Call of Glengarron

by Nancy Buckingham

  He was already coming through the bracken toward us when my hand closed over a suitable stone, a lump the size of an egg. I jerked my arm up as forcefully as I could, and the rock fell a dozen yards away. It fell with a satisfactory thud.

  Craig stopped. He called to us again, waited, and then plunged on quickly in the new direction, cursing as he plowed through the tangled mass of dead bracken.

  I heard a sudden breathless exclamation, and then a fearful crashing noise. Craig cried out piercingly, twice. There was a slither of stones, a tearing sound, and then silence— eerie, complete silence.

  Was this another trap? Was he hoping to flush me out by faking an accident?

  Craig McKinross was a master at faking accidents.

  But could he have faked that wild, abandoned noise of falling? Could he really have put on those dreadful cries of astonished pain?

  Cautiously, cradling Jamie close all the while, I got to my feet. Luckily the little boy was already fast asleep again, exhausted.

  I could see nothing in the darkness. Craig’s light had gone out—or he had put it out. By transferring Jamie’s weight to my hip, I freed one arm for my own flashlight.

  With slow, careful steps I picked my way toward Craig, expecting at every moment that he might leap up at me.

  Even with the flashlight playing on the ground ahead, even with all the care I was taking, I could easily have fallen into the fissure that suddenly gaped at my feet. I pulled up, swaying at the very edge.

  The cleft was perhaps ten feet deep, its sides steep and lined with bracken. My flashlight picked out Craig’s still figure lying at the bottom. He was face downward, one leg twisted awkwardly under his body.

  Was this my chance to escape? Should I make a dash for it while my enemy was out of action? But could I leave Jamie’s father lying unconscious? Could I leave Craig helpless, perhaps even dying?

  For a horrified second I wondered if he was dead already. But as I stared down anxiously, he gave a deep groan.

  Jamie still slept, and my arms were aching from his solid weight. I stood there looking down at Craig, afraid and uncertain.

  Softly, I called his name. The only answer was another long deep groan. But then Craig moved. Slowly he hoisted himself onto hands and knees. He lifted his head, and blinked painfully into the bright beam of my flashlight.

  “Are you badly hurt?” I whispered. I wasn’t sure what sort of answer I wanted to that question.

  He prodded himself gingerly. “No ... no, I don’t think so.” Then he tried to stand up, but abandoned the attempt at once. “I think my ankle’s sprained. And I got an almighty clout on the head.”

  “I see....”

  Alistair Lennox would be back quite soon to hear Craig’s shouts for help. As for that, I could always send assistance myself when I was well away. He wouldn’t come to any harm staying where he was for a while, except to get wet.

  But still I didn’t go. Something held me there, and I stood gazing stupidly at Craig, miserable with indecision.

  Abruptly, he seemed to remember the events that had brought him here, to land him in such a helpless and painful situation. From being rueful, his voice switched to sudden truculence.

  “What the devil have you been up to, Lucy? Running off like that and leading us such a helluva dance?”

  “What did you expect me to do?” I flung back at him bitterly. “Did you think I was just going to sit around and wait?”

  “Wait? Wait for what?”

  “As if you didn’t know very well.”

  I was shining the flashlight right into his eyes, and he put up a hand to shade them. When he spoke again, the cutting edge of his voice was blunted.

  “Was it because you couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Jamie?”

  “How could I possibly have left him with you—a murderer?”

  ‘‘What? Oh my God.” Somehow he scrambled to his feet, clawing at the bracken for support. His face was sweating, twisted up with pain. “What in the hell are you talking about, Lucy? Me a murderer ... ”

  “I know that you killed Margo.”

  “Margo ... ?” He shook his head, bewildered, as if pain had slowed his mental reactions. “But I told you what happened. You know perfectly well...”

  “Oh yes, for a while you got me to believe your fantastic story. I even began to think Margo hadn’t been altogether ... well, fair to you.”

  Craig’s legs gave way under him, and he slumped again, ten feet below me in the rocky cleft. When he rallied a little, he was too weak for anger, but he managed to bite me with sarcasm.

  “Have you decided, on reflection, that your beloved cousin was nothing but purest white after all—is that it?”

  “Whatever Margo may have been couldn’t possibly justify your killing her.”

  “And might I inquire ...” he said, still with heavy irony. “Might I ask just why I’m supposed to have killed Margo? What was my motive?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the only one who can answer that, now that Margo is dead.”

  “So all this is pure guesswork on your part? Without a single concrete fact to go on, you calmly accuse me of murder.”

  Helpless to do anything but talk for the present, he was trying to discover how much I knew. I decided that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to tell him. He might as well know that I was fully aware of his evil intentions.

  “I didn’t have to be very clever to put two and two together,” I said. “When I realized you were trying to kill me, then I knew for sure that you must have murdered Margo. I had to be silenced for good.”

  All this time I was keeping the flashlight beam full upon him, watching his every smallest movement. I saw him lift his shoulders, and then drop them again impotently. I knew he was longing for the strength to climb out and get at me.

  “Lucy, you can’t ... surely you can’t seriously believe that I want to kill you?”

  “You very nearly succeeded. That pile of logs—it was sheer chance I wasn’t crushed to death.”

  “But you must be out of your mind if you think I had anything to do with—”

  I cut right across him. “And the way the towel rail was fixed. It was a stroke of luck for me that I spotted a piece of the plastic insulation in the bath.”

  “Lucy, you idiot. I was the one who disconnected that dangerous towel rail afterwards...” He stopped short, then went on slowly, “Did you say there was a bit of insulation in the bath?”

  “If you’d been more careful to clear everything up after your tampering, then I would have been killed. But that tiny shred of plastic put me on my guard. So I did an experiment, using some wire coat hangers to join the towel rail to the bath water. The whole thing damn nearly blew up. I knew the truth about you then, all right.”

  There was a long silence, and I began to wonder if Craig had lost consciousness again. Jamie’s weight on my left arm was intolerable now. He was still fast asleep against my shoulder, heedless of the drizzling rain. Awkwardly clutching the flashlight, I shifted him over to my other side.

  I was so preoccupied with this maneuver, and with wondering what to do about Craig if he really was unconscious, that at first my mind didn’t register the sound of Alistair Lennox returning. By the time it had penetrated, the jeep was already quite near.

  Craig heard it at the same moment, and jerked back to life. He called up to me urgently, “Don’t say anything about all this to my uncle.”

  “You tried that trick of asking me to keep quiet once before,” I threw back at him scornfully. “Well, this time it won’t work.”

  “But, Lucy ... ”

  He was making desperate efforts to stand up again, grunting and gasping with pain. The jeep was very close now, and its noise seemed to act as a spur to Craig. On his feet at last, he reached out for handholds in the rock, and tried to drag himself up the sides of the cleft.

  It was a futile effort until he started using his injured foot. The agony of it made him cry out, but I saw to my dismay that he
was going to succeed.

  He managed to hitch himself onto a ledge about three feet up, and took a few second’s rest. His head was now only about a foot below ground level. I could see the sweat and rain glistening on his face as he looked up at me.

  “You’ve got to help me out of this, Lucy....”

  “Help you?” I backed away, and the flashlight beams no longer reached him. “You must be mad to think I’d help you.”

  His voice came from out of the blackness. “For God’s sake, Lucy, listen to me. You mustn’t...”

  His craven pleading was drowned by the roar of the jeep as it reached the crossroads and pulled up. With sudden decision I turned and began to run, shouting as loudly as I could.

  “Mr. Lennox. Mr. Lennox.”

  Jamie was awake instantly, and I could feel him struggling. But I had no time to worry about him just then.

  Mercifully, my feet found even ground. Somehow I sped through the jungle of bracken without tripping. And then I was on the road, hurrying up to the jeep.

  Behind me I heard a frantic scrabbling. Craig must have been hauling himself bodily out of the fissure. I half turned, swinging the flashlight back in his direction, and saw that already he was on his feet.

  He was struggling forward, one arm stretched out, desperate to catch me. “Lucy,” he screamed.

  And then I was running on, stumbling dangerously under Jamie’s weight. I had only a few more yards to go.

  The jeep’s engine was still running, and I glimpsed Alistair Lennox’s silhouette in the driver’s seat. Just seeing the dancing flashlight rays, he probably thought it was Craig coming. Faintly, I heard a last shout from way behind me.

  “Lucy ....”

  I flung myself forward the remaining few steps. “Mr. Lennox, help me, please. Craig will kill me....” For a second he just sat there.

  “What did you say?”

  “Please, please help me. Craig will kill me, I tell you ... .”

  Alistair Lennox acted swiftly then. He leaped down and helped me into the jeep. As best I could, I slid across to the passenger seat. Jamie was fighting in my arms, demanding to know what the commotion was about.

  To my surprise, Alistair Lennox didn’t wait to face up to Craig. He jumped back into the jeep and immediately drove off, accelerating fiercely.

  Craig was left behind in the darkness and the rain.

  Chapter 16

  Safe in the cabin of the jeep as it roared away from the crossroads, I was able to give my attention to Jamie again. I hugged him to me, stroking his damp hair and murmuring soothing words of reassurance. In a few moments he was quiet, peacefully asleep.

  I wished I could forget so easily.

  After about a mile, Alistair Lennox eased back the throttle slightly. But we were still traveling fast, hurtling into the wet night. He flicked a glance in my direction.

  “Well, then, young lady—suppose you tell me what all the excitement’s about.”

  “It’s Craig.” Suddenly it seemed an enormous effort to explain. I found I didn’t want to explain.

  “Well…?”

  “Craig was after me,” I said reluctantly.

  “Of course he was. We were out looking for you.”

  “But he was going to kill me.” My voice rose as panic gripped me. “What am I going to do, Mr. Lennox ... ?”

  He remained quite calm, controlling his astonishment “Now why should you imagine Craig would want to do any such dreadful thing, my dear?”

  “Because ...” I hesitated, then it came out in a rush, shrill and harsh. “Because I know he killed Margo.”

  This made him stamp on the brake, causing the jeep to buck violently and slide on the gritty wet surface. But then Alistair Lennox seemed to change his mind. He accelerated away again.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” he demanded angrily.

  I had to convince him, now I’d said so much. I had to make him believe me.

  “Craig killed Margo—he murdered her.”

  Alistair Lennox gave me a swift sideways glance and then looked at the road ahead, concentrating on his driving. We had left the moorland behind us and were charging down through a narrow glen.

  “You’d better tell me all about it,” he said in a flat voice.

  “Well, Craig was in my cousin’s apartment that night— the night she died.”

  “But that’s nonsense. He wasn’t even in England.”

  “Yes he was—he stopped off between planes. He just had time to get into London, and go and see Margo.”

  “How do you know this?”

  I felt I couldn’t go through everything—not now. Not all about Lambert Nairn, and then about finding Craig’s incriminating passport.

  “It doesn’t matter how,” I said. “I know—I just do. Anyway Craig’s admitted to me that he was there.”

  “What time?” The words were rapped out.

  “What time? I don’t understand.”

  “I mean what time was Craig at the flat?”

  I tried hard to remember, to see through the mist in my mind.

  “He got there about nine-thirty, I believe.”

  “And he left at ... ?’

  “I’m not sure. I think he said before ten.”

  “I see...” With exact precision Alistair Lennox drove over a narrow hump bridge. “And how long have you known about this?”

  “Oh, several days now.”

  “Then why didn’t you speak to me sooner? How could you go on living at Glengarron if you believed Craig had ... murdered your cousin?”

  “Oh, but I didn’t think that at first. He told me he’d gone there to plead for a reconciliation.”

  “And you believed him at the time, but not afterward? What made you change your mind?”

  I told Mr. Lennox about my two “accidents”—the falling logs and the faulty towel rail. He heard me out, listening carefully, interrupting only when he couldn’t follow my emotional rendering of the facts.

  I stumbled to an end and he asked, “Why are you so certain that it was Craig who did all this?”

  “Who else could it have been? He’s the only one with any motive. And he made such a point of asking me not to tell anyone about him visiting Margo that evening.”

  “Do you know what happened between them—did he explain?” There was an urgency in Alistair Lennox’s voice.

  “Of course not. He’d hardly have admitted that he killed her.”

  “Naturally. But what did he tell you?”

  “Only that they quarreled. He said he’d begged Margo to go back to him, and that she had flatly refused to listen to him.”

  Alistair Lennox gasped: “My God. Was it all for nothing…?”

  I couldn’t follow him. “What do you mean, Mr. Lennox?”

  But he didn’t answer my question. “Did she really refuse to consider going back to him as his wife?”

  “That’s what Craig told me. And I think it must be true. It would account for him killing her....”

  “How do you make that out?”

  “He was jealous, of course—jealous because Margo had no room for him in her life. Because she could do without him....” I trailed off. Somehow, what had been so crystal clear to me earlier was beginning to seem unreal, almost incredible.

  Alistair Lennox slowed down and brought the jeep to a halt with smooth deliberation. Hunched over the steering wheel, he seemed to be brooding. It was as though he had forgotten I was there.

  Suddenly he exploded with a sort of quiet fury. “The bitch. She didn’t say a word about all this.”

  “What do you mean? Who didn’t?” Mystified, I turned to stare at him. It was too dark to see, but I could sense the coldness in his eyes.

  “You’re in love with Craig, aren’t you?”

  The starkly direct words came at me like a hammer. I was bewildered, both by his abrupt change of manner and the extraordinary things he was saying.

  It was fantastic to suggest I was in love with Craig, a man who ha
d schemed to murder me. Alistair Lennox must be insane....

  As I opened my mouth to deny it utterly, the unreality of the idea hit me again, choking my words.

  In love with Craig McKinross. How could anyone even begin to imagine such a thing?

  Craig’s uncle misunderstood my silence. “You don’t have to be so coy about it,” he said. “I’ve seen you with him ...”

  “But... I don’t...”

  “... in his bedroom. And he in yours. I’ve seen you with my own eyes, so you needn’t try to deny it.”

  I was dismayed by the inference. My cheeks burned with anger and humiliation. Did Alistair Lennox really believe ... ?

  There had been a time when Craig was my idea of perfection. But now I knew him for what he was—a man infinitely worse than even poor Margo had imagined.

  Alistair Lennox gave a sudden harsh chuckle. “Craig worked himself up into a fine old rage when we tried to bundle you off back to London. I’ve never seen him in such a fury. Then he went rushing upstairs for a touching little scene with you. He was determined not to let you go.”

  “That was because he dare not let me go,” I cried. “Don’t you understand what I’ve been saying? Craig has tried to kill me—twice.”

  Still Alistair Lennox refused to take me seriously. “You should have gone away when my wife suggested it,” he said in a tone of friendly interest. “But now, I’m afraid, things have gone too far for that to be a solution.”

  “Why did you try to send me away? Was it because you guessed about Craig?”

  “It was obvious that Craig would be proposing to you before long if we didn’t put a spoke in the wheel.”

  “But that’s absurd…”

  “Is it so absurd? Don’t you realize how much you resemble your cousin? Craig was crazily in love when he married her, and we’ve seen it beginning all over again.”

  “But you wouldn’t have put everything right just by sending me away,” I flung at him. “You couldn’t have dismissed the fact that he killed his wife....”

  A peal of merry laughter drowned my words. “How very persistent you are, Lucy. Can’t you get it into your pretty head that Craig did not murder Margo. Neither has he been trying to kill you.”