SILENT (a psychological thriller, combining mystery, crime and suspense)

by D. M. Mitchell

  ‘You’d do well to keep away from her,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Or what? That a threat?’

  ‘It’s a warning.’

  ‘Should I be scared?’

  ‘It’s up to you if you don’t want to listen. Leave her alone.’

  Betsy’s cabin door swung open at the sound of voices. She saw Davey. Also saw the bottle of champagne and two glasses in Mason’s hands. ‘For me, Rick?’ she said. ‘Come on in.’

  Mason nodded uncomfortably in Davey’s direction. ‘Maybe not tonight; the searchlight is on.’

  ‘Davey, go back to bed,’ she said. He hesitated, squinted at her, but an abbreviated flick of her hand saw him duck reluctantly inside his cabin and close the door.

  ‘What is it with him?’ said Mason

  ‘Forget Davey. Are you coming in or what?’

  ‘If looks could kill…’ he said, his eyes fixed on Davey’s cabin door. ‘Here,’ he said, handing her the bottle and a glass, ‘have this on me. Maybe some other time.’

  ‘Welcome to Krndija, ‘Horvat said. He eyed the gasping threesome through his spectacles. ‘You’re not tired, are you?’ Which was the nearest he’d come to expressing humour the entire journey, albeit heavily laced with sarcasm. ‘We have a horse and carriage waiting for us here and we must get a move on if we are to reach Castle Dragutin before nightfall. There are no streetlamps here, you may have noticed.’

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ said Betsy light-heartedly. In spite of her tiredness she was quite excited by all she was experiencing. She responded to Horvat’s little dig and got to her feet. Davey came to her side and she picked up her suitcase.

  ‘Can I carry that for you?’ said Davey.

  ‘I can manage,’ she said curtly. She’d resented Davey’s repeated attempts to prevent her from seeing Rick, and the most they’d been allowed to share were occasional lengthy conversations. Mason suspected they’d exchanged heated words over it on more than one occasion, but they never let even a glimmer of that private unrest show publicly. Davey still looked at Mason as if he was a rattlesnake and was thinking about getting the first blow in.

  ‘Hang on – you said horse and carriage?’ Mason said, turning to face Horvat who had started up the hill on his own and making his way further into the village. A number of people – two old men and a woman of similar vintage – had come out of their cottages to observe the strangers.

  ‘Of course,’ said Horvat. ‘When these tracks were originally laid in the 13th Century they didn’t have automobiles in mind. A horse and carriage is still the only way of reaching Castle Dragutin, and only then if the rains have been kind to us and not washed away the track too much. You can ride by donkey or mule, if you wish, but I suspect that would not be to your liking.’

  ‘You suspect right. How far have we to go?’ He picked up his case and joined Betsy and Davey as they followed Horvat.

  ‘Perhaps another eight miles, that way,’ he pointed. ‘Through the mountain pass.’

  ‘Perhaps?’

  ‘It could extend to ten or more if we are forced to take a detour.’ He halted and waved in exasperation. ‘Please do hurry. If we are not there soon the coachman will refuse to take us and there is nowhere we can stay in this village overnight.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d like the idea anyway,’ said Mason, a little unnerved by the old woman whose gimlet eyes were fixed on him. She wore a long ankle-length black dress, a rough white blouse over this, a matching headscarf on her head with a curious knot at the top. He noticed she wore woollen stockings in black and curious, pointed leather sandals that looked like they came from ancient Rome or Greece. He guessed the style of dress hadn’t changed in decades, maybe even centuries. In fact it felt like he’d been transported back a hundred years or more in time. But somehow it all seemed vaguely familiar, like the echo of a distant memory, a picture in his head that was always on the verge of forming but never coming into focus.

  Then, to his complete surprise, the old woman spat at his feet. An old man wearing a tatty waistcoat over a woollen shirt, short breeches and long stockings, dashed forward and took her by the shoulder. He avoided looking directly at Mason, instead pulling down the rim of his straw hat to hide his face further, and he led the woman away.

  ‘The weirdest thing!’ said Mason, puzzled and alarmed at the same time. ‘She spat at me! Don’t they take kindly to strangers in these parts, Mr Horvat?’

  ‘Generally their reaction to strangers is quite the opposite,’ he said. ‘They are a friendly, generous people.’

  ‘So friendly they spit at me?’

  ‘It is possibly because you bear a resemblance to your father.’

  ‘They hated my father?’ said Mason.

  ‘Yes, they hated him, Mr Mason. But more than that, they feared him.’

  * * * *

  11

  Castle Dragutin

  The man reached down from the roof of the coach, his face shaded by a broad-rimmed hat, and he hauled up the suitcases one by one, stacking them carefully and then securing them with leather straps. The two black horses stood motionless and obedient as Betsy stroked each of them in turn.

  ‘How beautiful they are,’ she said, leaning her head close against one of the horses and whispering something to it.

  ‘You’re good around horses, for a city girl,’ Rick Mason observed. ‘I don’t trust them myself. Is this thing safe?’ he asked Franz Horvat, pointing at the battered, scarred and mud-splashed wooden coach. ‘It’s ancient. You sure this will get us to where we want to be?’

  ‘Quite sure, Mr Mason,’ Horvat reassured, beckoning them to climb inside. He held the door open and took Betsy’s hand as she put a foot on the step. The coach springs gave under her weight.

  ‘How gallant!’ she said, grinning at Mason. She made herself comfortable on the padded leather seat. ‘Makes me feel like some kind of Victorian countess or something.’ She peered out of the small glass window. Beyond the low-roofed cottages she saw a dark wall of plum-purple mountains. Snow sat thinly on the highest points, almost aglow in the dull light.

  Davey followed her, silently taking his place at her side. Horvat waited for Mason to clamber aboard before joining them and closing the coach door. The driver climbed down from the roof, showed his face at the window. Horvat nodded that all was well and the coach rocked gently as the driver climbed to his seat and took the reins.

  ‘It’s not as comfortable as a motor car,’ Horvat explained,’ but it is a tried and trusted method used for centuries to get around these parts. The horse can take us where your spluttering little motor cannot.’

  ‘How long will this take us,’ asked Mason.

  ‘It will take as long as it takes,’ Horvat returned. ‘Put away your watch for now. Such things have less of a meaning in the mountains.’

  The coach gave a lurch and Betsy expelled a little whoop of delight, holding onto leather straps by the door to steady herself. Within minutes the small village was left behind, the coach negotiating a twisting rutted track that rose steeply. Soon they entered a dense forest of closely-packed firs, the light at once reduced to that of dusk, with some parts of the forest in almost total darkness. The light inside the coach was such that it was almost as black as night, and their voices gradually became hushed and eventually fell silent, all eyes watching the passage of the tree trunks through the windows.

  The forest seemed to go on forever, and there was palpable relief when the coach emerged from its melancholic embrace into the light again. They were clearly in a mountain pass, walls of steep-sided, jagged rock pressing in on both sides, which came closer together the further the coach trundled into the pass. Then the narrow pass gave way to yet another stretch of forest, which in turn widened out into a lush meadow-like valley threaded through with rocky mountain streams, till once again the mountains came together into yet another mountain pass.

  The air became thinner, colder, the track ever more snake-like in its twists and bends, the ruts and pot
holes deeper, the large wheels seemingly finding every rock there was to find, the jerking of the coach causing every occupant some discomfort. Betsy’s initial whoop of delight at the prospects of a thrilling coach ride had long dissipated and had been replaced instead by groans every time they struck something. The hard leather seats were not as comfortable or accommodating as they first appeared.

  ‘This is a veritable wilderness!’ Mason exclaimed. But yet again he felt the same bubble of recognition and familiarity beginning to form. How curious, he thought, given that, as far as he was aware, he’d never been here. His life had been a series of cities and small towns. He knew nothing of the mountains.

  ‘It is deceptive,’ said Horvat. ‘It is not quite a wilderness. People live hereabouts, spread out thinly, but live here all the same. Yet it pays to show the land due respect. It has claimed the life of many lost or careless travellers.’

  ‘Not sure I like it,’ Mason admitted. ‘It’s gloomy.’

  Horvat studied him. ‘Perhaps you had better grow to like it, Mr Mason. After all, what you see, as far as you can see, now belongs to you.’

  ‘No kidding!’

  ‘No kidding, Mr Mason. We are now within the boundary of the Dragutin estate.’

  Betsy laughed and all eyes turned to her. ‘He’s pulling your leg, Rick, can’t you see? I mean, no one owns a mountain, for God’s sake!’

  Horvat shook his head slowly. ‘There is an owner for everything. Even a mountain.’ He turned his attention to the countryside flashing by outside the window, ignoring Betsy’s stifled giggle.

  ‘So why did they fear my father?’ Mason asked. It had been bothering him for all this time, but Horvat had managed to evade the issue.

  ‘This is not the time to enter into such things, Mr Mason. All in due course, as promised.’ Horvat made it clear there would be no further conversation and closed his eyes, blotting them out and pretending to be asleep.

  ‘It’s like one of those creepy Victorian novels,’ Betsy observed, her arms folded, her body tightening against the growing cold of the evening. ‘A coach ride, dark forest, a castle…’ She laughed. ‘I bet there are wolves and bears in the forest. Are there, Mr Horvat, wolves and bears?’ His eyes remained resolutely closed. ‘Mr Horvat?’

  ‘Leave him be, Betsy,’ said Davey, who had been uncomfortable at the way the old man looked at him; almost as if he could see right into his soul. He preferred him with his eyes closed.

  ‘Soon there’ll be a thunderstorm,’ said Mason dramatically. He leant across to Betsy, his voice playfully deep. ‘The thunder will roll out loud across the mountains as if the gods are angry, and the rain will come dashing against the coach window. The driver will get lost and we will end up stuck fast in the mud. We leave the coach, step out into the night, spy lights from a lonely old house, and there we will seek shelter…’

  ‘The driver has never got lost,’ said Horvat, his eyes still closed. ‘You actors are too melodramatic.’

  ‘I am not an actor,’ Davey murmured indignantly.

  Horvat opened his eyes, fixed them on the young man. ‘No?’ He closed them again. ‘You are the best actor of them all,’ he said.

  Davey scowled. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Look!’ interrupted Betsy, leaning close to the window and pointing. ‘Isn’t that just the most beautiful sight?’

  The countryside opened up, on one side a forest clinging to a steep mountainside reaching up as far as the eye could see; and on the other a vast lake, the silvery-grey waters made choppy by a stiff breeze, reflecting the heavy grey sky. More mountains and hills rose from the far banks of the lake, blurred by the mist of distance. The coach now took a road that skirted close to the edge of the lake, at times rising on a ledge so narrow that Mason feared one wrong move by the horses, or hitting a rock that might overbalance them, would tip them all into the bleak-looking waters below.

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Mason. ‘I own the lake, too.’

  ‘You own the lake, too,’ Horvat said, opening his eyes. ‘In a moment you will see Castle Dragutin. It is a most impressive sight. It sits on a narrow isthmus of rock that juts out into the lake.’

  And true to his word the castle hove into view. It was not constructed of dark blocks of stone, like a Norman castle, as Mason had pictured in his head; it was instead reminiscent of a French château, largely painted white so that it stood out from the dark forest behind it, as if some mighty god had dipped a thumb in white paint and smeared it across the forest.

  It did indeed stand on a low-lying spit of land that wasn’t visible on first approach, so that the high rock on which the castle stood appeared to float in the water like a giant ship. As they drew closer they could make out three cylindrical towers, each capped with a conical roof, the plain walls of the castle studded with many square windows. They were impressed by the sheer size of the building, which they hadn’t fully appreciated on seeing it from a distance. But as they came closer it towered above them, made to appear even taller by its construction on the sheer-faced island of natural stone. Mason was in awe of it, but was undecided whether he found it beautiful or disturbing.

  ‘There has been a building on this spot since the thirteenth century,’ Horvat explained. ‘First for religious purposes, then defensive, and finally as a means of…’ He hesitated. ‘…a means of governance.’

  ‘It’s not like a real castle,’ noticed Betsy.

  ‘As I told Mr Mason some time ago, it is really a manor house – or rather a very grand manor house. But it has always been referred to as a castle, even before Baron Dragutin came to live here. I’m sorry you’re disappointed.’

  ‘I’m not disappointed at all. This is marvellous!’ Betsy chimed. ‘Is there a drawbridge?’

  ‘No drawbridge, miss. Nor knights in shining armour. There are only two people now living in Castle Dragutin. They have been sole caretakers there following Baron Dragutin’s death. They have been in Baron Dragutin’s employment since they were children. They have not left the castle once in all that time.’

  ‘Not once?’ said Mason in disbelief.

  ‘Not once. They have seen it as their solemn duty.’

  ‘Or done it out of fear,’ said Mason half-jokingly.

  Horvat’s face remained as expressionless as ever. ‘Fear and duty are not so far removed from one another. We are almost there.’

  * * * *

  12

  The Hanged Man

  They were glad to step out of the coach, and as if to rush to greet them an icy wind blew over from the lake and caused them to fold their arms and shrink back from the sudden gust. They were in a large paved yard, spacious, laid with monstrous stone flags in bleak grey, the whole enclosed by a low wall beyond which the lake was clearly visible stretching into the distance. Mason noticed steps leading steeply down from the yard, hugging the rock on which the castle had been built, and he presumed these led all the way down to the shore of the lake. He could just make out a wooden jetty, the posts of which were being snapped at by foam-flecked waves. But save for the sound of the lapping water and the wind ruffling the trees in the distance, all was strangely quiet and still.

  He turned to look up at Castle Dragutin. Its walls didn’t appear half as pristine as they had from a distance; they were in need of fresh paint and repair, but solidly impressive all the same. The light was fast sinking into dusk but the building stood out ghostly-pale, as if it refused to acknowledge the coming night and resisted it. It was not an ornate affair by any stretch of the imagination, Mason thought as the coach driver handed down cases from the coach roof. It was austere and angular, utilitarian almost, and reminded him of pictures he’d seen of Alcatraz prison.

  Horvat thanked the driver, paid him and said goodbye. The driver mounted the coach and they watched as the horses drew the coach in a large circle to turn it around. He didn’t acknowledge his former passengers as he made sure the twin oil lamps fixed to the coach burned brightly before flapping the reins l
ightly to urge the beasts into motion. The coach trundled noisily over the stone flags. They all watched in silence as it disappeared from view. All except Horvat who was striding, case in hand, to the main door of Castle Dragutin.

  ‘Bit late for travelling back, I’d have thought,’ said Mason. ‘I wouldn’t have liked to ride in that thing in the dark.’

  ‘He preferred not to stay,’ Horvat said. He motioned to them with his gloved hand. ‘Come; let us not stand out here in the cold.’ He yanked hard on a bell-pull by the towering oak door.

  Mason noticed how weeds had taken hold in whatever crack in the stone they could find. Great clumps were dotted all over the castle walls, grew out of fissures in the stone flags, sprouted at the base of the low wall. Two large flower urns, one on either side of the door, were also choked with weeds. Horvat became aware of him staring at the urns.

  ‘Sobering thought, Mr Mason, that man need only stay his hand for a brief while and nature begins its assault.. A sign that all things give way to weeds, Mr Mason.’

  ‘Very sobering,’ he replied. ‘A little weed killer is all that’s needed.’

  ‘Baron Dragutin was not one for prettiness,’ he said and yanked the bell-pull again, trying the heavy brass circular door handle to no avail.

  ‘I wish they’d hurry,’ said Betsy. ‘It’s getting cold out here.’

  ‘So is it locked to keep people out, or keep people in?’ Mason joked.

  Just then the door opened and a frail-looking old man in a dark crumpled suit looked apologetically at them. He was panting and wiped a bony hand over his bald head. He said something in Hungarian to Horvat, then in broken English he said to the rest of them that he was sorry for the delay; he had been at the far end of the castle making final preparations for the guests, lighting fires in all the bedrooms. He glanced briefly at Mason then quickly averted his gaze. He swung the door wide, standing aside to let the travellers enter.