Chapter 45
45
SETH TANNER. A WORLD AWAY…
Olivia’s revelation had been a stab to the gut. Seth was furious. Ernest Dunn, who had even patted him on the back after Annie went missing and offered words of sympathy, had damn well known where she was all the time.
It took him a whole day to calm down as he went through a whirlwind of emotions. At first, he was angry with everyone and everything: himself for not realising that Annie had been unfaithful in the most intimate way, with her for giving herself to someone else, with Ernest for taking her life, and even with Olivia for keeping it all from him. Finally, he allowed himself to grieve for Annie – not doubting for a minute that she was lying in one of the shrieking pits on the Dunns’ land. She hadn’t deserved such a fate.
And then he began to think rationally. Olivia was right: he couldn’t rush headlong into ill-thought-out acts of revenge. But how would he explain his conviction that there was a body in the pit? Especially given that he was making this bold claim so many years after her disappearance. He didn’t want to become a suspect and had to think of a way around it.
* * *
‘Constable Peterson’s mother, Miriam, said that an anonymous letter has been delivered to the police station,’ his mother told him, as he stopped by for some of her delicious home baking one afternoon. ‘It claims that the body of poor Annie Taylor is at the bottom of the largest shrieking pit. Someone was seen throwing a bundle in all those years ago and Peterson has asked Mrs Dunn if he can search it.’ Her excited face lit up like a street lamp. Nothing much happened in her mundane life, so the potential for such scandal was thrilling. ‘Difficult position for her to be in, really. If she refuses, it suggests she has something to hide, but no one wants a body dragged out of a pond on their land – especially as she’s wanted to sell the small-holding for years.’
‘Oh?’ This he didn’t know.
‘Ernest won’t let her. He doesn’t want to live in the old house himself, but won’t sell the plot. Can’t think why. She’d like a smaller place now that it’s just her, somewhere in Essex maybe, nearer to him and the Davenport girl. There’ll be babies there before long.’
The thought made his blood boil.
‘Anyhow, she’s written to him, asking what to do.’
Ernest wouldn’t want the pits drained, or the land sold, for increasingly obvious reasons. It only added to Seth’s conviction that Olivia was correct about Annie’s whereabouts and he was more determined than ever to see Dunn pay for his crime.
‘I just don’t understand why the author of the letter waited all these years to speak up,’ she said.
Because he only found out a couple of days ago , he thought to himself but shrugged.
That Sunday, he visited his mother again. She always prepared a nice roast for her beloved son after the church service and filled him in on village gossip – which was now rife with the news of the anonymous letter. Miriam Peterson was a woman who couldn’t keep anything to herself and, living at the station, had access to all sorts of information she shouldn’t have, so Mrs Tanner was quite up to date with events.
‘Miriam said Ernest got all angry over the accusation – well, you would, wouldn’t you? If someone said there was a body in your garden,’ she said, placing four large roast potatoes on Seth’s plate, always worried that he wasn’t eating enough at the manor. The delicious smell of lamb drifted from the small kitchen range, and his stomach rumbled.
‘Apparently, he said they couldn’t come on his land without a warrant, but the constable said his reluctance to help was suspicious, so Ernest eventually agreed to let them search tomorrow, but has insisted on being present because his mother lives alone now. If the police are going to trample all over their land, he wants to make sure they don’t do any damage.’
She walked over to the oven to retrieve the small piece of mutton she’d got in, knowing it was Seth’s favourite, as he stirred the little cut-glass dish of mint sauce in anticipation.
‘The search is tomorrow?’ he clarified, his stomach constricting at the thought of Annie being discovered after all this time.
‘Yes. He’s due in Norfolk this afternoon. The Davenport girl and her mother are coming with him, but staying with the Fairchilds. The Dunn house isn’t really fit for entertaining wealthy young ladies.’
Mr Rowe had asked Seth to cut some mistletoe and holly to decorate the big house, and now he understood why – the Fairchilds were to have overnight visitors. His heart skipped at the unexpected news that Olivia would be at the manor and, whilst time with his mother was precious, he was suddenly keen to return. Here was an unexpected opportunity to press his case further. After a hurried meal, he took the time to think about the revelations as he walked from Merriford Lode to the manor.
He was up in the tower, changing out of his Sunday best and back into winter work clothes, when he spied a smart motor car sweep up the drive. It was chauffeur-driven and undoubtedly Jasper Davenport’s. Ernest Dunn, just as self-assured as he remembered, helped Olivia and her mother from the vehicle, as Seth stopped himself from haring down the spiral stairs and running outside to punch him.
A little while later, he was asked to help carry extra table leaves up to the dining room, often finding that his duties overlapped with the household now that the male servants at the manor were significantly reduced. Able-bodied men in service were, as his mother so often pointed out, like hen’s teeth.
He was carrying the last one through when he met the party in the corridor. Miss Davenport’s cheeks tinged pink as she recognised him but she said nothing, just met his eyes and smiled. She looked drawn and tired, as pale as a jasmine flower, and he heard her mention to her mother that she had a headache. Perhaps the strain of the accusations against her fiancé were getting harder to hear.
‘Thank you, Tanner.’ Lady Fairchild nodded in Seth’s direction, as he stepped to one side.
‘There’s chamomile and feverfew overwintering in the greenhouse that would help with the head, if you have time to come by later,’ he said, in a low voice, as Miss Davenport passed him. He was working in the kitchen gardens for the rest of the day, and hoped she might escape outside, if she could.
She nodded.
Sure enough, barely an hour later, as the sun started to dip below the west wall, he heard the iron gate squeak. It needed oiling, but was not something he’d got around to, as they were so short-staffed.
‘Miss Davenport.’ He nodded. The temperature was dropping fast and his breath was condensing before his face, but he didn’t feel the cold, because his heart was racing. He handed her two small bunches of herbs from a small trug, that he’d prepared in anticipation.
‘I apologise again if I spoke out of turn when I came to Windy Acres?—’
She raised her gloved hand to silence him. ‘No need to say sorry, Mr Tanner. I was flattered. Never apologise for honesty, even if you worry that your words will be badly received.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m a man who follows his heart. I smile at the daffodils and embrace the sunshine.’ Seth quoted her own mother’s words back to her. ‘What you see is what you get. I’ve never pretended to be someone else.’
‘No,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I understand. Howard – Master Fairchild,’ she corrected, ‘is much the same. Lady Fairchild told us that he has returned to France because he believes himself in love with some French nurse who cared for him during the war. It may be a foolhardy quest, but it may equally make him the happiest man on God’s earth.’
Master Howard had barely been discharged from military service when he’d set off to find a young woman who had captured his heart the previous summer. It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but Seth admired the young man for trying.
‘Do you mind if I take a few moments on this bench?’ Olivia asked. ‘The atmosphere in the household is suffocating. Everyone is trying to avoid mentioning the real reason my fiancé has returned to the village, but it is the elephant standing in the corner of the room that I find staring at me intently.’
Knowing he was the reason for the investigation, Seth merely nodded and returned to his work. She took a seat and he embarked on activities that showed off his build to good advantage. If a lady could flutter her eyelashes, a strapping gardener could flex his muscles. All was fair in love and war, and this was war.
He worked silently for a while, pulling up leeks for the kitchens, as he watched her crush some of the feverfew leaves and inhale the pungent perfume in his peripheral vision. After a while, she spoke up again.
‘Are you local, Tanner? Did you grow up in Merriford Lode?’
‘That I did.’
‘Then you perhaps know of the Taylors and have heard rumours as to the circumstances surrounding our visit? Such a dreadful accusation to make, even though I have repeatedly reminded Mr Dunn that no one has suggested his family is responsible for anything. Who even was this missing woman? Lady Fairchild said she’d run off with a traveller years ago.’
He briefly explained his relationship with Annie, and her embarrassment at not realising there was a connection was apparent.
‘S’prised me too, when I heard she might be dead,’ he said. ‘I’d no reason to doubt she’d left Merriford. Mr Dunn must be horrified.’
‘He is quite at sixes and sevens,’ she confirmed. ‘As am I, and wish he were staying here with us. The invitation to sleep at the manor extended to him but he decided to spend the night with his mother. Perhaps he is more fond of her than he gave me cause to believe.’ She sighed and rose to her feet, rubbing her arms to keep warm. ‘I apologise for my frankness. I shouldn’t have spoken to you so openly. And I am sorry that such a painful time in your life is being raked over.’
And as she left through the squeaky gate, it occurred to Seth, knowing Ernest of old, that his behaviour was highly suspicious. He’d never had much time for his parents when they’d been younger, and wasn’t a man to turn down an opportunity to mingle with elevated company, or enjoy fine food and good wine. Which meant only one thing – he’d returned to his family home to move the body before the search.
* * *
Seth headed to Merriford Lode as soon as he’d finished his duties, calling at another cottage on the way, and setting himself up in the field that edged the Dunns’ land to wait…
It was well after midnight when he finally saw a lamp bobbing about in the black, but was too far away to see who was holding it. The figure placed it on the ground and, cast in shadow, there was no doubting their purpose. They were searching for something in the waters of the largest pit, and Seth suspected he knew exactly what that was.
The man splashed about for a while, poking at the bottom with a shepherd’s crook he’d brought with him. Eventually, he pulled out a mass from the waters that was far too small to be a body, but Seth had seen enough. He leapt over the fence in his uncontrollable anger, and wasn’t spotted until the last moment, just as the object was swung into the barrow.
‘What the…?’ Ernest was caught off guard as Seth swept the lamp up from the floor, shouldered him out the way and held it aloft.
The carpet bag.
Part of him was relieved. He’d been expecting worse – although he suspected much worse remained in the pit. Perhaps Ernest only needed to dispose of the bag before the imminent search as it was the thing that would identify any possible body as Annie’s. If she truly was in the pit, only bones would remain and it would be difficult to prove they were hers. But a bag of her possessions could prove hard to explain.
‘You absolute bastard!’ Seth shouted and pushed him to the ground. ‘You killed her. You got her pregnant and then you killed her. What did she ask of you? That you do the decent thing and marry her? But you wouldn’t do that, would you? Because she was too poor. She was a bit of fun but it wasn’t going anywhere, and you had your sights set higher than a village servant girl. You wanted to marry money and I bet you couldn’t believe your luck when the Fairchilds introduced you to the Davenports.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tanner.’ He got to his feet, the twist of his top lip visible in the gloom, knowing he had a height advantage. ‘Don’t push me about with your filthy, garden-soiled hands.’
Ernest shoved at Seth’s chest with one hand before swiftly grabbing his left wrist with the other, pinning one arm behind his back, now in total control of the situation – physically, at least.
‘Anything you say I will deny. In fact, I shall keep you here until the morning and claim that it was you poking about in my pits tonight. No one knew about Annie and me because I made her swear not to tell a soul. It’ll be my word against yours and who will believe a gardener over the son-in-law of a gentleman?’
‘You didn’t need to kill her, goddammit. I’d have supported her. Brought up the child. She was a sweet thing.’
‘Stupid girl would make threats though, and I couldn’t trust her not to blab eventually. But come the morning, I shall point out that you had more reason to kill her. She was screwing another man because you wouldn’t give her what she wanted, and she’d backed a better horse. Or maybe I’ll just walk you back to the house now and get Mother to run over to the station and notify the police that you were wading about in the pit.’
‘No need, Mr Dunn.’ Constable Peterson stepped from the shadows and nodded at the young gardener who had called on him earlier that evening. Seth took the opportunity to wriggle from Ernest’s grasp, taking advantage of his shock, and placed him in a hold. ‘The police have been here for some time. I heard your exchange quite clearly and took note.’ He peered towards the barrow in the gloom. ‘And you appear to have an item of interest in here. Do you mind if I take a look, sir?’
And Ernest Dunn sunk to his knees, knowing that he was beaten.