Mick Finlay - The Murder Pit

‘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.’