Jack of Diamonds

CHAPTER 15

Gabby sat down on the bench and proceeded to roll a cigarette, watching the couple across the street. She'd discovered that she liked shocking the locals, scanning the small square to see if anyone was watching. There was no one in sight--which she found odd-- except the couple she was watching. They looked comfortable with each other, she noticed; and they seem to fit, she thought as she twisted the cigarette together. She tucked it up behind her ear as she'd seen so many men doing, and started rolling another one. She watched them walking. She'd first spotted them at the Town Hall pub. She just happened to be out and about herself, running errands and picking up foodstuffs from the market on the corner of Fore and George Streets. That was when she saw them. She knew the woman as one of the town Constables. She didn't know the man, but he looked young. A lot younger than the woman, if she were to guess.

A woman as stunning as her stands out, she thought. Too bad for her it's not only when she’s in uniform. Lawrence calls her the woman with the Bentley, as if she was a different woman.

But the man now, he’s a stranger, Gabby told herself. It’s funny how quickly I got to know the people in the village; funnier still that I'd recognize who the strangers are.

She wondered if maybe it was as simple as the two of them being involved with each other. It's possible, she told herself--anything's possible. She'd known women who enjoyed the company of younger men. She'd known them most of her life, from back in the day when she was one of Shettie's girls before the War. Most of the time, the women were lonely, their husbands dead, or might as well be. They gladly paid for whatever attention they received; she was all too familiar with that, as well.

A woman as stunning as her would never have to pay a man to keep her company.

She’d only been in Okehampton herself for ten days. She was hoping to be in Plymouth by tomorrow night. There was unfinished business there she had to take care of. But there was something about the couple that caught her attention and made her think they were trying to sort something out. Normally, she'd never have given them a second look, but she’d waited until they left the Town Hall pub and began making their way to the Tommy's Tudor Tavern. She twisted the cigarette tight and looked for the box of matches in her pockets, lighting it without thinking about it.

Two days before, she’d put up flyers announcing tonight’s meeting at the tavern. Lawrence--the man she was staying with--said he'd known for some time that he was being watched by the Okehampton Constabulary. He'd also said that he didn’t care, which struck her as odd at the time. It wasn’t hard to spot them, he told her, and besides, what did she think they were going to do? That was a good question. There were only the five of them, he'd said, and one of them was the woman, but still, he'd never been approached, or warned off, and that was his whole point. It seemed likely that someone in the Okehampton Constabulary was a Communist sympathizer. Anywhere she'd ever been before there'd always been a threat or warning of some sort. More often than not it was directed at her. She'd never been raped--once was enough for that--but she never went out unarmed as a result.

Suddenly, she wondered if they were looking for her. It was possible the woman may have been assigned the task of findining the mysterious woman who pushed Anatoly Chernetsov off his perch. She still couldn't believe her luck as far as that went. It was nothing more than acting on impulse. He was there and she pushed him. It was a s simple as that. She knew there were people she'd spoken to while she was at the house. The Negro singer in the band coming to mind almost immediately; and that cook, the one making the pies. That didn't answer her question as to who the young man was, but she supposed he may have come from Chumley Grove. She didn't know how many constables were working out of Chumley Grove, but it was possible--anything's possible--especially since she didn't know the answer.

She walked to her bicycle where it was leaning against the side of The White Hart Hotel, dropping her cigarette on the ground and grinding her foot down on it. She checked the sack in her carrier. Sitting up on the seat, she adjusted her dress as she took one last look at the couple before she began pedalling toward George Street. The paving stones ended when she turned right at Jacob’s Pool. The pool was a small ditch about three feet wide, following a dirt track where Lawrence lived in his tiny hovel under the shade of three willow trees. There was a wood shed to the left of the hovel—she couldn’t think of what else to call it—with the outhouse a dozen feet beyond that. The yard was enclosed with a broken fence that was more broken than fence. There was a worn-out earthen patch where chickens scratched at the hard dirt and ducks waddled about looking for puddles left over from the rain. There was another fenced pen—a pig sty behind the willows—where six piglets foraged about and a large sow slept in the afternoon sun.

She made her way into the house, lifting the latch and stepping into the darkness. The room was small, cluttered with the debris of bachelorhood, and she immediately started cleaning the mess. She hated clutter as much as she hated slovenly people, and while Lawrence didn’t seem to mind the mess, she reminded herself it wasn’t her place to tell him how he should live. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room, and soon she could see stray strands of light making their way through the cracks and holes in the boards, illuminating dead spiders’ webs she told herself had probably been there for more years than she cared to imagine. He’d never think to take a broom and sweep them away.

It’s just the way a man’s mind works.

It took fifteen minutes for her to clear off the wooden table and sweep the floor. Opening the door, she picked up the mat in front of the landing, beating it against the outside of the door. She could see a cloud of dust dancing in the doorway, and closed it. She picked up the small lamp in the middle of the table and struck a match, bringing the wick to life and the dark corners with it.

The door opened and Lawrence stepped in. A gruff looking man with a walrus moustache peppered grey, he had dark eyes under heavy brows in need of a trim. What hair he had was receding--and had been for some time--leaving him with nothing more than a memory. He was wearing heavy boots caked with mud, and paused when he saw her staring at him, the broom leaning against the table beside her. She picked it up and took three steps toward him, holding the broom out.

“I’ve just swept everything.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“If it were my house, I’d say take your boots off before coming in, but it’s not.”

“Tomorrow can’t come soon enough,” he said, opening the door and stepping outside again. She could see him pulling his boots off, brushing the dried mud off his socks, as well as the cuffs of his pants. He put his boots beside the door, closing it as he stepped in and smiled at her.

“Better?”

“Are you hungry?” she asked, wondering what it was about the man that made her want to mother him. And not just him, she reminded herself, but pretty well every man she’d ever met. It didn’t matter if she was sleeping with them, or not.

“I’m good,” he said, patting his vest down, and looking about the room.

“I saw that lady Constable wondering about with somebody new. They went into the Town Hall pub,” she said, thinking it might be important.

“So?”

“I didn’t recognize him.”

“So what?”

“Nothing. I didn’t recognize him, that's all. I know every one of them, but he’s not from here. He's young, too, just a kid.”

“Is he a Constable?”

“He has that look about him; you can see that,” she added.

“So what do you want me to do, kill him? There’s been a lot of that going around lately,” he added, pulling out a chair from under the table and sitting down. He pulled a pouch out of his shirt pocket and prepared to roll a cigarette.

“No, I don’t want you to kill him,” she snapped.

“Then why tell me?”

“Because I thought you should know.”

“Why? You’re leaving. What does it matter?”

“It always matters.”

“How’d it go up at the House?” he asked, sliding the lamp over and lighting his cigarette.

“Why? What did you hear?”

“What did I hear?" he laughed, blowing a cloud of blue smoke into the air. "I heard there was an accident, is what I heard. Know anything about it? Prince Igor’s son took a tumble over the balcony, they say. Got hurt pretty bad.”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Why? Because you were there, and now you’re not.”

“Does it matter?”

“Does it matter?" he repeated, and looked up at her with a cold, hard stare. "It doesn’t matter, does it, then again, maybe it does?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? I’m talking about the fact that Anatoly Chernetsov was fucking your sister, and when he wouldn’t leave his wife for her, she killed herself."

"And where did you hear that?"

"You don’t think I know about that? Everyone in Chumley Grove knows the story. I know a lot more than you think I do. I probably know things about you, that you don’t even know.”

“And is that what they're saying I did?”

“Someone is. I’m not saying you did anything. I’m not. You can see that, right? But that new Constable you saw? The kid? It’s possible he’s investigating the accident up at the Manor, and he’s in town trying to get a line on the woman who was working there this morning--”

“You don't think I thought of that?”

“I’m not saying you did it. There were no real witnesses—so you’re good that way."

"What does that mean, no real witnesses?"

"Your husband was the same way,” he said after a moment.

“You shut your mouth! You know nothing about him?”

“What do you mean? I was there, remember? Not only was I there when he was executed, but he recruited me. You’re only here because I chose to follow him."

"You're lying. If you followed him like you claim you did, you'd be dead, too. But you're not, are you? He is, but you're not? I wonder why that is?"

"I'm alive because I know what to talk and when to keep my mouth shut. Your husband didn't know when to stop. But I’ll tell you something else that I know.”

“What?”

“It concerns the woman with the Bentley.”

“What about her?”

“I knew her late husband, too.” He dropped cigarette ashes on the floor, and rubbed them into the floor board with his foot. She looked at him and shook her head slightly. He didn’t know if she was mad at him for butting the ashes on the floor, or that he hadn’t told her about the woman's husband.

“You knew her husband? When?”

“Of course. He was one of the three innocent victims.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That doesn't surprise me. But how many people do you know that have the same last name? There's not many out there, I’ll bet--not a name as unusual as that. If they have the same name, chances are they’re related in some way, don’t you think? I'm telling you, she was married to the man.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?”

“It could’ve been her brother; a cousin? An uncle?”

“I was there.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He was quiet for a moment, silently rolling another cigarette. He hadn’t even finished the one he was smoking, and she watched a silent blue tendril snaking its way into the murky air of the room. She watched him in the silence; waiting, wondering. If he knew the Constable’s husband—as well as her own—what did that tell her?

Nothing.

“Do you think she’ll figure out who I am?” she asked, pulling the cigarette out from behind her ear and straightening it before leaning over the lamp to light it.

He looked at her closely, considered her prior activities for the party, recruiting, or trying to recruit, some of the maids and footmen when they should have been focusing on the poor angry sods like himself. They met with little success before the big man disappeared. People knew who she was.

“How can she? She probably thinks you’re nothing more than a rumour, in more ways than one.”

"What do you mean?"

"How many widows get to meet the widow of the man who killed her husband?"