Dead Man Riding (5 page)

By the time we'd gone five miles or so it was too dark for the leaders to read the map, so they had to keep stopping at crossroads and striking matches. Although we knew we must be getting near Studholme Hall it was difficult to navigate with rutted farm tracks all looking alike, and of course nobody had brought a compass. Alan got argumentative and led us half a mile in the wrong direction before admitting he'd made a mistake. By then we were all tired, hungry and ready to snap at each other. As we trailed back the way we'd come, tripping over ruts and being snagged by briars, a voice said close to my ear, ‘I congratulate you all. Nobody's said it yet.' Meredith's voice, low and amused. I was about to ask, ‘Said what?' then realised it was like a serve in tennis and I was supposed to return it, not let it fall.

‘The most pointless of remarks, but sometimes the hardest to resist.'

‘Yes. Once voiced, it would end our philosophic party before it got properly started.'

Matches flared again up ahead and Alan shouted that this time it was definitely right, his voice full of relief. We hurried to him and he struck more matches to show a sign on a five-barred gate. The sign was done in amateur poker-work on a piece of plank. It read ‘Studholme Hall' and underneath, in larger letters, ‘Keep Out'. The gate was closed across the top of a drive between unkempt hedges. The smell of crushed pineapple weed was rising around us and even by match light you could see that grass and weeds were growing thickly in the gateway. Alan stooped and fumbled with the catch of the gate. When he pushed it open there was a sudden carillon of bells, tuned to different notes like Alpine cowbells. At any other time the effect might have been welcoming but, with our nerves already stretched, it made everybody jump back. We filed through the gate and Nathan pushed it shut, setting the bells jangling again. Below us, quite a long way down the steeply sloping track you could make out the dark rectangle of a house against the slope of a wooded hill with lamplight in one of the upstairs windows. We started walking down the track, Meredith still alongside me.

‘It's something to see a light,' I said. ‘I was beginning to think Alan's uncle had forgotten about us and gone away.'

There was a new-looking post-and-rail fence on our right, a tall hedge on the left. Alan and Kit were striding ahead.

‘I agree his hospitality's been unobtrusive so far.'

‘But then, different people have different ideas of hospitality.'

At that point the night exploded. There was a flash, a blast of noise then a second blast. After that silence for the space of a heartbeat apart from a sound like rain pattering on the hedge. Then a voice shouting, ‘Go away. I warned you. Go away.'

Alan and Kit had disappeared. Ahead of us on the track where their shapes had been there was only night sky. A sound came from Imogen behind me, part gasp, part sob. Then Alan's voice, unsteadily from ground level, ‘Uncle? Uncle James, what's happening?'

‘Alan?' The voice down the track was doubtful at first, then horrified. ‘Alan, I haven't gone and killed
you
now, have I?'

‘Not quite, Uncle, but you had a bloody good try.'

Kit laughed, high and shakily, also from near ground level. Meredith said to me entirely calmly, as if there'd been no break in our conversation, ‘It isn't granted to many of us to be proved right so quickly, Miss Bray. Beston's uncle clearly has a refreshingly original view of hospitality.'

Below us, Alan was getting to his feet. A figure came out of the dark, wrapped itself round him then released him.

‘Alan, my dear boy. I'm very sorry. I took you for some other people.'

It was an elderly voice, but powerful and unexpectedly attractive, with the deep, rounded quality of an old-fashioned actor. There was something actorly too in the man's power of recovery. The horror when he thought he'd killed his great nephew had been obvious but now he sounded as if the thing had been some boisterous joke. Kit was on his feet by now, but there was something odd and awkward about his silhouette. Then the Old Man's voice, uncertain again.

‘Who are you? Have I hit you?'

‘I bleed sir, but not killed.' Kit was an actor too and had got his composure back, but he was holding his left arm stiffly away from his body.

Alan yelped, ‘Kit, he hasn't gone and shot you has he?'

‘Only winged, I'm sure. Could we go inside and have a look at the damage?'

‘Yes, come in. All of you, come in.'

The Old Man hurried Kit and Alan down the path towards the house and the rest of us followed.

Chapter Four

O
UR PROCESSION WENT IN SINGLE FILE ROUND
the side of the house to where light was spilling out from an open door. We walked in silence, still too shaken to say anything. The open door led into a lobby cluttered with boots, walking sticks and oddments of harness, then to a big farm kitchen, brightly lit by two oil lamps hanging from a beam. It was the size of two or three normal living rooms and looked comfortable in a haphazard way with a coal fire burning in the grate, a fat white and sandy coloured dog asleep on a rug in front of it, a big scrubbed table and five or six armchairs, all well-worn and none matching. A saddle was hitched over the arm of one of the chairs and the table was strewn with bits of horse tack, sponges and a tin of saddle soap, surrounding an old stone cider jar filled with wild flowers.

‘Now let's see what I've done to you,' the Old Man said to Kit. He was still carrying the shotgun, now folded harmlessly over the crook of his arm but we found it hard to keep our eyes off it. Perhaps he noticed this because he hooked it over the arm of his chair, next to the saddle. His grey eyes glinted with the manic brightness you get sometimes with short-sighted people. He had the build of an old jockey and probably didn't weigh much more than Midge, with legs that looked thin even in the leather gaiters he was wearing. Old age had drawn skin and muscle tight over his prominent bones. His face was as brown as the leather of the saddle he'd been cleaning, with a beaky nose and high forehead under a thick thatch of silver hair that came almost down to his shirt collar. He wore a beard that was the same bright silver as his hair, but clipped to a neat point. When he spoke he showed lines of teeth as regular as a young man's but the colour of milky coffee. Kit turned to show him his left arm. The white shirt sleeve was spattered with blood, ripped in several places. Alan gasped and stepped towards Kit but his uncle waved him towards the table.

‘Scissors there somewhere, she uses them for bacon rinds. Now, my friend, if you'll sit there under the lamp where we can see…' Kit let himself be guided into a chair. He was pale but calm, unlike Alan who was shaking. Imogen had to help him find scissors among the detritus on the table. The Old Man grabbed them from him and cut round the shirt sleeve at the shoulder. When it fell away Imogen gasped and hid her head in my shoulder. The damage wasn't so serious. Maybe half a dozen or so shotgun pellets had pierced the skin but trails of blood made it look worse than it was. The Old Man nodded, produced a pair of tweezers from a pocket and started digging away in Kit's arm.

‘Not hurting you am I, my boy?'

Kit shook his head, tight lipped. Alan tried to protest but Kit signalled with his eyes not to interfere so Alan had to watch, his face registering pain with every prod of the tweezers while Kit's was almost impassive. The only sound was the gentle roar of the lamps and the occasional ping of a shotgun pellet falling on to the stone floor.

‘Seems to have got 'em all. Somebody get the carbolic. She keeps it under the sink.'

Midge and I searched under the stone sink in the far corner and found a cloth-stoppered bottle that, from the smell, was household disinfectant.

‘Oh no,' Midge said. ‘It will kill him.'

‘It'll need something strong after those tweezers. Goodness knows what he used them for last.'

Some equine activity, I guessed. We carried the bottle over to the Old Man. He tore off a relatively clean piece of Kit's shirtsleeve, soaked it in disinfectant and clapped it on his arm. Kit reacted with no more than a shiver and a sharp intake of breath. In his place I'd have howled like a timber wolf.

‘Pudding cloths, in the table drawer.'

At least the Old Man seemed to have a good grasp of what went on in his kitchen. There were several pudding cloths, newly laundered. He converted one of them into a pad over the wounds and used two more as a bandage. I had to admit it was quite a neat effort in the circumstances.

‘Right, you'll do.'

Meredith had found Kit's jacket, dumped in a pile of our luggage by the door. He held it for Kit to get his uninjured right arm into the sleeve, then draped it carefully over his bare and bandaged left arm. Kit nodded a thank you. The Old Man took a deep breath.

‘So that's that dealt with. You are all welcome. My home is your home. Alan, my dear boy, please introduce me to your friends.'

It looked doubtful for a moment whether Alan was going to obey his great uncle or hit him. But custom and politeness won.

‘Miss Bray, may I introduce you to my Uncle James.'

As it happened, these formal introductions were the last time any of us heard him called Uncle James. Everybody called him the Old Man, almost as a title of honour. He even used it of himself. He shook my hand, Imogen's and Midge's, peering at us closely as if he wanted to be sure of recognising us again. I noticed that when Alan introduced him to the men he repeated their names, obviously memorising them, which he hadn't done in our case.

‘Sit down, all of you. Alan, there's brandy on the sideboard over there. Do the honours. I expect the ladies will take tea.'

Most of us settled in various chairs. The Old Man poured our tea himself into cups that looked like survivors of several different tea sets from a smoke-blackened clay pot that had been nudged up close to the fire. The tea was as dark as a peat bog, served without milk or sugar, and tasted as if it had been brewing all day. After all that had happened I'd have preferred brandy. The sideboard was Jacobean oak, carved with biblical scenes including a little pot-bellied Adam and Eve holding branches in front of their loins. As Alan walked over to it to get the brandy a few shotgun pellets pattered off his clothes on to the stone-flagged floor.

‘Not bad shooting anyway,' the Old Man said.

Alan didn't answer. His uncle got glasses from the sideboard and watched closely as Alan filled them.

‘Properly, my boy. More than that. This is a celebration.'

Alan did as he was told, pouring until the bottle was empty. I could see that the dazed feeling was wearing off and being replaced by the anger most people feel after being terrified.

‘You've got a good steady hand,' the Old Man said. ‘I'm glad about that.'

‘You are, are you?'

Alan carried brandy over to Kit, Meredith and Nathan then took a gulp from his own glass and faced the Old Man. If you allowed for at least fifty years difference in age there was a family resemblance, particularly the prominent facial bones and – it struck me – a ruthlessness about getting what they wanted. Alan had wanted Imogen there, and got her (though, from her thoughtful expression, probably not for much longer.) The Old Man had wanted Alan and got him, although why he wanted him was anybody's guess.

‘You don't think you might have warned me?'

‘But I did, my boy. I sent you a telegram.'

‘I thought it was some kind of joke.'

‘The whole thing's a bloody joke.'

Nathan was sitting next to me and I could see him wincing at swearing in front of ladies. I signed to him not to worry.

‘So it's a joke, is it? It's a joke that you nearly killed my oldest friend? It's a joke that you've let me bring my friends here without letting me know you've managed to start another civil war with your neighbours?'

‘Civil war, you say?' In spite of Alan's anger, the Old Man seemed quite complimented about that.

‘It's even spread to the town. Do you know they wouldn't hire us a cab or even a cart to come out here? As soon as they knew where we were heading, the whole town was against us.'

‘I'm sorry for that. I'd meant to have Robin waiting for you with the wagonette but we thought it was tomorrow you were coming.'

‘They threw stones at us. Actually threw stones as we were hiking out of town. And when we get here at last, what do you do? You start blazing away at us as if we were a gang of poachers.'

The Old Man looked hurt. ‘Oh no, my boy. I'd never open fire on poachers. Some of my best friends are poachers.'

‘Well, thank you for that. You wouldn't shoot poachers, but you've no scruples about shooting my friends.'

‘My dear boy, please don't be so angry. It was a misunderstanding. I told you I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow.'

‘So who did you think it was? You were out pretty quickly with that shotgun, weren't you, and you've got warning bells rigged up on the gate. What's happening?'

The Old Man sighed, ‘Isn't this discourteous to our guests? Shouldn't you and I discuss it after we've all eaten?'

Meredith said, quietly and politely, ‘I think we'd all be interested to know, sir.'

It was the first time any of the rest of us had spoken since the introductions. The Old Man swivelled his head round towards Meredith, gave him a long look and nodded as if acknowledging that he had a right to an opinion.

‘In that case, I'll tell you. Alan, sit down for goodness' sake. You're not addressing a meeting.'

Unwillingly, Alan sat down on a straight-backed chair by the sideboard and the Old Man settled himself into the armchair with the saddle and shotgun beside him, crossing his gaitered legs. The plump dog by the fire stirred and developed two heads, one at each end. As it got up I saw that what I'd taken for one fat dog was two thin ones, fine Afghans. They padded across the room to take up positions on either side of the Old Man, white head on his left knee, sand-coloured on his right. He sat very upright, like a tribal chieftain between bodyguards.