Murder at Hawthorn Cottage: An absolutely gripping cozy mystery (A Melissa Craig Mystery Book 1)

by Betty Rowlands

  As she sat sipping her hot milk and nibbling a digestive biscuit, she found her mind harking back to Dick’s telephone call. It was odd that he hadn’t shown up after the eager, almost urgent way he had spoken. With an effort, she recalled his exact words. ‘We’ve got no sow farrowing here, and if we had, it’d be no concern of Mr Hepple’s.’ What, precisely, did that word mean? She put down her mug, fetched a dictionary and studied the definition. ‘Farrow: give birth to pigs; litter of pigs.’ Pigs! The solution roared into her head like an express train. Piggyback!

  She leapt to her feet, shooting an anxious glance at the clock. A quarter to three. Already it might be all over but it was worth a try. She’d need warm clothes, something waterproof. She rushed up to her bedroom and dragged on a pair of thick, dark-coloured slacks, warm socks and a heavy jersey, then tore back downstairs, threw on her hooded anorak, thrust her feet into Wellingtons and grabbed a torch, gloves and keys. At five minutes to three she let herself quietly out of the cottage.

  The rain had eased and was little but a sprinkling in the wind that brushed her hands and face as she stood waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. At first it seemed total but the clouds were thin enough for the moonlight to penetrate in places and after a few moments she found she could manage without a torch. From habit, she made for the stile, then changed her mind and decided to use the road. Taking the valley route would have meant scrambling up a steep, overgrown path that she had walked only once. Impossible without using the torch and there might be someone on the look-out. The thought of being spotted made her stomach turn over. Just for a moment, her courage wavered. Wouldn’t it make more sense to call the police and tell them of her suspicions? But time was precious; even if they took her seriously it might be all over before they arrived. Resolutely, she set off along the lane that led out of the village.

  It sloped downhill for a quarter of a mile or so before crossing a culvert and starting its narrow and twisting climb towards the crest of the ridge. At the top, wooden gates on either side led into fields. Melissa went to the one on the right and fumbled with the catch. It was padlocked.

  A little awkwardly, her rubber soles slithering on the damp wood, she clambered over.

  At first, she made her way easily along the edge of a field of young corn bounded by a low hedgerow. The clouds were thinning rapidly and she could see her way quite clearly. In the far corner of the field a second gate, open this time, gave on to a track leading into woodland. Instinctively, she walked more slowly, moving stealthily along the rutted ground, looking over her shoulder at every movement of branches in the wind, every rustle in the undergrowth. She ducked nervously as an owl swooped silently out of the trees towards her; the lumbering shape of a badger, crossing her path a few yards ahead, made her gasp with momentary alarm. Her knees shook and she stumbled over a stone and nearly fell, her outstretched hand grabbing uselessly at empty darkness.

  She peered round, searching for a landmark. Nothing looked familiar. In that world of strange sounds, shadows and mysterious light, she had a sense of losing touch with reality. She imagined a watcher behind every tree; the moon was a beacon to reveal her presence to unseen, hostile forces. It was the onset of panic; she stood stock-still in the middle of the track and the hammering of her heart in her throat nearly choked her. She longed to switch on the torch but dared not.

  ‘Where is that heap of stones?’ she mouthed in despair. ‘There was a heap of stones, a heap of stones.’ She repeated the words as if they were a magic formula, a defence against the invisible menace around her. Then it was there, a pale shape, glimmering white like a ghostly animal at the side of the track.

  She began picking her way towards the edge of the wood. A twig snapped under her foot with the noise of a firecracker. For the second time, panic threatened to take hold of her. It wasn’t too late to go back. She could abandon this hare-brained adventure and be safely indoors in less than half an hour. She would phone the police, tell them the whole story and let the forces of law and order take command. If her suspicions were correct she was tackling, unaided and defenceless, ruthless criminals playing for high stakes. If she was spotted, her chances of survival were virtually nil.

  She had almost talked herself into returning home when she heard the plane, droning faintly in the distance. She wasn’t too late. No question now of going back. As silently as possible, she crept forward. The land began to fall away in front of her, a gap in the trees opened and she saw the house lying below, a block of stone split by the moon into geometric sections of light and shade. There was no sign of life; every window was dark. It seemed for the moment unreal, a mirage floating in the moonlight, liable to vanish at any moment in a swirl of mist. But there was no mist and the sound of the plane grew steadily stronger.

  She found a shallow depression with gently sloping sides that might have been constructed as an observation post. Lying flat on her stomach, she wriggled forward until by lifting her head above the rim she could see the entire house with its surrounding wall.

  The plane was getting closer. She craned her neck, searching the sky. A pinhead of light appeared to the left, a shooting star in slow motion. The sound grew louder, the light lower. Without warning, the ground beneath her seemed to burst into flames. Instinctively, she ducked her head, pressing her face to the ground. Landing lights, of course; Wally had said they could be activated by remote control from the aircraft. She raised her head again to watch.

  The plane was almost down, a black shape against the milky backdrop of the sky. For a few moments she lost sight of it behind the trees; then it was rolling along the strip towards her. It slid past and came to a halt alongside the wall. Before the noise of the engines had died away, the gates opened and a Land Rover drove out, swung in a wide arc and reversed towards the plane until it vanished behind the fuselage. There were sounds of activity and of men’s voices, and although for several minutes Melissa could see nothing of what was going on, she guessed that the plane was being unloaded. Then a man holding a Doberman on a leash came into view. He lit a cigarette and began strolling up and down. Once he looked straight towards Melissa’s hiding-place and she ducked her head again, terrified of being spotted and caught, although her reason told her she must be totally invisible from such a distance. Just the same, she kept rigidly still.

  Melissa had no idea how long it was before there was a slight rumble and a sharp metallic sound, indicating that the plane door had been slammed shut. The dog-handler finished his cigarette, stamped it out and moved towards the gate. Melissa held her breath as she waited for the Land Rover to start up and disappear. Another couple of minutes and it would be safe for her to steal away.

  The silence was shattered by a furious squawking, the sound of madly fluttering wings and something or someone thrashing in the bushes not far from where Melissa lay hidden. The dog began barking and the effect on the scene below was for a split second almost comic, like a film sequence suddenly speeded up. Two figures leapt out to join the man with the dog while the Land Rover started up, shot forward and disappeared through the entrance. The gates shut with a clang behind it and simultaneously the landing lights went out — but not before Melissa saw that two of the men were carrying guns. The dog-handler switched on a powerful torch and began sweeping the steep, wooded bank to her right. This was no comedy. The beam travelled remorselessly in her direction, like the eye of a rapacious animal tracking its quarry. Thankful at least that her clothes were dark-coloured, Melissa pulled her hood over her head, buried her face in her arms, and froze.

  So this was how it felt to be afraid. So often she had tried to describe the sensation without ever having experienced the sheer, stark, numbing terror she was trying to convey. Now she knew. This fear was tangible, its smell was in her nostrils and the sharp, sour taste of it tainted her mouth. It crept down her throat like some foul parasite, worming its way into every corner of her body and sucking up her strength so that even had she wanted to move she would have be
en powerless.

  The men were climbing the bank towards her. She could hear heavy boots dragging through the grass and the whimpering and snuffling of the dog as it strained on the leash. Through half-open eyes she saw the torchlight probing among the trees, getting nearer. One of the men spoke and it sounded as if he was almost on top of her.

  ‘Must have been a fox picking off a pheasant,’ he said. ‘Nobody there.’

  ‘Can’t afford to take chances,’ said another. ‘We’ll let Dingo have a sniff around.’

  Melissa could smell her own sweat. It seemed to engulf her like a miasma. The dog would get wind of it and she would be lost. The footsteps circled round, approaching, retreating, returning. She felt sure the men knew where she was; they must know, they were playing a hideous, sadistic game of cat and mouse. At any moment they would burst in on her with their guns and their dog and shoot her where she lay like a mesmerised rabbit. She began to pray, silently, despairingly: ‘Please, let it be quick!’

  Then came a cacophony of baying, snarling and snapping followed by a yelp. The men swore and shouted and crashed about in the undergrowth.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ one of them shouted.

  ‘Found an earth, didn’t he? Vixen gave him a bloody nose!’

  ‘Serve him right. What does he think he is, a bleeding foxhound?’

  ‘Come here, Dingo, you useless stupid bastard!’ There was a tirade of abuse and another yelp of pain as the unfortunate Dingo collected a further penalty for his mistake. ‘There’s no one there, let’s get back.’ The men moved away and their voices grew fainter.

  At last came the faint clang of metal as the gates opened and closed for the second time that night.

  It was a long time before Melissa, lying prone in her burrow, dared to breathe normally or relax muscles that had been stretched as taut as wires. Eventually, she raised her head and crawled forward. Except for the plane standing innocently on the grass, everything was the same as when she arrived.

  Not quite everything. Dawn was breaking and it was getting lighter every minute. Anyone keeping watch with binoculars would soon be able to detect movement among the trees. Better get back. Holding her breath, she began to crawl away. Not until she was out of sight of the house did she dare to stand upright and flex her cramped limbs.

  The sky to the east glowed in a harmony of soft pink and gold. In the trees and bushes, birds had begun their first sleepy whistling. It was light enough now to take the shorter way home through the valley. She scrambled down the steep path; at the bottom she broke into a run, stumbling now and then on the uneven, tussocky grass, coming at last to the track leading towards the village.

  The brook chattered softly alongside her. It was the first time she had seen the valley at this hour and the countryside had the appearance of a stage set, gradually illuminated. She could make out the village houses dotted among the trees, the stone roofs changing imperceptibly from grey to pink, and below, huddled beneath their bank as if they too had experienced something of the terror of that night, her own and Iris’s cottages. She stopped for a moment to recover her breath and to experience a wave of thankfulness that she was alive, and free, and nearly home.

  She had almost reached the bridge when she saw the body.

  Twenty-One

  At first, she thought it was a sack or a bundle of old clothing that someone had dumped in the water. Then she saw the outstretched arms and the back of the half-submerged head.

  ‘Oh, no! Please, God, no!’ She ran forward, jumped down the bank into the shallow water and grasped the motionless form at hip and shoulder. It took all her strength to roll the man on to his back.

  In one of her books, she had described a recently drowned corpse using a book on forensic medicine in the reference library. There had been a coloured picture that had haunted her dreams for several nights and the details came back now with hideous clarity: the patchy, livid discoloration of the skin; the glazed, half-open eyes, expressionless yet somehow conveying a sense of hurt bewilderment; the froth of bubbles creeping from the mouth: all were there on the dead face of Dick Woodman. Mechanically, she lifted one of the hands. The flesh was clammy, the arm already stiffening with the onset of rigor mortis, the fingers clenched in their last despairing attempt to hold on to life. Traces of green waterweed clung slimily to the wrist.

  Melissa knew that in a little while she would experience all the symptoms of shock but for the moment she was ice-cool. By some trick of the mind, a kind of psychological osmosis, her identity had been suspended and that of Nathan Latimer, the detective she had created and whose thought processes she had so often directed, had taken her over. Almost in a dream, she allowed her eyes to move round, absorbing every detail of what she saw.

  The police would want to know the exact position of the body when she found it and she spent several moments committing it to memory. She studied the dead man more closely. There was a mark on the forehead that looked different from the others. She put a finger on it and felt the swelling while her brain clicked away like a machine.

  She glanced up to the point where the path from the village emerged below the church. If Dick had intended to call on her after leaving the Woolpack he would have used that path and turned left at Daniel’s hut, walking along the top of the steep, uneven bank towards Hawthorn Cottage. Could it be that in the darkness he had gone off the path? She remembered thinking once before that anyone losing their footing on that slope might not be able to stop. If Dick had been coming home in the dark, perhaps with a few pints of Old Peculier inside him, he could easily have come charging down out of control like the crowds of exuberant youngsters who risked broken limbs at the annual cheese-rolling at Coopers Hill. He could have stumbled and hit his head on the handrail and there would have been no one around to drag him, unconscious, from the water. Such accidents had been known to happen.

  Yet there was something wrong. She could sense it. Dick had grown up in the neighbourhood, had tramped this valley hundreds of times. She remembered watching him as he nimbly picked his way down the slope with the assured tread of one who had been doing it all his life. And he wasn’t a hard drinker — several times she had heard people say so.

  Again, she examined the body. There was no tie and the collar of the soaked shirt lay open. She noticed something else and hesitated for a moment, frowning, before the full realisation of what had happened hit her like a blow in the stomach and the world dipped and spun around her as if she were on some crazy fairground switchback. No longer was she playing the part of Nathan Latimer, ace detective; she was not even Mel Craig, crime writer, but simply a badly frightened woman who had stumbled on a corpse. Her gorge rose, she turned her back on the sprawling figure and fled. Sobbing and gasping, she reached her front door and fumbled for her key, making futile stabs at the lock with a shaking hand until at last she managed to let herself in. She staggered into the kitchen and doubled up over the sink, retching and shivering.

  She must pull herself together and call the police. She dashed cold water over her face, dried it with a towel and filled the kettle. A cup of strong coffee would help to steady her but more than anything she felt an overwhelming need for familiar company. Iris would come. Iris had been through a similar experience and would know how she felt. She rushed to the phone and dialled the number with stiff, chilled fingers. The reaction to her incoherent gabbling was swift and typical.

  ‘Be round right away!’

  In three minutes, Iris was at the door. She had dragged on her gardening clothes and her tousled hair stood away from her face as if drawn by a cartoonist trying to convey fright.

  ‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ she asked. ‘Shouldn’t we try the kiss of life or something?’

  ‘He’s been dead a long time.’ Melissa closed the door. Back in the kitchen she stood in a helpless trance watching the steam belching from the kettle. Iris took charge, spooning out instant coffee and pouring boiling water.

  ‘Where d’you keep the bran
dy?’

  Melissa pointed to a cupboard and Iris dragged out the bottle, slopped some of the spirit into a mug of coffee and handed it over.

  ‘Drink that and tell me what happened.’

  ‘Oh, Iris, he was murdered!’ Melissa felt her mouth twist and pucker as the tears began to flow. She covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Murdered?’ The grey eyes dilated in disbelief. ‘Not possible. Who’d murder Dick?’

  ‘It’s true.’ Melissa could hear her own sobs reverberating in her head. ‘Someone . . . held his face . . . under the water . . . until he was dead.’

  Iris gasped in horror. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I . . . it happened in one of my books . . . a doctor helped me describe the marks . . . they were just like the ones on Dick’s neck.’ Melissa wrung her hands in her anguish. She was out of control, she could hear her sobs getting higher and wilder and could do nothing to contain them. Words pumped out of her mouth like blood from a wound. ‘It’s my fault!’ she screamed. ‘My . . . fault, my . . . my fault, my . . .’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Iris had her by the shoulders; she saw the raised hand and felt the sharp sting on her cheek. She put her own palm to her face and then held it in front of her eyes, staring in bewilderment.

  ‘No blood. Didn’t hit you that hard!’ said Iris. ‘Get that drink down you!’

  ‘He was looking out for tit-bits for my story-books!’ Melissa scrubbed at her eyes and took deep, dragging breaths in a fight to bring her voice under control. ‘It was like a game . . . we were joking about it the other day . . . I warned him not to be caught snooping around but it never dawned on me that there was any real danger. He must have stumbled on something and been killed to stop him talking.’ The tears flowed again. ‘I feel so guilty!’ she whispered.