BLACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery) (25 page)

It made Blackdown’s task a little easier, for in truth the prints were becoming indistinct and harder to follow, and as Blackdown drove his mount down the steep hills towards the town, the fields – in which the ghostly dandelion clocks of sheep scampered in fright from his charging horse – were churned with the regular passage of animals and people. He was now taking a chance that he knew which route Ravenbard might be taking.

What he didn’t expect was to hear a shot ring out and the sound of a ball zipping close by his shoulder. He squinted in the moonlight in the direction of the distant powder flash and made out the dark but distinct shape of a mounted man on the edge of a small copse. The horse and rider at once disappeared into the dark strip of trees and Blackdown cocked his pistol and spurred his horse forward.

He approached cautiously, aware of his vulnerability; the wide, open moonlit field offered little in the way of cover. He brought the horse to a halt beside a veritable wall of brambles, the bush decorated with the shimmering black beads of blackberries. He listened intently, his weapon held at the ready, but it was silent, as if the land held its breath.

Then a horse bolted from the cover of the copse some twenty yards away, the rider bent over the beast’s back as it galloped towards a stone wall. Blackdown took aim, was about to pull the trigger when he decided he would waste the shot. He could not be sure to hit the swiftly moving target. Instead he dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and propelled the animal after his quarry.

Ravenbard’s horse cleared the wall with very little to spare, the horse’s hooves clattering against a rock and toppling it from its perch. The horse landed safely on the other side. Blackdown noticed the rider took a sharp left, heading away from the town.

Blackdown encouraged the horse further, getting ready to bend low over its mane as he approached the wall. It was high, he thought. Perhaps too high for the mount he rode. As if reading his thoughts the horse shied away at the last moment and almost threw him.

‘Damn!’ he said, righting himself in the saddle and turning the horse around to have another go. He lined it up again, patted its neck. ‘Come on, girl. Don’t fail me now,’ he said encouragingly.

With a sharp cry he spurred it on, approaching the wall at breakneck speed. This time the beast launched itself into the air and cleared the wall, horse and rider landing with a harsh jolt on the other side. Gathering his thoughts, Blackdown searched for Ravenbard, but the man was already lost to the many trees and hedges that populated this part of the land. He had disappeared like black smoke into the night.

He narrowed his eyes and scanned the moonlit land. In the far distance, silvered as if by a god’s mighty paintbrush, stood Blackdown Manor sitting ominously brooding in its deep bed of black trees. Was Ravenbard headed for the house? He had certainly taken a course that would lead him directly to it. Possibly to seek shelter in the many folds of its once-landscaped grounds, now gone to ruin and offering a fugitive countless hideaways.

But what if other factors were at play here, he thought? Ravenbard was well aware of Blackdown’s skills and had been eager to recruit him into the Lupercal fold, in spite of Lansdowne’s protestations. What was going through Ravenbard’s mind in making for Blackdown Manor?

Julianne Tresham was still there, watching over his father.

Suddenly afraid that she was in danger, Blackdown kicked the horse into a gallop with a sense of renewed urgency.

A man backed into a corner – an angry wolf – is an angry, dangerous beast, he thought. Who knows what harm he could do, what revenge he might enact.

He rode the horse hard, the pounding rattling his already bruised frame, Blackdown Manor slipping from view as he descended into sparse woodland that surrounded the ancient pile, his mind filled with an escalating fear, his mouth dry, and his throbbing heart seemingly beating time with the unremitting hammering of the horse’s hooves on the hard ground.

The horse hit gravel as Blackdown came upon the long approach to Blackdown Manor and he slowed the panting creature to a trot, dismounting when he was one hundred yards or so away from the front of the house. He tied it up to the bough of one of a line of massive, melancholic elms that lined this part of the approach and crept inaudibly across the grass, shifting furtively from cover to cover.

The huge house was in darkness, not a single candle alight in any of the windows. As he came closer he heard a noise from the bushes and froze to the spot, aiming the pistol in the sound’s direction. A black, sweating horse hobbled into view, its white staring eyes fixing on Blackdown.

He searched the undergrowth for any sign of its rider, but it appeared to have been tied to a tree and abandoned. Blackdown moved towards it, the creature shaking its head as he reached up to pat its glistening neck. He noticed how it kept its front hoof off the ground. It had been badly lamed, perhaps in its mad ride across the notoriously uneven ground. But he could not waste time on feeling pity for the beast, nor put a bullet in its brain to put it out of its misery. He fixed the house in his sights and silently stole across the gardens.

Blackdown stopped dead when he spied something lying before the stone steps leading to the main entrance. Checking all around him, he bolted from the cover of trees and flattened his back against the wall to the house beside the lower windows. He crept stealthily along the wall till he could make out quite clearly what was lying on the gravel.

It was a body.

He listened. Not a sound. Was this some kind of trap? Ravenbard was here somewhere, there was no doubt. But where, and why?

A couple of minutes passed as he searched for a hidden figure ready to pounce once he came out into the open, but in the end he decided it was safe enough to scuttle over to the body.

The man was lying face down, dressed all in black save for his white stockings. There was a pool of blood beneath the head. His heart fell, for he knew who the man was before he turned him over.

It was Reverend Bole.

Tenderly, Blackdown turned Reverend Bole over. There was a gash on his forehead that wept blood, smearing his eyes. Those same eyes opened as Blackdown began to fear the worst.

The man attempted to speak, but all that escaped his bloodied lips was a painful gasp, and he screwed his eyes up.

‘Who did this to you – Ravenbard?’ Blackdown asked quietly. Bole’s lips quivered in response but it was plain to see he was about to pass out again. ‘Where is the man who did this? Is he inside?’

‘How could you, Thomas...?’ he gurgled faintly.

‘Reverend?’ he said.

But Bole fell unconscious. Blackdown hoped the blow to his head was not too serious and ensured the man was lying as comfortable as possible before rising swiftly to his feet and running at a half-crouch along the house, making for the rear of the building. Where were the few servants that his father employed? There was still no sign of life from the dead house.

In the almost pitch-black shadows at the rear of the house he located one of the rear doors that led to the kitchens. It was locked, but he cushioned the butt of his pistol with his neckerchief and smashed a hole in one of the windows, reaching inside and unfastening the catch. He eased himself through the small opening, his boots powdering a few shards of glass on the stone floor.

The kitchen was in darkness, shielded from the light of the moon, and he could vaguely make out the large wooden table in the room’s centre, the bulky stone fireplace and the rows of copper pans and containers lining the walls. He allowed his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom and paused only to grab a long kitchen knife from the table which he slipped into his coat. The servants’ quarters were located down a long corridor adjoining the kitchen. Blackdown eased himself silently down the black tunnel, a couple of loose boards groaning at his footfall, and he carefully pushed open the doors.

All the rooms were empty.

Blackdown made his way through the house, entering the main rooms through carefully concealed doors, designed to mask the entrances to the kitchens and servants’ quarters. No candles or lamps burned. Nor were there the faintest signs of life.

In his father’s study a fire was flickering, the room’s only illumination, casting curiously dancing shadows on the walls, the homely glow corrupted by the frosty tincture of dread. His father’s cabinets, containing his prized collection of Spode, Bow and Wedgwood, and his souvenirs from the Grand Tour, were transformed into what appeared to be shelves of shining white skulls, the flitting shadows giving them the semblance of life.

Pausing outside the drawing room he thought he heard something coming from within. Faint, hardly audible. Movement. The sound of stiff cotton rubbing against cotton accentuated by the deafening silence of the old house. He was concentrating so hard on what his next move should be, which was the best way of entering the room – there were two doors he could choose from – when the voice calling out to him threw him completely off balance.

‘Why don’t you come in, Thomas?’ a man said. ‘I know you’re there.’

Blackdown’s face paled. His heart crashed. He could not believe his own ears.

‘Do not think of trying anything foolish, Thomas. One wrong move on your part and your precious Miss Tresham will have her brains blown out. So I urge you to open the door slowly, holding your gun by the end of the barrel.’

Blackdown swallowed hard, his lips suddenly as dry as cracked leather.

‘I am not playing games, Thomas,’ the voice growled threateningly.

Blackdown heard Julianne give a short whimper. ‘Don’t you dare hurt her!’ he fired.

‘I’ll count to three…’ he replied. ‘One… Two…’

He swung the door open.

Blackdown stood in the doorway staring across the darkened room, lit only by the low flames of a fire burning in the hearth and bars of moonlight that filtered in through the gaps in the long curtains. Curiously there was an overriding smell of lamp oil, as if a large amount had been accidentally spilled. He made out two dark shadows at the end of the room, Julianne in front, a tall man standing behind her, a pistol at her head. She had a lighted taper in one hand.

‘About time, Thomas,’ said the man. He tapped the gun’s barrel on Julianne’s shoulder and she put the taper to an oil lamp that rested on a cabinet beside her. She turned up the light and the gun went back to resting against her forehead.

‘Jonathan?’ said Blackdown, his voice hushed.

It was not unlike staring into a distorted looking-glass, thought Blackdown, the man standing before him bearing an uncanny resemblance to him. And though younger, something cruel and blunt had chipped the face into a cold, emotionless mask. It was the face of his dead brother.

‘Un-cock the gun, Thomas, and toss it over to me.’

His mind in a daze, hardly daring to believe he had heard his deceased brother’s voice from behind the door and now thrown into inner turmoil by the sight of Jonathan Blackdown standing as large as life before him, he threw the gun so that it landed a yard or so from the couple’s feet.

‘It cannot be!’ he said, aware of the tremor threaded through his words. ‘You are dead. Murdered…’

The man smiled. ‘Very much alive, brother,’ he returned.

Julianne’s eyes were rimmed with tears as she fought to stem her emotions. They shone like crystal droplets in the lamplight.

‘You are Ravenbard?’

‘The one and the same,’ he said. ‘Come closer so that I may see you better, Thomas.’ He motioned with the pistol. ‘Sit down, make yourself comfortable.’

‘All this time you have been alive and well…’ Blackdown shook his head, stunned by the revelation. ‘You faked your own death. Why…?’

‘I said sit, brother!’ he demanded, pushing the gun harder into Julianne’s temple. She closed her eyes, dislodging a tear, but her lips tightened into a straight, determined line, suppressing her fear.

‘You ask why?’ He gave a humourless chuckle. ‘Necessity, old boy. Necessity. I had to disappear. It is good to see you. It’s been far too long. But I have to say that the years have not been kind to you. You’re looking world-weary, brother, older than your years.’

Blackdown eyed him intensely. ‘So the body they found did not belong to you. The real murdered man wore your clothes and was so mutilated that no one could have truly identified him,’ Blackdown said, his breathing settling down. ‘How could you do this – to our father, your fiancé? And how could you think of betraying your country, its freedom, all it stands for?’

Jonathan Blackdown ignored him, bent down to the carpet and retrieved the pistol. He checked it over. ‘Government issue,’ he said. ‘Poor quality, as usual. But what else can you expect from them?’

‘You will hang for treason,’ Blackdown said.

‘They will not find me,’ he replied, cocking the gun, pointing it at Blackdown.

‘Release Julianne,’ he demanded. ‘You can do what you like to me, but she can do you no harm. Release her.’

Jonathan laughed. ‘Ever the valiant knight, eh, Thomas? Running to aid a damsel in distress. It is as if you hang onto those childish games we played long ago. Life is not so noble, brother. I thought you would have learnt that by now.’

‘Let her go, Jonathan, I am warning you!’ Blackdown hissed.

To his surprise, Julianne reached up and put a finger on the barrel of the pistol held at her head, gently forcing it away. Jonathan stood to one side, smiling.

‘It is time to stop playing these games,’ she said. ‘Thomas, you are too righteous for your own good.’ Her expression was cold. Gone was the whimpering captive, and in its place stood a marble-faced Amazon. ‘Your self-sacrifice is laudable, Thomas, but because of it you now find yourself unarmed and our prisoner with scarce a fight. I had expected a little more resistance, but in the end I suppose you are like all men, but mindless wasps attracted to jam.’

Blackdown’s mouth was hanging open in shock. ‘What are you doing, Julianne? Tell me you are not in league with my brother, with Lansdowne and their revolution.’

It was her turn to laugh. ‘In league with them? Thomas, they are in league with
me!
’ She stepped over to the window and pulling back the curtains to peer outside.

‘With you?’ he gasped, shaking his head.

She squinted against the dark, but could not see any sign of movement outside. She closed the curtains and came to stand in front of Blackdown, though she maintained a discreet distance between them. Jonathan kept him covered with both pistols.

‘You are not being followed,’ she said. ‘For your information, Thomas, Ravenbard does not exist,’ she added. ‘He never did. Neither did his planned revolution. There is no massing of supporters ready to rise in arms against the government and crown; no great stockpile of weapons. Only the semblance of such. It never ceases to amaze me how the lure of power and fortune can scrape out a man’s eyes and make him blind to the truth.’ She cocked her head on one side, feigned a delicate smile and flashed her eyes seductively at him. ‘Or that they take no heed of a woman, credit her with virtues less than that of a helpless puppy.’ She gave a light chuckle. ‘Does that surprise you? Gentle, simpering Julianne Tresham?’ A cold smile played over her beautiful lips. ‘Women have their place, by the hearth, in the nursery, playing the piano and singing sweetly. We are but adornments, Thomas, for our fathers first and for our husbands to follow. We contribute little, for you will allow us little. You talk of our country’s freedoms – look at me, Thomas, am I free?’ Her smile vaporised as she patted her chest. ‘I have ambitions, I have dreams and I have goals that far exceed those allowed us by you and your ilk. I too wish power, money and respect.’

‘You had all those…’ Blackdown said. ‘And you have foolishly squandered each and every one of them.’

‘I did not have power!’ she burst. ‘True power! Nor my own money, nor true respect! If that is freedom then I spit on it!’

‘So you plotted this together,’ he returned.

She nodded. ‘Jonathan and I are of a like mind. More than that, we are equals. Yes, we planned all this together. We created Ravenbard and his grand designs for a revolution, targeted at those who felt aggrieved and humiliated that they were being barred from rising in society and in power; those fools who felt shunned and looked down upon from an elite societal wall created by generations of landed gentry. We baited men of fortune – manufacturers, factory owners, men of new wealth with exaggerated visions of political as well as social power. We promised everything they desired in return for their support and investment in our scheme. If they were denied being a part of the established order, then why not create an order of your own? They took the bait like the savage, hungry pikes they are.’

‘We have made a vast fortune beyond even that we imagined,’ Jonathan interjected. ‘And it came about through pure chance,’ he added with a wry smile. ‘Yes, I admit I ran wild for a time – running free with my father’s begrudged money. I gambled – still one of my weaknesses, Thomas, as you can see – but while blind drunk one night I placed a wager so large that it could have been the ruin of me and my father in one fell swoop had it gone wrong. Fortunately it went my way. I was a little unnerved by the near miss, but elated by my huge win. It made me a wealthy man overnight. It was Julianne who talked me into investing in two northern woollen mills, and then in a number of lucrative canal companies. As it was Julianne who opened my eyes to the potential placed before us by the war with France. We sold wool and uniforms to both the allies and their enemy, smuggled over to the continent by a network of canals and by boats at a number of coastal towns. But as far as the people we dealt with were concerned – people like excise men and magistrates only too eager to be bought at the right price – it was the mysterious Ravenbard who ran the operation. We used our vast profits to secure a manufactory and won legitimate government contracts to produce a range of armaments from bayonets to bullets, but secretly shipped many over to France and Spain. How ironic, eh? That the lumps of lead the two nations threw at each other came from the same place?’ Jonathan laughed and shook his head. ‘So too their breeches!’

‘And from there you duped others into thinking Ravenbard had other, grander plans,’ said Blackdown. ‘A revolution that would never happen. And recruiting gullible men like Sir Peter Lansdowne were crucial in giving your plans legitimacy and credibility.’

‘He was relatively easy to recruit. He was driven by his own greed. The promise of laying a canal across Blackdown land to feed his mines was but one financial incentive. The promise of more land and unrivalled political power another. There were others like him,’ said Jonathan. ‘Eager to be the vanguard, to feather their own nests into the bargain. Some were even naïve enough to believe in a new social order, inspired by the French revolution. But most were satisfied enough to rake in what profits they could from the venture. But yes, Lansdowne and his own greed became key; his political contacts were invaluable. His standing helped draw supporters to the cause like moths to a flame. And of course, there’s always the lure of the exclusive club. There are a great number of them, as you know, but membership of the secret Lupercal Club became highly sought after. High-stakes gambling, men in an arena fighting to the death, pretty women, fine living. It was all designed to feed the members’ primitive desires; part-theatre, part-reward.’