Deadfall

by Lyndon Stacey

  'Thanks.' He took it and stood looking down at it. 'I'm sorry for . . . Well, for everything. I never dreamed . . .'

  Josie put her good hand on one of his.

  'No, Cris. Don't apologise. You've got nothing to apologise for – you've done nothing wrong. And listen, I know it's what everybody says but I really mean it. If there's anything I can do – ever – just let me know.'

  'Thanks.' Crispin looked genuinely moved. 'But, hey, just keep this accident-prone brother of mine in one piece, and you'll be doing us all a favour,' he said, summoning a smile.

  Josie looked heavenwards. 'Well, I know I said anything, but I'm not a miracle-worker!'

  When they made their way downstairs, her father was waiting, grave-faced. He held out his hand.

  'Crispin. This is a bad business. I'm sorry, lad.'

  He nodded mutely, and shook the hand.

  'Come on,' David Hathaway suggested, putting his arm round his daughter's shoulders. 'Come away. There's nothing more to do here. I'm going to take Josie to the doctor's, and I should imagine you two could do with a stiff drink and a chance to put your feet up. You must be exhausted.'

  'You can say that again,' Linc agreed.

  They left the mill, waiting while Linc locked the doors, and then turned towards the car park; Josie and her father leading the way, and the others trailing after.

  Linc was so caught up in his own thoughts that it was a moment or two before he realised his brother wasn't following, and paused to wait.

  'Cris?'

  Crispin was standing gazing across the tailrace of the millstream to the trees beyond. He looked completely lost.

  'I loved her, Linc,' he said forlornly. 'At least, I thought I did. But now I'm not sure I ever knew her at all. Where does that leave me?'

  Linc shook his head. There was nothing he could say.

  EPILOGUE

  THE STADIUM WAS A blaze of light, most of it concentrated on the oval dirt track at its centre where six slender greyhounds were being loaded into the traps for the start of the next race. In one of the boxes with a prime view, Linc Tremayne, his brother Crispin, and the entire Hathaway clan sat, the remains of a meal on a table behind them, enjoying the sport.

  'This is amazing!' Abby declared. 'I feel like a movie star or something, sitting up here in a private box, being wined and dined. I mean, an hour and a half ago I was slogging round the field in the rain, taking hay to Syrup and Treacle, and now I'm here.'

  'Like Cinderella,' Hannah put in, with uncharacteristic imagination. 'You shall go to the ball!'

  Linc laughed. 'I'm glad you're enjoying it.'

  'I'd never have thought of coming to a dog track,' Ruth said. 'But it's really good fun.'

  The runners were all loaded now, the hare started its hopeless run and the traps snapped open, releasing their eager occupants to streak in pursuit.

  Instantly bedlam broke loose in the box as six voices were raised in noisy support of their chosen favourites. Only David Hathaway and Linc remained silent; the clergyman watching the others with obvious pleasure, while Linc was absorbed in thoughts of his own.

  It was fully three months since the terrifying events at the mill, and life had moved on. The case against Nikki and her personal trainer had not yet come to court, and probably wouldn't for some little while yet, the wheels of justice grinding exceedingly slow.

  Sylvester Tremayne had responded to the news of his daughte-rin- law's treachery by remembering several things he had never liked about her and then writing her out of his life with a finality that was typical of him.

  Crispin had, understandably, found it far more difficult to adjust to the upheaval, losing his trusting, happy-go-lucky nature overnight and becoming quiet and introverted. Josie's father had offered contacts within the legal world and, in the absence of any great degree of ongoing sympathy from his own father, it was to David Hathaway that Crispin had turned, accepting help of both a practical and, to Linc's surprise, spiritual nature.

  Linc had had to use a fair amount of persuasion to get him to come to the stadium tonight and, once there, he'd been a little withdrawn until a spirited dispute with Hannah had brought him out of himself. Now, sitting next to Ruth with whom he'd struck up a particular friendship during his visits to the Vicarage, Crispin looked more animated than Linc had seen him since the exposure of Nikki's betrayal.

  The race sped to an exciting conclusion and was followed by a heated discussion of the real or imagined bad luck suffered by various of the participants during which Josie looked round and smiled at Linc, before detaching herself from the group by the window and coming to sit beside him.

  'A penny for 'em,' she said lightly.

  He shrugged. 'I was just thinking about Crispin, actually. I'm glad I persuaded him to come. I think he's enjoying himself. Ruth's good for him. Although, to be fair, I think it was your other brat of a sister who shook him out of his mood.'

  Josie laughed, unoffended. 'She's enough to get anyone going. Perhaps we should patent her as a therapy. "The Hannah Method", guaranteed to needle you out of depression!'

  'Mmm. It might catch on, but I doubt it.'

  Linc sighed, and Josie put her arm through his and leaned close.

  'What's up?'

  'Oh, I still can't shake off the feeling that I'm partly responsible for what happened with Nikki. After all, I raised her hopes in the first place, and I was never really serious about her. If I hadn't brought her home that time . . .'

  'Oh, and of course you'd expect her to go off the deep end and turn psycho, wouldn't you?' Josie pointed out. 'Spare me another guilt trip! Is there anything you don't feel responsible for? What about Third World debt or global warming, are you sure you aren't to blame for those too?'

  'You cheeky wench!' Linc made her squeal with a sharp dig in the ribs. 'When we're married and you start producing the next generation of Tremaynes, I shall make sure they treat me with a little more respect! I won't have young Aloysius talking to me like that!'

  'Young what . . .?' Josie spluttered.

  'You know the family tradition for unusual names,' Linc reminded her, straight-faced.

  'Well, in that case, it's more likely to be Ermintrude,' Josie suggested. 'Or Esmerelda. You know our family record for producing girls.'

  'It wouldn't dare! Father would have a fit!'

  'You can't fool me – your father's a dear.'

  A few months before, Linc would have been highly amused at this description, but it had to be said that his irascible parent had mellowed significantly of late. At the 'surprise' engagement party six weeks ago, when Josie and Linc had gathered family and friends at Farthingscourt to announce their happy news, they had been upstaged on the night by a similar announcement from Sylvester and Mary.

  'Linc, what do you think will win the next race?' Hannah wanted to know; she liked to keep everyone involved in the proceedings.

  'Number five,' he replied promptly.

  'But you didn't even look!' she protested. 'You have to look first.'

  Obediently Linc moved closer to the glass and made a pretence of studying the dogs that were being paraded below. The one wearing the gold number five jacket was fawn-coloured and looked fit and handsome.

  'Number five,' he repeated.

  'Abby's Dream,' Ruth exclaimed, looking at her race card. 'Abby should cheer for that one, really. I prefer number three.'

  'We'll cheer for it together,' Linc said, smiling at Abby.

  She smiled back, looking – to any outsider – like a normal, happy, healthy teenager. Only her closest family and friends knew that beneath the teenage uniform of flared hipster jeans and clingy, camouflage tee-shirt, the legacy of the assault lived on in a deep seated insecurity and an unwillingness to mix with strangers.

  In due course, runners picked or allocated by Hannah, they settled down to watch the race with varying degrees of excited anticipation. It was a race for novices, comprising just one lap of the track, and the dogs left the traps like bullets,
each sporting a different-coloured jacket for easy identification.

  Number five started well and went into the first bend in second place, which it maintained all the way down the back straight. Coming into the last bend, Abby's Dream began to move up on the outside of the leader and it looked as though he would come into the straight ahead, but as the runners turned for home, number six muscled through between the first two, knocking Linc's hope wide. Even then, all was not lost. Abby's Dream made a game effort to recover and they crossed the line with only millimetres between them.

  As the hullabaloo in the Hathaways' box died down, Abby looked hopefully up at Linc. 'Did he win?'

  Linc didn't think so, and after a few moments the action replay on the big screen confirmed it.

  'Oh, what a shame!' Abby cried. 'He tried so hard!'

  'With a name like that, he really should have won,' her father said.

  'I know,' Linc agreed sadly. 'He obviously didn't read the script. I shall have to have a word with his trainer, he'll be up in a minute.'

  'Who will?' Ruth queried.

  'The trainer, Barney. He'll come up. He said he would, anyway. You see, if this had really been a fairy tale or a movie, Abby's Dream would have won. I even ordered a bottle of champagne in case.' He paused, aware that he had everyone's attention. Abby in particular was regarding him intently. 'You know what I'm going to say, don't you, Abby?'

  'I think so,' she said slowly. 'But I thought it was just another of my weird dreams . . . Oh, of course! Abby's Dream! He's mine, isn't he? He really is!'

  She scrambled up out of her seat and threw herself at Linc, who lifted her off her feet and swung her round, reflecting that the greyhound's considerable purchase price was quite possibly the best investment he'd ever made.

  'Well, actually we're joint owners,' Linc told her. 'I promised your dad we'd share the training fees. He'll race for three or four years, all being well, then he'll need a home, but I promised Barney that if you didn't want him, then I'd have him,' Linc told her.

  'Of course I'll want him!' Abby declared indignantly.

  Linc laughed and winked at her father, over her head. From the delighted reactions of the rest of the family, he gathered that his surprise was approved of, the only voice of dissent coming, predictably, from Hannah.

  'Well, that's all very well,' she announced. 'But I hope nobody expects me to walk it!'