‘He’s coming round.’
I recognized the voice and I know I was smiling even before I opened my eyes. Eve was cradling me in her arms, but as I struggled to sit up I could see we were still in the bell pit, which had become very crowded. To my right, Bartlett was seated, still staring towards the falls, but he no longer held the revolver. His wrists were secured with handcuffs, which I assumed had been provided by John Pickersgill. The constable was standing a couple of yards away from his prisoner, talking to Brian whilst making notes in his occurrence book.
Barbara was also crouched alongside me. I looked back at Eve, staring into her beautiful eyes as I asked, ‘What happened to me?’
Eve gestured beyond me. You were hit by a low-flying solicitor.’
I turned my head cautiously and noticed the limp body of a woman stretched out on the floor of the bell pit, gagged and with her hands tied. ‘Is that Ursula Moore? Is she…?’
‘Dead as a doornail,’ Eve replied cheerfully. ‘But don’t let it worry you, Adam, she’s no loss. She murdered three people and bragged that she was going to do the same to us. What’s more, she tried to, even though Brian had left her tied up.’
‘What happened to her? How did she die?’
‘Babs was standing on the cliff top, watching Brian, who was about to ambush Bartlett. The idea was that she could distract Bartlett’s attention long enough for Brian to overpower him. Suddenly, Moore ran at her and tried to knock her over the edge. Luckily I saw her in time. I stuck my foot out and tripped her up. I sent her flying, but I didn’t expect her to crash-land on you. Whether it was the fall, colliding with you, or hitting her head on the floor of the pit, we’ll probably never know, but the result is she’s got a broken neck.’
‘How did Pickersgill get here?’
‘We called at his place en route to here, but he was out, so we left a message with his wife for him to follow us. Brian borrowed a lot of those traffic cones from the police house and left them to mark the route. We brought Moore along as a possible bargaining chip, but we never expected her to take up diving.’
‘What happened down here?’ Barbara asked. ‘One moment Bartlett was threatening you with the gun, the next he looked terrified and when Brian got to him he took the gun from him as easy as anything.’
Eve was watching me as Barbara spoke, and her words brought back my memory of the events leading up to Bartlett’s surrender. ‘Are you all right, Adam? You’ve gone quite pale.’
I shook my head, partly to clear the memory of what Bartlett had said; of what he had seen. ‘I’ll explain later. First of all, I have to try and understand it myself.’
The bell pit became even more crowded once DI Hardy and the young DC arrived, accompanied by four uniformed officers. I gathered that Pickersgill had summoned reinforcements before setting out in pursuit of Brian and the girls. They too had been given instructions to follow the traffic cones.
Two of the uniformed men departed, taking Bartlett with them and with instructions to call the pathologist and coroner. As they left, Bartlett, who as far as I could tell hadn’t spoken a word since Ursula Moore’s death, stopped alongside where I was sitting watching events unfold. He looked at me, his eyes haunted as he pleaded. ‘Did you see them? Please tell me you saw them?’
I shook my head. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see anything. Only the rocks.’
His shoulders slumped wearily, as if this was the final defeat, and the light died in his eyes.
As we watched him go, Eve asked, ‘What did he mean? Who was he talking about? What was it he thought you saw?’
‘Leave it for now, Evie. I’ll explain later, but not here. Not in this place.’
At that moment Brian came across to join us. ‘Hardy’s got the gist of what happened here and earlier, but he wants to talk to everyone concerned. I suggested we adjourn to the cabin and he can join us there later when he’s finished sorting things out and supervising the removal of the body and so on. Anyone fancy a cuppa?’
We went across the beck and entered the cabin, where Eve and Barbara insisted I sit down whilst they helped Brian prepare our drinks. Once the kettle was on the gas, Brian looked across the room. ‘How are you feeling, Adam?’
‘I’m OK; just a bit of a sore head, that’s all.’
Eve, who hadn’t been inside the cabin before, was looking around her eyes widening with surprise as she saw just how comfortable it was. ‘You did all this yourself?’ she asked Brian.
He nodded, before revealing his plan. ‘Actually, it’s given me an idea. I’m thinking of building some more, along the banks of Thorsgill Beck. This part of the forest is rarely seen by anyone apart from perhaps me and Barbara, or Zeke Calvert, and it’s so picturesque I thought it would be a great location for some holiday cabins. I could rent them out for campers, or for adventure expeditions, anglers, birdwatchers, you name it.’
‘That sounds like a great idea,’ Barbara agreed.
Once the kettle boiled, Brian brought me a mug and sat down alongside me. ‘Are you ready to tell us what happened back there? It seemed very odd, the way things turned out. One minute Bartlett was threatening you; the next he was a gibbering wreck. And that was before the woman died. I know he was talking, but I couldn’t hear a word of what he said because of the noise from the waterfall. So what exactly did go on?’
I took a deep breath, gathering both my thoughts and my courage before launching into what many would regard as a preposterous tale. I’d known all along I would have to explain sooner or later. It might as well be sooner, before my nerve failed me and I bottled it up.
‘I now believe I understand the final part of Everett Latimer’s cryptic rhyme,’ I told them. ‘When he went to bury that gold in the bell pit he discovered something else. Something that had been buried there since long before the gold had been created. Something that had lain undisturbed for centuries, possibly millennia.’
I watched them exchange glances, and smiled as I interpreted their thoughts. They were obviously wondering how much damage the blow to my head had caused, for me to be talking so wildly. I hastened to reassure them. ‘It’s all right, I’m not wandering. What I’m about to tell you isn’t the result of concussion. The problem is that events in the bell pit have been difficult for me to come to terms with, let alone describe to someone else. If I hadn’t been given advance knowledge of the subject, I don’t think I could even begin to explain it. Understanding what lay behind what Bartlett saw, or thought he saw, in there doesn’t help me to come up with a rational explanation, because I don’t believe one exists.’
I paused and took a sip of my tea before continuing. ‘Bartlett was threatening me with the revolver, but suddenly his attention was distracted by something in front of that heap of rocks where I believe Everett Latimer hid the gold.’ I hesitated for a second. ‘What he saw was the children.’ I looked at the disbelief on their faces but continued, ‘He knew the story, because I repeated the legend to him as we were walking through the forest. I was only trying to scare him; to put him off his guard, nothing more than that. I had no idea it would seem like a prophecy come true such a short time later. I even explained that the children only appear shortly before someone dies, and that they usually only appear to somebody closely connected to the victim.’
‘You’re saying that Bartlett saw the three children?’ Brian’s voice reflected his obvious surprise.
‘He did; and I had no trouble believing him, because he described them almost exactly as you had done. He mentioned their torn clothing, the blood that was spattered all over them, the piteous, haunted expression on their faces. He pointed them out to me, but when I turned to look, all I could see was the heap of stones, some wispy grass and the escarpment alongside the falls. What really spooks me is that within minutes of the apparitions manifesting themselves to Bartlett, his partner in crime had been killed in a very sudden and violent manner. How you explain that? I’ve no idea, because I certainly can’t find a logical explanation for it.’
‘You believe that Bartlett actually saw the children; the ones described in the skipping rhyme?’ Eve asked. I nodded. ‘But I thought they only appear to locals, or people with local connections?’
‘Perhaps Bartlett’s quest for the gold qualified him as having a local connection,’ I told her. ‘Or maybe it was the location that overrode the normal rules.’
‘What do you mean?’ Barbara asked.
‘I mean that I believe that when the stones that Everett Latimer carefully piled up so they spelt out his initials are removed, we will not only find the gold there, but also the bodies of those three dead children. Remember the rhyme? The location of the gold was described as “sleeping with those who are free from sin”. I believe the children lie behind that wall of stone.
As the others dwelt on this, I asked Brian, ‘How did you rescue Eve and Barbara?’ I thought it was time to change the subject before I was asked any further questions for which I had no answer, and for which, as far as I could tell, there was no logical explanation.
‘It was all fairly simple. It went even better than I’d hoped. I knew the cottage had two entrances. In addition to the front door, there’s another one round the back. So I waited until you had been gone a few minutes and then I sneaked up to the front door and poured petrol over it. I set fire to the door and then waited by the rear entrance. Sure enough, the Moore woman came dashing out a few minutes later. She was going too fast to spot the danger before it was too late. I knocked her out, tied her up and dumped her in the back of your car; then went inside for the girls. Once I’d freed them and got them out of the cottage, we set off for the police house. Oh, by the way–’ Brian smiled apologetically,‘–I owe you a fire extinguisher. I used the one from the Range Rover to put out the blaze on the front door. Fortunately, the door’s made of oak, so it should repair easily enough.’
Barbara took up the story. ‘After we’d explained what was going on to Mrs Pickersgill, Brian brought us into the forest after you. We had to frog-march the woman between us. We must have looked really odd, with Eve and me dragging the woman along, and Brian toting a collection of traffic cones. However, we made really good time.’
‘That’s right,’ Brian added, ‘so good that we were watching you even before you reached the stepping stones. And the rest of it, you know.’