Tragedy at Two (8 page)

Lois shivered. The sight of Cowgill’s calm, confident face smashed into a pulp flashed in front of her eyes, and she gulped. “Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s be friends, if only for Josie’s sake.”

“What’s for my sake?” Josie said, returning with the letter and its copy.

“Everything we can possibly do to help,” Cowgill said smoothly.

“Could we talk about the gypsies?” Lois said. “If all these anonymous notes are blaming that lot camped in Alf Smith’s wood, I suppose you’re going to do something about it?”

“Of course we must, Lois,” he said. “But if you could give us any help on that, we’d be most grateful. Perhaps drop in and see Athalia Lee again? She’s a good soul, and nothing that goes on in their encampment escapes her notice.”

“What d’you mean, go and see her
again
?” Lois snapped.

Cowgill answered obliquely, annoying Lois even more. “I am good at my job, Lois, just as you are at yours. Now, I must be going.” He turned to Josie. “I’ll do my best to keep you up to date with how we are proceeding,” he said. “And any help you can give your mother will also be most welcome.”

He negotiated the narrow stairs with admirable agility, and was gone almost immediately.

“He’s quite nice really, Mum,” Josie said thoughtlessly.

ATHALIA LEE WAS WASHING CLOTHES IN A TUB OF RAINWATER at the back of her caravan. She was happiest without four walls around her, and along with the others preferred to sit outside round a fire, eating and drinking and telling stories. Skinning rabbits, plucking chickens, chopping vegetables, all were best done outside in the open air and the sun, or in the bender tent when it rained. She stuck to the old ways of housekeeping, washing and rinsing her clothes in rainwater collected for the purpose, never using tap water to wash the children’s hair, or her own, and loving the silky shine of it when it dried in the sun. Not that there was any alternative in the old days, or even now. They had no available tap water, except on designated sites, which were much disliked by many true gypsies. Running streams and springs were good water, and the traditional camping places located accordingly.

Lois rounded the corner of the caravan and smiled. It was like a painting. Athalia with her hair screwed into a knot at the back of her head, her brown arms bare in the task of washing, scrubbing and squeezing. Her long skirt was splashed with water, and her old shoes muddy from the ground around the tub. Her eyes were bright when she saw Lois.

“So you come back, did ya? That’s the girl. Come and help me lay out these clothes to dry and then we’ll have a cup of tea. You liked my tea, I recall.”

The clothes were spread out on bushes round the camp, and then Athalia and Lois sat in rickety chairs on the scrubby grass outside the caravan, holding mugs of steaming tea.

Lois was painfully aware of suspicious eyes on her from the gypsies who passed. A small group of children stood and stared, unashamed. Athalia clapped her hands and said something in their own language, and they flew away like startled sparrows.

“So you come to ask me some questions,” Athalia said comfortably. “I reckon you didn’t want my recipe for stew. It was your daughter’s man who was killed, wasn’t it.” These were statements, not questions, and Lois nodded. This was a woman after her own heart. Straight to the point and no messing about.

“You know what they’re saying in the village, then,” she said, looking Athalia in the eye. “Them as don’t like gypsies are blaming one of your lot. Meself, I’m not so sure. But I do know that nobody in Farnden is going to speak up for you if it comes out that it could’ve been one of your men.”

“So why are
you
any different?”

“I’m not interested in whether the bloke what killed Rob was black, white or rainbow coloured. Nor whether he was a yobbo, an Irish traveller or a gypsy. All I want to know, and pretty damn quickly, is what coward attacked a man on a dark, lonely road for no reason.”

“Might not have been a he,” Athalia said, shooing away a skinny cat twining around her ankles. “Could’ve been a woman. An’ there must’ve been a reason.”

Lois stared at her. She’d not once thought of a woman. “Have to have been a strong woman,” she said.

“Like yerself,” said Athalia. She watched Lois’s face and burst out into throaty laughter. “We get to be canny, Lois Meade,” she said. “We been on the run for generations. No good believin’ anybody. Go on, then,” she added, “ask me a question.”

Lois settled back in her chair, which lurched violently to one side. She had trouble righting it, and could not help smiling at the giggling children who were back on watch.

“How much do you know about this whole nasty business?” she asked, finally upright. “Any of your number got reason to have a go at Rob? What about those two working for Thornbulls? My Derek was in the pub when they came in asking for work, and he said they weren’t exactly welcomed.”

Athalia answered the questions with one of her own. “Who’s that Sam Stratford? He don’t live in Farnden, do he. Is he a friend of your man?”

“All the men in the pub are mates, more or less,” Lois replied. “Except the vicar, maybe. He’s a bit out of kilter in there, bless him, with his half a shandy and a packet of plain crisps.”

Athalia laughed again. “At least we don’t go a-l ookin’ for recruits,” she said. “It ain’t easy to get to be a gypsy, y’ know. Very particular, we are. Some of us are Christians, o’ course. But not his churchy kind.”

“So they told you about the pub, did they, those two?”

“O’ course. We know everything that goes on, Mrs. Meade. We have to. Now, don’t look round, but there’s a couple of our men as you must steer clear of. No good sending a posse of villagers down here to tackle them! Leave ’em well alone. Ask your Derek, an’ he’ll tell you I’m saying the truth.”

“Derek?” said Lois. “But why . . .” At this moment the two men who had threatened Derek walked round the end of the caravans, the bull terrier tugging at the old rope restraining it. They stopped suddenly and muttered to each other, staring at Lois. The dog started towards her, and they pulled it back, wrenching its thick neck, which clearly felt nothing. Its growl was like something out of a horror movie. Athalia shouted sharply at the men, and they turned off in a different direction, calling back to her in angry words that Lois did not understand.

“Better be off now, Mrs. Meade,” the gypsy woman said. “I reckon you got the answers to your questions. Come again, then, gel. And don’t be scared of them two. People in this camp do what I tell ’em. You’ll be all right. But I can’t say as much for any others who come.”

“Is that a gypsy’s warning?” said Lois, getting to her feet. Athalia emptied the tea leaves on the ground and chuckled.

“You’ll do,” she said.

THERE’S A QUIZ TONIGHT AT THE PUB,” DEREK SAID. HE hesitated, not sure how to put what he was about to say.

“And you’ve got a vacancy on your team,” said Lois flatly.

“Yep,” he replied, relieved that she understood at once. “We shall miss our Rob. He was good on general knowledge, an’ he knew quite a bit about art an’ that.”

“Well if you’re going to ask me to take his place, you’ve got the wrong one! My general knowledge ain’t good, and what I know about art an’ that would fit on the back of a postage stamp.”

Gran laughed. The three were standing by the kitchen window, watching the little dog Jeems chasing a chicken that had strayed into the garden from the neighbouring farm.

“Up she goes!” Lois said, as the chicken finally remembered it had wings and could get off the ground enough to clear the fence and escape into the field.

Gran went back to a saucepan bubbling on the Rayburn. “What about Sam’s son for the team?” she said. “He’s moved back to Waltonby with his wife, so Sheila’s got all the family around her! Always was the mother hen type. Strong person, though. Didn’t the son go off to university, Lois? Should be knowledgeable on all sorts of things.”

Sheila Stratford, Sam’s wife, was one of Lois’s most reliable cleaners, and a proud mother of her clever son. He had married a girl of whom Sheila disapproved. “It wouldn’t have mattered who she was, she’d not be good enough for your son,” Sam had said to her.

Now Lois agreed that it was worth asking Alan Stratford. “He used to be a nice kid,” she said. “Mind you,” she added, “three years at Birmingham Uni could change a person.”

“Possibly for the better,” Derek said. “Good idea, Gran. I’ll give Sam a ring right away.”

 

 

THE PUB WAS CROWDED ALREADY AT SEVEN O’CLOCK WHEN DEREK and Lois arrived. She had decided to come along and see how Alan got on with the questions. He had agreed with alacrity to join the team, and Derek noted that the lad had not even had to consult his new wife. Good for him, he’d thought. Start as you mean to go on. Derek reflected wryly that from the very beginning of his own marriage he had needed to consult Lois on everything, that is if he knew what was good for him.

Derek ordered drinks, and Lois saw Sheila beckoning from a corner table. “Good luck, then,” she said, giving Derek a peck on the cheek. He joined his teammates and in due course the quiz began.

The pub quizzes had been taking place for some years, and were well organised by a couple who compiled the questions, set the rules and gave prizes. Since they were invited to a good number of pubs in the county, it was worth their while, and a nice little earner, as Sam said. Derek’s team was one of eight, all teams having quirky names chosen for mysterious local knowledge reasons. His team was known as the Chargers, after a gang of playground heavies who had ruled the village school when three of its members were Mixed Infants.

“They haven’t changed much, have they, Sheila?” Lois said now. “There’s your Sam, Derek and young Alan, all been to the village school and still determined to be top dogs. Only difference is that now they’re in the pub instead of the playground!”

Sheila agreed, and said that she could quite see them charging anybody who dared to challenge them. She laughed, but noticed that Lois did not join her. In fact, Lois was frowning and staring across the bar, where a couple of dark-f aced men were standing.

“Are we ready now, teams?” said the question master, whose name was Ross. “Ross the Boss,” he said, as he always said. “My decision on answers is final. Same for all, so quite fair. Now sirs,” he added, looking across at the gypsy men, who had picked up their drinks and were making for a corner table. “Won’t you join us? A couple more—how about you two ladies?—and we’ll have another team.”

“God, no!” whispered Sheila to Lois. “Sam would kill me,” Lois remembered that when she started New Brooms she had thought Sam Stratford was a mild enough sort of man, but maybe he had his moments! Most men did, she thought philosophically.

The two men halted and looked around. A sly smile hovered round the mouth of the tall one, and he called across, “How about it, Mrs. Meade?” She saw it was the man who had taken her to see Athalia Lee and her dog.

Silence fell in the pub, an edgy, tense silence.

“Can’t we get on?” Sam said in a loud voice. “We got enough teams without looking for rubbish.” He said it as though he was cracking a joke, but the entire gathering knew what he meant, and did not laugh.

Lois stared at him. “Yeah, all right then,” she said. “We’ll have a go, won’t we, Sheila?” She saw Derek frown and turn away.

All looked at Sam Stratford, who started towards his wife. Before he reached her, she stood up and said firmly, “Fine! We’ll show ’em how, shall we, Lois?” She added to Lois in an undertone that it would be her fault if Sam belted her when they got home.

Before Lois could ask her whether she was serious, they were all called to order and the quiz started. The two gypsy men introduced themselves as George Price and Jal Boswell, and the questions began, on the usual range of subjects: general knowledge, sports, art, history, politics.