Cold in the Earth (39 page)

It was only about quarter of an hour after she had left that the phone rang. At first Bill Fleming paid no attention, then, as it went on ringing, looked round as if expecting someone else to answer it. But there was no one there and at last he went over to the phone sitting on the dresser and picked up the receiver.

He didn’t say anything, but when someone spoke he listened, and when the voice stopped he said carefully, ‘No, she’s not here. At Burnside Cottages.’

He put it down again, then smiled as if pleased by this simple accomplishment. He turned to go back to his chair, then stopped.

‘Meggie!’ he said to the dog, lying as usual on the rug but, as always, watching her master’s every move. ‘Coming out, Meg?’

The dog was at his side in an instant, feathery tail signalling ecstatic delight that at last her sadly disordered world was returning to normal.

23

It was only a couple of days since Laura had left the cottage, but how long ago it seemed and how different it looked! Then it had been under snow, the calm beauty of the glistening landscape with its long blue shadows veiling nature’s deadly power to make a mockery of modern civilisation. She remembered with a shudder the merciless dark and her own fear, the bellowing in the night and the footprints.

Conrad must have been very angry for a very long time. Perhaps it was only the act of ‘shape-shifting’ which had allowed him to carry on a life in which he seemed normal and, indeed – she gave a small sigh – charming. But his suspension from work, his constant humiliations at Max’s hands – even the belief that she was rejecting him by coming to Chapelton with Max – must have been an accumulation of indignities which brought him close to complete loss of control, even before Laura’s discovery of his terrible secret. She could count herself lucky that she hadn’t had to deal with his attack here, in night and cold darkness. As poor Dizzy had . . .

But she couldn’t afford to let herself dwell on the past. Today, if only temporarily, winter had relaxed its icy grip. The little burn was gurgling cheerfully under the stone arch, there were patches of foolhardy snowdrops on its banks, pushing up slender spears to unfurl fragile, green-white blooms, and even some clumps of crocuses producing bright patches of colour along the path. She sniffed the damp freshness of the air, again murmuring King Duncan’s apposite words – although, she remembered now, they had been spoken just as he entered Macbeth’s ‘
fatal battlements
’. Well, the best the cottage could offer in the way of battlements was some rather fancy guttering. She was smiling as she let herself in.

There was a light on in the bedroom. She stopped, alarmed, every nerve jangling. It took her a moment or two to remember the power cut; she had left in daylight before the power was restored so it wouldn’t be surprising if she’d left a light on. Even so she waited, straining her ears for any sound of movement before she flung open the door on the empty room and felt foolish.

It didn’t take long to pack. She cleared the wardrobe and drawers, cleared the bathroom, then fetched a couple of plastic bags to sort out the food in the fridge. She was squatting beside it, looking for the ‘use-by’ date on a pot of yoghurt, when she heard the tap on the door.

Seeing Max Mason beaming through the glass pane, her reaction was one of irritation. Even with Conrad safely locked up, she’d been hoping to keep her whereabouts secret. She didn’t like Max; she’d hoped to avoid having to tell him to leave her alone. Still, she would if she had to.

‘Max!’ she said coolly as she opened the door. ‘However did you know where to find me?’

‘Hey, Laura! Some monosyllabic yokel at Mains of Craigie told me you were here. Need any help?’ He stepped neatly past her into the house.

‘No thanks, I’m just finished. Once I’ve cleared the fridge I’ll be off.’

‘I just came to check you were OK after your ordeal yesterday. Must have been seriously scary!’

Laura wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. He had come to gloat, of course, and the note of false concern barely concealed his glee.

Undaunted, he went on, ‘They came and took away a silver mask from my father’s study this morning, you know – the murder weapon, is my guess. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you he was a bad man. And at least now he’s where he ought to be at last, isn’t he?’ He paused again for her agreement; again she said nothing.

Her lack of response was making him edgy. He was wearing a black suede jacket and jeans; he thrust his hands into his back pockets in a macho pose, standing over her as she went back to her task.

‘It’s very sad,’ Laura said repressively, starting to stow food rapidly into the rubbish bag without any attempt at sorting.

‘But you were on to him, weren’t you?’

She was aware that he was watching her carefully – for signs, perhaps, of regret which would feed his jealousy? She shrugged and carried on with what she was doing.

He strolled over to the table where there was a bowl of fruit and picked up an apple. ‘May I?’ he said, biting into it. She ignored that too, and after a moment he went on, ‘I couldn’t get the locking yourself in at Chapelton bit – but you’d figured it out, I guess. Quite a foxy lady, aren’t you, under that quiet front?’

The fridge was empty now. She stood up. ‘I’m pretty much finished here. Do you want any more fruit, Max, or shall I take it away?’

‘Sure, sure.’

She fetched her case from the bedroom and added it to the collection of bags. ‘Well, that’s about it.’ She moved purposefully towards the door but he didn’t follow her, making a business of finishing his apple.

‘You know, I still can’t get over this business of old Conrad.’

Laura sighed, loud enough to be heard. She’d had enough of this. ‘Yes, very strange,’ she said dismissively. ‘Now—’

He’d finished the apple at last; she took the core from him, put it into the waiting rubbish bag, tied it up and pointedly carried it to the door. He showed no sign of taking the hint.

‘Bit of a joke when you think about it really. Prancing about the maze with a silver mask on his head and a black cloak, pretending to be a bull—’

‘But—’ Laura stopped short. That was what had bothered her, the problem she couldn’t put her finger on. Conrad wouldn’t have to pretend to be a bull; he had no need to. In his mind, he
was
a bull. And if not Conrad . . .

Max’s eyes were fixed on her, boring into her. ‘But what, Laura?’

Her lips were dry. ‘Oh, nothing. Forgotten what I was going to say. Would you be very kind and take my suitcase—’

As she turned away, he grabbed her arm, pulling her round to face him. ‘You’ve thought of something, haven’t you? Tell Uncle Max.’

‘It’s nothing, Max. Let go of my arm – that hurts!’

He tightened his grip. ‘I don’t know what it is, but you know, don’t you? That’s what I was afraid of – that despite everything you wouldn’t be convinced. You fancied him – I could see that – and you didn’t trust me, right from the start. I came ready to test you and you’ve given yourself away.

‘I don’t know what warned me – maybe I’m just seriously smart. Lucky for me, not so lucky for you. Sorry about this, Laura. I even quite liked you, really.’

‘As much as Dizzy?’ Laura’s knees were shaking and his hold on her arm was cruelly painful, but talking had worked with Conrad.

Max’s laugh sounded positively light-hearted. ‘Oh, more, in fact. She was so frigging superior, your sister. She was making a play for my father, right from when she first saw him in Pamplona – treated me like some dumb kid, even though I’d seen her first, I’d been the one who really saved her that night. And he was coming on to her too, though he tried not to show it. Maybe they slept together – I don’t know. But he made a favourite of her, took her part against me. She’d no time for me and then she took my place with him. And he let her do it – so Conrad could laugh at me because I wasn’t the favourite any more. But I paid the Minotaur out for that – and her too.’

The authentic teenage whine was in his voice, and now she understood. How foolish she had been, and how cleverly he had misled her into thinking he had loved Dizzy and she was a substitute! He had come to hate Dizzy and she, Laura, had been nothing more than the audience for a delicious recounting of the circumstances of his revenge on two people who had humiliated him. And what he had said fitted; his personality had always had the hallmarks of a spoiled child rather than someone with a harsh and neglectful father. And Dizzy, poor Dizzy, had stumbled into this cesspit of madness and jealousy and unbalanced minds.

‘Your father – the Minotaur – did he have Conrad’s problem, too?’ Keep him talking, keep him talking!

Max shrugged. ‘Grandad certainly did. I was lucky to be normal, frankly.’

Call this normal?
The words almost escaped but she bit them back. ‘But why the Minotaur?’

‘The monster in the heart of the maze, of course. You’d think you knew where he was coming from, that he was a man, a good father,’ she thought she heard a softening in his voice, ‘but all at once he changed, he was coming from a different direction. He was a bull, trampling you, putting you down in the dirt . . .’

‘It must have been very hard for you, growing up like that.’ She made her voice soft, sympathetic.

‘Yes—’ Then he stopped short, his eyes narrowing. ‘Hey, hey! Whatever gave you the impression I was stupid? Psychotherapy isn’t going to help you now.’

Without warning he grabbed her other arm and twisted it up behind her, then whipped out a cord from his pocket and bound her wrists together. A second later, a gag was being thrust between her teeth. She didn’t even have time to struggle – and anyway, what could she, with her slight frame, have done to resist a fit young man?

‘Shall I explain to you what I’m going to do? I think it’s only fair.’ He laughed, enjoying the moment. ‘I’m going to put you in a safe hiding-place I – well, shall we say happen to know? It’s all ready, and then I walk back from Chapelton and fetch that jeep you came in. Oh, and your luggage, of course. I’ve even got a headscarf to put on while I’m driving. Nice touch, no?

‘It would be easier to deal with you now, of course, but with Conrad locked up it really has to be Brett who takes the rap this time – bless her, she was such a help, uttering the most blood-curdling threats with the police right there to hear them! So she has to be at Chapelton on her own when the dreadful deed is done.’ He laughed again. ‘Dear me, it sounds so melodramatic, put like that, doesn’t it?

‘I know, I know, it would be kinder to put you out of your misery now, but with forensics these days you can’t be too careful. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait but once I’ve got her set up, I promise I’ll make it as quick as I can. I’ve got the vegetable knife from the kitchen, simply covered with her fingerprints. Clever or what?

‘Now, shall we go?’

He sounded so assured – smug, even. His eyes had glittered with pleasure throughout that recital and there was nothing Laura could do to stop him, except hope that in this whole elaborate scheme something would go wrong – and go wrong in time to save her life.

It was a slender hope, but it was all she had. Stumbling, she was frog-marched down the path to the Range Rover parked at the end of the path. She looked about her hopefully but the landscape was bare and silent apart from the harsh caws of rooks in a tree across the field.

He pushed her into the back space, then pulled over a stiff, heavy tarpaulin to cover his prisoner. She could feel it being weighed down all round, then heard the slam of doors and the engine starting. As they lurched off along the uneven road there was only darkness and terror, the discomfort of her cramped limbs and her face bumping painfully on the floor.

‘Someone’s squealing to the Press,’ DI Fleming said grimly, looking round the circle of innocent faces at the morning briefing, ‘and when I find out who it is, I’ll have their guts for garters.’

It was an empty threat and they all knew it. There were probably a couple of officers in this very room who acted as stringers for those bastards in the media, and an off-beat story about a cop with murderous delusions, especially with a touch of horror thrown in, was worth good money.

Fleming hadn’t enjoyed being doorstepped by a reporter with a furry mike and a camera crew on her way into work this morning, hadn’t enjoyed having to say politely, ‘Sorry, I haven’t anything for you at the moment but there’ll be a statement later.’ Thinking about her conversation with Tam about shape-shifting, there were a number of people she’d enjoy sinking her teeth into right now.
Grrr!
She hastily changed the growl into a cough and brought the briefing to a swift conclusion.

The good thing was that Bailey, having dragged his heels all through this investigation, was now seized by a sense of urgency, so perhaps the Press had their uses after all. The only problem was that he wanted a neat solution on his plate with a sprig of parsley and a slice of lemon by yesterday at the very latest.

Still, they’d been fingerprinting the silver mask in house so the results should be through any time. And the tip of one horn, on close inspection, even seemed to have a slight stain; if that did turn out to be Diana Warwick’s blood – the labs had been paid to give it top priority – and there was any sign of Conrad’s prints on it, that might be enough to bump him into a proper confession. They needed it badly; you couldn’t make a charge stick on the basis of a fingerprint on an object in the accused’s house even if it did prove to be the murder weapon – something else that the path lab would have to confirm.

Reaching her office again, she picked up the phone and dialled the number of the fingerprints department. ‘Any luck?’ she said, without bothering to identify herself.

‘Er – Tam’s on his way up now with the report, ma’am,’ was the answer, and she frowned as she put down the phone. Strangely evasive . . .

When MacNee appeared, she could tell it wasn’t good news. ‘Why do they always send me to do the dirty work?’ he complained as he laid a sheet of paper on her desk.