The Judgement of Strangers Read online

  ‘They do. You know they do.’

  It was then, as if on cue, that we heard footsteps slowly crossing the bare boards of the room below. There was a faint creak.

  ‘That’s the door to the stairs,’ Joanna whispered. ‘He’s coming up.’

  ‘The door’s locked.’

  ‘Yes, but the key’s in the lock. If they bend down and look …’

  We clung together like babes in the wood. The footsteps were slow but not heavy. They could have belonged to a man or a woman. They slowed as they approached our door, and then stopped. Joanna squeezed my hand.

  There was a faint tapping. I held my breath. Someone wanting to be quiet – why? Not wanting to disturb Joanna if she were asleep? Or afraid of a third party hearing the knock? At length – I had lost track of time – the footsteps began again.

  ‘They’re going up,’ Joanna murmured.

  Enclosed in darkness, we listened to the sounds and tried to decode them. The higher the footsteps climbed, the more muffled they became. Suddenly they were louder and more crisply defined.

  Joanna stirred against me. ‘He’s in the room above.’ Her breath tickled my ear. ‘You don’t think …?’

  ‘No. It’s not Francis Youlgreave. You can be quite sure of that.’ As I spoke I wondered if I were right.

  The footsteps crossed the ceiling above our heads. I thought they led to the window overlooking the drive, the one from which Francis Youlgreave had jumped to the gravel below.

  Silence settled around us again. When at last the footsteps began again, I felt Joanna letting out her breath. A sigh of relief? He hasn’t jumped, this time.

  The steps stopped. What was he – or she – doing now? Staring out of another window? Then the movement began again – more rapid now, almost a run, and much louder. The steps tapped across the floor and clattered down the stairs, not pausing at Joanna’s door. Somewhere below us another door slammed.

  Joanna slithered away from me, rolled off the mattress and scrambled to her feet. Her naked body was a dark blur, as beautiful in the semi-darkness as it was in the light. I struggled up myself – far more slowly, for my limbs were less supple, and I was not used to scrambling up from mattresses. She tiptoed across the room to the north-facing window. Her body darkened into a silhouette in front of the paler grey of the glass.

  ‘David – look.’

  I padded across the floor. The room was full of draughts, slipping through the windows, under the door, through the cracks in the floorboards. The warmth from our lovemaking had gone and I felt cold. When I reached the window, Joanna leant against me and drew my arm over her shoulder and down between her breasts.

  ‘See.’ She pointed with her free hand. ‘Over there – beyond the pool, beyond the trees.’

  On the far side of the trees, just beyond the garden boundary, flames flickered red and orange in Carter’s Meadow. They had climbed high and were still climbing higher. Because of the screen of leaves and branches between us and the fire, the flames were an impressionistic jumble of sparks. The window was open a little at the top, and for an instant I thought I could even hear the crackle of the fire and perhaps a cry of pain and terror.

  With flames to the flesh, with brands to the burning,

  As incense to heav’n the soul is returning …

  35

  ‘Someone’s having a bonfire.’ The calmness of my voice amazed me. ‘Teenagers, perhaps. After all, it’s Saturday night.’

  Joanna did not reply. She began to search for her clothes in the semi-darkness. I did the same. I felt ungainly, unclean and furtive. Joanna finished dressing before me. While I was still knotting my shoelaces, she was unlocking the door.

  ‘It’s a good time to go,’ she said. ‘They’ll have seen the fire. It’ll be a diversion.’

  I straightened up. ‘I wish we could stay.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘There’s so much we need to talk about. The future.’

  ‘I don’t belong in your future.’

  ‘You do.’

  She reached up and kissed me. ‘I so much want to believe you.’ Her arms tightened round my neck. ‘If I could sort out Toby somehow, could we really be together?’

  ‘Of course we could. We can in any case.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want to tell you yet. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to do it. I don’t know if it would work.’

  I started to ask a question, but she covered my mouth, first with her fingers and then with her lips. A moment later, she turned the key and opened the door …

  ‘Give me your hand,’ she murmured. ‘We’d better not use the light, and I know the way.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re talking in parables.’

  She stopped so suddenly that I bumped into her, and again she reached up and kissed me. Without another word she led me down the stairs, across the room below and along the landing which ran the length of the house.

  The music had stopped. The light was on at the head of the stairs. People were talking somewhere in the distance. Their voices echoed up from the hall, sounds chasing each other through the house to the lantern in the roof. Among the voices I thought I recognized James’s and perhaps Vanessa’s.

  Joanna tugged me into a passage on the left, leading towards the back of the house. There was still enough light for me to be able to make out broad outlines and variations of light and shade; but all detail had gone. We went up and down short flights of stairs and across bare rooms smelling of dust. In one room we heard the scuttling of a startled animal, probably a rat. Joanna shied away from the sound and for an instant nestled against me.

  She opened a door. ‘The backstairs,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll go first and check there’s no one in the kitchen.’

  A moment later, I joined her in the kitchen, a large, untidy room which smelled of damp and stale milk, and which looked in the gloom as though little had changed there since the Youlgreaves left in the 1930s.

  ‘We’d better separate,’ Joanna said. ‘If you go through that door and carry straight on, you’ll reach the hall. You could say you were looking for a lavatory. I’ll go round the back.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There’s a kitchen yard outside, and then the stables. I can get round into the garden, near the swimming pool.’

  She gave me a gentle push towards the door to the hall. She herself moved away in the opposite direction. When I reached the door I stopped and looked back at her.

  She, too, was looking at me. ‘I love you,’ she said softly but very distinctly. ‘Whatever happens, remember that.’

  She opened the door and was gone. Sadness swept over me like a fog. I stumbled blindly through the house.

  There were lights in the hall. I forced myself towards the glare. I saw no one. The door to the office was still shut. I heard voices on my left, presumably coming from the sitting room with the bar. I could not make out the words, but the voices were no longer making party sounds: they sounded urgent and confused.

  I pushed my fingers through my hair and straightened my tie. If only I could find a mirror – I was suddenly afraid that my appearance must in some way proclaim not only that I loved Joanna but that we had spent much of the evening making love. I looked at my watch. It was after nine o’clock. It felt much later.

  I peered down the corridor. The door to the sitting room was open. Someone had left a half-filled glass on the hall floor. On impulse I picked it up. A partygoer has a drink in his hand; the possession of a drink helped to create an illusion of my innocence.

  The sitting room was full of people. Many of them were clustered round the makeshift bar. I could not see Vanessa or Toby.

  James’s voice rose above the others: ‘Softly, softly, eh? No point in letting it spoil the party.’ He spotted me and waved me towards him. ‘Have you seen Toby?’

  ‘He might be outside.’

  ‘He went off somewhere. Thought he might have been loo
king for you.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Someone’s lit a bonfire in that field by the council estate.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘Just a bit of fun, probably.’

  There were footsteps outside and suddenly Vanessa was in the room. Her face was flushed and she looked very happy – almost as though she had come from meeting a lover. She came towards me.

  ‘I was wondering where you were,’ she said. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘There’s a bonfire on Carter’s Meadow.’

  ‘That fire’s on our land,’ interrupted Ted Potter, waving a beer bottle belligerently. The bottle was not empty and some of the contents trickled on to his face and shoulders. ‘Bloody trespassers, Vicar, if you don’t mind me saying so. We’re going to turf them out.’

  ‘It’s not your land, Ted,’ Doris said, grabbing his arm. ‘It’s mine. And now you’ve got beer all over your jacket.’

  ‘Oh Doris,’ he crooned. He held the bottle up to the light and saw that it was now empty. He lunged towards the bar table and beamed at James. ‘It’s my round, Doc. What’s everyone having?’

  Doris looked at me. ‘I’m sorry. It’s only once or twice a year he gets like that. Doesn’t touch the stuff the rest of the time. I just wish he wouldn’t do it in public.’

  I smiled at her. ‘At least he’s enjoying himself. And he’s worked very hard today.’

  ‘So have we all. That’s no excuse.’

  ‘What have you got there, Vicar?’ Ted called. ‘Gin, is it?’

  I covered the stolen glass with my hand and shook my head. Suddenly the memory of Joanna pushed its way to the forefront of my mind and I wanted to laugh with happiness.

  ‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ Vanessa was saying. ‘Such a piece of luck.’

  I spilled a few drops of my drink. ‘I’m sorry – what is?’

  ‘The books. Toby says I can take them home.’

  ‘So they did belong to Francis?’

  ‘Yes. There must be about thirty of them. Mainly theology, but there are some oddities as well. There’s a copy of The Tongues of Angels with the pages uncut. And a mid-Victorian housewives’ manual on meat.’

  ‘On what?’

  Vanessa stared up at me with a half smile on her face. Implacable as fate, she knew exactly what she was telling me. ‘Meat. Everything the housewife needed to know. How to buy it, prepare it, cook it, serve it, dress it, carve it, use up the leftovers.’ She paused. ‘How to cut it up. There was a little textbook of human anatomy, too. Some of the passages had been marked.’

  I sipped my drink, discovering that it was neat gin.

  ‘I’m not going to sanitize Francis Youlgreave. I want to know the truth.’

  Ted Potter stumbled between us and sat down heavily in one of the armchairs. ‘To be perfectly honest, it’s past my bedtime,’ he confided to the glass in his hand. He nodded, as though at something the glass had replied. ‘Yes, tomorrow is another day.’

  His eyelids closed. The glass wavered. Doris removed it and stared down at her husband. Charlene came to join her. A moment later, Ted began to snore gently.

  ‘Kevin’ll have to give us a hand with him,’ Doris said.

  Charlene shook her head. ‘Kevin’s flat on his back. Miss Oliphant tripped over him and he didn’t even notice.’

  ‘Just leave them where they are,’ Vanessa suggested. ‘Why should getting them home be your responsibility?’

  ‘Toby!’ James roared at my shoulder. ‘How’s the Great Fire of Carter’s Meadow?’

  Toby was at the nearer French window. ‘Seems to be dying down. I don’t think anyone’s out there. I’m going to have a look at it now. Anyone want to come?’ He turned to me. ‘David?’

  ‘David’ll soon sort them out,’ James said, and laughed loudly. ‘The church militant.’

  Vanessa followed me on to the terrace. From this angle, you could not see the fire. Audrey was standing by the steps leading down to the lawn.

  ‘Is Rosemary all right?’ Vanessa asked.

  ‘I expect so. I haven’t seen her recently.’

  ‘David?’ Audrey called from the shadows at the edge of the lawn. ‘I’d like a word.’

  I could tell by her voice that she was upset. ‘Could it wait a moment? I gather there’s a little problem in Carter’s Meadow.’

  ‘The fire? I bet you anything it’s those wretched boys.’

  ‘The ones from the bus shelter?’

  ‘No – Michael and Brian Vintner.’ She walked slowly towards us. ‘They’ve been behaving like barbarians all evening. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Michael barged into me by the pool and then rushed off without apologizing. And he and Brian were playing in the trees near the fence and making a terrible racket. I think they deserve a severe punishment.’

  ‘Audrey,’ Vanessa interrupted. ‘Thank you for telling us, but I really think you should leave Michael to us.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Byfield.’ Audrey spat out Vanessa’s married name as if it were a curse. ‘It’s just not good enough.’

  ‘May we talk about this later?’ I said.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Vanessa said, her voice grim. ‘I’ll talk to Audrey. You and Toby go and sort out the fire.’

  Coward that I was, I was glad to take the easy way out. I had no wish to become involved in yet another of Audrey’s outbursts. Not that I was particularly keen to go with Toby, either. The irony was that while Audrey was merely an irritation, Toby – if what Joanna had told me was true – was capable of real evil. Yet Toby was intelligent and had good manners, and he didn’t make scenes; so in one way he was the more attractive choice of companion. It is always simpler to judge by externals, even when there is no excuse for doing so.

  Toby and I walked across the lawn, the beam of his torch snaking before us. Few people were out here now. A young couple were embracing on one of the benches beside the swimming pool. When they saw us they hastily sat up and straightened their clothes. It was too dark to recognize their faces. Toby and I walked round the pool and I heard the couple scurrying into the night like the startled rat Joanna and I had disturbed upstairs.

  ‘You can’t see the fire from here,’ I said.

  ‘I only noticed it because I went up the tower to see if Jo was there. Have you seen her lately, by the way?’

  ‘Not recently. I’ve not seen Michael or Rosemary, either.’

  ‘Michael and Brian have been having the time of their lives. But I’m afraid Audrey hasn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps we should have taken the boys home.’

  ‘Why? It’s their party, too. I like parties where you have all sorts, all ages.’

  He led me towards the path through the bushes, the one Rosemary and I had taken in the opposite direction on the afternoon when Rosemary found the blood and the fur in Carter’s Meadow. There was a pattering on the leaves above our heads.

  ‘It’s starting to rain,’ Toby said. ‘It’s been trying to all evening.’

  ‘At least it’ll help put out the fire.’

  The path had swung round to the left, and we could see the fire quite clearly on the far side of the fence. A few minutes later, we scrambled through into Carter’s Meadow. We set off across the rough grass towards the little spinney of self-seeded trees.

  ‘It’s at the same place we found the fur,’ Toby said. ‘Exactly the same. How odd.’

  I glanced at him, but the darkness hid his face. ‘It may be a coincidence.’

  We walked on towards the clump of trees. The dead elder stood on one side, apart from the others. Its wood must have dried out still further over the summer. It was a tree of fire, burning with one last glow of artificial life. By now the flames were dying down, but many of the branches and twigs still gleamed red. Two of the neighbouring trees had blackened leaves, but fortunately the flames had not spread.

  Toby panned the torch beam to and fro. No one was there. Nothing moved apart from the dying flames and the rain, which was growing steadi
ly heavier. Trapped in the beam, the raindrops looked like needles showering from the sky.

  ‘Phew,’ he said. ‘You can feel the heat from here.’

  ‘Lucky the wind wasn’t in the other direction. The other trees would have gone, too.’

  The beam of the torch raced across the grass to the base of the tree. ‘What’s that?’

  Picked out in the torchlight was a black oblong with a red glow along the top. Something else lay half concealed on the ground immediately behind it – something red, I thought, though it was hard to be sure because the colour might simply be a reflection of the flames.

  Toby stopped a few yards away from the tree; the heat made it uncomfortable to go nearer. He played the beam on the ground.

  ‘It’s a sort of box. And that might be a petrol can behind it.’

  ‘So the fire was started deliberately?’

  ‘Probably CHBs.’

  ‘What?’

  Toby turned his head towards me and the reflections of the flames danced like snakes among his ginger curls. ‘Council house brats.’ He threw back his head and laughed.

  The words shocked me – not merely because of their grotesque snobbery, but because Toby had assumed I would share his amusement. Was that how I appeared to him?

  He turned back to the fire. ‘It’ll burn itself out in an hour or so, and I don’t think it’s going to do any damage to anything else. But it’s a bit close to the garden for comfort.’

  ‘We’d better report it to the police.’

  ‘If this were my land, the first thing I’d do is rebuild the fences.’

  I was only half listening to him. I edged across the grass towards the tree. The heat was unpleasant but not unbearable. Beside the box, the petrol can lay on its side, its cap off.

  ‘Do you think Mrs Potter might sell the field to me eventually? It would round off the garden rather nicely.’

  I picked up a long twig, one end charred from the fire. I used it to touch the blackened side of the box. The two came together with a faint clunk, which suggested that the box was made of metal.

  Dear God – not CHBs. Much closer to home.

  ‘David – what are you doing? Mind out – that branch is going to come down.’