Folly

by Stella Cameron

  She fingered the mobile phone in her pocket. I think I heard someone yell – they could be in trouble. Constable Frye would come in a hurry and he’d be kind enough, but she’d feel a fool having him search for a sound.

  The next thing she heard was whimpering and this time she spun around and started back into the trees. Why hadn’t she considered she might be hearing a trapped animal?

  Instinct took her to the left. A renewed howl made sure she knew she was going in the right direction. A brief picture of the vicious metal teeth of a gin trap came and went. Those things scared her badly but she knew how to release one of them.

  Uphill she saw no other living being. She rarely did at this time of day. Gasping, her mouth open, she leaned into the slope and tried to speed up – and caught her foot under a root.

  The fall was spectacular but painless enough, except for the snow and debris that crammed under her hood and into her curly black hair – and her eyes, nose and mouth.

  Another time, she would have laughed at herself, but not this morning. First she had to smack her gloves clean, then dig her face and hair out of the mess.

  The howling grew steady, an otherworldly, keening knell filled with desolation.

  Alex got to her feet, stumbled again in her haste but kept going. She glanced around for any sign of Tony Harrison on his way back from his daily hike into the hills with his dog. Tony worked on livestock at the surrounding farms but his small animal surgery was in the village. He was her closest neighbor on the hill and lived in a red brick house, out of keeping with the local stone buildings, and surrounded by beautiful gardens. She frequently encountered the tall, quiet man on her way to the village. Where was the local vet when you needed him?

  Rocketing at her from between the trees came a dog, not big, maybe twelve or fourteen pounds and with unidentified fragments stuck in his woolly, mostly gray fur. He saw Alex, yapped hoarsely and shot away again, his black-tipped ears flapping.

  The signal was clear. Follow me. Hot and sweating, then cold enough to shiver, Alex broke into a shambling run, keeping her eyes on the path the dog had taken. She strained, listening for more sounds, either from the dog or perhaps another animal who had been with him.

  She tried not to think about stories of dogs howling when their owners were injured – or dead. But one of the visions she hated flitted, semi-transparent, before her. For one dreadful instant she saw that brightly lit corridor, felt the rush of whispering people … looked into an open grave. Such a small grave. And the wail she heard as a remembered echo was her own.

  Alex felt dampness on her cheeks and wiped it away. Silly, silly – how silly to get that image again. It used to be part of an aura she got before a panic attack but she was grateful she so rarely sank all the way into that dark place any more.

  Another single howl sounded, much closer this time.

  Mounds of shrouded debris made the going hard. Alex resorted to using her hands for balance, gripping anything she could find even though the icy stems slipped through her fingers. Her breath billowed in short, steamy bursts and her throat made raw noises. She couldn’t give in to panic.

  Steady, moaning yelps had replaced the dog’s howling, and when she finally saw him he sat, staring toward her, woolly ears pinned to the sides of his head.

  ‘OK,’ she said, trying to soothe him. ‘It’s OK. Are you hurt? Poor boy. Good boy.’ As she got closer, she held a gloved hand toward the dog.

  ‘That lumpy, cold stuff can’t feel good on your bottom,’ she said. He perched on a heap of snow with rocks and twigs sticking out. ‘Silly boy. Come on, I’ll find out where you belong.’

  He didn’t move except to twitch his ears a little away from his gray head. Soft brown eyes stared at her, implored her?

  Alex stopped walking – and talking.

  Raising his head, the little animal let out another howl.

  Red stained the snow behind him. A shocking, rusty scarlet she gradually realized was a huge patch. The more she glanced around and back, the more marking Alex could make out. And some pieces of what stuck through the snow were not rocks but tweed fabric.

  Scrambling, desperate, she scrabbled around, pushing snow out of the way, pulling at the material and hearing herself sob.

  Let it just be a discarded coat or something. Don’t let it be a person. She felt faint.

  Her right hand closed around something solid. Stiff and solid. A man’s bloodied right hand. The ring finger stuck out at a ghastly angle and must be dislocated or broken.

  She couldn’t stop to phone for help. Seconds might be all she had to help him. Lying face down, he was too heavy to move even a fraction. All she could do was brush at his face.

  Blood-tinged short, almost shaved, graying dark hair.

  ‘Wake up,’ Alex said. ‘Please wake up. You’ll freeze to death if you stay here. Please wake up. Get up!’ She started to shake him by the shoulder but stopped, afraid she would hurt him even more.

  His thin, fine-boned face was partially visible, covered with patches of blood and mud and bits of debris. Blood even sealed his eyes shut, and she could see more dark red beneath him. Snow had covered some of the congealed blood – there was so much blood. Pulse. That was the first thing. Brown woolen material bunched around the man’s neck and she pulled it away at one side to reveal his throat.

  Rocking back on her knees, Alex barely registered that the dog was growling. A dart, like some of those kept at the pub for casual dart players, the yellow flight and brass barrel bloodied, leaned crazily from a hole and a jagged tear that must have punctured the carotid artery.

  She would never wake the man up.

  TWO

  Thanks to the docs James and Tony Harrison, who showed up on the hill in the wake of Constable Frye and half an hour before the heavy artillery from the police, Alex had been released from the cold and horrifying woods to the warmth of the Black Dog.

  Doc James was Tony’s father and the local GP.

  The reprieve from questions wouldn’t last long but she intended to make the best of whatever thinking time she could get. The two Harrisons had threatened a Detective Inspector Dan O’Reilly with Alex’s impending collapse from shock and probable essential sedation (answering no questions at all for days) if he didn’t get her driven down the hill.

  As the police car, with its yellow and blue checkerboard motif, had arrived at the pub and drawn around into the yard behind the building, Alex had seen a row of faces at the front windows of the public bar.

  Once inside, her mother had been waiting to give her the rundown about the way the news had spread through the locals, but when Alex made herself appear behind the bar, she was still jumpy and wished she could hide.

  Hiding, Lily Duggins had assured her, was something they didn’t do.

  Bloody Saturday morning, as some wag had already dubbed this horrible day, gave the locals too much time to hang around in the Black Dog asking questions and coming up with answers based on nothing but conjecture.

  ‘There you are, Alex,’ Major Stroud, long-time retired and a fixture in the pub, announced loudly the instant she appeared. ‘About time, too, old thing. You can’t pretend nothing’s happened forever, y’know. Best way to put silly rumors to rest is with the truth. Tell us all about it.’ His nose looked more bulbous and purplish than usual and his small, watery eyes skewered Alex.

  Will Cummings, busy changing over beer barrels, gave Alex a sympathetic look. His wife wasn’t so calm. Tight-lipped, Cathy Cummings drew beers as fast as she could and slapped glasses under the pours to measure spirits. A slight, blonde woman, her thin face showed how strained she felt. Highly strung, everyone dubbed her, but to Alex she seemed to be overreacting today. Something horrible had taken place but Cathy wouldn’t help by going to pieces. Cathy was a little younger than Will, or so Alex thought, probably early fifties to his late fifties or so. She had noticed how he often treated her like a teenager rather than an adult. He was paternal toward her.

  ‘Th
is lot were all milling around outside,’ Will said. ‘I let ’em in early rather than have anyone freeze out there.’

  Usually they opened around ten and it was the coffee and biscuits group until just before noon.

  Alex smelled the coffee and freshly baked sugar biscuits, but for most customers a death on the hill was obviously an excuse for a wee, or not-so-wee dram of something to calm the nerves.

  Barely contained excitement, only slightly dampened by the serious reaction the customers knew was expected of them, brought the noise level to a buzzing pitch.

  Alex rubbed her still-cold palms down the sides of her jeans. Her brain didn’t want to track with her eyes and she couldn’t think of anything to say. She supposed she really was shocked but couldn’t bring herself to pour a brandy.

  Will did it for her, setting a full shot glass on the wooden sill beneath the upturned bottles of spirits. Stocky, balding and affable, he was the perfect pub manager. ‘This’ll hit the spot,’ he said to Alex.

  She nodded and took a sip; the heat felt good going down. The police who arrived in response to Constable Frye’s phone calls had kept her up on the hill for an hour, shivering and watching the clinical official activity around the body, intermittently peppered with questions or left alone to stare at the efficient activity at the death scene. She could have kissed both of the Harrisons when they had come to her rescue. What they had told the detective wasn’t far from the truth. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she had passed out or thrown up – or both.

  Warmth from the fire, and from bodies pressed into the space around the bar, felt good to Alex. The smells of beer and piping hot meat pies were comfortingly familiar.

  ‘I say, Alex,’ Major Stroud boomed. Foam speckled a mustache rolled out along his upper lip like iron-gray Velcro. ‘We’re all on your side, y’know. Not one of us thinks you were more than an unlucky witness, but you do need to bring the rest of us up to date. Was there as much blood as they say?’

  Cathy Cummings gripped the edge of the bar, her eyes filled with tears.

  The brandy had already started to calm Alex down. She rubbed Cathy’s back and shook her head at the major. ‘You don’t know. Maybe my formerly secret hobby is knocking people off in the woods.’

  Someone laughed – big Kev Winslet – and a communal snicker went up.

  ‘I shouldn’t joke,’ Alex said, embarrassed. ‘Some of us get shaken up and then we’re silly at the most inappropriate times. Sorry about that. There’s nothing for me to tell, Major’ – the police had been sure she knew to keep her mouth shut – ‘we’ll hear what the authorities want us to hear soon enough.’

  Going to work beside Cathy, Alex served customers and kept pork pies, Cornish pasties and sausage rolls – standard pub fare – popping in and out of the microwave at a great rate. She forked pickled onions and Scotch eggs from giant jars filled with vinegar and pickling spices. But she repeatedly needed to pull her attention back to what she was doing, trying not to see images of the man with the terrible wound in his neck, or to think how he had bled out on the frozen ground, alone except for a little dog.

  Goosebumps shot up her arms.

  ‘I say,’ Major Stroud said. ‘Aren’t you going to tell us at least something about it? Man or woman, that much at least? How was the killing done?’

  Alex shook her head. ‘We’ll all know more than we want to before long. I was told not to discuss anything. The police will be stopping by with questions soon enough, not that I can think anyone here knows anything.’

  There, that was already more than she needed to report. Alex shut her mouth firmly.

  ‘I should think so,’ old Mary Burke said from her chair beside her younger sister Harriet’s. ‘Gossiping never did anyone any good.’ Although Mary had been known to spill a few beans on occasion. The sisters, both retired teachers, ran a tea shop that also offered books and handcrafts for sale.

  Through an archway into the small restaurant, Alex could see her mother at the reception desk. Lily met her daughter’s eyes and smiled encouragement, then went back to poring over the reservation book and behaving as if nothing unusual had happened. Quietly turned out as long as Alex could remember, Lily was professional in her black dress, and in her manner. A handsome woman, statuesque beside Alex, with a light hand when it came to make-up, Lily knew how to manage any situation.

  ‘I expect they called Doc Harrison up there,’ someone said.

  ‘Would that be James or Tony Harrison?’ Major Stroud said, and looked put out at the laughter that followed.

  Kev Winslet, who worked as gamekeeper on the Derwinter estate, said, ‘Doc James, I expect, unless Doc Tony is treatin’ humans now.’ He joined in the mirth.

  Tony Harrison had, so it was told, disappointed his father by choosing veterinary medicine rather than joining the senior Harrison’s practice. When they’d both been teenagers, Tony and Alex had become friends, two of a kind, both quiet and determined people. Tony was several years older and had left for university before Alex got a scholarship to prestigious Slade Art College in London.

  Up on the hill that morning, both James and Tony Harrison had shown their quiet brand of compassion.

  ‘Alex,’ Mary Burke’s sturdy voice demanded. ‘Can we get some service, please?’

  Mary was one of Alex’s favorite people, as was Harriet, who sat with her at a table near the Inglenook fireplace. Flames reflected a glow on the women’s weathered faces and white hair, and bounced off the polished horse brasses hung along the gnarled oak mantel.

  ‘Coming,’ Alex said, forcing a smile, but as if he knew he’d been mentioned, Tony Harrison chose that exact moment to walk in with the gray and black dog from the woods in his arms. Tony’s waxed green Barbour coat was open so he could hold the animal against the warmth of his body and wrap some of the coat over him. His rubber Hunters squeaked on the wooden floor and left muddy footprints behind.

  That quieted the uproar.

  ‘Just passing through,’ Tony said. ‘I’ve got to get this chap to the surgery and check him over. Thought I’d ask if anyone remembers seeing him before.’

  Mumbles followed and a few pressed in for a closer look. Reverend Restrick from tiny St Aldwyn’s church, rose from a settle with its back to the rest of the bar and came around to scratch the dog under the chin. A large man with a sweet smile, he said, ‘Someone’s missing you, aren’t they, little fellow?’

  ‘He’s well fed,’ Tony said, ‘although he’s probably very hungry at the moment. Name on his collar is Bogie. He’s not a stray.’

  No one had any information but Alex lifted the flap in the bar and went to offer her hand to the dog. ‘Hello, Bogie. Poor boy.’ A doggy tongue tentatively met the end of her fingers but an incessant, faint squeaking came from Bogie’s throat and the animal trembled violently.

  Alex looked at Tony. ‘I’m glad you’ve got him. He—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ the vet said, cutting her off with a warning glance. ‘I’ll make sure he’s OK. I’d better crack on. Give me a call if you hear anyone’s looking for him.’

  Tony’s kind, dark blue eyes reminded Alex that he had always taken the side of any underdog kid, including herself, and what a good friend he’d been until he left home.

  ‘Does he belong to the murder victim?’ Major Stroud demanded, jutting his considerable jaw toward Tony. ‘Or should I say, did he?’

  Tony gazed from Alex’s raised eyebrows to the major’s pugnacious expression and said, ‘What murder victim?’

  THREE

  Within the hour, two detectives arrived. Alex had already talked to both of them at the death scene, where they’d identified themselves as coming from Gloucester. Murder squad detectives, she was sure, which seemed unreal.

  The darts cupboard wasn’t locked; a point Detective Inspector Dan O’Reilly had been quick to criticize soon after he got there.

  O’Reilly came to the pub in an unmarked car with a Detective Sergeant Bill Lamb and asked for the pub to be clea
red until he said otherwise.

  People shuffled out, grumbling, while Lily took the Burke sisters and a number of the regulars, including Major Stroud and Reverend Restrick, into the comfy private bar still called the snug in the old-fashioned way. They settled into worn tapestry easy chairs around dark oak tables. Silence lasted only long enough for the door to close behind Lily.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ Alex said, smiling and inclining her head to the snug where low voices were already very busy.

  Lily said, ‘Don’t you worry. It’s a terrible thing but people will lose interest soon enough.’ A little gray streaked through hair which was as dark and curly as Alex’s own. They both had the oval, greenish eyes Alex had been teased about as a girl when other children accused her of being a witch. Lily continued, ‘We don’t want to put any regular customers’ noses out of joint, though. They’ll be happy enough in the snug. This is one of those times I’m glad we’re among the few pubs that kept one. I’ll be at the desk. Bad news travels fast. We’ve got a line-up for the restaurant – curiosity fills tables, I suppose. They’re rushed off their feet in the kitchen.’

  The Cummings had already left for their rooms. Reluctantly, feeling unsure of herself, Alex returned to the pub, where boxes of darts were being removed from their cupboard and dropped into plastic bags by a man in a blue jumpsuit that rustled like paper with every move. Very tall and thin, his head brushed the swags of dried hops that decorated exposed beams. He left without a word and with several yellowing hops stuck in his dark hair.

  The detectives indicated a table and they all sat down. Both men were well dressed. Nothing said ‘detective’ about this detail. Alex had the thought that O’Reilly’s dark gray suit probably hadn’t hung on any rack.

  ‘Did you know him?’ he asked her without preamble.

  ‘The dead man?’ Drawing away from the table a little, Alex went on: ‘No. I never saw him before, or I don’t think I did. With all the …’ She looked away and muttered, ‘I didn’t get a really good look at his face. Poor man. No one should die like that.’ A flash of anger surprised her. ‘No one should interfere with another life. It’s sick and evil.’