Quid Pro Quo

Chapter Twenty Three

I woke late and awash with a thick sweat. The morning was hot and humid, unusually so for early summer, and the air heavy with squadrons of flies; each seeking a tasty vein for breakfast.

I had shared the knowledge of Luca Brasi with the others last night. We had talked through the possibilities and the meaning of the message Morgan Edge intended us to find. When the fire in the hearth had burned low we retired to bed, unsure but feeling on the cusp of doing something remarkable. Martha in particular was in electric mood as she closed in on the archaeological find of a lifetime. We all now believed that Morgan and Professor Wimple must have recovered the votive sword and shield and had stashed them away for some reason.

I rolled out of the hayloft and enjoyed a brief shower, the water lukewarm and refreshing in the early morning heat. Once dressed, I found a note attached to a loaf of bread left in the kitchen.

Martha's solicitor had managed to secure the release of the professor's bank statements. Ty had taken her into town to get hold of them, and maybe pick up a few more items she needed.

I lit a small fire in the grate and toasted several slices of thick granary bread, spreading them with honey that Edge had bartered from a farmer who kept bees on his land at the edge of the Pebble Deeping. I was still peckish, having eaten only a salad the previous evening, and I really fancied an egg. I wandered through the village, nodding and saying a few hello's to folk who were out walking dogs, or dead-heading their rose bushes.

The dented brass bell above the door tinkled merrily when I entered the Post Office-cum-General Store. Eliza Petunia Emery-Stanthorpe, the decrepit shopkeeper, shuffled out from behind a mountainous pyramid of assorted tins like the mummy from a 1930s B-movie; all stiff joints and moaning. She peered towards me, screwing her eyes up in an effort to focus.

"Hello there, Eliza!" I called, overly-loud but conscious of the fact that she was as deaf as a post. She lifted the thick-lensed glasses hanging around her neck which, with its dangling flap of wrinkled skin, made her look like an ancient turkey.

"Oh, it's you Satchmo. How are you today? Hot is it?" she blinked lethargically, the action pronounced and magnified by the powerful lenses of her glasses.

"Yes, a real belter." I theatrically mopped the beads of sweat from my brow. The shop itself was cool, partly due to the thick stone walls that comprised the old building and partly due to the heavy velvet curtains that were drawn across the shop's two small windows. The atmosphere inside was gloomy and a little musty.

"I can't stand it, me. It ain't natural," she muttered and turned back to the pile of tins which she had been stacking. She bent tortuously to retrieve two more cans from a cardboard box that had yellowed with age, before creaking back into an upright position and straining to reach the top of a pyramid that must have taken her marginally longer to build than the pharaohs.

I crossed the shop floor and took the cans from her, placing them gingerly atop the pile. I was conscious that if a shaky hand brought the lot down, it would swallow Eliza's tiny frame like a mudslide. I had visions of her spindly stocking-clad legs jutting from beneath a mound of tins in a photo on the front page of the local paper.

"You're a good lad, Satchmo," she patted me on the behind. "What can I do for you today?" She asked.

"I fancy some eggs please," I replied. Eliza muttered, doddering to the back of the store where she ferreted about beneath the counter, finally placing a cardboard carton in front of me.

"Duck. Fresh this morning," she said. I opened the box to inspect them for cracks and Eliza nodded her silent approval at my customer nouse. I imagine caveat emptor would be carved on her headstone, although at the rate she was going she may well outlive us all and I'd never find out.

"There was a man in today asking about that nice young Dr. Wimple," she said, watching me with darting eyes.

"Really?" I asked, not paying much attention.

"Yes, bad egg ..." she chortled at her own joke. "Shaved head. I told him I had never heard of her. I don't like those city types. Sold him some chocolate, though."

"Did you get his name? What did he want?" I asked, immediately both alarmed and curious.

"Oh, I don't know..." her voice faded away as her mind danced to another place. "That's a pound to you, Satchmo," she said, returning to the present with a snap of lucidity. I fished in my pocket for some change.

"Course, it won't last..." she said, absently.

"What?" I replied.

"Oh, the heat, it won't last. No, there's a storm coming." She sniffed audibly at the air. I smelled dust. Evidently, Eliza could smell rain clouds approaching. "That'll freshen things up, let me tell you."

I paid for the eggs and made to leave the shop. I briefly entertained the thought that, in times gone by, Eliza would most likely have been burned as a witch. Very little slipped past her; be it village news or the divination of ailment and weather.

"I like a nice drop of rain, me... Oh yes, storm's definitely coming," she pronounced darkly as I left the shop and emerged into bright sunlight beneath a cloudless sky.

*

I sat in the shade, beating duck eggs in a bowl with a little fresh cow's milk. The golden yolks danced as I whisked them ferociously with a large fork. I wondered who had been asking after Martha in the shop. Maybe it was her solicitor, or perhaps an old acquaintance of her father had come to the village to pay his respects.

Then there was the possibility that it was the man who had burned her house down.

That was the option I was least fond of, but it had to be considered. I pondered the mystery of Luca Brasi sleeping with the fishes again and drew no nearer to solving it.

I scrambled the eggs with plenty of melted butter and ate them straight from the pan with wedges of bread. By the time I had eaten, the sun was high in the sky and the heat and humidity had risen appreciably. I ambled down the meadow and sat on the riverbank, took off shoes and socks, and dangled my bare feet in the water, making little splashes by wiggling my toes. The air was alive with the buzzing of small insects, and I could see the ripples made by the mouths of fish when they rose to the surface to take any flies that had crash-landed.

I lay back on the bank, my hands cupped behind my head, looking up at the powder blue sky that was now dotted here and there with puffy white clouds. I took a deep breath and held it.

Something was off; out of place. The air was sweet as I had come to expect, but it was tainted by something; an acrid tang that caught the back of my throat slightly.

I sat up and looked around. It did not take me too long to identify the source of the smell.

Piled a few metres down the bank were the guts of a fish that Ty had cleaned at some point. The knotted innards were thick with a layer of fat black flies who were earnestly working across the surface. The heat had made the flesh decompose quickly, and the odour was high.

I didn't know why, but I felt the urge to do something with the remains; to clean them away out of respect for the animal, or the freshness of the air. Burying it seemed fitting as the rest of the fish had served me well, but not well enough to compel me to walk back up the meadow to find an implement to dig with.

I supposed that I could cover it with some undergrowth, but after some time I decided merely to flick it back into the river with a suitably sturdy stick, thus sending it back from whence it came.