The Sting of Death Read online

  Another reproachful look from Stephanie made Karen take back the remark. But they adjourned to the garden anyway.

  Drew commented on the influence of the Polish genes in the appearance of the cousins. ‘You really are very alike,’ he observed. ‘Like sisters.’

  ‘We were saying how odd cousinship is,’ Karen said. ‘Or is it cousinhood? Anyway, here we are with all these genes in common, and we know almost nothing about each other. And I for one have almost no idea what Poland’s like, even though my grandparents were born there. I’ve never been, have you?’

  Penn nodded. ‘I took a year out after school and spent three months there. I stayed with Great-Aunt Hannah – Grandma’s sister. I suppose she must be your great-aunt as well. An amazing character. I still write to her.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Oh, not very old. Early seventies. She makes me feel very connected to that part of the family. Tells me all the births and deaths and marriages.’

  ‘Why wasn’t she a refugee as well?’

  Penn shrugged. ‘More people stayed than left, you know. The family aren’t Jewish – they weren’t in much actual danger.’

  Karen shook her head. ‘It all seems a million years ago, the war and everything. Mustn’t it be awful to live in a country that everyone instantly associates with events of sixty years ago? You say Poland, and all anyone knows about it is that it was invaded by Hitler. I suppose everyone there regards it as ancient history, as well.’

  ‘More or less,’ Penn said vaguely. Her attention had been caught by the contents of the field behind the house. ‘Is that your cemetery?’ she asked Drew.

  ‘Peaceful Repose Burial Ground,’ he corrected her. ‘Fifty-two burials already.’ The pride in his tone was unmistakable. ‘Just about enough to live on, if we’re careful.’

  ‘Only if I grow nearly all our food,’ Karen pointed out, waving towards the further end of the garden. ‘I’m getting very good at it. Everything we’ve just eaten, apart from the butter and meat, was home-grown.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ Penn applauded, half-heartedly. Her main attention was still on the graves in the field. ‘They don’t show,’ she said, and then laughed at her own words. ‘I mean …’

  ‘I know. Even though we haven’t banned formal headstones, like some places do, most people opt for a piece of natural granite or sandstone, and we’re not arranging them in straight rows. The trees are a good camouflage, too. Amazing how quickly they’re growing.’ He surveyed his acres as if seeing them afresh. ‘We haven’t even been here two years yet, you know,’ he boasted.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Penn told him. ‘No wonder Aunt Roma’s so impressed. It’s absolutely her kind of thing.’

  ‘She wanted to book a plot—’ Penn’s expression of horror stopped him. ‘Why, what’s the matter?’

  The visitor put a hand flat against her sternum, and didn’t speak for a few moments. ‘She’s only fifty-nine. And she never talks about dying. It seems like tempting fate,’ she gasped breathlessly. ‘It gave me an awful feeling, you saying that. Just superstition, I know.’

  ‘It is, yes,’ he said firmly. ‘Just thinking about dying doesn’t make it happen, you know.’

  ‘Right,’ Penn said shortly. ‘I’m sorry. I hate to think of her dying before she’s patched things up with Justine, you see.’

  ‘Justine?’ Karen repeated. ‘I remember a little girl called Justine. Auntie Helen brought her to some family gathering.’ She frowned, trying to remember.

  ‘Roma’s daughter,’ Penn confirmed. ‘They fell out five years ago – it was all rather horrible. Roma can hardly bear to say her name now.’ With a visible effort, she changed the subject and told Karen and Drew about her aunt’s vendetta against the wasps, making them laugh more than the story warranted, all three eager to lighten the atmosphere.

  ‘This is a bad area for wasps,’ Karen remarked. ‘Stephanie’s been stung twice in the past week, poor little thing.’

  Again Penn’s violent reaction was startling. ‘No!’ she gasped. ‘That’s absolutely terrible.’

  Karen raised her eyebrows. ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘It only hurt for a minute, and she forgot all about it in no time. She’s not allergic or anything.’

  ‘But people can die from a sting. And you don’t always know if you’re going to react badly; from one sting to the next, you can become sensitised.’

  ‘Phooey,’ said Karen, unmoved. ‘One person in a million, maybe. There’s no sense in worrying about it, anyway. If it happens, it happens.’

  ‘You can get special medical kits, with an antidote, if you go into anaphylactic shock. You should get one,’ Penn pressed, her expression still full of concern.

  Karen’s face hardened, and she looked away over the field, forcing down the annoyance. ‘Well, it’s only a short season. I don’t expect I’ll bother,’ she said lightly.

  Never happy in an atmosphere of conflict, Drew sought to moderate things. ‘Karen doesn’t approve of the over-medicalisation that goes on these days,’ he explained. ‘I think she’s right, on the whole. Never before have human beings been so healthy, and yet they seem to worry constantly about their physical wellbeing. It’s irrational, when you stop to think about it.’

  Penn blinked. ‘Well, er – I suppose that’s so,’ she stammered. Drew had the impression he’d struck a nerve. When Penn had first arrived, he’d characterised her as an intelligent young woman, confident and relaxed in a new situation. When he’d learnt of her relationship with Roma Millan, he had recognised a similarity immediately. Not in looks, as with Karen, but in general outlook and approach to the world. Now he began to revise this judgment. She was much less grounded than he’d first assumed; the initial behaviour seemed more of a façade than the real woman, and a very thin façade at that. She was nervous, flustered and irritated. Casual remarks could upset her. He watched her closely for a moment, observing a struggle to relax. He also had an impression that she wanted to say something to him.

  An urgent wail from Timothy effectively removed Karen from the scene, leaving Drew attempting to mollify their visitor. He returned to the subject of their mutual acquaintance.

  ‘Your aunt’s retired then, is she? She’s never mentioned anything about her work to me.’

  It was a dismal failure. Penn’s face tightened even further, and her hands curled into fists. ‘She was a teacher,’ she muttered. ‘The same as me – only I’m in FE. All my students are over sixteen, thank God. But Roma was in primary.’

  It was difficult to see why that should cause such agitation. Drew grinned his most disarming grin. ‘Of course – I should have known. She’s just like my old French teacher, Miss Harrison.’

  ‘And was Miss Harrison dismissed for abusing the kids?’ Penn flared, her eyes wide and hot. ‘Because that’s what happened to Aunt Roma. That’s why she’s hidden herself away down here, trying to forget about it and start a new life. She had a lot of good years left in her, and they took it all away from her – for nothing.’

  Karen looked over from where she was sorting out the children. Penn stood up, brushing non-existent fluff from the legs of her trousers. Drew teetered on the plastic garden chair, not sure whether to stand as well or stay in place.

  ‘I’d better go,’ Penn said. ‘I’m sorry to have been so touchy. I’m not usually like this. It’s just …’ She clamped her lips together, and pressed a finger and thumb into the corner of each eye, in a gesture Drew recognised as designed to stem the flow of tears.

  ‘It’s just—’ she looked at Drew urgently. ‘Can I trust you about this? Trust you not to think I’m mad?’

  He looked up at her, mildly. ‘I shouldn’t think you’re mad,’ he smiled. ‘And even if you are, there’s probably a reason for it.’

  ‘It seems mad, to be coming to you, a complete stranger, and pouring out my troubles.’

  ‘Happens all the time,’ said Karen, overhearing this last remark and giving an encouraging laugh. ‘Must be something in h
is face.’

  ‘Well,’ Penn tried again. ‘It might be nothing at all. I’m probably drawing all the wrong conclusions. It’s Justine, you see.’

  ‘Ah,’ Drew breathed.

  ‘She’s gone missing.’

  Karen and Drew exchanged a long deep look, containing concern, confusion, and, from Karen a resigned, Oh God, here-we-go-again.

  ‘You’d better try telling us about it then,’ said Drew, pointing at Penn’s chair in a silent instruction to sit down again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In the kitchen, Roma was extracting honey in a gadget designed to leave the honeycomb intact, so the bees could simply fill the cells up again, without having to reconstruct the complex wax foundation. The design of this gadget left something to be desired, and however carefully she worked, the result was always sticky deposits of honey on almost every surface. Her shoes stuck to the floor, and her fingers were sweet and gluey. The pervasive other-worldly smell of the fresh honey mixed with the wax made her feel drunk. There was something so excessive about it, the bounty of high summer, endless outpourings of it, filling ranks of jars, clear and glistening. It was magical and Roma loved it.

  From the doorway, Laurie asked ‘Nearly finished? I’m getting hungry. When are you going to allow me in?’

  ‘I can’t stop now,’ she puffed. ‘There’s much more than I expected.’

  ‘Can’t you keep it in that plastic bucket, instead of decanting it into all the jars?’

  ‘Best to do it all in one go.’

  ‘And anyway, you’re enjoying yourself,’ he supplied. ‘I must admit it does look like fun. I wish you’d let me help you.’

  ‘You’d only get covered in the stuff. Give me another twenty minutes, and I’ll let you get to the fridge. Go and have a sherry or something.’

  ‘I hope I’m going to be allowed to make mead out of some of that,’ he said, before turning away.

  ‘You might. Though I warn you, it’s nothing like as nice as it sounds.’

  ‘Mine will be,’ he called from the living room.

  Half an hour later they had bread and cheese and wine laid out in the courtyard, and the sun blazed down on Roma’s unprotected head.

  ‘I don’t know how you can bear it,’ Laurie said, as he always did. ‘I’d have sunstroke in five minutes.’ He tugged lightly at the brim of his straw hat.

  ‘It’s my natural element,’ Roma boasted. ‘It brings me to life. I put it down to being born in January and spending my first five months of life yearning for some sun. Since then, I’ve never been able to get enough of it. Carlos was the same – being Spanish, I suppose. It was one of the few things we had in common.’

  Laurie smiled neutrally, showing no sign of discomfort at the mention of Roma’s first husband. ‘Not like me then,’ he said serenely.

  ‘Not like you,’ she nodded. ‘Although the child was more your type. Funny, that.’ The child was as close as Roma could usually get to referring to her daughter. Laurie had learnt to accept this without demur. It was in any case unusual for Justine to be brought into the conversation in any way at all, and Laurie was alerted to the implication that this was a meaningful moment. Roma went on, musingly, ‘She always shrank out of direct sunlight, as if she was some kind of vampire.’

  ‘Chalk and cheese,’ Laurie remarked.

  ‘From such accidents of incompatibility, tragedy is born,’ Roma said melodramatically.

  ‘And there’s precious little anyone can do about it,’ he tried to soothe.

  She sighed. ‘I wish I could stop thinking about her, once and for all. She doesn’t need me any more. We just keep wounding each other, time after time. She was a truly awful adolescent, confronting me on every tiny thing. I couldn’t understand it, except to put it down to a genetic inheritance. Her father’s always been very unstable. I think that’s why the doctors agreed so readily to section her when she was really bad.’

  Laurie had heard some of this story before, but it was no easier to listen to this time. ‘Don’t go over that again now,’ he pleaded. ‘It doesn’t do any good.’

  Roma didn’t seem to hear him. ‘I actually do wish I could forget all about her,’ she went on. ‘Animals let their offspring wander off across the savannah and everyone’s happy. It’s the natural order of things. What’s the matter with us that we feel we have to hang on to responsibility and concern throughout our entire lives? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I know what brought this on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Penn. You often start thinking about Justine when you’ve seen Penn. I’ve noticed it before.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Definitely.’ He reached over and touched her arm. ‘It makes sense, after all. There’s bound to be an association, even though Penn’s always so careful not to mention her cousin.’

  ‘She is, isn’t she. I don’t think she’s lapsed once, in five years. It’s always been me who’s raised the subject, and that hardly ever. It’s remarkable, when you think about it. Such control!’

  ‘You think they see each other?’

  ‘They were always good chums. I shouldn’t think that’s changed. But who can say?’

  ‘Helen would know,’ he ventured. ‘She’d probably love to fill you in on the whole thing.’

  ‘My dear sister’s dying to have another go at me, and tell me how it’s all completely my own fault, and I’m the worst mother in the history of the world.’ She sighed. ‘It’s only because you’ve always been here that she’s restrained herself. She’s scared you’ll rush to my defence and tell her off. She’d hate that to happen.’

  ‘We never really know who the strong one is, do we?’ he said obscurely. ‘I can’t believe your sister would care a damn about anything I might do.’

  A flight of swallows swept joyously across the field behind the house, dancing in the air in a show of such soaring exuberance that the human beings were silenced in awe. Roma spoke slowly, after a few minutes. ‘You notice that sort of thing so much more as you get older, don’t you?’

  ‘One of the many compensations,’ he agreed peaceably. His wife’s response startled him.

  ‘No!’ she said in a choked voice. ‘There are no compensations for old age. That isn’t what I meant. The young might be too busy to see what the birds are doing … but they’ve got time to make up for it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know. It sounds like a contradiction. It’s idiotic of me to kick against something that happens to everybody, that’s practically the definition of being alive at all. But I can’t help it. It’s completely beyond my control.’

  ‘Well, never mind,’ he soothed. ‘You’re not even sixty yet, for heaven’s sake. You’ve got another thirty-five years at least.’ He turned his face away from her as he spoke, looking out across the garden and the fields beyond. The expression he hid from her was very different from that suggested by his words.

  Penn had done her best to give the full background to Drew and Karen, and they’d done their best to accord her their undivided attention. It wasn’t easy. Time went by, the children grew fractious, and Drew remembered some paperwork he’d left undone from the previous week.

  Penn described how she and Justine had always been close. They were only six months apart in age, and their mothers were sisters. ‘But we look completely different,’ she said emphatically. ‘We both take after our fathers, you see. Hers Spanish, mine Polish. We used to joke about that; how our mothers couldn’t have settled for plain ordinary Englishmen. And we had our foreign surnames to unite us, as well.’

  ‘Did you go to the same schools?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, we didn’t. We pleaded to be allowed to, but it never happened. We lived just too far apart for it to be feasible.’

  When Penn got her first teaching job, after college, Justine had been living close by. They’d laughed about the coincidence, but they both knew that Penn had deliberately applied for posts in the area, she admitted now. ‘I suppose it
must be the family connection; she’s just always been my best friend. And she needed me at the time. She was having a very rough patch and it was important for me to be there for her.’

  Drew let her prattle on, following the thread, but making no response. The sooner the story got itself told, the happier he’d be. It wasn’t too long before Penn realised she ought to summarise. ‘She lives in a funny little cottage now, on a farm. She’s never had a proper job, you see, never had much money. She does pottery.’

  ‘Pottery,’ Drew echoed. ‘Does she have a workshop, then? And a kiln, and all that?’

  ‘She has now,’ said Penn shortly.

  Drew felt as if he was being led in a very convoluted zigzag where a straight line would have worked very much better. ‘When did you last see her?’ he asked impatiently. ‘And what makes you think there isn’t a nice ordinary explanation for her absence?’

  ‘Today’s Sunday,’ Penn held up her forefinger. ‘I last saw her on Tuesday evening. So that’s – five days? I’d made an arrangement to see her on Thursday, for lunch, and she didn’t show up. I phoned her, and there was no reply. I emailed her – still no reply. Then I went to the cottage and she wasn’t there. I’ve got a key, so I let myself in, and had a look round. It seemed to me that she’d dropped several things at short notice, meaning to come back to them. It’s very seriously out of character.’

  ‘Email?’ echoed Drew. ‘She can afford a computer, then?’

  ‘No, no. It belongs to Philip – the farmer. Except he doesn’t really farm now. All his animals were slaughtered in the foot and mouth outbreak. He’s some sort of dealer. Anyway, Justine goes to the main house to use his computer. She helps with their child, so she’s in the house quite a bit.’

  Drew tapped a finger thoughtfully on the arm of his chair, trying to think what else to ask. ‘You haven’t gone to the police?’ he checked.