Died in the Wool (25 page)

He waded back through sixty-five weeks of wireless programmes that had been pumped into the air from all the broadcasting stations in the country. The magazines were not stacked in order and it was a tedious business. Back to February 1942: laying them down in their sequence. The second week in February, the first week in February. Alleyn's hands were poised over the work. There were only half a dozen left. He sorted them quickly. The last week in January 1942 was missing.

Mechanically he stacked the magazines up in their corner and, after a moment's hesitation, disordered them again. He walked up and down the room whistling a phrase of Cliff's music. ‘Oh, well!' he thought. ‘It's a long shot and I may be off the mark.' But he stared dolefully at the piano and presently began again to pick out the same phrase, first in the treble and then, very dejectedly, in the bass, swearing when the keys jammed. He shut the lid at last, sat in a rakish old chair and began to fill his pipe. ‘I shall be obliged to send them all away on ludicrous errands,' he muttered, ‘and get a toll call through to Jackson. Is this high fantasy, or is it murder?' The door opened. A woman stood on the threshold.

She looked dark against the brilliance of sunshine outside. He could see that the hand with which she had opened the door was now pressed against her lips. She was a middle-aged woman, plainly dressed. She was still for a moment and then stepped back. The strong sunshine fell across her face, which was heavy and pale for a countrywoman's. She said breathlessly: ‘I heard the piano. I thought it was Cliff.'

‘I'm afraid Cliff would not be flattered,' Alleyn said. ‘I lack technique!' He moved towards her.

She backed away. ‘It was the piano,' she said again. ‘Hearing it after so long.'

‘Do the men never play it?'

‘Not in the daytime,' she said hurriedly. ‘And I kind of remember the tune.' She tidied her hair nervously. ‘I'm sure I didn't mean to intrude,' she said. ‘Excuse me.' She was moving away when Alleyn stopped her.

‘Please don't go,' he said. ‘You're Cliff's mother, aren't you?'

‘That's right.'

‘I'd be grateful if you would spare me a moment. It won't be much more than a moment. Really. My name, by the way, is Alleyn.'

‘Pleased to meet you,' she said woodenly.

He stood aside, holding back the door. After a little hesitation she went into the room and stood there, staring straight before her, her fingers still moving against her lips. Alleyn left the door open. ‘Will you sit down?' he said.

‘I won't bother, thanks.'

He moved the chair forward and waited. She sat on the edge of it, unwillingly.

‘I expect you've heard why I'm here,' Alleyn said gently. ‘Or have you?'

She nodded, still not looking at him.

‘I want you to help me, if you will.'

‘I can't help you,' she said. ‘I don't know the first thing about it. None of us do. Not me, or Mr Johns or my boy.' Her voice shook. She added rapidly with an air of desperation, ‘You leave my boy alone, Mr Alleyn.'

‘Well,' said Alleyn, ‘I've got to talk to people, you know. That's my job.'

‘It's no use talking to Cliff. I tell you straight, it's no use. It's something cruel what those others done to Cliff. Pestering him, day after day, and him proved to be innocent. They proved it themselves with what they found put and even then they couldn't let him alone. He's not like other lads. Not tough. Different.'

‘Yes,' Alleyn agreed, ‘he's an exceptional chap, isn't he?'

‘They broke his spirit,' she said, frowning, refusing to look at him. ‘He's a different boy. I'm his mother and I know what they done. It's wicked. Getting on to a bit of a kid when it was proved he was innocent.'

‘The piano?' Alleyn said.

‘Mrs Duck saw him. Mrs Duck who cooks for them down there. She was out for a stroll, not having gone to the dance, and she saw him sit down and commence to play. They all heard him and they said they heard him, and me and his Dad heard him too. On and on, and him dead beat, till I couldn't stand it any longer and come over myself and fetched him home. What more do they want?'

‘Mrs Johns,' Alleyn began, ‘what sort—' He stopped short, feeling that he could not repeat once more the too-familiar phrase. ‘Did you like Mrs Rubrick?' he said.

For the first time she looked sharply at him. ‘Like her?' she said unwillingly. ‘Yes, I suppose I did. She was kind. Always the same to everyone. She made mistakes as I well know. Things didn't pan out the way she'd reckoned.'

‘With Cliff?'

‘That's right. There's been a lot of rubbish talked about the interest she took in my boy. People are funny like that. Jealous.' She passed her roughened hand over her face with a movement that suggested the wiping away of a cobweb. ‘I don't say I wasn't a bit jealous myself,' she said grudgingly. ‘I don't say I didn't think it might make him discontented like with his own home. But I saw what a big thing it was for my boy and I wouldn't stand in his light. But there it is. I won't say I didn't feel it.'

She said all this with the same air of antagonism, but Alleyn felt a sudden respect for her. He said: ‘But this feeling didn't persist?'

‘Persist? Not when he grew older. He grew away from her, if you can understand. Nobody knows a boy like his mother and I know you can't drive Cliff. She tried to drive him and in the finish she set him against her. He's a good boy,' said Mrs Johns coldly, ‘though I say it, but he's very unusual. And sensitive.'

‘Did you regret taking her offer to send him to school?'

‘Regret it?' she repeated, examining the word. ‘Seeing what's happened, and the cruel way it's changed him—' She pressed her lips together and her hands jerked stiffly in her lap. ‘I wish she'd never seen my boy,' she said with extraordinary vehemence and then caught her breath and looked frightened. ‘It's none of his doing or of hers, poor lady. They were devoted to each other. When it happened there was nobody felt it more than Cliff. Don't let anyone tell you different. It's wicked, the way an innocent boy's been made to suffer. Wicked.'

Her eyes were still fixed on the wall, beyond Alleyn and above his head. They were wet, but so wooden was her face that her tears seemed to be accidental and quite inexpressive of sorrow. She ended each of her speeches with such an air of finality that he felt surprised when she embarked on a new one.

‘Mrs Johns,' he said, ‘what do you make of this story about the whisky?'

‘Anybody who says my boy's a thief is a liar,' she said. ‘That's what I make of it. Lies! He never touched a drop in his life.'

‘Then what do you think he was doing?'

At last she looked full at him. ‘You ask the station cook what he was doing. Ask Albert Black. Cliff won't tell you anything, and he won't tell me. It's my idea and he'd never forgive me if he knew I'd spoken of it.' She got up and walked to the door, staring out into the sunshine. ‘Ask them,' she said. ‘That's all.'

‘Thank you,' said Alleyn, looking thoughtfully at her. ‘I believe I shall.'

Alleyn's first view of the station cook was dramatic and incredible. It took place that evening, the second of his stay at Mount Moon. After their early dinner, a silent meal at which the members of the household seemed to be suffering from a carryover from last night's confidences, Fabian suggested that he and Alleyn should walk up to the men's quarters. They did so but, before they left, Alleyn asked Ursula to lend him the diamond clip that Florence Rubrick had lost on the night she was murdered. He and Fabian walked down the lavender path as the evening light faded and the mountains began their nightly pageant of violet and gold. The lavender stalks were grey sticks, now, and the zinnias behind them isolated mummies crowned with friable heads. ‘Were they much the same then,' Alleyn asked, ‘as far as visibility goes?'

‘The lavender was green and bushy,' Fabian replied, ‘but the thing was under one of the zinnias and had no better cover than there would be now. They don't flourish up here and were spindly-looking apologies even when they did their stuff.'

Alleyn dropped the clip, first in one place and then in another. It glittered like a monstrously artificial flower on the dry earth. ‘Oh, well,' he said, ‘let's go and see Cookie.'

They passed through the gate that Florence had used that night and, like her, turned up the main track that led to the men's quarters.

Long before they came within sight of their objective, they heard a high-pitched, raucous voice raised in the unmistakable periods of oratory. They passed the wool-shed and came within full view of the bunkhouse and annexe.

A group of a dozen men, some squatting on their heels, others leaning, relaxed, against the wall of the building, listened in silence to an empurpled man, dressed in dirty white, who stood on an overturned box and loudly exhorted them.

‘I howled unto the Lord,' the orator bawled angrily. ‘That's what I done. I howled unto the Lord.'

‘That's Cookie,' Fabian murmured, ‘in the penultimate stage of his cups. The third and last stage is delirium tremens. It's a regular progression.'

‘…and the Lord said unto me: “What's biting you, Perce?” And I answered and said: “Me sins lie bitter in me belly,” I says, “I've backslid,” I says, “and the grade's too hot for me.” And the Lord said: “Give it another pop, Perce.” And I give it another pop and the Lord backed me up and I'm saved.'

Here the cook paused and, with extreme difficulty, executed a peculiar gesture, as if writing on the air. ‘The judgement's writ clear on the wall,' he shouted, ‘for them as aren't too shickered to read it. It's writ clear as it might be on that bloody bunk'ouse be'ind yer. And what does it say? It says in letters of flame: “Give it another pop.” Hallelujah.'

‘Hallelujah,' echoed a small man who sat in an attitude of profound dejection on the annexe step. This was Albie Black, the rouseabout.

‘A couple more brands to be snatched from the burning,' the cook continued, catching sight of Alleyn and Fabian, and gesturing wildly towards them. ‘A couple more sheep to be cut out from the mob and baled up in the pens of salvation. A couple more dirty two-tooths for the Lord to shear. Shall we gather at the river?' He and the rouseabout broke into a hymn, the melody of which was taken up by an accordion player inside the bunkhouse. Fabian indicated to the men that he and Alleyn would like to be left alone with the cook and Albie Black. Ben Wilson, who was quietly smoking his pipe and looking at the cook with an air of detached disapproval, jerked his head at him and said, ‘He's fixed all right.' He led the way into the bunkhouse, the accordion stopped abruptly, and Alleyn was left face to face with the cook, who was still singing, but half-heartedly and in a melancholy key.

‘Pretty hopeless, isn't it?' Alleyn muttered, eyeing him dubiously.

‘It's now or never,' Fabian rejoined. ‘He'll be dead to the world tomorrow and we're supposed to ship him down-country the next day. Unless, of course, you exercise your authority and keep him here. Perce!' he said loudly, placing himself in front of the cook. ‘Come down off that. Here's somebody wants to speak to you.'

The cook stepped incontinently off his box into mid-air and was caught like an unwieldy ballerina by Alleyn.

‘Open up your bowels of compassion,' he said mildly and allowed them to seat him on the box.

‘Shall I leave you?' asked Fabian.

‘You stay where you are,' said Alleyn. ‘I want a witness.'

The cook was a large man with pale eyes; an unctuous mouth and bad teeth. ‘Bare your bosom,' he invited Alleyn. ‘Though it's as black as pitch it shall be as white as snow. What's your trouble?'

‘Whisky,' said Alleyn.

The cook laid hold of his coat lapels and peered very earnestly into his face. ‘You're a pal,' he said. ‘I don't mind if I do.'

‘But I haven't got any,' Alleyn said. ‘Have you?'

The cook shook his head mournfully and, having begun to shake it, seemed unable to leave off. His eyes filled with tears. His breath smelt of beer and of something that at the moment Alleyn was unable to place.

‘It's not so easily come by these days, is it?' Alleyn said.

‘I ain't seen a drop,' the cook whispered, ‘not since…' he wiped his mouth and gave Alleyn a look of extraordinary cunning, ‘not since you know when.'

‘When was that?'

‘Ah,' said the cook profoundly, ‘that's telling.' He looked out of the corners of his eyes at Fabian, leered, and with a ridiculously Victorian gesture laid his finger alongside his nose. Albie Black burst into loud meaningless laughter. ‘Oh, dear!' he said and buried his head in his arms. Fabian moved behind the cook and pointed suggestively in the direction of the house.