The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [186]
CHAPTER 51
29 August 1942
There was a bird calling, a crazy wet bird in a bush, singing its heart out to the night as I limped down the track from the hill. Avebury was dark in the blackout, the rain keeping people indoors. My legs wouldn’t carry me further. I wanted warm water, clean sheets, milk in a tall glass, a hand stroking my limp, knotted hair.
I stumbled through the churchyard, past Mam’s grave, still a heap of earth and no headstone. Through the iron kissing gate onto the cobbles of the stableyard, by the museum where I used to work, where the other Charlie lay in his glass coffin. Then up the path between the lavender to the side door of the Manor. The beech trees in the garden rustled anxious, like, telling me to turn back, no good would come of it. No gleam of light between the heavy blackout curtains.
Please, God, let him be here. I knocked. Silence. Put a hand to my forehead, could feel the heat of my skin, the chill of my body where my damp skirt and blouse clung to me. Oh, Lord, he wasn’t here, there was nobody, not even Mr Waters the butler, what would I do now?
Better that, maybe, than Mrs Keiller. What was I thinking of? What would I have done then?
The door swung open, light knifing across the lawn.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said, stepping into the porch. ‘Heartbreaker. You poor little mite.’ Behind him, pulling together the curtains that hung behind the door to preserve the blackout, was Mrs Sorel-Taylour, shock on her face to see me.
Mr Keiller took hold of my shivering arms. ‘You’re soaked to the skin. Mrs S-T, could you ask someone to run a bath? She’ll catch a fever, if she hasn’t already. Did they send a telegram? You poor child, all alone, no wonder you came to us.’
How could he know? The chill in me was so deep I couldn’t grasp any of this. In the parlour, Mr Young was standing by the fireplace. He gave me the kindest smile, but pity was etched on his solemn face. Why were they all here? Words buzzing round the room like faulty electric circuits. Someone said, here, give her this, it’ll warm her, and Mrs Sorel-Taylour handed me a glass of brandy. But one of those words was already melting my frozen brain, beginning to burn, letters of fire. Telegram.
Only one thing a telegram meant in them days, and never good.
CHAPTER 52
Drumbeats in the dark, louder, faster, louder, LOUDER…
I come awake to the sound of hammering on the front door, my heart thudding in time, sun hitting my eyes through the thin curtains. My watch on the bedside table says half past nine: full morning.
Shit. Meant to be up hours ago. The knocking starts again. One of John’s clients?
I wrap myself in the threadbare towelling dressing-gown John leaves for guests on the back of the spare-room door. Across the landing the door to his room is half open. He’s spark out, shirtless but still in his jeans, on the bed. Anyone else, I’d give them a good shake, but John’s adamant that people should only ever be roused gently from sleep–another of those moments where, apparently, you can do untold damage by scaring away their power animal. So I draw his door quietly closed and leave him to it, making my way down the narrow uncarpeted stairs on bare feet as the next bout of thunderous knocking begins.
On the doorstep stands DI Jennings. He doesn’t look at all surprised to find me at John’s. ‘Good morning, Miss Robinson. Sorry to be so early’–you can tell he doesn’t think it’s early at all, but we’re a pair of slovenly hippies so it would be early to us–‘but I wanted to catch you before you left for the hospital.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Panic shoots up my throat. The police come to tell you when someone’s died, don’t they? No, that’s ridiculous, the hospital would have phoned. Bastard, I bet he knew I’d be freaked. I’m starting to understand why John has a down on the police.
‘I was expecting to find you at Trusloe because our scene-of-crime officers arrived at half past eight this morning to take fingerprints.’
‘Oh, no.’ I close my eyes in frustration. ‘I thought the other policeman said…Nobody told