The Killings at Badger's Drift(29)

‘Darling . . . ?’ She heard the soft bump as Henry negotiated the kitchen step and wheeled himself towards her. She put the dog down. ‘Is something the matter?’

She strove to compose herself before turning to him. She didn’t reply, just shook her head, the bell of glossy dark hair swinging over her face.

‘Is it Benjy? You must give way on that you know, Kate. We’ve both tried everything we can. He’s simply not going to eat. Please . . . let me call the vet . . .’

‘Oh - just another day!’

‘He’s an old dog. He misses her too much. We can’t sit here and watch him starve.’

‘It’s not just that.’ She turned then, crouching clumsily by the chair. ‘It’s . . . I can’t explain . . . oh Henry . . .’ She seized his hands: ‘I’ve just got the most terrible feelings . . .’

‘What d’you mean?’ He smiled down at her, his tone indulgent. ‘What sort of feelings?’

‘I can’t say exactly . . . just that things are going to go dreadfully wrong for us . . . the wedding won’t happen . . .’

‘I’ve never heard such nonsense.’

‘I knew you’d say that. But you don’t understand . . .’ She broke off, studying his face. Kind, handsome, a shade complacent. And why shouldn’t it be? The Traces went back to Norman times. Effigies of Sir Robert Trayce and his wyffe Ismelda and her cat rested eternally in the cool of the thirteenth-century church. Traces had shed a modest amount of their landowning blood in the two world wars and returned to their squirearchical duties garlanded with honour. The words security of tenure were meaningless to them. They had never known anything else.

‘. . . You don’t understand,’ Katherine repeated. ‘Because you’ve never wanted anything you couldn’t have you can’t see that life isn’t always like that. I think these things that are happening . . . Miss Simpson dying . . . and now Benjy . . . and Michael refusing to come on Saturday . . . I think they’re omens . . .’

Henry Trace laughed. ‘Beware the Ides of March.’

‘Don’t laugh.’

‘I’m sorry, darling, but there’s no one squeaking and gibbering in the streets that I can see.’

‘What?’

‘And as for Michael . . . well . . . he’s hardly an omen. You must’ve known for weeks that he’d probably refuse to give you away. You know what he’s like.’

‘But I thought . . . on my wedding day . . .’

‘Do you want me to talk to him?’

‘It won’t make any difference. You’d think after all you’d done for us it would -’

‘Hush. You mustn’t talk like that. I’ve done nothing.’ As she got up, leaning on the arms of his chair, he said, ‘Poor little knees, all dented from the cobbles.’ He lifted the hem of her dress and touched the dimpled flesh tenderly. ‘Dear little knees . . . Henry make them better.’

At a window above their heads Phyllis Cadell turned abruptly away. She switched on the television set and slumped into the nearest armchair. Voices filled the room. On the screen a couple, mad with ecstatic greed, were struggling to embrace a mountain of consumer durables whilst an audience, hardly less ecstatic, screamed abuse and encouragement. Wearing a fixed insane grin, the woman slipped, dislodged a can and brought the whole pyramid crashing to the ground. Phyllis pressed her remote control and got a besotted duo in love with each other’s breakfast cereal. Button three activated a bucolic scene showing an elderly couple saturated with contentment reading their golden wedding telegrams, surrounded by their loving family. Button four brought an old black and white movie. Two men were holding a third by the arms while Sterling Haydon battered him to bits. A left to the jaw, then a right. Smack. Crunch. Then two to the belly, breath sucked in, an agonizing whistle. Then a knee to the groin and a punch in the kidneys.

Phyllis settled back. She seized the box of fudge and started cramming the gritty, fluff-embellished cubes into her mouth. She packed them in fiercely and without a break as if making an assault on her jaws. Tears poured down her cheeks.





Chapter Four

‘I expect the wedding’ll be a posh do. Marquees and all that?’ Troy looked to the horizon as he spoke, casting a green eye on Henry Trace’s assets. Miles and miles and miles of waving money.

‘No doubt.’ Barnaby turned left as they walked away from Tye House, making for the terraced cottages. Troy, not wishing to receive another put-down, did not ask why his chief was going in for a bit of mundane door-to-door. But in the event Barnaby chose to enlighten him.