Lois Meade 03: Weeping on Wednesday (1987) (23 page)

“Mother?” she repeated.

Suddenly the figure whipped around. And laughed.

Enid screamed. From under the unkempt hair a white face with burning dark eyes looked out at her. “Edward!” screamed Enid. And then: “Where’s Mother! What have you…”

She fainted then, and between them Walter and Edward picked her up and laid her gently on her mother’s unmade and unsavoury bed.

L
ois drove slowly towards Bell’s Farm. She had arranged to clean today, not Enid’s usual day but the best she could do under the circumstances. Rosie had said the afternoon was not very convenient, but in a saccharine voice had sympathized with the difficulties Lois must be having. Lois bit her tongue, and set off early, planning to stop by the bridge over the mill stream and think. It was quiet and cool there, and she could watch the moving water and try to work out what Edward Abraham would be likely to do if he needed to vanish for good.

Bright sun percolated through the newly leafed trees, and the stream, now tamed and sparkling, flowed gently under the bridge. It was a lovely place, Lois reflected. The mill, too, could have been idyllic. The Abrahams must have had high hopes when they arrived here from Edinburgh. Lois had never been to Edinburgh, but imagined it as a cold, northern, granite city, with its castle looming over the columns of bagpipers she had seen on television, marching and playing their haunting music for shivering tourists.

Why had the Abrahams chosen Cathanger? Hadn’t Enid said something about her mother coming from round here? She stared down into the water, running clear now over mossy stones, and guessed it was because Cathanger was comparatively remote. Nowhere in the middle of England was really remote, but this was a place you could certainly keep yourself to yourself. If nosy neighbours had been the problem, then Cathanger was the answer. It had obviously worked, too, for years. Stories about the Abrahams had circulated, but nothing really worrying. A spot of embezzlement, a reclusive woman and an unfriendly old man.

No, it had all gone along smoothly until Enid had decided to join New Brooms. Lois could see that clearly. The poor woman had finally made a stand, and in opening up the closed world of the Abrahams, had landed herself in this mess. Lois turned away from the bridge. Then the night of the flood came back to her, and she looked again at the stream, with its dam of thicket and undergrowth. She had been terrified that night. That rolling
thing
in the swollen, muddy water. That white shape so like a face flashing out into the dark and quickly disappearing. She shuddered.

Time to get going. She drove on to Bell’s Farm, scarcely glancing at the mill, certain that Enid was not there.

§

“Ah, there you are, Mrs Meade.” Rosie was bright and forgiving, relieved to see Lois. After all, she would be getting extra service from the boss. “No news of Enid?” she added.

Lois said she’d heard nothing, but asked if Rosie had seen any sign of activity at the mill, anything odd going on.

Rosie shook her head. “It’s difficult to see down there,” she said, “with all those trees and the hedges allowed to grow so high.”

“How about Anna?” Lois knew the girl took the new puppy for walks. “Is she around?” She might have seen something, without knowing it was important.

“Gone to college, I’m afraid,” Rosie said, “but I’ll ask her when she comes back. Really, I don’t know why she bothers to go to English classes. Her English is nearly perfect now.”

“Love,” said Lois flatly. She had heard through the grapevine that Anna the au pair had an Italian boyfriend from college.

“What? Did you say ‘love’!” Rosie was all ears. This would jolly up things a bit. She had always heard that au pairs were a danger in the house, seducing the husband and causing ructions, but so far Anna had seemed bloodless, uninterested in men or boys. Now this was more like it!

Lois told her what she knew, and they agreed it was a promising development. “She’s been altogether too shut in on herself. Spends hours in her room, brooding. You know the sort of thing, Mrs Meade.” Rosie went off to make a cup of tea, humming happily to herself.

Lois carried on cleaning. Upstairs, she adjusted the curtains in Rosie’s bedroom and looked out. She could see over the field and high hedges towards the mill. The roofs of house and barns were visible, but the yard and the mill pond were hidden. A dark, private place.

Then it struck her. A dark, private place, and the perfect spot to hide. A double bluff, then? She hadn’t even bothered to look down the track when driving past, sure that Enid was not there. But supposing she was, still held captive?

Lois flew downstairs, and, yelling as she passed Rosie that she’d be back shortly, she ran as she hadn’t run for years, out of the farm gate and down the lane towards the mill. As she approached the track, she slowed down. Nearly there, now. No good storming in, all guns blazing. She would make it a normal, reasonable call to enquire after Enid’s health, checking that she really did not intend to return. Yes, that would be best.

She walked briskly, and just as she was about to turn down the track, a car came up it towards her, going fast. It was a dull blue, patched clumsily here and there with paint that did not quite match.

She realized in time that it was not going to stop. Jumping on to the verge, she looked as closely as possible through the dirty windows. She was almost sure it was Mr Abraham in the passenger seat, and probably Edward driving. On the back seat she caught a brief glimpse of a woman huddled in the corner, looking out at her. It was Enid. Her expression was blank, her face dirty, and tears made tracks down her pale cheeks.

T
he rest of the afternoon went slowly. Lois determined not to say anything to Rosie Charrington, and invented a fairly plausible excuse for running off. She thought she saw Douglas on a bike, she said, and since he should have been at school, she had rushed out to catch him. But it hadn’t been him, and she was sorry for the interruption.

Rosie accepted this without question. She was chiefly concerned with the news that Anna had a boyfriend. At coffee time, she pestered Lois with questions that she could not answer, and in the end, Lois said why didn’t she wait until Anna returned, when she could have all the juicy details straight from the horse’s mouth? This had caused a small chill to descend, but Rosie quickly forgot, and the afternoon ground on.

At last it was time to leave, and Lois drove slowly and carefully down the mill track, pulling up outside one of the barns and looking around to make sure the car had not returned. A terrible din came from the chicken shed, and a cow contributed to the chorus from the barn opposite. Good God, thought Lois, they’ve gone off and left the animals shut up! Well, she had a remedy for that. Bill, farmer’s son, would know exactly what to do. But first, the house. After all, the whole earful might return any minute. Prepared for a confrontation with the reclusive old mother, who had certainly not been in the car, Lois marched across to the door. To her surprise, she found it half-open.

They’d left in a hurry. That was immediately apparent. Dirty pots and pans stood in the sink, a pile of overalls for the wash scattered around the floor. The dog growled, standing at bay and prepared to attack this intruder. The cats fled through the open door.

“Here, boy,” said Lois, holding out a friendly hand, and hoping to God it would not be bitten off. But the sheepdog crawled slowly towards her on its belly, suspicious at first, and then, this time deciding she was friend not foe, wagged its tail tentatively in greeting. First hurdle cleared, then. Lois knew the way to the mother’s room was through the hall, and walked boldly through. Take the enemy by surprise, that would be her strategy.

The first door she opened led into the dining-room Jamie had described. And there was the piano, the cause of all this trouble. She backed out. Next, the one opposite. She knocked, sure that this must be the mother’s, and then noticed that it stood ajar. There was no reply to her “Hello? Mrs Abraham?”, and so she pushed open the door and went in. The room was empty, and the smell was overpowering.

A quick glance told her, once more, that the exit had been hurried. Clothes strewn everywhere, and a tray of food left half-eaten. On a small desk she saw a pile of books tipped over, and, turning to get out as quickly as possible, caught her foot against a rucked-up rug. She looked down and saw a book, half-hidden. She picked it up and found that it was a leather-bound diary. Opening it at random, she saw handwriting so small that she was unable to read it in the gloom. She slipped it into her pocket and left the room swiftly, holding her nose. Bloody hell! – what was Enid thinking of, allowing it to get into this state?

Lois walked quickly round the rest of the house, and found nobody. She had seen a large key hanging by the back door, and, sure now that nobody was coming back, took it, locked up and went back to her car. There she phoned Bill.

“A job for you, lad,” she said. “When you’ve finished eating, come straight over to Bell’s Farm. And bring your wellies.”

Bill said that his lump of cheese and hunk of stale bread could wait, and he’d be there in ten minutes. Lois grinned. He was a comfort, was Bill. At least I chose well with him, she reassured herself, even if Enid Abraham had turned out to be more liability than asset. Where the fault lay for that had yet to be discovered, and until it was, she determined to find Enid and bring her back into the fold.

Now she dialled Cowgill’s number, and as she did so, realized the enormity of what she had found.
Where was old Mrs Abraham?

“OK, I’ll stay here ‘til you come,” she said, and was thankful that Cowgill seemed at last to have grasped that something bad enough had happened to command urgent action.

“Oh, and I’ve asked Bill Stockbridge to come over and see to the animals. They’re goin’ to be eating each other if they don’t soon get fed. What did you say?” she added, and his reply made her smile to herself. “You’d do very well without me, I expect,” she said. “Plenty of willin’ snouts about, though not many goin’ for free…yeah, OK, I’ll wait.”

Much later, after Bill had dealt with the animals and Cowgill had come over to inspect everything and make his plans, Lois remembered the diary. She checked that it was still in her pocket and said only, “Right, well, I’ll be getting home. Got work to do.”

“I’ll be in touch,” said Cowgill. He turned to Bill. “I’d be glad if you’d keep this under your hat for the moment,” he said, but without much hope. From long experience, he knew that people could never keep secrets for long. Still, he might not need long to sort out this one. A battered, patched blue car with three oddly assorted people in it shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

§

Chugging along, Enid had much the same thoughts. If Mrs M was worried, and Enid was sure she would be, she’d most likely tell the police. They were supposed to be looking for Edward, after all. This old banger would be easy to spot, and easy to catch. She stopped crying, and silence fell over the three of them. Father was hunched down in his seat, and though he had his eyes closed Enid was sure he was not asleep. Edward drove carefully, negotiating twisting lanes that Enid did not recognize. She had no idea where they were, but they had been going less than half an hour when Edward turned the car into a rutted track, worse than the one down to the mill. “Where are we going?” she said in what she hoped was a casual voice. Edward had started humming quietly for the last five minutes, and Enid recognized one of their childhood songs, “
Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques
”. To Enid’s ears it had a sinister sound. This lighthearted Edward, singing as if they were on a picnic jaunt, was terrifying in his unpredictability. She couldn’t even guess where they were going, or what he would do next, but she knew from experience that he was not to be underrated.

“You’ll see,” he said lightly. “It’ll be a treat for you, Enid,” he added, and smiled to himself. After five minutes bumping along, being thrown from side to side, they stopped outside an old barn. It was falling to pieces, and clearly never used by whoever owned it. “See, Enid?” Edward said. “I’ve had to find all the best hiding places around, and this one is perfect for the purpose.”

“What purpose, dear?” said Enid.

“Come with me,” he said, and got out of the car. She had a swift image of herself trussed up in the corner of a dark barn with Father, both of them abandoned to a terrible fate.

But Edward asked her to help open the battered doors of the barn, and inside she saw, with a sinking heart, another car, a much better, newer car. It was an anonymous black, with the opaque windows she associated with film stars and criminals. Not what the police would be looking for at all. Edward had lost none of his cunning, she reflected sadly. No wonder he’d wanted her out of the way in the cave. He’d had a lot of organizing to do.

“Come on, quickly,” he said now. “Help me transfer the cases, and get Father into the back seat. I want you in the front to map read…just for the first few miles. Then I know the way, after that.”

He was excited, full of enthusiasm. They completed the transfer in minutes, put the old car in the barn and shut the doors, and then they were off again, back down the track and out on to the road. “Here,” said Edward, giving Enid the road map, “tell me which way to the motorway, then I’ll be fine. You can have a nap.” He turned and looked at her briefly. “Sorry, Enid,” he said, “about the cave business… But it was necessary…part of the plan. Sorry if I hurt you…”

She managed a smile in return. “That’s all right,” she said. “No harm done. I expect you’ll be telling me more about it later. Now, take a right turn at this junction, and then it’s straight on for about five miles.”

Once on the motorway, Enid put down the map and closed her eyes. She knew they were heading north, and now had a good idea where they were going. Father was snoring now, and she was glad. At least he had found an escape from this terrifying flight. He must be worrying about Mother. After Enid had come round from her faint in the house, Edward had explained that they had taken Mother to a nursing home the other side of Tresham. “We had to do it while you were out working,” he’d said. “Knew you wouldn’t agree. Father wasn’t too keen, but I convinced him.” He had grinned conspiratorially. “Anyway, she’s settled down well, they said.” Then he’d added, “It was a good joke, the dressing-up, wasn’t it? Fooled you for a minute, didn’t I?” His laughter had been like a blow, and she’d recoiled.