Bloody Good Page 8

  “What do I need convincing of, Gran?”

  The door opened, bringing a draft of cool air, and Alice Doyle walked in. “Good evening, Sergeant Pendragon. Keeping Gran company? I’ve been poring over books and government forms all evening. Seems they don’t ever expect evacuees to need medical attention and some of these poor children!” She shook her head.

  She looked all done in. Howell stood. “Have a seat, Doctor, you look as if you need to put your feet up.”

  “No, thanks.” She shook her head. “Sit back down, I prefer an upright chair.” She pulled over one of the Windsor chairs from the kitchen table. “Well,” she went on, as she sat down. “What do I need convincing of, Gran?”

  He had to hand it to Helen Burrows. She was a fast thinker. “Just something Howell mentioned, dear. He wondered if you’d keep an eye on something.”

  “What’s the matter? Not evacuees scrumping again?”

  That was always a problem but Sergeant Jones and his cohorts could deal with minor thefts from orchards. “Not that.” How in Hades was she going to explain this?”

  “It’s Miss Waite,” Helen continued. “When she gets home you will keep an eye on things, won’t you, dear? It’s that nephew.”

  “Oh, him!” She rolled her eyes. “What a specimen. I ran into him this afternoon when I dropped by the hospital to see how she was doing. He went on and on about when she was coming home and couldn’t we keep her longer. I told him there was a war on and air raid victims got priority. By the time I finished with him I had a blazing headache.”

  So he’d tried a mind probe on her, had he? And no doubt she resisted instinctively. He had to talk to Helen more. Find out what exactly a Pixie could do. “Might be nothing,” he said, although she’d pretty much convinced him his hunch was dead on. “But please keep an eye on things.”

  “I will.”

  “So will I, Howell. I’ll pop in whenever I can just to see how things are. Between us we’ll make sure nothing untoward happens.”

  And just to be sure, he’d have a look around on his way home. Maybe the dubious nephew was still down at the Pig.

  As the drunken Williams wended his inebriated way homeward, Eiche set off in the opposite direction: toward the munitions manufactory on the heath. A few extra beers had loosened the man’s tongue to a most gratifying degree. And now, with the supervisor apparently up in London and the assistant supervisor sleeping off more beers than his body could metabolize in an evening, it seemed the perfect time for a little soul-satisfying mayhem.

  Tonight was for chaos and confusion. A measure of the effectiveness of their defenses. He’d save the real destruction for later. Perhaps when he had aerial support. Nothing like a few bombs dropping to let the Inselaffen, the cursed Island Monkeys, know who really was fit to rule the world.

  Taking advantage of the night, Eiche ran across the village green into the woods that fringed the common. He crossed the onetime open land that was now divided into allotments and sported a boring assortment of vegetables, stopping just long enough to break open the padlock on a small tool shed and steal a couple of hoes and a spade before heading for the higher ground of Brytewood Heath.

  Watching from the shadows of a cluster of trees, Eiche confirmed what he’d learned from Williams. They did work around the clock, but at night things were relaxed. A little group of women stood gossiping outside one of the huts. With his vampire hearing, Eiche didn’t miss a word and smiled, knowing their idle chatter was about to be rudely interrupted.

  Would be interesting to see how they handled attack.

  He had two hoes and the spade. Metal against the electrified wire would create interesting effects. He tossed the first hoe. Aiming carefully, his vampire strength sent it flying across the fifteen or so meters in a graceful arc. It came down right where he’d aimed, the curved metal head snagging the topmost wire with a loud pop and a satisfying display of sparks and flashes.

  The shouts and shocked noises from the crowd of chattering females was equally gratifying.

  He ran fast to his right and tossed the second hoe onto a stretch of wire almost directly across the area from the first. Not quite as pretty fireworks but hearing the shouts and confusion made up for that. Seemed this one was near a sleeping hut and the occupants came pouring out in various stages of undress. His final missile, a straightedged spade, he sent flying at what looked like a utility pole. Would have been nice to take out electricity to the entire encampment, but it was not to be.

  This time.

  With the shouts of consternation fading in the distance, Eiche ran back down to the village, skirting the green this time to follow the lane around the church and toward Pear Tree Cottage.

  Once inside he was not pleased to see the mud on his shoes and trouser legs. Really, this rustic living was not to be endured for very much longer. Heading upstairs to make free of Jane Waite’s hot water and bath towels, he noticed the afternoon post on the mat.

  He tossed Jane Waite’s aside. Nothing to her could surely merit his attention, but the square white envelope addressed to him caught his eye. He ripped it open and frowned at the square of white card and the blocky handwriting. He was invited to a musical soiree in aid of the war effort. That was code for an emergency meeting of the vampire cell. Fair enough, one or two were to be expected and endured, but what made him curse aloud was the date of the summons: Sunday evening. Just about the time he’d been planning on settling his dear, invalid aunt back home.

  How annoying.

  Chapter 11

  Today was not the day to have to stand by her offer to drive into Dorking and give Peter Watson a lift. Too much was happening close to home. Sleepy little Brytewood that didn’t even show up on some maps, was crawling with police from Leatherhead, half the homeguard of the county, and even a couple of Jeeps full of army types, all in a frightful tizz wazz over the sudden power outage up on the heath, and the village was boiling over with rumors of sabotage, death, and murder.

  The last she’d squashed the instant she heard it. Apart from a few scratches and bruises where a section of fence had fallen on a couple enjoying a few passionate moments behind the main storeroom, no one was hurt, although production pretty much ceased for the night. With the Army crawling all over the place, and the buzz about Farmer Morgan’s unexpected death (her decision to call in the coroner had fueled all manner of speculation), the gossips were having a field day.

  But worst of all was the barely voiced suspicion that it was some sort of enemy action sabotage and if that idea persisted, everyone would end up looking sideways at each other.

  Not that she could do much about that worry. Better get her mind around how she was going to work with her new assistant.

  Gran’s parting comment—that she was glad Alice was warming up toward the “nice young man”—did nothing to help. Alice knew exactly what Gran had in mind about the “nice, young man” and wasn’t interested.

  She couldn’t be, could she?

  She wasn’t, and she never would be.

  The man she definitely would never fancy was waiting for her by the bus station. In the twilight he looked like a tall shadow. A tall shadow surrounded by luggage. He’d never have been able to get away with all that on the bus.

  “Let me give you a hand,” she said, getting out of the car.

  “I hope it’s not too much.”

  “No. There’s lots of space in the back. This was my father’s jalopy. It’s carried everything, even a sick foal once.” And the weird disappearing patient. She opened the back door. “Let’s load up and get back before it’s pitch dark. There’s no moon tonight.”

  He hefted up a suitcase, then another, a large zip bag, and what looked like his old tuck box from school. “I was worried it wouldn’t all go in,” he said as he balanced the zip bag on top of the box. “This is some vehicle.”

  “My mother used to call it the pantechnicon. It burns petrol at a horrid rate; the rationing people had a fit over it. But since there a
re only half a dozen cars in the village and my patients are scattered in all directions, I get what I need in the wat of petrol coupons.” Most of the time at least.

  He got in the passenger seat and balanced his gasmask on his knees as she started the engine. “Want to toss that on the back seat?” she asked.

  “Why not? Doubt I’ll need it in the next half hour.”

  “At least you carry yours. I noticed on Friday. I’m afraid we’ve got very slack in the village. I carried it religiously the first few months, but now I forget it more than remember. The teachers get on at the children to carry them to and from school but the grown-ups give a rotten example.”

  “Brytewood is rather out of the way of things, isn’t it? Would be different if you were right in the middle of London.”

  True. But she ought to make a point of carrying hers. If she could find it. “Hope you weren’t waiting long,” she said as she pulled away from the curb. “We had a bit of a panic in the village last night.”

  “Nothing wrong?”

  “Depends on how you define ‘wrong’,” she replied, changing gear as she turned the corner. “No one hurt, but power went out up at the camp on the heath and they’re trying to decide if it’s the fault of the generating board, the Germans, or some likely lads from the village whose hijinks got out of hand.”

  “Not trouble, you don’t think?”

  How did you define “trouble” these days? She shrugged. “If it is, would they tell us?”

  He smiled, and really, his eyes did crinkle up nicely in the gloom. “I bet your grandmother would magic the truth out of them.”

  Alice almost swerved. “What makes you say that?”

  “Just the way she is. She reminds me of Granny Weatherby in our village when I was a boy. There were all sorts of tales about her: that she’d been struck by lightning as a girl, that she was touched, even that she had Pixie blood in her.” He gave a little laugh. “You wouldn’t believe half the stories.” She would, actually. “But she knew things and people listened. If she said there was a bad storm coming, people got on ladders to check the roof.”

  “Do you believe the stories about Pixies?” Why was she asking that?

  He was silent a moment or two, as if considering his reply. “I’m not sure. Logically one says ‘no.’ It has to be just myth and legend, but my grandmother believed, as did a lot of her generation. My old nanny did. Heck, she once took me down to a stream that the villagers claimed was magical and dunked me in. My mother had a fit. I was only four or five at the time, but I remember her practically going into orbit over it.”

  “And did it imbue you with magic powers?”

  His chuckle echoed in the dark confines of the car. “If it did, I haven’t noticed.”

  At least he didn’t believe all that nonsense. A definite point in his favor.

  They rode on in silence a few minutes.

  “You’ll need a bicycle to get around on. Sergeant Pendragon has promised to find one.”

  “He seems a very nice chap.”

  “Yes. Not local, but I imagine you guessed that hearing him speak.”

  “Are most people in the village local?”

  “Before the war, yes, but now, with the evacuees and the workers that moved in, the whole place has changed. The population doubled at one point. It’s a little less now. Quite a few people left.” A thought struck her. “You think they’ll be suspicious of an outsider? Don’t worry. You’ll stop being an outsider once someone’s child falls out of a tree and needs stitches. It’s a village, yes, odd in some ways. I can see that and I grew up here, but like everywhere else these days, we’ve changed.” But maybe not enough to welcome a CO with open arms.

  “I’d rather live in a village than a town any day.”

  So would she but she wasn’t quite up to agreeing. Not with him. Not yet.

  Not ever.

  The drive seemed interminable. Peter Watson was not a chatty sort, thank heaven, but somehow the silences seemed to wrap them both in a closeness she did not care for.

  “I’m most obliged to you for coming over to pick me up,” Peter said as they came down the hill toward the darkened village. “I know it had to have been a bother. It was good of you.”

  Seemed rude to agree, even though she did, wholeheartedly. “I wanted to be sure my new assistant was here and ready first thing Monday.” Darn, that sounded curt.

  “I will be, don’t worry. What time do I come up to the surgery?”

  She wasn’t sure she wanted him up in her house, her territory. Not that she could avoid it—he would be there eventually. “Let’s meet at Gloria’s at nine. Mondays she goes down to the school and we thought that might be a good way for you to start.”

  “Throw me to the wolves from the start, eh?”

  “That’s right, and it’s a big pack. Some of those evacuee infants are wild things and our locally bred ones aren’t exactly sweet little angels either.”

  “So Brytewood breeds rapscallions and roisterers. Has anyone warned the War Office?

  Alice chuckled. He might just last here after all. “I don’t think they could cope.” She paused as she changed gear to go down the hill. “Seriously, though. They’re good children on the whole. It’s just so many are on edge. I don’t think there’s a household in the village that hasn’t experience some sort of upheaval. Brother, sons, and fathers gone, strangers deposited on their doorsteps, extra family members moved in, and people living in close quarters. We might be in the back of beyond, but everyone, children included, knows about the bombing. We even had a stray one dropped out in the middle of a cornfield a couple of weeks back. No one hurt but it brought the war very close. Grown-ups are tense; it can’t help but rub off on the children.”

  “And having pillboxes and those massive concrete Dragons’ teeth all over the countryside can’t help either.”

  No. Frankly the lines of great concrete obelisks gave her the willies and caused nightmares about German tanks coming across the Downs. “They don’t. So we just keep going and do the best we can.”

  “How many evacuees do we have in Brytewood?”

  She couldn’t miss the “we.” Did she like that or not? “About a fifth of the school population, and a half dozen under school age, and a few mothers. Many went back to London. Village life didn’t suit them. Parents hated to be parted. Some stayed. Our charlady, Doris, is one. Her husband’s away, she found work here, and seems to like the change. Others couldn’t stand it. One came to me for sleeping pills because the quiet kept her awake.

  “We had a teacher evacuated too and that’s helped. The school was close to bursting at the seams. It was due to get an addition built on last year, but war broke out and we’ll never see it now, but they took over the parish hall and people manage.”

  And so, she thought to herself, as she pulled up in front of Sergeant Pendragon’s cottage, would she.

  “Thanks again for the lift,” Peter said as Sergeant Pendragon came out with a hurricane lamp and helped carry the boxes and suitcases into the house. “It was smashing of you.” Why, oh why, did he have such a wonderfully sincere and open smile?

  Maybe that last bit was a trick of the dark.

  “We need you here, Mr. Watson. See you in the morning at Gloria’s. Remember the way?”

  “I’ll see he gets there, don’t you worry,” Sergeant Pendragon said. “Will you stay and have a cup of tea, Doctor?”

  She declined as graciously as she could. She’d seen quite enough of her new assistant for one day, and it was entirely true that Gran was alone and Alice did want to get back to her.

  But when she walked into the house, she realized she’d lied. Gran was not alone, the sitting room fire was burning, and the room was full of villagers knitting. She’d forgotten the Sunday evening sessions Gran was organizing to knit “comforts for the troops.” The quiet clicking and buzz of conversation stopped as Alice walked in.

  “Everything alright, my love?” Gran asked.

  �
��Oh, yes.” A lie, but worth the risk to her immortal soul. She was not telling the worst gossips in the village that her new assistant was causing imprudent and foolish fancies. “Just let me hang up my coat and I’ll be with you.”

  After she hung up her coat she poured herself a cup of rather stewed tea from the pot on the table and took a seat next to June Groves, who was busy knitting away at something roughly round and khaki. “Not socks?” she asked, wondering what it was.

  June shook her head. “No, a balaclava helmet for a radio operator.” She reached into her knitting bag and pulled out the pattern.

  Yes, definitely a balaclava, but with little ear flaps that lifted up. Reminded Alice of the gunner’s gloves with peel-back fingertips on the thumb and forefinger. Interesting how anything could be adapted for war. Needed to be. “Someone will be glad of that this winter.”

  “I need to get it finished first. I’m not a fast knitter.”

  “Is your hand healed enough to knit?” She did sound like a doctor but it had been nasty only days ago.

  “Oh, yes! That poultice did the trick and I’m going to be more careful opening tins in future.”

  “Well, Doctor.” It was Mrs. Willows, who lived down by the school. “I hear you’ve been over to Dorking to pick up the new young man.”

  She should have expected that. The arrival of any single male under ninety was a matter of prime interest. “Yes. Our new first aid assistant. He had his luggage to move and you know what the bus conductors are like when anyone wants to bring suitcases on.”

  For a little while the sad failings of London Transport employees occupied the company, but Mrs. Willows was not to be put off for long. “It’ll be good to have a young man around for a change. Think he’d suit June? I’ve been telling her she needs to find herself a young man.”

  No, he would not suit June!

  And why did that matter? Better not even think that one out. Not right now. “Better leave that up to June. Of course he might be engaged or even married.” Not that he’d said anything either way but…