The Witch Of Exmoor Part 9

Rosemary shakes her head.'Why do you ask?'

'I just wondered. What happened to her.'

'She never mentioned her. Do you think she can still be alive?'

'I don't suppose so. We would surely have heard something if she were.'

'I don't know about that.'

'She'd have kept in touch with Grandma, surely.'

'There was some quarrel,' says Rosemary flatly.

'It's surprising that Frieda was so loyal to Grandma, really. Considering,' says Gogo.

'Considering what mean old cows they both were,' says Rosemary with more energy, then, gathering strength, rus.h.i.+ng at the fence, rising, clearing it. 'Considering that we don't know whether our own father's alive or dead.'

Gogo is silent. Rosemary is silent. These words have never been spoken between them. They have followed Daniel's prohibition, and of their father they never speak. He has been written out of the text of their lives. It is as though he has never been. Unmentioned for so many years, he cannot now be invoked without a great tearing and rending.

'Oh, G.o.d,' says Gogo. 'I can't face all this. I want to go home.'

'It's not going to be as easy as that,' says Rosemary, with a small note of satisfaction in her voice. She is pleased with herself for having braved Gogo, braved her father, braved the past. She has said the unsayable. She has cleared the fence and now, for a mile or two, she leads the field.

No will is revealed by the Sunday search of Ashcombe, but other useful and interesting items come to light. Daniel, Gogo and Rosemary find the butler's pantry and the family silver and the toenails of the devil, and they locate the boxes which contain Frieda's genealogical research. There had been a bonfire, but not of these papers. They discover her word-processor, which is no longer attempting to speak to them, for one of the police visitors, disliking the waste of electricity, had thoughtfully turned it off. Rosemary, who understands such machines, turns it on, and brings up a list of what seem to be Frieda's files. This, they agree, may be vital, but the labels of the files are, like the labels of all such files, cryptic. It will take them time and some luck to unlock the secrets of the box, and they are not calm enough to try.

Not many communications seem to have reached Ashcombe from the outside world. A request to fill in the Electoral Register, a couple of religious pamphlets and an appeal from the Lifeboat a.s.sociation he neglected on a window-sill inside the front porch, together with an opened Jifiy bag addressed to Mr F. H. Palmer. This Daniel investigates, and finds that it contains a booklet called The Householder's Guide to Radon, fifth edition, published by the Department of the Environment, and an envelope containing a letter from the National R.adio-logical Protection Board addressed to Ms Frieda Haxby Palmer. Daniel scans the letter rapidly, and notes that it had thanked his mother for her co-operation in testing her home for radon, and advised her that, if her detectors had been accurately placed according to instructions, they recorded, when corrected for seasonal variations, 'an average radon level over the year of 850 Bq m-3. As this is above the Action Level, it is advisable to reduce the level as soon as reasonably practicable.'

Daniel replaces the Jiffy bag on the window-sill, and pockets the letter, without drawing it to the attention of his sisters. He will ponder its ominous implications later.

They also discover a highly coloured postcard of Mount Teide on Tenerife from one Susan Stokes, correctly addressed and including a post code, which says, enigmatically, 'Doing a Sleeping Beauty at the moment. Great fun. What about you?', and a letter from a Mr Glover in Yeovil, thanking Miss Haxby for her great kindness in looking after his prize pigeon Paula. Paula has returned home safely (to join Peter, Paul, Priscilla, Pansy, Posy, and all the other Pees!) and is now restored to full health, thanks to Miss Haxby's care: he had taken the liberty of enclosing the introductory leaflet of the Royal Pigeon Racing a.s.sociation, and a copy of Homing World, in case her experience of sheltering Paula has led her to think of keeping pigeons herself!

What is one to make of these small fragments of an Ashcombe-based social life? They present Frieda Haxby as an innocent pensioner, a responsible citizen, almost as a good neighbour (though Yeovil, it is true, is fifty miles or more away): there is nothing here to suggest that she might be, or have been, either more or less than the nice if slightly eccentric old lady into whose contours the barman at the Royal Oak had tried to squeeze her.

And what is one to lift, of her leavings? Should they take the box files, the computer, the silver? They have not time to explore further, and they are afraid that if they take their spoils, even in her own best interests, she will arrive screeching like an avenging angel, clouded in wrath. 'Do you remember,' says Rosemary, giggling nervously, 'how cross she used to get when we went into her room when she was working.'

'Yes,' says Gogo, 'and how we were always ignoring her. We were always interrupting her. G.o.d knows how she got anything done.'

'She worked nights,' says Daniel. 'She had a will of iron, and she worked nights.'

As they hesitate, in the butler's pantry, they hear a loud knocking at the door, and jump guiltily, like thieves. Rosemary returns the Swedish medal to its box, Gogo shuts the lid of the tarnished Palmer cutlery, as they hear a door bang, and footsteps approaching down the stone corridor. A man's footsteps, heavy, deliberate: they sigh with relief.

The detective inspector is clearly not satisfied with their answers, although he is very polite. Nor do they themselves find their own answers satisfactory. They sit in the drawing-room and try to explain, but of course they cannot explain.

Why had Mrs Haxby Palmer (he'd got that right, for a start, which was improbable) decided to settle in this part of the world? What had first brought her here? Had she intended to stay? What were her connections?

Their replies sound thin. They are unable to say why she had chosen to live here. They agree that the house is large, for a woman alone, and in bad repair. As far as they know, she has no connections here. (Shall they mention that friendly pensioner? As they have never met her and do not know her name and doubt if she can exist, it seems unwise.) How did she come across the house in the first place?

They look at one another, unhappily. They have not had time to collude, and Mr Rorty knows it. Daniel is getting irritable; he dares not risk showing it, but his sisters can tell. They do not know whether they want Daniel to a.s.sert himself or not. After a pause, he does.

'She saw it advertised in an estate agent's window,' Daniel says, a little coldly.

'In Taunton?'

'We understood it was in Taunton,' says Daniel, even more coldly.

The detective inspector does not ask what she was doing in Taunton, but his silence, his attentive expression, ask the question for him. This time it is Gogo who answers.

'She was in Taunton in search of a meatless hamburger, we believe,' she says provocatively. She has had enough of being intimidated. Mr Rorty looks even more quizzical, so she pursues. She tells him the story of Frieda's investigation of the meat-free burger, of her visit to the Trading Inspector in Taunton, of her interest in the firm that made Hot Snax. She does not tell him about Timon's feast, but the memory of it fortifies her, and she can seeall three of them can seethat she has made a wise decision in expounding Frieda's case. Mr Rorty listens with interest. The story is ludicrous, but he does not appear to find it so. Mr Rorty makes notes in his notebook.

'And so,' concludes Gogo, 'finding herself in Taunton, at one stage in her quest, she saw the picture of the house in the shop window, and she bought it. That's the kind of woman she was. I mean, is.'

Mr Rorty is mollified by this confession of idiosyncrasy. Yes, he knows Mrs Haxby Palmer is a writer, and appreciates her need for solitude. Writing her memoirs, you say? How interesting. Now can they, as her family, think of any reason why she might have chosen to disappear, of her own free will?

Dumbly, they shake their heads. Are they suspects, accessories?

He thanks them for their co-operation. The search will continue, and he will let them know as soon as there is any news. Meanwhile, if they will get in touch with him if they hear anything from Mrs Palmer, he will be most grateful. He hands them his card.

As they part, in the courtyardthey are keen to see him off, for they wish to a.s.sert that this is their territory, not hishe asks them, casually, 'Is your mother by any chance a smoker?'

Gogo, again, takes it upon herself to answer. 'I'm afraid she is,' she says with disapproval. 'She took it up late in life, but yes, I'm afraid she does smoke.'

'Why do you ask?' says Daniel suspiciously.

'Just checking,' says Mr Rorty. 'Checking the possibility of intruders, that's all. Somebody had been smoking, and there are b.u.t.ts in the garden, that kind of thing. b.u.t.ts down on the beach. But from what you say, it was probably just your mother. Not many people walk along here.' He grins, collusively. 'Too steep for most folk, isn't it?'

And off drove Mr Rorty, congratulating himself on not having mentioned the fact that in the next cove three plastic-wrapped bales of high-grade Moroccan cannabis had been washed up earlier in the weekthe second big haul in two months. It didn't seem as if the old girl had had anything to do with it, but you never can tell. She's certainly been smoking the stuff, but that was another matter. That was her own affair. She'd chosen a fine and private place to do it, and it looked as though, wherever she'd got to now, she was beyond prosecution. It looked like it was just a coincidence. He'd tell the local boys to get the dogs out on Monday. You could rot for years in this undergrowth.

At the end of the next week, an Identikit impression of a young man was posted up outside the police stations of West Somerset and Devon, and released to the local press. A copy of it was also sent to each of the Palmer family. Daniel Palmer opened his over breakfast, and silently handed it to Patsy. She looked at it for a cold moment and said, 'That's Will Paine.' The backs of her wrists p.r.i.c.kled, as they did when she'd had a near hit in the car.

Frieda Haxby Palmer had been seen with the young man in Exeter, in Minehead, in Ilfracombe, in Bideford and in Westward Ho!

The photofit was an excellent, an unmistakable likeness. There was Will Paine to the life: his sweet smile, his short cropped hair, his symmetrically chipped teeth. His dark skin. There aren't all that many black men in Exeter, Minehead, Ilfracombe, Bideford and Westward Ho! According to D'Anger's almanac, there were 0.8 per cent in most of these places, though Exeter boasted 1.45. Not much in the way of cover. And anyway, Will Paine had the kind of face that stayed in the memory. He was such a nice-looking boy.

'I don't believe it,' said Patsy. 'I don't believe there was any harm in him.'

Daniel looked at her with that ironic expression which had thrown panic into the prose of many a hard-boiled witness. It seemed on this occasion justified.

'What do they say?' rallied Patsy, ready to spring to the defence.

'Wanted for questioning. In connection with the disappearance of. And with cash withdrawals from various cashpoints.'

Patsy breathed sharply. 'So he stole her cashcard. That's not the end of the world.'

'n.o.body said it was. It's what he did with the body that's of interest.'

'Oh, don't be ridiculous,' said Patsy. 'You're not suggesting he murdered her, are you?'

'Somebody seems to be,' said Daniel reasonably.

'I don't believe it,' repeated Patsy stubbornly. But, of course, she did. And, dutifully, like a good citizen, she rang Mr Rorty and spilled the beans. She owned up to an acquaintance with Will Paine.

Reports from the witnesses who had drawn such a d.a.m.ning likeness of Will Paine were confusing. He had, it is true, been seen in the company of a grey-haired, large-nosed woman of middle height; she had been wearing an old Persian-lamb jacket, grey trousers and Wellington boots, and he a leather jacket and black trousers. The couple had been spotted together in the vicinity of several cashpoints. But at no point did he appear to be threatening or menacing her; indeed, one observer, a female taxi-driver in Westward Ho!, alleged that it had been the other way round. The woman had been pus.h.i.+ng the young man towards the bank and urging him to insert the plastic card he was holding. He had appeared reluctant.

The police officer had tried to talk Mrs Boxer out of this statement, but she had been immovable. The woman had been pus.h.i.+ng the boy. He had looked nervous and ill at ease. Yes, she was quite sure that this was what she had noticed.

Mrs Haxby Palmer's bank statements had been examined, and, bafflingly, had showed no cash withdrawals at all over the relevant period. Monies had been paid in, on a monthly basis, from her agent, and there had been one or two small debit transactions20 for petrol at the Crosskeys, 40 for a meal at the Hunter's Inn, 15 from a stationer's in Exeter. Yet witnesses swore that they had seen slabs of banknotes clicking and gliding out of West Country walls.

Mrs Haxby Palmer had a balance of 34,000 in her current account. Roland Rorty was not convinced that this was evidence that she was involved in drug trafficking. He thought it more likely, from the profile he was compiling, that it indicated a degree of financial insouciance characteristic of an unworldly intellectual. Perhaps Mrs Palmer had never heard of deposit accounts and interest rates. Or maybe she was so rich that 34,000 was, to her, peanuts. Either seemed equally possible.

Not surprisingly, Will Paine had vanished too. He was nowhere to be found. n.o.body came forward from North London to claim him, even when Patsy had handed over what she knew of his curriculum vitae. Remarks about his strong Midlands accent had already widened the search to Wolverhampton, but his mother, if she had noticed the inquiries, remained mum.

It was all most unsatisfactory.

After a couple of weeks, Goltho & Goltho disclosed that they were holding not only a copy of Mrs Palmer's latest will, but also the deeds of Ashcombe House. They were quite willing to co-operate with family pressure to view the will. She had left everything, apart from a few small legacies, in trust to her grandson Benjamin. The trustees were to be David D'Anger and her old friend Lord Ogden.

Gogo, hearing this news, was struck with a chill of fear. It could not, nor it would not come to good. Daniel, hearing this news, resolved to challenge the will, for his mother could not have been of sound mind when she made it. Rosemary, hearing this news, felt faint with mean rage. As she happened to be wearing an ambulatory blood pressure monitor on this day, fitted to her arm at 8 a.m. that morning by the Nightingale Hospital, the mean rage was registered by the most impressive lurch in its readings.

So n.o.body was pleased with Frieda's gesture, and n.o.body was quite sure what it meant.

David D'Anger, who had been taking the line that Frieda's disappearance was none of his business, found that it was his business after all. Why had she done this to them? Why had she put them to this test? And was it legal to appoint him as trustee without even asking him?

Gogo and David had decided to protect Benjamin from the gossip and speculation surrounding Frieda's disappearance. So far this had been easy, as it had not hit the national press: Frieda's fame had not been of the sort to command tabloid headlines, and the police had been discreet in their inquiries. None of the witnesses they questioned had ever heard of her, so the damage had been limited. Could this go on for ever? No, of course not. Soon Benjie and the world would have to know. His innocence was threatened.

Jon and Jess Herz found out because they heard their parents shouting at one another about it, but it did not mean much to them as they had not seen Frieda for years. They had not been favourites. They could not think why Rosemary was so worked up about it. They preferred their Golders Green granny. Simon Palmer no longer took any interest in family affairs, but Patsy, wracked with guilt, had confessed to Emily over the telphone that Will Paine had somehow tracked down Frieda on Exmoor and made off with her.

'What do you mean, made off with her?' Emily's cool voice had asked, as Patsy nervously paced the bedroom with the cordless phone. 'Do you mean they've eloped together?'

This new interpretation struck Patsy as a saving notion: she clutched at it.

'Well, maybe they have,' she said. 'I hadn't thought of that.'

'He was a nice boy, Will Paine,' said Emily. 'He wouldn't hurt a fly.'

'That's what I thought,' said Patsy, weak with the relief of avowal. 'But I think I may have been wrong.'

'Never,' said Emily. 'He won't have hurt her, I promise you. They've probably run off to Eldorado.'

'I hope you're right,' said Patsy.

And she told Daniel that evening, that he'd better not rush into anything hasty over Frieda's will. She might still have the last laugh. 'She'll have it anyway,' said Daniel irritably. 'But I take your point.'

Will Paine's fax to Patsy put paid to this line of comfort. It came not from Eldorado but from Jamaica, and in Patsy's trusting view it exonerated him, perhaps alas, of all blame. Will Paine had heard, he would not say how, that he was being looked for, and although he had no intention of coming home and getting into trouble he did want the Palmers to know that he hadn't robbed Frieda. They had done right by him and he wanted to do right by them. He had left Frieda alive and well, standing on Exeter station, waving him off on the 11.31 a.m. to Paddington. He had, it's true, a bagful of money which she had thrust upon him, but he had never asked for it, had repeatedly tried not to take it, and while he could not say he did not now want it, he had not got hold of it by unfair means. Frieda had a.s.sured him she did not need it.

'She give it me to get rid of me,' read his fax. 'She said it was American money from a special bank account and not wanted because of tax reasons. She persuaded me to take it and I swear that is the honest truth. I bought an airticket and came here to seek my father. Please tell the police I am an innocent man and get them to take the poster down, I don't want my mum to see it, she has enough trouble. Please tell Mr D'Anger that Mrs Haxby said to say it was just redistribution. I pestered Mrs Haxby but that is the worst I did. She let me stay on to help in the garden. There are blackberries in the freezer, but the electricity goes off too often, so they may be off. We had some good times and she taught me blackgammon. But then she got tired of me being around all the time and wanted me to go.

'Please tell Mr D'Anger that it's not possible to open your eyes take off the veil and wake up a different person just because of different place or money.

'I hope Mrs Haxby has not come to harm. She liked to walk to Hindspring Point above the old kiln and it was a dangerous walk. Bless you Mrs Palmer, you were a stroke of real luck to me.'

Patsy, reading this, wonders how much luck she had brought Will Paine, if any.

She believes every word of his fax. It has the ring of truth. But will the police believe it? Will Daniel believe it? Should she keep it to herself? She does not trust Daniel not to tell the police, so instead she rings David D'Anger and reads him the text. She can hear that David is as much at a loss as she.

'I can't see what's to be gained by telling the police, can you?' she suggests to him. 'They'll never take his word for anything.'

'You could check out the kiln and the blackberries,' says David.

'I'm not going near that creepy place,' says Patsy, it sounds like h.e.l.l. I've always hated Devon.'

'Then we'll just have to wait and see what happens,' says David. He too is not keen to persecute Will Paine, whose presence he cannot even remember, and whose personal messages baffle him. Can he once have been an extra-mural student at an evening cla.s.s, years ago?

David compromises. He puts it to Gogo that Gogo put it to the police that she has just remembered that Frieda had mentioned a walk to the old kiln. Gogo obliges.

Will Paine hates Jamaica. The only lie he had told to Patsy had been that he had come here to seek his father. His father was, as far as he knew, in New York, and Will had no desire to see him. His father had terrorized his mother and frightened Will Paine. Will has come to seek his fatherland, and he does not like it much. He wishes now that he had gone to one of the other islands, or to Guyana. But he had chosen Jamaica. It is a slum, or the bit of it he's found is a slum. The dogs bark, the bananas rot, the heat is a killer, the room is full of bugs, and he has seen a snail as big as a football. He can't get used to the dollar bills, and knows he has been cheated. His delicate stomach has been upset. He is neither one thing nor the other here. He is not a tourist, but he has no job. Where shall he drift next? How long will the money last?

He had told the truth about the money to Patsy. Frieda had bought him off He hadn't wanted to leave so soon, he'd liked it at Ashcombe. He'd liked the woods, the rosehips, the blackberries, the elderberries, the chanterelles, the little black trompettes de la mort. Frieda had told him where to look, and he had fetched bagsful for her. He had been happy and light of foot among the bracken, and on the narrow path to Hindspring Point. He had found liberty caps for her, on the upper gra.s.sland, and had taught her how to make a magic-mushroom stew. He had bought her weed and they had smoked together. They had eaten winkles and played cards and backgammon. They had listened to the roaring of the stags in rut, and to the crying of the gulls. But then she had been tired of him. 'I want to be alone now,' she had said one night. He had pleaded in vain.

She'd taken him off, the next day, to town. To several towns. She'd got a new plastic card which she could put into the holes in the wall, which she said connected with an illegal bank account in America. She said the money was useless, she couldn't declare it, she couldn't spend it. He could have it. It was money for free. Free as blackberries and chanterelles. Look for the symbol, she said, and it was therea symbol he'd never noticed before. MIDAS, next to ACCESS and VISA and all the other logos. And the money had spewed out, in town after town. English money. All over Exmoor. She got overexcited. She had laughed as one bunch fell to the pavement and began to blow away. She stuffed it into her coat pockets, into her bag. People took notice, people stared, he tried to restrain her but she didn't care.

'Let's just get rid of it,' she said, as she drove on to the next machine. The system had seized up, finally, in a small townmore of a village, reallyon top of the purple moorland. Their last stop, and the machine refused to give. It blinked angrily, and swallowed the card for ever.

'd.a.m.n,' said Frieda happily. 'They've caught up with us. Oh, well, never mind. I've got you enough to be going on with.'

He'd tried to refuse it, but she hadn't let him. 'You're doing me a favour,' she said. 'You're making an honest woman of me.'

And she'd forced it on him, and had driven him, the next day, to Exeter, to the station.

'That's it,' she'd said. 'That's the end. I don't want to see you back here again.'

She hadn't wished him luck, but she had waved as the train pulled out.

That was his true story, and he was sticking to it. But who would believe him? He has been turned into a joke, a fraud. He too is a missing person. He will have to lie low, perhaps for life. He wonders if Patsy will feel it her duty to hand over his letter to the police. He wonders if he can be tracked down electronically through the fax machine in Kingston Korner Kommunications. He wonders about the laws of extradition. He wonders if he will ever feel more at home here. Is he Jamaican, is he a Wolverhampton man, is he a North London man? Is there a place in the world for him? This question had not arisen during his brief scamper in the bracken. Is he a man of the woodland? What is it that threatens him now?

Benjamin's life is also under threat.

When Gogo had first heard, in garbled version, over the telephone, the terms of Frieda's will, she had known that some bad thing had happened, irreversibly. What it was she did not know, but it had happened. Like a road accident, an illness, a breakage. In that moment she knew that the future had changed. She was not sure if David also felt the breath of fear. At first she did not dare to ask him.

For what was it that seemed so ominous in this good fortune, this windfall? It would annoy her brother and sister; it would be natural for them to be annoyed. But this perhaps could be put right, with time and tact. (Not so easy, if Daniel pursued his notion of disputing the will, but maybe he would drop it. Maybe they could reach some compromise.) Gogo was clear in her own conscience that she had never sought to influence Frieda in any way in her own favour or her son's. The idea was ludicrous. As soon might one seek to influence the tides or the weather or the traffic on the M4. She believed that Daniel and Rosemary would believe her on this point. They would not blame her personally, surely? And even if they did, she could learn to live with the disapproval of her siblings.

Her fear attached itself to something other, some unknown shape.

Ne ither she nor David had any notion of the size of Frieda's estate, were she truly dead, and were it truly to come to Benjamin. They hardly dared to mention it between themselves. The fact that she had disappeared with 34,000 in her current account seemed to them, as it seemed to Roland Rorty, inconclusive. 34,000 was in itself a tidy sum for a schoolboy to inherit, but there was the possibility, indeed the likelihood, that it represented buried treasure. And what of that terrible house, and the royalties from Frieda's books? What, come to that, of the film rights of Queen Christina? It was all too burdensome, too uncontrolled. It would ruin them all. What had Frieda been playing at? What should Gogo say to Benjamin? What had Frieda herself already said to Benjamin? Had grandmother and grandson entered into some unholy pact?