The Hunted Hare

by Fay Sampson

  “So where are they now? There isn’t a pub here.”

  The second fireman had strolled back to the lychgate to join them. He shrugged. “They tried getting into the churchyard. But I told them, nobody crosses this police tape. It’s a crime scene, or could be.”

  “Not that I notice the cops losing any beauty sleep over that.”

  “Don’t be so sure. There’s a WPC on that side gate over there.”

  Aidan followed his eyes to where a path led between the graves to a smaller gate, beyond the darkness of the yews. He wondered whether the sentinel there was PC Watkins.

  Uneasy now, Aidan turned back for the gardens of the House of the Hare. He ought not to leave Jenny alone too long.

  Don’t be stupid, he told himself. There were two detectives in the room. They were the ones who had warned her to be careful.

  He walked up the drive wondering how long it might be before Jenny recaptured that elusive memory. What could she have heard in that crucial time when she had gone to their room to rest and Thaddaeus had been murdered?

  Chapter Twenty-six

  AT THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE, Aidan hesitated. He had left by a route around the side of the house nearest to the archery butts. The other side, by the kitchen and the vegetable garden, seemed more private, though there were no signs forbidding entry.

  On an unexplained impulse, he turned to his right and chose that path.

  There were tall wheelie bins round the corner. From a sheltered spot on the other side, a wisp of cigarette smoke traced a fragile ascent. Josef sat smoking on a bench outside the kitchen door. He was still wearing his chequered trousers and black cap.

  He started when he saw Aidan. He rose and made as if to stub his cigarette out. Aidan held up placating hands.

  “Peace! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be intruding on your space. I was on my way to the gardens. I’ve just been down to the church.”

  Josef regarded him through narrowed, pale-lashed eyes. Aidan wondered how good his English was, how much of Aidan’s apology he had understood. He had an urge to linger and make friends with this lonely immigrant.

  “You’ve had a hard day.”

  “Yes. Very busy.” He was still watching Aidan nervously.

  It seemed better to move on and leave him to his privacy after such a hectic day’s work.

  “Ciao,” he offered.

  Josef did not reply.

  Some light still lingered over the lawns, though dusk fell quickly among these steep-sided hills. The scent of azaleas perfumed the evening air. It drew Aidan closer. He did cast a guilty glance back at the lit windows of the lounge. Jenny was chatting to the detectives. Melangell still lay sprawled on a rug.

  With a sigh of responsibility eased, Aidan allowed himself to stroll further along the winding paths, until the house was lost to sight behind him. He found a curved stone bench beside a lily pool. A marble nymph with an urn might once have been a fountain, though no water played from it now.

  He let his limbs relax, only aware now how tense he had been. It was silly, really. The murder was terrible, but it had nothing to do with them. They had only happened to be in close proximity. It was the same with the church. A possibly heartrending loss for the priest and congregation, but he and Jenny and Melangell were only visitors.

  No, more than that. Something of themselves had been invested in this sacred place from the moment Jenny had been inspired to write her book. It would be part of the memorial to her. A part of her that would live on. Could the fire in the tower bookshop really have been directed at her?

  But the shrine and the grave and the carved screen were safe. Probably. And those incredibly ancient yews still guarded the site. He tried to imagine how he would have felt if that giant beside the gate, with the hollow trunk where Melangell had hid, had gone up in flames. An irreplaceable loss.

  He became aware of voices in the distance. Someone else was enjoying an evening stroll among the scent of azaleas. Who? He was almost sure the Ewarts had still been in the lounge with Jenny and the police officers.

  He tried to quieten the instinct that set his nerves on the alert again. Tomorrow was their last day here. On Saturday, they would go. Solved or unsolved, they would leave Thaddaeus Brown’s murder behind them. For Jenny’s sake, they must try to recapture some of the spiritual peace that had drawn them to this place.

  Yet he was on his feet almost before he realized it. He recognized some of the journalistic impulse that had exasperated him in Marcus Coutts. His curiosity needed to be satisfied.

  Soft-footed now, he eased his way closer. He could make out a man’s voice. The space that followed suggested a softer tone, perhaps that of a woman, still inaudible.

  The man’s answer came clearer now. “You don’t have time, Miss Brown. We could call in the debt and take over this place any day now.”

  “Why would you do that?” Lorna’s voice sounded desperate. “I can pay you back as soon as I get Uncle’s money. I’d sell anything else from the inheritance. Nobody else will want to buy the House of the Hare from you while it’s losing money.”

  “Thaddaeus saw an opportunity,” said another voice. “Someone might want to take that up.”

  “Extreme sports! In Pennant Melangell! I’ll never let that happen. Not in a million years.” He could hear that she was almost crying. “I wouldn’t let Thaddaeus do it, and I won’t let you.”

  Should he move in? Take her side?

  There was a little silence.

  The first man spoke again, softly. “Lorna? We’ve been wondering how Thaddaeus met such a grisly end. It isn’t possible, is it?”

  Lorna’s voice rose high and wavering. “That’s an outrageous suggestion! Get out! I should never have agreed to see you. Sian wouldn’t have let you in. She knows what I want, and she’ll help me see that I get it. And that means never handing over the House of the Hare to you. There are other ways of making it pay. Things you couldn’t possibly understand. You haven’t got a soul, have you?”

  “Murder? And you talk about a soul?”

  “You’re saying that to frighten me. I don’t have to listen to you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You would be well advised to listen to our proposal.”

  Aidan had had enough. He walked forward round the bend in the path, taking care this time that they could hear him coming.

  The argument broke off instantly. In a little clearing, shadowed by a weeping willow tree, the three of them stood alarmed, guiltily facing his approach. He could hardly make out their faces but the attitude of their tense bodies showed they were all wondering how much he had heard.

  “Lovely evening,” he said, cheerfully. “I gather they’re forecasting rain for tomorrow. I’ve just been down to the church and everything seems to be under control. A good downpour would help, though.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief.” Lorna found her voice first. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to St Melangell, after all these years.”

  “The shrine was destroyed once, wasn’t it?” Aidan reminded her. “And put back together again.”

  “Not all of it. When things are broken, it’s never the same.”

  The men stood silent.

  “Mr McCarthy? Mr Secker? I think I saw your car parked outside the church. There’s a perfectly good car park here.”

  The men looked at each other.

  “The road was blocked,” one of them said. “Too many people at the fire. We parked where we could.”

  “Drive carefully on the way back. It will soon be dark.”

  He stood aside, pointedly. The men walked past him. One of them turned his head to Lorna. “Think about our offer, Miss Brown. Think very hard.”

  There was an awkward silence when they had left.

  “They were giving you trouble?” Aidan asked at last.

  “They gave my uncle trouble. All they think about is money.”

  “It’s not the most important thing,” Aidan agreed. “But sometimes we need it
to do the really important things we want.”

  “I know. I’m doing it. The House of the Hare.”

  “And they want you to change its character.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “But they hold the purse strings, don’t they? The trust fund?”

  She stared at him. Then she walked past him, back towards the house. Nothing in her stiff manner invited him to walk beside her and continue the conversation. He let a few moments pass, then followed her at a polite distance.

  He could have kicked himself. Sian should probably not have told him about Thaddaeus’s will.

  A shadowy figure rose from the bench where Aidan had been sitting.

  “Well, well, well. Now, what do you make of all that?” asked Marcus Coutts.

  Aidan’s stomach was churning as he walked back across the lawn. The encounter with Marcus Coutts had produced not only anger but fear. If the headline-chasing journalist had overheard that conversation too, what meaning would he give to it? McCarthy and Secker had practically accused Lorna of murder. But she had every reason to keep Thaddaeus alive until he had changed his will in her favour.

  Of course she had denied the charge with outrage. But then, if she was guilty, she would, wouldn’t she?

  Lorna’s words came back to him. “I wouldn’t let Thaddaeus do it.” What had she meant?

  Had there been an argument at the waterfall? That would explain the tears and the torn shirt. But Jenny had seen her running back at least half an hour after the time of the murder.

  Wasn’t it more likely that the two financiers were themselves guilty? They had been at the house. They had argued with Thaddaeus about changing his will. It was in their interests for him to die before he did. Did the police know that?

  He sighed. There were so many other people who hadn’t liked what Thaddaeus was planning. There was even Josef’s wild theory about Debbie French.

  He wondered what information the detectives were gathering which was barred to him.

  DCI Denbigh and DS Lincoln had never stayed at the house before. They evidently saw the fire at the church as a significant leap forward in the case. How?

  He was almost at the French windows to the lounge when he looked up at its lit interior. The room was empty.

  He bounded upstairs and was relieved to find Jenny supervising Melangell’s bathtime. She didn’t need to, but it was good to hear the two of them laughing in the bathroom, with rather more splashing than might be expected for a seven-year-old.

  He settled himself into a chair beside the bed and picked up a copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was a delight that Melangell had reached the age when he could share the Chronicles of Narnia with her. She could probably read it herself now. Her reading age was way ahead of her years. But there was a special pleasure for both of them in a bedtime story. He hoped she would not grow out of it just yet.

  It was only when he had kissed her sweet-smelling face on the pillow, and Jenny too had settled herself in bed, that his dark mood returned. He wished he didn’t have to burden Jenny with it, but what had happened in the garden was too important to keep to himself.

  “Do you think I should tell the police? I mean, it wasn’t really evidence, was it? Two men accusing her, who could easily have done it themselves. More easily. We know she wasn’t here then. They were.”

  Jenny pleated the sheet between her fingers. She had taken off the scarf. The hair was growing back over her scalp in a pale gold fuzz. The tiny hairs were even beginning to curl.

  “I think you should tell them. That those men were here again. And they left their car at the church and arranged to meet her in secret outside the house.”

  “You don’t think that was genuine? About not being able to get their car through because of the emergency vehicles and the crowd?”

  “What time did they arrive? We didn’t see them at the fire, did we?”

  “No, you’re right. Most people went home hours ago. And Lorna said something about not letting Sian know they were here. In case Sian stopped them from seeing her.”

  “I think she might have. She’s very protective of Lorna, isn’t she?”

  “Well, I really hope Lorna doesn’t give in to them. They’re the kind of men who only think about the bottom line. Lorna really cares about Pennant Melangell. She wants to keep it as the sort of holy place that struck us when we first came here, and made us want to come back. Men like that wouldn’t begin to understand the importance of that.”

  Jenny’s thoughts were pursuing another track. “Just how much would Sian do to protect Lorna?” She raised her troubled eyes to Aidan.

  “I’ve thought about that, too. She seemed loyal to Thaddaeus when we first arrived, though a bit nervous of him. But if it came to a choice, I think she’d back Lorna. And she’s the sort of physical person who might have the strength of will and body to do it.”

  Jenny sighed. “I’m sure the chief inspector’s thought of that. I had the feeling this evening that we were all under close observation.”

  “It doesn’t have to be someone from the house. Anybody could have got into the grounds.”

  “Sian says Lorna is talking of burying Thaddaeus here at St Melangell’s, when they release the body. If it was someone from round here, that will be a strange experience, won’t it? Walking past his grave every time they visit the church.”

  “It may not have been a churchgoer.”

  “They had the most to lose from his plans.”

  “I wonder what other tragedies those yews have seen in 2,000 years. What else is buried here.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  THE FORECAST WAS RIGHT. They woke to find a light rain falling. Fronds of mist lingered under the trees, and raindrops beaded the branches. The tops of the hills were blotted out by rain.

  “It may clear.” Aidan sounded not entirely hopeful at breakfast.

  “I’ll tell you what I fancy. Do you remember the Ewarts telling us about that little museum in Llanfyllin? With bits of ancient history that had been discovered around here? It might be worth a look.”

  Jenny glanced over at the Ewarts’ table. Colin still looked in an ebullient mood, but Jenny thought that Rachel looked more strained than the night before. Was her husband, desperate for a cure, overestimating her new capability?

  “He said it was right up your street,” Melangell observed over her toast.

  Jenny turned her attention back to her own family. “He was probably right. I might even feel the stirrings of a story.”

  Jenny’s first love was history, making the buildings and landscapes, and the people who had lived there, come alive for her readers as they once were. But her enthusiasm sometimes spilled over into children’s stories.

  She saw Aidan’s eyes go up to hers, sharp, worried. I know what you’re thinking, she told him internally. That anything I start now may never be finished. But I can’t stop living, can I, just because I’m dying?

  May be dying, she corrected herself. Nothing is certain. There was that laying on of hands yesterday. The oil on her forehead.

  “Is it one of those museums that lets you do things?” Melangell asked. “Like grinding corn or making mosaics?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, honey,” Aidan said. “Not if Caradoc Lewis used to run it as a one-man show. I don’t see him as an educational archaeologist. Unless he was trying to promote his Goddess-as-Hare theory.”

  “He said he’d sold it to somebody else. It might be different now.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You’re not wearing your scarf,” Melangell said, as Jenny came down the stairs.

  “My hair’s starting to grow again. And I thought, if it’s raining, I might as well have a wet scalp as a wet scarf.”

  She didn’t say how much she had missed the breeze in her hair, the sense of freedom in going bareheaded. It was probably vanity to have been so self-conscious about her nude scalp.

  Curiously, this small return to normality m
ade her feel she was getting better, rather than an admission that her treatment had reached the end of the line.

  Aidan stopped the car beside the church. A fire-service car was already there. He peered past Jenny out of the side window. “I wonder if the fire’s well and truly out. This rain will have helped, but I doubt if it’s been as heavy as they would have liked.”

  “Water can sometimes do as much damage as the fire. Why don’t we ask?”

  She stepped out, slipping her arms through her anorak. A senior fire officer was talking to one of the bleary-eyed crewmen who had been on duty overnight. Detective Sergeant Lincoln was with them.

  As she approached, she heard the fire chief say, “We’ll get our forensic guys on to it straight away. But from what I’ve seen, I’d say there wasn’t much doubt about it. I’m betting the seat of the fire was that table in the middle of the ground floor room. No wiring there. It has to be deliberate. And some sort of accelerant, to get a hold of the tower so quickly.”

  “So somebody with a grudge against books about churches and maps of local walks?” Lincoln’s voice held a smile of weary cynicism.

  “Is the fire out?” Jenny asked.

  “Yes, love. We managed to keep it to the tower and a few roof timbers,” the fire chief assured her.

  “Is it all right to go inside now?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t just yet.”

  The rangy detective turned to her. “It’s still a crime scene.”

  Jenny looked past them at the plastic tape barring her way. She should be grateful that the church was saved. But she felt a sense of loss that she was shut out from it.

  Aidan spoke from behind her. “Do you think this had a connection with the murder? I see you and Inspector Denbigh have taken up residence.”

  Lincoln opened his mouth, hesitated, then shut it again. “I can’t discuss it, sir,” he said, after a moment.

  “Just so you know, we’re going over to Llanfyllin this morning. We’ll probably be back this afternoon.”