Cold in the Earth

by Aline Templeton

  He cast a disapproving look at the catches on the big sash windows, then moved on to the huge marble fireplace and stood looking up at the mounted head of Champion Minos of Chapelton, dusty and a little moth-eaten but magnificent still.

  ‘Here – wouldn’t like to meet him down a close on a dark night, would you, Boss?’

  Fleming didn’t respond. He glanced round. She was standing on the other side of the room staring up at the splendidly moulded silver bull’s-head mask with its wide, sweeping, sharp horns.

  ‘Tam,’ she said shakily, ‘I think perhaps I’ve found the murder weapon.’

  Laura slept deep and dreamlessly and very late the following morning. She woke with a start, taking a moment to realise where she was while her mind groped compulsively for the anxieties which had dogged her every waking moment.

  They were gone. She flopped back on the soft pillows, looking round the simple, pleasant room with its sprigged wallpaper and soft green carpet, and at one of Janet’s celebrated patchwork quilts which was draped over the bottom of the bed. There was even a ray of sunshine shafting through the flower-print curtains.

  Stretching luxuriously, she looked at her watch. Ten o’clock – good gracious, when was the last time she’d slept as long as that? Though of course it had been midnight before she and Marjory got up to go to bed, after an evening spent sitting by a delicious-smelling fire of apple logs in the room where she had spent the twenty most terrifying minutes of her life, this time with a glass in her hand and Meg stretched out in ostentatious relaxation at their feet.

  Bill had been a silent presence at their evening meal but he had eaten well and, Laura thought, listened to their casual conversation. He’d seemed happy enough to go up to bed when it was suggested, even saying, ‘Goodnight,’ almost normally as he went.

  ‘Try to get him to shave in the morning,’ Laura said as they cleared up. ‘It’ll be good for his self-respect.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ Marjory said, attacking a pan vigorously with a scouring-pad. ‘Oh, Laura – will he be all right?’

  ‘Of course he will.’ She was firm. ‘Look how far he’s come in twenty-four hours. I wish all my patients had made progress as quickly as that.’

  Marjory had allowed herself to be reassured and once she had coaxed the fire into life, settled down with total absorption to talk about the case, a topic they had avoided over supper. As the logs began to crackle with leaping blue and green flames, Laura was impressed by Marjory’s ability to compartmentalise, an attribute more common to men than women. Perhaps if you worked in the still male-dominated police force, masculine characteristics were a career advantage, and Marjory, with her height and build, had probably been a tomboy – you could picture her climbing trees but never wearing a pink frilly dress.

  The police, Marjory had said, were hoping for a straightforward confession from Conrad, though she explained that this, in Scots law, wasn’t enough; they’d still have to find corroborative evidence from at least one other source to make the charge stick.

  ‘I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t think you’ll get it,’ Laura cautioned. ‘A confession would mean he accepted responsibility and he’s said already he doesn’t know, it was the bull that did it.’

  ‘The old excuse – “It wisnae me, a big boy did it and ran away.”’

  Laura laughed. ‘Exactly. Ran away so that no one can ever find him and question him.’

  ‘Like Jake Mason.’ Marjory got up to refill their glasses. ‘I keep thinking, if only we could talk to him he might be able to explain what happened. But he’s apparently suffering from something called “locked-in syndrome” – horrific, you know what’s happening but you can’t do anything. Imprisoned alive inside a corpse – I’d rather be dead. Much rather.’

  Laura frowned thoughtfully. ‘I’m sure I read something about them having some success with communication. If they can open and shut their eyes of their own accord – and of course he may not be able to – you can show them an alphabet board and point so that they can spell it out. You start with one blink for yes and two for no.’

  ‘Really?’ Marjory was fascinated. ‘Of course we’d have to get all sorts of permissions, but it’s worth a try. Certainly Rosamond Mason would probably do anything to get a response from him. She still loves him, you know. It’s very touching.’

  ‘Has Max been visiting?’

  Marjory shrugged. ‘He hadn’t, when I spoke to her.’

  They talked on, about the strange upbringing the cousins had had, the obsessive streak running through the family. At last Marjory said, ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but I can’t resist. I’m really excited – I think we may have found the murder weapon.’

  The silver mask would be taken down tomorrow when the search warrant had been sworn out. Everything, Marjory explained, had to be done exactly by the book if you didn’t want the case to collapse in court. But given the nature of the injury, it seemed plausible.

  ‘Yes,’ Laura said faintly, an all-too-vivid picture in her mind of Conrad’s massive figure, surreally surmounted by a silver bull’s head – a Minotaur – charging down the confines of the maze on her helpless sister. Still sleep-walking? Rudely awakened? Dizzy had always been confused and frightened when she’d been sleep-walking . . .

  Her eyes filled with tears and Marjory was immediately full of remorse. ‘Oh Laura, how stupid of me! Do you know, I’d sort of forgotten . . . I shouldn’t have told you that.’

  ‘No, no, it’s all right,’ Laura said, and not long after that they had gone to bed. But now, thinking about it, she remembered that her sleep hadn’t been dreamless after all: there had been something about the mask, something troubling her. The image of the figure in the maze came horribly to her mind again—

  She jumped out of bed. She’d have to discipline herself to handle images like these, which could only intensify as the case progressed.

  Downstairs, Bill was clean-shaven. He was still sitting in the chair by the Aga but he looked round when she came in and said, ‘Good morning, Laura.’

  The words were only slightly hesitant and it showed he was reaching out to communicate in a normal way. That was progress, and she was optimistic that he was almost ready to start talking out his problems.

  ‘Morning, Bill,’ she said casually. ‘Sorry, I slept in. This is a ridiculous time to be having breakfast!’ She chattered on as she made herself toast and coffee, planning her day. She’d left a lot of stuff at Burnside Cottages and she was beginning to run out of clean knickers; if she went there and packed everything up she could be back in time for a short therapy session with Bill. Then Janet would be arriving with their lunch, as she’d insisted on doing despite Laura’s protests of competence. In fact her cheerful presence would make a good natural break since Laura judged Bill still wasn’t ready for anything too intensive.

  As she put her breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, she told him what she was doing. ‘I shouldn’t be much more than an hour. I’ll make us a cup of coffee when I get back.’

  Bill gave her the ghost of a smile. ‘No, I’ll make one for you.’

  ‘Great!’ she said, without too much emphasis, but as she went out to the jeep Marjory had told her to borrow – she really must arrange to fetch her own car – she was grinning. Marjory would hail it as a miracle but in truth there wasn’t much wrong with Bill that a few days of good food, cheerful company and unburdening himself to a sympathetic audience wouldn’t cure. Still, she’d take a small wager that DI Fleming would never sneer at psychology again.

  It was only about quarter of an hour after she had left that the phone rang. At first Bill Fleming paid no attention, then, as it went on ringing, looked round as if expecting someone else to answer it. But there was no one there and at last he went over to the phone sitting on the dresser and picked up the receiver.

  He didn’t say anything, but when someone spoke he listened, and when the voice stopped he said carefully, ‘No, she’s not here. At Burnside Cottages.�
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  He put it down again, then smiled as if pleased by this simple accomplishment. He turned to go back to his chair, then stopped.

  ‘Meggie!’ he said to the dog, lying as usual on the rug but, as always, watching her master’s every move. ‘Coming out, Meg?’

  The dog was at his side in an instant, feathery tail signalling ecstatic delight that at last her sadly disordered world was returning to normal.

  23

  It was only a couple of days since Laura had left the cottage, but how long ago it seemed and how different it looked! Then it had been under snow, the calm beauty of the glistening landscape with its long blue shadows veiling nature’s deadly power to make a mockery of modern civilisation. She remembered with a shudder the merciless dark and her own fear, the bellowing in the night and the footprints.

  Conrad must have been very angry for a very long time. Perhaps it was only the act of ‘shape-shifting’ which had allowed him to carry on a life in which he seemed normal and, indeed – she gave a small sigh – charming. But his suspension from work, his constant humiliations at Max’s hands – even the belief that she was rejecting him by coming to Chapelton with Max – must have been an accumulation of indignities which brought him close to complete loss of control, even before Laura’s discovery of his terrible secret. She could count herself lucky that she hadn’t had to deal with his attack here, in night and cold darkness. As poor Dizzy had . . .

  But she couldn’t afford to let herself dwell on the past. Today, if only temporarily, winter had relaxed its icy grip. The little burn was gurgling cheerfully under the stone arch, there were patches of foolhardy snowdrops on its banks, pushing up slender spears to unfurl fragile, green-white blooms, and even some clumps of crocuses producing bright patches of colour along the path. She sniffed the damp freshness of the air, again murmuring King Duncan’s apposite words – although, she remembered now, they had been spoken just as he entered Macbeth’s ‘fatal battlements’. Well, the best the cottage could offer in the way of battlements was some rather fancy guttering. She was smiling as she let herself in.

  There was a light on in the bedroom. She stopped, alarmed, every nerve jangling. It took her a moment or two to remember the power cut; she had left in daylight before the power was restored so it wouldn’t be surprising if she’d left a light on. Even so she waited, straining her ears for any sound of movement before she flung open the door on the empty room and felt foolish.

  It didn’t take long to pack. She cleared the wardrobe and drawers, cleared the bathroom, then fetched a couple of plastic bags to sort out the food in the fridge. She was squatting beside it, looking for the ‘use-by’ date on a pot of yoghurt, when she heard the tap on the door.

  Seeing Max Mason beaming through the glass pane, her reaction was one of irritation. Even with Conrad safely locked up, she’d been hoping to keep her whereabouts secret. She didn’t like Max; she’d hoped to avoid having to tell him to leave her alone. Still, she would if she had to.

  ‘Max!’ she said coolly as she opened the door. ‘However did you know where to find me?’

  ‘Hey, Laura! Some monosyllabic yokel at Mains of Craigie told me you were here. Need any help?’ He stepped neatly past her into the house.

  ‘No thanks, I’m just finished. Once I’ve cleared the fridge I’ll be off.’

  ‘I just came to check you were OK after your ordeal yesterday. Must have been seriously scary!’

  Laura wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. He had come to gloat, of course, and the note of false concern barely concealed his glee.

  Undaunted, he went on, ‘They came and took away a silver mask from my father’s study this morning, you know – the murder weapon, is my guess. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you he was a bad man. And at least now he’s where he ought to be at last, isn’t he?’ He paused again for her agreement; again she said nothing.

  Her lack of response was making him edgy. He was wearing a black suede jacket and jeans; he thrust his hands into his back pockets in a macho pose, standing over her as she went back to her task.

  ‘It’s very sad,’ Laura said repressively, starting to stow food rapidly into the rubbish bag without any attempt at sorting.

  ‘But you were on to him, weren’t you?’

  She was aware that he was watching her carefully – for signs, perhaps, of regret which would feed his jealousy? She shrugged and carried on with what she was doing.

  He strolled over to the table where there was a bowl of fruit and picked up an apple. ‘May I?’ he said, biting into it. She ignored that too, and after a moment he went on, ‘I couldn’t get the locking yourself in at Chapelton bit – but you’d figured it out, I guess. Quite a foxy lady, aren’t you, under that quiet front?’

  The fridge was empty now. She stood up. ‘I’m pretty much finished here. Do you want any more fruit, Max, or shall I take it away?’

  ‘Sure, sure.’

  She fetched her case from the bedroom and added it to the collection of bags. ‘Well, that’s about it.’ She moved purposefully towards the door but he didn’t follow her, making a business of finishing his apple.

  ‘You know, I still can’t get over this business of old Conrad.’

  Laura sighed, loud enough to be heard. She’d had enough of this. ‘Yes, very strange,’ she said dismissively. ‘Now—’

  He’d finished the apple at last; she took the core from him, put it into the waiting rubbish bag, tied it up and pointedly carried it to the door. He showed no sign of taking the hint.

  ‘Bit of a joke when you think about it really. Prancing about the maze with a silver mask on his head and a black cloak, pretending to be a bull—’

  ‘But—’ Laura stopped short. That was what had bothered her, the problem she couldn’t put her finger on. Conrad wouldn’t have to pretend to be a bull; he had no need to. In his mind, he was a bull. And if not Conrad . . .

  Max’s eyes were fixed on her, boring into her. ‘But what, Laura?’

  Her lips were dry. ‘Oh, nothing. Forgotten what I was going to say. Would you be very kind and take my suitcase—’

  As she turned away, he grabbed her arm, pulling her round to face him. ‘You’ve thought of something, haven’t you? Tell Uncle Max.’

  ‘It’s nothing, Max. Let go of my arm – that hurts!’

  He tightened his grip. ‘I don’t know what it is, but you know, don’t you? That’s what I was afraid of – that despite everything you wouldn’t be convinced. You fancied him – I could see that – and you didn’t trust me, right from the start. I came ready to test you and you’ve given yourself away.

  ‘I don’t know what warned me – maybe I’m just seriously smart. Lucky for me, not so lucky for you. Sorry about this, Laura. I even quite liked you, really.’

  ‘As much as Dizzy?’ Laura’s knees were shaking and his hold on her arm was cruelly painful, but talking had worked with Conrad.

  Max’s laugh sounded positively light-hearted. ‘Oh, more, in fact. She was so frigging superior, your sister. She was making a play for my father, right from when she first saw him in Pamplona – treated me like some dumb kid, even though I’d seen her first, I’d been the one who really saved her that night. And he was coming on to her too, though he tried not to show it. Maybe they slept together – I don’t know. But he made a favourite of her, took her part against me. She’d no time for me and then she took my place with him. And he let her do it – so Conrad could laugh at me because I wasn’t the favourite any more. But I paid the Minotaur out for that – and her too.’

  The authentic teenage whine was in his voice, and now she understood. How foolish she had been, and how cleverly he had misled her into thinking he had loved Dizzy and she was a substitute! He had come to hate Dizzy and she, Laura, had been nothing more than the audience for a delicious recounting of the circumstances of his revenge on two people who had humiliated him. And what he had said fitted; his personality had always had the hallmarks of a spoiled child rather
than someone with a harsh and neglectful father. And Dizzy, poor Dizzy, had stumbled into this cesspit of madness and jealousy and unbalanced minds.

  ‘Your father – the Minotaur – did he have Conrad’s problem, too?’ Keep him talking, keep him talking!

  Max shrugged. ‘Grandad certainly did. I was lucky to be normal, frankly.’

  Call this normal? The words almost escaped but she bit them back. ‘But why the Minotaur?’

  ‘The monster in the heart of the maze, of course. You’d think you knew where he was coming from, that he was a man, a good father,’ she thought she heard a softening in his voice, ‘but all at once he changed, he was coming from a different direction. He was a bull, trampling you, putting you down in the dirt . . .’

  ‘It must have been very hard for you, growing up like that.’ She made her voice soft, sympathetic.

  ‘Yes—’ Then he stopped short, his eyes narrowing. ‘Hey, hey! Whatever gave you the impression I was stupid? Psychotherapy isn’t going to help you now.’

  Without warning he grabbed her other arm and twisted it up behind her, then whipped out a cord from his pocket and bound her wrists together. A second later, a gag was being thrust between her teeth. She didn’t even have time to struggle – and anyway, what could she, with her slight frame, have done to resist a fit young man?

  ‘Shall I explain to you what I’m going to do? I think it’s only fair.’ He laughed, enjoying the moment. ‘I’m going to put you in a safe hiding-place I – well, shall we say happen to know? It’s all ready, and then I walk back from Chapelton and fetch that jeep you came in. Oh, and your luggage, of course. I’ve even got a headscarf to put on while I’m driving. Nice touch, no?

  ‘It would be easier to deal with you now, of course, but with Conrad locked up it really has to be Brett who takes the rap this time – bless her, she was such a help, uttering the most blood-curdling threats with the police right there to hear them! So she has to be at Chapelton on her own when the dreadful deed is done.’ He laughed again. ‘Dear me, it sounds so melodramatic, put like that, doesn’t it?