A Dark and Stormy Night (10 page)

It took every bit of self-discipline I possessed to keep moving forward, keep on shining my torch into every gaping hole, under every fallen trunk, around every upright tree – not that there were many of those. Once I stepped on something, a branch or a round stone, that rolled under my foot and nearly brought me down. I stifled my cry, but it brought an immediate response from the men on either side. ‘All right, D.?' Tom called, while Jim said, ‘Wait there, I'm coming.'

‘No, don't. I'm fine. Just . . . banged my elbow.' No need to make them feel they needed to protect me. I'm not a fragile person, and I've never thought of myself as elderly, though I suppose I am. If I fell, I'd do my best to be quiet about it.

I've never known how long we kept on putting one foot in front of the other, flashing our lights here and there, hoping and fearing to find someone – or some
thing
. I had reached the point where almost any discovery would have been welcome, if only to put an end to the nightmare.

It was Alan and his party who found them. We heard shrill whistles blown in the agreed-upon pattern, and when we turned to look, lights were flashing into the air. Jim called to me. ‘Dorothy, stand still and shout, and point your light in the direction of my voice. I'll find you.' When he had reached me, and had tied his tether to my wrist, Tom had found both of us, and did the same. In single file, with agonizing slowness now that we longed to rush, we made our way to the designated meeting point at the back of the house.

Alan did a quick head count, and then said soberly, ‘There is no easy way to say this. We have found Mr Harrison. I'm afraid he has drowned. Mr Upshawe was nearby, badly hurt. We're rigging up a stretcher for him and will bring him back to the house. He needs medical attention, but as he is the only doctor present . . .' Alan made a helpless gesture.

‘And Julie?' asked Joyce in a whisper. ‘No one has found Julie?'

‘We found no trace of her. I'm sorry.'

TEN

‘
W
e'll go out again as soon as it's light,' Alan said to me. ‘For now, Upshawe is our chief concern.'

We were all huddled in the library. None of us had had much appetite for Mrs Bates's excellent boeuf bourguignon, a fact she had accepted philosophically. Mr Bates had collected some dry wood and built a big fire, but we couldn't seem to get warm, despite the blankets and afghans that Joyce had dispensed. There was no general conversation. We sat about in groups of two or three, talking quietly. All of us, I think, had the same passionate wish: that somehow we could get out of here and pretend this weekend had never happened.

The vicar, Mr Leatherbury, had remained to pray over the body of Dave Harrison before the men used their makeshift stretcher a second time and brought him back to the stables. They were occupied now only by cars. Joyce and Jim didn't ride, and planned, when they could, to turn part of the building into a workshop, with heat and electricity. For now it was simply a large space. The cars could be turned out, and it was the coldest place on the property that could be properly secured. Harrison was now definitely a secondary concern; there were too many other critical issues to face.

‘How is Laurence?' I asked.

Alan shrugged and waggled a hand. ‘Holding his own, I presume. Bates has some first-aid training, and naturally I do. Bates was, fortunately, the one who found him, and had the sense to get me there before moving him at all. Then the vicar came, and the three of us we did what we could. We kept Joyce away, though of course we told her a little. The vicar is sitting with him, but he needs a doctor.'

‘What actually happened to him?'

‘When he comes out of his coma – if he does – we'll know more. From what little we could see at the scene, there had been some kind of a struggle on the riverbank. We found Upshawe lying with his head on a stone; that, presumably, is what knocked him out, although he also has a bad bruise on the left side of his jaw. Harrison's case looks like simple drowning. We could just make out tracks where he apparently lost his footing in the mud and simply slid off. Jim says the bank is undercut just there. You can't see it now, with the river in flood and over its banks, but apparently once Harrison was in the water, he would have had a hard time pulling himself out, even if he was conscious and could swim.'

‘He couldn't swim?'

‘We don't know, love.'

And if we can't find Julie, we may never know, I thought. ‘So Dave and Laurence had a fight.'

‘It looks that way, certainly.'

‘But
why
? What would those two have to fight about?'

‘That's the question, isn't it? But let's defer it till morning, my dear. This day has been a thousand years long, and I'm for my bed.'

One of the supremely competent Bateses had found extra blankets for everyone, so we slept warmly enough. Alan woke once in the middle of the night to go check on Laurence Upshawe, but when I asked him about the man's condition, he just shook his head and went back to sleep.

He was awake at first light. ‘Don't get up, love,' he told me. ‘It's absolutely freezing in here; you might as well stay in bed where it's warm. I need to get back to searching for Julie.'

But the bed cooled rapidly without Alan's comforting presence, and I couldn't sleep anyway, so I dressed in my warmest clothes and went downstairs in search of coffee.

Mrs Bates, as usual, was efficiency itself. Coffee and tea were standing ready, along with ham (cold) and eggs (boiled), toast, and a steaming pot of oatmeal at one corner of the fireplace.

‘I'm sorry I can't give you proper eggs and bacon, Mrs Martin,' she said when I walked in, ‘but the fire in the Aga's just about cold, and John's out with the search party. There's porridge if you fancy it, just for something hot.'

‘We used to call it oatmeal back where I come from, and it's always been my ultimate comfort food. And I think you're marvellously inventive, coping as you have with a non-functional kitchen.'

‘I enjoy a challenge,' she said as she ladled out a generous portion of oatmeal. ‘I must thank you, by the way, for dealing with lunch yesterday. John and I were both needed elsewhere, as you could see.'

‘Was it only yesterday? It seems like an eternity ago. I hated to invade your kitchen. It's good of you to take it so well.'

Having thus completed the civilities, I asked her to sit and have some coffee with me. ‘Is no one else up yet? Except for the searchers, I mean.'

‘Joyce went out with them. And the vicar was down a bit ago. He took some coffee and toast back up to Mr Upshawe's room. I think he doesn't like to leave him.'

‘Did he say anything about how the poor man's doing?'

‘Only that he's still unconscious.'

We sat in companionable silence while I demolished my bowl of oatmeal and poured myself another cup of coffee.

‘Mrs Bates – what is your first name, by the way? If you don't mind my asking.'

‘Rose. No, I don't mind. It's John who's so stubborn about being called Mister.'

‘Well, then, I'm Dorothy. Are you from these parts, Rose?'

‘Born in Branston village, but they closed the village school before I was old enough to start, so I had to go to the comprehensive in Shepherdsford. My father had flown the coop by that time, so mum moved us to Shepherdsford to be closer to the school. There were three of us kids. She had to take a job as a cashier at Tesco.'

Rose sipped her coffee.

‘Not an easy life,' I said.

‘Not easy, no. That's why I worked so hard in school. I was determined I was going to have marketable skills. I got four A-levels – you know what those are?'

I nodded. ‘Advanced examinations for the college-bound. University, I mean.'

‘Yes, well, I actually won a scholarship to uni, but by that time I knew I could cook. Really cook, you know. So I went to the Cordon Bleu school in London instead, and once I got out I could take my pick of jobs.'

‘I admit I was a little surprised to find a cook of your calibre in a private home. I'd have thought someone with your incredible skills would be at the Ivy or somewhere like that – some posh London restaurant.'

‘I don't care for London. Oh, I could make more money there, but believe me, I do all right here, and I prefer the country. I suppose you could say my roots are here.'

‘Is your mother still living?'

Rose's face lit up. ‘She lives in Branston, in a lovely new house we bought her, John and I. Fresh as new paint, all the latest labour-saving devices, and a beautiful garden. Mum always loved her flowers, but she didn't have time for them when we lived in Shepherdsford. Nor the space, either. Our front garden in that nasty little house was about three feet square, and wouldn't grow anything but weeds.'

‘And your husband, is he—'

A commotion at the back kitchen door interrupted me. Rose ran to see what was the matter, and opened the door to Alan and the other men, two of them bearing between them a blanket-wrapped bundle.

‘Julie?' I cried.

‘Julie,' Alan answered.

‘Is she—'

‘She's all right, except for being nearly frozen to death. Mrs Bates, can you heat some water, please? We're going to need lots of warm compresses.'

The next hour or so passed in a blur. John brought in enough wood for several fires and kindled one, first, in the Aga, and then in all the downstairs fireplaces and Julie's bedroom. Meanwhile Julie was tucked into bed with lots of blankets, with Rose spooning hot, sweet tea into her a teaspoon at a time.

When she was finally warm she was left to sleep, with Joyce at her side, and I was able to question Alan in the privacy of our room.

‘Where was she?'

‘In an old shed, or hut of some sort, a couple of miles away. I suppose it must have belonged to a farm on the estate years ago, or maybe it was a shepherd's hut, but it's obviously been derelict for a very long time. There was nothing in it but a few rusted pieces of iron, bits of ancient tools, probably.'

‘So what on earth was she doing
there
?'

‘Hiding,' said my husband laconically.

Julie had, he said, been too cold and confused when they found her to say much. But from the way she had shrunk against the wall of her shelter when they entered, Alan could tell that she saw them as pursuers rather than rescuers. She had, in fact, tried to run from them, but she was too weak to get out of the hut.

‘Does she know about Dave?'

‘Nobody's told her.'

The answer was ambiguous. My eyes met Alan's. ‘So you think . . .' I said slowly.

‘Love, I don't think anything yet. Too much has happened too fast. First the body under the tree—'

‘Sounds like the title for a mystery novel,' I interrupted, flippantly. ‘There was one like that, actually, some years back.
My Foe Outstretch'd Beneath the Tree.
V. C. Clinton-Baddeley.'

‘Yes, dear,' said my husband patiently. ‘Stolen from William Blake, I believe. Then Harrison after the skeleton – and Upshawe – and now Julie. There has to be a connection, but I'm blest if I can see it.'

‘It was the skeleton that started it all. Finding him, I mean. Somebody buried that man and never wanted, or expected, him to be found.'

‘And let's face it, Dorothy. The most logical person to be upset by the man's premature resurrection is Upshawe.'

‘But he was attacked himself! He's a victim, not the villain.'

‘Yes? Or did he simply slip and fall while fighting with Harrison?'

‘Alan, none of it makes any sense. Why Harrison, of all people? Just because he's – he was, I mean – a boor and a thug and all the rest of it? His character, or lack of it, was a good reason to dislike him, to heartily wish him elsewhere, but surely it wasn't enough reason to kill him.'

‘You'd be surprised at how little motive murder sometimes requires. But if you don't like that scenario, turn it around. Harrison started the fight; Upshawe was defending himself.'

‘But why, Alan, why? What could Harrison have against a man he'd barely met?'

‘Harrison was drunk, remember. Well, we won't know that for certain until the autopsy, but it seems a reasonable conclusion, since he was last seen with a full bottle of whiskey in hand.'

‘The bottle, Alan! Jim said it wasn't in their room. You haven't found it, have you?'

‘I've been a bit too busy searching for Julie.'

‘Oh, I know, and I didn't mean to sound . . . anyway, if you could find it, it would tell you something about where Dave went, and probably Julie, too. It could be a clue!'

‘Yes, Nancy.' He grinned at me and ruffled my hair.

‘OK, make fun. But I'm far too old for Nancy Drew. Jessica, if you must. Now look, my dearest love. We're cut off from any of your normal resources. No medical examiners, pathologists, crime lab people. All we have to work with is our minds. And— oh, wait! We do have one essential scene-of-crime man.'

The light dawned for both of us at the same moment. ‘Oh, good grief! Dorothy, I've been an idiot. Why didn't I think sooner – we have a photographer!'

‘Yes, and a really, really good one. I don't suppose he's trained to do police work, but I'll bet if you tell him exactly what you want, he'll get great pictures. He brought lots of film; he said so. And he's got a digital camera, too, if necessary.'

‘He could be a godsend,' said Alan fervently. ‘As soon as we've had some lunch, I'm going to sic him on the skeleton.'