by Fay Sampson
Her eyes flew past him to the balcony. What did he think she had seen? And now the image rushed back at her. That morning at the archery butts, when she had believed herself alone. Euan Jones appearing suddenly out of the shrubbery. Advancing on her with the arrows in his fist. A chill certainty was growing in her that this was how Thaddaeus had met his end. And his killer thought she had seen him.
His grip was painful on her arm.
She shook her head desperately. “I didn’t see anything! I was on the bed over there. Asleep. I didn’t go out on to the balcony until afterwards.” She was aware that she was gabbling in panic. And, now that she thought about it, was it true about the balcony? Had she looked out there before she lay down? But she would have remembered if she had seen Euan or anyone else.
“It must have been half past two, twenty to three when I woke up. At least half an hour after the police think he was murdered. I saw Lorna running past the side of the house. She’d just got back. You were there.”
She felt his grip relax a little. “You saw her come back after half past two? Lorna? You’re sure of that?”
“Yes.”
He let her go. “And you’ve told the police that?”
“Of course.”
He drew a deep breath. Colour was coming back to his strained face. He pushed the hair back from his eyes. “Sorry, then. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Only, when they took Lorna away…”
“They let her go, though. They only arrested her because they thought someone must have shot him with a bow. There weren’t many people who could have done it. But if he was stabbed… it could have been anyone.”
Including you, she thought, but dared not say.
No. He just wants to protect Lorna. That’s all he cares about. And she’s in the clear.
Jenny had a vivid picture of the girl, in her black skirt and grey sweater, running from the direction of the gate towards the sheds.
She tried to steady her breath and reassure him. “You don’t need to worry, Euan. Honestly. I’m sure Inspector Denbigh will find who did it soon. They won’t arrest Lorna again.”
There was a sudden cry from the corridor. “Daddy!”
Even before she heard him, she could imagine, all too vividly, Aidan bounding up the stairs. Finding another intruder in the bedroom. She hurried to the door and met him as he came hurtling along the corridor past Melangell.
“It’s all right! Really. It’s just Euan. I found him on the balcony. He’s still scared they’ll accuse Lorna.”
Aidan almost pushed her aside as he charged into the bedroom.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing here?”
Euan’s belligerence flared up. “I only wanted to check what you can see from your balcony. I wasn’t doing any harm. Scared I’m the murderer, are you?”
“How do I know you’re not?” Aidan snapped.
“What would I do a damn fool thing like that for? Lose myself a job? They’re hard enough to come by in the valley as it is.”
Jenny caught Aidan’s arm. “He’s right, love. He’s just worried about Lorna. But I told him it’s all right. I saw her come back after the time of the murder. It must have been someone who was already here.”
“And how do we know who that is? Anyone could have been hiding in those shrubberies. Did you see anyone?” Aidan challenged Euan. “You were there.”
“No,” Euan protested. “Not around two o’clock, if that’s when it happened. I was in the shed there.” He gestured towards where Jenny had seen him meeting the distraught Lorna. “Having my sandwiches. I can’t be everywhere, can I?”
Aidan’s anger was cooling. But his voice was cold as he ordered the gardener, “Well, now that you’ve seen what you wanted to, I suggest that you leave this private room. And if you have any more questions, perhaps you would be so good as to knock on the door and ask, instead of stealing the key from reception and letting yourself in.”
“Oh, yes? And just whose country do you think this is, ordering me about?”
“Let’s not get into that, shall we? Right now, I’m providing you with a job by paying good money to stay here. And I expect a locked room to stay locked while I’m out. Other than the people authorized to clean it.”
“Aidan!” Jenny tried. “He’s upset. We all are. I don’t think any one of us is behaving normally.”
“There are limits. And our private space is one of them. Especially now.”
Aidan stood aside from the door in a stance that clearly commanded Euan to leave. The young man’s dark eyes flared, and for a moment Jenny feared he might refuse. But he walked past Aidan with what dignity he could salvage.
Jenny subsided on to the bed. Despite her efforts at reasonableness with first Euan and then Aidan, she was trembling.
There was still fire in Aidan’s face, bright as his reddish hair and beard. “Five minutes! I let you go upstairs five minutes ahead of us, and I find a potential murderer in your room. First it’s Lorna, then him.”
“He only wanted to find out what I’d seen. What I knew. It’s natural. He’s in love with Lorna. And he’s scared.”
“If he’s scared that you saw something you shouldn’t have, then we should be scared, too.”
“No. What I saw was good. For Lorna, at least. We’ve only got Euan’s word that he was in the shed on his lunch break when Thaddaeus was murdered. But Lorna definitely wasn’t here.”
He stroked the side of her temple. “I’m sorry about this. It wasn’t what I planned when we came back here. A murder. And now a fire in the church.”
She caught his wrist and kissed it. “It’s not your fault. Bad things happen all the time. There’s no reason why I or Pennant Melangell should be cocooned from them. I wonder if they’ve really got the fire under control, or whether it will break out again.”
“They’re leaving a skeleton crew on standby overnight, just in case. They’re not sure what’s happening under the roof.”
“Why?” she sighed. “Why do such a vindictive thing? If it was arson. But I can’t think about it now. All I want to do is sleep.”
As she settled her head on the pillow, it was a comfort that Aidan had taken a book on to the balcony and was sitting reading just within call.
Chapter Twenty-five
THE DINING ROOM LOOKED startlingly full, after the empty tables they had become used to. The Ewarts were back, despite Colin’s threat to leave the House of the Hare early. They were talking more animatedly than usual. Even Rachel’s face, normally downcast with pain, and withdrawn, seemed brighter. In view of what had happened at the church, Aidan thought that odd.
But what came as a greater surprise was to find another table occupied by Chief Inspector Denbigh and Detective Sergeant Lincoln. Aidan raised his eyebrows at Jenny as the Davisons sat down.
“Looks like they’re taking the attack on the church seriously. Do you think they’ve booked rooms here?”
Jenny glanced sideways at the detectives. “They must think it’s connected to the murder. Before, they’ve always driven off at the end of the day. Sian said they were talking of closing that room in the harness shed and basing everything at their main incident room in Newtown.”
Aidan dropped his butter knife with a clatter. “Look behind you!”
Jenny’s scarfed head turned. He saw her tense as she watched the man taking his place at the corner table furthest from the window. Marcus Coutts, in his tan jacket, began buttering a roll as he surveyed the guests around him with a satisfied grin. Even now, his camera lay on the chair beside him, not zipped away in its bag, but ready for action.
Aidan felt a sudden anger that even here, he and his family should be exposed to the prying journalist.
Professional photographer though he was, Aidan did not bring his own camera to meals. Besides… He remembered what Melangell had said. Was he losing his appetite for capturing the images around him?
Melangell, seated between them, was studying her parents’ faces. “I think he set fir
e to the church,” she announced in her clear voice. “So that he’d have some pictures to sell to the newspapers.”
There was a convulsive sound from the table next to them, as Sergeant Lincoln choked on his roll. But his chief inspector merely lifted his deeply lined face and studied Marcus Coutts attentively.
Coutts grinned across at the Davisons, with bared teeth. Aidan had an uncomfortable feeling that they might pay for Melangell’s remark.
“Hush,” he told her. “What happened at the church today was serious.”
“So am I,” she said, in a whisper that was almost as penetrating as before. “He was here right after the murder, wasn’t he? How did he get here so fast? How did he know he had to?”
“Melangell!” Jenny said. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s an obnoxious man, but he’s hardly going to stab poor Thaddaeus in the eye, just to sell a newspaper story.”
“You don’t know. He might.”
Sian was serving the soup and starters. She looked flustered, Aidan thought. As she set his crab bisque in front of him and the avocado and smoked salmon for the others, he asked, “No Mair tonight? You look as if you could do with some help.”
“Don’t tell me! Last night we were rattling around, almost empty. And now look at it. Six rooms taken. I just wish there was a happier reason for them coming.”
“The detectives are staying, then?”
“That’s right. I’ve put them on the floor above yours. Poor Josef’s running around in circles like a demented ant. He was at the fire until an hour ago. Since then, we’ve been working like the clappers to get enough food on the table for all of you at short notice. But I daren’t turn them away. We need the business.”
“If it’s any comfort, you can tell Josef his soup is excellent.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Aidan saw the dining room door open again. Lorna came in. She looked, if anything, smaller and paler than before. He watched her trace a path between the tables to her usual place before the tall windows. He thought, with a pang of compassion, how frail and lonely she looked without the extrovert bulk of her uncle.
He winced internally, thinking how his first impression had been that she was frightened of Thaddaeus, that she was under his thumb, perhaps even the victim of his sexual abuse.
Jenny seemed convinced that Lorna was genuine when she denied it.
But the girl had been afraid of something. She still was.
He sipped his soup. A detached part of his mind marvelled at how good it was. In contrast to the day following the murder, Josef had worked a small miracle, despite firefighting and the sudden influx of unexpected guests.
When Sian came back with the main course, perhaps he could ask her what she knew about Lorna’s relations with Caradoc Lewis.
But Sian was too busy to linger. Her round cheeks, usually bright with health, were more flushed than usual. She was trying to simulate a professional poise, and not rush between tables, but heightened tension was evident in her swift movements.
Was it only because the dining room was suddenly busier than before?
“He’s not wasting much time, is he?” Jenny said, as they waited for their dessert.
Marcus Coutts had moved from the corner where he had been watching the room like a pale spider. Camera in hand, though discreetly at his side, he had slipped into one of the empty chairs at the Ewarts’ table. Aidan was pleased to see the typically aggressive lift of Colin’s head, but Rachel, to his surprise, was smiling at the handsome young man.
He was too far away to hear what the journalist was asking. But his nerves jumped as Coutts turned to look at the Davisons’ table with speculative eyes.
Aidan drummed his fingers restlessly on the leather chair arm. It was suddenly hard to talk freely in the crowded lounge. Marcus Coutts had been given the brush-off by the two detectives. When he advanced towards Lorna she had fled. Now he was eyeing the Davisons.
Aidan moved abruptly to join the Ewarts. After a moment of surprise, Jenny followed him. Melangell had found a lavishly illustrated book of tropical flowers and lay on her stomach turning the pages.
“Terrible thing, this business at the church,” Colin Ewart greeted them. Yet he seemed not as angered as Aidan would have expected.
“Yes,” Jenny agreed. “I do hope they haven’t lost all that exhibition in the tower.”
“I didn’t get up those stairs myself,” Rachel spoke up for once. “Still, at least it didn’t touch the shrine. That’s the important thing, isn’t it? As long as it was just a pile of books.”
Aidan flashed a glance at Jenny. Those were her books, and his, that had gone up in flames. But she nodded sympathetically.
“I really hope they’ve stopped it in time. I couldn’t bear to think of that old screen with the carvings in the gallery being destroyed. Or what the fire might do to the stonework of the shrine.”
“I’ll never forget coming here. It’s a holy place, isn’t it?”
“It is for me,” Jenny said, quietly.
“And you won’t believe the difference it’s made,” Colin cut in. “That healing service today. We went into Llanfyllin this afternoon and Rachel was like a new woman. Weren’t you, my dear?”
Aidan caught the slight wince as the little woman smiled back at him.
“Yes,” Colin went on. “We had a good look round the town square. Pretty little place. And then we took a drive out to see the workhouse. It’s pretty impressive. Didn’t do to be poor in those days. I can’t think when Rachel’s walked so far.”
Rachel kept her uneasy smile, but said nothing.
Aidan watched her, wondering. Had St Melangell’s shrine and Mother Joan’s anointing really worked a miracle for the pain-ridden Rachel Ewart? Was she trying to convince herself that it had? Or had Colin Ewart invested so much hope in this pilgrimage to Pennant Melangell that he could not bear to admit to failure? Aidan remembered the outburst of anger against Thaddaeus Brown, when Colin thought he had been misled about the healing properties of the medieval shrine.
“But then we got caught out in a shower of rain, didn’t we, love?” Rachel prodded her husband.
“Yes, and we found this quaint little museum. Not a proper council job. Somebody’s private collection, I should think. Pretty old, though, the stuff they’ve got. Arrowheads from the Stone Age, bits of pottery, even a few items of jewellery they say are Iron Age. And a cross from the time of our saint here. You’d like that, Mrs Davison… Jenny. That sort of thing is right up your street, isn’t it?”
“I’m pretty much into Dark Age history, yes. Especially if it’s about the Celtic Church.”
Melangell’s voice spoke up from the floor. “That Caradoc man said he had a museum in Llan-thingy.”
“So he did,” said Aidan. “He said he’d sold it to buy Capel-y-Cwm. Well done, sweetheart.”
“You should go and take a look,” Colin urged them.
Aidan found himself staring at Colin Ewart in amazement. This was the first time he had heard him voice a positive sentiment all week. Now the man was glowing with enthusiasm.
He felt a pang of regret and sorrow. Colin Ewart, and perhaps Rachel herself, had believed so much that Rachel would be cured here at Pennant Melangell. Colin certainly felt he had got his wish. But Jenny? Could Aidan honestly say he had gone to the laying on of hands with the same faith for her? Could his doubts make all the difference between life and death for the woman he loved?
Abruptly, he got up. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll take a turn around the gardens.”
Jenny lifted her face to him. “Shall I come?”
“No, not unless you want to. I need some head space.” He gave her a wry smile. “You should be safe with two detectives to look after you.”
As he turned from the sofa to the French windows he saw that Marcus Coutts had already left the room.
Chief Inspector Denbigh looked up as Aidan passed. He did not say anything, but regarded him speculatively. Aidan felt that anything he did, what
ever any of them did or said, was under scrupulous observation.
He had intended to saunter along the peaceful paths between the bushes and pools. But a persistent instinct of curiosity took him round the corner of the house to the front gate. It was only a short walk along the lane to the church car park.
As he had expected, a single fire engine was still parked there. Two firemen were perched on the stone bench in the lychgate. One of them was smoking. The other got up as Aidan approached. He lifted the police tape and walked into the churchyard to look up at the roof. The light was fading, but Aidan could see no wisp of smoke from the nave roof. Was it really over?
He was turning to greet the fireman with the cigarette when his eyes fell on another vehicle, parked in the opposite corner. Something familiar about it. A black Jaguar XF.
Immediately the growing relaxation of the quiet evening turned into a new nervousness. Mr Secker and Mr McCarthy?
But why here, and not at the House of the Hare? Had something brought them back which they didn’t want Lorna or Sian to know? Who else in this tiny village could they have business with?
He strolled up to the fireman. “You’re in for a long night, I hear.”
“’Fraid so. Tricky things, these old buildings. Solid oak, most of the timbers. They won’t go up in a burst of flame, like your modern softwood. But the fire can creep. Just sort of glows, till it gets to something it can really get its teeth into. And then, whoosh!, you’ve got trouble on your hands.”
“Do you think that’s likely, here?”
The fireman threw his cigarette butt away and stood up. “Can’t tell. That’s why we’re staying.”
“I see there are still sightseers around.” Aidan nodded at the Jaguar.
“We’ve had the lot. TV. Newspaper blokes. Pretty well all the local population. It’s that murder, you see. Fellow with the arrow in his eye. Search me what that’s got to do with setting a church on fire, but both of them, right out here, in the same week, makes you wonder.”
“So where are the people with the Jag?”
“Dunno, mate. Didn’t look like the usual rubberneckers you get at a fire. Smart suits. One of them looked a bit foreign to me.”
