Close to the copse now, the dark shadows of the narrow, tall trees enveloped them and they did their best to avoid splashing in the puddles along the way. Stopping by two slim birches that stood close to each other, they peered into the dense woodland. Although the rain had stopped, water drizzled onto their heads from the bare branches.
James stepped forward; a twig snapped and a surprised bird took flight. Bert glared at him and brought his finger to his mouth. James winced, mouthed a ‘sorry’ and returned his gaze to the copse.
At first, he heard nothing, just the patter of raindrops. But then… yes, there it was! Bert heard it too. The murmur of voices. Bert switched the torches off and motioned for him to follow as he made his way deeper into the wood.
James’ heart pounded so hard he thought it would leap from his chest. The dampness of the night chilled him and a cold sweat built up on his brow. The moon peeked through as the clouds began breaking. Progress in the black of the copse seemed slow, but it gradually eased as his eyes adjusted to the eerie shadows cast in what little light they had.
As they made gradual inroads through the trees, the voices became a little louder and they saw two torches being waved in the distance. A little further forward, Bert stopped and held his hand up to stop James from going any further. James crouched behind Bert, terrified of making any noise. Bert reached back and tapped him, beckoning him to peer over his shoulder and see what was happening. James’ eyes followed the direction of Bert’s finger.
He caught his breath. Beth! He had to contain himself from shouting out with joy. He squeezed Bert’s arm and his eyes lit up, a weight lifted from him. Bert gripped his jacket, glared at him and tapped his head.
‘Keep focussed,’ he mouthed. James nodded, swallowing back his desire to run towards her.
Bert edged forward another few yards. James gently trod in the same footsteps, then looked ahead. At last, a clear view. Beth sat like a drowned rat on a dead tree trunk, her ankles and wrists bound and a piece of tape covering her mouth. Her frightened eyes were watching Ian and Diana. James and Bert looked on.
‘You stupid, stupid idiot!’ they heard Diana screaming at Ian. ‘We wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d acted the innocent. Why bring her here? We have no choice now.’
‘She told me they’d found the jewels,’ replied Ian. ‘Grimes had them all the time. I thought we wanted them.’
Diana rolled her eyes. ‘For God’s sake. All you had to do was be an architect. That’s what you’d planned–just give them a quote. You didn’t even know they had the jewels until tonight. We could have gone back for them - waited until they were out. You didn’t have to be so dramatic about it. Now you’ve brought attention to me, to you.’ She put her hands up in exasperation. ‘We have to leave tonight. I don’t know what I was thinking of, teaming up with you. You can’t get anything right.’
‘I’m sorry, I panicked.’
‘Yes, that’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?’ Diana spat. ‘This was all going well until you panicked. We’d come to an agreement with Grimes until you panicked. We’d have been home and dry if you’d done your homework, if you’d found out about Keith. We could have done this differently, kept it legal. You were supposed to be tying up the loose ends.’
‘It was your plan as well as mine,’ replied Ian. ‘How was I supposed to know about Keith? No-one else knew.’
Diana reached into her bag and brought out a dagger.
Ian tensed - he held up his hands. ‘No, you can’t.’
‘I don’t have any choice,’ Diana scowled. ‘You’re the coward, so I’ll have to do it.’
‘I’d rather be a coward than a killer. You’ve got two deaths on your hands already. You can’t do her as well.’
‘You have Grimes’ blood on your hands, too, darling. You were at the farm and you put the body on the bonfire.’
‘Alec Grimes was an accident. I didn’t kill him. And you killed Keith, not me. It’s me that has to clear up after your dirty work.’
James chewed his lip. Interesting. They think that Keith is dead. He glanced at Beth. My God, you poor thing. Don’t worry, soon have you out of here. The glint startled him. Oh Lord! he thought, as the beam from Ian’s torch revealed the knife in Diana’s hand.
James froze, but Bert’s strong grip quelled his intentions. He motioned for James to stay put and held up three fingers. James frowned, confused. Bert closed his eyes in frustration, showed each finger individually, then jerked his thumb in an ‘all in, let’s go’ gesture. James nodded, finally understanding the count of three.
Bert inched forward another two feet. He swung his arm back and showed his hand. James reached inside his jacket and brought out the spanner.
One.
Diana threw a spade at Ian. ‘Start digging. This is a Roman burial site. It’s a suitable final resting place, don’t you think?’
‘Diana, you can’t,’ said Ian. ‘Not her.’
Two.
‘Watch me.’ Diana rushed toward Beth.
James left Bert swearing as he charged at Diana like a raged bull. He saw the whites of her surprised eyes as he wrestled her to the ground in a rugby tackle. Ian leapt on his back and dragged him off as she kicked him in the knee. The pain of a twisted muscle forced James to the ground and the added kick in the midriff paralysed him. He heard Beth’s muffled screams, but he lay winded, unable to move.
Getting his strength back, he pulled himself up and saw Diana fold her arms and sneer.
‘Well, this is nice. Come to play the hero?’ She picked up the spanner. ‘You don’t play very nicely, do you, Lord Harrington?’
James crawled across to Beth, hauled himself up to sit beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I could say the same for you,’ he replied. ‘Alec Grimes died of natural causes, but I’ve a feeling that you were planning to kill him, anyway - am I right?’
‘He got greedy. We found out about this site months ago, but he’d already applied for the land. He saw us poking around and discovered what we’d found. All that jewellery, pottery - we knew we’d hit the jackpot. We told him we’d split it fifty fifty to get him off our backs. But it was us who’d put all the work in.’
‘So you wanted more.’
‘Of course we wanted more!’ she hissed. ‘We wanted all of it. We deserved it. We researched the site, we dug it. He did nothing. I told Ian to make friends with him.’
‘So you offered some free home improvements,’ James said. ‘Make sure he’d stay on your side.’
Ian nodded. ‘That’s right. Almost had him, too. He thought me and him were big friends. Started pushing me for a bigger percentage, cut Diana out of it all together. Then, he’d sell up and get out, you know, move somewhere else. I let Diana know and we pretended to go along with it. We told him we’d agree to it if he allowed Sutherlands to auction the farm off. That way, we’d make some profit on the property, too. We got all the paperwork set up for him to sign. Then we’d have the copse and the farm.’
Diana laughed. ‘I certainly wasn’t going to let him have any of it. It was our efforts. I don’t appreciate others taking something they’ve not worked for. Finders keepers. It was our burial ground, our jewellery, but he owned the land.’
‘So he knew about it before you?’ James said with a frown.
‘That’s why he wanted to buy the copse,’ she replied. ‘That’s why he borrowed money. So that it was rightly his property.’
‘He’d found some pottery,’ Ian said, ‘that’s all. He didn’t know what he had until we came on the scene.’
Diana shrugged. ‘All I know is that he was a pain in the backside, kept pushing for more. Greedy, that’s all he was. Ian went round to have it out with him.’
‘I didn’t kill him,’ Ian emphasised as Diana laughed at him. ‘I went round there, we argued. Then he let on that he’d found some jewellery - he even showed me some of it. Well, that was a shock, I can tell you. He said he’d pull out, go to the police, said he wouldn’t all
ow us to auction the farm - he wanted the paperwork redrafted. Well, I picked up the nearest thing—’
‘That robin?’ James said.
Ian nodded. ‘I hit him over the head. Not hard - I didn’t want to hurt him, just frighten him. But he started weaving about, clutching his chest, fighting for breath. Then he just collapsed right in front of me.’
Diana threw her hands up in the air. ‘And if you’d left him there, no-one would have asked questions. It was a heart attack.’
James smiled. ‘You’re not cut out for crime, are you, Ian? You panic, as the ringleader here suggests that you do. You dragged Alec out and tried to make it look as natural as possible.’
Ian closed his eyes, his face wretched with anguish as James continued.
‘But then you heard a car and you rushed inside. You saw Donovan Delaney arrive, who then discovered Grimes dead. He heard you in the house, but it spooked him and he left. Once he’d gone, you decided not to hang about and scampered off.’
Ian sat on a log and put his head in his hands. Diana sneered at James.
‘And then you come along. The Hercule Poirot of Cavendish and stick your toffee nose into everything. You couldn’t take the word of a doctor or a detective, could you? You had to keep probing and probing. If you’d left well alone, we’d have had that farm up for auction and everything would be ours. Well, you’ll not be probing any further. With Alec out of the way, you two will be buried deep in the copse and no-one will be any the wiser.’
James stood up. ‘But you’re forgetting about Keith Grimes.’
He noticed a chink in her coolness as confusion flashed in her eyes. It soon passed.
‘He’s dead.’ She gave Ian a disdainful look. ‘An unfortunate oversight on the part of my imbecile partner. Alec never spoke of a son. We didn’t realise there was a son until you mentioned him.’
‘And I presume that Alec had let Keith know what was happening?’ added James. ‘No matter how bad the family tie was, Keith could not let his father be conned, so he returned. I take it that he came to see you?’
Ian nodded, close to tears. James wondered how much Connell wanted to be involved in all of this.
‘About two hours after you paid a visit at the office,’ replied Ian. ‘Alec had told him about the jewellery and that he was unhappy with the way Diana was handling things.’
Diana glared at Ian, who ignored the silent threat.
‘When he left, I contacted Di. She followed him, bashed him over the head.’
James shook his head. ‘And asked you to put him on the bonfire.’
Ian swallowed hard and nodded, almost relieved to get the whole thing out. James glanced up. Bert remained in the shadows but gave him a thumbs-up. In the distance, between the trees behind Diana, he observed a blue light flickering along the road. George! His confidence increased.
‘What would you say if I told you that Keith was still alive?’
Diana rounded on him. ‘That’s impossible! I killed him. We watched him burn.’
James let out a laugh. ‘No, Diana. What you saw go up in flames was a pile of straw and paper that the children had made. We retrieved Keith’s body before we lit the bonfire. He was still alive.’
Diana stood, open-mouthed. ‘How? How did you know?’
James rubbed his knee and explained that, if it hadn’t been for the expert eye of the young children who made the guy, Keith Grimes would, most certainly, have died.
‘So you see, Diana -and I suspect that you are Diana Sutherland, am I right?’ asked James. ‘You’re no further forward. Keith is the rightful owner of the farm now and you will not get away with murder. Too many people know we’re here and Keith will give a statement about how you were intending to con his father.’
Diana’s face turned purple with rage. A scream bubbled up from the very depths of her lungs and, as it rang out, she plunged the dagger at James. James leapt to one side and allowed her to follow through and stumble into the foliage behind him.
Bert, to James’ relief, had decided that now was the time to lend a hand and bounded across to grab Diana’s wrist, fighting desperately to take the knife. Ian leapt up and punched him in the stomach.
James pulled Beth up, swung her over his shoulder and took her out of the clearing and away from danger. He peeled the tape from her mouth and kissed her.
‘Oh, James—’
‘George is on his way,’ he said. ‘I must help Bert.’ And with that, he dashed back.
Bert, winded, jumped as Diana lashed out with the blade and slashed open his thigh. He dropped to the ground, groaning. Ian threw himself on top of Bert and rounded on him with both fists.
Sneaking behind Diana, James wrapped his arms around her like a vice. She brought her leg up and kicked his twisted knee. James winced but continued to hold her. She kicked again and again; he caught his breath as his knee buckled in ways he didn’t think possible. Ian groaned as Bert slammed his ratchet across his skull. Struggling for breath, Bert clambered to his feet and hobbled across to Diana.
‘I don’t normally hit ladies,’ Bert said, forming a fist with his right hand, ‘but in this case, I’ll make an exception.’ His fist slammed into her cheek. Her angry eyes dulled; the knife fell from her hand and she dropped to the floor, unconscious.
James retrieved the knife and limped across to Beth. He slipped the blade through the bindings and, in one swipe, freed her limbs. Beth burst into tears and flung herself into his arms.
‘Oh James,’ she sobbed. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
‘It’s all right, darling, you’re safe now.’ He glanced back at Bert, who surveyed their handiwork while, in the distance, they heard the welcoming sound of George’s gruff voice and his team closing in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Two days later, James drew the heavy, velvet drapes and shut the evening out. He joined their guests at the dining table, extended to its full length to accommodate everyone. With the events of Friday night still fresh, James didn’t think it wise to be entertaining so soon. However, Beth insisted on hosting a small dinner party, dismissing James’ concerns over the trauma of the night, preferring, instead, to get back to normal with close friends.
‘Anyway,’ she’d said, ‘everyone wants to know what happened and why. If we do that, we can move on from this awful nightmare and look forward to the play and the Christmas festivities.’
The ‘nightmare’ in the copse came to an end at just gone midnight. On George’s instructions, Beth, James and Bert were driven straight to the cottage hospital, where Bert received nine stitches to a deep knife wound in the fleshy part of his thigh. James gratefully received a walking stick to aid his twisted knee ligaments, while Beth, apart from being extremely cold, suffered mild shock and accepted a sleeping powder to take before retiring.
At home, James ran a hot bath for the pair of them. While Beth washed her dreadful experience away with lavender fragrances and rose bubble bath, James filled three hot-water bottles and placed them between the bedsheets. As she snuggled under the blankets and allowed her head to sink deep into the feather pillows, James delivered two large mugs of hot milk and, splitting the sleep aid between them, they snuggled together and fell into a deep slumber.
On Saturday, although limping, James pampered Beth with comfort food, frequent hot drinks, and plenty of love and affection, together with entertainment on the wireless and the television. In between times, he caught up with various residents in the village - in particular, Donovan and Kate Delaney. There, he shared their joy over Donovan’s release and the watertight case against Connell and Diana.
On visiting Graham Porter, he discovered that Bert had already paid him a visit to deposit an antique gold bracelet in his hands.
‘He told me it was worth a few hundred,’ said Graham. ‘I don’t know where ‘e got it from. It must be nicked, mustn’t it?’ He winced at the thought. ‘I’m gonna have to return it, aren’t I?’
James chewed his lip, re
cognising part of the jewellery haul they’d discovered in Grimes’ attic and wondering when Bert had swiped it.
‘Look, Graham, I can tell you that it’s not stolen. At the same time, you may have a little trouble selling it.’ The spark of an idea flashed. ‘Look, keep hold of it for now. Let me make a few enquiries and I’ll let you know in a couple of days. You’ll get your money, I’m sure of it.’
Graham’s relieved face beamed as he thanked James, reiterating his need to get his finances in order. James, too, wanted some justice for Graham. As he climbed into his Austin Healey, he wondered about buying the bracelet himself and just giving Graham what he was owed. Two hundred and fifty pounds was pocket money where the Harringtons were concerned and it wouldn’t lose its value. If anything, it would increase as time went by. With their dinner party imminent, he hoped a solution would come about in time.
Joining James and Beth at the table were George, Bert, Stephen, Anne and, although a little tired and washed out, Keith Grimes, who had woken from his coma and released from hospital on the proviso that he would be looked after. James gave his personal assurance that he would be brought back to the house as their guest.
In his mid-twenties, Keith had a stocky build with short, chestnut brown hair and eyes to match. A manual worker, with calloused hands and a ruddy complexion, he wore blue jeans and a navy Guernsey sweater.
James prepared dinner after banishing Beth from the kitchen and spent the afternoon preparing a beef joint, roasted potatoes in goose fat, honey-glazed parsnips, individual Yorkshire puddings, sliced carrots and a pan of red wine and shallot gravy.
That evening, with the dinner guests seated and the conversation in full flow, he uncorked two bottles of smooth vintage Claret and placed them at either end of the table.
‘Stephen, old chap, would you do the honours?’ asked James. ‘Say grace and all that?’
‘Of course.’ Stephen bowed his head. ’Father God, we thank you for b-bringing us together this evening and delivering our friends to us, s-safe from their ordeal. We thank you, too, for this sumptuous meal and ask th-that you continue to pour your love and tenderness on us all. Amen.’
LORD JAMES HARRINGTON AND THE WINTER MYSTERY (Lord James Harrington Mysteries Book 1) Page 25
