BLACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery)

by D. M. Mitchell

‘You? Whatever for?’

  ‘It appears I have stumbled into something I shouldn’t have. Someone attempts to get rid of me. But why they try in such a bold and fruitless manner is beyond me. Attacking a lone man in his bed or in the street is one thing. But attacking a man garrisoned inside his house is folly. I can only think them very stupid or up to something I have not yet fathomed.’

  The two men kept up a continual fire, till finally the five men ran from hiding and made a break for it.

  ‘They don’t like the heat,’ said Blackdown, taking a loaded pistol and some powder and shot and running across the roof.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Lord Tresham shouted.

  ‘I mean to give chase.’ He halted briefly. ‘Whatever you do, in your enthusiasm do not fire upon me by mistake!’ Then he was off again.

  He ran to the main entrance, took the sweeping stone steps two at a time. He stared hard in the direction the men had taken and thought he made out the indistinct dots of horsemen exposed by the moonlight on a faraway stretch of land but couldn’t be sure.

  He started as a man dashed from behind the cover of a stone statue base and tried to make a run for it.

  In an instant Blackdown was upon him, launching himself at the fugitive and bringing him down.

  ‘Leave me be! Leave me be!’ the old man screeched. ‘Do not kill me! I mean no harm!’

  ‘Patrick Deale!’ Blackdown gasped as the man turned onto his back. The ditch digger who he’d seen in the churchyard attending the grand grave of his wife. ‘What are you doing here? Are you with those men?’

  He shook his head violently. ‘No, sir! No, sir! Do not kill me for hiding in your bushes. I mean no harm. I only come to catch a glimpse…’

  ‘To catch a glimpse?’

  ‘I mean no harm, sir. I am not with them. They went in that direction. Do not shoot me, sir, I beg of you!’

  With a grunt of frustration Blackdown released him. ‘I’ll speak with you later, Deale.’ He looked up to see the stableman running up to him with his horse.

  Blackdown took the reins and mounted with a fluid tossing of his leg. He encouraged the beast to give chase. The horse rattled over the earth, Blackdown’s head low to its whipping mane. He came to a spot where there were signs of many hoof prints in the soft ground, the place where his attackers’ mounts had been tied to a fence. He scanned the ground, trying to pinpoint where the prints led. There were spots of blood mingling with the churned mud. He set off at a pace in the direction the prints pointed.

  He left behind the landscaped gardens of Blackdown Manor and hit open fields and woodland. The trail led to the edge of a field, through a gap in a high hedge that stood atop a raised bank sweeping down to a narrow dirt track lane. The lane was bordered on each side by trees, casting their shade onto the road and painting the whole in shadows so impenetrable Blackdown was at first reluctant to enter. He stopped and listened. Save for the horse’s heavy breathing he heard nothing. He took out his pistol, and with a gentle kick to the horse’s flanks he encouraged it down the steep earth bank. The smell of freshly dislodged earth was strong in the still night air. He stared intently down the black stretch of road, in both directions. The earth was so rutted and broken by the passage of many horses, cattle and sheep that it was impossible to determine which direction the horsemen had taken.

  He took the horse further down the track, ducking to avoid low boughs, searching for any clues in the dark. He heard the whisper-like sound of shifting stems to his right, and just in time to duck as a shot rang out of the undergrowth like a thunderclap, briefly lighting up the scene like a lightning flash. Fortunately the aim was poor and Blackdown’s sudden movement must have put the attacker off, for the shot zipped wide by Blackdown’s shoulder. In an instant Blackdown had dismounted, but as he landed on his feet a body launched itself at him and he felt the heat of pain in his forearm as a blade sliced through the cloth of his coat.

  Blackdown dodged to one side, throwing the man off balance, but in a flash the assailant, screaming out loud, threw himself bodily at Blackdown, the knife lunging at his exposed throat.

  Blackdown’s gun went off and the ball flew through the man’s forehead, exploding out through the top of his skull and spattering Blackdown in a rain of blood and brains. The man appeared to stand still for a moment, his eyes uncomprehending, his mouth wide open, but he was stone dead, the eyes now unseeing, and he crumpled without a sound into an untidy heap at Blackdown’s boots.

  Panting, holding the place where the blade had slashed his skin, Blackdown took the man’s knife and crouched down, expecting other attackers to emerge from the dense undergrowth, but none were forthcoming. He threw the knife away, bent down and examined the dead man. There was a great deal of blood on the man’s right thigh, and Blackdown assumed this was the man he’d hit from the roof of Blackdown Manor.

  A noise to his right from the dense undergrowth caused him to grab the fallen knife and face the direction of the disturbance. He crept slowly towards the sound, gently brushing back the foliage of a bush to see a horse tethered to a tree. Blackdown figured the dead man had been left behind, perhaps slowing the others down, and had hidden himself away hoping he wouldn’t be detected and Blackdown would pass him by. Most likely it had been the horse that had caused the noise, thought Blackdown, and the hidden man had to make a choice whether to stay under the cover of the bushes and face discovery or get the first shot in.

  Blackdown led the horse onto the track, and then bent down to lift the man up.

  ‘By God, you’re a heavy bastard,’ he said.

  He hauled him over the back of the horse and remounted his own.

  ‘We were getting worried,’ said Lord Tresham. Addison and another two servants were close by his side and standing beneath the steps to Blackdown Manor. He held the lantern up to light Blackdown’s slow arrival. ‘Good God, sir, what do you have there?’

  Blackdown dismounted and went to the captured horse. He pushed the body to the ground. It fell near Tresham’s feet and he backed away. A trail of blood and brain was left smeared on the horse’s shining flesh. ‘Don’t let Julianne see this,’ he said, patting the horse’s neck as he searched for a brand or any other distinguishing mark on the horse’s flanks. Addison nodded, went up the steps and closed the door.

  ‘One of our attackers?’ asked Tresham.

  ‘The one I wounded. Obviously he could not keep up with the others and was left behind. He tried to hide from me.’

  ‘You did for him, Thomas,’ said Tresham examining the hole in the glowing white bone of the skull where the man’s brains should have been.

  ‘I would have wished to take him alive. He is no use to me dead.’

  ‘He was no use to the world alive,’ Tresham said. He peered into the man’s face. ‘I don’t know him.’ He asked the servants. ‘Do any of you know this man?’

  They said no, their hands over their mouths at the gruesome sight. Reverend Bole came running outside. ‘What is this?’ He walked slowly up to them. ‘My dear God. I knew this night would end badly for someone.’

  ‘One of your parishioners, reverend?’ Blackdown asked. By the light of the lamp he could see blood splashed onto his coat. He tried to brush it away but the action served only to rub it into the cloth.

  Bole shook his head. ‘But he will be known to God.’

  ‘Some good that will do me,’ said Blackdown. ‘Unless God decides to tell me his name and who he was working for. Reverend, I caught Patrick Deale hiding in the bushes outside the house tonight…’

  ‘Deale?’ he said, squinting.

  ‘Why would he be here?’ Blackdown asked.

  ‘He is a harmless man,’ Bole defended. ‘I wouldn’t pay him any heed. I do not think he will have anything to do with those that attacked the house.’

  ‘That does not explain his presence,’ Blackdown murmured.

  ‘I will see to it that he doesn’t trespass,’ Bole said hurriedly.

  A little too hurriedly
, as if to dismiss him as fast he could, Blackdown thought. But he pushed Deale to the back of his mind and studied the dead body thoughtfully. The death had unnerved him. He thought he had seen the last of his killing days. He had hated the sudden bloodlust that had accompanied the attack on the house and then the shooting of this man, enflamed the more with seeing him drop dead at his feet. But he’d been powerless to stop it. Only now was it subsiding. He bent to the body and rummaged through the man’s pockets but did not come up with anything that would help identify the corpse. He rose to his feet. ‘I need to wash this man from me,’ he said sullenly, taking off his bloodstained coat.

  ‘You have been wounded, Thomas!’ said Tresham in alarm when he saw the white shirtsleeve coated in blood.

  ‘It is nothing. A scar to add to many others.’

  ‘We must get you inside and have it dressed,’ he said, taking Blackdown by the arm. ‘Clear that thing into one of the barns till tomorrow,’ he ordered the servants, who reluctantly began to carry the man away. ‘By God, someone will pay for what they did tonight!’

  But Blackdown pulled his arm away. He spoke low so that the servants could not overhear. ‘Uncle, why is Devilbowl Wood being laid with mantraps? Why are officers of Sir Peter Lansdowne’s Horse Patrol guarding the wood?’

  ‘What? You must be mistaken, Thomas. There is no reason for the Horse Patrol to be on my land.’

  ‘I saw them, uncle. Tonight, with my own eyes.’

  ‘You must be mistaken, he reiterated. ‘Perhaps you’ve seen my gamekeeper, Gabriel Budge, and one or two of his lads. Some wild dog or another has been attacking my sheep. I have asked them to set traps to catch the culprit and I have instructed them to patrol the area till it is caught. Sir Peter’s men would not trespass on my land without permission.’

  ‘I know what I saw, uncle.’

  ‘Then you saw wrong. What were you doing there anyway?’ His eyes softened. ‘Because it is the place poor Jonathan was found? I understand your feelings, Thomas, but look, dear boy, you are obviously under a great deal of strain. All this business with finding out about your brother’s death, your father’s failing fortunes, and this disagreeable affair between your father and you is the last straw. I think you are ready for a rest. You have had a hard life for one so young. You are tired and when you are tired the mind often tricks the eyes into seeing things that are not really there.’

  ‘You think I see things? That I am going mad?’ he said incredulously.

  He placed a comforting hand on Blackdown’s arm. ‘I infer no such thing, Thomas. But I am worried about your health. It is enough that my best friend is dying; I do not wish his only surviving son to fall ill too. Perhaps you let your imagination run away with you.’

  ‘I know what I saw,’ he said defiantly. ‘And heard.’

  ‘Heard?’

  He looked into Tresham’s watery eyes. ‘In Devilbowl Wood.’

  ‘What did you hear?’

  With a bleak smile Blackdown shook his head. ‘You are right, uncle. I am tired. I need to clean up and rest before I can determine who it was that attacked us. Unless, of course, I imagined the attack, too.’

  ‘You are just like your father!’ Tresham said with a grin. ‘Ever the stubborn mule. In light of what has just happened here tonight, perhaps you should all come and stay at my house.’

  ‘My father cannot be moved. And if it is me they are after then I will not put your lives in danger by staying with you. Though I thank you for your offer, uncle. I shall have to stay at Blackdown Manor, much as I dislike the thought, in case they decide to attack father.’

  ‘Then there is still something between you…’ he said quietly.

  ‘There is nothing between us,’ he returned bluntly. ‘If they attack again then next time I will be ready for them and I will find out who is behind it all. My father means nothing to me.’

  ‘Then Julianne and I will stay here, too.’

  ‘Do as you please,’ he said.

  He left Tresham alone, walking back to the house holding his bleeding arm.

  So very like his father, Tresham thought.

  16

  A Serious Charge

  He stared fixedly at the failing embers of the fire. The tiny, exhausted, wraith-like flames still licking at the logs provided the only source of light, save for the fast-fading pale moonlight streaming in through the windows. Large parts of the room lay cloaked in darkness, so dense even his accustomed eyes were unable to penetrate it.

  Thomas Blackdown sat in a large padded chair, his greatcoat wrapped around his shoulders. Blackdown Manor had always been too large and too cold, he thought, and as autumn crept over the land the chill inside the old house intensified. It was an abiding memory. The fires in each room being stacked high, driving back the cold, at least from the vicinity of the fireplaces. So many memories had been dislodged by being here, he thought tiredly. Sleep begged him to close his eyes, but he fought it off for reasons he could not put a finger on.

  ‘What are you doing sitting down here still?’

  The candlelight drew his attention to the door. Like a radiant spirit floating in the gloom he saw Julianne Tresham move slowly towards him. And like a spirit she didn’t appear to make a noise. She paused by the side of his chair, lifting the candlestick, the soft light flattering the pale flawless skin of her face all the more. A spark sat on her lower lip, one in each beautiful eye.

  ‘You shouldn’t be up either,’ he said to her, looking back into the smouldering fire. She was entrancing, he thought. Bewitching almost. He should not be thinking so about his dead brother’s fiancé. ‘It must be early in the morning.’

  ‘Three, or thereabouts,’ she said. She pulled the shawl she wore tighter about her, stared into the fire also. ‘I could not sleep.’

  ‘You and your father should have gone home. There is nothing you can do here.’

  ‘Father insisted we stay,’ she said. ‘He does not want to leave Lord Blackdown yet. Not when he is so close to…’

  Blackdown shrugged. ‘Like I said, there is nothing you can achieve by being here.’ He tried to make his words sound cold, but he found it impossible to do so when speaking to her.

  ‘Have you slept at all?’ she asked.

  ‘A little,’ he lied.

  ‘It will be light soon.’ She glanced at the sky through the window.

  ‘I am used to arising early,’ he said. ‘I have seen so many dawns in my time in the army that now I find it hard to sleep through them. They’ve become a talisman of sorts. I never miss the dawn. It is like an old friend.’

  She smiled. ‘So there is feeling for something in that heart of yours.’

  He looked at her. ‘You think me cold?’

  Julianne nodded. ‘Indeed. But I think it is only the outer layer. Like the icy crust on a river.’

  ‘What was he like, my brother?’ he said, deflecting the course of the conversation. ‘I only have his letter, and the memories of him as a young boy. I do not know what he was like as a grown man.’

  She sat down on the sofa opposite, fingers entwined on her lap. ‘He was a… complicated man,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Complicated?’

  A flickering, nervous smile hovered briefly on her lips. ‘You must understand, all was not what it appears in Jonathan’s relationship with his father. Lord Blackdown would have you believe Jonathan was the apple of his eye and could do no wrong. He would have you believe that Jonathan was the perfect son. But that would be far from the truth. There were many times when both men openly, and loudly, voiced their acerbic opinions of each other. Things would fly about the room, thrown in anger before one or the other would storm out in a rage and neither would speak to the other for weeks on end.’

  ‘My father could sour good cream with his temperament,’ Blackdown mused.

  ‘Oh don’t blame your father entirely, Thomas. That would be disingenuous. True enough he cannot forget his dead wife, or forgive so easily how she came to die, and this has
coloured his temper – colours it still. He can be crotchety and cantankerous, stuck in old ways, a mule-headed man at times. But Jonathan would purposely stir those qualities in him like a broth, as if he drew satisfaction from it. It was a gradual thing, in my mind, the mutual dislike creeping up on them both over many years. In the end all rules were abandoned, and Jonathan would taunt the old man like he was pulling the tail of a cat. He’d drink too much, gamble more than was wise, spend money recklessly, and take himself to London and heaven-knows-where for months at a time. Perhaps it was Jonathan’s reaction to his mother’s death, who can know? The two men came up against each other like goats on a hillside.’

  ‘You’re not painting too bright a picture of my brother, Julianne. The man you planned to marry.’

  Her eyes were wide, staring into the fireplace. ‘People change,’ she said. ‘Jonathan changed. He became cold, distant, not the man I knew.’

  ‘So why marry him?’ Blackdown was a little disappointed. He’d built Jonathan up in his head to be something more than the selfish, base creature Julianne brought to life with her heartfelt words.

  She turned her face towards him. The last shuddering flames of the fire plated the edge of her jaw in brass. ‘It was no accident I came downstairs to find you,’ she said.

  ‘No?’

  She appeared hesitant, quite nervous with it, her fingers coming together and parting in a dance all of their own. ‘I needed to speak with you alone.’

  ‘Is everything all right, Julianne?’

  She shook her head. ‘All is not right, Thomas.’

  ‘Are you in trouble?’ He bent closer.

  Julianne Tresham peered into Blackdown’s eyes, her lips parted as if to speak, but no words came out. Instead she smiled and turned away again. ‘Forgive me, I am tired and too nervous with all that has happened here.’

  ‘But you wished to speak with me…’

  ‘It is nothing.’

  Blackdown nodded slowly, and said, ‘Your father was brave in standing by his wish to see his only daughter marry my brother. It might have ruined him socially to be associated with the Blackdowns, particularly as my father insists on chasing after revenge and refusing to let the sludge settle to the bottom of the pond.’