by H. Y. Hanna
“Sometimes you have to be ruthless to get things done,” protested Pomona. “All the greatest leaders in history were pretty ruthless men. You don’t get anywhere by being weak.”
“That excuse has been used many times in history to enable men to do terrible things,” Nathan spoke up, his voice uncharacteristically serious. Caitlyn was surprised to see the sombre expression on his face. After his joking, irreverent manner all evening, it was a reminder that there was a serious investigative journalist beneath that humorous exterior. He glanced at James, then added, “It’s possible to be a strong leader without resorting to ruthless methods and dodgy ethics.”
Pomona looked as if she was going to argue, then she bit her lip and sat back in her chair. Suddenly, Caitlyn was desperate for the dinner to be over. She felt exhausted by the constant tensions and undercurrents that kept arising in the middle of seemingly innocent conversation. And it seemed that the other guests shared her thoughts because everyone began draining their teas and coffees and making noises of departure. As Mrs Gibbs rose from the table, however, she looked at Sir Henry and said:
“You’re not going to sell, Sir Henry, are you?”
“Certainly not! They’ve been trying to force my hand by getting to my brother. He was on the phone to me last weekend, pestering me to agree to sell the land.” Sir Henry scowled. “I have no doubt that Blackmort contacted him and told him that they’re doubling their offer. My brother’s always been a weak one for money—he’ll roll over and beg if you offer him enough cash! But I’m not budging.” He stood up and drained his cup. “I’ve already told that greasy little weasel of a sales agent once and I’ll tell him again tomorrow: the only way they’re getting that land is over my dead body!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Since Nathan and Professor Thrope were staying at the Manor, the two men bade everyone goodnight and retired to their rooms. Pomona gave Caitlyn and Evie each a hug, then followed their example, leaving James to see the rest of the guests out.
“I’ve called Mrs Gibbs a taxi, sir,” said Mosley, as they gathered in the foyer.
“Thank you, Mosley. Can you call one for Sir Henry as well?”
“Eh? Nonsense, I don’t need a taxi,” the older man blustered, staggering slightly as he turned towards the front door. Mosley hurried to steady him but Sir Henry brushed the butler’s hand off with an impatient noise. “Don’t fuss, man! I’m fine, I’m fine… just need to find the keys to my car…” he mumbled as he fished in his pockets.
James frowned at him. “You’re not thinking of driving, are you, Sir Henry? You’ve had far too much to drink.”
“No, no, I’ll leave the car here… going to walk back to my place.”
“Walk?” The others looked at him in astonishment.
“Sir Henry! Surely you can’t be planning to walk all the way back along the motorway on foot?” cried Mrs Gibbs.
“Of course not,” Sir Henry growled. “What d’you take me for? There’s a shortcut between the Fitzroy estate and mine: footpath running through the woods and down to the village. Passes by the driveway here and then passes by my house. Won’t take more than fifteen minutes, I reckon.”
“You’re not talking about Dead Man’s Walk, are you?” asked Mrs Gibbs, horrified. “You can’t walk there!”
“Why not?” Sir Henry demanded. “Marvellous summer weather we’re having. Do me good to get some fresh air.”
“But, Sir Henry… Dead Man’s Walk is haunted!” cried Mrs Gibbs.
“Rubbish!” Sir Henry scoffed. “I’ve walked that path dozens of times, Mrs Gibbs, and never had any trouble. Would have come that way tonight, actually, if the wife hadn’t made such a fuss about her shoes.”
“It’s not just silly superstition,” Mrs Gibbs insisted. “That tramp who was murdered last weekend—his body was found at the village end of Dead Man’s Walk.”
“The police haven’t concluded that it’s murder; he may have died of natural causes,” James reminded her. Then he turned to Sir Henry. “But nevertheless, I have to agree with Mrs Gibbs, sir—not that I believe that the path is haunted—but it may not be wise for you to attempt the walk so late at night, and in your… er… condition…” he added, eyeing Sir Henry’s flushed face. The older man was looking very drunk, with a slightly nauseated expression and a visible tremor in his hands.
“Oh, stop fussing, boy—you’re as bad as my wife,” said Sir Henry irritably. He wagged a finger at James. “Young chaps nowadays haven’t got any stuffing. You might be sloshed after a few glasses but I have no problem holding my drink. If your father was still alive, he could tell you some stories—spent many a night drinking up half the cellar, we did!” He gave a bark of laughter, then sobered and clapped a hand on James’s shoulder. “Never got the chance to tell you this at the funeral, but he was a good man, your father. A great man. The things he did for his country… someday, you’ll realise…” Sir Henry trailed off, seeming lost in thought for a moment, then took a breath and said briskly, “Anyway, it’s a fine job you’re doing with the estate, James. Your father would have been proud of you.”
There was an awkward moment of silence and Caitlyn felt slightly embarrassed to be standing there listening. It felt almost as if she was intruding on a private moment.
James cleared his throat, looking surprised and touched. “Er… thank you, Sir Henry… I really appreciate the sentiment. But… won’t you consider staying the night here?”
“No, I’m walking home,” said the older man obstinately. “And don’t keep going on about it—you’re giving me a bloody headache! Give me a light and I’ll be fine. In fact, I’ll give you odds that I get home before you do!”
Taking a torch from Mosley, Sir Henry nodded to them all, then—swaying slightly—he walked out the front door. The door had barely shut behind him when Mrs Gibbs turned towards James and said:
“Lord Fitzroy, you have to stop him!”
James sighed. “Mrs Gibbs, I think that would involve physically restraining him and I don’t think Sir Henry would take kindly to that—”
“Better that than having him killed by the Black Shuck!”
James gave her a tired smile. “I don’t think there is any danger of that, Mrs Gibbs. You really mustn’t let yourself be frightened by the village gossip and rumours. There is no evidence that the death last weekend was due to a supernatural cause or even the result of foul play. I am sure Sir Henry will be quite safe walking that path home. It really is quite a short distance and will only take ten or fifteen minutes—” The sound of a horn outside interrupted him. “Ah, that must be your taxi now.”
Still looking distressed, Mrs Gibbs gathered her things and left. Caitlyn and Evie followed her out the door and headed to their car, with James escorting them. He held open the car doors and waited courteously for them to get in.
Settling into her seat, Caitlyn lowered the window and looked up at him. “Thank you for dinner. It was a—” She stumbled over the word “lovely” to describe the tense evening and instead amended it to “—a very interesting experience.”
He gave her a wry smile, obviously reading her mind, and started to say something. Then his eyes flicked to Evie sitting in the passenger seat and he took a step back from the car instead.
“Good night. Drive safely.” Giving them a wave, he walked back to the Manor and disappeared through the front door.
Caitlyn started the engine, frowning as the car gave a hoarse cough before spluttering into life. It was the third time she had heard that sound in the past few days and she wondered if she should take the vehicle somewhere to be serviced. She sighed. Really, if she was going to remain in England, she knew she should just buy a car of her own, instead of continuing to use a rental vehicle. Even though she was fortunate that her inheritance from her adoptive mother meant that she had no need to worry about funds, it was still an unnecessary waste of money to continue paying hire car rates.
As she drove along the driveway, joining the private ro
ad that ran through the Manor parklands and out onto the main road, Caitlyn pondered what make of car to buy. A Volkswagen Beetle, like this one? Or maybe something with more space in the trunk? I mean, in the boot, she thought with a wry smile. If she was going to live in England, she’d better start talking like the Brits and calling things by their British names! Her mind busy, she drove absently along the darkened road until she was jolted out of her reverie by the car dipping sharply to one side. The front right wheel sank into a pothole and the entire vehicle thumped and rattled as it bounced out of the hole again, making both girls smack their heads on the ceiling.
“Ow!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Caitlyn gasped. “My fault—I wasn’t paying attention…”
She gripped the steering wheel tighter, trying to drive more carefully, but as the car rolled shakily forwards, she heard that hoarse coughing sound coming from the engine again. And then, as she listened in dismay, the engine wheezed, spluttered… and died.
They rolled to a stop and the headlights went dead.
“Oh rats,” Caitlyn muttered. She pumped the accelerator and turned the ignition a few times but the car remained silent.
“What happened?” asked Evie.
“I don’t know. The engine just died. Maybe it’s something to do with the battery… I thought it sounded a bit funny when it started—and it’s been sounding like that the last few days…” Caitlyn sighed and peered out of the window at the dark woods around them. “I think we’re going to have to follow Sir Henry’s example and walk.”
“Walk? We’re not going to walk all the way back to Tillyhenge?” Evie’s voice was shrill with dismay.
“No, no, just back to the Manor. We’ll have to get a breakdown service to come and look at the car, but I suppose they won’t come until tomorrow morning now. I guess we’ll have to impose on James’s hospitality and ask to stay the night… I hope he hasn’t gone to bed yet…”
The two girls got out of the car and Caitlyn looked hopefully at her cousin. “I don’t suppose you have a flashlight—I mean, a torch?”
Evie shook her head.
“Never mind, it’s a full moon,” said Caitlyn, glancing at the sky. “We should have enough light to see our way and we just need to follow this road back until we join up with the driveway.”
They started walking, although it wasn’t quite as well-lit as Caitlyn had anticipated. The full moon was still high in the sky but there was now a bank of clouds which drifted in front of the moon every so often, obscuring the pale glow so that the landscape was cast into shadows. It gave a surreal effect—almost like someone switching the lights on and off—as things came into sharp focus for a moment under the brilliant moonlight, only to fade into darkness again a moment later.
It was slow going, especially as both of them were wearing high heels, and even the spell on Evie’s stilettos seemed to have worn off. Caitlyn could see that the younger girl was hobbling; her own feet were beginning to get painful blisters.
“Do you think we could walk barefoot?” asked Evie. Without waiting for a reply, she slipped off her stilettos, then made a few mincing steps on the road as the rough tarmac hurt her tender soles. “Ow… ow…” She did a little sideways jump, off the tarmac and onto the softer ground beneath the trees at the side of the road. “Ohhh… this is better! Caitlyn, take off your shoes and walk here, with me. It’s so much nicer.”
Caitlyn hesitated, then complied. She had to admit that Evie was right—the ground of the forest floor was soft and cool to walk on, and it made the going much easier.
“This is great!” said Evie, trotting ahead.
“Evie, wait up…” said Caitlyn, hitching her skirts higher and hurrying after the other girl.
She soon realised that although the ground was softer, it was a lot darker here under the trees. Even when the moon was not obscured by clouds, it was still dim, and when it went behind the clouds, they were plunged into almost total darkness. She faltered to a stop every time that happened, putting her hands out like a blind woman and groping in front of her as she slowly inched forwards. But Evie didn’t seem so cautious. Caitlyn could hear her young cousin blundering through the undergrowth ahead, muttering “Ow!” every so often as she crashed into a tree or a prickly bush. Finally, after a particularly long spell of darkness, the moon came out again and Caitlyn straightened, breathing a sigh of relief. Ahead of her, she heard Evie give a small cheer and she smiled to herself.
Then her smile faded as she looked around her. She was surrounded by a wall of tree trunks, leaves, and branches in every direction, with no sign of the road.
“Evie…?” she called. “Evie, where are you?”
A voice sounded at her elbow, making her jump. “I’m here. What’s the matter?”
“Evie, where’s the road?”
The other girl turned and pointed. “I thought it was ther—” She broke off as she peered at the trees around them in confusion. “Oh.”
They must have wandered away from the road and into the forest during the last spell of darkness. Now, they were hopelessly lost, with no idea of which direction they’d come from and which direction they should go in. Caitlyn felt a flare of panic, which she quickly dampened down. She took a deep breath. It wasn’t as if they were lost in the wilderness, she reminded herself. They were on Fitzroy land and, large as the estate was, it was still a contained area. If they kept walking, they would either hit the boundary or—hopefully—find themselves in the manicured grounds closer to the house, from which they could easily reach the Manor.
“Let’s just keep walking,” said Caitlyn, giving her cousin a nudge. “I think the house is that way,” she added with false confidence. “If we just keep heading in that direction, we should come out somewhere near the rose garden, I think.”
Evie nodded and fell into step beside her, although she could see that the younger girl’s former high spirits had evaporated. Now, her cousin peered nervously into the undergrowth around them, starting at every sound and clutching Caitlyn’s arm in alarm. Finally, the trees around them thinned and they came out into a sort of clearing, where the path they were following ended in a T-junction with a wider track. The latter cut straight across in front of them, from left to right, and they turned their heads from one side to the other in uncertainty.
“Which way should we go? Left… or right?” asked Evie.
Caitlyn was about to answer when something caught her eye. It was a crude wooden sign that someone had pinned to a tree by the side of the wider path. She stepped closer and her heart gave an uncomfortable jolt as the moonlight fell on the roughly etched letters:
<— DEAD MAN’S WALK —>
She heard Evie’s sharp intake of breath next to her as her cousin also saw the words on the sign.
“Oh my Goddess—this is Dead Man’s Walk! We can’t take this, we can’t!” Evie whimpered.
“Well, we can’t stand here all night,” said Caitlyn. She glanced over her shoulder. “And I’m not going back the way we came—there’s no guarantee that we’ll find the road again and we could walk around in circles all night. Come on, remember what Sir Henry said? He takes this shortcut all the time.”
“What about what Mrs Gibbs said?” Evie retorted.
“You’re just letting silly village gossip get to you—”
“It’s not silly gossip!” cried Evie. “The Black Shuck is real and this is where he’s been seen…” She stared wildly at the woods around them, as if expecting a demon hound to jump out at them any moment.
Caitlyn felt a twinge of unease but resolutely pushed it away. Keeping her voice light and joking, she said: “Well, the longer we stand here, the more likely we are to meet him—so we’d better get going.” She looked thoughtfully again from left to right. “If this is Dead Man’s Walk, then that means one side ends at the Manor and the other ends at Sir Henry’s estate. Either one will do. So we just need to stay on it and walk to the end. Come on… let’s go… left,” she decided.
&
nbsp; She set off at a brisk pace and heard Evie scurry to keep up with her. If it wasn’t for the route’s spooky reputation, it would almost have been a nice walk. The path was wide and well-worn, and whether by nature’s design or man-made intervention, the trees on either side had few overhanging branches, so that the way was clearly lit by moonlight. But somehow, Caitlyn couldn’t stop herself glancing uneasily at the trees closing in on either side or shake off the insidious thought that while the moonlight showed the path clearly, it also showed their movements clearly to anyone—or anything—that was watching them…
Evie reached out suddenly and grabbed Caitlyn’s arm so hard that the latter winced.
“Evie… do you mind not holding on so tightly?” Caitlyn asked.
“Oh, sorry…” the younger girl mumbled. “I just… I thought I saw…” She trailed off and looked over her shoulder.
Caitlyn turned to follow her gaze. “What?”
Evie stared for a moment longer, then sighed and shook her head. “Nothing.”
Caitlyn was about to start walking again when Evie gripped her arm again, this time squeezing even harder.
“There! Between those trees! Oh my Goddess—” Her voice went shrill with fear. “Can you see those red eyes?”
Caitlyn whirled around to look, peering frantically into the undergrowth around them. She was just about to open her mouth and say that she couldn’t see anything, when she froze.
A pair of red eyes glowed from the shadows between two trees.
Her heart stuttered in her chest. Beside her, she could hear Evie’s breathing, fast and scared… then she realised that the sound was actually her own breathing.
Caitlyn took a stumbling step backwards, groping for her cousin’s hand. The younger girl made a whimpering sound. Caitlyn gave her a shove.
“Evie—RUN!”
CHAPTER NINE
Caitlyn burst into a run, pumping her legs hard, fighting the urge to look back. She ran without thinking until she was gasping for breath and her lungs were screaming in protest. Next to her, Evie was also gasping and panting, and both girls looked fearfully over their shoulders as they stumbled to a stop.