The Death of Lucy Kyte (7 page)

‘Probably just as well. You'd be hard-pushed to find a buyer, stuck all the way out there on its own.'

For Josephine, that was beginning to be one of the cottage's most attractive features. ‘My godmother loved it for its history,' she said. ‘I'm sure she's not the only person who finds that interesting.'

‘Yes, we saw you having a look at the old Corder place.'

‘It's a handsome house,' Josephine said defensively, then stopped trying to hide her interest; if Hester had been brazen about it, why shouldn't she? ‘Are there any Corders or Martens left in the village?'

The elder of the two customers gave her a filthy look. ‘They'd hardly show their faces round here, would they?'

Quite why two families – and particularly the family of the victim – should be held responsible for a hundred-year-old crime was beyond Josephine, but she didn't argue. ‘Well, you must be pleased to be opposite one of the attractions,' she said brightly, picking up her basket. ‘I expect it's good for trade. Now – can you tell me how to get to Stoke?'

‘It's a couple of miles out on the Mill Road, past the rectory,' the shopkeeper said, her words barely audible over the muttering in Josephine's left ear.

‘Thank you, Miss . . . ?'

‘Elsie Gladding.
Mrs
Elsie Gladding. And the oil will be round later.'

Josephine closed the door behind her, wondering if one of the legacies of Maria Marten's fate was an obsession with the marital state: the women of Polstead seemed very keen to lay claim to their husbands. Her brief visit to the shop had given her plenty to think about: she had declared her intention to spend time at Red Barn Cottage out of sheer defiance, but she realised now that it was true. If she worked hard, the cottage would be in good shape by the weekend and she could leave it ready to come back to in September, when she had had time to make arrangements at home. It would give her the peace and quiet she needed to get to grips with
Claverhouse
, as well as sorting through Hester's papers; she could even ask Marta to join her for a few days. Having made her decision, she smiled all the way down the hill, her pace quickened by the smell of bread baked that morning and the prospect of a decent lunch.

As she started down the track to the cottage, she saw someone leave the garden by the far gate and head out across the fields. It was a woman, but that was all Josephine could be sure of from a distance, and her calls went unheeded; by the time she reached the gate herself, the visitor was out of sight. She went round to the back, where she had left the door open to dry the scullery floor, and knew instantly that someone had been inside – not from any tangible signs, but from the subtle imprint in the air of a room that has recently been occupied. In the parlour, she found the proof of her suspicions: two parcels stacked neatly on the table, one addressed to her in Marta's handwriting, the other to Hester and postmarked London. She breathed a sigh of relief: it wasn't the most orthodox of postal methods and she resented the intrusion, but at least the caller had had no other motive. Although she had tried to put it from her mind, the prospect of an unannounced visit from Lucy Kyte was not something that Josephine welcomed and she hoped John MacDonald would be able to track the woman down before it happened.

The post was poignant: two names and only one address, another reminder of the changes that the cottage had lived through. She put Hester's package to one side and tore the paper off her own, thinking how typical it was of Marta to find a way of welcoming her without intruding. The present was a book – a gift from Marta invariably belonged on a shelf or in a vase – and Josephine laughed when she saw the title:
First Home, First Class: The Modern Woman's Guide to Household Management
. Inside, she found The Modern Woman engaged in a series of domestic tasks, each of which she accomplished with irritating perfection by following the manual to the letter, and she took comfort from the thought that one encounter with Elsie Gladding, Mrs, would soon wipe the modern smirk off her modern face. She turned to the inscription on the flyleaf – ‘Let me know when it's decent. I won't sleep with slugs, even for you.' – and pictured Marta's face on seeing the state of the scullery. Her message, as she no doubt knew, was a greater incentive to Josephine than any words of wisdom from the manual's anonymous author.

There was already enough post in the box upstairs, so she unwrapped the parcel meant for Hester, too. It was another book, but this one came from a dealer in London and there was nothing remotely modern about it. Intrigued, Josephine read the accompanying letter.

My dear Miss Larkspur,

Please accept my apologies for the delay in sending your 1811 edition of
The Old English Baron
by Mrs Clara Reeve, but I have only recently returned to London from France. The validation which you requested – quite rightly, I might add – also proved more difficult to obtain than I first anticipated, but I enclose the book now with every assurance of its authenticity and I trust you will agree that it is well worth the wait. It is, as you are aware, a very special volume – one of the most precious I have come across – and it gives me great pleasure to know that it could not have ended up in better hands. As a small point of interest, its author was local to you – born in Ipswich – and the novel was originally published as
The Champion of Virtue
. There is an irony in that which I am sure you will appreciate when you consider the book's history!

It has recently been my good fortune to acquire something which I think you will find even more fascinating than the present volume. When I am satisfied that the object is genuine, I will write to you with the details and perhaps you would care to drop by next time you are in town? It is always a joy to see you.

The letter was signed by a John Moore. Looking at the accompanying bill, Josephine found it easy to believe that his joy was genuine; she was astonished by how much Hester had been willing to pay for what seemed to her a perfectly ordinary book. It was a nice edition, illustrated with a series of elegant engravings, but the binding was scuffed and worn and the flyleaf – inscribed by a vicar whose name Josephine could not quite make out – suggested nothing more out of the ordinary than a Sunday school prize. Hester had valued it, though, and the delay in its dispatch mattered more than the bookseller could have known. It saddened Josephine to think that her godmother would never see something that she had obviously coveted. Although Gothic novels were hardly her cup of tea, she resolved to keep it to read. One day.

Tempting as it was to while away the day looking through Hester's book collection, Josephine resisted. There was work to be done upstairs which she wasn't looking forward to, and the sooner she made a start, the better. Other than setting aside some financial papers to leave with John MacDonald when she was back in Inverness, she made no attempt to sort through the mound of post or to rationalise the chaos under Hester's bed; instead, she put it all in a box to deal with next time, and shut it away in the small end room where it was at least out of sight. It took her the rest of the day to scrub the floorboards upstairs, clean the windows and make up a comfortable bed in Hester's old room. By the time she had finished, late into the evening, she was ready to fall into it.

4

The climbing rose put up a good fight, but eventually Josephine cleared enough of its branches away to free the scullery window. She picked up the debris, cursing as the thorns caught her hands, and was about to take it round to the back when she heard the click of the front gate. A woman – smartly dressed and around her own age – was peering through the study window, and there was a bicycle propped up against the hedge.

‘Ah! You are here – splendid. Thought I'd had a wasted trip.' The woman advanced towards Josephine with her hand outstretched. ‘Hilary Lampton. Vicar's wife, for my sins – quite literally, I sometimes think. I was hoping you might give me a few lines for the parish newsletter.' She must have seen Josephine's face fall because she added: ‘I know. We're a dreadful breed but, if it helps, I wasn't born to it and I'm generally thought to fall rather short of the mark. We'll have some tea, shall we? I've left the children with their father so there's plenty of time. I love them dearly, of course I do, but it's so nice to pretend they're someone else's for a while.' All of this was said in a single breath, and she was inside the cottage before Josephine had a chance to argue. ‘Gosh, it's changed since I was last here. You
have
been busy.'

Josephine looked round the only room she hadn't touched, and was distracted from expressing a polite interest in the vicar's children. ‘Changed in what way?'

‘Emptier. It's been a couple of years since I was here, I suppose. It was when Miss Larkspur got a part in that film – something for the bloody newsletter again. I don't remember exactly, but she had some lovely things – paintings, antique furniture, that sort of stuff. We all have different tastes, though, don't we? And there's much more space now.' The compliment was recompense for an imagined faux pas and Josephine opened her mouth to explain, but Hilary had moved on for both of them. ‘Madeira,' she said, bouncing a cake onto the table. ‘Don't worry – I didn't bake it myself. One of Stephen's parishioners sent it over. I've no idea which one. So many women in the village are desperate to look after him and I'm not sure he needs me at all – but it does mean there's always something to pop round with.' She looked doubtfully at the cake and moved it to a different angle. ‘Bit bashed from the basket but I'm sure it'll taste all right.'

It took Josephine a moment or two to catch up with the way in which her peace had been shattered, and only when her guest sat down and beamed expectantly at her did she remember that she was supposed to be boiling the kettle. ‘I see you've caught the bug,' Hilary said into the pause, picking up the copy of the melodrama that Josephine had got out to read. ‘Funny how it does that to incomers. I was exactly the same when I moved here, but people who are born in the village don't give a hoot about the Red Barn murder.'

‘So I've noticed. I made the mistake of asking about it in the shop.'

‘Ah, you've met Elsie, then? Her bark's worse than her bite and she's a good sort, but three of her brothers were killed in France and the death of a whore has lost its power to shock.'

The words jarred and Josephine looked at the vicar's wife with a new interest; tea with someone who was willing to discuss the village and its history in such an open way might not be the ordeal she was expecting. ‘Sugar?' she asked, and Hilary nodded.

‘As far as Elsie's concerned, Maria Marten was a silly girl who got what was coming to her, and you won't find many dissenting voices. I suppose they're right, in a way. Why should her name be shouted from the stage – celebrated, even – when their dead only get a line on a plaque and a service once a year? The fact that it's a good story doesn't seem a very adequate answer, somehow, does it?' She turned the pages thoughtfully, then smiled. ‘It
is
a good story, though.'

‘Is it?'

‘Good God, yes. It's marvellous. I shouldn't say this to a writer, but you couldn't make it up.' Hilary settled back into Hester's chair, her reason for coming all but forgotten. ‘What
do
you know?'

Josephine repeated what she had been told. ‘Innocent maiden, seduced by the village squire and killed in a barn in eighteen something.'

‘Eighteen twenty-seven, yes. William Corder wasn't the squire, though. He was the son of one of the richer tenant farmers. The squire was at Polstead Hall, and Maria never had him. The closest she got was his brother-in-law, a chap called Matthews who lived in London. She had a son by him before she started seeing William.'

‘And didn't she have a child by Corder's brother as well?'

‘Yes. Thomas Corder was her first lover, but the child died.' She grinned. ‘Doesn't look good on paper, does it? You've got to admire her spirit, though, and she aimed high – that's what I like about Maria. It's what I always tell the girls at Sunday School – know what you want and go for it.'

A murdered girl with illegitimate children by different fathers was an interesting role model for a vicar's wife, Josephine thought. She was beginning to see why Stephen's choice might be frowned upon in certain circles; personally, she thought Hilary Lampton was the best advert for the church she'd seen in years. ‘What was so special about Maria?'

‘Well, she was very pretty, in that fresh-faced, rather coy way. Have you seen Curtis's book?' Josephine shook her head. ‘There's bound to be a copy here somewhere. James Curtis – he covered the case for
The Times
and published a book on it afterwards. There's a drawing of Maria in that. She was a real charmer, by all accounts. William might have been above her socially, but he was punching well over his weight in every other sense, and that's always dangerous in a man. Are you married, Josephine?'

She rapped the question out with a no-nonsense brusqueness and Josephine felt at liberty to answer in the same vein, without explanations or apologies. ‘No.'

‘I don't blame you. It can cramp your style.'

The comment was wistful rather than bitter, and Josephine wondered whether the regrets it implied stemmed from the role Hilary had married into or the marriage itself. She looked forward to meeting Stephen. ‘How long have you been here?' she asked.

‘Sixteen years,' Hilary said, so readily that Josephine half-expected her to count off the months and days as well. ‘We met in London. I was involved in a charity in the East End, and Stephen was the pastor. He got the job up here soon after we married.'

‘And your children?'