Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

I had recently published my first novel and was still basking in that exquisite sensation that comes only once in a writer’s career: the day he holds the first printed and bound copy of his very first work. Of course, there was no money in writing, so I worked part-time in a bookshop on North Market Street, and on one of my mornings off, a market day as I remember, I was absorbed in polishing the third chapter of what was to be my second novel when I heard a faint tap at my door. This was enough to startle me, as I rarely had any visitors.

Puzzled and curious, I left my typewriter and went to open the door. There stood a wizened old lady, hunch-shouldered, white-haired, carrying a stick with a brass lion’s head handle and a small package wrapped in brown paper, tied with string.

She must have noticed my confused expression because, with a faint smile, she said, ‘Don’t you recognize me, Mr Riley? Dear, dear, have I aged that much?’

Then I knew her, knew the voice.

‘Miss Eunice!’ I cried, throwing my door open. ‘Please forgive me. I was lost in my own world. Do come in. And you must call me Christopher.’

Once we were settled, with a pot of tea mashing beside us – though, alas, none of Miss Teresa’s scones – I noticed the dark circles under Miss Eunice’s eyes, the yellow around the pupils, the parchment-like quality of her skin, and I knew she was seriously ill.

‘How did you find me?’ I asked.

‘It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes. Everyone knows where the famous writer lives in a small town like East-vale.’

‘Hardly famous,’ I demurred. ‘But thank you anyway. I never knew you took the trouble to follow my fortunes.’

‘Teresa would have wished it. She was very fond of you, you know. Apart from ourselves and the police, you were the only person in Lyndgarth who ever entered Rose Cottage. Did you know that? You might remember that we kept ourselves very much to ourselves.’

‘Yes, I remember that,’ I told her.

‘I came to give you this.’

She handed me the package and I untied it carefully. Inside was the Smith, Elder & Co. first edition of Far from the Madding Crowd , complete with Hardy’s inscription to ‘Tess’.

‘But you shouldn’t,’ I said. ‘This must be very valuable. It’s a fir-’

She waved aside my objections. ‘Please take it. It is what Teresa would have wished. And I wish it, too. Now listen,’ she went on. ‘That isn’t the only reason I came. I have something very important to tell you, to do with why the police came to visit all those years ago. The thought of going to my grave without telling someone troubles me deeply.’

‘But why me? And why now?’

‘I told you. Teresa was especially fond of you. And you’re a writer,’ she added mysteriously. ‘You’ll understand. Should you wish to make use of the story, please do so. Neither Teresa nor I have any living relatives to offend. All I ask is that you wait a suitable number of years after my death before publishing any account. And that death is expected to occur at some point over the next few months. Does that answer your second question?’

I nodded. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

‘You needn’t be. As you may well be aware, I have long since exceeded my three score and ten, though I can hardly say the extra years have been a blessing. But that is God’s will. Do you agree to my terms?’

‘Of course. I take it this is about the alleged murder?’

Miss Eunice raised her eyebrows. ‘So you’ve heard the rumours?’ she said. ‘Well, there was a murder all right. Teresa Morgan murdered her husband, Jacob, and buried his body in the garden.’ She held out her teacup and I poured. I noticed her hand was shaking slightly. Mine was, too. The shouts of the market vendors came in through my open windows.

‘When did she do this?’ was all I could manage.

Miss Eunice closed her eyes and pursed her cracked lips. ‘I don’t remember the exact year,’ she said. ‘But it really doesn’t matter. You could look it up, if you wanted. It was the year the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India.’

I happened to know that was in 1877. I have always had a good memory for historical dates. If my calculations were correct, Miss Teresa would have been about twenty-seven at the time. ‘Will you tell me what happened?’ I asked.

‘That’s why I’m here,’ Miss Eunice said rather sharply. ‘Teresa’s husband was a brute, a bully and a drunkard. She wouldn’t have married him, had she had any choice in the matter. But her parents approved the match. He had his own small farm, you see, and they were only tenants. Teresa was a very intelligent girl, but that counted for nothing in those days. In fact, it was a positive disadvantage. As was her wilfulness. Anyway, he used to beat her to within an inch of her life – where the bruises wouldn’t show, of course. One day she’d had enough of it, so she killed him.’

‘What did she do?’

‘She hit him with the poker from the fireplace and, after darkness had fallen, she buried him deep in the garden. She was afraid that if the matter went to court the authorities wouldn’t believe her and she would be hanged. She had no evidence, you see. And Jacob was a popular man among the other fellows of the village, as is so often the case with drunken brutes. And Teresa was terrified of being publicly hanged.’

‘But did no one suspect her?’

Miss Eunice shook her head. ‘Jacob was constantly talking about leaving his wife and heading for the New World. He used to berate her for not bearing him any children – specifically sons – and threatened that one day she would wake up and he would be gone. Gone to another country to find a woman who could give him the children he wanted. He repeated these threats in the ale house so often that no one in the entire county of Dorset could fail to know about them.’

‘So when he disappeared, everyone assumed he had followed through on his threats to leave her?’

‘Exactly. Oh, there were rumours that his wife had murdered him, of course. There always are when such mysteries occur.’

Yes, I thought, remembering my conversation with Sid Ferris one cold desert night ten years ago: rumours and fancies, the stuff of fiction. And something about a third person seen fleeing from the scene. Well, that could wait.

‘Teresa stayed on at the farm for another ten years,’ Miss Eunice went on. ‘Then she sold up and went to America. It was a brave move, but Teresa no more lacked for courage than she did for beauty. She was in her late thirties then, and even after a hard life, she could still turn heads. In New York, she landed on her feet and eventually married a financier. Sam Cotter. A good man. She also took a companion.’

‘You?’ I asked.

Miss Eunice nodded. ‘Yes. Some years later Sam died of a stroke. We stayed on in New York for a while, but we grew increasingly homesick. We came back finally in 1919, just after the Great War. For obvious reasons, Teresa didn’t want to live anywhere near Dorset, so we settled in Yorkshire.’

‘A remarkable tale,’ I said.

‘But that’s not all,’ Miss Eunice went on, pausing only to sip some tea. ‘There was a child.’

‘I thought you said-’

She took one hand off her stick and held it up, palm out. ‘Christopher, please let me tell the story in my own way. Then it will be yours to do with as you wish. You have no idea how difficult this is for me.’ She paused and stared down at the brass lion’s head for so long I feared she had fallen asleep, or died. Outside in the market square a butcher was loudly trying to sell a leg of mutton. Just as I was about to go over to Miss Eunice, she stirred. ‘There was a child,’ she repeated. ‘When Teresa was fifteen, she gave birth to a child. It was a difficult birth. She was never able to bear any other children.’