'I suspected as much. Beryl's left her sitting in the chair. Why on earth didn't she get help.'
'Too frightened, I expect. I'm glad Jimbo stopped any heroics on your part.'
'You heard.'
'I did. The smoke would have killed you.'
'Wish we could find the other one.'
'She's not inside, by all accounts. Do the fire brigade
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know how it started?'
'Not yet.'
Caroline stayed till the ambulance came to take Gwen away. They all assumed it was Gwen because it was always she who watched the comings and goings of the village from the windows. Caroline spared a thought for how Beryl must be feeling. It all looked decidedly disturbing.
The fire brigade stayed for nearly four hours before they were satisfied there was no chance of the fire restarting. But there was still no sign of Beryl. Muriel, mindful of her obligations to Pericles, had abandoned her ministrations behind The Royal Oak teapot and gone home to take him out.
They went on his favourite walk, down Jacks Lane, across Shepherds Hill and onto the spare land behind the chapel and then down by Turnham Beck. The rabbiting opportunities were legion around here. He raced from one hole to another his tail wagging furiously whenever he got the drift of rabbit. Then he began yelping in earnest. Muriel smiled, 'One day you'll catch one Pericles and then you won't know what to do with it.'
As Muriel stood watching Pericles searching for more rabbits, she felt a tug at her sleeve. She jumped with the surprise of it, unaware thanks to the hullabaloo Pericles was making, that someone else was down by the beck.
Standing behind her, bowed and distraught, was Beryl. Never looking particularly clean, Beryl looked even worse than usual. She had been crying and there were streaks of dirt and tears all down her face. Her hands were dirty as though she had been digging in the earth with them.
'Why Beryl, we've all been so worried about you,' Muriel said kindly. 'Where have you been my dear?'
Beryl rolled her eyes and then hid her face in her hands
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and stood trembling and mute. Then she pulled her oversized cardigan over her head as though she thought, childlike, that if she couldn't see the world the world couldn't see her.
'Beryl can you tell me what happened at the cottage? Were you there when the fire started?'
At this Beryl sat down and tried to hide the whole of her body inside her cardigan. Her desperate writhings put Muriel in mind of a sick animal burrowing to find a place to die.
'My dear, let's go and find Peter from the Rectory. You know Peter don't you, he's tried to help you before. Get up and we'll go there together. He'll be sure to help us. Come along.'
It was all so beautiful there in the field, with the sound of the beck trickling its way along as it had done for centuries. The willows were bending their graceful twigs down to the water's edge, the grass almost emerald green with all the rain they'd had and the sun getting low in the sky. The contrast of that peaceful scene with Beryl's agony was almost more than Muriel could bear.
'Please, Beryl, get up. Let's go and find Peter. He's so kind, you can tell him everything that's happened. We'll ask Caroline to make us a cup of tea and we'll get warm by her stove. It's so comfortable in the Rectory kitchen.' Muriel called Pericles and clipped on his lead.
She bent over, put her hand under Beryl's elbow and heaved her up. The two of them began a slow walk towards the Rectory. Beryl's head stayed hidden in her cardigan. Muriel didn't even know if Peter was in but Caroline seemed the best person to find. Harriet and Jimbo could hardly be asked to help. No, Caroline was best with her being a doctor. Yes, that was it. Caroline and Peter.
'We'll have a nice hot cup of tea and then we'll talk,' Muriel promised. 'Come along, keep going.'
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More police had arrived at the scene of the fire and were in deep consultation with several of the firemen. They all looked at Muriel as she guided Beryl across to the Rectory. Muriel signalled to them to leave Beryl alone, and pointed to the Rectory saying, 'We'll see you in there.'
Inspector Proctor and Sergeant Cooper followed them across the green. Cooper knocked at the Rectory door, while Muriel tied Pericles to the old boot-scraper still standing sentry duty on the Rectory step. Caroline answered the door, holding little Alex in her arms.
'Ah, hello,' she said, surprised to find this curious collection of people on her doorstep.
Inspector Proctor was the first to speak. 'Can we bring Miss Baxter in Dr Harris? As you can see she's very distressed and we can't take her to her own home.'
Muriel said, 'I've told her Peter will listen and understand.'
'Of course, of course. I think we'd better go into the kitchen. There's too many of us for Peter's little study. I'll put the kettle on and we'll all have a cup of tea.' Caroline led the way, and: settled Alex on Sergeant Cooper's knee, while she put the kettle on and went to find Peter.
Muriel sat Beryl down in Caroline's rocking chair by the stove. Beryl "was still holding her cardigan over her head.
Inspector Proctor asked Muriel where she'd found Miss Baxter.
'Down by the beck, Inspector. She won't speak. She's like an animal who has lost all reason.'
'I'm afraid we've made a rather unpleasant discovery at their cottage.' Peter came in and the Inspector stood. 'Ah good afternoon sir, sorry for intruding, but we didn't seem to have any where we could take Miss Baxter.'
'That's quite all right, Inspector. Where else but the
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Rectory for such a problem as this?'
Peter went to Beryl and rested his hand on her head and patted it.
'God bless you Beryl, you're quite safe here, my dear. My wife Caroline is making a cup of tea for you. I'm sure you must be ready for it. It's been a very tiring day for you, hasn't it?'
Peter pulled up a chair, Caroline gave him a mug of tea for Beryl and he handed it to her under the canopy of her cardigan.
'Do you take sugar?'
From inside her cardigan she whispered, 'Gwen says no.'
'Well, she isn't here at the moment so we'll put some in. It will do you good. I like to have a biscuit with my tea, do you?'
'Can't.'
'Why not?'
'They make you fat, Gwen says.'
'I'm sure she won't mind you having one out of my special tin just this once. Here you are, it's got chocolate on one side.' Beryl grabbed the biscuit and hurriedly crammed it into her mouth. Then she took a second one and ate that more slowly. The Inspector began to fidget. He looked at his watch and coughed pointedly.
Without taking his attention from Beryl Peter said, 'I can't hurry this, at least she's started talking. There we are Beryl, I'm sure that feels better.' He took the empty mug from her hand and then held her dirty hands in his and asked, 'Now what were we saying, oh yes, I know, about when you started the fire.'
'I didn't.'
'I know you didn't do it on purpose.'
'Wanted candles for Gwen. Couldn't put her in church. He'd never done us a good turn in all our lives, so why should we bother with Him she said. She didn't
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believe.'
'I know she didn't.'
'I wanted to light candles for her . . . hands shaking, she shouldn't have gone. She should have waited for me. Where is she? Dropped the candles you see and the rug caught fire and then the newspapers. She would keep the newspapers.'
'Why did she keep the newspapers?'
'To hide it. Make a wall.'
'Ah I see, she stacked the newspapers up to hide it.'
'Don't tell that bobby. Don't want him to know.'
'I realise that Beryl. But I need to know don't I?'
Caroline quietly took the sleeping Alex from Sergeant Cooper and left the kitchen. Muriel and the Inspector sat completely still, their minds racing to guess what Beryl was trying to tell them.
Beryl was shuffling and twisting about under her cardigan and then the rush of words began to come, stumbling over each other in Beryl's urgent need to tell.
'Gwen smothered it you know. It was her. When it came I wanted to keep it but Gwen said no. The shame she kept saying, the shame. It won't take a minute to smother, not a minute. I cried. I cried, but she wouldn't listen. It's a bastard twice over she kept saying, twice over. Its an abomination, that's what it is. An abomination. But it wasn't, it was lovely and I wanted to keep it.' Under her cardigan Beryl shaped her arms as though cradling a baby. 'She said, this way it will never grow up, it will never need to leave this house. So that was when she did it. Then she put ... it ... it ... in the tin trunk and we hid it with the newspapers.'
Muriel wished she was anywhere but here. All these terrible happenings and no one knew. What a frightful secret. When Caroline came back Peter asked her to get a brandy for Beryl.
'No one found out though did they Beryl?'
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'No. We were clever. I never left the house once I got fat. She made me stay upstairs. Gone to a sanatorium for TB she told the people at the factory where we worked. But that wasn't it really. She called me a slut and a harlot. But he'd done the same to her, hadn't he?'
'Oh. I didn't realise that.' Peter gave her a glass of brandy. 'Drink this Beryl, I think you need it. It's not easy telling me all this is it?'
Muriel was beginning to feel very faint but held on for everyone's sake. This story had to come out now or it might never be told. Her collapsing would break Beryl's thread. The inspector, keeping well back, was taking notes as Beryl spoke. Caroline sat perched on the edge of the table, both absorbed and horrified by what she was hearing.
Still under her cardigan Beryl blurted out, 'I haven't told a soul. She said I mustn't. All those years it went on. That was why Mother was always scrubbing and cleaning and washing our clothes. She thought she'd wash away the sin, but you can't do it as easily as that. She could have helped us. As soon as Mother died in nineteen forty seven Gwen decided it -would be Father next. She said he deserved to die slowly, but in the end we smothered him the next time he came to our room. "This'll be the last time," she said. "The very last time. You'll do it no more to us." And we both pressed hard on the pillow and he struggled for a while but we won in the end. Then we carried him back to his own bed and covered him up and told the doctor next day that we'd found him dead. We got away with it because he'd been ill on and off for a while, and they thought he'd died in his sleep.'
Muriel was feeling distinctly ill, and wished Ralph would come to rescue her. Beryl had come out from under her cardigan and was staring Peter full in the face.
'We couldn't help it, you see. Father started coming in
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our bedroom when we were in our early teens. We tried to stop him but we couldn't. I knew Mother knew because she wouldn't look at us the next day. That was why Gwen said the baby was an abomination, because it was his. So I've had nothing and no one to love all these years. We couldn't let anyone in the house in case they found . . . you know . . . that . . . thing in the trunk. Then when we got the letter about the court case Gwen took ill and I found her dead in the chair. I didn't know what to do.'
Peter looked in on the twins before he went to bed. He touched their smooth cheeks and smelt their lovely sweet cleanliness. How true what someone said about the sweet innocence of a child's sleep. They neither of them knew anything about what had happened, nothing of the pain and horror in that cottage over the way. Please God they would never need to know of such things in all their lives. No, that was unrealistic, please God they would have the strength to cope with such evil, and come through it.
He lay in bed unable to sleep. It had taken all his skills to get Beryl to go quietly to the hospital. Caroline had volunteered her help and Muriel, feeling that moral support would be needed, had gone with them. The Inspector had wanted her to go directly to the police station and give a formal statement, but eventually even he realised that he was never going to get that from Beryl. A permanent bed in a secure mental hospital was the likely option. It was when Beryl had decided she would be safe with Peter that his worst fears were realised. Hell, what a situation to be in. As a Christian he ought to have said, 'Yes, of course.' But how the hell could one invite a known murderer to share one's home when it contained two precious children besides his darling girl? She would more than likely have become
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obsessed with the twins and none of them would ever have known a moment's peace. No, it had to be somewhere secure where she could get help. At least she would be kept clean and well fed which was more than had been the case for a very long time.
He heard Caroline at the door.
He ran down the stairs and she almost fell into his arms.
'Peter, I am so tired I can hardly stand up.'
'My darling, it's so late. Whatever happened?'
Til tell you everything when I'm in bed.'
'I'll help you.'
Once he had got her settled in bed and his arms were round her she said, 'She'll never be free again, you know. They've put her in the psychiatric ward but she'll have to be moved somewhere more permanent. She has absolutely cracked now. When we got her out of the ambulance she was so meek and mild, but as soon as we stepped into the hospital she ran amok trying to escape. Fortunately Terry was on duty, he's the nurse I told you about who's built like an ox and is very fleet of foot. They always call him when there's trouble. Anyway he managed to catch her and restrain her. Muriel was terribly upset and I didn't know which one of them to comfort first. However, we calmed her down and I had the inspiration to give her a bag of dolly mixtures I had in my bag. She's like a child; it took her interest and she sat calmly munching them, while I filled the registrar in on what had happened. Then when Muriel and I tried to leave she decided she was coming with us. So we had another set to. She clung to Muriel and they had to pull her off. There's no Gwen, you see, to tell her what to do. What an awful mess. How did we not realise what was going on?'