Rat – Tat – Tat
We all jump, and the sergeant goes to the front door.
“She’s in here,” he says. An icy blast comes in with the visitors and I catch a glimpse of hard moonlit frost outside.
“Thank you.” It’s Inspector Khan, this time with a policewoman I haven’t seen before and a nervous-looking woman with a sketchbook. Inspector Khan’s incredibly clean suit looks really out of place here.
“Can I offer you tea? Coffee? Soup?” says Auntie V. “Or I’ve got a bit of lasagne left over? How are you, Helen?”
“Coffee’ll do us, thanks V,” says the policewoman. “I’ve got a pie in the oven for tea – Inspector Khan’ll stay the night with us on the put-up bed.” She places her bum on the back of an exploding old armchair and kicks off her boots. She’s obviously used to the house. “I’ll put him back on the train in the morning.”
The inspector doesn’t look thrilled about the night on the put-up bed but flashes a quick insincere smile at Helen. He looks around the room, taking it in, and brushes the seat of the sofa as he sits down. I know from experience it won’t make any difference, he’s going to get up covered in dog hair. He takes out a neat notebook and an expensive-looking pen and places the same pair of neat specs that he wore yesterday on his nose.
The nervous woman perches on a piece of furniture that I know is supposed to be a coffee table.
“Right,” says Inspector Khan. “Right. Maya.”
“Sergeant Lewis saw something on the track. Should we be scared?” I ask.
The inspector moves his head about in an I-agree-with-you-but-I-don’t-want-you-to-be-scared way, which tells me I should be scared.
“Maya.” He interlocks his fingers, flips his hands over and clicks his elbows straight, raising them over his head, stretching. He looks as if he’s going to be here for a while and once again, all the stuff that happened in London seems real. I did see a body. I did see a man with a gun. He did see me.
“Are you looking for him?” I ask.
“Of course,” the inspector says. “Of course. But I want to ask you some questions and I want you to tell me about the woman. Lianne here has come up from Cardiff – she’s very good at likenesses.”
Lianne who is very good at likenesses tries an unconfident smile before tipping coffee over her sketchbook and ineffectually mopping it up with a scrap of tissue.
“So can we start with what anyone was wearing – any distinguishing features?” she says.
I sit back against the cushions and stare at the ceiling, trying really hard to remember anything. Anything at all.
* * *
It takes a while. We eat half a packet of bourbons and by the end of it, I have no idea what anyone on the street that day looked like. The piece of paper shows several Neanderthals wearing grey clothes and earmuffs. I don’t think any of them had earmuffs.
“And is there anything else you remember?” asks Inspector Khan.
We run through it all again. What I saw, where I saw it. The kidnapping, who I’ve told, who I haven’t, the body on the shoreline. How Peter Romero looked, the gun, the bus.
“Big – tall, strong – with red curly hair and really angry.”
Inspector Khan writes it in his little book.
“How are they – at home? My phone doesn’t work down here and they’re not very good at e-mail. Can I ring them from the landline?” I ask.
“Don’t,” says Inspector Khan. “If you can bear not to. Just in case.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to ignore the tears that are catching me by surprise. “But they’re all OK – aren’t they?”
“Perfectly safe, police living on site.”
There’s a long silence. Inspector Khan looks at Helen. Helen looks back at Inspector Khan.
“Sergeant Lewis will go off duty now, and Sergeant Hughes will take over,” says Helen. “Just in case.”
I wish they’d all stop saying: just in case.
“Well, I think that’s about it then,” says Inspector Khan, standing. He walks towards the door. Helen picks up her boots and follows him. I can see from here that the back of his beautiful suit is covered in dog hair. And then he turns. “Maya – did you see anything else? Was there – anything else that maybe the camera didn’t pick up? Any other object?”
I shake my head, because there wasn’t. Was there? “Why?”
“Nothing,” he says, his hand on the front door. “It’s nothing.”
Chapter 16
All night I listen to the sounds of the house and the yard. From time to time the ponies stamp their feet on the stable floor and after a while I get used to it. Policemen come and go, sometimes inside, sometimes out. But the sounds I’m listening for are vehicles, distant, or footsteps, close.
I imagine the red-haired man wandering through the outbuildings, just out of sight, and then I remember the thickness of the door. The shuttered windows. The massive walls. The tall gates being the only way in. It is a fortress.
I wish I had the rabbit.
I wish I had Zahra.
Before dawn, I look at my phone again.
No signal, no messages.
I type: Missing you, to Zahra.
Message failed to send.
I wish I had the pictures. What did the inspector mean? What else does he think I saw?
I switch on my tablet and try to make a Wi-Fi connection. Google loads really slowly so I leave it on the chest of drawers and go downstairs – but I’m hoping I’ve beaten Ollie to what little Internet there is.
Two of the dogs don’t move, but Megan comes over and sniffs at my bare feet.
Auntie V is standing in the kitchen in her nightie, dressing gown and huge felt slippers. “You’re up early,” she says. She grabs a load of horrible meaty innards and jams them in a saucepan. “Giblets. For the dogs,” she says as explanation before slapping it on to the stove.
The house fills with the fug of boiling offal and I retreat to the bedroom.
Slow dawn light filters through the window and I peer out expecting to see the red-headed man at any moment. But all I see is grey. It’s snowed overnight. The grey fades to white. Icing sugar coats the mountains and the walls.
My tablet has loaded at last and I type in Georgio Romero. And then the Wi-Fi dies.
Rats!
This must be why Ollie’s so good at horse riding. There’s nothing else to do around here.
Slow curls of snow blow past the window and I realise that it’s suddenly started to fall quickly. Thickly. Through it, I see the police four-by-four arrive, pick someone up and set off up the track.
As I get dressed, the phone rings downstairs. I open my door so that I can hear Auntie V. There’s someone there this time. She doesn’t say much but I can hear the worry in her voice.
“Goodness – how awful. Last night? Are you sure they’re connected?”
There’s a long silence.
“We will – I will. Should I tell her?”
Another silence.
“OK, I won’t if you don’t think so. And thank you – having Sergeant Lewis back here would be a great relief.”
I creep down the stairs. I hear her replace the phone in the cradle, and she turns the radio on so that she’s singing along to some weird piece of opera by the time I enter the kitchen.
“Oh Maya,” she says, too cheerfully. “Now, later on, Gethin, Ollie’s friend from the next valley, is coming over to ride. Sergeant Hughes has gone home for a nap and a change of clothes but Sergeant Lewis will be back with us soon. But for now, can I get you some bacon and eggs?”
“Um,” I say. “Just the eggs perhaps?”
“Stupid me, of course,” she says. “Just the eggs.”
* * *
I’m still wondering what it was that Auntie V heard on the phone when Ollie’s friend arrives.
“Gethin lives in Ty Fach, on the other side of the mountain, where Helen the policewoman comes from,” Auntie V says. “There are so few of us up here, and
so far apart that it’s like a village spread over hundreds of square miles.”
She puts bacon on plates, then remembers that I don’t eat it, and gets a new plate.
“So I come over when I can,” says Gethin. “Always have done.”
“Yes, Gethin’s always over here.” Auntie V lands a grilled tomato on my plate. It slides sideways, slopping into my lap.
“Ah!” I yelp, trying to pick it up but burning my fingers.
“Oh God! Sorry,” says Auntie V, rushing for a fish slice.
“Princess and the tomato,” says Ollie, “the fairy tale they didn’t write.”
“The princess thing’s wearing a bit thin, Ollie,” I say.
Ollie snorts and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Gethin keeps a straight face and Auntie V lowers her head so that I can’t see.
The phone rings. Ollie answers it.
“Hello – Valley Trekking—” he says.
He listens.
“Hello? Ow!”
He holds the phone away from his ear. “That really hurt,” he says.
“Good,” I say under my breath.
“What is it?” asks Gethin.
“It whistled at me, now it’s clicking. It happened a couple of times yesterday,” says Ollie.
“I think you should report a fault,” says Gethin like an adult.
“I would but just at the moment we’re not allowed to bring attention to ourselves or the house,” Ollie swings round to stare at me. “Because of HER.”
Part of me says I shouldn’t answer – but the other part is getting angrier. “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t ask to be here – stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
“Why are you here?” asks Gethin. “Sorry,” he says. “I don’t mean that rudely.”
“She’s hiding from a red-haired man,” says Ollie. “Who hangs around in Regent Street, attacking people.”
“What?” says Gethin.
“He’s got a gun!” I say.
“Who? Why?” asks Gethin.
“It’s complicated,” I say.
“Hush, hush, top secret,” says Ollie, slapping the side of his nose with a grubby finger. “She’s a protected witness or something.”
“Really?” asks Gethin.
Auntie V stops bustling and listens, her back to the counter.
They’re all staring at me.
“OK,” I begin. “So there was this bloke, Georgio Romero, who got pulled out of the Thames. I saw his dead body, actually.” I glare at Ollie. “And it’s his brother, Peter, who’s after me – I saw him pull a gun on a woman in Regent Street. And the police think he shot Georgio.”
“Oh!” Gethin raises his eyebrows.
“Google him,” I say. “Go on.”
“May I?” asks Gethin, pulling over Ollie’s laptop and furiously typing.
We sit in silence watching the circle spin.
Eventually, up comes a murky black and white image, which might be a person, might be a sheep.
“That’s him?” says Gethin, pointing at the screen.
I nod. Even a screen seems too close.
“But why does he want you? You didn’t see the actual murder – did you?”
I shake my head. “No – that’s what’s so weird – I don’t know why he wants me, but the police think he does.”
“You must have seen something else – something important, can you remember?”
“Huh!” says Ollie. “It’s all stupid.”
I try really hard to let his words go over my head but I can’t. “OK, that’s it!” I say. “Just stop it, Ollie. It’s not as if I want to be here, stuck in the back of beyond in your smelly bedroom.” It begins to flow. “But I’m not intending to hang about for long, murderer or no murderer, and then you can have it back and stare up at your boring mountain to your heart’s content. Maybe while you wait for your rubbish Wi-Fi to actually bother to connect you to civilisation. Then you’ll never have to see me again and I can forget all about you and your appalling manners.”
“Ha!” Ollie stands so that he’s leaning right over the breakfast table. “I didn’t like you when you came all those years ago, with your little white socks and perfect hair. Scared of horses, scared of the doggie, always crying to Mummy and whining on and on.” He raises his voice, his breath is making my fringe flap. “And I don’t like you now. You, from your perfect stupid family, coming here like you own the place. Like you can just invade MY LIFE. Rearranging my bedroom, complaining that you can’t get on the Internet, as if the world will stop turning if you can’t get your stupid e-mails from your stupid friends. And endlessly poking at the food that’s put in front of you, as if it’s been scraped off your shoe—”
“Ollie!” shouts Auntie V, going bright red.
“Gosh,” says Gethin and looks at me.
“If it makes you feel any better,” I say, boiling fury racing over my scalp, “I didn’t exactly take to you either – I seem to remember finding slugs in my shoes? Salt in my ice cream?”
Ollie smirks.
“And there was an evil dog that bit me, and you were SO rude – just like you are now, and no matter how angry you are, no matter how inferior I make you feel, about whatever you’re angry about, that’s no excuse for being so horrible. You have no idea how terrifying it is to have a man with a gun looking for you. I’m scared, because there’s some madman after me! He kidnapped my sister, for goodness’ sake – how badly must he want me? I’m scared for my family in London, and I’m feeling every scrap of your, your whatever – don’t you understand? I don’t want to be here. I’d rather be in London with my friends, I’d rather be enjoying the end of the Christmas term with parties and FUN, not stuck here in your – stables with stupid horses and hay and soup and bothering your mother because I’m a vegetarian – I didn’t do it on purpose you know, it’s happened. And you have no idea what it feels like.”
There’s a massive silence.
Gethin and Auntie V look back to Ollie.
“God, you’re such a townie,” he says, leaning back in his chair.
“What?” I say. He is unbelievable!
“Bet you can’t even ride.”
“What?” I say again. Then, “Of course I can ride!” A blush races up my throat.
“Can you?” Ollie leans forward, bumping the front legs of his chair back on to the floor. “Can you really?”
“Yes,” I say, so angry I’d say anything.
“Go on, then,” says Ollie. “Prove it.”
Chapter 17
Half an hour later and I’m still shaking with fury.
“I really think this is a bad idea,” says Auntie V as Ollie leads a mean-looking black pony from the stables into the yard. “And I’m not sure Samson’s right for Maya, either.”
“She says she can ride,” says Ollie. “If she can ride, she can ride Samson.”
Auntie V catches me by the elbow. “Maya – don’t.”
“I’m fine, Auntie V,” I say. “Bit of fresh air is just what I need, I’ve been dying to get back in the saddle.”
Bundling the reins in my left hand, I eye the pony. And the pony eyes me back. There’s something about that look, and when it tries to bite me, I realise Ollie’s chosen it on purpose.
I can’t remember how to mount. I glance towards Ollie, but he’s already in the saddle. Damn. I know I need to be facing backwards to get on. Gethin holds the stirrup out for me and points towards my left foot. I stick my foot in the stirrup and do something supreme with my legs and stomach muscles and even as Samson takes a step forward, I hoist myself up so that I am almost standing on my left foot. I feel a hand on my bum and suddenly I am up there, swinging over the saddle, pointing the right way, hauling the reins up and thrashing about with my right leg to find the other stirrup.
Samson bends around and nibbles the toe of my boot.
“Hmm,” says Auntie V.
Gethin leaps lightly into his own saddle, and Samson makes a lunge for his pony’s backside, but Geth
in skilfully steers out of the way and trots ahead out of the yard.
“Right,” I say, gathering my reins the way Gethin did and Samson stands, waiting.
Turning, Ollie puts his fingers to his mouth and lets out a loud whistle. Samson springs awake, jerks up his head and follows.
So that’s how it is. Here am I, riding the pony equivalent of Ollie up a mountain with someone who hates me at the controls.
Really perfect.
Ollie leads, Gethin goes in the middle and I bobble along at the back, as the snow intensifies.
We pick our way up the lower track between the high walls in a silent line of three. I feel stupid and vulnerable.
What is it Granddad says? Act in haste, repent at leisure. Never really understood it before, but I think I do now.
Ollie whistles again, and two of the dogs appear behind us. One of them might be Megan.
A crow takes off from behind a wall and Samson skitters to the side.
I manage to stay on.
Not smug. But quietly confident.
But a little later Samson succeeds in blowing my cover.
I’m not sure what he does, but I think it involves teeth, and Gethin’s pony’s bum, and then a kick in the face. But one moment I’m sitting on an almost motionless horse in a snowstorm. The next, I’m hurtling across the field towards a stone wall, clinging to Samson’s neck.
“Stop!” I yell, frantically pulling on the reins.
“Pull harder, stop him!” shouts Gethin.
The thought that Samson could actually jump the wall is quickly pushed aside by the idea that he might just crash into it.
He slows and in that second I jump from the saddle, my feet thumping over the soggy grass, dragging on the reins.
Samson tries to stop, but he’s still moving faster than me, and I feel his skull hitting my jaw, hear a crunch in my head, taste blood in my mouth.
I grip the bridle. Hanging on, digging my heels into the muddy grass, skidding sideways and downwards, I wait for the world to stop turning. Dragging downwards until Samson stops, trembling and blasting steam through his nostrils into my face.
* * *
Murder In Midwinter Page 6