Kerr came in, carrying his .243 and another elderly-looking rifle. ‘What’s the situation?’
‘He’s in the field area between the two gates on the track to the chalets at the moment. He’s attacked a woman – don’t know how seriously, the woman on the phone was a bit hysterical. They’ve sent for an ambulance. And the police.’
‘Oh,’ Kerr said. ‘Hoped we might have dealt with it ourselves.’
‘We’ve probably got twenty minutes before they arrive and say we have to shoot him. Knocking him out before then is our only chance.’
Matt went to the key board beside the back door, detached one, then chucked it to Christie. ‘Medicine cupboard. Pack of Immobilon. There’s Revivon with it, and we need something called Narcan as well. Packet of rubber gloves, veterinary darts, metal storage box. OK? Fetch them. I’m going to get the trailer on to the forklift and then I’ll come back and explain what we do next.
‘Kerr, take the car and get up there. Try and keep them happy if you can.’
Her heart pounding, Christie hurried through to Matt’s office. She had to steady her hands to unlock the medicine cupboard. She took the pack marked Immobilon down from the shelf – etorphine hydrochloride, it said below the name – and there was an alarming warning emblazoned on it. She shuddered, assembled the rest of what Matt had asked for and went back to the kitchen. Matt came in just as she set them down.
Unlike her own, Matt’s hands were rock-steady. He donned the thin gloves, took out the darts – for all the world like some strange form of shuttlecock – and the glass ampoules, one holding the immobiliser and another the drug to revive the animal afterwards, scribbling a note on a label to identify them. He explained the steps to her as he prepared the darts, spelling out the dangers. Even a drop on the skin could be immediately fatal for a human and Narcan, the antidote, also had to be ready.
He put the darts in a metal box, collected up the empty ampoules, wrapped them in kitchen roll and put them in a plastic bag with his discarded gloves. ‘Dangerous waste,’ he said to Christie and she nodded, hurrying through with it to the enclosed bin, marked with skull and crossbones, at the back of his office. When she returned, he was ready, holding the box and the Narcan.
When they left, Lissa was still standing there, her mouth downturned and with a little rivulet of rainwater trickling from her hair down the side of her face.
Supper was over, but Marjory and Bill Fleming were lingering at the kitchen table over coffee. They were alone; Cammie had been coy about his plans for the evening, but Marjory suspected there was a girl involved.
‘To be honest,’ Bill said, ‘I’m just putting off going to do the evening rounds. It’s such a filthy night.’
‘I suppose we can’t complain – it’s nearly October, after all. But we got spoilt with those weeks of lovely autumn weather.’ Marjory glanced towards the collie asleep in her usual position, as close as she could get to the elderly Aga. ‘I doubt if Meg wants to go either.’
At the sound of her name, the dog lifted her head lazily, glanced at her owners, then with a sigh put it back down again. They both laughed.
‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I?’ Bill said. ‘Mind you, she’ll be up and dancing around whenever I make a move. What are you doing this evening?’
Marjory leant back in her chair, stretching luxuriously. ‘I’m happy to say, not a lot, for once. Karolina and Mum between them have everything running like clockwork, and we’re not under the cosh with the new investigation, the way we usually are. I’ve just got a few reports I want to read through again. And I thought I’d phone Cat. I’ve tried a couple of times but it’s always on the answerphone.’
‘Too busy enjoying herself. She sounded quite excited when I spoke to her last night.’
‘I hope she realises how hard she’ll have to work. Vet’s a tough course and there’s not much scope for mucking about.’
Bill smiled. ‘Killjoy!’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘We were young once too, remember?’
‘I remember all too vividly,’ Marjory said tartly. ‘And I don’t want Cat going down that road.’
‘Speak for yourself. Come on, Meg – sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back.’
He went out. Marjory fetched her phone and called Cat’s number, then listened to it ringing out yet again. She didn’t leave a message; she’d done that twice today.
She sat back, frowning. Was it paranoid to think Cat was punishing her? Yes, probably. It wasn’t much more than twenty-four hours since she’d seen her daughter, and Cat was probably, as Bill had said, high on the excitement of independence.
And anyway, if Cat was annoyed, it was hardly unnatural. Marjory had never managed to fall out with her peaceable, gentle mother, but she’d certainly had plenty of spats with her father. Given time, Cat would forget about it, since Marjory didn’t plan to foster hostility, as her father had done.
Consoling herself with that thought, Marjory stacked the dishwasher and picked up her reports. She went through to the sitting room, lit the fire and settled to read.
The new case was slow-paced but intriguing: as the pieces of evidence started coming in, it would be a matter of fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle – and it looked as if Rosie Drummond’s ghost story and the information about the watch were forming at least a small corner of the picture.
Clinging to the side of the trailer as it bounced up the track behind the big forklift truck, Christie could see the lights of torches ahead and as she got nearer, hear agitated voices. There were three chalets fairly close together beyond the second gate, one still dark but the others with lights blazing and front doors standing open.
Kerr’s car was parked by the first gate with its headlights illuminating the scene. Matt stopped the truck and jumped out carrying his equipment and Christie climbed down from the back with a tin bowl full of potatoes – her own idea.
There was no sign of the stag. She could see Kerr standing on the farther side of the second gate with a little knot of people and they went through to join him.
With an expression of rigidly controlled irritation, Kerr was listening to a small woman with a frizz of permed hair, flanked by a tall silent man and a youth, presumably their son.
‘You have to shoot it, now!’ she was saying in hysterical tones. ‘It’s a monster – it could have killed her!’
‘Yes, pet,’ Kerr said. ‘But if you could just tell me where he is, I could maybe do something.’
‘Up that way.’ The youth stepped forward, pointing up the steep ground of the field. He certainly seemed calm enough. ‘It kind of snorted a bit and then trotted off, that was all. My mum’s just mental.’
‘Yes, but he could come back,’ his mother insisted. ‘He could leap the gate and—’
Matt stepped forward. ‘I’m Matt Lovatt, the farmer – we spoke on the phone. I promise we’ll deal with this safely. But I’m very concerned about the injured lady. What happened?’
‘Well!’ The woman began her recital with relish. ‘We were in our sitting room there when we heard screaming – terrible, terrible screams. Made my blood run cold, didn’t it, Martin?’
The silent man nodded and she went on, ‘And when we came out, the lady from Spindrift was on the ground with that evil creature pawing at her, ready to run her through and through with its horns. I just screamed and yelled, and it looked up – I thought it would come right at me, over the fence – and she somehow managed to wriggle under the gate and escape.
‘Then it attacked the gate and I thought it would break it down and we’d all be murdered, but then it sort of gave up and went away. But you’ll have to kill it, now it’s got the taste for humans—’
Her son burst out laughing. ‘Oh, yeah, like it’s a man-eating lion? Hello? And it so didn’t attack the gate, just, like, butted it a couple of times like it was confused, that’s all. Anyway, the woman wasn’t that much hurt.’
She turned on him. ‘How do you know, Barrie? With internal injuries you
can say you’re all right, then ten minutes later, bang! You drop down dead. Isn’t that right, Martin?’
Martin nodded, though with a little less conviction this time.
Lovatt said tautly, ‘Where is she? Perhaps I could speak to her.’
‘I wanted her to come in with us, but she wouldn’t.’ The woman was clearly disappointed. ‘She went back to Spindrift, said she was fine, she didn’t want a fuss—’
‘So you go, “Right, right,” then call 999,’ Barrie jeered. ‘Cool idea! Just want your name in the papers, you do.’
His mother bristled. ‘I don’t want her on my conscience if something goes wrong, that’s all,’ she said shrilly. ‘I know what’s right.’
Still, Christie felt a little more cheerful. It sounded as if the woman’s injuries were minor, and as if she wasn’t hell-bent on revenge either. Maybe Matt could sweet-talk her with an offer of compensation.
He was having a low-voiced conversation with Brodie. Lovatt was holding the dart rifle and as he put on the gloves again and loaded it, she heard him say, ‘So don’t kill him unless you have to,’ as he handed it to Brodie before heading off towards Spindrift.
Brodie nodded, but even so started to load the .243. The woman exchanged a triumphant glance with her son, but Christie felt sick – Rudolf, normally so sweet-natured, who had been an abandoned calf, hand-reared by Matt himself! As Brodie opened the upper gate, she went through behind him. ‘Matt said only to shoot if absolutely necessary,’ she reminded him. ‘I heard him.’
He turned on her. ‘For God’s sake, woman, get out the way! Last thing I need is you in the way when I’m lining up a shot.’ He glanced at the bowl of potatoes. ‘And he’s not a dear little Santa Claus Rudolf right now. He’s a raging sex maniac and I’m not planning to risk my life for a few tons of venison on the hoof.’
Brodie limped off with the two guns. He was afraid – Christie knew the scent of fear and she could smell it on him now. And of course he was right – the calves that Rudolf might sire weren’t going to live a long and happy life as pets, so why should he be different?
Even so … Christie waited until he had stumped out of the pool of light from the headlights and been swallowed up in rain and darkness, then looped round the opposite side of the field, peering ahead from under the shelter of her parka hood. She could see the black bulk of the cows, whose field it was, lying down, close enough for her to smell their warm grassy breath, and she stood in something that squelched unpleasantly, but there was no sign of the stag’s familiar outline.
Rudolf could be anywhere – concealed by that great bank of gorse, say, crazed by his hormones and confused by the night’s events. Days ago he had nuzzled her for potatoes; once the rut was over, he’d do it again – if he was still alive. And Matt must feel even worse about this than she did.
Christie was afraid too, but fear was no stranger to her. She’d experienced it many times in action, and she had trained responses. She was in action now and she could handle it.
‘Rudolf!’ she called, rattling the potatoes in the tin bowl. ‘Rudolf!’
The door to Spindrift was standing open. Matt Lovatt tapped on it, called a greeting and came in.
He recognised the woman in the chair by the window as the holidaymaker he’d met on the shore earlier today. Her face was ashen and smeared with mud; she was shaking, and her thick weatherproof jacket was torn. A long rip in her jeans showed a bruised and bloody gash on her leg.
The look she gave him was cold. ‘I’ll be all right. I don’t need anyone.’
He looked at the injury with dismay. ‘You need that seen to, just for a start. Did he gore you?’
‘No. Not for want of trying. I managed to roll under the gate so he couldn’t reach me. This was from a hoof.’
‘I’m so sorry. I’m Matt Lovatt – the animal’s mine. And I know – apologies aren’t nearly enough,’ he said helplessly.
‘No.’
He was floundering now. ‘I will, of course, pay compensation—’
The woman actually laughed. ‘And you think that would make it all right? You would!’
‘No, of course not.’ Lovatt found himself becoming unreasonably irritated. If anyone had a right to be difficult, it was this woman. She was clearly in pain and in a state of shock, but that was a personal attack. ‘Do you want us to kill him?’ he asked stiffly.
Suddenly, she seemed very tired. ‘Do what you like. Just get out of here and leave me alone.’
‘Of course. I’ll get in touch tomorrow when you’re feeling better. The ambulance and the police will be here shortly, I’m sure.’
She sat up, galvanised. ‘What! What did you say? Oh no, that fool of a woman!’
There was an empty wine glass on the window ledge beside her. In a sudden spurt of energy she jumped to her feet, picked it up and dashed it to the ground.
As the shards flew, she shouted, ‘Now will you go?’
Without a word, Lovatt left.
Elena walked through to the bathroom. She didn’t know whether she was still shaking from shock or from purest rage. She had been controlling herself so rigidly for so long that she wasn’t sure she could recognise rage any more.
That moronic bitch! She’d expressly said that she didn’t want a fuss, and the resultant publicity. Stag attacks woman – it was the sort of story the press might pick up, and if Eddie caught a whiff of it he’d arrive in a protective frenzy before she could say ‘I’m perfectly fine’.
Wincing, she washed the gash on her thigh with soapy water. Mercifully, it had been a glancing blow; a sharp hoof that fully connected would have meant stitches at the very least. She always carried first aid and she smeared on antiseptic, then wound round a lint bandage. She was used to dealing with minor wounds.
The jeans were past repair. She binned them, pulling on another pair. She’d come with a good stock, planning anyway to throw them out once they were dirty and it was much more irritating having ripped her jacket – that would have to be replaced.
There were the sirens now! Elena swore. She so didn’t need this; she just wanted to lock the door she had foolishly left open when she staggered through it, take two pills and go to bed.
But if she did, then by morning the story would have grown. If she went out now, said it was a fuss about nothing, it would kill it.
They’d ask her name and address for a statement, though. But then she knew – who better? – that a name was only what you called yourself, and an address could be anything you liked. They wouldn’t be demanding ID, after all.
In his loft in the bothy, Fergie Crawford too heard the sound of sirens and whimpered in fright. They were coming for him! Somehow they had tracked him down – How? Brodie?
He still didn’t trust the man who’d given him a roof over his head and food to eat, which at one point had been his only concerns. But Brodie always had some scam going – jake, if you fitted in with it. If you didn’t, you were dead meat.
Fergie was huddled into his sleeping bag, happed up with blankets. He’d been lying there since it got dark, banned from lighting the lamp in case someone saw a flicker of light where no light should be. Brodie had said he’d have to live like that until the next shipment from the Isle of Man was due; he’d take him out then to meet the fishing boat and they’d put him ashore in Ireland where there were folk he could work for. He was still uneasy, though.
Yes, he’d done a good job for Brodie and his pals, reliably keeping his mouth shut, not trying to make a bit extra on the side like some other runners did. So he could be useful – though in the creepy darkness he sometimes thought he might be more useful dead.
But dead was one thing, shopping him was another. Surely Brodie wouldn’t – Fergie knew too much.
The sirens had stopped. They’d be finding a boat to bring them across to the island, and locked up here he couldn’t even hide – ‘Can’t have you going stir-crazy and deciding to take a wee walk,’ Brodie had said with a mirthless smile.
&nbs
p; It was a very sturdy door with a solid lock. Fergie went and shook it, but not hopefully, then knelt by the window looking towards the mainland. There were gaps between the slats, and he squinted through.
The flashing blue lights were not, as he had feared, by the jetty. They were on the hill behind the village where there were buildings and a lot of lights.
A great sigh of relief escaped him. His legs went weak as the fight-or-flight adrenaline surge subsided and he turned to go back to bed. But it had made him hungry too; he peered in the darkness at the stacked tins. He felt for one with an inset opener – spaghetti hoops – and groped for a spoon, then went back to his sleeping bag to eat them.
At least his belly was full when he lay down again. And soon he’d go to sleep, and not have to lie there staring at the shifting shadows, which made him feel as if there was another presence moving just outside his line of sight.
‘Rudolf!’ Christie called again. ‘Rudolf!’
From behind her, she heard Matt’s shout. ‘Christie! For God’s sake, come back here,’ and she ignored it.
‘Rudolf!’
Then, from the darkness at the end of the field, she heard a bellow and moved towards it. ‘Potatoes, Rudolf!’ she cried idiotically, shaking them in the tin to make the sound he would recognise.
The bellow came again, definitely closer. It was scary, but she held her ground. If she could keep ahead of him, keep him moving until he was in the lit area near the gates, Kerr could get him darted.
Christie could see something moving now, still at a distance. She peered into the darkness, and against the skyline could see antlers.
Then a shot rang out.
Evil for Evil Page 13
