Even knowing that she was dealing with a maniac, Katie was still startled when he said, angrily, ‘You always put Sammy first, but you will be putting my wishes first from now on.’
Feeling desperate, Katie said, ‘Doesn’t your wife put your wishes first?’
‘Marguerite does not care about my wishes!’
‘Betty?’ she ventured. ‘You’d better go home, for she’ll be wondering where you are.’
A sadness crossed his face. ‘You are always so calm, but you are right, and I should go home to her.’
Believing that she had pacified him, Katie expected him to go, but he made a lunge at her, his fingers gripping both her arms so tightly that she could feel his nails through her blouse and cardigan. ‘Betty knows what you did to me,’ he whispered.
His feet were on either side of her, his legs locking hers together so that she couldn’t move them. ‘I am taking you captive, and I will keep you locked in the garret. Do not look at me like that, Katie. I promise you will like the treats I have planned for you.’
His lips drew back into a hideous grin, his hands moved up to her neck, his elbows kept her arms imprisoned, although she was powerless against him anyway, for his eyes held her hypnotized. She was beginning to feel her senses slipping away when he gave a peculiar grunt and fell to the floor.
The spell broken, Katie gazed down at him for only a second before her knees buckled and she knew no more.
***
Beth had waited until Dennis went to work before she set off in her car, and as she drove along the coast, she thought of the letter she had received that morning. She still hadn’t got over the shock. She gave a rueful sigh. She must be a masochist, wanting to have her heart ripped apart by hearing of her husband’s infidelity when all along he had been swearing that she was the only woman in his life. Or was there a tiny grain of doubt in her mind? Did she hope, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that Dennis was not a philanderer nor a blackmailer? But how had he come in contact with Katie Buchan? God, she had almost forgotten! Katie was the name of the girl Dennis had lodged with – slept with – at one time. Was this the same girl? He had probably come from Katie’s bed to hers, and she, a conceited fool for all her mature years, had believed that he loved her for herself, not for her money. Beth felt a sudden spurt of anger – not at Dennis nor at Katie Buchan, only at herself for being so gullible.
When she arrived in Cullen, Beth’s stomach began to churn. She had only been in the place three times before, and none of the occasions had been happy. This fourth visit also had every indication of being an ordeal, but she had better go through with it. She drove resolutely under the arch and carried on into Seatown, then, leaving the car on the main road, she walked through the huddle of familiar fisher-type houses until she came to the right one, Heart hammering, she hesitated outside. Was she a fool to stir things up? Maybe she should wait and have it out with Dennis when he came home at night … but she may as well speak to the girl now she was here.
Lifting her hand to knock, she noticed that the door was off the latch and only needed a feather-light touch of her finger to make it swing open. She was aghast at the tableau that met her eyes, but her reaction was swift. Grasping her handbag with both hands, she took three steps forward and brought it down with full force. She had intended only to stop the man from murdering the young woman, but instead of turning round angrily, he dropped like a stone, and a second later, the girl collapsed almost on top of him.
There was no sink to be seen, but noticing that the fire wasn’t lit, Beth lifted the cold kettle from the hob, tilted it to the girl’s pale lips and forced a little water through her clenched teeth. Spluttering, she came round and looked up blankly. ‘Who … ?’
‘Never mind that,’ Beth said, firmly. ‘Tell me what was going on.’
Katie’s broken explanations were almost incoherent, but Beth managed to pull one fact out. ‘So he wasn’t trying to strangle you?’
Katie rose unsteadily to her feet and sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘He was going to take me home with him and lock me up and …’
Her violent shaking made Beth murmur, ‘Tell me the rest when you’ve got over it. I’d better see to him now.’
Despite all her efforts, Angus did not come round, and she gazed at Katie helplessly. ‘I think he’s dead.’
‘He can’t be!’ Katie gasped. ‘I saw him lying like that once before, and I thought he was dead but he wasn’t.’
Beth asked no questions about this. ‘I’m nearly sure he’s dead now, but I’d better get a doctor in case he’s not.’
‘Don’t leave me here with him,’ Katie pleaded, her eyes wide with terror.
‘No, no, I’ll take you with me.’
Half an hour later, Doctor Fleming pronounced life extinct in the man he had been called to see, and as he fastened his bag, Beth said, ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. I only hit him with my handbag because …’
Lifting the weapon she indicated and hefting it in his hands, the doctor gave a reassuring smile. ‘This isn’t heavy enough to do any damage.’
‘How did he die, then?’
‘It would appear to be a heart attack. Do you know if he had any history of heart trouble?’
Beth looked at Katie, who lifted her shoulders, and the doctor said, briskly, ‘I’ll have to notify the police since it’s a sudden death. They’ll come and ask questions, but you’ve nothing to worry about. They just have to make sure that there had been no funny business going on.’
Beth had to smother a hysterical laugh at the irony of it. There had definitely been some funny business, but perhaps not enough to make the police take action.
When the doctor left, Katie was still trembling from her ordeal, her face ashen, and Beth put a match to the paper under the sticks in the fireplace to boil the kettle.
‘How did you know my name?’ Katie whispered, suddenly. ‘I don’t know who you are.’
‘Just call me Beth. Now, where do I get water, and cups … and sugar and milk?’
Katie told her, then sat silently until she was handed a cup of tea, which did help her a little, and by the time the police arrived she was able to answer all their questions lucidly, and to explain why the dead man had been there. The sergeant – Johnny Martin promoted from constable – already knew of her connection with the Gunns, but other details had to be filled in before he was satisfied that Angus had not been in his right mind at the time of his death. At last, he said, ‘Well, Katie, he’ll never bother you again.’
He turned away to talk to Beth, but Katie couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened, the scene replaying over and over in her head, the way he had spoken in disjointed phrases, and Martin was on his way out when she said, with a deep shudder, ‘He said he’d killed somebody.’
The sergeant frowned. ‘Was that the truth, do you think? Or would you say he was that mad he could have imagined it?’
‘He was mad, but I think it was the truth.’
From being a routine, if particularly unusual, inquiry into a sudden death, it had developed into an investigation of murder, the first ever for Sergeant Martin. Without further ado, the two women were driven to the police station where he subjected Katie to such a barrage of questions that she hardly knew what she was being asked or what she was answering. After some time, he ran out of ideas, and while he considered what to do now, she had peace to think.
‘He said his wife helped him to … bury the body,’ she quavered in a few moments, having only just recalled it, ‘but his mind had gone blank after that so he didn’t know where she was. Maybe he killed her, and all.’
Martin pounced on this new information. ‘Did he tell you where he’d put the body?’
‘In the woods … at the … Howe of Fenty.’
‘He didn’t say where in the woods?’
‘Sammy’s special place.’ Katie forestalled his next question. ‘I know where it is, he took me to it once.’
With a look of grim satisfac
tion, the sergeant got to his feet. ‘I’d better phone the Huntly police and tell them to meet us at the Gunns’ house in … three-quarters of an hour. You’ll have to show us where to find the …’
‘You’re not making her go right now?’ Beth asked, her body rigid with indignation. ‘Can’t you see she’s had enough for one day? Leave it till tomorrow – she’ll be better able to cope with things after a night’s rest.’
‘I can’t leave it. We’re not sure Mr Gunn did kill his wife, though from what Katie said, he might have attempted it and she could be lying somewhere badly injured. We have to find her as soon as possible.’
Understanding now the reason for his urgency, Beth said, ‘Can I come with you? Katie would likely be glad to have another woman there.’
Receiving his permission, she linked arms with Katie and they followed Martin out to the police van.
Chapter Thirty-one
As they walked into the wood, Katie was shaking so much, and her breathing was so juddery, that Beth gave her arm a firm squeeze. ‘Don’t let go now, it’ll all be over soon.’
‘It’s a long time since Sammy showed me his secret place,’ Katie whimpered. ‘Maybe I won’t be able to find it.’
‘You’ll have to keep trying.’
Katie was trying, very hard, but she kept seeing Sammy popping out, beckoning to her with his old shy smile, and each step was more of an effort for her than the last. It was still early afternoon, but the density of the trees made the place dark and gloomy, and the police torches cast eerie shadows that terrified her. Not only that, she was beginning to wonder if she was going in the right direction.
‘Are we anywhere near yet?’ asked Sergeant Martin. ‘We’ve come a good bit in.’
‘It was a good bit in,’ she muttered. ‘I’m looking for something to remind me, but I can’t see …’
She plodded forward, but the knowledge that everyone was depending on her made her even more nervous, until she felt certain that she was in the wrong area, and was about to say so when one of the wavering beams illuminated, for a split second, a familiar gnarled shape. ‘Wait,’ she cried. ‘Will somebody shine a torch over there again?’
Following her hesitant instructions, all torches were soon focused on the chestnut tree surrounded by thick clumps of holly. ‘That’s it,’ she whispered, gripping Beth’s hand so tightly that the woman winced in spite of herself.
Johnny Martin looked at her with his lips puckered, then said, ‘You’re sure, Katie?’
‘Yes, that’s it. There’s a hole between the roots of that tree. That’s where Sammy used to go.’
Although she was afraid of what they would find, her eyes remained glued to the policemen thrusting their way through the undergrowth, hacking away obstructing branches, until one of them shouted, ‘There’s something here!’
‘I didn’t really believe him when he said he’d killed a man,’ she sobbed, turning her face away as Henry Ferguson’s twisted body was taken out of its resting place. ‘I thought he made it up to scare me.’
‘You said you believed him,’ Sergeant Martin said, quite sharply, but a stray beam of light playing over her swollen eyes and pinched cheeks made him relent. ‘It’s a good thing you did, though, or we’d never have started looking. Well, lads, that’s one, but there’s still Mrs Gunn to find.’
After the men from Huntly had been detailed to search the area surrounding the chestnut tree, and to keep widening the circle if necessary, Katie and Beth were taken to the Gunns’ house, where Martin instructed Murdoch, his young constable, to make a pot of tea in the kitchen. ‘I’ll go and take a look through the other rooms,’ he added.
It wasn’t long before he returned. ‘There’s no sign of the woman downstairs, or in the two bedrooms on the first floor, but what’s up that second flight of stairs?’
‘Just garrets,’ Katie whispered, her hands covering her mouth for a moment. ‘That’s where he said he was going to lock me up.’
The sergeant looked at Murdoch. ‘You’d better come with me, Tim. God knows what we’ll find up there.’
What they found was a semi-conscious naked woman tied to the bed, her body a mass of angry blood-red welts. ‘Christ!’ Martin exclaimed, his trained eye taking in the whip and heavy sticks lying on the floor. ‘What a bloody monster, and it’s a good thing for him he’s dead, or I’d have choked the life out of him myself.’
Gulping in air to stop him being sick, Tim Murdoch said, ‘Will I go down and phone for an ambulance?’
‘Aye, if there’s a phone, and I’ll come down with you.’
Betty having had the telephone installed after Angus had the heart attack, the constable was able to make the call while the sergeant went into the kitchen. ‘We’ve found her,’ he announced, grimly, ‘and she’s still alive.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Beth breathed, releasing her grip on Katie’s wrists.
‘I think you two ladies should go up to her, for she’s in a pretty bad way. Oh, and take a knife or something, you’ll have to cut her free.’
They took a pair of scissors, and even though they thought they were prepared for anything, Betty cried, ‘Oh, my God!’ when she saw Mrs Gunn, and Katie had to hold on to the jamb of the door.
‘Get a blanket to put round her,’ Beth ordered, ‘and I’ll cut the ropes.’ She went over to the bed as Katie went out.
‘You’re all right now, Mrs Gunn,’ she soothed. ‘You’ll soon be free. Don’t say anything till you feel up to it.’
Luckily, the scissors had recently been sharpened, and the bonds were soon cut, but the woman seemed unable to speak and it was not until Katie came back that she whispered, with an obvious effort, ‘Angus?’
‘He’s dead,’ Beth assured her, laying the blanket gently over the lacerated flesh. ‘Is that any better, Mrs Gunn. You were as cold as ice.’
‘He killed Henry.’
‘Yes, the police found the body.’ Beth made sure that the woman was suitably covered from neck to toes.
‘How did they … know where to … ?’
‘He told Katie where it was.’
Betty shifted her tortured eyes to the young woman. ‘So you’re Katie? He found you again?’ Her voice strengthened. ‘He was raving mad at the end. Stark, staring, raving mad.’
Katie nodded. ‘I know that, and from what he said, I think he was going to take me here and whip me, and all. I could see he still had the mark where I stabbed him.’
‘I think he’d forgotten about you. He’s been going queer for a long time, and it came to a head last night when …’ Her eyes filling with tears, she told them, in spurts with long pauses in between, what had led up to Henry Ferguson’s murder, and then went on, her voice breathy and high, ‘He made me help him to carry … the body … and I was sure he would kill me, too, and put me in beside Henry … but …’
‘It’s all right,’ Beth soothed. ‘Don’t speak about it.’
But Betty clearly had to tell somebody. ‘Once he collected the … whip and things … he took me up here and stripped me, and tied me to the bed … and when he lifted the whip, he held it over me for a long time … and then he yelled, “This is for being such a cold bitch to me, Marguerite!” Then he took it down, over and over …’ She stopped, shuddering.
‘We’ve heard enough,’ Beth told her. ‘Just rest now.’
‘I can’t understand it,’ Katie gulped, flopping down on the chair at the side of the bed. ‘He knew his first wife was dead. And if he’d forgotten about me, why did he come to Cullen?’
Beth snorted. ‘You can’t fathom what goes on in a deranged man’s brain, but he’s dead now and you should both put him out of your heads altogether.’
Betty looked at her doubtfully. ‘Are you sure he’s dead?’
‘Oh, there’s no doubt about that! The doctor said it was a heart attack, and asked if he’d a history of heart trouble, but Katie couldn’t tell him.’
‘Yes, he’s had several heart attacks – one quite bad, when I
thought he was a goner.’
The arrival of the ambulance stopped the discussion, and Betty was laid on a stretcher and carried out, protesting that she would rather they shifted her to her own bed.
‘She was lucky he didn’t kill her,’ Beth observed, when the vehicle drew away, ‘but it’ll be a while before all the cuts heal up. There’s one good thing, though, she’ll get the house and all his money …’
‘And the shop,’ Katie said, thoughtfully, ‘but she’s paid an awful price for them.’
The commotion over, the police van took the two women back to Katie’s house, and even though the body had been removed, she burst into tears of hysteria. Beth let her sob for some time, then said gently, ‘I’d better stay with you tonight.’
‘Oh, would you?’ Katie regarded her gratefully. ‘There’s only my bed made up, but it won’t take me long to make up the one in the other room.’
‘Don’t bother, I can sleep with you, but I’d better tell you first … I’m Beth McKay.’
She had expected a violent reaction, but Katie’s eyes remained dull. She was obviously still too deeply shocked by what had happened to make any connection. ‘Dennis’s wife,’ Beth explained, softly.
‘Dennis’s wife?’ Katie regarded her blankly.
‘We’ll forget about that just now. Do you still want my company, or would you rather I left?’
‘Don’t go!’ There was panic in Katie’s voice. ‘I’m scared to be on my own.’
Standing up, Beth pulled her to her feet. ‘Come on, then. It’s time we got our heads down.’
Before she fell asleep, it crossed Beth’s mind that she was sharing a bed with her husband’s ex-lover, but at least Katie herself had not realized that. She was in no fit state to discuss Dennis or anything else, she’d had more than enough for one day.
His guilty conscience having made him hurry home as soon as the restaurant closed, Dennis was quite put out that Beth’s car was gone, and as time passed with no sign of her, his annoyance changed to fear for her, quickly followed by fear for himself. She had said nothing important came with the morning post, and he had believed Katie hadn’t carried out her threat, but her letter might have come by the second delivery. Had Beth gone to tell her man of business to cut him out of her will? She always stayed overnight when she went to Glasgow … but he didn’t even know if he was in her will. He had assumed that as her husband he would inherit everything, but if she had learned what he’d done, he might not be her husband for much longer.
The Three Kings Page 34
