15. THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS

Two teenagers want to help the unfriendly elderly Winifred

THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS

15. Damaged Goods

Inspector Greengage felt awkward at the end of the day as he made his way home. He couldn’t for the life of him see what was wrong with his thinking. The woman just had to be a savage killer, didn’t she? Women, even old women, can be as vicious as men, can’t they? Oh, it’s easy enough for her sort to play at being all ditzy and simple, like she didn’t know anything, but she can’t have lived like that, can she? Not for, what, seventy-odd years?

I mean he thought, what did she do for food? How did she pay her bills? Any taxes she owed? They can’t all be paid by imagining the money and pretending in that god-awful way of hers, can they?

In a depressed feeling of unhappiness he almost slammed the front door off its hinges as he walked into his house. Deirdre heard it and shook her head. She’d heard this sort of thing before from him. He got so involved in his work that it festered in his mind until he was little more than a pathetic, ill-tempered remnant of the exciting beast he’d been when they married all those years ago. Then he would never have slammed the door. He’d have had his trousers round his ankles as he walked in! Well, maybe not quite.

She’d get him back to the chapel and they could pray together. That would calm him down even if he didn’t believe there was anyone answering his prayers. That was his blind spot, his refusal to see the bright shining light of love in the Heavens

“What is it now?” she shouted.

He called her dreary rather than Deirdre and when her own voice came back to her she thought she knew the reason why. He wasn’t the only one because she’d lost the sparkle of the good old days as well, and that loss was reflected in every word she spoke, and she knew it,

“There’s this woman,” he growled, “she’s as guilty as sin, I know it, but she fools everyone else into believing she’s a ditzy creature without a working brain cell. Yet she lives with two corpses! I mean, who lives with even one corpse? But she had her mother dead in bed and a man, goodness knows who he is, buried in the back garden. And she pretends she didn’t kill them!”

“Are you sure of her guilt, darling?” she asked. Where did that darling come from? It’s an age since I used a word like that! I don’t even call my God darling, and that’s got to be saying something.

“Of course I am!” he grunted, “I’ve spent the best part of my life getting to know people! I know her, all right.”

“You’ve thought you knew people before,” chided Deirdre, “and you got it not quite right. What about that Superintendent of yours, when he was just an Inspector and you were a sergeant and he took a fancy to your cheeky grin? At that party? Remember? When he said it was an accident when he nudged you where he shouldn’t have, and actually winked at you?”

“It was an accident! People get the wrong idea of folks. He’s a good man, and he’s married to Rosemary, and she’s a darned good officer.”

“Tell me about the old woman who’s upset you, then?” asked Deirdre, “let’s see if I can help.”

“Well, if you go into Brumpton Woods, the trees and things that follow the course of the River Grentle and terminate at the new council estate and shopping centre at Islandwood you come, after about a mile or so, on what looks like a derelict old cottage on your right facing out of Brumpton. That’s where she lives and that’s where the bodies were found! An old woman, all skeleton, she must have reeked rotten as she decomposed, propped up in bed as if she’d just nodded off, and in the garden the remains of a man, again his flesh rotted away.”

“You mean, what’s her name, Winifred Winterbotham?” asked Deirdre.

“You’ve heard of her? Because that’s what I was told she waa called.”

“There’s not a fault in her, Ricky! I’ve stopped by and talked to her a time or two when I’’ve been out on my bicycle! She’s not great when it comes to conversation and is obsessed by the old war and Hitler. But basically she’s the loneliest person I’ve ever met. I’ve even been inside that awful cottage of hers, but I didn’t see any skeleton in a bed. Instead it was lonely and dreadful and drear.”

“She keeps that bedroom door shut,” growled the Inspector.

“She does well, then. You know, there’s no gas or electricity in that place, just a wood-burning old stove that she uses for heating the place up, and cooking if she’d got anything to cook. The only water she has is in a large water butt and if there’s not much rain that gets pretty empty. Yet she gets by and she’s a good Christian soul, though she’s hard put to remember her prayers.”

“I find that last bit hard to believe! Dead bodies, Deirdre! Someone had to kill them!”

Greengage snorted, and made his way upstairs. All this talk of death and rotting bodies and decomposition made him feel soiled. He wanted a shower, and he was going to have one.

“I might pop along and see her tomorrow,” ventured Deirdre.

“She’s under investigation, so you keep your nose out,” he called down from the bathroom.

“I can go that way if I want, and nobody can stop me! This isn’t a police state yet, you know, even though it seems to be getting that way.” she snapped back at him.

“Bah!” came his monosyllabic reply as he slammed the bathroom door.

Meanwhile, Enid and Anthony decided to cycle along the river road to the shops at Islandwood in case it was there that Winifred managed to get some shopping done because it was still on the girl’s mind that a woman needs more than imaginary food if she is going to stay alive, which she most clearly had, and for quite a few years at that by the look of her. It had turned out to be a balmy autumn, which set Enid rattling on about global warming, but they nonetheless found the ride pleasant, with the river to their right and the sprawling mass of Brumpton Woods to their left.

Islandwood centre had grown up a few years ago, serving a new estate of both council and private housing as well as being an out-of-town shopping centre for others, and it was a busy place, a modern shopping centre with a great deal of glass as well as shiny faux marble for the shoppers to walk on.

There was one older shop just outside its entrance, though, a busy enough but older premises that seemed to sell everything under the sun as well as canned food and fresh vegetables on display outside.

“I’ll bet this is where she does her shopping,” whispered Enid, “look, they’ve got bargains galore! Cut prices on those tins over there:” she pointed to a huge bin in which tins were piled in a come-and-get-me haphazard sort of way

“Let’s have a look,” suggested Anthony, and they walked in.

“They seem to be damaged,” suggested Enid, picking up a badly dented tin of what the label proclaimed was rice pudding.

“Are you shopping, dears?” asked an assistant, curious that two young people should be thinking of doing a grocery shop there.

“I wonder, could you help us?” said Anthony quietly, “there’s an elderly lady who lives in the woods…”

“Ah, that’ll be Winifred, bless her,” replied the assistant, “she comes here with her basket and we haven’t the heart to charge her for the few very damaged tins she is allowed by Mr Broxtowe to take away with her, not that they’re saleable. She’s been coming here for years, and her ma before her.”

“Goodness me!” replied Enid, “I mean, fancy that! We saw her the other day and she was in trouble with the police by the look of it.”

“They’ll get nothing out of her, dear,” smiled the assistant, “for the simple reason she ain’t got anything to give! The poor soul, all alone in the world, and nothing to do but sit in the dark and hope someone gives her the odd candle. Mr Broxtowe slips a few in her basket, you know, I’ve seen him, but he’d hit the ceiling if one of us assistants took it in our heads to do the same. He can be a brick, can Mr Broxtowe, but he likes to be his own brick.”

“We’ll have to get back, Ant,” said Enid, noticing that the first shades of evening seemed to be casting shadows around them and wanting to get back home for her evening meal before her mother gave up on any idea of her daughter returning in time to eat it.

“But first, I’ll buy half a dozen of these tins for Winifred,” decided Anthony, surprising himself, “How much will that be?” he asked when he’d selected a few.

“Just a mo,” said the assistant, and she went to speak to a man who was obviously the manager, standing at a till near the entrance to the shop.

“I told him you were shopping for Winifred, and he said you can take them. They’re all from the bargain basket which is mostly dented and out of date stuff. But he wants 10p for the bag! It’s the law, he says.”

“Okay,” smiled Anthony, and he handed over a single coin. “Tell your boss thanks a lot. Winifred might be pleased with us for this!”

“Or knowing her, she won’t and will think you’re Nazi stormtroopers ready to rob and pillage,” grinned the assistant.

Then they left the shop. There were other stores around but neither of the teenagers had much in the way of money on them and bearing in mind that evening was falling, they made their way along the river path, and branched off towards the cottage in the woods when they got close enough. There was a wretched little path leading directly towards it and they worked out that it must have been made by the elderly woman herself because neither of them could think of anyone else walking that way..

“It’s sad, you know,” murmured Enid, “that this path, this short length of earth, is probably the only mark Winifred has made on the planet.”

When they got to Huckelberry Cottage she was standing where they’d seen her last time they had come that way. She looked their way, and scowled.

“We’ve got these for you,” said Anthony, holding the bag towards her.

“Don’t want!” she shrieked, “don’t want foul stuff from th’ commandant!”

“We got them from the shop you go to,” Enid tried to assure her.

But she wasn’t going to listen. Possibly for not the first time that week she’d run out of words.

Anthony placed the bag on the cottage side of her gate, and the two youngsters climbed onto their bikes.

“We’ll leave them here,” smiled Enid, “there’s some beans and sausage in one of those tins. You’ll probably enjoy those!”

“Bah!” she shouted, monosyllabic and sharp.

© Peter Rogerson 26.01.23

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