Reginald Hill: The Stranger House

“What are these?” he asked.

“These are the kind of stones Sam had in his pockets to weigh him down. I’ve seen the actual stones, and believe me, they look just like these.”

She spoke triumphantly, but Mig’s reply was uttered so softly he seemed to be speaking to himself.

“Stones,” he murmured. “Stones, not eggs.”

“Sorry?” she said. “What the hell have eggs got to do with it? Not much point stuffing your pockets with eggs if you want to drown.”

He raised his eyes from her hands to her face and said with a quiet urgency, “When I saw the portrait at the Forge, the only thing that wasn’t quite the same was that he had a nest in his hand, full of fledglings bursting out of their eggshells. My ghost was showing me what I thought were whole eggs, and big ones too, more like hens’ or ducks’ than songbirds’. But now I see it wasn’t eggs he was showing me… it was stones… like these stones…”

She shook her head impatiently. Here she was doing important detective work and all he could do was go drifting off into his dreamworld.

She said, “Look, the point is, where did curate Sam get these stones from? One possibility is he picked them up from the Forge, which is where I got these three. Thor uses them, or used to, in making some kind of mosaics. He did one up at the Hall way back. In fact he worked on it in the spring of 1961, around the time it all happened – Pam being shipped off to Oz, the suicide…”

Mig had made a visible effort to focus all his attention on what she was saying.

“Hold on,” he said. “Are you suggesting this poor devil was still so much in control of himself that he decided on his way up the Bank that it might be useful to weigh himself down, so he made a diversion to have a look for some suitable ballast? Surely if such an idea did occur, he’d simply have grabbed handfuls of broken stone from the track before he turned off and headed up here?”

Sam looked at him approvingly.

“There is a brain in there after all,” she said. “You’re dead right. That’s what he’d have done. So?”

He looked at her hopelessly and shrugged. She felt like shaking him. His mind had spent so long wrestling with the mystery of apparitions and messages from beyond that he couldn’t follow a trail of reasoning as clear and as simple as 2n = 4. She wished she had a blackboard so she could spell it out.

But in truth she knew that it was only now, up here, in this place, that she was beginning to let herself spell it out completely.

She said very clearly, “He must have had a reason for diverting. We know that he knew Thor wasn’t at home because he’d just caught him shagging Edie down at the Stranger. It’s just possible he might have visited the Forge to find something to aid his suicide that would leave a clear message to Thor. If so, he made a lousy choice. And from what I’ve heard of him he wasn’t that kind of guy. So that leaves the Hall.”

“But why should he visit the Hall?” asked Mig.

“Don’t you listen to anything unless it’s in a burning bush or can walk through walls?” she demanded. “Here’s what we know. Sam goes to the Stranger to see Edie. Why? To talk about their future? Wrong. He goes there because young Pete has just told him that the little girl he’d tried to take care of, my grandmother, had been raped and that Dunstan’s motive in shipping her off to Australia, far from being charitable, had been to get her as far away from Illthwaite as humanly possible before she could open her mouth. Sam is furious, on the kid’s behalf, and on his own because he’s been made a fool of. Catching Edie on the nest can’t have improved his state of mind. But I don’t believe he’d be suicidal. He’d be angrier than ever. I think he was heading up Stanebank to have it out with Dunstan Woollass!”

There. The first half of the blackboard was full. She looked at her calculations and found no flaw.

“But didn’t he meet Dunstan driving down Stanebank or something?” said Mig.

“That’s the evidence Dunstan gave. Said hello, thought the fellow looked distracted, reported this the same evening, soon as he heard the curate had gone missing. What a load of garbage! Think about it: was Sam Flood going to pass the man who’d dumped on little Pam and shut young Pete up with a nod and a hello?”

“You think that he confronted Dunstan?”

“Yes. And not on Stanebank. I think he went up to the Hall. Perhaps Dunstan was getting his car out of the garage. They quarrel. Perhaps Saint Sam is a bit more intemperate than usual. He had cause. And then…”

She paused, metaphorical chalk in hand, suddenly reluctant to record her logical conclusion on the metaphorical blackboard.

Mig, she guessed, was there too, but it was her calculation, he wanted to hear her say it.

“And…?” he prompted.

“Dunstan tries that old silver tongue of his. It’s got him out of worse scrapes than this. But this time it doesn’t work. Sam’s not in the listening mood. As far as he’s concerned, it’s next stop the cops. He turns to go, Dunstan lays a hand on his shoulder, probably just to hold him back so they can talk more, but Sam’s so wound-up by everything, he lashes out.”

She paused again, and now at last Mig helped her out.

He said, “So they fight and Sam ends up dead, is that what you’re saying? But does it really make sense? Sam was so much younger, and can you really see Dunstan getting mixed up in a vulgar brawl?”

“Dunstan was no old man in 1961,” said Sam. “Rising forty and probably fighting fit. And the kind of fighting he was fit for wasn’t just a barroom punch-up. Thor told me he was in the SAS during the war, and got himself a medal for killing Germans!”

Mig said, “There’s a portrait of him in uniform at the Hall.”

“There you are then,” said Sam inconsequentially. “So he’d probably have no problem. Quick squeeze in the right place and the poor sod’s lying there unconscious. Well, that’s how they do it in the movies,” she added, seeing Mig regarding her dubiously.

“And then…?” he said. “And then…?”

“Think about it. Now he’s got a real problem. Does he wait till Sam wakes up, then try reasoning with him again? If he fails – and in the circs that’s where the clever money would be – he faces a police investigation of his son, and a public humiliation for himself and his family.”

“No,” said Mig, shaking his head. “I can just about accept a struggle in which Sam is accidentally killed, but what you’re suggesting is cold-blooded murder.”

“Sam was alive when he went into the Moss,” said Sam bluntly. “I’ve seen the autopsy report. He died of drowning. I think Dunstan decided the only way forward was to get rid of him. Quick thinking, isn’t that what they teach them in the SAS? He thinks of the Moss then decides it would be best to weigh the body down. Thor’s unused stones are lying around, perhaps he stored them in the garage. They’re a good size for stuffing in pockets. He then dumps him in the back of his jeep and heads up the track to the Moss. He finds a pool, probably holds the poor bastard’s head under till he’s sure he’s not going to revive. Then he watches till the clothes get sodden and the weight of the stones pulls the body down out of sight.”

She finished. Part of her wanted Mig to agree with her reasoning. But another part, aware that to all the other crimes she was laying at the door of her newly found family she was now adding murder, wanted him to laugh and set about demolishing her calculations.

He stood with his head bowed. In prayer? She hoped not.

Then he raised his head and she saw in his eyes that she, or something, had convinced him.

“This is a terrible thing,” he said.