Deadfall

by Lyndon Stacey

  The girl's eyes lit with sudden interest.

  'Hilary Lang? It is true then? I thought I'd dreamed that. I had some seriously weird dreams.'

  'Yes, it's true. So you'd better concentrate on getting fit.'

  'Wouldn't you rather take Josie?'

  'Josie? No, she's not such a good groom as you.'

  'But I thought . . . Um, she told me about you and her . . .' Abby looked sideways at him through her glossy fall of hair.

  'And you don't mind?'

  'Of course not. I know I was a bit silly before but . . . well, I suppose I always knew nothing would come of it. Besides, you're way too old!'

  Linc nodded wryly. 'I'm afraid so. Positively prehistoric!'

  Linc left the Vicarage on his own to make his way back to Farthingscourt. The kisses he'd shared with Josie when she'd walked him out to his car had left him filled with a frustrated longing, and she'd obviously felt the same because as they drew apart, she murmured, 'I know, I know, but it won't be long now, I promise. Soon they won't need me.'

  Bugger them! I need you! Linc's inner self cried, but he kept the selfish words in his head, knowing that when she did come to him, it must be whole-heartedly.

  Home once more, he installed Tiger in the office, switching on the light briefly to check that he had water and to give him his biscuits. There, laying on his desk was a brown envelope with LINC TREMAYNE – BY HAND printed in capital letters on the front.

  With casual interest, he slit the top and drew out the paper it contained, but felt a jolt of shock when he realised it was a folded sheet of newsprint.

  Surely that was all in the past. Al Judge was locked away in the police cells, as was – presumably – Sandy. The scare-tactics were done with. Weren't they?

  He unfolded the paper carefully, holding it by the outer edges with deference to Rockley and his forensic team, and read it with deepening dismay.

  It was identical in form to the previous three and this time the highlighted words stated:

  You were warned but you took no notice. Now you and the bitch will pay the price.

  SIXTEEN

  LINC WASN'T SURE AFTERWARDS just how long he stood there with the sheet of newspaper in his hand. In the end it was Tiger who recalled him to the here and now, by bringing it to his attention, with a prodding paw, that he still hadn't received his biscuits.

  'Sorry, lad.' Linc tossed the treats on to the dog's bed absentmindedly, and then sat heavily in the chair at his desk, trying to make sense of the situation.

  Why had the note arrived now, when the investigation into Abby's attack was over and done with? Was there someone else involved who'd slipped through the net? But if so, he'd be stupid to draw attention to himself now. Unless, Linc thought, his heart thumping, it was warning him of a revenge attack.

  . . . you and the bitch . . .

  Oh, God, not Josie! Please, not Josie!

  He forced himself to think rationally.

  If the note had been delivered by hand, who had brought it? And where had they left it? Presumably not in the actual office, although apart from public days it wasn't always locked. Had they, perhaps, been seen by someone at Farthingscourt?

  Linc's best hope was that Judge had sent it before his arrest and it had taken a day or two to get to him. That was possible and, he decided, the most likely answer. His pulse rate slowing to the low hundreds, he stowed the paper in his own private drawer, gave Tiger a pat and headed for bed.

  Halfway across the yard he remembered that, until Wednesday afternoon, Judge had presumably believed Linc was going along with the sponsorship deal, and so would have had no reason to send him a threatening note.

  The first thing he did the following morning, was to ring Josie. He had no wish to alarm her unduly, but on the other hand couldn't bear the thought of something happening to her because he'd failed to warn her.

  'If it wasn't Judge, then who on earth did send it?' she wanted to know.

  Linc had no idea. The mystery had kept him awake for a substantial part of the night. Apart from anything else, he hadn't asked any questions or done any snooping around since the last warning; unless one counted talking to Sandy about the rhyming slang. Why go to the trouble of warning someone not to do something they weren't actively doing in the first place?

  Could it have been Sandy who was behind the notes all along?

  'None of it makes much sense,' he told Josie. 'But I thought you should know, that's all. Don't go wandering down any dark alleys or accepting lifts from shifty-looking strangers.'

  'Oh, well! That's ruined my plans for the day, then!' she observed.

  'Yeah, well, you know what I mean. Just be careful.'

  'So what did the message actually say?'

  Linc hesitated. He'd been, somewhat unrealistically, hoping to avoid that one.

  'It said something about my having been warned and not having taken any notice,' he said.

  'And? What about me?'

  'And, er . . . it said, "Now you and the bitch will pay the price",' he recited, finally biting the bullet.

  Josie was quiet for a moment, then said lightly, 'I see. And you just naturally thought of me!'

  'Well . . . Tiger's a dog.'

  'You sod!' she exclaimed, laughing. 'Okay, I'll be careful. And you, presumably, will take the paper to Rockley.'

  'Yeah, I guess so. Another one for his collection.'

  Both Rockley and DS Manston were unavailable, he was told, so Linc left the offending sheet of newsprint in its envelope at reception, with a covering note for the inspector. Stowing it in the glovebox for the journey, he'd rediscovered the pot of Vaseline, and on impulse left that at the station for the attention of Rockley's forensics team, too.

  Feeling the need for some quality time, away from the craziness that his life had become, Linc dropped in to see Barney and the greyhounds, and spent a happy hour or so helping out around the kennels and getting to know his chosen dog.

  Back at Farthingscourt he decided that someone in the family should know what was going on, and to that end spoke to Crispin and Nikki, giving them the gist of the business with Judge and telling them about the threatening message.

  'I don't want to worry Dad with it,' he finished. 'It may be no more than a stupid hoax, or it may be that now Judge and his crew are out of the way, there's no longer a threat anyway. I don't suppose either of you knows how it ended up on my desk?'

  'Yes, I put it there,' Crispin confessed instantly. 'It was in our mailbox at the cottage.'

  'That's right, I remember because you were complaining about having to run round delivering Linc's post,' Nikki corroborated.

  'I was joking.'

  'Well, that explains how it got there anyway,' Linc said. 'Now all I've got to do is discover who sent it and why.'

  With the Georgian Fair just over a week away preparations were in full swing and much of Linc's time that day was taken up with sorting out the endless stream of minor problems it inevitably threw up. He'd given Jack Reagan the job of overseeing the car-parking arrangements and, waking to heavy rain with no change forecast for the next few days, this in itself was proving to be a headache.

  Liaising with the forester on the issue, Linc was aware of a change for the better in his behaviour. Perhaps, he thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt over the affair of Jim Pepper and the crowbar had won Reagan's trust where all Linc's previous friendly overtures had failed. The authorship of that particular note was another mystery yet to be solved. Incredible to think that the incident had only been a week ago; so much had happened in those seven days that he felt a good ten years older.

  In fact, the rain continued on and off for several days, finally clearing away the following Wednesday night when the wind sharpened and moved round to the southeast. It had been touch and go as to whether, even at this late stage, the fair should be called off, but an inspection of the site went in favour of continuing and preparations forged ahead.

  From Linc's point of view, the only
plus resulting from the inclement weather was that the millpond filled far faster than anyone had anticipated, and by the Thursday morning the millstream was in spate, with the excess water pouring over the weir in a spectacular display.

  He visited the mill in the afternoon, when he knew Saul would be there, and found him engaged in the skilful task of dressing the stones. This involved chipping a particular pattern of grooves into the milling surfaces with an implement known as a mill-bill, to facilitate the efficient grinding of the grain.

  Linc watched in fascination for a while, and then together they inspected the final stages of the renovation work. With the roof, floors and windows done, and the overhaul of the mill machinery nearly complete, the restoration of the building was tantalisingly close to completion. The next phase would be the conversion of the various outbuildings into bakery, shop, and tearooms. After that, most of what remained to be done was concerned with making the area safe for the public to visit – namely, railings to keep them from falling on to, or being pulled into, the many moving parts.

  'I wish we'd arranged for Peter Neville to move into the cottage this week,' Linc said, watching the water cascading over the weir into the stream beyond. Neville was to be the mill manager. 'Now we're so close to starting her up, and with this weather we've been having, I'd feel happier with someone on site.'

  'Yeah, but Peter doesn't finish his other job until Sunday,' Saul reminded him. 'I expect it'll be all right. He'll be here on Monday. You don't get a lot of trouble with trespassers down here, do you?'

  'Not usually, but we've got this fair on Saturday and Geoff says you always get a few wanderers when the estate's open for a public event.'

  Saul shrugged. 'As long as the door's locked you should be okay. You've still got the signs everywhere so you shouldn't be liable.'

  'I guess so. It doesn't look as though it's going to be the sort of weather that will encourage people to strip off and dive into the millpond!'

  In addition to the warning signs placed around the site by the company doing the renovation work, Linc had added on the gate a notice that pronounced, No Swimming. No Diving. No Fishing. To which someone had tacked a smaller, makeshift one that said, No Water-skiing. No Bungee-jumping. No Fun Whatsoever!

  As it turned out, the mill wasn't destined to be deserted for the whole day anyway because Josie had arranged with a photographer friend to meet there at lunchtime on the Saturday, with a view to assessing its suitability as a fashion shoot location. She okayed it with Linc on Thursday evening when he invited her, Crispin and Nikki to his flat for a meal.

  He'd told his guests eight o'clock, but just after seven, when he was still wrapped in a towel after a quick shower, there came a knock at the door of his apartment. He opened it to find Josie standing on the landing, clutching a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers in cellophane.

  'Please say you're early and I'm not an hour out,' he pleaded, kissing her nevertheless.

  'I thought you could probably do with a hand. I know how late you've been working these last few days,' she said, holding out her offerings. 'These are for the table and this is for the icebox.'

  'Well, thank you. But it was supposed to be my treat, Jo Jo.'

  'I like cooking,' Josie replied. 'So it'll still be a treat.'

  'Okay. Well, make yourself at home while I go and make myself decent. Help yourself to coffee or tea or whatever. I won't be a minute.'

  By the time he'd pulled on some trousers and a clean shirt, and run a comb through his damp hair, he could hear voices and returned to the living room to find that Nikki and Crispin had also arrived, having had the same idea as Josie. The result of this was that eight o'clock found four people in Linc's not over-large kitchen, trying to prepare a pasta dish that mutated several times over the course of its creation as first one, then another of them, added a new ingredient.

  The mood was buoyant, bordering on juvenile at times, and by half-past eight, armed with bottles of wine, glasses, and plates piled high with what Crispin had christened Fusilli Chameleon, they made their way back into the living room to eat.

  'Hey, you don't seem to have got as much as the rest of us,' Crispin told Josie as they sat down to eat. 'I've got enough here to keep a small platoon marching for a week. You're not doing your share!'

  'No, this is really all I want,' she protested.

  'Jo Jo's been feeling a bit under the weather lately, haven't you, Josie?' Linc explained. He knew she'd seen the doctor about it and been diagnosed with some unspecified bug that was doing the rounds.

  'A bit,' she confessed. 'I just don't have much appetite at the moment.'

  'It should be Nikki that's off her food, but she's fit as a fiddle, aren't you, Niks?' Crispin declared.

  'Not everybody gets morning sickness,' Nikki pointed out. 'Mum says she didn't.'

  'My mum did, but only when she had Toby,' Josie remembered. 'She always swore it was because he was a boy. But, honestly, I'm okay really. It's just some bug I've picked up.'

  The meal was surprisingly good but extremely filling, and afterwards they sprawled on the leather sofas, drinking wine, chatting about anything and everything, and laughing a lot more than was strictly necessary.

  It was gone one o'clock and two rounds of sobering coffee had been made and drunk when Crispin and Nikki finally left.

  'It's a good job you haven't got to drive on the public highway,' Linc observed as he let them out. 'Go carefully, won't you?'

  Finally shutting the door behind them, he turned to Josie, who was sitting on the arm of the sofa, watching him.

  'So what about you, Missus?' he said, pulling her to her feet and into an embrace. 'Do you want me to call you a taxi? I suppose you'd better not drive, although I don't think you drank as much as the rest of us, did you? Are you sure you're okay? You do look a bit pale.'

  'I'm fine. Much better than I was. Whatever it is, I think we're all having it in rotation. Ruth started it, then me, and now Dad's got it. The doctor thinks we're probably all a bit stressed, but I guess that's not surprising, is it?'

  'No, I suppose not,' Linc murmured into her sweet-smelling hair.

  'I know I am. What with the worry about Abby . . .'

  'Well, at least she's on the mend now.'

  'And you trying to kill yourself every five minutes . . .'

  'Sorry about that. I'll try not to let it happen again.'

  'And, of course, receiving death threats doesn't help one's peace of mind . . .'

  'I'm sorry, are you really worrying about that?' Linc asked, remembering the latest note for the first time in days. He pulled back to look at her. 'I'd almost forgotten about it. I should think it was most likely something to do with Judge, and with him safely gathered in, that'll be the end of it. So you're not to worry, you hear?'

  She bowed. 'Your wish is my command. By the way, have you said anything to Nikki and Crispin about us? I mean, about the engagement?'

  'No. I thought we said we wouldn't, for now.'

  'I know we did. It was just something Nikki said when we were out in the kitchen making coffee. Nothing specific, but I got the feeling that she might have guessed.'