The Murder Pit. Mick Finlay

she told you that, did she?’

      ‘Rosanna told me, but Birdie was there. She wanted Rosanna and Walter with her. She lacks confidence in her speaking.’

      ‘Did Birdie tell you she wanted them with her, Bill?’

      ‘Well, it was Walter went to fetch her. I believe she asked him.’

      The guvnor frowned for a very brief moment. ‘But we don’t know if she really did want them there?’

      ‘Ah, I see. You think like a detective. I’m afraid I don’t, but I can’t imagine they prevented her seeing me alone. I’ve known them for years. They wouldn’t do that.’

      ‘Thank you, Bill,’ said the guvnor with a sigh. ‘Listen, we wanted to catch Godwin away from the farm. D’you know if he goes to the pub very often?’

      ‘He’ll be there tonight, I’m sure. A bit too fond of a drink, that man.’

      Sprice-Hogg had an appointment, but he suggested we wait in the parsonage until evening, and soon we were sat in his parlour warming our feet by the coals. Sarah brought us tea and the papers, and we spent a few hours in comfort.

      ‘Idiots!’ declared the guvnor, waking me from a doze.

      ‘Sir?’ I asked, my mind fugged from sleep. He was reading the Illustrated Police News.

      ‘A whole page on the damn Swaffham Prior case. They’ve found another fool to blame. Some bombazine. Good Christ, the paper’s all but tried and convicted him. And there were more speeches in Parliament defending the boys.’

      He turned the page furiously.

      ‘Another article on criminal anthropology,’ he murmured. He studied it for a few moments. ‘D’you believe Lombroso’s scheme? That you can identify a criminal from his face?’

      ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

      ‘They’ve some pictures here.’ He studied the paper, then peered at me through his eyeglasses. Then he examined the paper again. ‘Well, look at you,’ he said at last. ‘Oh dear, dear, Barnett. I believe you’re one of these types. Bulging forehead; long lobes; eyes far apart. Dear, dear. It appears you’re a degenerate, my friend.’

      ‘I haven’t got a bulging forehead.’

      ‘It bulges, Barnett. Don’t be vexed with me for saying it.’

      ‘My eyes are no more apart than yours.’

      He concentrated on lighting his pipe, but I could see he was trying to stop himself grinning. When it had a blaze, he said, ‘I didn’t say I agree with Lombroso. You just match one of his types.’

      I said nothing. Truth was I sometimes suspected I was a degenerate. He didn’t know some of the things I’d done back when I lived with my ma in one of the worst courts in Bermondsey. Down there you had to be a degenerate to get by, and I’d done a few things I wasn’t proud of, things he’d never had to do coming from the background he did. It started when I was eleven, the very week we moved out of the spike to that dismal room with the wet floor in the most run-down building in the court. We could only get the room on account of me getting a job in the vinegar factory, but that very first Saturday three older lads jumped me on my way home and nicked my wages. The same happened the next Saturday, and the Saturday after, and soon ma and me were four weeks behind on the rent and run out of tick in the shop. That’s how I went out late one night, when my ma was asleep, looking for them. I didn’t know what I’d do until I found the youngest passed out from gin by the outhouse. Then I knew: I went back to the room where there was a can of paraffin, almost empty. A box of matches. I set him alight and watched him burn until he woke, screaming and twisting. That was the start of it all, of all the things I’ve tried to forget.

      ‘What are you going to do, Norman?’ he asked, bringing me back from my thoughts. ‘Now that Mrs Barnett… well, now you’re on your own?’

      ‘Just keep on, William. What else?’

      ‘I mean, are you going to stay in that room? Isn’t it lonely?’

      ‘For now,’ I said, hearing my voice lose its strength. ‘But we’ll see. I just don’t know.’

      He watched me for some time, then we fell back to reading our papers. My eyes scanned the words but now my head was so full of memories I couldn’t take in any of the meaning. Soon the guvnor’s paper fell on the floor. He was asleep, his chin fallen on his chest, snoring like a fattened Berkshire. I took the pipe from his mouth, put it on the mantel, and left the house.

      The Ockwell graves were in a corner behind the church. I found the baby’s marker quickly. The small stone was still fresh, a simple crucifix above the name: Abigail Ockwell, 12 November–13 November, 1893. Beloved daughter. There were no other recent graves, no other little Ockwells by her side. Her grandfather was buried there, 1891, his stone bigger than the child’s, almost up to my waist, a space on it for his wife still clinging on to life from her sickbed. At the bottom of the stone, a fourth child: Henry Ockwell, died aged four, 1863. Around these two graves the grass was clipped short, but further back it grew longer. Here were the ancestors, the great- and great-great-grandparents, great uncles and aunts, the dates stretching back to the 1600s.

      It was half three or so when I reached Mrs Gillie’s camp. The trees all around were still, even the shining black crows above were silent. There was old Tilly, packed in sacking, looking at me like I’d come to rescue her. There the remains of the fire, the kettle. There was little left of the cat but bone and bloody fur. I opened the caravan door and went in: her coat and boots were just as we left them. The red box that had been on the floor outside was now inside, the broken flowers gone. Someone had been here and tidied them away.

      I walked around the copse again, checking under the rhododendron and holly, kicking through piles of dead leaves. I climbed over the fence into the fields and searched the ditches and hedges and paths all around.

      She wasn’t there.

      In the cold twilight, I led the horse over to the stream, where I broke up the ice for her to drink. Then I tied the horse again and filled her nosebag. She looked at me like she wanted an explanation.

      ‘No idea, mum,’ I said. She snorted and pushed her nuzzle into my shoulder.

      When I got back to the parsonage, night had fallen. Sprice-Hogg was back, and he and the guvnor sat in the parlour drinking port, a bowl of boiled eggs between them upon the couch, their stockinged feet stretched out to the fire.

      ‘They’ve cleared away the evidence,’ said the guvnor when I’d told them about the red box. He rose, brushed the bits of eggshells from his crotch, and began to pace the painted floorboards. ‘But where is she, damn it! She could be lying injured somewhere. And it’s our fault.’

      ‘Your fault?’ asked Sprice-Hogg.

      ‘People who’ve helped us with information have been hurt before,’ said the guvnor. His eyes fluttered. ‘She had a premonition. Why else would she talk about her own death the way she did? She must have worried we’d tell someone and we did. We told Root what she’d said.’

      ‘We don’t know it had anything to do with her talking to us, sir,’ I said. ‘It could have been thieves, or someone come looking for her sons.’

      ‘It was right after she told us about her husband and the children!’ barked the guvnor. ‘Someone doesn’t want us investigating. Why else would they clear away the evidence of a struggle? Tell me, Bill, d’you know anything about three children dying at the farm in the last few years? Mrs Gillie mentioned it. Only one was buried.’

      The parson shook his head. ‘Polly’s poor child died about three years ago, God rest her soul, but there haven’t been any other children up there for years. William, really, I wouldn’t take what Mrs Gillie