Freddy was happily watching the stew cook on the hotplate by the fire. I had prepared him a meal just in case Matthew was not so angry as to go alone to Warren Barn. I sincerely hoped not, but he had been outside for a long time and I fidgeted and waited and fussed around the house until Freddy finally lost patience and told me to go away and mess about with the ponies. Taking orders from Freddy was a new one and I realised that I really needed to pull myself together.
Matthew was bending over the engine again and he barely even glanced at me as I stepped up through the doorway. I let my hands rest on the grill at the front of the car and concentrated hard on keeping my voice level.
“Are we still going?”
“You still want to come?” he asked, without lifting his attention from the nameless piece of metal that was being worked beneath his oiled fingers. His voice was as flat as mine.
“Matthew! Please!” I begged, losing all pretence with a rush.
He looked up at that. For a moment his face looked hard and full of icy feeling, only then it softened. “I’m sorry, Eleanor – I’m not really angry with you, it’s not your fault. It’s just that all this skulking around in the shadows is getting a bit much, that’s all.” He reached out his hand and it hovered above mine for a moment. There may have been a light whisper of contact from the very tips of his fingers but then the hand clenched into a ball and dropped away again.
Finally he said in a carefully measured tone, “I’d appreciate it if you came. You’ll make a much more credible witness than I could.”
I hung about while he finished the car, but he didn’t speak again. The line of his jaw seemed fixed by the unhappy tension that had settled about him and although it lightened a little as I curiously set about examining the contents of my father’s ancient tool box, his mouth sharply contracted again when, with timely irony, it transpired that John’s playful interference had drained what little power was left in the battery. Shamefaced and quietly cursing that man’s name, I sought out the crank, passed it to him and then climbed silently into the driver’s seat.
The handle jumped sharply as the engine kicked into life and Matthew had to hastily snatch his hand away before it could batter his fingers. I was ready with my foot to depress the accelerator but it still took a token cough and a splutter for the car to settle to a steady rumbling, and I climbed out again to hover nervously beside a newly arrived Freddy while Matthew gave it one final check. With a light touch to the pedal, the engine picked up and as soon as he was satisfied that it was running smoothly Matthew stepped out, closed the bonnet and beckoned me towards the car once more.
Leaving Freddy as a lookout, I drifted over only to stop, my eyes running from him to the open door and back to him again. He was looking at me expectantly.
“Hang on a minute,” I said, backing away in genuine alarm. “You never said anything about making me drive.”
Behind me, I heard Freddy stifle a giggle and there was a momentary lightening of the serious mood as he firmly guided me into the driver’s seat. He shut the door. “I’m sure you’ll be fine – just don’t let it stall …”
Matthew climbed in through the passenger door onto the pokey back seat and then settled himself low so that he could just see the road ahead but a casual passer-by would be unlikely to notice him. Not likely, I thought grimly as I put the car painfully into gear, they’ll be too busy leaping for cover.
The car, in a moment of charitable kindness, did not stall. It took me a while to get the hang of smoothly depressing the accelerator but I managed to navigate the bends through the inexplicably busy village without killing anyone so personally I was quite impressed. Leaving the cluster of mercifully distracted old ladies, their stray dogs and a suicidal cockerel behind, we swung past the empty gates of the Manor without seeing a soul and then we were streaking down the steep hill into thicker fog towards the Washbrook junction at the bottom. The road was awash, melt-water and ice running in great sheets down the crude metalled surface and I wondered if Matthew had been correct to decree that we would go this way, avoiding the risk of exposure by a brief stint on the main road.
“Er …” Matthew said hesitantly from somewhere near my left ear. The car was gaining speed at quite a rate and I had to fling the wheel hard over to make the first of the many bends. “The gate? … Eleanor!”
As we flew down towards the next corner I saw it and remembered at the same time. Somehow the fact that this was a gated road had completely slipped my mind. I stamped on the brake and the clutch and the wheels locked, wearing millimetres of tread on the ice-damaged surface as, with a horribly high-pitched whining sound, the gate raced upwards out of the white glare to meet us.
“You can open your eyes again now.” Matthew’s voice was slightly less controlled than usual. “We’ve stopped.”
My fingers were gripping the steering-wheel so tightly that my nails were digging into the palms of my hand and, rather unsteadily, I slipped the gear into neutral before reaching to open the door.
Matthew’s arm shot past me as he lunged for the handbrake. “I’ll put that on, shall I?”
I threw him an evil look.
The drive to the bottom of the hill went considerably more smoothly, despite the river that appeared to be running down the roadway, and the gate at the bottom was opened and closed without so much as turning a hair as we rolled on towards the descriptively named Washbrook. This stream, swelling grossly with the newly melting snow, had escaped the normally shallow bounds of its crossing and was dirtily fording the road with intimidating force, but I managed to ease the car through without either flooding the engine or grinding to a halt in the middle. Quite impressive I thought, although the occasional sharp intake of breath by my ear suggested that my companion was not quite so admiring.
The run up the hill was relatively easy by comparison, snaking past the Keeper’s Cottage with its tidy allotment garden and up onto the level road that formed a branch of the ancient ridgeway. The surface was drier here and the fog less oppressive, and the surrounding landscape seemed suddenly awash with colour as we cruised past the impressive Park gates and then turned off to swing down the winding road that would eventually lead to the village. There, at long last, the road turned onto the rough farm track, steeply dropping below the invisible gaze of the house high on its cloud-bound ridge and winding round the hill and out of range onto the Warren Barn fields at its feet.
I slowed to a crawl as we neared the farm, dimming the headlights and trusting on nothing unexpected meeting us on the trackway. The dripping roofs of the stone barn and crumbling outhouse were just visible as shapeless masses over the brow of the hill and I could see Matthew’s nose out of the corner of my eye as he scanned the terrain for a suitable place in which to conceal ourselves.
“There,” he said, pointing into the wooded copse beside us on the hillside.
I eased the car past before reversing back up the narrow dirt track into the trees. Although he said nothing, I felt rather proud of myself for not veering off into the undergrowth and, killing the engine, I turned in my seat to look at him expectantly. His eyes were narrowed as he surveyed the muted scene. Then, abruptly and without a word to me, he folded the passenger seat forwards and climbed out.
“Stay here,” he mouthed through the glass as if I had any intention of wandering. I settled down in my seat to wait.
The straggling array of farm buildings lay about three-hundred yards away just beyond the shoulder of the hill and through the unhelpful blur of thickened haze I could just see what might have been a gleam of grey metal nosing out of the darker shape of heavy barn doors. The house lay further downhill and only the very faintest suggestion of its roof could be made out from behind a fringe of trees, and that only because I knew it was there. It was eerie waiting alone in the car, trying not to think about it and yet knowing all the while that two men, armed and lethal, were still about somewhere. The whole place seemed dead and abandoned; there were no signs of life except for that same raven which was somewhere nearby, calling hoarsely, and the few pheasants which were scuttling about in their brainless fashion on the grass. I suppressed a cold shiver of apprehension. It was hard to resist the urge to keep turning around to check that the two men were not behind.
Not surprisingly, I very nearly screamed when the car door opened and Matthew climbed in beside me. I hadn’t heard his approach at all.
“Any sign of them?” I asked, somehow managing to sound much more nonchalant than I felt. “I saw their car.”
“Yes, they’re here; in the barn as before – which pretty much tells us where to concentrate our search.”
“It does? Oh. Good.” A pause. “What do we do now then?”
“We wait. They must eat sometime; my guess is that they go somewhere else.”
“Oh,” I repeated lamely. We sat there in silence, saying nothing and doing nothing except listening to the car tick as it cooled. A rabbit hopped by and it reminded me of dinner.
The sun was dipping lower in the sky so that the effect of its muted halo was barely showing at all anymore across the streaked and snow scarred grass, and I hoped it would not turn to a heavy frost when night fell; my toes were already feeling chilly. There were sheep droppings everywhere but no sign of the culprits; evidence, I presumed, that the fields were let out to someone else as Jamie most definitely had never been a farmer.
“Stop fidgeting,” Matthew suddenly said, making me jump. He had spoken quite coolly without taking his eyes from the ghosted barn but a faint smile was threatening to show at the corners of his mouth and I had to resist the urge to stick my tongue out at him.
We sat there for a while longer, watching nothing happen, before I finally broke the impasse. “So did you look in the Colonel’s rooms too?”
“No.” His gaze didn’t falter from its attention on the vacant trackway. “His office was locked.”
“Oh,” I said uselessly. I might have added ‘You didn’t bother, did you?’ but I held my tongue.
An uncomfortable silence yawned between us once again. An owl twitted shyly and I waited for the usual quavering twooo in reply from across the valley. Instead, its muted question was answered by the coarse cooing of a woodpigeon and judging by its volume, it was thoroughly determined to make its presence known before the day was finally forced to surrender to the growing dusk.
“What do we actually know about your John?”
Matthew’s abrupt question shattered the tentative peace completely. I looked at him in surprise, forgetting to correct him on the ‘your John’. “What do you mean?”
He kept his gaze level on the unmoving car but his fingers were fiddling with the window catch as he expanded on his query. “Where did he fight, for example?”
“He didn’t fight. He was signed off as unfit for active service.”
“Was he?”
Matthew’s voice was perfectly level but the increase of tension in the car was palpable and I realised with a sinking feeling just where exactly this line of questioning was going. I said; “Don’t you remember what happened to his leg? It’s amazing he can even walk.”
Matthew frowned. “He doesn’t look particularly lame to me. In fact I don’t really recall him ever being that badly hurt. Is there a chance – no, listen for a minute – a chance that Jamie found out it was a lie? Perhaps Jamie found evidence that he had forged his injuries. Maybe that was what he wanted to tell me. You can go to prison for that, you know.”
“And then what?” I asked, struggling to keep my tone light. “John murdered him to save his own skin?”
“You have to admit it’s a theory.”
“A pretty lame one,” I said. His frown deepened at my poor attempt at a pun and I sighed. “Fine. There are several reasons why this theory is utter rubbish. One – I saw John’s fall from his horse and it wasn’t pretty. Trust me when I say there was bone, and it really wasn’t where it should have been. He was in hospital for a very long time, but you won’t remember that because you were away in London doing your studies. Two – I thought we were here to find out what it is that those two are hiding which, although I may be being presumptuous, I imagine is a touch more valuable than a pair of crutches. And three,” I took a breath before finishing, “I should have thought that you of all people would know better than to be accusing perfectly innocent bystanders on utterly flimsy grounds. Particularly when that person was elsewhere at the time. With witnesses.”
This time it was Matthew’s turn to say, “Oh.”
There was another very long pause, then he said, “But what if …”
I cut across him quickly. I was getting heartily sick of being put on the defensive about John. “Look; I don’t mean to be rude, but John is one of my oldest friends and I think I can safely say that he’s not prone to murderous tendencies. Can we just leave it until we get some tangible evidence?”
“Of course. I’m sorry. I was forgetting that he was one of your particular friends.”
There was an unpleasant emphasis on the ‘particular’ and I very nearly snapped at that. Instead I pressed my lips tightly shut and concentrated hard on simply breathing. I felt like screaming at him. It was unfair, and utterly absurd that having so ruthlessly denied me the comforting prop of my own resentment, he should be subjecting me to the worst of his. I opened my mouth, not to scream, but to say something, anything that might defuse the tension but when I dared to glance at him, his expression was so formidable that the words died on my lips.
Jealous…
The thought came unbidden and was dismissed just as quickly. I stared hard out of the window once more but there was still no sign of life at the barn. The pale outline of the sun had very nearly vanished behind the valley ridge that flanked the farmhouse and the air was noticeably cooler though it was not yet dark. Another rabbit, or possibly the same one, hopped by completely oblivious to our presence; I was surprised that it couldn’t sense the tension.
Finally, I said rather cautiously, “Can we talk about something else?”
“Of course.” His reply was a little abrupt but then, after a moment, he turned to look at me and with an effort to sound pleasant, said, “What are your plans for the future?”
I think that the question had been meant innocently enough but I was feeling so sensitive about any possible reference to John that like a fool I snapped some curt meaningless reply.
Matthew blinked at my spiteful tone. Then his mouth curled into a sneer and he turned back to gazing at the barn again. “Sorry. As you’ve already told me, it’s none of my business, is it?”
Shame hit me painfully in the stomach once more and made me forget my reserve long enough to touch his arm briefly with the tips of my fingers. “No, I’m sorry, Matthew. I didn’t mean that. I’m just not used to having to talk about myself.” I gave him a weak attempt at a smile. “I’m so used to being limited to ‘Yes, Mrs Whatsit, your boy will make a fabulous rider’ and the weather that I’m out of practice with talking about personal things. I truly am sorry; I didn’t mean to be rude.”
His frown faded then, genuinely. “All right. We’ll start with something easy and you can tell me to push off if it gets too personal. Will that do?”
I nodded my agreement, feeling a different little flutter touch at my core.
“Where did you learn to ride like that?”
Modesty made me want to misunderstand his meaning but with a great effort I decided to be honest instead. “Dad taught me. You remember that Dad was a northern lad? Well, before their war, and when he was still a young man, he found a job with a stud in Cheshire. They used to import mares from all over the place and he was sent to France to find some new blood. He liked it so much out there he ended up staying over there for five years and was lucky enough to fall in with a man from the Cadre Noire – the French Classical riding school – lucky man. You wouldn’t know it but he was a fabulous rider, my father. He would have taught me too but unfortunately there isn’t much demand for hunters trained in the classical style so I had to glean what knowledge I could on the unschooled youngsters. But now I have Beechnut. She’s the first horse I can call my own and so I’m finally getting to put it all together. There are a lot of gaps though, and of course Dad’s not around any more to ask.”
I stopped, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry; I bet you didn’t expect a great monologue. I told you I was out of practice.”
“You’re doing very well,” he said soothingly. “Ready for the next question? Do you plan to carry on with the ponies, or will you get back into horses now?”
“Now?”
“Er, now that the war is over.”
I had the very strong impression that wasn’t what he had meant, but I wasn’t brave enough to broach the subject of John again. It was ludicrous, I thought in frustration, that I was allowing the myth to become the acknowledged truth simply because the idea of talking about it to him of all people was so laughable that my mind would not even begin to find the words.
“Now that the war is over,” I said carefully, without betraying the thoughts in my mind, “I honestly don’t know. Ponies are easier to care for, cost less and don’t tend to injure themselves on the tiniest little thing so potentially the profit, although small, is more reliable. But, and this is a big but, what I’d really like to do is start breeding and training riding horses. Not hunters, you understand? Proper riding horses, and hopefully grow a reputation for producing dressage horses. It’s a bit of a remote dream though.”
“Your dad would be really proud of you, you know.”
His words sounded startlingly sincere. I shot him a stealthy glance, feeling uncertain again as I found myself saying; “Flatterer. Anyway, enough about me. What about you – what do you plan to do now?”
“Now? As in now that the war is over? Well, I don’t know. Hard to say really, I haven’t …” He stopped. “Sorry – I’m obviously out of practice too.” His mouth twitched. Then, with a return to seriousness, he added, “Though if I have to be perfectly honest; at the moment I’d settle for taking a step out from under the shade of the gallows. But presuming that all this is just academic however…I don’t quite know. I love my job and living here, but … well, let’s just say my plans aren’t fixed. I might move away, or I might not. It all depends.”
If ever there was an invitation to say “on what?” this was it, but unfortunately I was too busy trying to interpret my own reaction to manage to speak and I missed my chance.
When I didn’t ask the invited question, the frown slowly reformed on his face and he turned back to staring out of the window once more. His eyes were fixed upon the faint gleam of the unmoving car but I was not sure that he was really seeing anything at all in the steadily fading scene. I watched him mutely; his averted profile was dark and shadowed against the black metal of the car door, unnaturally amplified by the approaching dusk as it betrayed all the strain of his present situation and with a rush of compassion, I almost put a hand out to him. But then he blinked and shifted uncomfortably in his seat and I had to hastily look away in case he thought I was staring at him.
I felt myself cringe at what would have been an embarrassingly telling gesture of care, and then flushed again but this time with self-righteous indignation at being made to feel like this when, all along, all I had ever wanted from him was to be allowed to give my help. It was becoming increasingly apparent, however, that this assistance was neither useful to him nor wanted and by this frayed impatience, he was making it abundantly clear that he would have much rather been anywhere else but near me.
Muttering a silent tirade at myself for believing it could ever be otherwise, I fixed my own gaze with renewed concentration upon the smudge of farm buildings with every intention of discovering that I didn’t care to help him so very much after all. In fact I was sure of it. He really was almost hateful and it was clear now that I ought to save us both from this unpleasantness, and find some excuse so that I could simply go home and leave him to deal with his future and his frustrations alone.
Just to torture myself with the hope of proving myself indifferent, I couldn’t help daring to glance at him again. His thumb was tracing a line along the doorframe as he gazed steadily at the dead scenery. The act was abstracted, introverted, and I think it was that very fact which made me finally acknowledge the truth. With a sudden jolt, I saw that the unhappy set to his jaw was not a result of the extraordinary stresses of his fugitive existence at all. That was like a charade agreed between strangers. And he was sustaining it for me.
I took a deep breath.
“Freddy got upset today,” I said, all of a sudden being very brave indeed.
“Did he? What about?”
“He wouldn’t tell me at first, but eventually I got it out of him. The silly boy had convinced himself that I was planning to marry John!”
“Did he indeed?” His reply was flat and disinterested as he tirelessly watched the silent barn and from his tone, it would not have seemed that he was paying the slightest bit of attention. But his thumb had frozen in its endless sweep of the doorframe.
“He got himself so worked up – I don’t think he likes John very much and it really scared him – but all was soon set to rights.” My voice sounded unnaturally false and high after the stifling silence but I persevered doggedly. “I don’t know how he came to that conclusion, I really don’t.”
“Do you not?”
An owl hooted in earnest in the fading light. “I can’t say whether John truly wants me, although I can see why Freddy might have thought that, but as to me liking him in that way. Well, it’s just impossible.” I snatched a hasty breath, catching myself before I could run on in that same silly voice.
“It is?” The chair springs gave a squeak as Matthew turned towards me. I could feel his eyes resting watchfully on my face but it was impossible to meet his gaze.
“It is?” he repeated. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, er…” I swallowed nervously, realising suddenly that here we were straying into something truly dangerous. “John and I have been good friends for a long time, and I’m sure he’s very attractive, but love him? No. I don’t. I couldn’t. Not when I —”
I stopped. I was too scared to continue. The car seemed very, very small all of a sudden.
“When you what?” Matthew was still watching me closely. His manner was strange. “Eleanor, when you …?”
“Look out, they’re moving!” I cried suddenly.
“What? I just … Oh!” His head snapped round as comprehension dawned.
They were indeed moving. Lit by dirtied headlights, the battered grey car had nosed its way out of the barn and, creating a distraction that could not have been better timed, was now heading along the road straight towards us.
“Get down!” snapped Matthew, dragging me sideways before dropping over me himself. From within the peculiar cocoon of his folded body, I heard the car rumble slowly by. For a horrible moment I thought that they had seen us and were stopping but then the rough roar of the engine passed steadily onwards.
Finally Matthew released his hold. I sat up slowly, feeling more than a little shaken, though at what I did not truly know. I peered out of the window, trying to make out where they had got to.
“Looks like we’re on,” Matthew said, all attention now focused on the red taillights that were rapidly dwindling into fog. I waited, expecting a sharp instruction to make for the barn but to my surprise he got out, ran round the car and dragged open my door.
“Shift over,” he ordered. “We’ve got to find out where they’re off to first of all.”
Obediently I slithered across into the passenger seat as he urged the car into life. Thankfully the battery had regained some charge and the car lurched forwards as he threw it into gear.
But no sooner had we roared into action than Matthew had to step on the brakes. The grey car was gently climbing the hill into the village with all the casual air of one that was out for a pleasant Sunday drive and as we lingered in the shelter of the woodland, there was a pause just long enough for me to be grateful that I was no longer the designated driver, and to be just a little bit startled by the all-consuming concentration that had settled on my companion’s face. Then the car bounded forwards once more and all thought ceased as the nervous thrill of the chase caught me so that I too must have seemed just as intent and focused.
Matthew had to wait until the car was nearly out of sight and into the village before daring to charge up the slopes after them. A tall and willowy maple tree stood in the middle of the road to form an impromptu roundabout and our little car had to instantly slow to a crawl again, negotiating it carefully before plunging wildly after the other car like a stone from a slingshot past the public house and on towards the school. It was hard to imagine what possible destination there could be along this gentle country lane that might have any connection with their crime. A nearby village perhaps, or further? Whiteway? Cranham? Or beyond to Stroud and Gloucester…?
None of them, it seemed. I very nearly hit my head on the windscreen when Matthew braked sharply and swung the car into a space behind a chimney-sweep’s van.
“What are you doing?” I asked in confusion as Matthew silenced the engine and leaned across my lap to see around the parked van.
“Don’t you recognise where we are?”
I peered at the muffled road ahead. At first I could not make out the grey car at all only then I spotted it on the small driveway of a converted outhouse.
“Oh!” I exclaimed uselessly.
“Oh indeed. My house.”
We watched as the two burly Yorkshiremen climbed out of their car and went along the short path to the front door. I remembered now that the outhouse had been part of old Mr Croft’s farm complex and had been little more than a crumbling machine-shed back then. But then he had died, the farm had been sold so that Mrs Croft could move to be nearer her sister in Gloucester and, unwilling to surrender the village he had loved as a boy, Matthew had bought back the crude building before painstakingly converting it into a very sweet and very stylish little cottage. Looking at it now, I could recall in perfect detail the beautiful view from the kitchen window where it backed onto the fields that his father and grandfather before him had worked and tended. I could also remember the uproar it had caused when Mrs Croft sold the farm to a distant cousin rather than to the Estate as was expected.
“I wonder …” I began but before I could translate the embryonic idea into coherent words, it was stopped in mid-thought by the sight of the Turford men opening the sturdy wooden door and disappearing inside. I looked at Matthew.
“Did they have a key?”
He shook his head grimly. “I don’t think locked doors matter much to those two.”
They were gone for about ten minutes. When they emerged there was some kind of ragged bundle cradled in Davey Turford’s thick arms. It looked like a large shapeless mass of curtain fabric, but I didn’t have to see the furtive manner in which it was concealed in the boot of their car to presume there was something more valuable wrapped within it than a few yards of faded upholstery.
“Did you see what that was?” Matthew’s voice was very soft.
I shook my head. “Did you?”
“No,” he said slowly. “I can’t imagine what they would find in there to be worth stealing…Oops, look out – they’re coming. Sorry about this.”
“What …?”
This was all I had time for before I was roughly grabbed and pulled towards him. I think I gave a startled squeak, instinctively putting my hands to his chest almost certainly with the intention of pushing him away … But I did not. He held me fast as the sound of a car crawled past. It seemed to take forever. A lifetime of racing senses and heartbeats, and the crush of unexpected contact. Then there was a wolf-whistle, a shout of obscene congratulation and finally the car was gone.
He lifted his head. Mesmerised, I simply lay there, head against the turn of his shoulder, and watched as his eye traced the course of the car through the small rear window while it drifted around the tree and back down into the park. My lips burned where he had touched them; although this abrupt handling certainly was not likely to be the fulfilment of my most tender dreams – it was only a cover after all – my mind had frozen and I really couldn’t tell whether I was supposed to be affronted by his uninvited closeness, or charmed.
Then the heady mixture of musty car and his warm skin gently filled my nose. As all my senses abruptly made a return, I suddenly found myself very aware indeed of the texture of his coat where it pressed beneath my fingers. The coarse fabric was lifting slightly to the steady rhythm of his breathing.
He glanced down at me still imprisoned within his arms; “Sorry about that, couldn’t think what else to do.” He released his hold and, as I straightened, he started the car.
“A touch on the clichéd side, don’t you think?” I said, considerably more steadily than I felt. “You need to work on your secret-agent routine.”
He gave a laugh as he turned the car around and sped after them while I concentrated very hard on trying not to think about the feel of his mouth upon mine. It was a cover, just a cover, I reassured myself as he span the car around the tree and raced back down into the park once more. I stole a glance at him and he was grinning.
I had to hang onto my seat as the little car plunged down the unkempt road after the others. “There!” I cried.
“I see them,” said Matthew as he swung the car in a right-hand turn away from Warren Barn and onto the rough frost-damaged drive that led across the park. There was a brief impression of grey between the black trees as the other car went round a bend, then a resounding crash as our car hit a pothole and I swear we were airborne for a moment.
“If you break my car, I’ll kill you.”
“Sorry,” said Matthew ruefully, while not actually looking remotely sorry.
I saw the brief flash of light ahead as their headlamps bounced back at us against the deepening gloom; the grey car was already halfway up the far slopes of the valley side, casting a ghostly trail through the fog as it followed the snaking road towards the hilltop. We rocketed over the little stone bridge in pursuit. I cast a quick sideways look at Matthew; he was wearing the most remarkable expression.
He shifted down a gear to set the car at the incline. Then he glanced at me and, seeing me staring, said, “What?”
“You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” I said accusingly.
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Let’s just say it is nice to play the hunter for once.”
The road was very dark under the trees and still driving necessarily without lights, I was amazed that Matthew could see well enough to make the tight turns. The Eagle Gates loomed above us through the heavy canopy of bare branches, the great white stone birds standing silent sentry over the road, and then we were up and out in the open, running along under the trees of the long avenue that would lead us to the main gates.
Then the road straightened and Matthew eased the car back to a steady crawl; even with the fog, it would be simple enough to see which way they turned with the yellow glare of their headlamps catching on the drooping branches as they passed.
But to my considerable surprise, instead of passing through the tall metal gates and out onto the road, the grey car slowed and then drew clumsily to a halt by the gatehouse. Matthew braked instantly and silenced the engine, and we watched as the two men, recognisable by their bulk even in the low light cast by the nearby windows, stepped out and walked into the house. Clearly this door posed no difficulties either.
Without a word, Matthew allowed the car to coast backwards down the incline before swinging it into a vacant field gateway. He stepped out. I hesitated to follow but at his expectant expression, I swallowed my half-formed excuses and hastily gathered my courage, climbed out of the car and joined him in the sudden chill of the wood-scented driveway.
I took my lead from him. We hurried along, me trailing feebly in his wake, passing silently under the still arch of the trees and onwards until we were met by the deeper shadow of the house. Until then I hadn’t realised just how thoroughly night had settled but now I saw that the fog had thickened abruptly to swallow any hope of a starlit sky and without even the faintest of halos from the moon to lighten the sober dark, I was very glad of the faintly greenish sheen of the driveway between white verges as a guide.
With a lift of his hand, Matthew instructed me to wait and I lingered nervously while he crept forwards to the first window. A dull glow from the heavily curtained glass lit his features as he paused, head tilted slightly, listening. He slipped along to the next and I saw his posture change as he suddenly tensed. Then, after what seemed like an age, he finally beckoned.
Reluctantly, I crept forwards. He gave a slight nod of approval as I settled next to him, crouching under the low sash of the window and we huddled there together under the stone windowsill, watching and waiting, and listening intently. I could just make out the dark gleam of his eyes where they stared thoughtfully at the stone wall standing inches from his face.
For a while I could not hear a thing above the sound of my own hushed breathing. But then, all of a sudden, my ears made sense of the muffled sounds and abruptly I was able to distinguish a rough growl from Simon Turford. It was followed by a rather softer murmur in reply and, stupidly, it actually came as a shock when I recognised the muffled voice as belonging to someone still more familiar: Adam Hicks. This then was the estate manager’s home – as if on any normal day I would not have known from the start – gifted to him by the Park and his for as long as he held the post; which given that he was an honest and dependable man, would probably be until old age or infirmity took it from him. Honest and dependable, excepting of course that he was now fraternising with murderers.
Matthew glanced at me and, giving a quick hint of a reassuring smile, cautiously raised his head to peer over the sill. I held my breath waiting for a cry of surprise and flurry of action from within but nothing came and so slowly, and violently wishing that I had stayed at home, I too lifted my head.
We were shielded from view by grubby netting which hung limply behind the dirty green of the gaping curtains and beyond it, lit by a couple of standard lamps, I could just make out the ugly profiles of Simon and Davey Turford where they sat at a heavy wooden table. The aging estate manager was pouring whiskey into some glasses at the sideboard. His wife, a fifty-something housewife complete with apron, ugly floral housecoat and spectacles hanging from a string about her neck, marched in clutching two steaming bowls which she set down with a brisk clunk on the table and, judging by the quick guilty glance her husband gave her from across the room, it seemed that she had been very unwillingly relegated to this role of domestic servant. Certainly, the two men barely acknowledged her before snatching up their spoons but, as she turned to go, I felt the cold night air catch in my throat. The pinched look I had seen in her face was not that of grudging hospitality at all, but the white grimace of a woman functioning on the very edge of fear.
Matthew’s eye flicked left to me in a brief flash of shared concern before grimly fixing once more upon the remaining occupants of the room. We listened for a while, hoping that their talk would turn to something of interest but as seems to be the case with all master criminals when being watched, their stilted conversation consisted of nothing more incriminating than the dangers of such a rapid thaw and the possibility of further bad weather. Finally, however, the pitch of their voices shifted and here was something. It was not the wished-for confession of all their plans but nevertheless I felt a little tingling flare of tension as Hicks began to fret about Sir William. “If he hears that you’ve been up here …”
“Sir William,” Simon spat the words, “is more clued-up than you think, old man. Just keep your mind on your job, and your thoughts on what we’re paying you. We wouldn’t want your wife to have to worry about how we’ll take it all back again, would we?” He let the threat hang.
The silence was palpable. I glanced wide-eyed at Matthew, an unspoken question hovering electric between us while, in the background, Hicks noisily slammed the rapidly diminishing whiskey bottle down on the table. I thought I heard a snigger. Then I was sure of it and I had to hastily look back as Matthew tensed and sharply caught his breath. But thankfully, whatever ideas of rebellion had briefly flickered across the aged estate manager’s mind, they were evidently gone now and instead I was just in time to catch the blur of his movement as he turned to shuffle quietly back to the armchair in the corner.
I turned my gaze to Matthew again and at long last, with a hint of a nod, he indicated the dark silence of the avenue behind. I cannot describe how glad I was to slip away from our station beneath the window towards the comforting isolation of the trees and on to the cold and stony gaze of the Eagle Gates beyond.