The Shadow of the Sycamores Read online

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  After changing her eight-week-old son, Anna Rae sat down in the low chair to feed him. She quite liked the sensation of the actual suckling but she did her best not to let Jerry see her. She hated the way he stared at her bosom when she bared it. It had started one evening a few days after the birth. The baby had dozed off during the feed, as he often did, and, unfortunately, so had she but something alerted her to a slight movement at her side. She had felt sick to find Jerry kneeling beside her, his fingers only a hair’s breadth from her oozing nipple. Since then, she deliberately turned her back on him or went into the other room if it wasn’t too cold for the child. But he wouldn’t be home for hours yet so she was safe enough sitting by the fire.

  It was raining quite heavily, with flecks of sleet through it, so she couldn’t go out with the old pram Tina had got from somebody. Little William Henry was a contented wee soul, though, and he would drop off as soon as she laid him in the cradle – another item Tina had acquired for her.

  After ten minutes, she laid the infant over her shoulder to wind him, then put him to her other breast, his tiny mouth engulfing it as if he hadn’t had any sustenance for goodness knows how long. Tired as she always was these days, she still worried about things and her mind settled now on the adulation her son got in the kitchen at mealtimes. All the female staff, from Mrs Miller herself right down to fourteen-year-old Winnie, the scullery maid, fussed over him, cooing and murmuring sweet nothings.

  ‘Ah, my dearie, you’re the bonniest bairnie I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘He’s a wee darlin’. I could eat him.’

  ‘He’s nae a bit like his father, is he?’

  As his mother, she didn’t care which parent he looked like for he was absolutely perfect but she didn’t want him to be spoilt. Jerry had said calling him after his great-grandfather and grandfather was a safeguard for the future and it hadn’t mattered to her. As long as he didn’t want to call their son after her father who had wanted nothing to do with him, she didn’t care.

  When she realised that the pull of the little tongue had been stopped for a while, Anna stood up and, before she even got him to her shoulder, he gave a loud burp that made her smile. This was followed by another, more genteel this time, and, as she laid him in the cradle, warmer than the pram, he broke wind with a rumble like an old man. At least he wouldn’t be bothered with colic tonight, she thought.

  After making sure that he was well covered, she fastened her buttons and sat down again. It was a good chance to catch up on the sleep she had lost worrying about her situation. She couldn’t force her husband to sleep in the kitchen forever – he was getting short-tempered already – but he’d do nasty things to her if she let him back into her bed. He swore he wouldn’t hurt her but she knew different.

  A slight noise from the lean-to scullery at the back intruded on her musings and, thinking that she must have left the outside door open when she came back in from having her dinner, she rose to close it. Finding it as tightly shut as it could ever be, a little prickle of fear ran up her spine. She could have sworn she’d heard something. She turned uncertainly, then gave a sigh of … not altogether relief for she couldn’t think why he was there. ‘You gave me a fright, Charles.’

  ‘The rain was getting heavier so I came inside, I’m sorry. I did knock.’

  ‘It’s all right. Come through to the kitchen and I’ll make us a cup of tea. Just be careful not to waken the baby. He’s not long asleep.’

  ‘Don’t bother with tea, Anna, I just want a wee chat with you.’

  She sat down, hands in lap, wondering what he’d come to say. She hadn’t spoken to him since … not since she’d been told to start going for walks with Jerry. Maybe he was annoyed at her for not explaining why she had stopped seeing him. His dark eyes were boring into hers and he seemed to be waiting for her to speak first. ‘I hope you’re not angry with me?’ she managed to get out, long fingers of apprehension clutching at her heart.

  His smile held no humour. ‘Why should I be angry with you?’

  ‘They stopped me seeing you. They said I should get to know somebody nearer my own age.’

  ‘Did you not enjoy being with me?’

  ‘You know I did … except for that one time.’

  ‘And which time would that be, my dear Anna?’

  Guessing that he was playing a game with her, she said sharply, ‘You know perfectly well when I mean.’

  ‘Would that be the day I … made love to you?’

  ‘What you did wasn’t making love.’

  ‘No?’ His mouth twisted in a sneer. ‘It was the only way I could prove my love for you, my dearest girl. Is that not how your husband shows his love?’

  ‘Jerry has never touched me like that,’ she burst out, wondering where this conversation was leading – it certainly wasn’t just a chat.

  ‘He has never touched you like that? Well, that does surprise me! How then, if I may make so bold as ask, do you think that child was conceived?’

  She was shivering with terror now. Charles Moonie was up to something and she wished she knew what it was. ‘It was a special kiss he gave me once, with his tongue right inside my mouth.’

  ‘What they call a French kiss?’

  ‘I don’t know what it’s called but I didn’t like it.’

  ‘You didn’t like what I did to you and I didn’t do it again.’

  ‘You tried to,’ she whispered, ‘several times.’

  ‘Only because I love you, my sweet, ignorant Anna.’

  ‘What do you mean, ignorant?’

  ‘You do not know the facts of life, my dear. What Jerry did was only a kiss – nothing more. What I did …’ He paused. ‘Well, we shall leave that for a moment. You say he has never kissed you like that again?’

  ‘No and he hasn’t done what you did either. So don’t try to make out he’s as bad as you are.’

  ‘I would not dream of it, Anna. He has done nothing. He has not even done his duty as your husband.’

  The sarcasm caught her on the raw. ‘He’s a good husband. He loves me and he loves his son.’

  The man’s expression changed dramatically. Triumphant, he leaned across, grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘His son? His son? How in God’s name can you believe that it is his son? It is I who fathered that child.’

  She gaped at him in disbelief. ‘You’re off your head, Charles Moonie!’

  ‘I can assure you that I am quite sane. You surely did not think that a kiss was enough to make a baby? What is more, the gestation period – the time it takes for the infant to be ready to make its way out of the womb – is nine months. Nine long months! Now do you understand?’

  His nose was practically against hers, his breath fiery on her cheek and she realised, with a rush of sickening horror, that he was telling her the truth. Jerry could definitely not be her son’s father – there hadn’t been enough time. Something snapped in her brain at this point and she lashed out with her foot at the vile creature who was turning her world upside down and shaking out every grain of her happiness.

  With a bellow of pain, he put his hands around her neck but a sound from the cradle stopped him in his tracks and he let her go. ‘Jerry Rae is not going to bring up my child,’ he muttered as he bent over the cradle. With her fists pounding on his back, he pulled the pillow from under the tiny head and pressed it over the infant’s face. It wasn’t long until the little flailing arms and legs stilled.

  The shock of what Charles had done drained all the colour from Anna’s face. She cringed away from him, her eyes vacant. Yet, when he pulled her to him and kissed her hungrily, brutally, she let him carry on, without flinching.

  ‘You can never belong to anyone else,’ he screeched hoarsely. ‘I had you first so you are mine … for ever!’

  Although it was possible, even probable, that he had come with the intention of raping the young woman, the murder of the child had robbed the man of his senses. Unable to remember what he
had planned, he was forced to release his hold on his other victim and both were panting as they stood with their eyes locked.

  Jerry was in the kitchen watching his fellow workers tucking into their supper. His wife was usually here before him with the pram but she hadn’t appeared yet, though it was well after six. ‘Unable to throw off his apprehension, he pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘I’d best go and see what’s keeping Anna, Mrs Miller.’

  Dolly smiled her understanding. ‘Yes, it is not like her to be late.’

  Not wishing to show how anxious he was, he set off at a smart pace but, as he neared the old gatehouse, an inner sense urged him to run and he went hell for leather down the short cut from the main building. His lungs were fit to burst when he reached his home but his speeding heart almost stopped when he saw the back porch door standing wide open. Anna always made sure that it was closed properly, to save rats or other vermin getting in.

  There was no sign of her when he went inside. ‘Anna!’ he called twice but there came no reply. Deeply alarmed now, he peeped into the cradle. The baby was sleeping peacefully, which did ease his mind a fraction. Taking time only to straighten the pillow that was edging towards the infant’s face, he raced outside again, to search the outhouses – the coal shed, the privy, even the hen-house, but his wife was not in any of them. Almost out of his mind with worry now, he raced back to the big house.

  He was in such a state that it took some time for those still in the kitchen to understand what he was trying to say. Then Raymond Miller showed his worth as the Superintendent. He organised several small search parties, with instructions as to exactly which area they were to cover and soon they had all gone. Tina Paul looked at Dolly Miller. ‘I’d better be there for that poor wee mite when he wakens up. He’ll wonder what’s going on. Babies can usually tell when something’s wrong.’

  Left, more or less, to hold the fort, Dolly decided to make a search of her own. Could Anna be reacting at this late stage to the traumatic time of the birth? She could have regressed to the extremely disturbed girl she had been when she arrived. She might be under the impression that she was still living under this roof, all memory of the past few months expunged.

  Some of the inmates Dolly approached looked at her blankly but those who could see that she was upset did their pathetic best to comfort her.

  ‘Anna’s a good girl,’ observed one woman, nodding her head vigorously. ‘She’ll come home when she’s hungry.’ Obviously, she had forgotten who Anna was.

  Another, older and even more confused, started singing, ‘Will ye no’ come back again, will ye no’ come back again, better loved ye canna be …’

  Dolly moved to the next room – Mr Ballantyne might remember her. ‘If that’s the young lass that baths me of a morning,’ the man smirked, ‘she’ll be off with her lad. She’s told me all about him, you know. She’s a real one for the boys, that one.’

  Frustrated and feeling like shouting at each and every one of them, it dawned on Dolly that she should have asked Charles Moonie first. He had known Anna better than any of them and, if she had run away because of some marital trouble, he might have known where she would have gone to be alone. Sure that he could set her on the right track, she made straight for Charles’s door.

  When she told him why she was there, however, the ex-bank-manager appeared to be more distressed than she was herself and, guessing how he had felt about the girl, she turned away tactfully.

  ‘Mrs Miller.’

  The whispered words made her look back at him. ‘Yes? Have you thought of something …?’

  ‘I went to see her this afternoon … to talk to her. She was all right when I left.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Oh, around half past two, I’d say.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Moonie.’

  She was at the top of the stairs when he called out, ‘She might be in the potting shed. That’s where she used to go with that … gardener.’

  ‘Good!’ Going down the stairs, it occurred to Dolly that the man had never once met her eyes and he had definitely not been his usual charming self. A coldness swept over her. Had he taken a belated revenge on the girl for marrying someone else? Was she going to find a dead body in the potting shed? With no one to accompany her, she pulled on a coat and ran out.

  Charles had been trying to recall the events of that afternoon when Mrs Miller knocked on his door. When he heard what she had to say, he was quite relieved that Anna had disappeared – he had been somewhat afraid that he had killed her, too. But he had been right. He had left her in that tiny kitchen, hadn’t he? And she must have been alive – otherwise how could she have got out of the house? Maybe she had not taken in what he had done to the child so he would swear that she had smothered it herself and she was in no fit state to deny it even if she were found.

  Too late, Charles realised that he should have offered to help in the search. Mrs Miller had probably wondered why he hadn’t. It must have been common knowledge that he was very fond of Anna but, hopefully, no one had realised that he regarded her as his own special property. He would have liked to shout it from the rooftops but, as things stood, it was wiser not to.

  His heart slowed almost to the point of stopping altogether as a dreadful possibility struck him. Anna had been in a terrible state when he last saw her but, surely, she wouldn’t … have taken her own life? Could his poor darling, at this very moment, be lying dead somewhere?

  Appalled at this thought, his only instinct was to find her before she committed such a terrible deed and, just as he was, in his shirtsleeves and well-worn carpet slippers, he dashed downstairs. He knew a quick way to the potting shed and could be there before Dolly Miller but he wished that he had not mentioned it to her.

  Charging blindly through the trees and shrubs, he was unmindful of the branches scraping at his face and hands for he could faintly hear Dolly’s slow, sure-footed progress along the gravel path some yards away and he must get in front of her.

  He was gaining ground when he remembered that coming this way meant that he would have to cross the burn and the wooden bridge was on the path. He could not waste time changing direction – he would have to jump across. It wasn’t really all that wide.

  Coming to the rushing water, in spate after the torrential rain earlier in the day, he kept at the same speed as he launched himself into the air but the solid grassy bank had turned into a sea of slimy mud. Perhaps he could have made it if he had been wearing shoes but the soles of his old slippers were so smooth and slippery in themselves that his leverage was gone. By some quirk of fate, his belly flop ended in him striking his temple on the jagged edge of a submerged stone, brought down from the hill by the brown foaming surf. With the full force of his fourteen stones behind his fall, he did not stand a chance of survival.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The air in the normally warm kitchen was no warmer than the air outside, which increased Tina’s fears for Anna. She wouldn’t have left the house for long enough to let the fire go out without taking her baby with her. Maybe she had gone out to get firewood and met with an accident of some kind? But the basket in the porch was almost full of the sticks that Jerry brought in every day.

  The nurse had fully intended to do something to help Anna while she waited for the infant to wake up, some ironing, perhaps, or housework, but everything seemed to be done. Taking a quick peep into the cradle, she set about getting the fire going again for she didn’t want the poor wee mite to catch his death of cold. Once it was crackling merrily, she hooked the kettle on to the swey, directly over the heat. Whatever had happened, Anna and her husband would want a cup of tea when they came in.

  It occurred to her then that Jerry might have been in such a state when he couldn’t find his wife that he hadn’t checked the outhouses thoroughly, if he had checked them at all. Running outside, she went to the privy first but Anna wasn’t there. Then she visited the first shed, looking into each of the boxes that had originally held
the household items people had given the young couple but they were far too small for anyone to hide in. In the coal shed, she took the old shovel Jerry used for filling the scuttle and dug into the mound of coal. She didn’t want to find a body but you never knew.

  The next corrugated iron construction was just a repository for rubbish and items too bulky to keep in the house. Like the others, they yielded no clues as to where Anna could be and Tina went back inside.

  For a few minutes, she hunkered down and held her hands out to the fire, then she swilled out the teapot with the water that was already beginning to make the lid of the kettle dance. Opening the caddy, she wondered whether to just make enough tea for herself or to fill the teapot right up. She settled for putting in one spoonful – it could be long enough before anyone else appeared, though surely somebody would come to see if Anna had turned up.

  As she sipped the welcome warmth into her shivering body, it occurred to her that there had been no sound from the cradle all the time she’d been there and, laying down her cup hastily, she rose to make sure the infant was all right. Finding that he hadn’t moved even the merest fraction, she pulled back the cover that was keeping her from seeing him properly and her look of deep concern changed to utter horror as she stared down at the beloved little face, now a deathly greyish shade of blue.

  Intent on praying that she would find Anna alive, Dolly Miller heard nothing of what was happening in the near vicinity. If it was a body she found, she would know that Charles Moonie must have killed the girl, though if that was what he had done, why had he told her where to go? Why lead her directly to the scene of his crime? It was puzzling and deeply upsetting and she wished that she had taken time to find someone to come with her.