Читать книгу Christmas on the Home Front - Roland Moore - Страница 10

Five days to Christmas.

Joyce was dimly aware of a clanging sound in the distance as it forced its way into her attention and woke her from her sleep. She fumbled for the alarm clock and stopped the clapper from vibrating against the bells. Sitting up in bed, she struggled to open her sleepy eyes. It was four o’clock in the morning.

She slid her legs out of bed and got dressed, being careful not to wake the rest of the house. Her eyelids felt heavy, her eyes scratchy and it was difficult to coordinate her fingers as she slipped her boots on. In lieu of having time to do anything with her hair, she tied a headscarf around it and bunched it tight at the back. Then she made her way to the kitchen on weary legs, yawning so widely that she feared her jaw might lock. She made a pot of tea, poured some and sipped at a mugful before it was neither steeped nor cool enough to drink. But she wanted to get some work done before Finch headed off on his pig chase.

Joyce pulled her long coat around her, clutched her tea in one hand and slipped the latch on the back door. She imagined John, still fast asleep on his brother’s sofa. The thought warmed her more than the tea. As she went outside, her breath formed candyfloss in the air, and she felt the mug cooling in her hands. It was a bitter morning, icy with the promise of snow. There had been snow earlier in the month, but the wireless was issuing reports that indicated it wouldn’t be a white Christmas. The ground and the sky seemed the same colour, slate grey but for the hint of a rising orange sun in the distance. But even that felt diminished this morning, burning without its usual confidence. Somewhere in the distance a fox let out an anguished cry. Joyce made her way to the tool barn and collected a solid-handled shovel. After so long here, she knew it was the best shovel on the farm and she felt a curious mix of satisfaction and sadness at knowing this fact. A young woman ought to have more going on in her life than worrying about which farm tool was best, but as always, Joyce contented herself with the comforting caveat that there was a war on. This wasn’t a normal time. Thousands of men and women were missing out on their twenties for the greater good – and any small victory was worth celebrating. Joyce walked into the North Field, feeling its eerie stillness for the first time. Usually she entered its cavernous space with a group of women, chatting and laughing about the small victories of living on a farm in wartime. She’d never noticed the bleakness of it before, four sides of churned brown soil stretching to horizons of darkened trees. In the dawn light, Joyce spooked herself by imagining movement in the spindly trees, some of them holding on to the last of their autumn leaves. She put such thoughts out of her head, found the spot where she had been working yesterday and concentrated on the trench in front of her. Some of the row was a darker colour, the fine soil having been turned and broken up. Joyce pushed the shovel into the ground and heaved it out with a thick wedge of clay soil on it. She flipped it over as if it was a pancake and battered it down into the trench, breaking it up as best she could. With the exertion, Joyce let out a small sigh and managed to spook herself again. Did she imagine a twig snapping in the corner of the field?

She wedged her shovel into the ground and peered into the distance. The edge of the field was thirty or forty feet away and she couldn’t make out the trunks of the trees clearly in the gloomy morning light. But did something glint?

‘Hello?’ Joyce asked, quietly, hoping that there wouldn’t be an answer. No sound came back, and nothing moved. She realised that she had unwittingly tipped off that she suspected someone was there.

Joyce planted her spade in the ground and took a hesitant step towards the trees. Then, deciding it might be prudent to have a weapon, she went back for the spade and carried it with her to the edge of the field.

‘Who’s there?’ Joyce shouted.

No reply.

Her eyes scanned the sparse foliage and the criss-crossing maze of branches for any movement. She didn’t dare blink, fearful that she might miss something. After what seemed like an age, she decided that there was nothing there. She turned round to head back to her work – and found a man standing in front of her.

Joyce went to scream, but then realised it was only Finch.

‘What are you doing, creeping up on me?’ She fumed, letting out her pent-up feelings on the hapless farmer.

‘Who’s creeping? I wasn’t creeping,’ Finch protested.

‘You gave me a start!’

‘I only came to say I was heading off now, if you want to come.’

‘All right.’ Joyce’s anger was subsiding into mild annoyance. Maybe she had stressed herself out. And as she stared at his bewildered face, she felt a little foolish for snapping at him. ‘You can help me take the tools back and then we can head off.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Finch gave her a mock salute.

‘That’s the wrong hand.’ Joyce smiled.

‘Is it? Maybe I’ve been watching them do it from behind.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Their voices trailed off as they walked away from the trees, collecting tools as they went. Their playful bickering continued to the gate of the field, and when they disappeared, Siegfried Weber felt it was safe to breathe again. He let out a lungful of air and looked around him. There was no one around. He moved along the edge of the field until he could see through the gate at the end.

In the distance was a farmhouse. The woman and the farmer were heading towards it. Siegfried waited for them to leave the area and then he waited a few moments more to be sure that they wouldn’t come back. Deciding what to do, he disappeared back into the undergrowth and scurried back to report what he had seen to his captain.

By the time they drove to the edge of Gorley Woods, Joyce was regretting not having more to eat for breakfast. A gnawing hunger threatened to distract her from her task, as she tried to look for clues on the dirt track where Connie had been found.

‘Are you sure this is the right spot?’ Finch checked his pocket watch. He was keen to see a man about a pig and wasn’t worried about disguising his impatience.

‘Esther said it happened at the fork of the main track and the path that leads to the woods.’ Joyce scanned the ground in an attempt to find a clue. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she knew that something hadn’t been right about what had happened to Connie. She was hoping that something would leap out at her.

‘There’s nothing here, is there?’

‘There might be something.’ Joyce wasn’t going to be rushed. She was determined not to give up before she’d started. A scuffed area of ground gave a possible place where Connie had fallen, but Joyce couldn’t be certain. But then she saw something that piqued her interest. A section of branch, sturdy and broken, lay on the ground near the disturbed area. Joyce picked it up and examined it.

‘Look.’

‘It’s a branch.’ Finch smiled, pleased with himself.

‘I know it’s a branch. It might be what knocked Connie off her bicycle. She might have hit it with enough force to break it off the tree.’

Along one edge was a section where the bark was missing, revealing the young beige wood beneath. Could it have been damaged when Connie whacked her head on it? The section looked slightly red. Could it be blood?

‘We need to show this to a policeman.’ Joyce decided that this is what Miss Marple would do. The police would know if it was blood.

‘You’ll have to go a long way.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘PC Thorne has been moved to Birmingham.’

‘So who is running Helmstead Police Station?’

Even before Finch offered a shrug, Joyce knew that the answer was probably no one. Since conscription had taken most of the policemen, they had been left with one bobby to service three villages and two towns. And now it looked like he had gone to an area of greater need.

‘Besides, even if he was here, he wouldn’t have time to look at that. We know what happened. The poor girl was riding along and walloped her head on this.’

‘But I think we should tell someone. It might be useful in treating her or something.’

‘Tell Doctor Channing about it. Can we go now, then?’ Finch shifted his weight from leg to leg like an impatient toddler.

‘You go. I can walk back to the farm.’

‘Are you sure? I mean, I thought you wanted to see this porker with me?’

‘No, it’s all right.’ Joyce tucked the club-like section of branch under her arm and watched Finch return to the van. He got in, shaking his head to himself as if he didn’t understand women. Who wouldn’t want to come to see a pig? Humming to himself, he started the engine and reversed the vehicle back onto the lane.

Joyce was about to set off when she saw the abandoned car under the canopy of trees. She walked towards it and peered in the window. There was no one inside, but she noticed a blanket on the back seat. Had someone been sleeping here? Behind her, she saw a patch of charred ground. Someone had been here, but she had no way of knowing how long ago. Joyce clasped the stick and moved back to the lane and set off for Hoxley Manor.

‘They have chickens and a lot of land. And it’s out of the way. I didn’t see many people there.’

Siegfried outlined the results to Emory of his reconnaissance mission to the outskirts of Pasture Farm. The older man didn’t look as pleased as the young man hoped he would. But in his head, he excused the reaction as being down to Emory’s exhaustion and the pain he was feeling from his arm.

‘Good work.’ Emory chewed his lip as he considered what the younger man had said. The two men returned to the abandoned car, missing Joyce by less than ten minutes. They knew they had to move and find somewhere else. Siegfried checked that he had the water bottle and the matches safely stowed in his knapsack. Emory checked that the blanket on the back seat was pushed into the footwell. Siegfried used his boot to cover the evidence of the fire, scraping leaf mulch over the charred ground. And after checking that there was little evidence of them having been here, Emory pushed the luger gun back into his belt.

They would head to Pasture Farm.

At Hoxley Manor, Doctor Richard Channing winced at the cacophonous clatter as the trolley of fresh bedpans made its way around the ward near his office. He reached across his desk and pushed the door shut with his fingertips before returning to his paperwork. A small but insistent headache was forming in his sinuses and he pressed his fingers on the bridge of his nose as he worked. Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of the door slowly opening. He assumed he hadn’t shut it properly and idly reached across to give it a firmer push.

He was surprised to see Ellen Hoxley standing in the doorway. She was wearing a light blue woollen dress with a dark blue knitted shrug over her shoulders. A wry smile teased at the corners of her mouth.

‘You forgot, didn’t you?’ Her tone was playful and light.

‘Forgot what?’ Richard matched her tone.

‘The breakfast meeting.’

‘You mean, breakfast?’

With a glance of her eyes, Ellen checked that no one was nearby in the corridor outside before replying. ‘Yes, but if we bring paperwork to it, it looks like we’re discussing hospital business and not merely enjoying ourselves.’

‘Heaven forbid people think that.’

‘Quite.’ A slight coldness had crept into her voice and the wry smile was replaced with questioning eyes. ‘It’s important that we set the right example. And even though people know that we are …’ She chose her next word carefully to Richard’s amusement, ‘friends. We shouldn’t flaunt that fact as if we were some lovestruck pair from the village.’

‘No, of course, you’re right. And I’m sorry to have missed our meeting.’

He’d hoped that the apology would return the playfulness to Ellen’s eyes, but she looked concerned. Richard realised that he wasn’t responsible and that her attention had been drawn by an open folder of case notes on the desk.

Connie Carter’s file.

‘That poor girl.’ Ellen looked genuinely upset for her.

‘Yes, we still don’t know what happened. I think she probably hit a branch. Knocked her off her bicycle.’

‘She didn’t say anything?’

‘No. She woke up briefly, but she seemed disorientated. Made no real sense, I’m afraid.’

Now it was Richard’s turn to control the look in his eyes, conscious not to give anything away; conscious of not revealing that he knew more. Ellen didn’t need to worry about what Connie had said. He was protecting Ellen. Yes, that was what he was doing. After a long moment, Ellen nodded sadly. Richard relaxed, knowing he’d got away with it. Lying just took conviction. If you had the confidence to carry it off, you could get away with anything.

She moved towards the door.

‘I’ll make some tea if you want some.’

‘That would be nice, thank you.’

As Ellen left, Richard thought about Connie Carter. She hadn’t regained consciousness, hadn’t woken since that one time. The Reverend was still with her, praying and holding her hand, for all the good that would do. Richard knew that he had to be alert. Had he done the right thing in concealing what Connie had told him? Yes, it was for the best. He had to be ready. He looked at the telephone on his desk and wondered when it would ring. After a while, he decided that worrying about it wasn’t going to help him, so he busied himself with writing up some case notes.

There was a soft knock on his door.

Ah, the tea.

‘There’s no need to knock …’ Richard trailed off, before realising that it wasn’t Ellen in the doorway but Joyce Fisher. She was dressed in her land girl uniform. Her hair was slightly askew, and the sheen of perspiration was shining on her forehead. She caught her breath as she started to speak.

‘Sorry to bother you, Doctor Channing.’

‘You’re not doing a shift today, Joyce.’

‘No, I’m here about Connie. I found something.’

Richard moved from behind his desk and stretched out a hand to gently close the door. Joyce registered it closing but didn’t seem perturbed. Why should she?

‘What have you found?’ He asked, his eyes narrowing as he studied her face.

‘This.’ Joyce reached into her great coat and removed a length of branch. ‘I think this is what knocked Connie off her bicycle. See, it’s got some red colouration here, like blood?’

‘Ah, yes, perhaps.’

‘I thought it might be important.’

‘I’m sure it might be. And maybe Connie can identify it when she wakes up?’ Channing smirked.

Joyce bit her lip and her cheeks puffed out slightly in annoyance. ‘Are you making fun of me, Doctor Channing?’

‘Not at all. Sorry for making light of it. It does indeed help us piece together what happened.’ He tried to appease her with his best warm smile.

Lying is easy as long as you do it with conviction.

‘There’s something else.’

‘Oh?’

‘At first I thought, she must have hit it hard because she broke it off the tree. But then as I walked over here, I was looking at it.’

‘And?’

‘And see the bit where it broke off from the tree? Well, that’s all dried and old and dirty. So that made me think, it wasn’t on the tree when Connie hit her head on it.’

‘Quite possibly,’ Channing nodded in a way that he hoped would convey that he was wrapping things up now.

‘Don’t you see what that means?’ Joyce’s eyes were glowing now, ‘If this is her blood, then it means that she didn’t hit her head on a branch. Someone hit her with the branch. And nearby was this old car. Like an abandoned vehicle. And I think someone has been sleeping in there.’

Channing nodded slowly as if he was thinking about what Joyce had said. But in reality, he was thinking about what he could say to make this irritating woman, this amateur Miss Marple, go away.

‘I will keep this.’ Channing tapped the stick. ‘And see if I can contact PC Thorne. Is that all right?’

‘Well, no. He’s away. Finch told me he’s gone away,’ Joyce’s brow furrowed and she turned towards the door, seemingly bent on another course of action. ‘Maybe Lady Hoxley can do something?’

She reached to the desk to pick up the length of wood.

Channing put his hand over her wrist, stopping her.

She looked at him, confused, perhaps a little scared.

‘I can do it.’ Channing’s smile was warm, but it didn’t extend to his eyes. ‘Now we’d better both get on with our jobs, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, all right.’ Joyce backed down. Channing thought her voice sounded unsure, as if this wasn’t a satisfactory solution. But he held her gaze until she moved towards the door.

‘Thank you for bringing all this to my attention, Mrs Fisher.’

Fly away, Joyce. Fly away.

When she had gone, Channing looked at the length of broken branch in his hand. It was entirely possible that the end was stained with blood. Connie’s blood. He opened the filing cabinet by his desk, pulled the bottom drawer out as far as it would go and placed the branch inside. Then he closed it as the door opened.

This time it was Ellen with a cup of tea. And this time, Channing managed a smile that shone in his eyes as well.

‘Ah, just the ticket.’ Channing took the cup.

Emory and Siegfried moved across the edge of Gorley Woods, sticking religiously to the hedgerows and avoiding the actual roads and lanes. They became aware of voices in the distance. Peering over a yew hedge, Emory could see three soldiers talking to a group of old women. The women were pointing in various directions, perhaps trying to tell the soldiers where they had seen evidence of the airmen. The soldiers themselves were old men, dressed in uniforms that didn’t quite fit and which Siegfried didn’t recognise. Emory said that they were in the Home Guard and that part of their job was to find airmen like themselves. He removed his pistol from the holster. Siegfried wasn’t sure that they could win against three armed men when they only had one pistol and a knife.

‘They are old.’ Emory continued to watch through the hedge. Siegfried hoped that the soldiers and the women would disperse so that violence wouldn’t be necessary. Emory seemed keen to engage the enemy, whereas Siegfried wished he was still back in Coswig and that the war could be finished and over with. One of the soldiers lit up a rolled-up cigarette and inhaled the smoke noisily as another one coughed in apparent sympathy.

After what seemed like an age, the soldiers began to move away. Siegfried heard one of the old women laugh and shout to one of the soldiers that she’d have an apple pie ready for him. The women moved away, talking excitedly amongst themselves about their encounter. Emory watched and waited to see what direction they would go in. Eventually after a bit of discussion, and one of the soldiers moaning about his leg, they set off in the direction that Emory and Siegfried had been heading. Emory relaxed and put his gun away. He sighed in relief. Siegfried wondered if he didn’t want to fight either.

‘They are heading towards the farm I saw.’ Siegfried’s eyes flashed with excitement.

‘We’ll have to find somewhere else for now. But our priority is to find clothes.’

He moved off along the hedgerow.

Siegfried wished their priority was to find something to eat. He didn’t think he’d ever been this hungry. He followed his captain.

‘I can’t see a pig.’ Esther looked out of the kitchen window. Joyce peered out alongside her. Finch was out in the yard, closing the rear door of the van. He straightened up and winced as his back locked. They could see his mouth moving with silent curses, but there was no sign of a pig in the back of the van.

‘What’s he got there?’ Esther squinted.

Finch picked up a long stick that he’d had resting against the door of the van and moved towards the house. At first Joyce thought it was a walking stick, but then she realised it was a shotgun. It had an elegant, sleek, single silver barrel. A Purdey, embossed with engravings down its length.

By the time Joyce had seen all this, Esther was already moving quickly to the back door where she intercepted Finch.

‘No, no, no!’

‘What, what, what?’ Finch looked affronted.

‘I’m not having guns in the house. You keep them out there with the tools.’

‘Ah,’ Finch whined with annoyance and disappointment. ‘I don’t even know if it works.’

‘Well, you’ll not find out, testing it in here. You’ll blow a hole in the Welsh dresser.’

‘You worry too much.’

‘And you don’t worry enough.’

‘Didn’t you get the pig?’ Joyce asked as Finch was beating a retreat to the yard.

‘No, it was a bit of a runt.’ He mimed the small size of the pig with his hands, unintentionally waving the shotgun around in the process.

‘Stop that! Get out with it!’ Esther chivvied him to the door.

‘D’oh, anyone would think it was your house!’ Finch went outside. Esther rolled her eyes at Joyce. Then Joyce watched as she went to the doorway and called for Dolores, Iris and Martin to come to the table.

Soon the five of them were sitting down to eat the rabbit stew that Esther had prepared. There was plenty of ribbing about Finch and his lame pig escapade, until he did his characteristic thing of bridling with anger at a quip too far. After a period of silence, conversation turned to Christmas. Finch thought that they should eat one of the chickens for the Christmas meal. Thinking about the Christmas meal made him wonder what Annie and Bea would cook for him in Leicester. He was due to leave soon.

‘What was that dish that Annie always made?’ Joyce knew that Esther would come up with something to wind up Finch.

‘Oh, old shoe surprise? That was her signature dish, wasn’t it?’ Esther scratched her chin as if recalling the details. Finch shook his head in bad-tempered annoyance before she’d even finished the sentence. Everyone laughed. Except for Finch. Maybe he really was worrying about what he would get in Leicester …

As the laughter died down, conversation turned to the big celebration. Iris mentioned that she would go to Birmingham to get the dried fruit.

‘Oh, good luck with that.’ Esther speared her last piece of meat onto her fork.

‘I might go with her.’ Martin looked anxious.

Iris gave him a curious look.

‘In case it’s heavy?’

‘I can still carry it if it’s heavy, thank you very much!’ Iris grinned.

Esther looked at her son’s disappointed face. He was trying so hard to make an impression on young Iris. She suspected that Iris knew that he liked her and it warmed Esther’s heart to see Iris throw Martin a warm smile.