Deadfall

by Lyndon Stacey

  Glancing at his watch, Linc discovered that it was past nine, and realised that the poor dog had been shut in the office for the best part of eleven hours. Hoping that the mongrel was blessed with adequate bladder control, he leaped out of bed, dressed and ran down the back stairs, through the old kitchen and out into the yard, unsure whether the probability that Mary had got there first was a good thing or a bad.

  The office door was unlocked and Linc opened it cautiously, half-expecting a brindle torpedo to hurtle out, but the room was empty; the pile of blankets dented but abandoned. Had Mary been taken unawares and allowed Tiger to escape? Surely if that had been so she would have woken him up to tell him. Muttering curses under his breath, Linc left the office and went across to rap on the door of her cottage.

  After a brief pause, Mary answered his knock.

  'Good morning, Linc. Have you lost someone, by any chance?'

  He sighed. 'Ah, you've found him.'

  'He's been having breakfast with me.' She stood back to afford Linc a view of her kitchen, where Tiger lay curled up next to her Rayburn stove. The dog raised an eyebrow and twitched his apology for a tail but made no move to get up. 'He's very agreeable company, aren't you, lad?'

  The pairing of neat, orderly Mary Poe with Sandy's in-your-face, streetwise dog was not one that would have suggested itself to Linc in a thousand years, but such was the odd nature of friendships. And Tiger was the sort of dog who would always be quick to recognise a good thing when he saw it.

  'His name's Tiger,' Linc told her. 'He belongs to a friend of mine who's had to go away for a while.'

  Even as he heard himself terming Sandy a friend, he knew it was no longer true. He could have forgiven the saddler for being weak, and even for his lack of morals, but didn't think he would ever be able to forgive the way he'd left Abby unconscious on the night of the raid and then unashamedly accepted the friendship and warmth extended by the Hathaway family, and Ruth in particular.

  'Well, you can't leave him in the office, poor little mite,' Mary said.

  'I didn't know where else to put him. It was rather a last-minute thing.'

  'Well, he's welcome to come in with me when I'm here, but I draw the line at taking him for walks,' she warned.

  Linc thanked her, relieved to find such an easy solution to the problem, and returned to the office to see to the first business of the morning, ahead of a succession of planned meetings with Reagan, Geoff Sykes, and Saul the millwright. It looked like being another busy day.

  The day progressed much in the manner of many Thursdays. Having taken the dressing off what was no more than a superficial cut on his hairline, there was nothing about Linc to show that the previous day's adventure had ever happened. As a result, no one showed any curiosity and, even though his head was full of it, appropriate opportunities to introduce the subject into the conversation seemed few and far between. He had intended telling Crispin, but when he met him briefly at lunchtime his brother was in a hurry and full of the news that Nikki's mother had returned unexpectedly that morning.

  'Just when we'd got used to having the house to ourselves again,' he complained. 'I wouldn't mind but the fair's not for days yet.'

  Linc commiserated.

  'By the way,' Crispin went on, 'hope you didn't mind me ringing you yesterday. It's just – you told me you just had to nip out for an hour or so and you'd written "Mike, three-thirty" on your jotter and underlined it. By half-past six I was starting to wonder.'

  'That was Mike Farquharson, the wine merchant,' Linc told him. 'He's offered to sponsor my riding.' Incredibly, he'd almost forgotten that, with what came after, and now the memory of it gave him a frisson of pleasure.

  'That's brilliant!' Crispin exclaimed. 'So you were out celebrating.'

  'Well, something like that,' Linc hedged. Somehow it didn't seem to be the moment to say, 'No, actually, after that I went on to meet someone else and narrowly escaped being killed and buried in concrete'.

  'So what did Rockley want?' Crispin was on his way to the door.

  'It was about the attack on Abby. They think they've caught the man who did it.'

  'Oh, good, so that's over. That's a relief. Having a private detective in the family's a bit of a worry.' He glanced at his watch. 'Look, I must go, I've got to pick Nikki up from the gym because her car's at the garage. Tell me about it later.'

  As he disappeared, Linc sighed. Next stop the mill for the meeting with Saul. He collected the keys to the Discovery from the office and made his way out to the yard where Tiger greeted him joyfully and accompanied him to the vehicle. Linc looked round in vain for Mary, then gave in and opened the tailgate to let him jump up.

  Halfway to the mill his phone rang.

  'Linc, it's Rebecca.'

  'Oh. Hi, Rebecca. Is everything okay?'

  'Yes, fine. At last I can say that! We saw Inspector Rockley this morning and he told us the good news – but then, I gather you know all about it?'

  'I spoke to him yesterday,' Linc agreed, wondering just how much he'd told them.

  'Yes, and the rest!' she said wryly. 'According to him, it was you who tracked them down.'

  'More by luck than judgement.' It appeared that Rockley had spared Rebecca the details, for which Linc was extremely grateful.

  'Well, thank you anyway. It's such a relief. Maybe now Abby can begin to move on.' She paused. 'I wouldn't blame you if you said no, but we'd very much like you to come over for a meal tonight . . . ?' The rising note of uncertainty in her voice turned the invitation into a question.

  Linc hesitated. 'What about Abby? Is she okay with it?'

  'It was her idea. I mean, we all want you to come – of course we do – but we wouldn't have pushed her. Then, this morning, after the Inspector had left, she was a bit tearful and said she supposed you'd never want to speak to her again. I said I was sure you would . . .'

  'Of course I do.'

  'So she wanted me to ask you. Please come, Linc. I know it's been rough on you and Josie these past few days, and I'm sorry, but we only wanted to protect Abby. She's been through so much . . .'

  'Rebecca, you don't have to apologise,' he cut in. 'And yes, I'd love to come.'

  He arranged to be at the Vicarage around eight o'clock and slipped the phone back in his pocket, feeling that finally things were beginning to look up.

  Saul was waiting at the mill and together they did the rounds, inspecting the ongoing work, discussing the timetable for the following week, and standing for a long time watching the water that was now flowing back into the millpond, creeping imperceptibly up the newly rendered sides. The pump, piping the water away to the bypass stream, had been turned off thirty-six hours ago and Saul thought it would take the best part of a week to bring the pond up to its original depth but still the process held a fascination for Linc. When the millpond was full, water would start to pour over the weir, where – if it was found to be necessary to build up the level preparatory to milling – the old sluice-gates might one day be replaced.

  Now the end of the renovation was in sight, Linc was looking forward with increasing impatience to the day when the old waterwheel would come back to life.

  They left the mill site by way of the new pedestrian gate into the car park, wincing as its hinges screamed a dry protest.

  'You would think the workmen would have oiled that when they put it on, wouldn't you?' Linc remarked.

  'I imagine there's some oil around somewhere,' Saul said. 'If I'd come in my van there'd be some in the back, but I haven't.'

  'Well, as a matter of fact, I've got a pot of Vaseline in the glove compartment,' Linc remembered. It was the one he'd found in the coat he'd borrowed at Crispin's, and subsequently forgotten about.

  He retrieved it and liberally smeared the offending hinge, working the gate to and fro until the squeak was silenced. Saul picked the tub off the gatepost where Linc had rested it, and made to put the lid back on.

  'Is this some special mix?' he asked, pausing in the act.
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  'No. Just bog standard. I use it to stop my horse's mouth getting sore when I'm eventing. It acts as a barrier to all his slobber.'

  'But it's got bits in it,' Saul observed. 'Looks like rust but it shouldn't be 'cos those hinges are new.'

  Linc held out his hand, frowning. Sure enough, the clear grease was liberally speckled with tiny dark-coloured particles. He sniffed it but it seemed to have no smell so he replaced the lid, shrugging. Perhaps it hadn't been his own tub, after all, but then there were the horse hairs . . .

  It was with a mixture of eagerness and apprehension that Linc presented himself at the Vicarage that evening. In the past it had been his custom to let himself in at the back door and call a greeting as he made his way to the kitchen, but this evening he hesitated on the doorstep and then knocked instead.

  A few seconds passed and then he heard footsteps approaching on the tiled floor.

  'Linc! Gosh, I thought it must be someone collecting for a charity or something,' Ruth exclaimed as she opened the door. 'What are you doing out here?'

  'I didn't like to barge in,' he explained. 'After everything that's happened, it just didn't feel right.'

  Before Ruth could reply, Tiger, who'd insisted on coming with Linc, in spite of bribes offered by Mary, slipped between the two of them and disappeared up the passage towards the kitchen.

  She looked after him in surprise.

  'Well, there's someone who doesn't mind barging in! Is that . . . ? It looked like . . .'

  'It was,' Linc said apologetically. 'I'm sorry, Ruth. I tried to leave him behind but he's a little bugger for getting his own way.'

  'No. That's all right, Linc. I didn't realise you'd got him, that's all. It's not his fault his owner turned out to be a bastard. Come on in.'

  Linc put his hand on her arm.

  'Ruth, are you all right? About Sandy, I mean.'

  'Oh, sure,' she declared, perhaps a little too airily. 'He's no loss.'

  Linc wasn't fooled. He watched her with silent sympathy.

  'Okay, I'll admit it,' she amended. 'I'm not all right. I feel wretched, betrayed, angry – but mostly I feel such a fool for having been taken in like that.'

  'We were all taken in. He fooled us all, but if it helps, I don't believe he set out to do it. I think, for all his happy-go-lucky bluster, he's really a pretty lonely bloke who fell under the spell of your lovely family. I should know – it happened to me.'

  Ruth shrugged. 'I don't know whether it helps or not. Maybe it will in time. But it was a nice thing to say, thank you. Now, come on in before you have me in tears again.'

  The meeting with Abby, which Linc had been viewing with a certain amount of apprehension, went better than he had dared hope. The whole family, with the exception of her father, was gathered around the kitchen table when he went in, as on so many of his visits in the past. He could hear them chattering as he followed Ruth down the passageway and Rebecca immediately drew him into the conversation, allowing no time for awkwardness.

  'Ah, Linc, we were just discussing possible names for this kitten Josie's foisting on us in a week or two. I still think if it's ginger it should be Marmalade, but Hannah and Abby don't agree.'

  'But that's so boring!' Hannah protested. 'It's like calling a white one Snowy, or a black one Sooty. My friend Katy's got a cat called Einstein and a dog called Shakespeare. They're cool names!'

  'And everything has to be cool at the moment, doesn't it, Hannah?' her mother said tolerantly. 'But all the same, I'm not sure I could live with a literary cat, and Einstein is giving the poor thing a lot to live up to!'

  'It's no good asking me to suggest a name,' Linc said, going round the table to greet both Rebecca and Josie with a kiss on the cheek before slipping into a vacant chair next to them. 'I can never think of anything. So what's your suggestion, Abby?'

  He glanced across at her and saw a faint pinkness stain her still too-pale skin. Her hands and face looked painfully thin, but her hair had been washed and brushed into a shining dark curtain. This, in itself, took a bit of getting used to, as Linc couldn't recall ever having seen it loose before. Watching the way it fell forward as she now dipped her head, he realised that it was indicative of her present, vulnerable state of mind.

  With an obvious effort she looked up under her lashes to meet his eyes.

  'I like Toffee,' she said.

  'Toffee?' Hannah repeated, scornfully. 'You always go for food names. Syrup, Treacle, now Toffee!'

  'What about Fudge?' Toby put in, with the air of one not expecting to be considered. He had one hand under the table and Linc guessed that was where Tiger had got to.

  'Actually, I think Fudge is a good name,' Linc said approvingly. 'Especially when you see what I've got here.' He opened a brown paper bag he'd been carrying and took out a large box of dairy fudge, amused to see Toby's eyes instantly light up.

  'Wow! That's huge!'

  'Linc, you shouldn't . . .' Rebecca began, but Hannah cut in with a sneer.

  'I hope you didn't bring that for Abby because she's not eating at the moment. It would be a real waste.'

  'It's for all of you,' Linc assured her.

  'I am eating, you little cow!' Abby said, stung into childish retort. 'Just because I don't want to end up stocky, like you!'

  'I'm not stocky!'

  'That's enough!' their mother interposed, but Linc could see she was pleased to see some of Abby's old spark resurfacing.

  'Right. Time to lay the table,' Josie said, getting to her feet. 'Hannah – tablecloth.'

  David Hathaway, who appeared just before the meal was served, took Linc aside and offered a gracious apology for the scene at the hospital.

  'The silly thing is, as soon as I stopped to think, I knew you couldn't have done it, but for a moment there I just saw red. I couldn't see anything beyond the fact that somehow your presence was upsetting my little girl, and after everything she'd been through, I couldn't bear it. It wasn't very Christian, but I think in that moment I'd have turned on the Archbishop of Canterbury himself!'

  Linc accepted his apology without hesitation, and his relationship with the family slipped back on to more or less the same footing as it had been prior to the trouble. The exception, unsurprisingly, was Abby, who picked at her food and was noticeably withdrawn, and although Linc found her watching him on a number of occasions, she always looked away when their eyes met.

  After the meal he joined in a boisterous game of Monopoly, and it wasn't until he was on the point of leaving that he finally had a chance to speak to Abby alone. Hannah and Toby had been sent up to bed, and somehow, as the coffee cups were cleared away, Linc found that the rest of the family had disappeared, on one pretext or another, leaving Abby sleepy-eyed at one end of the kitchen sofa and him at the other.

  'I think we've been set up,' he remarked, smiling at her.

  Abby bit her lip and looked down at her hands.

  To Linc's horror, a tear welled up and spilled over to run down her thin cheek.

  'You don't have to say anything, you know,' he said gently, feeling intensely sorry for her. 'I know what happened, and I understand.'

  'But I have to say something!' she insisted. 'The things I said – I can't believe I ever thought it was you! I must have been out of my head!'

  Linc moved across and took her thin hands in his. She made as if to pull them away, then stopped herself but still wouldn't look at him.

  'Abby, you were ill. Drugged up to the eyeballs. You weren't thinking straight. You have to put it behind you; to move on. And you've got to eat.' In a private moment, earlier, Josie had told him that Abby was existing on almost nothing. 'You'll have to put on a bit of weight if you're going to groom for me on Hilary Lang's training course in August. It's not long now.'