Christmas Stalkings

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “You still here?” she snapped. “You earn your money easy, don’t you?”

  “You’ll need to discuss that with your husband, ma’am,” he replied.

  “Yes, I will. Just keep out of my way, will you? I like a bit of privacy when I’m walking around my own land.”

  And she’d stood and glowered at him till he retreated out of sight.

  He returned to the Barn, where Whitey was lying stretched out in front of the log fire. The cat had taken to the life even more thoroughly than Sixsmith.

  “Whitey, my boy,” said Sixsmith, “enjoy yourself while you can. I reckon our time here is going to be cut short when that angry lady talks to her man. I think she thinks we’re here to chase after other things than deer, and maybe that’s what her man thinks too. What do you think?”

  Whitey yawned, licked a paw in a desultory fashion and turned over to singe his other side.

  That night as he returned from the pub full of beer, he made up his mind that he’d see Nettleton in the morning and tell him he was cutting loose. But he still felt guilty at a job undone.

  Guilt and beer are a dangerous combination, he realized later.

  He was just about to turn off the main drive toward the Barn when he saw it, through the trees of the woodland behind the Hall, fragmented by their thick-crowding skeletal arms but unmistakably there: a distant bright light, probably halfway up the fellside.

  It could only be lampers.

  First off, he did the sensible thing and drove up to the Hall to get Nettleton to ring the police. But the building was in darkness and there was no response to his ringing. And now the beer/guilt stupidity began.

  Instead of going to bed, he opened the boot of the car, pulled on the oversized gum boots, took his torch out of the glove compartment, and set out into the wood.

  At first all went well. He was familiar enough with the paths, and there was sufficient light from his torch to keep him right. He glimpsed the light on the fell only intermittently, but that didn’t matter. Onward and upward must bring him within striking distance of his goal.

  It was as he clambered over the drystone wall which separated the wood from the bare fellside that the first doubts began to struggle through, but he thrust them back down. There was an animal in danger up there, and he’d been paid to prevent such slaughter.

  He pressed on. The lampers’ light had vanished completely now. In fact, just about everything had vanished. He realized why as the belt of solid rain rolling down the fell hit him. And as if that weren’t enough, what had hitherto been a rather still night suddenly exploded in a raging gale which almost drove him off his feet and filled his ears with the roar of pounding surf.

  Beer and guilt were instantly washed away. Time for bed and cocoa. So he was blind and deaf? It didn’t matter. All he had to do was head downhill.

  Which was what he started to do. Till he realized the ground was rising again.

  Easy to deal with, just change direction till you’re going down once more. Except that after a little while, he was climbing again 1

  Now he recalled that the apparent smooth rise of the fell was deceptive. It was full of hollows, not to mention steep and stony gills. One foot caught in a clump of heather and he nearly fell. The other foot stubbed against a solid rock and he did fall. He lay winded for a while, then rose, moved slowly forward once more, took one step, two steps, and added one more shriek to the shrieks in the wind as his left leg touched the ground and kept going till he felt an ooze of ice-cold bog over his gum-boot top. He eased his foot up. It came out minus the boot. It took all his strength to pull the gum boot free. How the hell could you have a bog like this on a slope like this? Surely the water should all drain away?

  His geological musings were interrupted by the eruption of a huge shape right in front of him with a terrible roar. He fell back into the bog he’d just escaped from and lay completely open to attack. But all his staring eyes showed him was a white rump vanishing into the mist.

  He’d disturbed a deer! Even his townie’s mind was telling him now that this was no night for lamping. The only animal in danger on this fell was a half-wit called Joe Sixsmith ...

  He realized he’d lost his torch, probably sucked down into the bog. Simplest thing to do was sit fast and wait for dawn. Only, as he felt the cold seeping through to his bones, he knew he just didn’t have the time.

  So off he set once more, this time on all fours, crawling like an awkward injured animal, desperate for sanctuary.

  And it was now that the tempers’ light hit him.

  Hit was no metaphor. Out of the dark it came like a solid bolt of whiteness that jerked his head back with the force of its impact, leaving him dizzy as well as blind. It held him pinned there, his mind desperate for flight, his limbs unable to move. He was totally at their mercy. They could send the dogs in to tear out his throat, or come strolling in themselves with ax and knife to rip the life out of him.

  “Don’t move!” yelled a voice above the wind. “Stay quite still.”

  He would have laughed if there had been any strength to laugh with. Why waste breath telling a rock not to move, a tree to stand still?

  They were coming for him now. He couldn’t see them but he could sense their approach, closer and closer, till they were alongside him and he felt their hands on his arm.

  “Christ, lad,” said an anxious voice. “You’re a hard bugger to see in the dark! What the hell are you playing at, wandering around up here at this time of night?

  And the torch beam moved aside so that its refracted light showed him Charley’s troubled face, and showed him also the steep and rocky gully which another yard of crawling would have plunged him into.

  “You left your wallet in the pub,” said Charley as they sat in the cozy living room of the Barn, drinking Scotch. “I thought I’d better drop it by on my way home. I saw your car outside the Hall but no sign of you. Then I thought I saw a torchlight high up in the woods, so I went after you. What the hell were you playing at, Joe?”

  “Didn’t you see the other light up on the fell? The lampers’ light?”

  “Lampers? On a night like this? No way! All I saw was . . .”

  Charley began to laugh.

  “What’s up?” demanded Joe, piqued.

  “Don’t you buggers down south ever see the moon then?”

  “The moon? Don’t muck about! Of course we see the moon. Big round thing up in the sky. This was low on the fell. And it wasn’t round . . .”

  “I saw it too! It were just rising over the fell and it was all broken up by the branches of the trees and the cloud blowing across it. You silly bugger. You’ve been chasing the moon!”

  Sixsmith took another pull at his drink. Whitey strolled in to see what all the fuss was about and rubbed against him with all the soothing sympathy of one who fails to see anything so foolish in pursuing the moon.

  Still, thought Sixsmith, his luck had held. Perhaps serendipity could mean having a knack for losing things luckily too.

  He said, “Just as well I left my wallet. I owe you, Charley.”

  “Yes, aye. Your wallet,” said the Cumbrian significantly. “I took a look inside to see whose it was. I saw that card thing. Why’d you not let on you were a ‘tec?”

  “I’m sorry, Charley, but at first I didn’t know you, did I? And once we’d become friendly, I didn’t want you to think I’d just been trying to pump you. I mean, I was to start with, but after that, well, I just started enjoying myself. You’re not offended?”

  “Offended with a man who goes chasing the moon? Don’t be daft! But you are here on a case, are you?”

  He’s just fascinated, thought Sixsmith. It’s all this television!

  He said, “Yes. That’s why I went up the fell.”

  After he’d explained, Charley shook his head and said, “Lamping? Doesn’t sound like a job for a private eye to me.”

  “Nor me either. What I think is, Nettleton suspects his wife’s having a fling with some
one, and he wants me to check it out without actually asking me!”

  “That’s a bit round the houses. Mind you, he’s right, isn’t he?”

  He looked at Sixsmith expectantly.

  “So I gather. Randy Andy, isn’t it? Keep it in the family.”

  “Hey, you really are a detective,” said Charley, delighted. “How did you figure it out?”

  “His car came up to the Hall the night I arrived, when Nettleton was stuck in Manchester. And it didn’t leave till morning. Also, Mrs. Nettleton got very edgy about having me around the place. She obviously thought he was on to her. How about you? How did you find out?”

  “Oh, nothing so clever as that,” said Charley. “Eddie Stamp came across them up the fell this back end, her with her legs wrapped round his neck.”

  “It was Eddie scratched the antlers on Nettleton’s car that night, wasn’t it? Only they weren’t antlers, they were cuckold’s horns.”

  “I expect so. A right gypsy trick. He’d not have done it if I’d been by, but to be fair to Eddie, Nettleton’s been bloody high-handed with him in the past. So what do you do now, Joe? Tell him, or what?”

  “I got hired to catch some lampers and I nearly got killed trying to do it,” said Sixsmith. “I’d say I’d earned my fee.”

  The door opened. Nettleton stood there. His face was flushed with drink. Or something.

  “Oh I’m sorry,” he said. “It was just that we found your car up at the Hall when we got home and I wondered if there was anything wrong.”

  “No, everything’s fine, Mr. Nettleton,” said Six-smith.

  Charley got up and made for the door.

  “Will I see you before you go back, Joe?” he asked.

  “I’ll make sure you do. Thanks again, mate.”

  Nettleton didn’t say anything till the door closed behind Charley.

  “Go?” he said. “You’re planning to leave?”

  “There’s only a couple of days till Christmas,” said Sixsmith. “You won’t want me around when your guests start arriving. Anyway, I think I’ve done all I can here.”

  “You think so? Not been very much, has it?”

  The man didn’t speak on a particularly complaining note, but in a way his indifference was more biting than a sneer.

  “Depends how you look at it, Mr. Nettleton,” snapped Sixsmith. “Maybe if you’d told me the real reason why you wanted me up here, I could have done more.”

  He was regretting saying it even before he’d finished, but Nettleton’s expression showed him the shaft had struck home.

  “What do you mean, the real reason?” he demanded with unconvincing bluster.

  “Look. I’m sorry. Forget it Makes no difference. My rates are the same for domestics.”

  “Domestics?” said Nettleton. “You mean servants?”

  Funny bugger. Who the hell did he think he was?

  “No. I mean husband-and-wife cases, keyhole-camera stuff. Like I say, I’m sorry, but I do have a right to know what I’m into . . .”

  He saw that his concern was unnecessary. Nettleton was smiling. It was a genuine, unforced smile. A smug, self-satisfied smile. A totally incomprehensible smile.

  “You know, Mr. Sixsmith,” he said. “I really think you have been a waste of money, but you’ll get paid, never fear. Send me your bill. And in case I don’t see you again, a very merry Christmas.”

  He went out, laughing. He didn’t sound like Santa Claus.

  Sixsmith took his whiskey to bed and lay there looking up at the light and talking to Whitey, who was in his usual position on die duvet

  “That’s a very funny man, Whitey,” he said. “Gets me up here on pretense of catching some deer tampers, only he don’t really give a damn about the deer, so what he really wants maybe is I should check out his cheating wife, only it seems he don’t give a damn about her either. In which case, Whitey, what the hell is going on? Why does he really want me up here? Why, Whitey? Why?”

  The only answer was a gentle snore. Sighing, he reached up and pulled on the cord that switched off the light.

  It was as if his mind had been pinned helpless, running meaningless circles around its dazzling corona, for now, as the dark rushed in, he suddenly saw everything plain.

  He’d been asking the wrong questions, not: Why does he really want me up here? but: Why doesn’t he want me down there?

  Antony Nettleton came out of his office, locking the door carefully behind him. He was the very last to leave and it wouldn’t be opened again till the New Year. It was Christmas Eve. Tonight he would be driving up to Cumberland with his family to join his brother for a good old-fashioned English country Christmas. It was a prospect which filled him with genuine pleasure. He loved this time of year. “The holly and the ivy,” he whistled as he walked down the dimly lit corridor . . . “The holly bears the crown . . . The rising of the sun, And the running of the deer . . .”

  Suddenly the corridor light went off, plunging him in total darkness.

  “What the hell . . . ?” he cried.

  It only lasted a split second. Out of the dark came light, no dim strip this but a dazzling beam, blinding him more than the darkness.

  He held his hand up before his face, but it was no use, he could see nothing. Then the whispering started.

  “Hi there, Mr. Nettleton. Mr. Antony Nettleton. Tony. Got a message for you from brother Ambrose. Message is, it didn’t work out. Your trouble was, you tried to fix something that was never really broken, all because Miss Negus told you that this guy she’d hired to look into her little bit of bother had a reputation for finding more than he was looking for.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Who is this?” he demanded.

  “Two years Miss Negus has been having her worries. Three years since you became a coordinator of the United Appeal Fund for those occasions like Christmas when all the charities pull together and share out proportionately. One year to check it was possible, then straight in. It was a great idea, Tony. Ten percent creamed off across the board, all receipts to you, all accounts through your firm. If only you’d stuck to the biggies, Tony, the ones whose computers talk to your computers. Computers don’t get nosy. But you had to include Miss Negus’s little outfit too, and she works with an abacus. She smelled something wrong and told you she smelled it, because she never dreamed it could have anything to do with the United Appeal Fund, specially not when it was run by little Tony Nettleton, who’d once been in her class. Now I’m sure SPADA’s income would be right up to the mark from now on in, but this year you thought it best to get rid of this dumb private dick till the big Christmas haul was done. So when Ambrose comes visiting and tells you about his lampers, you say, ‘Hey, brother, do me a favor, get this black boy out of my hair, hire him to look into it’ Mistake, man. All the black boy was doing was catching cold watching old ladies with collecting boxes.”

  “Is that you, Sixsmith? It is you, isn’t it? What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

  “They call it lamping, man. You’re fixed there, can’t move, can’t think, can hardly breathe. There you stay till the lurchers come and finish you off Can you hear the lurchers, Tony?”

  “What do you want? Switch that thing off and let’s talk!”

  “Talk? What about, Tony? About charity? About Christmas? About the time of gifts? How generous are you feeling, Tony? Let’s hear some figures.”

  Nettleton let out a sigh, almost of relief.

  “I knew we could talk,” he said. “What do you want? A thousand? A percentage? I’ve got the figures here. Let’s sit down and look at them. Only, for God’s sake, switch off the bloody light!”

  “Okay, Tony, if that’s what you want”

  The beam died. The ceiling light came back on.

  There were five figures standing there, not the one Nettleton expected. Two of them were in uniform. A third, in a gray suit, snapped his fingers and said, “Fetch him,” as if sending in a pair of collies. The two constables advanced. One to
ok his arm, the other removed his briefcase from his nerveless fingers. Then they led him away.

  As he passed the two remaining figures, he said in a small child’s voice, “Sorry, Miss Negus.” He didn’t even look at Joe Sixsmith.

  “I was so wrong about him,” said the woman as they went out into the street. “My nose must be failing.”

  Above the buildings a bright moon was shining. Sixsmith looked up at it and smiled.

  “They say Scotch is good for a failing nose, Miss Negus. There’s a nice pub round the corner.”

  “Why not?” she said. “I was, after all, right about you.”

  In the pub they were singing carols. “The Holly and the Ivy.”

  “But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, he looked so utterly helpless in that light. Do they really catch deer that way? How vile.”

  “The rising of the sun, And the running of the deer ...”

  “Yes. Vile for a deer,” agreed Joe Sixsmith.

  But just about right for a rat.

  ELIZABETH PETERS - LIZ PETERS, PI

  Tough female detectives have been hitting the headlines lately, and they don’t come any tougher than Liz Peters, PI. She’s the spiciest Christmas cookie you’ll meet this season: smart as Grey Poupon mustard, quick as a tigress, and twice as mean to tangle with . . . but maybe with a bit of pussycat underneath?

  You may have previously met this versatile writer under one of her other personae: as Barbara Mertz, Ph.D., whose works on Egyptology have become standard classics; as Barbara Michaels, best-selling author of expertly crafted suspense novels; or as Elizabeth Peters, whose eruditely hilarious traditional mysteries have put more zing into history than Cleopatra ever dared to. Yes, she does love chocolate, cats, dogs, kids, and antique hatpins, not necessarily in that order. Yes, she’s a feisty lady who’s ready to fight for what she believes in. No, she’s not taking on any private-eye work at this time . . . pity, but not even a Grand Master can do everything at once.

  I did not have a hangover. Those rumors about me aren’t true; they are spread by people who are jealous of my ability to handle the hard stuff. The truth is, I can polish off three giant-sized Hershey bars before bedtime and wake clear-eyed as a baby.