Red Sky in the Morning (37 page)

May, too, repeated incredulously, ‘Stabbed?’

‘Yes. Hurry. Reet’s gone for the doc.’

Betty, with May hurrying after her, returned to Anna to find the girl still weeping over the still form of the old man.

‘Now, now,’ Betty said kindly. ‘Crying won’t help him. Come on, love, stop that noise.’

‘Oh Betty, I – I think he’s dead. I – I’ve tried to feel his pulse and – and I can’t find one.’

‘Course he isn’t, love.’ But when Betty shone the torch into Luke’s face and saw his wide, staring eyes and his mouth gagging open she knew the girl was right. She went
through the motions of feeling for a pulse, first in his wrist and then his neck. She even put her cheek to his chest, desperate to hear the merest flicker of a heartbeat. There was nothing.

Slowly Betty stood up and took hold of Anna’s arm. ‘Come on, love,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s nothing more we can do.’

‘What? What do you mean?’ May’s voice rose hysterically.

‘I’m so sorry, May. He’s dead.’ Betty put her other arm around May and tried to lead them both away, but May fought her off and fell to her knees beside her father. She
rocked backwards and forwards and then bent her head and kissed his cheek. Anna looked down once more and then buried her face against Betty’s comforting shoulder.

At last May stood up. ‘Can’t we carry him into the house? We – we can’t leave him here.’

‘Better not move him, love,’ Betty said. ‘Not till the doctor and the police have seen him.’

‘The police?’

‘It’s a police matter now, May. Your father’s been murdered.’

May closed her eyes and groaned whilst Anna sobbed into Betty’s shoulder.

There was no sleep to be had for anyone the rest of that night. May sat in the kitchen, dry-eyed now, a wooden figure at the table, her arms resting on its surface, just
staring into the distance. Anna curled up in her grandfather’s chair near the range, alternately crying and raging against whoever had done this dreadful thing.

‘All for a few hens,’ she kept saying angrily. ‘His life for a few miserable hens.’

May said nothing, whilst Betty made endless cups of tea and Rita looked after the doctor and then the village bobby, who had come to the farm on his bicycle.

‘Bad business, this,’ he said, sitting at the table in front of May and opening his notebook. ‘I’m sorry to put you through this, May, but I’ll have to ask you some
questions.’ He glanced round the room, intimating that he would need to question them all.

‘Can’t it wait?’ Betty asked tartly. ‘You can see what a state they’re both in.’ Then she muttered, ‘The state we’re all in, if it comes to that.
Me and Reet were very fond of old Pops.’ Tears filled her eyes, but she dashed them away impatiently. It was no time for her to indulge in tears. She had to be strong for the others. Later,
in the privacy of the room she shared with Rita, she would weep for the old man, but for now . . .

‘I’m sorry, miss,’ the policeman, Reg Hamlin, was saying, ‘but statements are best taken as soon as possible after the event. I’ve had to send word to my superiors
in Lincoln. It’ll be out of my hands soon, but they’ll expect me to have made a start. Besides’ – he glanced sympathetically towards May and Anna – ‘I’m a
friend of the family, like, and I thought they’d rather talk to me than a stranger.’

‘But they can’t think properly.’

‘Things can always be altered later, but it’s best to make a start now,’ Reg said with kindly firmness, ‘while it’s all still clear in their minds.’

One by one he listened to what they had to say, but the sum total of all their statements didn’t amount to anything very helpful.

Reg left as a red dawn was breaking over the farmhouse.

Of course there had to be a post-mortem and an inquest, the outcome of which confirmed that Luke had been stabbed with a knife or similar weapon by ‘a person or persons
unknown’. Hearing it, Anna shuddered, remembering the bayonet that Bruce had shown her.

Douglas had arrived as usual the following Sunday and was appalled to hear the news. ‘Darling May,’ he said, taking her into his arms, ‘you should have let me know. I would
have come at once. You need a man at a time like this.’

May clung to him and Anna turned away, wishing that Bruce had come with his father. She could do with a strong shoulder to cry on too. But his brief leave was over and he had had to report back
to camp.

Sensing her feelings, Betty hugged her. ‘Chin up, love. Pops wouldn’t have wanted you to grieve for too long. Once they’ve let us bury him—’

‘Oh Betty, don’t. I can’t bear to think of him being put in the cold earth.’

‘He’ll be next to your gran though, won’t he? He’ll be with her now. And he’d want to know that you were carrying on the farm. For him. You will, won’t
you?’

‘I – don’t know what Mam wants to do. She’s never liked the farm, so now . . .’ Anna’s voice trailed away sadly.

‘You don’t mean she’ll sell it?’ Betty was shocked.

Anna shook her head miserably. ‘I don’t know what she’ll do.’

If, at that moment, they could have heard the conversation between May and Douglas, they would have been even more uneasy.

‘Don’t you worry about a thing, May. I’ll see to everything. Just tell me what you want doing, darling, about the funeral, I mean, and I’ll arrange it all.’

‘Oh Douglas, you are good. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘You won’t have to do without me, May. I’ll stay here with you, if you like.’

‘Would you? But what about your work?’

‘I’ll have to go back into town tomorrow and sort out a few things, but if I can arrange it, I’ll stay the rest of the week and help you. I – er – take it
you’ll have to see your father’s solicitor?’

‘I hadn’t thought about that, but yes, I expect so—. Oh!’

‘What? What is it?’

‘I wonder if he changed his will like he threatened.’

Douglas forced a laugh. ‘Surely not. I thought that was just an idle threat to make you throw me over.’

May shook her head and said soberly, ‘My father never made idle threats.’

Douglas’s face darkened and there was a glint of anger in his eyes. ‘I didn’t think he would move so fast—’ Hastily, he altered his words, ‘What I mean is, I
didn’t think he’d really carry out his threat. Not against his own daughter.’ He thought for a moment and then said, ‘But if he has, he’ll have left it to Anna
instead, won’t he?’

‘Maybe.’ May was still doubtful.

Douglas’s face cleared. ‘There you are then. It’s the same thing. She can’t run it, though, can she? She’s only fifteen. The best thing you could both do, May, is
to sell the farm and come and live with me in Lincoln.’

‘He – he might have put in some clause that it can’t be sold. He threatened to leave it to Anna on the condition that she had no more to do with – with Bruce.’

Now Douglas could scarcely hide his anger. In a tight voice he said, ‘Did he, indeed?’ But he forced himself to smile and to say in a tender tone, ‘Then the sooner you find out
just how things stand the better. I’ll take you into the city with me tomorrow and you can call and see the solicitor. How’s that?’

‘Oh, Douglas,’ May breathed and said again, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

Bruce wangled compassionate leave to attend the funeral.

‘I had to tell a little white lie to get here,’ he told Anna. ‘I said it was my stepmother’s father.’ He laughed. ‘Mind you, by the look of them’
– he nodded to where May was walking down the church path, clinging to Douglas’s arm – ‘it doesn’t look as if it’ll be long before she really is.’

Anna said nothing. The day, for her, was a tumult of emotions. She had lost her beloved grandfather and it seemed only yesterday that she had lost both her father and her grandmother. And whilst
Anna could see that her mother needed Douglas’s support, she was uncomfortable when she remembered that Luke had disliked the man so intensely that he had threatened to cut his own daughter
out of his will.

Nor had he approved of the young man walking at her side, taking her cold hand in his and squeezing it sympathetically. Anna sighed as she and Bruce fell into step behind her mother and Douglas
to follow the coffin into the church. After the funeral, she knew the solicitor would be coming to the farm to read the will in keeping with the old-fashioned custom. Maybe then they would learn
just how deep Luke’s resentment had gone.

Betty and Rita were walking behind her and Bruce, and behind them it seemed as if half the local population had come to Luke Clayton’s funeral. Even Reg Hamlin, in plain clothes, was
standing to one side watching all the mourners.

‘I shall be there,’ he had told May and Betty the day before when he had visited the farm, ‘with my Inspector. I’d be attending old Luke’s passing anyway, but I
shall be in a semi-official capacity.’

‘Why?’ May had asked.

‘It’s just possible that the killers might be there.’

‘Really?’ Betty had put in. ‘Then I’ll keep me beady eye open an’ all, pet.’

Several people returned to the farm for sandwiches and cups of tea, with something a little stronger for the men.

‘You can’t have a wake without a drop of the hard stuff,’ Douglas had told May. ‘Leave it to me.’

As the mourners began to drift away, Douglas said, ‘Bruce and I should go too, May. That solicitor chappie looks to be getting a bit agitated. We’d better let him have his bit of the
limelight.’

‘Oh Douglas, don’t go. You’ve every right to stay. You’re – you’re my fiancé.’

Douglas patted her hand. ‘No, May. I don’t want to intrude. You can tell me later. I’ll run Bruce to the station but I’ll come back tonight. That’s if you want me
to?’

‘Of course I do. And will you – will you stay?’

Douglas put his arms round her and held her close. ‘Of course I will, darling.’

‘And we’ll make ourselves scarce, too,’ Betty said. ‘This is family business.’

The solicitor’s clipped tones butted in. ‘No, Miss Purves and Miss Mackinder too. I shall need you to be present.’

The two Land Army girls exchanged a puzzled glance, then shrugged and sat down at the table, where the solicitor, Mr Davey, had already seated himself at one end and was setting out his papers
in front of him.

‘We’ll go, May,’ Douglas whispered and kissed her cheek. ‘Chin up, darling. It’ll be all right. I know it will. ’Bye for now.’

As the solicitor’s voice droned through all the legal jargon of the will, the nub of Luke’s wishes became clear. Although no mention was made of either Douglas or Bruce Whittaker by
name, Luke’s suspicions had overshadowed his thinking and his decisions. The will had been made and signed only a month earlier.

The solicitor laid down the paper. ‘To sum up briefly,’ he said now in his own words, ‘Mr Clayton has left two thousand pounds to his daughter, May Milton, together with
bequests of two hundred pounds each to Miss Purves and Miss Mackinder. The remainder of his estate is to be held in trust for his granddaughter, Anna Milton, until she attains the age of
twenty-five.’

‘Twenty-five!’ May cried, her voice high-pitched with indignation. ‘Why twenty-five for Heaven’s sake? Why not twenty-one?’

‘Mr Clayton felt that twenty-five was a more mature age for such decisions.’

The three women and Anna glanced at one another. May turned towards Mr Davey. ‘So what you mean is that he’s turning me out and expecting Anna to live here on her own and run the
farm until she’s twenty-five?’

‘No, no, my dear lady. The reason he has, er – ’ the man cleared his throat in obvious embarrassment – ‘bypassed you and left everything to his granddaughter is
that he believed you intend to marry quite soon.’

‘Ah, now we have the real reason.’ May’s eyes glittered with anger now.

‘He also mentioned to me,’ the man went on calmly, no doubt used to being in situations where the dear departed’s will did not meet with unmitigated delight from the rest of
the family, ‘that you had never had much interest in the farm, but, he said, he believed that his granddaughter did.’ He fixed May with a beady look. ‘Is that so, Mrs
Milton?’

May was flustered now. ‘Well, yes, I suppose so. But I’m his daughter. I have a right—’

Mr Davey shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, dear lady, but his wishes are crystal clear and the will is solid. I helped draft it myself.’

‘And you mean we can’t even sell the farm?’

Mr Davey shook his head. ‘He appointed one of my partners and myself as his executors and trustees. When Miss Anna reaches twenty-five the farm will be hers to do what she likes with it.
But until that time—’ He spread his hands and his gesture said the rest.

There was nothing that could be done to challenge Luke’s will.

‘A measly two thousand pounds!’ Douglas almost shouted at May when she told him the news. ‘But you’re his daughter, for God’s sake.’ Then,
realizing his error, he put his arms about her. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not my place to say a word. But I’m so angry on your behalf. I know how dreadfully hurt you must feel. And I
feel so responsible too, darling. If it wasn’t for me—’

May nestled against his chest. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in the farm. He knew that.’

‘But he’s left it so that it can’t be sold, hasn’t he? Left it so – so tied up – ’ Douglas’s tone was bitter once more – ‘that you
can’t do anything with it. Not a blasted thing.’ He held her away from him and looked down into her upturned face. ‘What exactly are you going to do?’

‘Well, for the moment,’ May began hesitantly, unsure how he would greet her plans, ‘I thought we could live here at the farm.’

Douglas raised his eyebrows and said sarcastically, ‘Oh – and will your daughter allow that?’

May stared at him, not knowing how to react. Then Douglas laughed loudly and drew her to him again. ‘Darling, I’m only teasing. Of course, you must stay here, at least for the time
being. But once the war is over, well, then we’ll see.’

‘Why? What do you mean?’

‘You don’t want to go on living here for ever, do you? I thought you wanted to get back to the city.’

‘You know I do,’ May said slowly, ‘but I can hardly leave a fifteen-year-old girl living here on her own, now can I?’