The Nickum Page 9

  The DS smiled. ‘I don’t see why not.’

  They both turned as Jeemsie Cooper came puffing up holding a mangled old pail as if it were the crown jewels. ‘Look at this, sir. They found it among the nettles ower there.’ He gestured with his free hand. ‘It’s covered wi’ bleed, an’ all.’

  ‘Give it here,’ snapped the sergeant, inspecting the item then pronouncing, ‘It’s had bleed … blood in it, that’s for sure. This is no ordinary murder.’

  ‘You think it was a … vampire?’ exclaimed Jeemsie, eyes agog with tense excitement. ‘Killin’ fowk an’ drinking their …’

  ‘No, you bloody fool.’ DS Bruce turned back to Jake again. ‘It’s a mystery, though, so I suppose we’ll need to investigate it.’ Signalling to two of his men, he ordered them to go round all the cottages, crofts and farms within a five-mile radius to ask if anyone would recognise the pail.

  ‘Nobody’s going to lay claim to that,’ one of the men protested. ‘It’s only fit to be thrown out.’

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t know if this was something else your son picked up in a dump?’ Bruce asked Jake.

  ‘I ken naething aboot it, but he could easy have picked it up, I suppose.’

  ‘Then the sooner we see him the better. Can you come with us right now?’

  The Matron almost had apoplexy when the police officer insisted on seeing her prize patient, but the man brushed aside all her protestations and walked straight past her. Beaten, she following them into the ward, hurrying past them to alert Willie that he had visitors – one of them most unwelcome.

  The boy blanched and cowered down under the blankets, but Bruce barked, ‘Sit up, boy. I think you could shed some light on the murder case.’

  The Matron helped the child into a sitting position, but warned, ‘I shall stop you if I see he is being upset by your questioning.’

  The interrogation had not gone beyond the initial stage of name, age, why Willie had gone round the dumps et cetera when the ward door swung open noisily to admit the two men who had been looking for someone to identify the battered bucket. They both had massive grins over their faces. ‘The case is solved, Sarge,’ one of them laughed.

  Scowling at their hilarity, Bruce said, severely, ‘This is a hospital. You might show some consideration. What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘We’d gone round about five cottar houses before we went to Wester Burnton itself, and the maid-servant took us into the kitchen where the farmer’s wife was bandaging one of the workers’ hands – an old man.’

  ‘And?’ rapped the sergeant. ‘Don’t make a meal of this, Black. I’m not in the humour for it.’

  ‘Well, to cut the story short, when I asked Mrs McIntyre about the pail, it was the old fella that screamed out, “That’s oor bucket.” It seems he gave it to young Willie Fowlie with some pig’s blood for his mother. She makes black puddings with it.’

  Jake took over, angry at his son for not mentioning it. ‘So you ken’t the bleed was just a pig’s! You could’ve tell’t your Mam an’ me, an’ saved the bobbies a lot o’ work.’

  ‘I was fear’t to tell, Dad. I thocht you’d leather me for losin’ Mam’s egg money among the nettles, an’ my fit was hurtin’ bad, an’ …’ He broke off as two huge teardrops spilled over and made their way down his fevered cheeks.

  Matron now decided it was time she stepped in. ‘That will be enough. You can see how upset the child is.’

  Bruce heaved a sigh of impatience, or relief or anger, it was difficult for any of the others to tell, but he led the way out, remembering to thank the Matron for letting them speak to Willie. ‘I wish he had let the truth be known before, though. We have wasted a lot of time. In any case, now that he has got it off his chest, perhaps his fever will come down.’

  Which, indeed, it did. His conscience clear, Willie soon got back to normal and was allowed home the following day. Perhaps, however, a curtain should be drawn over the reception he received from his parents. His mother in particular was so disappointed in him, and angry at the deception he had carried out, that she exuded an injured air towards him, reverting, after several weeks, to their previous less-than-loving relationship.

  Chapter Ten

  It may be anticipated that life in the Fowlie household would return to normal, even better than normal, since Willie would surely have learned a lesson from the consequences of his last escapade, but each member had his or her own reaction to what had happened.

  Jake, as master of his house, felt quite rattled that he’d had no control over events, or of the opinions held by the police. Worse than that, it had hurt him badly when he learned that his son had been frightened to tell him the truth. ‘I thocht me an’ him was chums,’ he lamented to Emily, ‘but it turned oot different.’

  His wife shook her head sadly. ‘Nobody will ever know what goes on in that boy’s brain.’ She had lost all sympathy for her son, and she, too, was hurt that he’d been scared to admit what he had done. Their mother was the first person most boys would turn to in time of trouble, but then, she had to acknowledge, Willie wasn’t most boys. Willie was a law unto himself. Or, as she had often suspected, he was spawn of the devil.

  Connie, with her own worries at the time, had at first been jealous of the love and attention generated round her little brother and had tried to get affection from another source. She had been devastated by the result.

  ‘Gordie,’ she had said to her escort one night, ‘we’ve been going out for a long time now, and I think …’

  ‘What d’you think?’ he interrupted, rudely.

  ‘If you’d let me finish, I’d tell you,’ she said, miffed that he couldn’t guess what she wanted to say without her having to spell it out.

  His attitude changing, he squeezed her waist. ‘I’m sorry, Con.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s been long enough.’ She held her head back so that she could see his reaction.

  ‘Long enough?’ His nose was screwed up in puzzlement, his brows were down. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I mean …’ She hesitated before taking the bull by the horns. ‘I mean it’s about time we tied the knot, wouldn’t you say?’

  This patently came as a devastating shock to the young man, whose lust-flushed face had turned a ghastly greyish-white. ‘You’re surely not expecting me to wed you?’

  ‘It’s usual, when two people are in love.’ Her voice was cold. ‘But if you don’t love me, you’d better …’

  ‘I do love you, Connie. Surely you know that?’

  ‘I know you want to bed me.’

  He seemed to pull his senses together now. ‘Of course I want to bed you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I’m not a marrying man, and what you’ve been denying me all this time, I’ve been getting some other where. You can’t blame me for that, Connie. You surely know a man needs a woman.’

  Contemplating telling him to go to hell with his other women, Connie decided not to risk the only chance she might ever have of being a wife. ‘Gordie,’ she coaxed softly, ‘If I let you do what you want, would you promise to marry me?’

  He avoided answering this. ‘I’ve aye wondered if you loved me enough, but if you prove it, I’ll be true to you. Oh God, Connie, I was just about ready to give up on you.’ This last being what she had been afraid of, Connie shoved her scruples behind her and let the insinuating hand reach the target it had been aiming for every time they’d been out together over the years. What did principles matter when it came to giving in or being left on the shelf?

  It was two months later before Willie returned to school plus crutches, becoming the focus of much curiosity from the other boys regarding his ‘run in’ with the police. The girls were more eager to know the extent of his injuries and how they had been received. Poopie-Cecil Grant felt rather left out of things, and mentally blamed Willie for not telling him everything before. If he had only known that his old chum was under his mother’s eagle eye every minute of the day, perhaps he would have had more sympathy for him.


  But the enforced extra holiday – most enjoyable at times but, at other times, almost like being on the edge of a volcano’s crater waiting for it to erupt – was over and it was back to the old routine, back to the learning he detested. He’d have to work very hard to try to catch up with his fellow pupils, for he didn’t fancy being kept back a class.

  There had also been one big change. Mr Bremner, the old dominie, had suffered a heart attack and retired, much to the children’s relief. He had been a great believer in the old maxim ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’, although it was a thick, tongued, leather tawse that he substituted for a cane. The new headmaster, Mr Meldrum, was a much younger, more pleasant man, who had been a member of the Flying Corps during the war, and who described some of his exploits in the air during the morning assemblies he had introduced; a big improvement on the long-winded, heavily boring sermons they had been given before.

  This was not the only change, however. Mr Meldrum had a daughter, whose age placed her in the same class as Willie came back to, and she was the most beautiful girl he had ever set eyes on. Her long curly hair was darker than gold, lighter than auburn, more of a delicate pastel chestnut. Her eyes were dark, sometimes greenish, sometimes brown, framed by curled eyelashes that made them seem huge. Her nose was bordering on the snub, her mouth was a generously shaped cupid’s bow, her lips somewhere between deep pink and light red. His first sight of her took Willie’s breath away. He’d never had any time for girls except to torment them, but this one was nothing like the rest. Not only was she lovely to look at, she was also very clever – far ahead of any of the others in the class – plus, her name was Millicent, which was a welcome change from the Bellas, the Jeannies, the Mary Annies.

  A strange wish took hold of Willie that very first day. Instead of being content to be near the foot of the class, he would get Millicent’s attention by using his brain to its fullest. He could improve in his tests – even old Bremner had said he was capable of that.

  As it happened, with Poopie-Cecil now in the Big School – he hadn’t passed for the Academy – Willie had nobody to take his mind off whatever it was set on. He was unable to do much physical exercise for a while yet, so he used all his time to teach himself what he should have learned in his last class with Miss Bell. Mr Meldrum, of course, did not know what to expect of him, and took his progress as normal.

  ‘Willie’s surely taken a fit of conscience,’ Connie observed to her mother one evening, when her brother was up in his not-much-bigger-than-a-box room working quietly when he used to be rushing about all over the place and making as much noise as he possibly could.

  Emily had at first suspected her son to be bent on some mischief when he was shut up there for such long periods, but several checks had found him engrossed in his school books from the last term. She had crept down again, hardly able to believe her eyes. ‘He’s getting older,’ she answered her daughter now. ‘Maybe he’s seeing sense at last.’

  ‘It’ll not last long, then.’

  ‘Are you going out with Gordon Brodie again tonight, Connie?’

  ‘Mam, don’t go on about him. He does love me, I can guarantee that, and it’ll not be long before he pops the question. In fact, I thought I might take him to see Becky and Jackie, to see if that’ll gee him up.’

  ‘Are you sure you … I know I’ve asked you a few times, but …’

  ‘Mam, the thing is, can you see any other men wanting to ask me out?’

  ‘That’s no reason to tie yourself to a man you don’t love.’

  ‘I never said I didn’t love him, and I’m old enough to decide what I want to do with my life.’

  ‘All right, all right. Don’t fly off the handle.’

  Even after visiting Becky and Jackie Burns, and after admiring the house and garden, Gordon Brodie was not over-enthusiastic about marriage. ‘I can’t help it, Con,’ he said, waiting until after he’d had his allowance of lovemaking, ‘I just can’t see myself tied down with a wife, and the very thought of a bairn …’ He gave a long sigh. ‘With my luck, it’d likely be a great squatter of bairns.’

  More than a little alarmed by his outlook, Connie considered ending their relationship there and then. She didn’t want a husband who would resent his children, but, on the other hand, she did want a husband of some kind, and Gordie was the only available prospect. The only answer was to hope that he made her pregnant; then he would have to wed her.

  Willie could not get Millicent Meldrum out of his mind. Playing football in the school yard, he spurred himself on if she was watching; he was the first with his hand up to answer her father’s questions in the classroom; his day and night dreams were of her, of being alone with her, of taking her hand, carrying her satchel, of … kissing her. He used to shudder at the thought of kissing any girl, however old he would be, but now, just eleven years old, he would give a king’s ransom to kiss Millie, as she was usually called.

  He could sense her awareness of him sometimes, when he had done especially well in writing a composition, or solved a difficult mathematical problem. Her father, the dominie, was likewise appreciative of his efforts, although Willie himself didn’t know that the other two teachers had expressed, in the staff room, their astonishment at the progress William Fowlie was making, whereas they had got nowhere with him at all.

  So the term wore on, Willie making the initial advance one afternoon by offering to accompany Millie home as it was on his way. This led to vicious teasing from the other boys, who started to shout, ‘Millie and Willie, they’re both really silly.’ One wag then started to repeat a jingle his mother had repeated once or twice to him, something that she’d heard when she was at school herself, strangely enough.

  He couldn’t remember all of it, but it ended, ‘… the silly scent Willie sent Millicent.’ This was taken up by all the boys in the Qualifying Class, as it was called, the qualification being the entry to the Academy.

  Not one whit annoyed by this, Willie would take hold of the girl’s hand and say, in his lately acquired perfect English, ‘Don’t heed them, Millie, they’re just big babies.’ Getting no response, the tormentors soon gave up, and the young pair were left to walk in peace, discussing the things that held their interest, things they hated, things they wanted to do when they grew up, but never doing what he wanted to do. He couldn’t pluck up the courage to kiss her, or even to ask if he could kiss her.

  Emily could not understand why Willie had changed so suddenly. It had started just after he returned to school, so could it be that the new dominie had got through to the little demon? That was the only explanation she could think of, and it didn’t seem very likely to her. She wasn’t complaining, though. At least she didn’t have to be constantly on the boy’s top for misbehaving.

  The surprise came about seven weeks before the summer holidays were due. She answered a knock on the door late one afternoon to find a tall man on the doorstep. Cleanshaven, wearing a neat navy suit with a felt hat jauntily on the side of his head, his bright blue eyes twinkled at her. ‘Mrs Fowlie?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m Herbert Meldrum …’

  ‘The dominie?’ she gasped, overwhelmed by the honour.

  ‘That’s right. May I come in? I have something to talk over with you.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I should have thought. Yes, please come in. I hope Willie hasn’t been up to his old mischief?’

  ‘Old mischief? Indeed no, he is a model pupil.’

  Unable to believe her ears, and flustered to be talking to such a personage in her own home, she tried to smile. ‘If you’re here to tell me he doesn’t pay attention to his lessons, I know what like he is.’

  ‘No, it’s not that, either. Just the opposite, in fact. Please let me explain. He is top of his class at the moment, a place fought over between him and my daughter, and he should find entry to the Academy a walk-over. As far as I am concerned, I am in the fortunate position of being able to meet any expenses which may occur for my daughter, but
I wanted to find out how you and your goodman are placed.’

  ‘Well, sir, Jake’s just a farm labourer, working hard to make a living. We’d never be able to send Willie to the Academy.’

  ‘Yes, that is what I expected, but I feel it would be a terrible mistake to waste such a brain …’ He held up his hand to stop her interrupting. ‘There is a way round this, Mrs Fowlie. Bursaries are available for children in this situation. There is an examination to pass, of course, but William is more than capable of that. The money involved doesn’t amount to much, but it is meant to help parents to provide whatever is needed for the Academy, uniform and books, for example. This is not a charity,’ he hastened to make it clear. ‘William will have earned it. Now, shall I leave you to discuss it with your husband?’

  ‘Yes, please. I’d rather Jake heard about it.’

  ‘Of course. I shall leave this form with you, if you will return it to me as soon as you decide what to do. If you agree, both your signatures are needed, and I can fill in the other information requested and send it off.’

  He lifted his hat from the table and set it on his grizzled hair. ‘Thank you for hearing me out, Mrs Fowlie, and please stress to your husband that the boy’s talents must be recognised. Good day to you.’

  Emily plumped down in her chair when she had seen him out. This was something she had never expected – never in her wildest dreams. Willie had always been such a lackadaisical scholar. In fact it would have taken an exaggeration of the mightiest form to even describe him as a scholar at all with his offhand attitude. What could have happened to change him?

  At suppertime, when Jake was told about the momentous decision they had to make, he was as flabbergasted as she was. ‘But the man must be muddling Willie up wi’ somebody else,’ he declared, shaking his balding head. ‘He was bottom o’ his class as often as no’, an’ bairns dinna …’ He stopped to think of the word he wanted, but it was Connie who supplied it.

  ‘Metamorphose, Dad. It means change into something better.’