by Faith Martin
And with that, the rage came back.
Clement was an old man, and Lallie was bigger and younger – and he still had the scythe in his hand. The bastard! How dare he try to hurt her friend?
She crawled backwards, wriggling around and managing to get one hand out from under her and, groping with it, found a wall. With a grunt, she managed to squash herself against it, getting her knees back under her. Clement, finding his path now cleared, slammed his body further into the gardener. Both his hands were on Lallie’s right arm, rendering the scythe useless as a weapon.
But even as Trudy, panting like a steam train with fright, shock, rage and fear, finally managed to scramble to her feet, she saw that Clement’s position left him vulnerable. With both arms stretched up to pinion Lallie’s arm, his abdomen was totally unguarded.
And even as she finally pulled her truncheon free of her belt, and began to step forward, Lallie – no stranger to dirty fighting – swung his free left arm down, his clenched fist connecting painfully with the coroner’s ribs.
Clement let out a bellow of pain and rage and began to bend double, but even then, he didn’t let go of his grip on Lallie’s right hand.
The gardener swung his left arm back again, intending to land yet another bone-crunching punch, but Trudy, timing her swing with his, moved her truncheon upwards in a classic undercut as he swung his arm downwards, and the rounded top of the truncheon hit his wrist with a resounding ‘whack’.
Lallie’s shriek of pain and outrage filled the shed, making her jump in shock. His face, which had been looking down venomously at the coroner’s lowered, white head, swung in her direction instead. And she couldn’t help but flinch at the fury and murder she saw there. Luckily, in the next instant, her rage swarmed back, matching his own and making her reckless.
She took a step forward, swinging her truncheon high, intent on braining him.
But Lallie was a soldier. He’d faced combat before and was in no mood to give up his prize – the money he’d schemed and planned and killed for – or go to jail.
With a snarl, he heaved all his weight and muscle against the coroner, and Clement, still half-bent with pain from the blow to his ribs felt himself falling backwards.
Trudy neatly stepped over him, and began to pivot herself, just as she’d seen Lallie do only moments before.
With his right arm now free, Lallie began to swing the scythe again.
But Trudy wasn’t thinking of the blade this time. She wasn’t anticipating its sharp blade cutting into her flesh, paralysing her with fear. All she wanted to do was save her friend from dying. And she was bloody well going to do that, no matter what.
When Clement might have run and saved himself, he’d chosen to throw himself at her attacker instead. She could do no less than return that wonderful favour.
Trudy’s mind began to rage, almost out of control. How dare this man, this child-killer, try to kill her and her friend and think he could get away with it? Well, she was not poor little Eddie Proctor. She was no 11-year-old child. And she was bloody well going to show him that he’d tackled the wrong person this time!
Her extended hand began to rise, but she saw the scythe was already beginning to turn to meet it as Lallie rotated his wrist. In a contest between a short truncheon and a long-handled, curved scythe, there was no question as to which of them had the greatest reach.
So she began to turn her own wrist, and the angle of the truncheon, at the same time, stepping closer to him. It felt counter-intuitive to do so, but she knew she had no other option. Paradoxically, the nearer to him she was, the less of a target she made.
From a sideswipe, she turned her weapon flat, and jabbed forward and upwards, as hard and fast as she could. And the rounded end of her weapon hit him not quite in the middle of his throat, as she’d hoped, but slightly off to the left. Nevertheless, it was enough to make him gag.
No human being likes to have their breathing cut off, even temporarily. An instinctive panic takes over, and Lallie, without thinking, dropped the scythe and raised both hands to his throat. His face began to turn red, and his eyes bulged obscenely.
It was all Trudy needed. As he bent forward, trying to draw breath, she took a step back, reversed the action of her truncheon, and brought it down hard and fast on the back of his exposed head.
It hit him with a sickening crack that seemed to go right through her.
And in an instant – again – everything changed.
Chapter 38
Lallie fell to Trudy’s feet, a total dead weight.
And an appalled voice somewhere in her head said, quite clearly, ‘You’ve killed him.’
Trudy froze. For a second, she was the one who couldn’t breathe. She was the one who could see nothing, feel nothing.
And then she swallowed, hard.
She took another step back.
‘You’ve just killed a man,’ the voice said again.
She felt herself shaking her head. No she hadn’t. Had she? She couldn’t have. She didn’t mean it…
For the second time in what felt like an eternity, she began to pray. Only this time, she wasn’t asking God to be merciful and receive her soul. She was begging for forgiveness. Thou shalt not kill. A Sunday school lesson from long ago came back to her. The vicar – surprisingly young, slightly bored – drumming the Ten Commandments into her.
She had broken… Which number was it?
‘Trudy!’ The voice, this time, was real. It had body and human warmth, and it came from somewhere in the shed, not in her own head.
She stared down at the man at her feet, suddenly hoping…
But then she saw movement and turned her head. Clement was struggling painfully to his feet.
He took one look at her wild, white, horrified face, and took a slow, deep breath. ‘It’s all right now, Trudy. It’s all over. You did well.’
Trudy stared at him. She’d done well? No, that made no sense. She’d just killed a man. That was the exact opposite of doing well.
Clement limped towards her, every step making his bruised ribs protest angrily. He reached her and touched her hand. It was icy. Her grip on her truncheon was vice-like.
‘Trudy, you can let it go now,’ he said.
Again, she stared at him. ‘Let what go?’ she managed to whisper. Her lips felt cracked and dry. Her heart felt the same. Her soul, likewise.
‘Open your hand, Trudy,’ Clement said again.
The words didn’t make sense to her. Open her hand? Open her hand? What did that mean?
She looked at her friend, at the slightly watery grey eyes, which seemed kind and sad. Then she saw him move those eyes from her face to something else. She followed his gaze, and saw her hand, and his own hand enclosing it. And then the truncheon.
‘Oh,’ she said. But even so, it took her a while to make her fingers go slack. When they did, her body seemed to want to go slack as well.
‘I’ve killed a man,’ she said simply.
Clement, now that he’d got the truncheon away from her, hunkered down, giving a grunt as his ribs told him in no uncertain terms just what they thought of that particular manoeuvre. He put two fingers on the side of the gardener’s thick neck.
‘No, you haven’t,’ he said flatly. ‘There’s still a pulse.’
But he frowned, for it was worryingly thin and reedy. He looked up. ‘Trudy, I need you to run to the house and telephone for an ambulance.’
But Trudy didn’t hear the last part. She was still savouring, with sheer bliss, the other words. He had a pulse. She hadn’t killed him.
‘Trudy!’ Clement shouted.
She flinched, and blinked. ‘What?’
‘Run to the house – call for an ambulance. Now.’
‘Right,’ she said, and looked around. The door. She stepped outside into bewildering sunlight and birdsong. She could see the lake – it was beautiful. Everything looked and felt strange. How could the world still be so beautiful?
But then her mind snapp
ed to attention. She had a job to do. Find the house. Telephone for an ambulance. Right.
For a terrifying second, she couldn’t think which way the house was. Then she remembered, and set off. At first her legs felt numb and rubbery, but after a while they began to feel as if they belonged to her once more, and she stopped staggering like a drunk, and began to run in earnest.
She had to get to the house.
By the time she reached the kitchen garden she was running like the wind. Leonard Cricklade watched her fly past, his white-bristled chin falling comically open. By the time she reached the elegant front steps, she was out of breath, but mercifully most of the fog of shock seemed to have cleared out of her mind. She ran up the steps and hammered on the door.
After what seemed an age, they opened and the housekeeper, wearing her usual grim expression confronted her, and Trudy, for a second or two, felt a bewildering sense of déjà vu.
‘I already told you, the squire’s not…’ Mrs Roper began angrily, then squawked, a bit like an outraged parrot, as Trudy – in no mood to cope with her obstinacy – literally shoved past her.
‘I need the telephone,’ she panted.
‘I beg your pardon…’ The housekeeper began hotly, then abruptly subsided as Trudy turned savagely on her.
‘There’s a seriously injured man who needs an ambulance. Now where is the nearest telephone?’ she demanded, almost shouting in her frustration.
Mutely, the housekeeper pointed to a door, and Trudy shot through it. It was a small study, with a telephone housed on a small desk. She pounced on it, and with unsteady fingers called for the operator.
She asked first for the ambulance service and directed them to Briar’s Hall. She told them someone one would be waiting for them at the main entrance to direct them. That done, she hesitated for a moment, and then asked the operator to put her through to her police station.
But she was lucky, and it was Walter Swinburne who once again answered. Right at that moment, she didn’t think she could have taken a haranguing from Inspector Jennings. She gave the old PC a succinct report on what had happened, which drew a gasp from the housekeeper, who was hovering in the doorway and listening in unashamedly on the conversation.
Trudy concluded by asking for supporting officers to come to the Hall at once, and then hung up.
She turned to the housekeeper, who now looked less like a dragon guarding the de Lacey home and the family skeletons rattling around in their cupboards, and more like a scared, bewildered, middle-aged woman.
Trudy let out a long, slow breath. ‘I need you to wait at the front steps and tell the ambulance men, and the police officers when they arrive, that they need to go to the lake, nearest the gazebo where Lallie Clark lives. You’ll have to direct them. Can you do that?’ she asked gently.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Good.’ Trudy reached out and took the housekeeper’s cold hands in her own and gave them a reassuring squeeze, then she left and went back through the hall.
But she wasn’t running now. In fact, she felt almost totally drained of energy. Even contemplating the walk back to the lake made her feel unbearably weary. Nevertheless, she staggered slightly down the steps and set off doggedly across the lawn.
Just as she was rounding the yew hedge, however, she had to swerve to a private spot between the laurel bushes, where she was quietly, but comprehensively sick.
After that, she felt a bit better.
By the time she made it back to the shed, she wanted nothing more than to lie down on the grass, weep uselessly, and then go to sleep. Probably in that order.
Clement was waiting by the open shed door. He was bent slightly at the waist, one hand nursing his ribs and wincing with every breath. When he saw her he straightened up, however, and managed a wan smile.
Trudy looked him squarely in the eye. Needing to know the answer, but dreading it, she asked fatalistically, ‘Is he dead?’
Chapter 39
Half an hour later, Clement and Trudy, sitting exhausted and shaken on the front lawn of Briar’s Hall, watched as the ambulance sped away with Lallie Clark inside. Clement watched it go with mixed feelings.
One bitter half of him almost wished that its patient would be dead on arrival. Another part of him hoped that he’d make a full recovery, but only for Trudy’s sake.
DI Jennings was sitting in his car, trying to make up his mind whether to feel furious or jubilant. He’d been informed that someone from Special Branch was on their way to the Hall, and that he was to await their arrival and cooperate with them fully.
Clement had seen his arrival first, and had managed to stop him before he got to Trudy and started battering her with questions. Instead, he’d filled the inspector in on everything that had happened, emphasising the fact that they had only been trying to follow his orders, and that the totally unexpected and unprovoked attack could not possibly have been anticipated by either of them.
It had come, quite literally, out of the blue.
Jennings, perhaps sensing how close his WPC was to collapse, had allowed himself to be steered back to his car, where he now pondered and waited. Could he spin it that the investigation had been a total success? After all, it seemed clear now that the boy had indeed been murdered, and that his officer had apprehended the killer responsible. Even saving the life of the city coroner in doing so.
On the other hand, Special Branch and the people they answered to in Whitehall weren’t going to be pleased. Inspectors Robinson and Brown had left his office thinking it had all been hushed up and that the case was closed.
Of course, the press hadn’t yet got wind of what had happened here, and if he knew the powers that be, they would quickly slap a notice on the whole affair, meaning it couldn’t be published in the press anyway. So it might not be such an unmitigated disaster!
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, glaring out of his car window at the two people who seemed intent on making his life a misery.
Trudy, though, was unaware of her inspector’s gloom.
Instead, now that she’d got her breath back, and she knew that Lallie Clark wasn’t dead, she had regained some of her equilibrium.
For a while now they’d been sitting in companionable silence, too exhausted to think much, let alone talk. Trudy, for one, had simply been glad to glory in the fact that she was still alive and breathing.
Now, though, her restless mind began to demand answers.
But the first thing that popped out of her mouth took her by surprise. ‘Did I imagine it, or at one point did it began to rain potatoes in that shed?’
Beside her Clement started, then grunted a short bark of laughter. ‘Yes it did. When I stepped into the shed behind you, for a moment I couldn’t make out anything. The first moment I knew that something was wrong was when you reached for your truncheon and began to crouch down. The next second you screamed at me to watch out.’
Trudy nodded. Funny, to Dr Ryder it had all seemed to happen more or less at once. To her, those moments had felt almost years apart.
‘I saw Lallie swinging a scythe your way, and looked around for anything to use as a weapon to stop him. But all that was near me was this lumpy sack by the door,’ Clement went on tiredly. ‘So I hefted it up, meaning to throw it at him and knock him off balance, but it felt remarkably heavy – too heavy for me to heave it. So instead I stepped over you and held it up over you, hoping to deflect the blow.’
Trudy nodded. So that was why he was standing so close that his knees bumped into her.
‘And when he swung the scythe down, it cut through the sack and potatoes poured out,’ he went on to explain. ‘Luckily, their bulk was enough to slow his swing, since the blade chopped through one or two potatoes and I think the tip of it even got stuck in one. Anyway, I threw myself at him and pinned him to the wall. Sorry, but I must have trampled over you at some point.’
‘I didn’t mind, believe me,’ she said with an attempt at a laugh. And then she said quietly, ‘Dr Ryde
r, you saved my life.’
Beside her Clement shrugged. ‘And about two seconds later, you saved mine,’ he pointed out just as quietly.
Trudy blinked. Had she? ‘I’m not so sure about that.’
Clement sighed heavily. ‘I had a grip on his arm holding the scythe, but he punched me in the side and I was going down. If you hadn’t stepped in, he’d have buried that blade in my back. And I can assure you, I’d then have been quite dead. Trust me – I’m not only a coroner, but I was once a surgeon. I know about these things.’
Trudy nodded. And again managed a small laugh. ‘So we’re even then.’
‘I’d say so.’
For a moment they were silent, contemplating this, then Trudy said, ‘When I first saw him, and realised he was going to try and kill me, I saw such a look on his face… it was brutal – inhuman even. Do you think the war did that to him?’
‘Almost certainly, I’d say,’ Clement agreed heavily. ‘I served in France, in the Red Cross tents. All I can remember is endless days of surgery – men, boys some of them, coming in with horrific injuries. We did the best we could to patch them up and save their lives… But some of them…’ Clement reached up and ran a weary hand through his hair. ‘Sometimes I wondered if they wouldn’t have been better off dead. I know that’s a rotten thing to say, but… A friend of mine worked in the psychiatric wards, and some of the things he told me about what the trauma did to them… Oh, let’s not think about it,’ he advised flatly.
‘All right,’ Trudy was happy to agree. Then, after a moment’s thought, she said sadly, ‘We really read him all wrong, didn’t we? Lallie, I mean.’
Clement nodded. ‘Yes. I think most people did.’
‘He seemed so… I don’t know, harmless,’ Trudy said, shaking her head. ‘We assumed he was kind and placid and harmless. I know we were told he was simple, when he clearly wasn’t, but we just accepted it as a fact. Why did we do that? Was it just because he seemed to shamble everywhere? Or the fact that he hardly spoke – and when he did, in that slow, broad, country way of his?’
