Mick Finlay - The Murder Pit

The sergeant raised his eyes at the young copper who dropped his head, hiding his smirk.

‘I’m certain they’re keeping her prisoner, Sergeant,’ said the guvnor. ‘She was asking for help.’

‘Asking for help, was she? Listen, Arrowood, in my experience a lady never shows a picture of Brighton Pavilion when she needs help. Not in my experience. You know she’s weak-minded, I suppose?’

‘She has a scar on her head where the hair’s been torn out.’ The guvnor’s voice was rising. I could see he was getting up steam, so I took his arm to remind him to keep civil. ‘You know Walter’s a violent man. You must at least make sure she’s safe. It’s your duty.’

‘Don’t tell me what I must do!’ barked the copper, suddenly losing his patience. ‘Get out! And if I hear you’ve been bothering anyone again I’ll haul you in for creating a nuisance.’

‘We’ve heard of three dead children on the farm,’ said the guvnor, wrenching out of my grip. ‘D’you know about that?’

‘Three dead children? What are you talking about?’

‘Mrs Gillie said there’d been three dead children at the farm over the last few years yet only one was buried.’

‘Mrs Gillie,’ said the sergeant, shaking his head that had no join with its neck. ‘You listen to me, Arrowood. She’s a mad old fox that woman. Sits in those woods doing all knows what, spells and whatnot. Middle of the night, all on her own. Ain’t nobody hasn’t suffered something on account of that old devil. She’s just making trouble as she always does. Take my word on it, if there’d been dead children I’d know about it.’

‘But you have to investigate!’ demanded the guvnor.

‘Make sure they leave, PC Young,’ said the sergeant, stepping into the back room and shutting the door.

Later that evening we paid a visit to the Barclays to tell them what had happened on the farm.

‘We think she was trying to communicate,’ said the guvnor. ‘Does the picture mean anything to you?’

The Barclays looked at each other.

‘We did take her to Brighton once,’ said Mr Barclay. ‘Yes, we did. She must have been saying she wants to come home to us.’

‘She used to keep magazines,’ said his wife. ‘She carries things she’s attached to. Feathers as well. She was always picking them up from the street.’

The guvnor put on his thinking face and stared at the unlit fire.

‘Feathers,’ he muttered. ‘So I was right. She was trying to attract our attention that time as well.’

‘What’ll you do now?’ asked Mr Barclay.

The guvnor sighed. ‘We hope to talk to some of the labourers tomorrow, see what they know. But since the family won’t allow us to see her and Birdie never leaves the house alone, we really do need the police to help. Root won’t budge, so we need someone higher. D’you know anyone of position who could exert some influence?’

‘I’m afraid we’re not well connected, Mr Arrowood.’

‘What about Kipling’s brother?’

‘He moved away before we arrived. We never met him.’

‘Your employer, then. He’s a wealthy man, I suppose. He must know someone.’

‘I could try,’ answered Mr Barclay with a shudder. ‘Though he’s not generally a helpful man.’

When I asked for another payment, Mr Barclay gave it with no objection. We promised to report back to them in two days time.

When we reached the camp next morning there was no sign of Mrs Gillie. The caravan door stood open, the old horse watching us from its tether. It was wrapped in piles of sack, yet still it shivered and snorted and moved from leg to leg. A bucket with the mugs we drank from the day before was on its side by the fire.

The guvnor called out for the old woman, his voice rising through the bare trees. He called again. He pulled his watch from his waistcoat.

‘Quarter to noon,’ he said. ‘Perhaps she’s relieving herself.’

‘D’you think she’s got second sight?’ I asked. ‘I mean, what she said about our wives?’

‘I don’t know. But she’s alone; she lost her husband. She might have just recognized the same in us somehow.’

I went over to feel the fire.

‘Stone cold. Hasn’t been lit yet today.’

He climbed the wooden stairs of the caravan and peered inside the doorway.

‘Mrs Gillie? Are you there?’

He stepped in. A moment later he turned back to me.

‘Have a look around the trees, Barnett. She might have had a fall.’

It wasn’t a big copse. Perhaps a hundred yards over to the lane, and two hundred wide from the Ockwells’ field to the neighbours. I wandered around, calling her name. The trees were bare, the ground crisp with frozen leaf: not many places she could be hiding. I ducked under some rhododendron, where I found Mrs Gillie’s privy hole. I checked behind a couple of fallen trees overgrown with ivy and poked around a bramble thicket by the neighbour’s field. Mrs Gillie was nowhere to be found.

‘Look at this,’ said the guvnor when I got back. I followed him up into the caravan. It was dark inside. The shutters on the window were closed; the door, shaded by a hood, let in little light. He pulled the blanket from the bed and held it up. Underneath was her striped coat.

The guvnor groaned as he lowered himself to his knee. He reached under the bed and drew out her soldier’s boots.

‘Gone out without her coat and boots,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘On the coldest day of the year.’

I lit the tallow candle on her table and we looked around the little wooden room. The guvnor was twitching, the way he does when he’s worried. He wrung his hands and cleared his throat; he stepped from one foot to the other.

We went back outside, where he called out again. The crows cawed in the trees above.

‘Barnett, look!’

He was pointing with his walking stick at the red box she kept her wooden flowers in. It was on its side in the leaves below the caravan, its lid hanging open. Two flowers, broken in pieces and dirty with mud, lay upon the floor.

‘Something’s happened to her,’ he said quietly.

Just then we heard someone walking through the leaves on the other side of the stream.

‘Thank the Lord,’ he exclaimed, clapping me on the arm. ‘She’s back.’

But it wasn’t Mrs Gillie who came through the trees. It was the two fellows we’d seen before up at the farm. They were dressed miserably, in greasy old smocks, patched and stitched so you almost couldn’t see what colour they were. Whatever they wore on their feet was wrapped round with rags thick with mud. The tall one wore an ancient felt hat that hadn’t any shape; the short one, the wide-faced Mongol, wore the same battered brown bowler with its rim torn off as before. His smile was full and warm.

‘Good day, sirs,’ he said, his voice all nose and little lung.

‘Good day,’ said the guvnor and me almost together.

The fellow walked straight over to the nag and stroked its neck. ‘Hello, Tilly, how’s your leg?’ he asked, gentle as a child. The horse snorted, throwing its head back. ‘Oh, you hungry girl? That it?’

The tall fellow stood watching as the Mongol felt under the axle of the caravan and pulled out a nosebag. He hooked it over the horse’s head, then rested the side of his face on the horse’s flank as it ate.

‘That’s better, Till,’ he murmured, running his hand up and down its belly. ‘That’s what you wanted.’

‘My name’s Arrowood,’ said the guvnor to the tall bloke. ‘This is Barnett.’

The bloke didn’t reply. His weather-worn face was run through with thin blue veins, his head shaved like he had nits. There was an anger in his eyes I’d seen before in drinkers spoiling for a brawl, made harder with his sharp nose and upturned eyes. His wiry beard was more dried mud than hair.