Encounters

by Barbara Erskine

  Cathie was in front. She tore across the courtyard with Father and Sandy and Duncan just behind her, pulling open the stable door and disappearing into the smoky darkness.

  Minutes later as the other men raced for buckets and ran round the back of the stable to reach the hay loft, which had great double doors opening away from the yard, two horses released from their stalls appeared at the door and careered panic-stricken across the courtyard towards the orchard. Then Sandy appeared, leading another which he had blindfolded with a length of old rag. He pulled off the blindfold and sent the terrified horse off out of danger with a gentle push which sent it galloping into the darkness.

  ‘One more,’ I heard my mother saying, anguished. ‘There’s one more; Suki is in the box at the end, under the loft.’

  Father was still inside with Duncan and Cathie as Sandy dodged round to help the men tackle the blaze from the rear. The rain was pelting down, bouncing off the cobbles, soaking our clothes and hair, turning shirts transparent against the skin.

  And then I heard the scream. The most terrible sound I’ve ever heard. It went on and on.

  The men running with buckets of water and Jan and Mother and I all stopped dead for a moment and looked at each other. I felt suddenly very sick.

  The figure of a horse appeared at the stable door, lit up in a flash of lightning, her black coat gleaming in the wet, her hooves striking sparks of light as, ears back, she galloped half crazed out of the stable and away down the drive out of sight. I remember, even in my fear, vaguely hoping that the gate into the lane was shut.

  Behind the horse I suddenly saw Father and Duncan appear at the door of the stable half carrying Cathie. She was sobbing uncontrollably. Father was ashen: he looked dreadful; so did Duncan. And Cathie was hysterical. Leaving her clinging to Duncan, Father came over. ‘Beth, you and Jan take Vicky to the house quickly,’ he said urgently to my mother. ‘No one is to go into the stable; something’s happened. The fire’s out – they’ve pitched out all the hay now; there wasn’t much in there luckily – but I don’t want anyone going in there; not anyone, understand?’ Already he was going back to Cathie.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened? Where’s Sandy?’ I could hear the fear in Mother’s voice as she ran after him.

  ‘It’s all right; Sandy’s round the side with the men. Go inside, please.’ I could hear the strain in Father’s voice as he snapped at her.

  Duncan had his arm round Cathie. She was still crying brokenly as he tried to urge her towards the house. Another flash of lightning tore the sky open and I saw her face for the first time. I’ll never forget the horror and anguish I saw there.

  ‘Oh my God; oh my God! That poor man; oh God! Oh God!’ She kept repeating it over and over. ‘That poor, poor man. How could anyone; how could they? How could they?’

  I stood still, shivering in the rain. What man? What was she talking about? Father had his arm round her too now and he and Duncan were half carrying her between them.

  ‘Beth!’ Father yelled after Mother. ‘Ring Doctor Armstrong. Tell him to get here at once. And get that child inside!’

  That was me!

  I took one more look at the stable range and turning, ran after my mother.

  Everyone else was still at the back of the stables, dealing with the fire, so the sitting room was deserted. Father carried Cathie in and laid her gently on the couch by the empty fireplace.

  ‘Get the brandy, Vicky, please,’ he said, seeing me standing nervously in the doorway, my eyes fixed on Cathie’s limp form; her jeans and blouse were dark with rain and streaked with soot. In the hall I could hear my mother talking to Doctor Armstrong.

  Cathie clung to Duncan and my father in turn. She was shaking so violently I thought for one minute that she must be putting it on, but one look at her face told me she wasn’t. My own hands had started to shake as I poured out half a tumbler of brandy and took the glass to Duncan. He had his arm round her shoulders and raised her gently, putting the glass to her lips. She took a sip and then pushed it violently away.

  ‘Christ! I could do with some of this myself.’ Duncan took a drink from the glass and passed it on to Father. ‘What do we do, Dad? He …’ he hesitated, ‘he wasn’t alive, was he?’

  Father shook his head and took another gulp of brandy. He held out the glass towards me and I ran forward with the bottle.

  I felt sick. I was scared. Anything that could shake my father and my twenty-year-old brother like that had to be bad. And what had Duncan meant, ‘He wasn’t alive?’ Who wasn’t? Nervously I looked again at Cathie. Her normally tanned face was white. She clutched at Duncan convulsively.

  ‘It was so awful,’ she cried. ‘The lightning came and I saw him there – three feet from my face. His eyes were open. Oh God. Oh God!’ She was getting hysterical again, clinging to Duncan till I saw the skin of his forearm whiten beneath her grip.

  ‘I know; I know, darling. I saw him too.’ He was rocking her backwards and forwards in his arms as Mother came in with a rug.

  ‘Keep her warm,’ she said. The doctor is on the way. Now, tell me what’s happened.’

  For a moment there was silence as Father and Duncan looked at each other. Then Cathie, her voice rising desperately, sobbed: ‘In the barn. In the barn. They’ve hanged someone. He’s dead and his hands, oh God his hands …’ Her voice had practically risen to a scream.

  Mother reeled backwards as if she’d been hit and looked at my father.

  ‘It’s true, Beth. Duncan and I were right behind her. They’ve used the beam in Suki’s stall; I’m surprised the horse didn’t break out earlier. When we got there she panicked and flattened the wooden partition in the box. I was going to go after her when I saw it; we all saw it. The lightning showed everything for a moment. As soon as Armstrong gets here I’ll get on to the police.’ He sat down and put his head in his hands. ‘Dear God. I went right through the war and I never saw anything so barbaric; never.’

  It was a strange sight. The group of frightened, shaking people in their wet clothes, their hair flattened and blackened on their heads from the rain, their faces staring. Each time the lightning flashed the lights in the house dimmed for a second and flickered and then shone brightly again.

  The doctor arrived in about fifteen minutes, roaring up the drive and swinging round to the front door where he left his car on the cobbles. He jumped out bag in hand and pushed through the open front door.

  It didn’t take him long to size up the situation. He gave Cathie an injection and ordered Jan and Mother to undress her and put her to bed with a hot water bottle. Then he went with Father and Duncan into the study. They shut the door.

  I had been forgotten.

  My curiosity got the better of me and I tiptoed out into the hall where I could hear them talking quite clearly as I sat on the bottom step of the stairs, shivering in my soaking shirt and jeans.

  ‘I don’t think he’d been there very long,’ I heard my father’s voice. The neck was obviously broken though. But to cut off a man’s hands like that –’, his voice broke, ‘words fail me, Armstrong.’

  ‘Have you rung the police?’ The doctor’s voice was professionally calm.

  ‘Not yet. Cathie was so hysterical and I wanted to get the women away.’

  ‘Quite so. Well, if I may suggest, I’ll go and have a look myself. No – you needn’t come with me. I’m probably more used to these things than you; although, in this case …’

  I could hear them opening the french windows, which overlooked the courtyard at the front of the house, and then their voices grew fainter and disappeared. Obviously Father and Duncan had decided to go with him.

  I got up and slipped out of the front door. What I had heard nauseated me, but I was far too curious to be left indoors. I had to follow them. I saw the three figures striding through the rain towards the stable. The high loft door on this side was open too now and the bales of charred hay had been pushed down onto the cobbles. A man was standing up there with a pi
tchfork and I saw him raise his hand to my father in a thumbs up sign. The fire was well and truly out. Wisps of curdling steam crawled up through the loft doors and through the old red tiles but that was all. I could see the three horses from the stable standing on the far side of the courtyard by the orchard gate, sheltering beneath the old crab apple tree which overhung the wall. Beyond it our ponies were pale shapes in the dark.

  I suddenly realized that there hadn’t been any thunder or lightning for several minutes now. The storm was moving off towards the north east at last.

  I wondered briefly what had happened to Suki. There was no sign of her. It scared me that my mother hadn’t gone frantic with worry about her precious championship mare; everything was frightening that night and unreal. I shivered again in the dark. It was still raining hard.

  I tiptoed across the wet cobbles to the stable door and waited, my heart thumping with terror. They had left it open and I could see the strong beam of Father’s torch as he walked slowly down the line of stalls, followed by Duncan and the doctor. I knew the stable so well. The eight stalls and the old loose box at the end, Suki’s box, with its blackened warped oak beam about ten feet off the ground.

  Nothing could have made me take another step into that stable. The light stopped moving and I saw the three shadowy figures of the men stop. The torch beam raked up and down, roof to floor; I imagined it illuminating every wisp of hay in Suki’s box – and anything else that was there. I shuddered at the thought. Then the light was joined by another. The doctor too must have had a torch on him. The two thin beams crossed and recrossed flashing up at the walls and roof; then all three men moved out of my line of vision into the box itself. I could feel the sweat standing out on my forehead as I stood there in the doorway, just out of the driving rain.

  At first I didn’t even notice the sound of hooves on the cobbles behind me. Then I heard a nervous whicker and turning, I saw the black pony standing, nostrils flaring, near the doctor’s car. It was almost a relief to have to do something. I reached for one of the head collars on the rack inside the door and made my way out into the rain again.

  To my surprise she came to me, pushing her head into my hands, almost begging for the head collar to be buckled round her ears. I stroked her rather nervously – Suki had a wicked nip and only my mother usually handled her – and discovered that she was trembling from head to foot.

  I started to walk slowly towards the house and she followed without my having to pull on the rein, her head pushed hard into the crook of my arm and it dawned on me that she was probably as scared as anyone else by what had happened and that she was seeking reassurance, just as I was.

  I met my mother at the front door. She had at last done the sensible thing and having put Cathie to bed and left her with Jan, she had put on a mac and gumboots and collected a torch. ‘Vicky, you’ve caught her!’ She reached out for the head collar. ‘Is she hurt?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ My teeth had started chattering.

  ‘Mummy. She’s scared. She really is scared. Whatever happened in there – it’s terrified her.’

  ‘I know.’ My mother was crooning gently into the pony’s ear. ‘I’ll put her into the back paddock. And the other ponies with her. They’ll be safe in there, and well away from whatever must happen.’

  Whatever must happen? For the first time I thought of stretchers and police cars and ambulances racing up the long gravelled drive from the lane and I bit my lip as I watched my mother lead the trembling pony away round the corner of the house.

  Then I turned to look back at the stables. They were still in the dark. I wondered suddenly why the lights weren’t on. The fire presumably had fused the switches or something. Then I saw the thin beam of torchlight crossing behind one of the windows; then the next. Someone was walking back down the line of the stalls towards the door.

  The three men reappeared, crossing slowly towards me, talking earnestly together. I waited in the hall, kicking off my wet shoes, idly inspecting my toe prints on the scrubbed flags.

  The door opened and the three men appeared. ‘I’ll give the chief constable a ring, Armstrong,’ my father was saying. ‘I think this ought to go straight to him. Go on in and give yourselves a brandy. I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  Duncan and the doctor passed me, going into the sitting room, and I heard the chink of glasses as I followed Dad to the study and stood in the doorway as he dialled.

  ‘Hello? Bill?’ He sat down on the edge of the desk and then realizing how wet he was stood up again hurriedly. ‘Sorry to call you so late, old man, but I’ve a bit of a puzzle on my hands.’ There was a pause, then he gave a short tense laugh. ‘Yes. No, worse actually. Well, yes it was the storm in a way. No, I got the last of it in today, thank goodness. Listen, Bill. We had a bit of a fire in the hay loft – lightning struck a tree just behind it. We rushed over to get the horses out as fast as possible of course and we found something in there, Bill. A man has been hanged in there. What? Yes. In the loose box at the end. No, he was quite dead; no doubt about it I’m afraid. Three of us saw him: my son Duncan and myself and a girl who is staying with us. No, no idea who it was. No Bill, it wouldn’t have been suicide; there’s no question about that; someone had hacked off both his hands at the wrists. Yes.’ There was quite a long pause as the voice at the other end spoke agitatedly into the phone. I could see the beads of perspiration standing out on my father’s forehead.

  ‘Yes, there was a lot of blood. But listen, Bill. He’s gone. Yes – there’s no trace of him now – nor of any blood. Armstrong is here and I took him over to see what he could do, but there is absolutely no trace of the body now. No trace at all. We were indoors for, I suppose, perhaps half an hour. But it’s disappeared.’

  I gasped and my father noticed me for the first time. He frowned and motioned me away, but I stayed where I was.

  ‘It did cross our minds,’ he went on into the phone, ‘that the stables could have been fired deliberately to destroy all trace of everything – but then the tree was definitely struck. No question of that. Yes – so you’ll come up yourself then? No, nothing’s been touched. We’ve sent everyone else home now; they don’t know what’s happened. OK.’

  He hung up and turned to me. ‘The chief constable is bringing up a forensic team. He’s getting them all out of bed if necessary.’ He gave me a watery smile. ‘I suppose it’s no good telling you to go to bed, Vicky?’

  I shook my head vehemently. ‘I’d have nightmares, Daddy,’ I said in a small voice and suddenly my eyes were full of tears.

  I ran to him and he put his arms round me comfortingly. ‘I know, love,’ he said gently into my hair. ‘I wish you hadn’t heard – but there’s nothing to be done till the police get here. Come and have a sip of brandy. It’ll buck you up. Where’s your mother?’

  ‘With the mares.’

  He nodded. ‘Just as well to keep busy.’ He frowned. ‘She shouldn’t be out there on her own, though.’ He stood up, releasing me abruptly. ‘I’ll go and fetch her. Go through to Duncan, Vicky, and stay with him, understand?’

  ‘You think they’re still here, don’t you, the people who did it?’ My voice quavered childishly.

  ‘Not for one moment. Don’t think about it. Look darling, Dr Armstrong is going to give poor Cathie another shot before he goes. To make her sleep through into tomorrow. Would you like him to give you something?’

  I shook my head and swallowed hard. ‘No, I’m all right. Go and find Mummy, and I’ll go and have a drink of brandy.’

  I went into the sitting room and accepted a minuscule dose of brandy from the doctor and then I sat shivering on the edge of the sofa while the two men talked until my parents came in together. Then of course my mother took one look at me and packed me upstairs for a hot bath and a change of clothes, although she didn’t insist that I go to bed.

  The police arrived about half an hour later with searchlights and a large alsatian dog. They quartered the farm and nearly dismantled the
stable block but it appeared that the rain, which hadn’t eased for hours, had been heavy enough to remove any trace there might have been of tracks of any land.

  It must have been in the early hours of the morning that they eventually packed up and went. I had given in to my exhaustion at about midnight and crawled into bed, but I can’t say I slept awfully well. My bravado, what there was of it, had left me completely in the loneliness of my bedroom, with its pale chintz curtains blowing so innocently in the open window and I left my bedside light on all night, pulling the thin single sheet up over my head. Somehow I still couldn’t get the sound of Cathie’s terrible screams out of my mind.

  She came down next day at about mid morning, looking pale and shaken but otherwise more or less her old self. It was a glorious sunny day. The early morning had been white with low-lying mist as I looked out, but later it heated up again, until the temperature was as high as ever.

  The farm returned to normal very quickly; or nearly so. The stables were searched again by daylight, but nothing was found. The hayloft was swept and repaired. It was as if nothing had happened at all. It was hard to believe by the next day that there had ever been a storm, or a fire – or a dreadful, insane murder. Except that no one was allowed to go out by themselves any more; there had to be at least two or three of us – even the farm men went about in pairs and we locked the doors and windows as dark approached, in spite of the heat. And the horses remembered. When my mother tried to lead Suki back into the stable she laid her ears back, her eyes rolling in terror and reared up with a terrified snort. They didn’t try and make her go back in there again.

  Cathie stayed with us another week and managed, with Duncan at her side constantly, to complete the rest of her photographs before she got ready to leave. She and Duncan arranged to meet in town as soon as his term started, and apart from the fact that it meant parting from him so soon, I suspected that she was very glad indeed to leave Camber Court. I was very sad to see her go. I liked Cathie enormously.