Bonfire Memories Read online

  Cara, who did not want to stand looking at the body anymore, walked back up to the hall. The policeman in charge said he would meet her up there later to take her statement.

  When she reached the hall, Meredith handed her a cup of tea and led her to a chair. It was at a long teak table, along with several other chairs. The plans for the Bonfire Night celebrations were in a buff folder at the end, reminding Cara of how her day should have panned out. “I think we should get the doctor to come and look at you,” she said.

  “Why? I’m not ill,” said Cara.

  “No, love, but you’ve had a fright.”

  “Have you ever seen a dead body?”

  Meredith nodded. “In Midchester one can hardly move without falling over them.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry, that was really crass of me.”

  “But probably true,” said Cara with a wan smile.

  “But sadly true. I used to think Aunt Peg exaggerated, but Midchester has seen far too much crime for such a small place.” Meredith looked over her shoulder as the door to the hall opened and a few stragglers arrived. “I think it’s all those suppressed emotions. No one dares show their true feelings, and when they finally do, they go a bit overboard.” She patted Cara on the shoulder. “I’ll go and boil another kettle. Have a custard cream. The sugar will do you good.”

  “I wish doctors gave out the same advice as you,” said Cara, picking up a biscuit. She found that she could not eat it. Her stomach was too churned up.

  “It must have been very frightening for you.” It took her a moment to realise that Guy was standing at the other side of the table and addressing her. He sat down and picked up a biscuit, nibbling at the end. But it seemed he was not that hungry either. He put it onto a side plate.

  “I didn’t even remember till today,” she said. “Now I do remember, I wish that I didn’t.”

  “I know it’s difficult, but can you remember what the figure looked like?”

  Cara shook her head, wondering why it mattered to him. “No, not really. Whenever I try to remember I see it as a picture. I’d been reading about the Gunpowder Plot you see, and it appeared to me almost like a drawing in a Ladybird book.”

  “That was probably your childish way of dealing with it.”

  “I’m not a child anymore.”

  “No, but such memories hold solid. Especially if they’re repressed. When I think back to the war I see it all in black and white, even my own life strangely enough, because that’s how we saw it all at the cinema. I’m sure we did have colours then, but I can’t remember them.”

  “Is that why your film is in black and white? Hardly any films are nowadays. Not from Hollywood anyway.”

  “That’s very astute of you. Yes, that is why. I thought it added to the grittiness of the drama. Some might say that’s pretentious but…” Guy hesitated.

  “What?”

  “This seems the wrong thing to be discussing at this moment in time.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be. I’d like to talk to you about it at some other time. I’d be interested to know what you think when you’ve seen it.”

  Cara wondered why it mattered to him what she thought of his film. “I wish I’d thought to ask you all these things earlier, instead of the stupid questions about your favourite colour and what sort of women you like.”

  Guy laughed softly. “Would the readers of the local newspaper care about my artistic vision?”

  “No, probably not.” She grimaced. “Actually they might, but you’d have to buy them a few drinks first.”

  “Then you asked the right questions, Cara. In my experience no one ever wants to know about the stuff that’s really important to the actor or director.”

  At that moment it seemed important for Cara to ask the right questions. “Did you know Mr. Anderson well?”

  “Not really,” said Guy. “He was doing some work for me.”

  “To do with films?”

  “No.” He sighed, and seemed reluctant to say anything else. “It was some other business.” His eyes took on a haunted look.

  She knew she should ask him more questions. After all, she was training to be a journalist. Unfortunately, she had not quite got over the idea that she was prying into people’s private lives. It was something she would have to learn to do if she was ever going to be good enough to give up working in the pub and write for a proper newspaper. At that moment in time, with Carl Anderson lying dead in the street surrounded by a police cordon, such prying seemed inappropriate.

  Cara was beginning to wonder if she had chosen the wrong career path. In the pub people gave up information without anyone asking. Sometimes there was too much information. People had a tendency to tell her more than she ever wanted to know. It seemed wrong to go into people’s homes and ask them searching questions with a view to telling the entire readership of a newspaper.

  The police arrived and took over the tiny office, calling people one by one to question them about what they had seen. As the first on the scene, Cara told them all that she knew. She was about to tell them about Guy seeming to check Anderson’s pockets, but something stopped her. After all, she did not know if that was really the case. It had been foggy and the night was drawing in. It would be wrong to get him into trouble if she was mistaken. At least that’s what she told herself. She felt sure she would not protect him if she thought he had done wrong.

  Guy went in after her. She wished she could hear what he was saying to the police. He was in there a long time, which caused some muttering amongst those sitting in the hall.

  Cara’s mum had arrived, and sat next to her, putting her arm around her.

  “Are you alright, sweetheart?” Martha Potter asked for the second time that night.

  “Yes, mum, I’m fine. I told you.”

  “Why don’t you come home for your tea? There’s always plenty on.”

  “I have to get back to the pub soon, mum.” Cara had tried phoning Nancy to explain her lateness, but there had been no answer. She hoped that Nancy wasn’t expecting her to open up. Not that it mattered. Anyone who might be in the pub was in the village hall, even if they did not need to be there. Something exciting had happened in Midchester and nobody wanted to miss that.

  When Guy eventually came out of the office, Cara thought he might come and say goodbye to her. Instead he just left the hall, seemingly in a rush, his features dark and anguished. The policeman who had questioned him stood at the office door, grimly watching Guy leave.

  “Mum, I have to go,” said Cara. Without waiting for her mum to reply, Cara left the hall, and ran down the path, hoping to catch up with him.

  “Guy…” she called, when she saw a tall, shadowy figure ahead in the street. “Mr. Sullivan, I need to ask you something.” She turned around and made sure no one else was there. The man in front of her stopped, and appeared to wait. She felt that same malevolence again. The one that haunted her as a child and which had filled the air just before she fell over Carl Anderson’s body. Was that Guy all along? Yet she had not felt that when he was talking to her in the hall. Then again, he was an actor and able to switch his emotions on and off at will.

  “I need to ask you,” Cara said, determined not to be intimidated, “why did you go through Mr. Anderson’s pockets?”

  The man, whoever he was, coughed softly, almost as if he was covering up some emotional outburst. He walked on, disappearing into the fog.

  Chapter Four

  1946

  “Tell me what you’ve been doing,” she asks. She’s bathed and put on a bathrobe. Her blonde hair is damp, curling around her pretty face.

  “You know that I cannot.”

  “Why are you even still here? The war is over. The Fuhrer is dead.”

  “And he will live again. At least his cause will. I stay to be ready for that day.”

  “It’s over,” she tells me. “It will be a long time before they allow Germany to have complete autonomy aga
in.”

  “Have you been reading books again?” I raise an eyebrow, and am gratified to see that the insult has hit home.

  “I may not have my father’s intellect, or even yours, but I am not stupid.” She gets up and flounces to the bathroom. When she comes out, she is dressed again. “I have forgotten how cruel you can be,” she whispers, grabbing her bag.

  I get up off the bed and take her by the hand, knowing that I cannot let her go. She knows too much about me, and now I’ve made her angry. Who knows what she might do in retaliation?

  As if she’s read my mind she says, “I would never betray you, no matter how you might hurt me.”

  “I know, my love.” I smile and hold out my arms to her. “Come and see me again.” I tell her the address, and when to come. “Make sure you don’t see or speak to anyone. At least until we can sort this out.”

  Because she is honest, she believes everyone else to be. She is as trusting as a child, and I know she will do whatever I tell her to do. She always did in the past.

  ***

  As Cara feared, there was no one at the pub when she got back. Not even Peg Bradbourne She tidied herself up a little, and set things out, putting chairs on the floor and beer mats on the tables, before unlocking the doors.

  She need not have worried. It was a while before anyone came. In fact, Nancy arrived with the first of the drinkers.

  “I’m so sorry, pet,” she said to Cara. “I got waylaid.” She looked around her and frowned. “This lot are late tonight.”

  “Nancy,” said Cara, “don’t you know what’s happened?”

  “What, love? What’s happened.”

  “I found a man dead in the street near to the village hall.”

  “Who?” Nancy visibly paled. “Who was it?”

  “A man called Carl Anderson. He’s not local. But it was awful. He was…”

  “What is it?” Nancy lifted the hatch to the bar and joined Cara behind it. Cara was not sure, but she thought Nancy looked relieved.

  “I’ll tell you in a while. We ought to serve the customers first.” Cara said that because the customers were all listening with avid attention to the two women talking. She did not feel comfortable speaking in front of them. There was enough gossip in Midchester.

  Half an hour later, when everyone, including Peg Bradbourne, was sitting in their usual seats with their usual drinks, Cara took Nancy into the back passageway and filled her in on everything that had happened. “I think I might even have spoken to his killer, Nancy. Only I didn’t realise it at the time. I thought it was Mr. Sullivan. Guy. It might have been. Oh I don’t know. I’m so confused. He seems really nice, but he has a secret, I know he does.”

  “Well you’re the journalist, pet, you ask him.”

  “I can’t. In fact I think I’m giving up journalism. I’m not cut out for it.”

  “Rubbish. You’re a lovely writer. I’ve seen your stories and poems. You’ve had them published as well, so they must be good.”

  Cara smiled. Her publishing history included having stories and poems published in magazines that don’t exactly pay for content. In one case, she had made the mistake of paying a publisher to include one of her poems in their anthology. It was a lesson hard learned. “Yes, but they’re not real, are they? They’re fiction. They don’t involve me delving into other people’s secrets.”

  “Oh I don’t know,” said Nancy, with a grin. “I thought I recognised a few Midchester folk in them.”

  “Well, perhaps…” Cara smiled back. “But anyway, this is serious, Nance. I don’t have what it takes to solve this mystery. It would help if I didn’t like him quite so much. What if he is a killer? I’ve already made one mistake with a man. I don’t think I could bear to be wrong again. Not that Mr. Sullivan is interested in me.”

  There was a low coughing sound from the bar. It was someone trying to get attention. “Sorry,” called Nancy. “We’ll be right there.”

  “That’s alright,” said Peg Bradbourne, her old eyes bright and alert, as Nancy and Cara went back to the bar. “But you have a new customer, Cara.”

  Guy Sullivan was standing at the bar. He was so tall that he had to stoop a little so he could see her under the glasses which hung from above the bar. In fact, he was so tall, that he probably had to bend down to get past the thick wooden beams that crossed the ceiling. “Hello, Cara.”

  “Hello.” Cara was so flummoxed by him being there that she forgot her manners. “Oh I’m so sorry, Mr. Sullivan. What can I get you?”

  “I’ll have a pint of bitter, please. Is there anywhere we can talk privately?”

  That drew a lot of looks from the customers, who had fallen into silence at the appearance of a newcomer to the pub.

  “Take him to the snug,” said Nancy. The snug was to one side of the bar. It had access to the bar, but the rest of it was closed off to the other customers. It wasn’t entirely sound proof, but it did muffle conversation.

  “I have to work,” said Cara.

  “I’m sure I can manage,” said Nancy, brightly. “We don’t get many coach parties around here. At least not in November. Go on, I’ll bring your drinks over.”

  “Just bring me a stout before you go, please Cara,” said Peg Bradbourne.

  Cara did as she was asked, whilst Nancy showed Guy into the snug.

  “It seems to me he’s very interested in you,” Peg muttered under her breath.

  “Peg Bradbourne,” said Cara, trying not to laugh. “You really are incorrigible. You heard everything, didn’t you?”

  “There’s a reason I like this seat,” said Peg. “One hears all sorts.”

  It was hard to be angry with Peg about her eavesdropping, but Cara could not help blush to know that Peg had heard her admit to liking Guy. “Peg…”

  “My lips are sealed. Now go on, don’t keep the young man waiting. And when you’ve done you can tell me all about this Carl Anderson chap. I’ve heard all sorts from this lot. Some say he was an undercover policeman. Others that he was here to shut down the mine. None of it is helpful.”

  “I don’t know who he was, Peg.”

  “No, but you can give me an unbiased version of the story.”

  As Cara went to join Guy in the snug, she pondered that she was not so sure about that. It was hard to be unbiased where Guy Sullivan was concerned.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, as she sat down. Nancy had poured her a ladies’ glass of lager and lime, but she was not sure she really wanted it. She took a sip anyway, to help lubricate her dry mouth. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  Guy looked around him. The pub was too quiet. Everyone was trying to listen to their conversation.

  “Alright you lot,” said Peg from her side of the bar. “Get on with your own conversations and stop listening to the young couple.”

  Cara blushed profusely, but Peg’s words had the desired effect. People seemed to decide that Cara and Guy were just a couple of young lovers, wanting an intimate chat, rather than two people who had insight into the murder. The pub filled with chatter.

  “I like her,” said Guy.

  “Yes, Peg’s great. A bit nosey, but in a nice way.”

  “You’ll have to introduce me later.”

  “What did you want to talk about? Was it the question I asked you earlier?”

  “What question?”

  “It was you, when I came out of the village hall, wasn’t it?”

  Guy shook his head. “No. What question did you ask me?”

  Cara floundered. It had been easy to ask him when it was dark and foggy and she couldn’t see his lovely blue-grey eyes. Face to face, she was not quite as brave. “I … I’ve probably got this very wrong, but I thought I saw you going through Mr. Anderson’s pockets. But it was foggy and dark, so…”

  He sat back in his chair and took a sip of his beer. She had the feeling that Guy was as nervous about this discussion as she was. “I need to go back a long time to tell this story, Cara. But I also n
eed to be clear that it’s off the record.” He scoffed a little. “I’m an idiot to be telling a journalist this. Do I have your word it won’t go any further?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  ***

  Guy knew he must be mad to be telling Cara the truth about himself, but he wanted her to know. She was looking at him with such trusting eyes, yet he had given her no cause to trust him. He had indeed rifled Carl Anderson’s pockets, but he had a good reason. At least to his mind he did. Would she agree? Or would she go running straight to the police? He had told the truth about his reasons for being there, but not about rummaging through Anderson’s pockets.

  “The story I told you today, about my life, was a lie. Well, parts of it were true, but mostly it was a lie. I do indeed own a sheep farm, but I only bought it a few years ago. We were never sheep farmers, nor were we really Australian.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Cara. She had put her head in her hands, listening to him so intently that it made him want to take one of her hands and kiss it. Any moment now her look of rapt attention would change to one of distaste. He had seen it before.

  “This is where I have to go further back. My family were originally from Berlin.”

  “So you’re a German,” said Cara. To his amazement and relief she did not look horrified.

  “Yes, I am. In the late nineteen-thirties, my father could see the way things were going in Germany and he did not like it. He was a professor at the university in Berlin, and he saw his friends, good, noble, honest men, carried off to concentration camps. So my father took the decision to emigrate to Australia. We were fine for the first year or so. My father even gave speeches, speaking out against Hitler and his policies. Then war came.” Guy well remembered the mistrust to which his family were subjected. “We were taken to an internment camp in Australia. I can’t say we were treated badly. I can’t say we were treated well. We certainly did not suffer as badly as my father’s Jewish friends, so I try not to feel too bitter about it. But I was only ten years old when war broke out. I was sixteen when it ended properly and we were set free. I missed so much of my youth. All the things boys are supposed to do, like climbing trees, riding bikes, school dances. All that sort of thing.”