In the Shadow of Winter

by Lorna Gray

  Both horses turned their heads to sniff at the strange blustery scene that had opened behind them and Beechnut whickered gently as I slipped past to unfasten the rope by her head. She was very sweet and quiet, and allowed me to shuffle her awkwardly backwards down the ramp until we were standing in the streaming rain. Then, with a stern command to ‘stand’, I looped the lead rope around her neck and climbed back inside to get the stallion. He had obviously travelled in the box before because the ramp presented no difficulties for him.

  I gathered the thick ropes in my hands and turned to thank the barman who had been waiting uncertainly to one side. I must have staggered because he started forwards only to jump back again as Beechnut tensed and put her ears flat back.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, love?” he asked after safely retreating to an even greater distance. “I could help, if you haven’t got far to go?”

  “No, no, I’m fine, thank you,” I said cheerily. “But I don’t suppose you’d mind putting up the ramp after I’ve got on?”

  He watched me curiously as I made reins from Beechnut’s rope and manoeuvred her into position next to the ramp. It took two attempts to leap from it onto her back but finally I was there and with my fingers knotted in her mane, the three of us turned away into the sodden embrace of the wind. I suppose I ought to have considered how sensible it was to lead a stallion from a mare’s back but I didn’t even think of it and it is a tribute to his exceptional manners that he took up his station by my knee as quietly as a lamb.

  “Thank you,” I called hoarsely over my shoulder as the man lifted the ramp and fastened it securely.

  “Any time,” he bellowed back. “Good luck!”

  Luck. We had gone far beyond that, I thought.

  The rain had actually stopped by the time we had slithered our way down on to my yard, although the storm was still building into great roof-rattling sighs. All the ponies were cosy in their stables and happily munching hay, and it didn’t take long for even a person in my state to bed the two horses down and give them their feeds. To my relief, the stallion went into my only spare stable as if he had been there his entire life and set himself to the proffered hay with gentle enthusiasm. With its pokey corners and low sloping roof, it was a far cry from the positively palatial stables at the Manor but it would have to do and with a last pat I turned my tired aching body towards the house and went in.

  I suppose I had never really quite come to terms with the idea that the kitchen would be empty; the ponies being in and fed had let my wearied brain believe that I would find them both there waiting for me as if I had only been away on a pleasure trip. But the kitchen was empty; dismally and hopelessly empty.

  I am sorry to say that instead of being overcome with despair and collapsing into a weeping heap, I went to the toilet, washed the grime from my face, drank some water and even found the patience to snatch a morsel of food. I suspect that to a brain already numbed by shock after all the horrors of the past few hours, a bit more was nothing.

  With automatic efficiency, I pulled on an old tatty coat and was surprised to find that the small amount of food I had managed to swallow had been enough to stop the trembling, and when I then spotted the note upon the table, I was actually able to read it quite calmly. It was in Matthew’s quick hand and simply read:

  Darling,

  If by some miracle things are not as they seem and you get to read this, please, please come and find us before I do something drastic. M.

  Clearly the trap had been sprung.

  Chapter 32

  Beechnut’s saddle was, of course, still at the Manor where presumably it had either been hidden or destroyed. I contemplated taking one of the ponies instead but I knew she was the only one I could trust to carry me at the speed I needed. Lifting the stiff leather of an old hunting saddle down from the rack, I grabbed a bridle and without so much as a nod towards logic or good sense, hurried outside into the swirling chaos once more.

  If Beechnut had shown any unwillingness to go out again, I would have taken the hint and gone on foot but her unsquashable nature meant that she greeted me with a cheery whicker and actually pricked her ears at the sight of the saddle. It only took a moment to sling her borrowed tack over her back and then I was scrambling on from the gate and turning her head in a flurry of windblown filth towards the village and away from home.

  I always remember that ride as taking place in the dreary darkness of night, but I think it was actually just turning to dusk under the steely blanket of a featureless sky as we trotted steadily along the road towards the village. There was no one about as we slithered past the church to the Manor and I ought I suppose to have been afraid of what would happen if I should burst in to find only John, but the danger never even occurred to me.

  The stables were in darkness as we slipped around to the front of the house. There, outside the door with a patina of twigs and matter resting on its roof, stood my car, waiting patiently where it had been abandoned. I leant down from the saddle to touch the metal of the bonnet. It was cold.

  I nudged Beechnut onwards to the back of the house where the Georgian wing looked out over the valley. This leeward side was quieter, almost still and unusually the whole house seemed to be in darkness except for a light somewhere upstairs in the attic. Now I felt the danger as I peered in through the empty windows of John’s office; I really didn’t want to have to go back in there.

  A sudden noise behind made me jump. It was the sort of noise a rabbit might make, or an injured animal, and already fearful, I twisted clumsily in the saddle towards it. There, in the gloom beneath the looming shadow of the house, I saw a booted foot snatch back under the cover of a bush and I had to stifle a cry. I knew those boots. My father’s wireless had paid for them.

  In a flash I was down from the saddle and pulling at the woody shrub. Freddy screamed a high girlish scream and tried to break away but I got a hand on his sleeve and called his name. It took two more calls before he would stop fighting with me and the bush but then suddenly he was in my arms and crying and hugging me with a fervour that took my breath away.

  It was like soothing a small child as we sat together in the wet, the dirt and the ruins of the shrub. He sobbed and gripped and it was a long while before I could get any sense from him at all but eventually he was able to stem the flow of tears enough to catch his breath, and, still hidden in my shoulder, managed between gulps in a very cracked voice to speak.

  “I thought you were dead,” he said. Then he gave a fragile wail and disintegrated again.

  I tightened my arms around him and rocked him gently. “I’m not dead, Freddy, darling, I’m fine, see? And I’m sorry that you had to go through that, but I’m here now.” I took a little breath. “Can you tell me what has happened? Where is Matthew?”

  “I don’t know.” The boy sobbed jerkily into my coat. “I got hit on the head and then I went all funny … and then I woke up under this bush and they’d gone.”

  I took a deeper breath and managed to stem the urge to panic. I wanted to beg Freddy to tell me quickly so that I could chase after them but I knew he shouldn’t be hurried. Gently, as if I had all the time in the world, I asked, “Can you tell me what happened before that?”

  Shakily, he found his voice. He began by describing the scene that Matthew had found when he had returned from his interview with the Inspector. This, as it turned out, had only occurred an hour or so earlier and I could picture Matthew perfectly as he parked the car and climbed out, utterly wearied and under police caution but cheerful and, most importantly, free, only to find Freddy going about his yard duties like a man possessed.

  “I was a little bit scared of him.” Freddy’s voice was nothing more than a whisper. “Only a little bit, but he looked so bleak and it got worse when he realised where I’d left you. I told him that I’d tried telephoning the Manor when you missed lunch but they said that you’d ridden off on your own.” His breath caught on a little hiccough. “The housekeeper told m
e that Langton had told you not to, that he’d said you shouldn’t because Beechnut was still playing up like she was when I left, but you’d been your usual self and insisted.”

  I noted his adoption of Matthew’s curt abbreviation of John’s name. “And what did Matthew say to that?”

  There was a pause, then: “I don’t think I should repeat it; it wasn’t very polite.”

  I actually smiled at that, although none of it was particularly funny. “Don't worry, I can guess. So then what happened?”

  “We got in the car and drove straight down here to confront him. The place looked deserted, all scary and empty, and Matthew said that it was almost certainly a trap but there were bigger things at stake and we really didn’t have any choice.”

  “He knew it was a trap? Why on earth didn’t he just call the police?” My voice cracked impossibly loudly in the sheltered garden and Freddy’s young hands clutched anxiously at my sleeve.

  “He did! He did call them! He called the Inspector straight away but the desk sergeant said he had just left on a case and wasn’t available, and anyway a person has to be missing for more than a couple of hours before they actually are missing. And then the policeman said that he’d had enough of rogue callers and he didn’t care who he thought he was, whether Matthew Croft, the Mayor of Gloucester or even the Pope; the Inspector was still out on a case and not available.” Freddy gave a fresh little shuddering gasp and then said, “So we cursed for a bit and then Matthew said we were going to look for you ourselves, trap or no trap, and anyway, he wasn’t afraid of anything Langton could do.”

  I kept silent and simply tightened my arms to hug Freddy closer. My cheek was pressing against his hair.

  “I think Langton must have been looking out through the back window because he whipped round when we burst into his study and dived towards his desk. We’d marched in through the front door, you see; I don’t think he was expecting that. I didn’t even realise that he had a gun there but Matthew did.”

  “Dear Lord,” I said, but Freddy didn’t hear.

  “I thought he was going to kill him,” Freddy whispered, “I really did. He looked like he could have done, but all he did was stand there, stand over him and demand to know where you were.”

  It may have been that Freddy’s telling of it was enough to make it all seem so vividly real before my eyes. Or perhaps, having had my own horrific experience in that very same room only hours before, it was simply that my imagination could supply the rest. But either way, I could picture the two men as clearly as if I had been there; one sent down abruptly into an uncomfortable pose of reluctant submission on a chair, the other standing over him and wearing his own personal brand of terrifyingly calm fury.

  Where is she?

  Matthew’s anger must have cut the air like a knife. And John’s replies must have been perfectly pitched at that level of wounded innocence that implied considerable patience and just the right amount of concern as he hastily explained away my recklessness. If Freddy was to be believed, he might even have been convincing. Until, that is, he added a claim that he and I had lately reached some kind of romantic understanding. And even then it might still have gone either way. Right up to the moment that Matthew found my necklace.

  “I failed him,” Freddy whimpered into my shoulder, “I should have warned him, I was supposed to warn him. I should have stopped them or something, but I just stood there and let them do it!”

  I tightened my arms again. “Oh, Freddy, darling.”

  “I was looking at Matthew and feeling very glad that he was on my side, because he looked so terrifying, and then all of a sudden the Colonel was there in the room with us with a shotgun in his hand. I thought he was going to shoot him!”

  “But he didn’t,” I said firmly, forcing myself to focus on my need for information and not my growing sense of dread.

  “No.” Freddy’s voice came out in a tiny frightened squeak. “Langton was just starting to look scared because he didn’t know what the chain was and thought you might have dropped it weeks ago, only Matthew said you didn’t have it weeks ago and the Colonel made a funny little noise; it was like a cat growling or something. Then he marched up to Matthew, turned the gun round and cracked him hard over the head with the butt. Matthew didn’t even have time to flinch.” The boy shuddered. I held him a little closer.

  “They stood there, leering down at him and patting each other on the back as if they’d just won a prize, then they grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet and away towards the door. I’d been as silent as a mouse until then, but I couldn’t let them take him, could I? I just couldn’t! So I jumped out.”

  “You went for them? Oh dear sweet heaven.”

  “I had to! They were hurting him, I know they were.” He took a breath and his voice was very wobbly. “But it didn’t do any good. The Colonel just cuffed me aside as if I was nothing and I fell into a sort of tangle and banged my head. Then he kicked me – not all that hard, I was in his way, I think – and I ended up behind a chair and just stayed there.”

  He paused and then added in a plaintive wail, “I failed him! They took him and I let them and it’s all my fault!”

  “Oh, Freddy, love.” I felt a fierce rush of care for my poor darling boy, “You couldn’t have stopped them. You really couldn’t. If you’d tried to do anything else, you would have been hurt! Matthew would never have wanted you to do that. No,” I said across his tearful protest. “You did exactly the right thing because you stayed here to tell me what happened and now you can help me.”

  “I can?” There was a faint lift of hope to his voice.

  “Yes, Freddy, you can.” I gave him a firm squeeze and then released him. “I’m going to go and find them. Did they say where they were going? No? Well, my guess is that they’ve taken him to Warren Barn given that’s where this all started – I need you to call the police and tell them where I’ve gone. Can you do that? Don’t let them fob you off, insist on speaking to the Inspector, tell them anything, tell them that the Inspector will have their guts for garters if you don’t get put through. Got that?”

  “Guts for garters,” Freddy repeated seriously through a sniff, concentrating hard.

  “And tell them to be quick,” I said and climbed stiffly to my feet. Beechnut hadn’t wandered far; she was happily pruning a decorative bush which I fervently hoped was not poisonous. “But first of all can you run and open that gate for me? Quickly now.”

  Clearly very much cheered, Freddy leapt up and dashed across the lawn. My own speed was equally vital if this was going to stand any chance of making a difference but I still made myself take a deep calming breath before approaching the horse. Keeping my actions fluid and steady so that she wouldn’t pick up the state of my nerves, I put my foot in the stirrup and prepared to pull myself up into the saddle. As it was, however, I needn’t have bothered trying to be calm; she knew full well that there was something afoot and was perfectly ready.

  She gave an eager toss of her head, wheeling about almost before I had got myself settled in the saddle and then we were careering off towards the gate in a great scattering of mud and gravel. I gave a shout of thanks to Freddy as he flashed past in a blur. Then I gave a hard check upon the rein to steady her and set the chestnut at the steep banks and down the snow-damaged slopes towards Washbrook.

  Chapter 33

  The turf was slick as we slipped and slithered our way downhill but Beechnut plunged on regardless. Night had descended in the time it had taken to extract the story from Freddy, although I had probably only been sitting with him for a few frantic minutes, and in the gloom the slope had become shadowed and extremely treacherous. But the horse was unstoppable as if she shared the urgency that lurked fearfully at the back of my mind and I had to trust to her good sense as I let her pick her own route down the steep incline. Vicious gusts clipped us as we dodged the hazardous humps of anthills before crashing noisily through some brambles but then suddenly we were down into the comparative shelter
of the level road and the shadow of the lower gateway was looming dully out of the darkness before us.

  Beechnut paused long enough to let me open it before veering wildly through and impatiently stamping while I kicked the gate shut again. Then we were off; wading through the fiercely swollen Washbrook, staggering a little in its raging current but plunging on regardless. The gate into the lower meadows was open and she charged at it with her hind legs bunching for a gallop before I had even decided on our route.

  I clung on like a burr as she sped across the flooding field, buffeted by wind and scared by her speed but doing nothing to check it. Barely able to see through eyes that were streaming, the sodden grassland flashed by in a featureless blur, but through the mist of wind-whipped tears, I suddenly became aware that we were not running alone. Grey against the seamless gloom, the fluid mass of a small herd of deer ran unexpectedly along with us like a bizarre extension of our shadow, and like a shadow they were entirely silent. I could hear nothing except for the steady thud of hoof-falls on saturated ground and Beechnut's rhythmic breathing, and the greyed figures of our companions were ghostlike as they floated alongside us across the wide gleaming surface.

  We left them behind at the next gate and I steadied her there so that her feet would not slip as we negotiated the sudden change from grass to uneven forest trackway.

  “Steady now, girl,” I murmured and she sweetly settled to a short bouncy canter as we picked our path through grossly swaying trees and between the stones that protruded from the running hill-wash. We splashed deep through the ford and swung hard right to follow the track that ran under the copse and would lead us round to the farm. It was peculiar to find myself returning to the same place that Matthew and I had fled from only a few days before but, ever brave, Beechnut stretched forwards again and accelerated up the incline to burst through a rotting gate and out onto the pasture fields that surrounded the farm.