There was a cold hard surface at my back; the sound of horses moving restlessly nearby. I tried to open my eyes but like my limbs, they seemed leaden and unresponsive. After a futile effort to make anything, even any muscle at all move, I gave in and simply hung there, helplessly immobile, as my fogged brain tried to remember what had happened.
I could hear an irregular tapping like fingers drumming idly on a table, only softer. A vague memory of being on Beechnut flitted through my mind and I wondered if I had taken a fall. Then the rhythmic chewing of hay caught in my ears and when the sweet scent of manure pricked at my nose, the spinning sensation of cold suddenly solidified and I realised abruptly that I was not out on a ride at all but was on my back on the hard stone floor of one of my stables. With a rush of frustrated irritation, I wondered why on earth Freddy was just messing about out there, playing games and tossing grit up onto the barn roof when surely he must have noticed that I hadn’t come in for some lunch. Or had we already eaten lunch? I tried to make my mind dredge up a memory but after a very brief effort it gave up and wandered off.
I heard voices coming closer and the soft whisper of hooves on grass. Here he was then, finally. All I had to do was lie here and he would find me.
The sounds came closer. There was a clattering of unshod feet on wood and the ground seemed to shift and tilt. I heard the voices more clearly now and suddenly I knew something was wrong; this was not Freddy, this was not my yard and I was not at all sure that I should want them to find me. Then the clattering approached nearer, alarmingly so, coming to a stop very near my head, and despite this, still my body refused to work.
“She’s in, sir.” I knew that voice. How did I know that voice?
“Well done.” It all came back to me then, in a rush which made my head hurt. John’s voice was very near and I gave up trying to move and concentrated very hard on staying very still indeed. Overhead, the soft drizzle continued to patter monotonously on the hard metal of the lorry roof. “And no one saw you put her in, did they?”
“No,” Simon replied in his gruff northern accent. “No one was about. We’ll be on our way then?”
“Yes. But I nearly forgot; did you get what I wanted from his house?”
There was a brief flurry of action filled by Simon yelling at Davey to fetch whatever it was from the car, followed after a short while by, “There you go, sir. What are you going to do with it?”
I listened intently, wondering what new clue Simon might be about to betray. In hindsight, I don’t think my brain had quite processed the fact that I wasn’t exactly in the position to be playing detective, as all I thought about was what information I might be able to give Matthew when I saw him later, quite as if the very serious reality of my own situation didn’t exist at all.
Either way, I was not to learn and instead all I heard was John’s casual reply of, “Nothing much. Just a little bit of harmless incrimination to send that damned detective trotting off in the right direction.”
Simon laughed, then abruptly stopped. “Did she just move?”
There was an agonising sharp intake of breath. All thoughts of investigation stopped and my brain screamed No, no I didn’t! But wood creaked as someone climbed into the horse lorry beside me and then John’s hand was tilting my head.
My eyelashes must have flickered because he said, “Well, hello, my dear. Not quite asleep, are we. Fetch that bottle, would you?”
There was a steady crunching of gravel underfoot as Simon walked away. I felt John’s hand shift to my throat; for a terrifying moment I thought he was going to strangle me as I lay there, but he was just checking my pulse. I must have regained some coordination because my hand feebly tried to push him away but it was perfectly easy for him to take hold of my wrist and then, surprising me with his gentleness, carefully press my hand back down onto the cold mat floor of the lorry once more.
The rough sound of footsteps and a trace of that familiar breathing announced Simon’s return and then his distant voice said, “Here you go, sir. Be careful how you go with that though. Too much and you’ll kill her.”
“I’m well aware of that, man,” John snapped curtly, before adding in a softer tone, “I have no intention of killing you, Ellie, not if you behave yourself like a sensible girl. How would I complete my little scheme if you were dead?”
My eyes suddenly flicked properly open and I stared up at him mutely as he tipped the bottle over to allow some drops to fall onto a fresh scrap of cloth.
John smiled down at me humourlessly. “You did me a good turn by turning up here, you know – you saved me the job of having to come and get you.” He smiled again, gazing at me for a few long seconds before flicking a glance over his shoulder at Simon. “She found out about the horse, you see. Knowing her and her damned principles, I can’t trust that she’ll have the sense to keep it to herself if the wrong people happen to start asking questions. It’ll be much safer with her out of the way. And, perhaps more vitally, it is my profound hope that the girl’s disappearance will flush that idiot man out into the open once and for all.”
I must have unconsciously made some sound because he turned back to me and then his smile grew. “Oh, yes, Ellie, you’re the perfect weapon, didn’t you know? We don’t know what you feel about him, do we, my dear?” He patted me on the cheek. “But we know that he’s still sweet on you.”
There was a pause while he stared thoughtfully at the bottle in his hand for a moment before tipping another drop onto the cloth, “He warned me off you, did you know that? It was months ago now; I ran into him when he was out walking and I couldn’t help but goad him, he looked so … so, what’s the word? I don’t know, so much like he just didn’t give a damn. There I was with some fellows from the shoot and he just said good morning and went to walk on by as if he was one of us! One of us? I remember when he worked his summers in my uncle’s fields for goodness sake! Long before he got his so-called education and came back acting like he owned the place, jumped up, smug bastard. So I decided to set him down a little. He pretended that it didn’t touch him of course, all calm and detached, but he didn’t like it so much when I mentioned you. Didn’t like it at all.”
He laughed and it was a silly little sound of boyish delight. “There is a certain ironic symmetry to it all, don’t you think? Just when my plans were all coming to fruition, who should turn up to play scapegoat but my own personal little nemesis; our favourite ex-farmhand, Matthew Croft?” He grimaced slightly. “That man presumed, wrongly, to set himself against me and later, while you are sleeping your way to Southampton, he’ll be finding out just how much I am his superior in every possible way.”
He gave another ugly little laugh and slowly moved to lean over me with that hateful cloth ready in his hand.
“So now you see why I suddenly stepped up my courtship of you? I was reasonably content to let our friendship drift along before, but since he decided to meddle in my affairs, the temptations of my pretty little childhood companion suddenly seemed so much more…pressing. Particularly when marrying you will make the perfect coup-de-grace for the condemned man.” He paused, still smiling. “And you will marry me, my dear. You really don’t have a choice, not if you want be able to watch Freddy grow up…”
I barely managed any resistance at all this time when he placed the rag over my nose. He watched patiently for my numbed body to make its second surrender to uninvited sleep, and as he waited, he spoke over his shoulder, “I want her back in one piece, do you hear? Dump her nag or kill it, whichever you choose, but if you lay a finger on her I’ll kill you, or even worse than that, you won’t get paid. Understand?”
And the faint echo of Simon’s reply gradually faded to nothing until all that remained to penetrate the smothering embrace of unconsciousness was the light patter of rain on the roof and the ugly rhythm of a man’s coarse breathing.