The Language of the Dead (5 page)

“So you say. But I find that story far too convenient, Mr. Abbott.”

“I say it again—I had nothing to do with Will's murder!”

Lamb thumped the table with his fist. “Then answer my bloody questions!” he said. He allowed the silence that followed to linger for a few seconds. He looked at Abbott and said, “Now tell me what you mean when you say people thought Will to be a witch.”

Abbott's voice was quiet. “Well, he'd seen the Black Shuck, hadn't he? The black dog. When he were ten. And once that happened, his sister suddenly died and no one knew why.”

“The Black Shuck?” Lamb asked.

“Aye,” Abbott said. “The hell hound. The dog that appears to those who have allowed the devil into their souls.”

“And where did Will see this dog, according to the story?”

“Here on the hill.”

“Other than to have seen this dog, did Mr. Blackwell do anything else that would have made people believe him a witch?” Lamb asked. “Were there rumors that he cast spells or got up to mischief?”

“There were always rumors about Will,” Abbott said. “When some of the autumn wheat came in bad last year, some blamed him for that. Said he'd run toads over the crop in the night.”

“Toads?”

“Yeah. Said he'd harnessed them like a team of horses and run them over the crops, as did the witches of older days.”

“Did you believe that Will practiced witchcraft, Mr. Abbott?” Lamb asked.

“No. I never put no stock in that mumbo-jumbo. But if you want to know about it, you can ask the bloody lord of the manor himself, can't you? Lord Pembroke. He wrote a whole bloody book about it, didn't he? Ghostly legends of Hampshire and the like. Strange subject
for a lord, I say. Has Will's story in it. Will never liked the fact that his story was dredged up again, I can tell you. And while you're at it, you can track down that mute boy Pembroke has living with him—though you'd need some magic for certain to get anything out of him.”

“Which mute boy?” Lamb asked.

“The one who lives on Lord Pembroke's estate; spends his time drawing insects and the like. He used to walk over from the estate and spend time with Will. He would sit and watch Will work and make his drawings and that. Will didn't seem to mind. But there are those about who said that Will was training the boy to take his place, as if he were Will's apprentice, like.”

“How old is this boy?” Lamb asked.

Abbott shrugged. “Hard to tell. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. Maybe more. He don't talk. Won't even so much as look at me. He just wanders over here from the estate and makes his insect drawings. He avoided everybody save Will.”

“Do you know this boy's name?”

Abbott shrugged again. “No. Like I said, he don't talk.”

“Where were you this afternoon between noon and two?” Lamb asked.

“About the farm, working. Cutting hay, mostly.”

“Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”

“I saw no one.”

“Very well, then, Mr. Abbott,” Lamb said. “We may have further questions, so I advise you not to leave the area.”

Abbott did not look up from his tea. “Where would I go in any case?” he said.

LAMB AND WALLACE SAW THEMSELVES OUT. FOR THE FOURTH TIME
that evening, the sheep by the gate scattered. Lamb lit a cigarette.

“What about the Stukas?” Wallace joked.

“Sod the bloody Stukas.”

As they moved down Manscome Hill in the dark, Lamb gazed over the moonlit meadows. He easily picked out details in the landscape—hillocks, trees, shrubs, a ramshackle shed by a gate, another ghostly flock of sheep grazing on a far hill. Although he'd grown up in south London, the natural beauty and apparent peacefulness of the countryside always had attracted him. As a boy, he'd harbored a notion of the country as “simple,” though since coming to Hampshire more than twenty years earlier he'd learned that the country villages—and country folk—often were nothing of the sort.

Wallace longed to finish and to get back to Winchester before the pubs closed. “What do you make of this witchcraft business?” he asked Lamb, partly to get his mind off drink.

“I think it's possible that someone wants us to believe the whole thing's wrapped up in black magic.”

“What about Abbott?”

“He might easily have done it.”

“Him and the niece, then? The two of them getting up to something and needing the old boy out of the way?”

“It's possible.”

It was past nine when they reached the village. Winston-Sheed had departed with Blackwell's body, and the people who'd gathered in front of Blackwell's cottage earlier had gone home—though the three children who'd sprinted past Lamb earlier that evening had returned and were loitering near the house. They appeared poised to run again, but when Lamb called to them they froze.

The oldest, a boy who had no shoes, appeared to be nine or ten. The other two were girls. Their arms and legs were dark with filth. The youngest looked to be about three. She clutched in her tiny fist a stick with a pointed end. As Lamb squatted to speak to them, they remained rooted, their eyes wary. Lamb wondered what they were up to, out at such a late hour with no one looking after them.

He smiled. “Here now,” he said. “What are you lot on about at this time of night?”

None of them spoke.

“I hope it's nothing I wouldn't want to know about,” Lamb said.

The children continued to stare at him for perhaps ten seconds before the boy spoke. “We was waiting for the witch to come home,” he said.

“Well, I'm afraid you're out of luck,” Lamb said. “There are no witches around here and never have been.”

“Old Will's a witch,” the boy said.

“I'm afraid that's not true,” Lamb said. “Will was no witch. I'm from the police, you know, and I've done an investigation of the
matter and concluded that Will was nothing of the kind. So there are no witches.” He wondered what good any of this was doing.

Lamb held out his hand to the youngest girl and softly said to her, “I'll take that stick, love. That's nothing for a pretty little girl like you to be carrying around.”

The girl tossed the stick in Lamb's direction. He picked it up and handed it to Wallace.

“Now then,” he said to the group. “Where do you belong?”

The boy pointed toward the path beyond the stone bridge, which led to the mill ruins.

“Well, time for you to be off home now,” Lamb said. “Time for bed.”

He wondered what awaited them at home—likely nothing as wholesome as a proper putting-to-bed. If the Blitzkrieg reached England, little ones such as these would be consumed like so much underbrush in a forest fire, he thought.

The boy broke into a run, heading in the direction of the path. The girls followed. Lamb watched them cross the bridge and disappear.

Harris met Lamb and Wallace at the front door of Blackwell's cottage. “No one has gone in or come out,” Harris said. “Miss Blackwell is still awake.”

“Thank you, Harris,” Lamb said. “Please stay until we're finished with Miss Blackwell. Then I think you can call it a night.”

A large black car crossed the stone bridge and pulled to a stop near the cottage. Lamb and Wallace recognized the saloon as police Superintendent Anthony Harding's.

“A bit late for the old man, isn't it?” Wallace asked.

Lamb sighed. “I don't think it's ever too late for him.” He turned to Harris. “Wait here, please, Constable.”

Harding stepped from the rear seat of the car with a man Lamb recognized immediately, although he had not seen the man—nor had he wanted to—in more than twenty years. The sight of Harry Rivers so stunned Lamb that he literally stopped. He immediately understood what was happening—Harry Rivers was to be Dick Walters's replacement.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Harding said. “It sounds as if we've rather a mess here.”

“Nothing we can't handle, sir,” Wallace said.

Harding glanced at Wallace; the super considered Wallace a good detective, though volatile and potentially unreliable; Wallace secretly loathed Harding as pompous. Lamb, though, trusted and respected Harding's blunt honesty.

Harry Rivers moved next to Harding, who was unaware of the past that Rivers and Lamb shared. “This is DI Harry Rivers,” Harding said. “He'll be replacing Dick Walters, at least for the time being. He comes to us from Warwickshire, where, as we're all aware, the Germans aren't dropping as many bloody bombs.” Harding nodded at Lamb and Wallace. “DCI Tom Lamb and DS David Wallace.”

Wallace offered Rivers his hand. “Rivers,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks,” Rivers said, shaking Wallace's hand.

Rivers turned to face Lamb. “Lieutenant,” he said. “It's been a long time.”

“Yes,” Lamb said. “Quite a long time, Harry.”

“You two know each other, then?” Harding asked, looking from Lamb to Rivers, genuinely surprised.

“Second Somme,” Rivers said. “Fourth London. DCI Lamb was my direct commanding officer.” Rivers smiled slightly, a smile lacking warmth. “He was Second Lieutenant Lamb then. I was Sergeant Rivers.”

“Old comrades, then,” Harding said, bringing his hands together, pleased. “All the better.”

The four men stood close together for a couple of seconds in silence. Wallace sensed Lamb's discomfort.

“Rivers arrived a few hours ago,” Harding said. “Given that we have a bit of a juicy situation here, I thought it best that he jump right in. Old man with a pitchfork in his neck, then?”

“That and a bit more,” Lamb said.

“And there's a possible witchcraft angle of some kind?”

“Well, there's some talk that the dead man was known in the village to be a witch or warlock or something of the kind.”

“What's the bloody difference?” Harding asked.

“I don't know,” Lamb said. “It might turn out to be nothing.”

“A ruse, then? Well, let's not let it distract us overly much. In the meantime, the three of you can get to work on it together from the start line.”

Lamb thought of asking Harding if Rivers wouldn't be more useful clearing up Walters's backlog. But that would sound puny and calculating. He didn't want to work with Rivers and doubted that Rivers wanted to work with him. His last impression of Harry Rivers had been of how thoroughly Rivers had loathed him, though he knew Rivers's hate to have been misplaced, a kind of war casualty rooted in genuine grief, and guilt. For that reason, Lamb hadn't entirely begrudged Rivers his antipathy. But when the war had finished, Lamb had been glad to rid himself of it and of Harry Rivers. He'd joined the Hampshire police, married Marjorie, and got on with his life.

“Very well, then, I'll leave the three of you to it,” Harding said. “We'll meet tomorrow at the nick, eight
A.M.
You can fill me in then.” He rose slightly on his toes. “Rivers has taken rooms for the moment in Winchester. I'm expecting that one of you can give him a lift back.”

“I can give DI Rivers a lift,” Lamb said. He glanced at Rivers, who seemed not to react to his offer, which would sequester them alone in a car for the half-hour drive back to Winchester.

“Splendid,” Harding said. He climbed into the back seat of the saloon and left.

Lamb turned toward the door of Will Blackwell's cottage with Wallace and Harry Rivers in tow. He rummaged in his pocket for the butterscotch tin.

Earlier, Harris had given Wallace a brief history of the relationship Will Blackwell had shared with his niece, Lydia, and Wallace had delivered the same history to Lamb as they'd descended Manscome Hill. Lydia had come to live with her uncle thirty years earlier, at
the age of eight, after her mother, who was Will's sister, had died. She worked as a seamstress for a small factory in a village north of Southampton that made woolen coats and had done so for as long as anyone could remember. She seemed to have no men in her life beside her uncle and, like her uncle, generally kept to herself.