“You can hardly miss it,” Alfie said.
“Anyway,” Dave said hurriedly, “Sutcliffe was making some off-color remarks, saying things like Dickie would look lovely in a wedding dress, and… well, things like that. Dickie finally lost his temper and threw his beer all over him. Then Sutcliffe got nasty and said he was going to write to the North Horsham newspaper and tell everyone he was a… well, you know.”
“Ruin his career, that would,” Alfie muttered. “I mean, most people just think he’s a bit off, you know. But you put that kind of thing in the newspaper for everyone to read, well, no one would hire him to take photographs at weddings anymore. Or anything else for that matter. Wouldn’t look right, would it.”
“Indeed it wouldn’t. What happened, then?”
Dave took up the story again. “Well, that was the strange part. Dickie stood up to him. Sounded a lot different, he did. Warned Sutcliffe to leave him alone or he’d find himself in some bad trouble. Then he asked Alfie for his key and left.”
“That’s right,” Alfie said. “He went up to his room.”
Having heard enough for the present, Elizabeth changed the subject. She finished her sherry, bought her Cornish pasties, and left, eager now to talk to the fussy photographer again. Especially since it seemed he had a very good reason to thoroughly dislike the late Brian Sutcliffe.
CHAPTER 8
Marge stood with the others and watched Nellie walk slowly up the road and disappear around the curve. Rita beckoned with an imperious wave of her hand and they set off after her. When they got quite a bit closer, Rita flapped her hand in a command for them to stop, and they halted, obeying Rita’s signal to remain silent.
Rita crept forward, bent double at the waist, using the bushes on the grass verge to shield her. One by one, the rest of the housewives crept forward. Marge was the third to go, and she had a lot of trouble bending down low enough to be hidden as she crept toward her bush.
They were too far away to hear anything, but Marge had a pretty good view of what was going on. She could see Nellie pointing down the road away from the women, saying something that made the three men turn to look in that direction.
They stood close to the edge of the cliffs, and the Jeep’s front wheels rested on top of the barbed wire that ran along the other side of the railings. It did look as if they were trying to push the Jeep over the cliffs, where it would crash to the beach below.
Marge felt a shiver go all the way down her back. Didn’t they realize there were mines hidden in the sand? No one knew where they were. If one went off when Nellie was standing that close to the edge she could get really hurt. Even killed. Marge felt sick again. They should never have let her go up there. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Nellie had turned back to the men now and seemed to be arguing with them. Marge heard Rita mutter something, and then everything happened at once.
Marge could hardly believe her eyes when she saw Nellie reach out and grab the scarf from one of the men’s faces. Rita rose to her feet, but before she had time to gather breath to yell, the man grabbed hold of Nellie while the other two dragged the Jeep back onto the road.
“Come on,” Rita roared, “after them!”
“Oh, poop,” Marge muttered, and scrambled to her feet.
Rita galloped toward Nellie, screeching at the top of her lungs. Several of the women followed her, but more at a fast walk than a trot. Marge struggled valiantly to keep up, and even managed to pass a couple of the slower members.
It was all a wasted effort, after all. Rita was within a few feet when Nellie was thrust into the back of the Jeep, all three men jumped in at once, and the vehicle bounced off across the grass and onto the coast road. By the time the rest of them caught up with Rita, Nellie and her captors had disappeared.
“All right, what do I put next?” Sadie stuck the end of the pen in her mouth and stared down at her untidy scrawl. “He’s never going to be able to read this mess.”
“He will if you write slower.” Polly bounced up and down on her bed. “You’re scribbling that as if the end of the world is coming.”
Leaning her elbows on Polly’s dressing table, Sadie sighed. “I’m not used to writing letters. I don’t write much at all, really. Once I got out of school I never bothered with it.”
“Well, you should, or you’ll forget how to do it.” She held out her hand. “Let me read it.”
Reluctantly, Sadie handed it over.
Polly scanned the few lines, a frown marring her face. “‘Dear soldier,’” she read out. “‘My name is Sadie Buttons and I work as a housemaid at the Manor House’” She looked up. “Is that all you wrote so far?”
Sadie shrugged. “I don’t know what to put.”
Polly shook her head and handed the letter back. “All right, start by telling him what you like.”
“I can’t put that in a letter!”
“Not that, silly.” Polly reached across the bed to push a hand under her pillow. “Here, read this. It’s from Marlene and she says what the soldiers want to hear.”
Sadie took the crumpled pages from her and read through them. “They want to know what my life is like and what’s going on in the village?”
“Yeah, ordinary sort of stuff. It’s what they miss most, Marlene says. Just the everyday goings on.”
“Sounds boring.” Sadie scowled. “Nothing exciting ever happens in Sitting Marsh.”
Polly gasped. “How can you say that, Sadie Buttons! Just yesterday a bloke got himself killed at a wedding.”
“I can’t tell a stranger that! He’d think we lived in a den of iniquity.”
“What does that mean?”
“I dunno, but it sounds evil.”
“Well, then, tell him about the summer fete, and about going to the pictures in North Horsham, and who your favorite film stars are, and what music you like, and your favorite song-”
“All right, all right,” Sadie muttered, scribbling like mad. “That’s enough to fill two letters.”
“Put something personal in it, too. They like that.”
Sadie dipped her pen in the inkwell, shook it, then paused. “Wonder if they’ll put Tess in prison for killing her boyfriend.”
“We don’t know if she did kill him yet.” Polly slid off the bed. “Like you said, it could’ve been an accident.”
“Well, I tell you one thing, her mother will be happy he’s dead.”
Polly gasped. “That’s an awful thing to say! No one should be happy he’s dead.”
“Well, at least she’ll be happy he won’t be marrying Tess. I heard her tell Tess that she never thought a daughter of hers would stoop so low as to associate with such filthy scum.”
Polly’s jaw dropped. “She said that? I didn’t think posh people talked like that.”
Sadie grinned. “You don’t know the half of it. I worked for a posh family in London for a while, and you wouldn’t believe half of what was going on there.”
Polly bounced back onto the bed. “Go on, tell me!”
Sadie shook her head. “Nah, I’ll tell you another time. I’ve got to get back to the manor before it gets too dark. I can’t see without me lights and it’s really creepy riding up the driveway in the pitch black.”
“Can’t you see in the moonlight?”
“I can when there’s a moon.” Sadie capped the pen, folded her letter, and got up from the chair. “There ain’t no moon tonight, though. Not for another three nights, anyway.”
Polly looked impressed. “How’d you know that?”
“I got a calendar, haven’t I.” Sadie handed her the letter. “Thanks for helping me with that.”
“I wasn’t much help.” Polly slid off the bed and picked up her own letter from the dressing table. She slipped Sadie’s letter inside and sealed it up. “There. I’ll post it tomorrow on me way up to the manor.”