Nocturnes

“He was found against the post, his sleeves hanging from the wire,” said Waters. “Poor beggar,” he added.

  “Who found him?” asked Stokes.

  “Fred Paxton. He remembered Trevors leaving the pub shortly before ten, and he followed about an hour later.”

  “Did he touch the body?”

  “No call to. Didn’t need letters after his name to tell that he was dead.”

  “We’ll have to talk to Paxton.”

  Waters proudly drew himself up a little.

  “Thought you might say that. He and his missus live not half a mile up the road, and I told them to expect us this morning.”

  Burke would happily have flayed Waters with the fence wire had he not taken this simple step, but the detective allowed the village policeman a muted “Well done, Constable,” which seemed to content Waters.

  “Did you search the area?” Burke resumed.

  “I did.”

  Burke waited. Trevors was crossing the field when he was attacked, and it was a cold night. The temperature had not risen much since; in fact, if anything it had fallen. Burke could see his footsteps and those of his companions receding toward the road. Whoever attacked Trevors must have left some sign upon the grass.

  “Well?”

  “There were only two sets of footprints: Mal Trevors’s and Fred Paxton’s. I tried to keep people away from the body, once I’d seen what had been done to it, so there wasn’t as much disturbance as you might think.”

  “Perhaps he was attacked on the road,” said Stokes, “then attempted to escape across the fields and died on the fence when he could go no further.”

  “Don’t think so,” said Waters. “There was no blood in the field between the road and the fence. I checked.”

  Burke knelt and examined the ground at the base of the post. There was still a great deal of dried blood visible upon the blades of grass. If what Waters said was true, and even Burke was forced grudgingly to acknowledge a certain level of competence on the part of the village copper, then Waters had been attacked on this spot and had died here.

  “Something must have been missed,” he said at last. “No disrespect to you, Constable, but whoever killed Trevors didn’t materialize out of thin air. We’ll go over the ground on either side of the fence, inch by inch. There has to be some trail.”

  Waters nodded his assent, and the three men spread out from the death post, Burke moving toward the cemetery, Stokes toward the road, and Waters in the direction of a cottage some way distant, which was, he informed the detectives, the home of the Paxtons. The policemen searched for an hour, until the cold had burrowed into their hands and feet, yet found nothing. It seemed that Mal Trevors had been attacked, quite literally, from out of nowhere.

  Burke finished his examination of the ground and sat upon the low cemetery wall, watching his fellow policemen as they moved across the field, Stokes bent over slightly, his hands in his pockets, Waters less careful, but still doing his best. In his heart, Burke knew that it was a futile yet necessary effort. To have made a proper search would have required more men, and men were scarce, but even then he remained unconvinced that anything would be found. Still, it made no sense to him that a big man like Trevors could be savagely murdered with no sign of a struggle.

  He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it over his face. He was sweating profusely, and starting to feel a little ill. It’s this place, he thought: it saps one’s energy. He recalled Dr. Allinson walking down the main street, virtually propped against his wife, and the earlier lassitude of Constable Waters, which seemed to have been arrested somewhat by the arrival of new blood in the form of the two London policemen. Underbury was a village emptied of its most virile men, all of whom were now fighting in foreign fields. Those that remained must have been aware of their status as flawed bodies, unsuited for combat or sacrifice, and that awareness hung like a miasma over their lives. Now Burke was feeling it too. If he stayed here too long, perhaps he also would end up like Allinson, exhausted after a few hours labor, for the doctor told him that he had retired to bed shortly after one in the morning. He had therefore rested for some six hours, but at breakfast Burke would have sworn that the man had not enjoyed proper sleep in many months.

  Burke slipped down from his perch and went to rejoin his colleagues. As he did so, his foot struck stone. He stepped back, then knelt down and brushed the tips of his fingers along the ground. There was a slab there, almost entirely covered by long grass and weeds. The vegetation came away easily as Burke pulled at it, for some of it had merely fallen across the stone, or had been placed there to conceal it. There was no inscription upon it, but Burke knew its purpose. This was an old community, and he did not doubt that in times past the bodies of suicides, of unbaptized children, and of gallows fodder had been interred outside the walls of the cemetery. It was common practice, although it was rare to see a marker of any kind upon such graves.

  Now, as he looked at the ground from this low angle, he could see two other similar raised slabs nearby. When he examined them, he discovered that the stone on one had been broken recently. Someone had taken a hammer and chisel to it, fragmenting the rock into a number of pieces and leaving a hole as big as Burke’s fist at the center. Burke leaned forward and slipped two fingers into the gap, expecting to touch earth below. Instead, there was only emptiness. He tried a similar experiment using his pen tied to a piece of thread from his coat, and again felt the instrument dangle in the space beneath the stone.

  Curious, he thought.

  He stood and saw Stokes and Waters watching him from the road. There was nothing more to be learned by the cemetery wall, so he joined them and made no argument when Waters suggested that now might be the time to talk to the Paxtons, and perhaps take some tea for their trouble.

  “What kind of man was Trevors?” Burke asked Waters, as they made their way along the road.

  The constable made a noise somewhere between a cough and a sigh.

  “I didn’t care much for him myself,” he said. “He served time in a prison up north for assault, then came back down here when he was released and lived with his father until the old man died. After that, it was just him alone on that farm.”

  “And the mother?”

  “Died when Mal was a boy. Her husband used to beat her, but she never made a complaint. Constable Stewart, my predecessor, he tried talking to her, and to her husband, but nothing ever came of it. I reckon Mal picked up some of his old man’s bad habits, because he was jailed for beating up a, well, you’ll forgive me, sir, but a prostitute in Manchester. Near killed her, from what I hear. When he came back here, he took up with a woman named Elsie Warden, but she soon gave him a wide berth when he fell back into his old ways with her. There was an incident about a week ago, when he came to her house in the night and demanded to speak to her, but her father and younger brothers sent him on his way. They’d already given him a taste of his own medicine once, and he didn’t fancy another spoonful.”

  Burke and Stokes exchanged a look.

  “Could the Wardens be suspects?”

  “They were all in the bar when Trevors left, and they were still there when Fred Paxton came back there with news of what he’d found. They never left. Even Elsie was with them. They’re in the clear, as far as this is concerned.”

  Waters reached into his pocket, withdrew a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to Burke.

  “Thought you might want this. It’s a list of all the people who were in the bar that night. A star marks the ones who were there from the time Trevors left until the time the Paxtons returned.”

  Burke took the list and read it. One name caught his eye.

  “Mrs. Allinson was there that night?”

  “And her husband. Saturday night’s the big night in the village. Most people find their way to the inn, sooner or later.”

  Emily Allinson’s name was one of those marked with a star.

  “And she never left,” he said, so quietly that nobody heard him
utter the words.

  The Paxtons, a young couple with no children, were both relative newcomers to the area. Fred was born about twenty miles west of Underbury, and after a period of city living decided that it was time to return to the countryside with his wife. The land at Underbury had cost them comparatively little, and they were now raising cattle and hoping for a good crop of vegetables to sell in the coming year. They fed the detectives bread and cheese, and brewed up a pot of tea large enough to sate a field of laborers.

  “I remember I was walking along, my mind on getting home, and I just happened to look to my right,” said Fred Paxton. His left eye was yellowy white, with tendrils of red crisscrossing upon it. It brought back to Burke an image from his childhood: a visit to his uncle’s farm on the outskirts of the city, where his father had drunk milk fresh from the cow and the boy had seen blood in the creamy liquid.

  “There was a shape draped across the fence,” Paxton continued. “It looked like a scarecrow, but there’s no scarecrow on that land. I climbed the gate and went to have a look-see. I never seen so much blood. I felt it under my boots. I’d say Mal hadn’t been dead more than a couple of minutes when I found him.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Stokes.

  “His innards were steaming,” replied Paxton, simply.

  “What did you do then?” said Burke.

  “I went back to the village, fast as I could. Ran into the pub and told old Ken the barman to send for the constable here. I think some people might have been on their way to take a look at the body for themselves, soon as they heard, but as it happened the constable was passing when they came out and he went with them.”

  “And you also went back, I presume?” said Stokes.

  “I did. When all was done, I went home to the missus here and told her what had happened.”

  Burke turned his attention to the young woman seated to his left. Mrs. Paxton had spoken barely five words since their arrival. She was a slight thing, with dark hair and large blue eyes. Burke supposed that she might even have been termed beautiful.

  “Is there anything you can add to what your husband has told us, Mrs. Paxton?” he asked her. “Did you hear or see anything that night that might help us?”

  Her voice was so low that Burke had to lean forward to hear what she was saying.

  “I was asleep in bed when Fred came in,” she said. “When he told me it was Mal Trevors, well, I just felt something turn inside me. It was terrible.”

  She excused herself and rose from the table. Burke watched her go, then caught himself doing so and returned his attention to the men around him.

  “Do you remember how the people in the inn responded when you told them the news?” he asked Paxton.

  “Shocked, I suppose,” he said.

  “Was Elsie Warden shocked?”

  “Well, she was later, when she found out,” said Paxton.

  “Later?”

  “Dr. Allinson said that Elsie’d taken ill not long before I returned. His wife was looking after her in old Ken’s kitchen.”

  Burke asked if he might use the toilet, so that he could have a little privacy in which to consider what he had learned. Fred Paxton told him the facilities were outside, and offered to show him, but Burke assured him that he would be able to find them alone. He walked through the kitchen, found the privy, and relieved himself while he thought. When he went back outside, Mrs. Paxton was standing at the kitchen window. Her upper body was bare and she was washing herself with a cloth from the sink. She stopped when she saw him, then lowered her right hand so that her breasts were exposed to him. Her body was very white. Burke looked at her for just a second longer, then slowly she turned away, her back a pale expanse against the shadows, and disappeared from view. Burke skirted the side of the house, returning to the main room through the front door. Upon his return, Waters and Stokes stood and the four men walked together into the front yard. Paxton spoke to the constable about local matters, and Stokes ambled onto the road, taking the air. Suddenly, Burke found Mrs. Paxton by his side.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  She blushed slightly, but Burke felt that the only real embarrassment was his own.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

  “I do have just one other question,” he said to her.

  She waited.

  “Did you like Mal Trevors?”

  It took a moment for the answer to come.

  “No, sir,” she said eventually. “I did not.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “He was a brute of a man, and I saw the way he looked at me. Our land adjoined his, and I made a point never to be alone in the fields when he was around.”

  “Did you tell your husband of this?”

  “No, but he knew how I felt, right enough.”

  She stopped talking suddenly, conscious that she might have said something to incriminate her Fred, but Burke reassured her.

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Paxton. Neither you nor your husband is a suspect here.”

  She remained suspicious of him, though.

  “So you say.”

  “Listen to me. Whoever killed Mal Trevors would have been covered in blood afterward. I hardly think that description applied to your husband that night, did it?”

  “No,” she replied. “I see what you mean. I don’t think Fred has it in him to kill Mal Trevors, or to kill anyone, come to that. He’s a good man.”

  “But you felt distressed at Trevors’s death, despite what you felt about him,” said Burke.

  Again, there was a pause before the reply came. Burke could see her husband over her shoulder, no longer distracted by Waters but now coming to his wife’s aid. There was little time left.

  “I wished that he was dead,” said Mrs. Paxton softly. “The day before he died, he brushed against me when we were in Mr. Little’s store together. He did it deliberately, and I felt him push into me. I felt his…thing. He was a pig, and I was tired of being afraid to walk in our own fields. So, for a moment, I wished him dead, and then a day later he was dead. I suppose I wondered…”

  “If somehow you might have caused his death?”

  “Yes.”

  Fred Paxton was now beside them.

  “Is everything all right, love?” he asked, placing a protective arm around his wife’s shoulders.

  “Everything’s fine now,” she said.

  She smiled at her husband, but it was to reassure him rather than to express any real emotion on her own part, and Burke caught a glimpse of the real power behind their marriage, the strength hidden inside this small, pretty woman.

  And he felt a surge of unease.

  Everything’s fine.

  Everything’s fine now that Mal Trevors is dead.

  Sometimes you do get what you wish for, don’t you, my love?

  By now it was growing dark. Stokes remarked that winter seemed to be extending its reach far into February, for although the winter solstice had long since passed, daylight was in short supply in Underbury and its surrounds. Constable Waters counseled the detectives against visiting the Warden family after dusk—“They’re an uneasy lot, and like as not the old man will have a shotgun in his hand to greet visitors at this hour”—and so the policemen returned to the village, where Stokes and Burke ate stew together in one corner of the inn, untroubled by inquiries after their health. Burke announced that he wished to visit Dr. Allinson, and politely declined his sergeant’s offer of company on the road. He wished to have some time alone, and although Stokes generally knew when to keep quiet in the presence of the inspector, Burke nevertheless found the presence of others distracting when he was trying to think. He secured a lamp from the innkeeper and then, once the directions offered were clear in his head, he took to the road and walked to the Allinsons’ house, which lay about one mile north of the village. It was a starless night, and Burke was oppressed by unseen clouds.

  All of the windows were dark when he arrive
d at the house, save one at the very highest eave. He knocked loudly and waited, expecting a housekeeper to open the door. Instead, after some minutes, and to his surprise, the lady of the house herself greeted him. Mrs. Allinson wore a very formal blue dress that extended from her ankles to her neck, where it ended in a faint ruffle beneath her chin. It was somewhat dated to Burke’s eye, but she carried it off with aplomb, aided by her height and her fine features, not least of which were the flawed green eyes now regarding Burke with polite inquiry and, he felt, not a little amusement.

  “Inspector Burke, this is a surprise,” she said. “My husband had not told me to expect you.”

  “I regret any imposition,” said Burke. “I take it that your husband is not at home?”

  Mrs. Allinson stepped back and invited the policeman inside. After an almost imperceptible pause, Burke accepted the invitation and followed her into the drawing room, once Mrs. Allinson had illuminated the lamps.

  “I’m afraid he was called out suddenly. Such are the duties of a village physician. He shouldn’t be very long. May I offer you tea?”

  Burke declined.

  “I rather expected you to have a housekeeper, or a servant of some sort,” he said, as Mrs. Allinson took a seat on a couch and waved him toward an easy chair.

  “I gave her the night off,” said Mrs. Allinson. “Her name is Elsie Warden. She’s a local girl. Have you met Elsie, Inspector?”

  Burke replied that he had not yet had that pleasure.

  “You’ll like her,” said Mrs. Allinson. “A lot of men seem to like Elsie.”

  Once again, Burke was aware of Mrs. Allinson’s distant amusement, an amusement that he believed she felt at his expense, although he was unable to guess why this might be so.

  “I understand you were with her on the night Mal Trevors died.”

  Mrs. Allinson raised her left eyebrow slowly, an action followed closely by the hint of a smile on the left side of her mouth, as though a wire extended from eye to jaw, linking their movements.

  “I was ‘with’ my husband, Inspector,” she replied.