take you so far; after that you were into quantum theory where none of your carefully tabulated laws applied.

Yet she’d been confident enough of her judgment that he was no longer a threat to recommend his release on licence as powerfully as she’d ever made any recommendation.

Which of course was why she was here now. A question had been raised. If she turned out to have been wrong, the damage to her reputation would be large but survivable. But if some young girl were harmed . . .

So, performance or act? He had certainly started by establishing himself as an almost theatrical presence, taking a position in front of the fireplace, resting most of his weight on his good leg, and looming over them like a soloist on a concert platform. Even Sneck turned from his absorption with the vicar’s pocket to look up attentively as his master started to speak. Alva established her own parameters by interrupting him to take her notebook out of her purse and poising her pencil over it.

Then she smiled at him and nodded permission to continue.

‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ he said. ‘Out of the goodness of my heart, and not because I feel any compulsion to do so, moral or legal, let me give you an account of how I come to have a chestful of banknotes in my bedroom. Or would either of you like to hazard a guess?’

He paused expectantly.

The vicar looked uncomfortable, Alva’s pencil scrawled shorthand hieroglyphics across her notepad. What she wrote was,
How rarely people who say they are coming straight to the point do! Now he’ll answer his own question.

‘Come on! Don’t be shy,’ said Hadda. ‘I bet the proceeds of some old fraud was top of your list. Some account I’d cleverly concealed from the Fraud Squad. Or a pay-off from some of my confederates for keeping my mouth shut. Or maybe I robbed a bank. The police are looking for a man with a badly scarred face, a marked limp, and a vicious-looking dog. There are no suspects.’

Another pause. Another silence. Alva made a note.

‘Oh, all right,’ he said, affecting disappointment. ‘I’ll put you out of your misery. I inherited the money. There! You look surprised, Padre. Or should I rather say incredulous? And you, Alva, have that look of concerned neutrality, if that’s not a contradiction, that I know so well. OK. Here are the facts. Way back in the dark ages when I returned from my quest for self-improvement and claimed my bride, I told my father that I wanted him to have a share in my new and ever-increasing affluence. Fred, in any circumstances, would have found it hard to feel beholden, even to his own flesh and blood. In the circumstance that he was seriously pissed off with me about my choice of bride, he said he wanted no part of my money. He told me I should keep it, and where, in a very precise anatomical way.’

His lips faked a smile but it didn’t get beyond his mouth as he turned to the stone mantel shelf where he’d placed his coffee mug. He raised the mug, but Alva could tell he wasn’t drinking.

Then he turned back to them and continued briskly, ‘Yes, he was a cussed old sod. Some folk reckon I take after him, though I can’t see it myself. But I do admit I can be a bit cussed too on occasion, so I simply arranged for a thousand quid a month to be paid into his bank account. It was his to do with what he wanted. I was very willing to make it a lot more if necessary and I kept an eye on him, but he never showed any sign of being strapped for cash, and I knew that to mention money would just get us into a row, so for all the years of my prosperity, Fred was getting his monthly thousand. And what was he doing with it, do you think?’