Long Lankin (36 page)

“Jasper researched many other documents in the Public Record Office in London, in the county and diocesan archives, and in all kinds of other places. The history of Long Lankin, you see, became his obsession — and his undoing.

“It would probably take all afternoon for you two to work out what this paper says. Old handwriting and spelling like this can take some getting used to. Jasper’s transcription must still be in the old tin box with Mrs. Eastfield, so I spent this morning making this copy of my own for you.”

We sat staring down at the paper, even when we’d finished reading it. All I could hear now was the slow
tick tick tick
of a clock somewhere in the cottage. It was like the ticking of the whole world, on and on and on, through all the years that have ever been.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Flippin’ hell!” cried Cora, shooting to her feet.

It was Mrs. Thorston, singing in a voice like a little girl’s. We rushed into the other room. She was still in the chair but staring straight ahead with her mouth wide open, her eyes a strange milky blue.

“Gracie! Gracie! That’s enough!” said Mr. Thorston, kneeling down in front of her and taking hold of her shoulders. The cat jumped down, spitting.

“She’s scaring the living daylights out of me!” Cora shouted. “Make her be quiet!”

“Stop it, Gracie, do you hear?” said Mr. Thorston.

Mrs. Thorston’s head slumped down.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned Long Lankin,” said Mr. Thorston. “You all right, Gracie?”

“I’m all right, Hal.”

Cora was white. “That’s Kittie’s song,” she said, “Kittie Wicken’s. I’ve seen her, Mr. Thorston. How is Mrs. Thorston singing it? What’s going on?”

“Sit down, Cora, sit down,” he urged gently, guiding her into the cane-bottomed chair.

“Everyone in Bryers Guerdon knows that song — all the old people anyway. Kittie was a laundress at Guerdon Hall when — when the murders happened.”

“I know. She had a baby — a boy,” Cora said. “It was born at the rectory, then Kittie had to go back to Guerdon Hall, but she didn’t want to. She was frightened. What happened to the baby?”

“There’s no record,” said Mr. Thorston. He studied his rough old hands. “At least, not of the baby, but we know what happened to Kittie. She — she was found dead in the creek.”

“The creek at Guerdon Hall?” said Cora.

“Jasper — Jasper Scaplehorn thought she might have been trying to save her baby from Long Lankin.”

“Was the tide in or out?”

“When they found her, the tide was in — she was floating — but it didn’t mean there was water in the creek when she died. She might have been trying to cross the mud after Lankin and somehow he killed her. Or poor Kittie could have taken her own life, drowned herself.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Piers Hillyard says she was bearing the burden of some terrible secret she wouldn’t even confide to him. Whatever it was, she was a very, very frightened girl.”

Somebody knocked firmly on the door.

“It’s only me, Mr. Thorston! Can I come in?”

I recognized Nurse Smallbone’s voice.

“I’ll go,” said Roger, heading for the door.

“And how’s Mrs. Thorston today?” Nurse Smallbone called over, entering like a breeze. “Oh, hello, you two, fancy meeting you here. Nice to see you on your feet again, dear. How’s Mum, Roger?”

“Still a bit tired.”

“Only to be expected. I’ll pop in and see her on my way home. Good afternoon, Grace. Lovely day, isn’t it? I’ve got your new tablets here. I’m going to have to give Grace the once-over, Mr. Thorston. Do you mind — the children —?”

“Yes, yes, of course. Come along, you two, best be going.”

“Oh, all right,” said Roger. “Bye-bye, Nurse Smallbone. Bye, Mrs. Thorston.”

“Bye,” I said.

Just then, Mrs. Thorston sat bolt upright. She turned her head and looked straight at me with her cloudy eyes. “He ate my brother,” she said.

“Really, Grace, what nonsense you do talk,” muttered Nurse Smallbone, opening her black bag. “Have you been making her that tea with plants again, Mr. Thorston? I’ve told you before, it won’t do her a bit of good.”

“He didn’t have any toys,” said Mrs. Thorston, holding my gaze. “I took the little rag he carried about and tied it on the gypsy tree.”

“Come on, Cora, come on,” said Mr. Thorston. “I — I’ll walk you both down the lane for a bit. Don’t forget the rest of the vegetables, Roger. I’ll be back soon, Nurse.”

In a daze, I picked up one of the bulging shopping bags that were resting on the floor by the front door, and left the cottage, relieved to feel the sunshine on my face.

“Mr. Thorston,” I asked, “what did she mean —‘He ate my brother’?”

“Could we sit down for a moment?” said Mr. Thorston as we passed a wooden bench. We stretched out our legs and watched a cat washing itself as it lay in a sunny patch of grass beside the path.

“You know,” Mr. Thorston went on, “Mrs. Thorston — if you could have seen her when she was young, you wouldn’t have laughed then.”

“We didn’t laugh, Mr. Thorston,” I said. “It was —”

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry.” He gazed at the hedge opposite. “You know, I could have made a fortune for myself out in India. Oh, the colours of the place — blood red, ochre, burnished gold, the fragrance of spices, the baked earth, painted birds, the jewels, the palaces, the beautiful women . . . My uncle Leonard lived like a maharajah, and I could have done the same. He laid out an embroidered carpet before my feet but — but I couldn’t bring myself to walk upon it.”

“Crikey, why not?”

“Because Grace could not have walked beside me.”

“Oh, come on, Mr. Thorston, lots of English ladies went out to India,” I said. “Though I’ve always thought they must’ve been really hot in those great long dresses.”

“And ladies had tight corsets on in them days, all laced up,” said Cora. “Must’ve been stifling.”

“Ah, well, that’s it,” said Mr. Thorston. “Grace Jetherell would never have been considered a lady.”

“Jetherell? Grace Jetherell?” I cried. “Like — like old Gussie Jetherell?”

“Her sister,” said Mr. Thorston. “They were a large brood, the Jetherell children. When they were all very young, their father worked — when he could stand up, that is — as a labourer on the farm at Guerdon Hall. They lived in one of the cottages opposite the house. God knows where they all slept. Davy Jetherell drank away every last penny he made at the Thin Man. In the end, there was a nasty accident at harvesttime and he was killed. I doubt he would have lived much longer anyway, considering the probable state of his liver.

“I first caught sight of Grace when I was just a boy. She was the most exquisite creature you ever saw — like a water sprite, with her hair blowing loose in twisted golden ropes. When I went away to school, and then to Oxford, I wrote her poems I knew she wouldn’t be able to read. Whenever I got back to Bryers Guerdon, I went straight down to the marshes to find her and recite my silly poems, waving my arms about in huge romantic gestures. Of course, she thought I was a prize idiot, which indeed I was.

“She and her brothers and sisters ran wild when their father wasn’t around. The oldest boy, Charlie, was a nasty piece of work — got into a lot of trouble, hated me. Nellie, their mother, began to suffer early on from the same trouble that’s ailing Grace now. The youngest boy, Bobsy, disappeared.”

“What happened?” asked Cora. “Did — was it Long Lankin?”

“I can’t tell you,” said Mr. Thorston. “Grace would never speak of it. That’s the first time she ever said . . . what she said just now.”

“Only one of them disappeared? Living so close an’ all?” Cora said.

“Well, Davy Jetherell was never a God-fearing man,” said Mr. Thorston. “He had no time for religion, and the children knew he’d beat them if they went anywhere near the church. Grace used to tell me how her father terrified the children witless with his stories of Long Lankin. I’m pretty certain the Jetherells knew exactly where they could and couldn’t go. You probably know that Lankin seems to avoid crossing water, and of course the whole area around the church and Guerdon Hall is a network of streams and channels, some freshwater, others salt and tidal. Many of the freshwater brooks flow underground from springs on the hillside. They run round and into each other so that some places are actually safe from him — the Chase, for example.”

“Yeah, the safe bit starts where the farm cottages are,” said Cora. “There’s a stream that disappears under the track there.”

“When the inspectors went down there to try to get them to go to the school in North Fairing,” Mr. Thorston went on, “the children would flee onto the marshes by the path behind the big barn, because they had worked out that Lankin would never go that way, but they didn’t dare go near All Hallows.

“When Davy Jetherell died, your great-grandfather, Henry Guerdon, Cora, evicted the family. He wanted the cottage for another labourer, but Guerdon’s wife let the Jetherells live in the first of the two Bull Cottages in Fieldpath Road without her husband ever knowing. The two Bull Cottages are still part of the Guerdon estate. Mrs. Campbell pays rent to your auntie Ida, Cora, for number 2, but as far as I know Gussie’s never paid any rent for number 1. I don’t know what she lives on, to be honest. She never married. I think Mrs. Eastfield may give her some small allowance and sees that she’s all right. It’s none of my business.”

“It’d all go on cat food, anyway,” I said.

“So I hear,” said Mr. Thorston, getting up from the bench. “Well, Gussie and Grace are the only Jetherells left now. I’m afraid, though, you’re a few years too late with your questions. Grace could have told you some of the old stories about Long Lankin, but, well . . . not now . . . not anymore. . . .”