Death Walks Behind You

by Scott Hunter

  Sixteen minutes later her bedroom door slowly opened and closed again with a muffled click. Charlie slept on.

  I wait, and watch, and hunt – I move in harmony with the earth goddess and she in turn soaks up the life I offer – you see, men who are truly men possess this instinctive knowledge, a deep awareness of what is needed.

  Of what she needs…

  And now she has shared her secrets with me.

  And now I know.

  I know that she is not yet satisfied.

  Chapter 13

  Moran looked at his watch and pondered his next move. He’d had a solitary meal at the pub and Terl hadn’t been particularly forthcoming. Celine was nowhere to be found. Not for the first time he found himself wishing he was back at work; he missed the banter of the station, the cut and thrust of station politics, the constant pressure of keeping a dozen or more issues spinning like plates at the forefront of his mind. He missed Charlie. He missed Shona. He hadn’t yet plucked up the courage to call her since the Ranandan case had come to its chaotic conclusion. Moran sighed deeply. You don’t know what you want, Brendan, do you?

  He poured himself a large malt and cast his eyes around the cottage interior. Should he pay Matt Harrison another visit? Or should he just leave the whole damn thing alone and go home, dumping it all in Exeter’s lap on the way?

  He collapsed into the armchair and closed his eyes. No, not until I know exactly what’s going on. Not until I’m sure about Blanche. And not until I get my wallet back, either…

  It had seemed an instant, but when he opened his eyes again the first thing that Moran noticed was that darkness had fallen. He had dozed off. But something had disturbed him, jolted him awake. He rubbed his eyes, yawned.

  And a face appeared at the window.

  Before he could gather his wits, it was gone.

  Moran sprang up and threw the front door open. The road was clear on either side but he caught a movement beyond the church, at the edge of the cemetery where the churchyard met the dark line of the woods. A figure was moving quickly, darting between the tombstones with odd, loping strides. It hesitated briefly at the cemetery gate before turning away and, at a more leisurely pace, vanished into the shadows.

  He closed the door and found his whisky, downing the dregs in one. What had he seen? He wasn’t sure. Moran wasn’t easily rattled, but his hands were unsteady as he held the glass. Some local tramp or vagrant? Of one thing he was sure: whatever it had been, it hadn’t come to his door by accident. He had seen the intent, some gleam of recognition in the eyes – as if they’d found what they were looking for.

  The next day brought a damp morning; a ceiling of low, flat cloud had replaced yesterday’s unbroken blue sky. It wasn’t cold but Moran shivered as he made his way through a steady drizzle towards Matt Harrison’s cottage. He had no plan except to follow his instinct.

  There was no one about as he approached the cottage. The curtains were drawn and silence hung around the building like a shroud. He knocked.

  And waited.

  He knocked again, waited again, and after while turned away.

  Half-way down the path he heard the front door open. He turned back.

  Celine stood on the doorstep. She half-raised her arm, tried to smile but only succeeded in looking drawn and weary. “Hello, Brendan.” She hovered awkwardly on the threshold of Harrison’s cottage, half in, half out. “I was just on my way to see you.”

  “OK.” With his elbows on the table Moran pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes for a second or two before resting his chin on them and squaring up to Celine’s frankly sheepish expression. “So let me get this right. You took my wallet because you wanted to protect me from something. To cast some kind of spell? I mean, seriously? You expect me to believe that?”

  Celine sighed. “I needed something of yours. Something that was close to you.”

  “You could have asked.”

  “You would have laughed at me.”

  A fair point, Moran conceded, although he didn’t voice this thought. “I would have been a little taken aback, I suppose. I don’t hold much with all this white witchery stuff.”

  “See? Exactly. You wouldn’t have understood.”

  “I still don’t. Why did you run away?”

  Celine got up and went to the cottage window. Moran watched her tinker with an ornament on the ledge, a wooden carving of a hunter mounted on a rearing horse. Through the window he could see part of the church and the darker line of trees into which the figure he had seen the night before had disappeared. Celine replaced the ornament and turned to face him. “I had a panic attack. I get them occasionally. Ever since I was a little girl. I’m sorry, it was so rude of me.”

  “What were you panicking about?”

  Celine looked down at her feet. Her hair fell across her face, hiding her expression. “I suppose it was because of what we were talking about.”

  “De Courcy?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” Moran said. “I didn’t mean to be heavy-handed. It sounded as if you wanted to tell me something important.”

  “I did. I mean, I do.”

  “Well then. Tell me.”

  There was a silence while Celine played with her amber necklace until, apparently having made up her mind, she came and sat again at the table.

  “Maybe you can start with the reason you were at Matt Harrison’s house this morning?” Moran prompted.

  “Oh, that’s nothing really,” Celine said. “He’s a friend. I only popped in to see him about something. A bit of work he was going to do for me.”

  “I see. Has his wife come back yet?”

  “His wife? Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t ask.”

  “You didn’t ask? Why ever not?”

  Celine shrugged. “I suppose we tend not to pry too much in Cernham. They might have fallen out. I didn’t want to go there. You know, cause any embarrassment.”

  “Did he seem worried at all to you?”

  “Maybe a bit distracted. He wasn’t quite himself. Brendan, I feel as if I’m being cross-examined.”

  “Sorry. Force of habit.” He decided to change tack. He’d get to Harrison later. “So, anyway. De Courcy.”

  “What about him?”

  “Celine, there’s no point in being coy. I’ve been around a bit. I’m not easily shockable.”

  Celine ran her fingers across the table surface and sighed. When she looked up her eyes were both beautiful and sad. “We had a grand affair,” she said, a faint smile raising the corners of her mouth at the memory. “Unexpected. Completely unexpected, actually, and not at all what I was looking for when I came here.”

  Moran just nodded, said nothing. At last she was talking.

  “I’d had a string of unfortunate relationships, Brendan. I suppose I was trying to put it all behind me, coming to Cernham. I’d settled for singleness, a quiet life.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Is it? Brendan, I wonder if you could ever truly understand me. I’ve asked myself that question since I first saw you in the pub. I think I asked the question because I thought to myself, ‘Here I go again…’”

  “I can relate to that one, for sure,” Moran said quietly.

  Celine met his eyes briefly. “I saw it in you. The damage. I knew I had found a kindred spirit.”

  “But we’re talking about de Courcy.”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Go on.”

  “It wasn’t like that with him. He was rugged, assertive. Not really my type, but I suppose I was flattered. I went along with it.”

  “And?”

  Celine gave a little tap on the table and sat back. “For a while it was fine. We kept it all very hush-hush. You know what village rumours are like. We fell into an easy rhythm, but then, of course, the spectre of long-term commitment reared its head.”

  “And who introduced that old chestnut?”

  “I did, of course. I’d been through too
much to be mucked about again.”

  “And what happened?”

  Celine fell silent. Moran waited. The tick of the antique carriage clock filled the space. Outside, a gust of wind rattled a shutter.

  “He changed,” Celine said eventually. “Became very shifty. Didn’t want us seen out and about together. I felt like an actor in some war film, a French resistance spy, flitting here and there, ducking and diving, keeping undercover. After a few months of that I woke up one morning and thought, ‘What am I doing?’”

  “Understandably,” Moran said.

  “So I decided to adopt a little assertiveness myself. I went up to the manor and called for him.”

  “And that was unusual?”

  Celine snorted. “Unusual? Forbidden, more like. He’d made me swear not to visit, not to come anywhere near the manor house.”

  “Didn’t that strike you as rather an odd thing to ask?”

  “I suppose. But I was caught up in the romance of it at the time. I thought, well, if he doesn’t want to introduce me to the family for a while, that’s fine. Plenty of time for all that cosy stuff later.”

  “He spoke to you about the family?”

  “Guardedly. I knew he had a mother, and a brother somewhere, but that’s all really. When I asked him about either of them he would just look at me and shake his head.”

  “So you called for him. What happened?”

  “His mother answered the door.”

  “Ah, yes. I’ve met her.”

  “She looked me up and down as if I were some local gypsy selling lavender sprigs and tried to close the door in my face.”

  Moran remembered Lady Cernham’s expression of disdain, her aloofness bordering on downright hostility. And de Courcy himself, shotgun raised.

  Celine was in full flow now. “I put my foot in the door to stop her. I said I only wanted to say hello, to introduce myself, but she completely blew a fuse. She called me every name under the sun. I told her we were an item, her son and me, and she gave me such a look of hatred and contempt I was scared stiff – and I’m not easily rattled. And then she said, ‘So, you’re the latest, are you? You’ll go the way of the others, believe me. I’ll make sure of that.’ She said it in a very quiet voice, which was somehow worse than when she’d been ranting and raving.”

  Moran noticed Celine’s hands beginning to shake a little as she spoke. He rested his hand briefly on her arm. “Can I get you a drink? A little whisky, perhaps?”

  “Thanks.” Her eyes smiled. “I’d like that.”

  As Moran poured two measures of malt he imagined a difficult time ahead trying to forget those eyes, the way they seemed to pierce him. He gave Celine her glass and raised his own. “May you have warm words on a cold evening–”

  “–a full moon on a dark night, and the road downhill all the way to your door.” Celine raised her glass and clinked it against Moran’s. “Cheers.”

  They drank and Celine coughed at the malt’s sting.

  “Slowly. Savour it.”

  The colour soon returned to Celine’s cheeks. Moran cradled his malt and sat back, wordlessly prompting Celine to continue in her own time.

  “There was something in the way she said it. I don’t know, it was creepy. And as I said, I’m not one to scare easily. Anyway, I beat a retreat, tail between my legs. And that evening he came and found me and it was all different; he was like a stranger. Cold, as cold as ice.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “Not in so many words. It was just the way he was. It was weird.”

  “An Oedipus complex?” Moran suggested. Such things were not unknown. “The overbearing mother?”

  “Who knows? His relationship with Lady Cernham is far from normal, that’s all I can say. Anyway, after that it began.”

  “It?”

  “My paranoia. Or maybe some kind of persecution complex. Even now I don’t know if it’s just me, or… anyway, after a pretty heavy scene a few days later in which I told him in no uncertain terms that as far as I was concerned it was over, he told me that, no, I belonged to him; I was never to leave Cernham. He said it with such assurance, such – I don’t know, conviction, that now I actually feel like some kind of prisoner. Ever since that final scene I’ve always felt as though I’m being spied on. I know it sounds crazy, but whenever I’m out and about I’m sure someone is following me, just out of sight.”

  “Do you think it’s him?”

  “I don’t know.” Celine finished her malt and shrugged. “Like I said, I’m probably paranoid.”

  “You could cast a spell on him.” It was out before he could stop himself.

  “Now you’re making fun.” Celine said reproachfully. “I’m disappointed in you, Brendan.”

  Moran spread his hands in supplication. “I’m teasing. I’m a policeman, Celine. I don’t go for all this new age stuff. And by the way, you haven’t told me yet why you think I need protection.”

  “You’ve met Lady Cernham. That’s reason enough.”

  “And do I get my wallet back?”

  “Of course. Sorry. Here, it’s in my bag.” She retrieved the wallet and gave it to him. “You can check it if you like. I don’t mind.”

  “It was enough just to have it with you for a while, was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t need one of my socks, or maybe a used handkerchief?”

  “I shan’t dignify that with a reply.”

  Moran elected not to pursue the hocus-pocus line of enquiry. He could see that for Celine it was a serious and sensitive issue, and he decided to hold himself in check, at least for now. “So,” he said. “Joking aside, let’s summarise where we are. Firstly, you and I both know that a woman has disappeared. There’s also the possibility that Matt Harrison’s wife has gone the same way. You’ve told me that you have good reason to believe de Courcy is harassing you, albeit subtly. We’ve both experienced Lady Cernham’s ‘hospitality’. She talked about ‘others’. That sounds a little sinister, agreed? We both know that de Courcy has something to do with Blanche’s disappearance.”

  “Am I attending a briefing here?”

  Moran grunted. “Sorry. I’m used to bouncing ideas off the team. But look.” He paused, suddenly exasperated. “You found Blanche’s body, for goodness’ sake. Surely you want to get to the bottom of what happened?”

  Celine shrugged. “I just want a quiet life, Brendan. That’s why I came here. I know that something happened, but…”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t just drive to Exeter now and bring back the cavalry,” Moran cut in.

  “Because you’re on holiday. Because you can’t prove anything. And because you’ve just drunk a large malt whisky.”

  “Yes, all right. Point taken.”

  Celine got up. “I have to go, Brendan. I have a music practice and I’m late already.” She leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. “We’ll talk more later.”

  “Fine. I’ll be in the usual place. Here, let me.” Moran helped her on with her coat and shawl.

  “See you later.” She smiled. “Thanks for the drink.”

  Moran closed the cottage door and toyed with the idea of another malt. No. Best not. Instead he made a coffee and went over the last hour, dissecting and evaluating. It had been enlightening in some respects, less so in others. However, there was one thing about which he could be absolutely sure. One thing that hurt more than he could have expected.

  And that was the certainty that Celine was lying.

  Chapter 14

  Charlie wasn’t sure what had wakened her so she lay still, warm and comfortable under the enormous duvet. She didn’t want to check the time; it would only tell her that the next shift was coming up sooner than she wanted. Eventually she had to look. Quarter to four. Mid-afternoon; too early. But she was wide awake and knew from experience that she’d never get back to sleep. Her mind had already kicked in, prioritising the tasks ahead.

  She had planned to go for a run before breakfast so she thr
ew on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a baggy t-shirt. Downstairs it was clear that she had the house to herself again. So much for company… Still, as soon as she was off nights it would be better. She made a quick slice of toast and downed an orange juice.

  Keys, iPod – ready. Charlie opened the front door and set off at a brisk pace along the tree-lined avenue. The sun was out and the apple trees blossomed pink in the passing gardens. She enjoy running and it was always a good way to get to know your neighbourhood. She took a detour through the University campus, surprised and pleased to find a large lake, alongside which ran a pleasant pathway with a picturesque bridge up ahead. She passed groups of students, recently returned for the summer term, strolling and conversing in groups of two and three. It was such a pleasure to find this on her doorstep, another tick in the box confirming that she had made the right move. Her iPod cued another song – Postcards from a Young Man, a favourite Manics track. She hummed along as she completed a final circuit of the lake and made her way back to the road, maintaining a steady pace until the house came into view.

  A quick shower followed by a well-practised makeup routine – eyeliner, a touch of pale lip gloss subtly applied, minimal foundation – followed by four fingertips of hair gel and she was ready. Mirror check. Not bad. She closed her bedroom door. The big question: would Banner turn up this evening? She had to check his room. At least she’d know if he’d come home or not. It was time for some answers.

  She made her way along the landing corridor and put her head around the first door after a brief knock elicited no reply. Girl’s room – G’s, obviously. Next, a room with the bare essentials. A pair of running shoes on the floor, a bookcase filled with complicated-looking IT manuals. A couple of magazines on the neatly made bed, a faint smell of aftershave she recognized from their brief meeting the day before. So, Andreas’ room.