A Wind on the Heath Read online

  A WIND ON THE HEATH

  James Pattinson

  © James Pattinson 1996

  James Pattinson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1996 by Robert Hale Limited.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – MEDITATION

  Chapter Two – FIRST RUNG

  Chapter Three – INTERVIEW

  Chapter Four – LOW KEY

  Chapter Five – FATE

  Chapter Six – BREAK

  Chapter Seven – HOBBY

  Chapter Eight – DANCING-GIRL

  Chapter Nine – THE PUSH

  Chapter Ten – A DIFFERENT STORY

  Chapter Eleven – SORRY

  Chapter Twelve – ARREST

  Chapter Thirteen – MIRACLE

  Chapter Fourteen – EMBARKATION

  Chapter Fifteen – BALLAST

  Chapter Sixteen – HOMEWARD BOUND

  Chapter Seventeen – RESCUE

  Chapter Eighteen – FORTY-SECOND STREET

  Chapter Nineteen – TAKE CARE

  Chapter Twenty – LIFE IS SWEET

  Chapter Twenty-One – SOMETHING

  Chapter Twenty-Two – OCTOPUS

  Chapter Twenty-Three – SIMPSON OF THE YARD

  Chapter Twenty-Four – VICTIM

  Chapter Twenty-Five – END OF THE ROAD

  Chapter Twenty-Six – CELEBRATION

  Chapter Twenty-Seven – SPLIT

  Chapter Twenty-Eight – TRYST

  Chapter Twenty-Nine – MURDER

  Chapter One – MEDITATION

  When Sterne glanced out of the window he could see Peter and Petra meditating in the garden. He was looking down on them from a higher level, since his flat was on the first floor; and in fact he rented it from the couple below, who owned the house and occupied the ground floor themselves.

  The garden was at the rear of the house, and it was little more than a patch of weedy grass which was only occasionally trimmed with a racketing hand-propelled mower. Overgrown privet hedges on three sides afforded a certain degree of privacy; and this was just as well, seeing that Peter and Petra liked to do their meditation in the nude whenever the weather allowed them to do so without too much discomfort from the chill. As it did now in these dying days of summer.

  Despite the screen of privet, they were of course visible from the upper windows of other houses in the terrace, but this appeared not to bother them. They were remarkably unself-conscious regarding their naked bodies, which were not in any case of a kind to attract a second glance from anyone seeking an erotic thrill. The plain fact was that, like the vast majority of human beings no longer young, they were a good deal less attractive nude than clothed.

  They were an ill-matched pair physically. Peter was a skinny little man with a disproportionately large head and a mass of coarse black hair much like the mane of a horse, which, perched on the top of such a meagre frame, gave a curious impression of top-heaviness. He had a flourishing beard and bad teeth, and he wore silver-rimmed glasses with very thick lenses through which his eyes appeared slightly distorted. There was so little flesh on his chest that the outline of the rib-cage was clearly discernible under its tight covering of skin, and his arms and legs were mere sticks.

  Petra, in contrast, was large and plump, with pendulous breasts and folds of loose flesh around her waist and thighs. She had blonde hair plaited into two pigtails and coiled over her ears like a pair of headphones. Equipped with a spear and shield, a helmet and armour, she might have made a passable Valkyrie – if she had had the voice.

  Both were in their forties, and as far as Sterne could judge, were perfectly happy in their marriage. They were childless, and perhaps preferred it that way, being quite content with each other’s company and desiring no larger family. They had many acquaintances but, so it appeared, no intimate friends. Their surname was Lakos, which was possibly Middle European. They spoke perfectly correct English with a slight foreign accent, and Sterne would have made a guess that they had come to this country to escape from some tyranny or other; possibly fearing the wider spread of Naziism, which was like a cancer at the heart of the Continent and reaching out to other parts.

  Sterne had been invited to join the sessions of meditation on various occasions. Indeed, Peter had urged him to do so.

  ‘You would find it mentally refreshing, David. It is a cleansing of the mind, an emptying of all the clutter, so that newer and more profitable thoughts may find a place. For you in your profession it might be especially useful.’

  This had been in the early days of his occupation of the flat. He walked out into the garden one afternoon and came upon the landlord and his wife hunkered down on a kind of prayer mat with hands on knees in a rough approximation of the basic yoga posture and without a stitch of clothing between the pair of them.

  He muttered an apology and was turning to go when Peter stopped him with a word.

  ‘Wait!’

  He halted.

  ‘There is no need to run away,’ Petra said. ‘You have the freedom of the garden, you know.’

  Neither of them appeared to be at all embarrassed by his presence. The embarrassment was all his. He tried not to look directly at Petra, at her heavy breasts and bulging stomach, at the pubic hair, the legs and buttocks squashed beneath her weight.

  ‘Why don’t you join us?’ she said. Her voice was strangely soft. One might have expected a deep contralto from such a woman, but it was not like that at all. ‘Why not take your clothes off too?’ She was smiling, as though she found his disconcertion mildly amusing. ‘It is so much more comfortable.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think –’

  ‘It is not essential,’ Peter said, ‘but it is an advantage; a symbolic casting off of the mundane to allow a keener perception of the spiritual. You will be surprised how invigorating it is.’

  Sterne decided not to put this assertion to the test. He excused himself and made a hasty retreat to the house. After that experience he had been careful to make sure that no meditation was going on before venturing into the so-called garden.

  *

  Lakos had a grubby little lock-up shop in a narrow lane not far from Fenchurch Street Station and near enough to the river to catch the odour of mud and rotting timber wafting up whenever the breeze was in the right direction. The shop was side by side with another one where trusses and crutches and artificial limbs and similar orthopaedic devices were sold. Sterne was fascinated and at the same time repelled by the sight of the examples of such goods that were displayed in the window. He wondered whether you could walk in and buy an arm or a leg off the shelf, as it were. The whole thing seemed so improbable, so bizarre; but he had already been long enough in London to be surprised at nothing.

  In his shop Lakos appeared to deal mainly in secondhand books. The place was full of them; so full in fact that it was difficult for customers to pass one another in the narrow passages between the shelves. Not that there seemed to be many customers – at least not when Sterne visited the shop; and this made him wonder how Lakos could possibly make a living from the business. Possibly he was in the mail order line.

  There was a tiny office at the back, furnished with a couple of chairs and a desk and a safe and a filing cabinet; but nothing gave the impression of much prosperity. Still, there was a saying that where there was muck there was brass; and there was plenty of muck here, if dust and cobwebs qualified for that description.

  Lakos appeared delighted to see him on the first occasion when he found his way, not without some little difficulty, to the shop.

  ‘As a man of
letters yourself, I am sure you will find much to interest you here.’

  No one had ever before called him a man of letters; it sounded rather too grand a description for one in his situation, but he let it pass. Perhaps some day –

  The shop had its own peculiar odour: that smell which old books in the mass exude, mingling with another that might have been dry rot. Rather to his surprise on this occasion Lakos produced a bottle of vodka and a couple of glasses.

  ‘This is a time for celebration, David, my friend. A small drink will do us no harm at all. Come.’

  Sterne had no taste for spirits, but it would have seemed churlish to refuse.

  Lakos raised his glass. ‘To your future. To your brilliant future, David.’ He tipped the glass and swallowed the vodka in one gulp.

  Sterne felt compelled to follow suit and was conscious of the liquor sliding down his throat and spreading a kind of fire inside him. Would his future be brilliant? He doubted it, but who could tell?

  It was at this moment that he became aware of a man standing in the doorway of the office. The man was wearing a black belted raincoat and a black felt hat turned down all round, and he had not spoken a word. But Lakos was disconcerted by his sudden appearance; that much was certain. He took Sterne’s empty glass and said:

  ‘You must leave now. Business.’ There was a note of urgency in his voice. ‘Please go.’

  Sterne scarcely had room to squeeze past the man in the doorway. Their faces came close together and their eyes met and locked for an instant. The man’s eyes were a steely blue in colour, his unwavering gaze slightly unnerving.

  He was never to see the man again and Lakos never mentioned him. There was no reason why he should have done so, of course, but Sterne sensed a mystery. It was a mystery that was to remain unexplained for quite some time to come.

  *

  When he glanced out of the window again he saw that the meditation was finished. The man and his wife had got to their feet and Peter was rolling up the mat.

  The sun had gone behind a cloud and perhaps there was a chill in the air, a hint that summer was passing and autumn was not far away. And after autumn would come winter. For many in Europe it had already come, a man-made frost to chill the blood in the veins. Multitudes would never live to see another spring.

  But Peter and Petra Lakos had escaped from that. On this subject they were reticent; he knew nothing of their past. Perhaps it would have been too painful for them to talk about it. He asked no questions, having no desire to pry into something that was really none of his business. One day perhaps they would feel inclined to confide in him, but it was up to them to make the decision. Either way, he was glad that they at least had been able to find refuge before it was too late. They were too nice a couple to be caught up in any purge or pogrom.

  He watched them enter the house and it seemed odd to him later, though of course it was not at all odd really, that at that moment he had no intimation whatever of the disaster that was about to occur.

  Chapter Two – FIRST RUNG

  David Sterne was an East Anglian. He had been born in 1916, the third son of a farmer who cultivated three hundred acres of land close to the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. Like his brothers he had been educated at a boarding school in Bury St Edmunds. Unlike them, he had shown considerable ability as a pupil and also as an athlete. In his final year he had captained the first eleven at cricket and had also won his colours at football.

  There had been a suggestion of his going on to Cambridge University, but that had come to nothing. Farming was suffering from the depression and there was not the money to lay out on his further education. He might have gone to work on the farm, but with two brothers older than himself he could see no future in that. He would have been just another hired labourer with nothing to look forward to.

  The problem of his future became subject of discussion in the family. Various suggestions were made, some of which from his brothers were merely frivolous, while others did not appeal to him. The fact was that it was a difficult time for job-hunting; millions were on the dole and businesses were going into liquidation everywhere.

  His mother thought he should go in for teaching. ‘I’m sure you would make a very good teacher, dear,’ she said. ‘And it’s a safe profession. Teachers will always be needed.’

  It was a path several of his contemporaries at school had taken, but he had no desire to follow their example. He was quite certain it was not his vocation.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I just don’t think I would be a good teacher. I’m not cut out for it.’

  She seemed disappointed. ‘Are you sure? Why not think about it before you make up your mind?’

  ‘I have thought about it and I know it’s not for me. You have to like teaching if you’re going to make a job of it.’

  ‘But how do you know you wouldn’t like it if you’ve never tried it?’

  ‘I just do, that’s all.’

  She sighed. ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel –’

  His father, a thick-set man with a weatherbeaten face and a straggly tobacco-stained moustache, sucked at his pipe and said: ‘So if you don’t want to be a teacher is there anything you do want to be? Come on, son, let’s hear it from you.’

  He hesitated. He could guess the kind of reaction there would be if he gave an honest answer. There would be ridicule, laughter, disbelief. They would not understand. They would regard it as sheer stupidity. It would be dismissed as a foolish dream that would never come true.

  And perhaps they would be right. Did he himself really believe in the possibility? Perhaps not. Yet he knew that it was what he wanted; there could be no doubt on that point. And so, after the hesitation he said quite calmly:

  ‘I want to be a writer.’

  They all stared at him in silence for a moment. Then George and Will burst out laughing. They were much alike, both heavily built young men who took after their father; somewhat ungainly, with a slouching gait and long arms.

  He took more from his mother’s side of the family. He was lighter, about five feet ten inches in height and sinewy. In fights with his brothers, the sort of fights that boys always have, he would win despite their advantage in size and weight. He was more agile, quicker in his reactions, and quicker-witted too. Not that there had ever been any real enmity between them. The two older boys seemed to accept without ever admitting as much that he was their superior in most ways, and it did not appear to bother them. It was simply in the nature of things. And at least they knew more about farming than he did.

  ‘What you?’ George said. ‘A writer?’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Will said. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I mean to say –’

  His father sucked at his pipe again, looked hard at him and said: ‘Are you serious, Davy?’

  He answered with a touch of defiance, as though challenging anyone to doubt it: ‘Yes, I am.’

  Mr Sterne rubbed his chin. ‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure. What makes you think you could make a go of it? What have you written so far?’

  ‘Essays at school. I was pretty good at that. I won prizes for English, you know.’

  ‘Yes, of course. But that’s a bit different, isn’t it? I mean what we’re talking about is being paid for what you do. People don’t buy essays, do they?’

  ‘I’ve written other stuff.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  It had been mostly poetry. He had written a lot of poems but he had never shown them to anyone, fearful of ridicule. And he knew there was no money in poetry these days. People seemed to have lost the taste.

  So he just said vaguely: ‘Oh, this and that.’

  His mother said: ‘If you were a teacher you could write things in your spare time. The holidays. Teachers have lots of holidays.’

  He wished she would not keep harping on that subject. ‘I’ve told you I don’t want to be a teacher. And I’ve written some short s
tories. One day I’m going to write a novel.’

  ‘Oh my!’ Will said. ‘Edgar Wallace the Second!’

  ‘Well, it would be nice,’ Mrs Sterne said. She was an avid reader of novels when she could spare the time. ‘But it must be awfully difficult, don’t you think?’

  ‘Of course it’s difficult. But other people have done it, so why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You need to have something to write about,’ George said. ‘What have you got? You don’t know anything about life. You’re just a kid, not yet dry behind the ears.’

  This touched him on the raw, because he knew there was some truth in it. There was of course no possibility of earning a living by his pen at the present time; it was out of the question. Some day perhaps, but not for a long long time; years and years. Meanwhile the urgent need was to find a job of some kind.

  *

  Unexpectedly, it was his father who came up with a possible solution to the problem a few days later.

  ‘I’ve been talking to Arthur Martin.’

  They were all having supper, which was a meal usually eaten for the sake of convenience seated at the plain deal table in the kitchen. David had never heard of Arthur Martin, but Mr Sterne had made the announcement as though it were of some importance, and there was obviously more to come. He leaned back in his chair and glanced round the table, apparently waiting for some reaction to his words.

  No one spoke for a few moments. Then Mrs Sterne said: ‘Who is Arthur Martin?’

  Mr Sterne gave a lift of the eyebrows, which were bushy and greying. ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No, dear, I’m afraid not. Should I?’

  ‘I’m surprised at you.’ Mr Sterne shook his head in mock reproof. ‘And I am sure Arthur himself would be very disappointed to learn that his name means nothing to some persons in this county. He has rather a good opinion of himself. In fact I sometimes think he believes he’s God.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. And it does amaze me that you can sit there and tell me you’ve never heard of a man who, in his own estimation at least, has more influence on what the region is thinking than anyone else around.’