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‘If you want,’ I said, my voice hollow.
She heard my tone and her face fell.
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘I’m happy to do it, Ettie.’
I looked away. Whenever I started to feel easy, one of them’d remind me how they really saw me. I was his rough. What else could I be with these worn-out boots, this voice thick with the Bermondsey slums? Though I only lived in that foul court for six years, it seemed I’d never escape it.
‘Norman, I’m sorry,’ she said, her face as serious as I’d ever seen it. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Really.’
She looked at me for a while, not knowing how to fix it, then went off to make some tea. The guvnor rested his head on the antimacassar and shut his eyes, working at healing himself.
Soon Ettie came back with the tray. I took a biscuit: the guvnor took four.
‘She’s asking for our help,’ he said when he’d refreshed himself. His face was sombre. ‘I’m sure of it. It kept me awake last night, seeing her up there, that picture, wondering what it means.’
‘But she didn’t actually speak?’ asked Ettie.
‘No, but I felt her sadness so clearly. Her fear. Norman felt the same when he saw her on the train. Sometimes all we have to work with are our feelings.’
‘Our feelings can lead us in the wrong direction, William, as well you know.’
‘Remember that book I was reading on crowd behaviour?’ He peered down at the pile of books by his chair and pulled out a green volume to show us. ‘Le Bon writes that emotions are contagious. I can’t say I properly understand how it works, and I’m not sure he does either, but there’s no doubt that emotions can be transmitted from one heart to another if we attend with care. Music can do it, can’t it?’
‘I suppose,’ said Ettie slowly.
A screaming started up in the road just outside the house, a child. The guvnor flinched, clutching his head. Then a woman’s scolding voice, then a man’s gruff roar joined in. They fought on and on as Lewis’s three clocks, each out of time with the others, ticked on the mantel.
‘We need to get to her, damn it!’ he cried suddenly, his fist banging down on the side table. ‘She couldn’t be more vulnerable! And that scar on her head might just be the start of a terrible journey. We have to think of something, Norman.’
‘Why don’t I go up there and try?’ asked Ettie. ‘They might react differently to a woman.’
‘No, Sister.’
‘But why not? The Ockwells aren’t going to let you in, that much is clear. The Barclays have tried the police and they won’t help. You’ve no other way to get to her.’
‘This is our work, Ettie. Walter has a history of violence. I don’t want you up there on your own. Anyway, why would you have more success than us?’
‘Women can sometimes do things that men cannot,’ she said, her chest rising in indignation. ‘What other choice have you, William? She’s asking for help. You said it yourself.’
He gazed vacantly at his sister across the room, pondering. His stomach groaned like a lonely cow. Finally he turned to me.
‘Remember those two labourers we saw the other day in the farmyard? The ones chased by the dog? Let’s see if we can find them in the fields. They might be able to tell us something. But first run down to the shop and get us a kidney pudding, will you, Barnett? And a dozen oysters.’
Chapter Nine (#ulink_b60aaab8-24f6-51cb-9606-320a600956b0)
We happened to find a butcher’s cart on its way to the Ockwell farm as we set out from the station that afternoon. He dropped us in the dip before the lane rose to the farm entrance, out of sight of the house, and there we pushed through a hedgerow. The field to our right was full of pigs, their heads bent, guzzling a scatter of turnips on the ground. The ground was frozen hard.
We followed a path between a small woodland and a paddock, where a couple of sulky horses stood, their bodies wrapped in coal sacks. They glanced at us with a hungry look in their eyes but didn’t come over. That suited me fine: I never believed a horse was a man’s friend like some folk said. A London horse is a slave, that’s what I always thought, and if you looked deep enough into their eyes you could see how they’d like nothing more than to give you a good kick up the arse.
Now we could see the barns up the hill. We moved on to the fields on the other side, making a wide circuit around the edge of the farm. There was nobody about. A dozen scrawny cows; some winter cabbages; another pig field of hard mud and low huts. The guvnor was limping, puffing, sneezing, unhappy with so much walking. After another ten minutes we found ourselves on a small path through a copse, a field on one side, a stream on the other. The water was black and half-frozen over, the trees above bare but for a handful of rooks crying out. Soon we could see the lane ahead.
‘Damn these shoes,’ complained the guvnor, wheezing proper now. His boots had got burned in the fire at his rooms, and, being a bit tight with his money over certain things, he’d been loaning a pair of Lewis’s shoes that didn’t fit him too good. ‘I was hoping Ettie would get me a pair for Christmas. She gave me another bible.’
I broke a couple of pieces of toffee from the slab in my pocket and handed him one. His scarf was wrapped around his chin, his bowler pulled so low all I could see were his puffy eyes and running nose. For a few minutes we worked on the toffees.
‘Monogrammed,’ he said at last. ‘Just like the last one.’
‘Is Petleigh still visiting her?’ I asked.
‘He came before New Year with a plum cake. I’ve never met anyone who plays cards so badly. He’s even worse than you.’
Isaiah Petleigh was an inspector with Southwark Police. He’d helped us with a few cases over the years and caused us problems on a few others. A few months back the inspector had taken an interest in Ettie and started calling upon her.
‘What does she think of him?’
‘I don’t know, Barnett. Ettie’s Ettie. She gets on.’
‘You lost, masters?’ came a voice.
It was an old woman, sat on a fallen tree behind a big mound of ivy. Her hands were wrapped in rags, and layers of old skirts covered her legs. She wore a most fantastical coat, like a stuffed blanket, red and gold and purple and tied round the middle with a rope.
‘Don’t get many gents walking through, is all,’ she croaked, her eyes shining bright from her sooty face. Further back in the copse, next to a narrow track, was a wooden caravan, its doors open, black pots hanging from roof hooks and a tin chimney poking out the top. A nag in a ragged coat stood chewing a pile of straw. ‘You the new land agent?’
‘No, madam. I’m Mr Arrowood. This is Mr Barnett.’
‘Mrs Gillie,’ said the crone.
‘D’you know the people who own the farm over there, Mrs Gillie? The Ockwells?’
‘Been stopping here all my life, sir. Knew old Mr and Mrs Ockwell since way back. He’d be turning in his grave if he saw the place now. She can’t be too happy neither, in her bed knowing all what’s going on. Richest farm round here, it was. Place’s a ruin these days. Fields ain’t draining proper; fences held together with string. Them pigs ain’t happy neither.’
‘How d’you know the pigs aren’t happy?’ asked the guvnor.
‘Spend too long lying down. A happy pig snorts merry, like. A merry snort. Like you, I shouldn’t wonder, like you when you’ve had a skinful.’
‘I never snort, madam.’
The old tinker laughed, showing us the most awful mouth I’d ever seen. There was only one tooth you could see in there, growing up from the bottom and separating halfway up, where the two parts twisted, one behind the other, like two burnt black twigs.
‘D’you see much of the family, mum?’ I asked her.
‘Don’t have nothing to do with them, not since the old master died.’ She nodded back towards the village and sighed. ‘My Mr Gillie was beaten on the road over there a few year back. Old Mr and Mrs Ockwell took him into their house. Poor old bugger didn’t last the week.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear it,’ said the guvnor.
‘What’s your business with them?’
‘We’re private investigative agents, working on a case.’
The old woman looked at us for a time, her jaw moving like she had a bit of pork rind in her mouth she was working on. A frozen cat padded out from behind the caravan and rubbed its back against her legs. Below her skirts she wore a pair of old soldier’s boots, cracked and worn and bound round with leather cords.
‘Somebody should investigate them children,’ she said at last. ‘Heard three of them joined the angels, yet only one was buried.’
‘Which children, Mrs Gillie?’ asked the guvnor.
She hung a kettle over the fire and threw on a few sticks, getting a bit of a blaze going. As she straightened up, her hand clasped on her back, her face screwed up in pain. She was taller than you’d think from her little head, six foot at least.
‘You want to buy some wooden flowers, sirs?’ she asked
‘No,’ said the guvnor. ‘Whose children are you talking about?’
She plodded over to the caravan, where a red box was fixed to the side. The flower she pulled out was painted blue and yellow and orange. She held it careful, like it’d snap at the smallest pressure. ‘Pretty, eh? Look nice in your house, I suppose. Only a shilling and cheap at the price.’
‘A shilling?’ said the guvnor. ‘It’s worth no more than a penny.’
‘Price is a shilling.’
The guvnor grunted and fished a coin from his purse. She gave him the flower. ‘Be careful with that, your Lordship. It’s very fine.’
‘How did the children die, Mrs Gillie?’ I asked.
She drew another wooden flower from the red box.
‘You like this one, Mr Barnett? A penny to you.’
‘A penny!’ cried the guvnor. ‘But I paid a shilling!’
She tutted and shook her head. Then she laughed.
It was only when I paid up and took the flower she answered the question.
‘Couldn’t say how they died, sir, but I’ll tell you something else. Only but one was baptized and only but one’s buried down in the churchyard.’
‘Whose children were they?’ asked the guvnor again.
‘I’ve said enough. Last thing an old tinker needs is trouble from a landowner, specially with me down here on my own.’
‘Where did you hear about this?’ asked the guvnor.
‘You could say a little fairy told me.’
She wandered over to the old nag and gave it a kiss on the nose. A great, wracking cough took over her body, and she had to grip the horse’s neck to keep herself upright. Her thin, sooty face turned pink; tears fell from her eyes as she choked and hacked. The guvnor held her shoulders, then, when she’d finished, hugged her to his chest. After her breathing steadied, she pushed him away.
‘Kettle’s boiled.’ She spat on the floor then ground it into the mud with her boot. ‘Set yourselves down while I make some tea.’
We watched her as she poured the hot water into an old can.
‘Ain’t married, are you, sirs?’ she asked as she held out a wooden mug for the guvnor. It was roughly carved, its outside singed and stained black, its handle broke off.
‘I certainly am,’ answered the guvnor, sneezing into his belcher.
‘Are you? Got a sense you weren’t.’
‘A sense?’ asked the guvnor, his smile a little unsure. ‘What sense?’
‘A desperate sense, if you like.’ She handed me a slimy glass jar, then pulled a few broken biscuits from her pocket and gave us each a piece. ‘You as well, Mr Barnett.’
‘Well, we are desperate, Mrs Gillie,’ said the guvnor. ‘We’re investigating a case concerning Walter Ockwell’s wife, Birdie. We’re sure she’s in some kind of trouble but we can’t get in to see her. The police refuse to help.’
‘Sergeant Root won’t do nothing against the family. It was the same when my old man was beaten over there on the road.’
‘You think that had something to do with the Ockwells?’ I asked.
‘Ain’t many use this road. Goes to the farm and then on a ways, but folk ain’t got much cause to come here. Only the Ockwells really. Most times it’s empty. Happened the day of Spring Fair. A lot of drinking goes on with the young lads at Spring Fair. Always does. Then they wander home.’
‘Are you saying it was the Ockwell boys?’ asked the guvnor.
‘All I can say is old Mr and Mrs Ockwell took Mr Gillie in and tended to him good when it happened, right up until he passed to the angels. Paid for a doctor and all. Why they did it, I couldn’t tell you. Could have been good Christian charity, could have been something else.’
‘But you suspect?’
‘All I know is nobody was never even questioned. Sergeant Root wouldn’t investigate. Said it was a tinker feud.’ She shook her head. ‘My old man never had a feud with nobody. Never in his life.’
‘That’s terrible, Mrs Gillie,’ said the guvnor. ‘But why d’you stay here with all that’s happened? Aren’t you afraid?’
She looked up into the tangle of bare branches. ‘I like to be near him. He ain’t left yet, see.’
We sat for a while drinking tea and listening to the crows move in the trees above. Her cat sat by the fire, licking its paws.
‘Can you tell us anything else about those dead children, Mrs Gillie?’ asked the guvnor, his voice soft and kind.
‘No chance, mister, not with me so old out here on my own all winter and my Tilly lame. I helped you enough already. But I tell you that farm’s a sorrowful, hateful place. Sometimes I hear those pigs screaming so bad I want to tear off my ears.’
She pushed a bit of biscuit in her mouth and softened it with a drink, wincing as the hot tea hit her devilish black tooth.
‘I’ve never seen a coat like that, Mrs Gillie,’ said the guvnor after a minute or so.
‘Best coat I ever had. Bought it in Newmarket when autumn turned and wore it ever since. I’ll be buried in it too, if undertakers don’t filch it off my carcass.’ Her voice fell. ‘Listen, my lover. I left a note in the caravan if I happen to be alone when I go, and that may be any day now at this awful age I am. About the horse and the caravan and whatnot. A will. Willoughby knows up there on the farm, but you seem an honest man, Mr Arrowood, so if I croak when you’re still around, sir, just remember. In the black jar. I’d be obliged. I aim to still be breathing come spring when my sons come for me, but at my age I got to think about it.’
The guvnor nodded. ‘Of course, Mrs Gillie, though I’m sure it won’t be necessary. Tell me, have you heard anything about Birdie, ma’am? About how she’s treated?’
She shook her head.
‘Who could we talk to?’
