The Decoy

by Florrie Palmer

  But get through the difficult lunch they did, reds and whites helping lull their angst. The absence of Francesca loomed large and they realised it was going to take a while for all of them to get used to it.

  “She was such a life force,” Jay kicked the conversation off. “Heronsford is so much the poorer for her loss.”

  “You’re so right there, so right. It will never be the same,” said Patrick.

  “But we cannot allow it to colour our view of the village,” said Eliza. “We will pick up again in time and we will have fun again,” she paused, “somehow.” Her expression did not endorse her words.

  “Time heals all,” said Katie.

  “Time will certainly not heal this. The reminder of Francesca’s terrible end stands in the village for all to see whenever they go that way out of the village.”

  Taken aback by Jay’s abrupt tone, Katie’s eyes teared up, but she managed to stop herself crying.

  Since Francesca’s death and a disappointingly small order from the large chain store, Jay’s demeanour had once again become tense and now a kind of cynicism and anger had replaced his earlier despondency.

  Hamish caught Eliza’s eye and for a moment they were united in mutual annoyance with Jay for his crude rebuke, and at Katie for the innocuous platitude trotted out without thought. Eliza sometimes wished Jay possessed half the sensitivity Hamish had.

  At the end of the meal, while the women were waiting in the dry for the men to hail enough taxis for the entire party, Annie suddenly said, “I saw a man going into Francesca’s cottage that evening.”

  “My God, Mother! Why ever didn’t you say so earlier? Who was it and what time?” Eliza’s voice had risen.

  “It was late. I’d been supping with Pam and we’d sat up playing chess. I couldn’t say for certain who it was. I only saw the back of him. Francesca was welcoming him in.”

  “This puts a whole new slant on things, Mum. It means it’s highly likely poor Francesca was murdered. Did you tell the police?”

  “As it happens, I did, darling. But they found no sign of arson or any deliberate act. Francesca was found in her bed, remember.”

  “Well, now we know, she must have been murdered. There can be no doubt.”

  Stella looked dumbstruck.

  When the men returned, no-one said anything about what Annie had said but a new distrust hung over the group as the women spent the rest of the journey wondering about which man Annie had seen. Annie was fairly certain who it had been, but being a great believer in fairness, since she had not seen the face of Francesca’s visitor, she was not prepared to put anyone’s name forward.

  Hamish and Katie returned to Wood Farm feeling miserable. Katie Nicholson’s deepest need was to be surrounded by family and friends; her deepest fear loneliness. In spite of her bubbly demeanour, death always played on her uneasy mind more than it should and Francesca’s funeral brought this to the fore of it.

  Ever since her parents had died, as children often do, she had felt a kind of guilt that she had been in some way responsible, and had been haunted by their absence. Since then and following the loss of both her grandparents, she sometimes felt an irrational fear that everyone she loved died.

  The two recent deaths in the village had brought back the dread she had held in the pit of her stomach as a child. She became quietly terrified that she might now lose Hamish and more and more convinced that he was unhappy with her. The problem was that the more she felt like this, the more Hamish felt suffocated by her incessant new insecurity, jealousy of other women and nervousness that affected her usually relaxed attitude. To counteract this, she was drinking more and more, and her husband was beginning to think she was turning into a full-blown alcoholic.

  He knew that she had always felt this fear of losing those she loved, and he did his best to understand why. But Hamish had a relatively straightforward upbringing and a happy childhood, and sympathetic though he might have been, he struggled to comprehend Katie’s new nervousness. He could not begin to imagine why these deaths of friends could so affect his wife as to bring out this neediness in her. He carried on as best he could, but with things at the brewery going from bad to worse, and as the prospect of finding a new job locally grew dimmer by the day, he was finding life at Wood Farm becoming a strain.

  His son was rude and indifferent, his daughter in some world of her own, the house a mess and getting messier. But more than anything else, more often than not he would return from work to find Katie on the way to finishing a bottle of red wine.

  Annie’s preference for medium heels was gradually being replaced by the need for flatter ones as her back pain was becoming more constant. Without saying anything to anyone, in August she had made another appointment with Edward Gordon. This time he had asked whether she had weighed herself lately. Dismissing scales as a silly vanity, Annie had to agree that her appetite had not been what it usually was, but that she was certain the hot weather was to blame. Dr Gordon had asked her to stand on the large surgery scales.

  “This is quite unnecessary, Edward. I’m just not very hungry at the moment, but I’m sure once we get to autumn my appetite will pep up again.”

  The scales showed her at ten stone, three pounds. This was a drop from her usual ten and three-quarter stones. He prescribed a stronger painkiller for her back pain and asked her to make another appointment in a fortnight.

  Two weeks later, Annie had arrived at the village surgery for her follow-up appointment with the doctor. She had sat in the surgery waiting room flipping through an ancient, well-eared National Geographic magazine. After a time, Dr Gordon had popped his head round the waiting room door, “Anne Berkeley?”

  Annie had got up and walked stiffly after him into his consulting room. She had sat on a varnished beech chair with a plastic seat beside his desk.

  He had smiled. “Well, Annie, tell me how the back has been? Not too good by the look of it.”

  “To be honest, Edward, the pills don’t seem to be helping a lot. It just won’t go away, and I am getting a bit fed up with it.”

  “I’m sure you are.” He had consulted Annie’s notes on the screen in front of him.

  “Would you be able to lie down and allow me to have a feel of your tummy?” He had gestured at the examination table. “Just lift your blouse and undo the top of your trousers.”

  He had helped her climb onto the couch that was covered with a roll of white paper. She had lain down and lifted her bright blue tunic. Doctor Gordon had felt her stomach carefully, pressing it here and there to see whether she flinched or whether there was any swelling. He had then looked at her eyes through a scope with a light and said, “Annie, I am going to take some blood tests. Hope you’re not squeamish?”

  “I think you may be making more of this than necessary,” said Annie, “but I know you’re being thorough and covering for every possibility. And me squeamish?” She had happily rolled up her sleeve while he had found a suitable syringe.

  “Just clench your hand a few times and then relax.”

  The only good news the Armstrongs received in this dismal period was that Juliet had obtained good enough grades to get into Bristol University, where she would start in September. When Eliza and Jay spoke to her in Australia, she sounded elated. They didn’t tell her about Francesca’s death as they didn’t see the point in worrying her when she was clearly loving her time away.

  17

  23 September

  To her parents’ delight, Juliet returned from Australia. She was due to start at Bristol University the following week.

  Eliza knew she’d had her engagement ring on at supper. She was certain she had left it in the old teacup on the windowsill above the kitchen sink as she always did when washing-up.

  They had invited Patrick and Sinead on the Sunday. All the family had been present including Juliet, who, as Holly pointed out, had been incredibly lucky to have escaped what had turned out to be the most awful Heronsford summer ever.

  Everyone h
ad helped load the dishwasher and bring the plates and cutlery from the table. After Patrick and Sinead had left at about 10.15pm and Eliza had finished up the pots and pans in the sink, she reached for the cup and felt for her engagement ring. It was missing.

  The tragic deaths of the two young women hung over the village like a shroud that affected everyone. Gossip was rife.

  More than anyone, Sinead was badly disturbed. The intermittent nightmares she had suffered following the death of her mother had increased to a terrifying nightly occurrence. The child looked thin, drawn and miserable, and Patrick was at his wit’s end to know how to help her.

  Although they were now living in Cambridge, they were still officially resident in Heronsford, so they went to see Dr Gordon. He suggested they should both see a grief counsellor, but Patrick decided against the idea as he felt he was beginning to deal with the death himself.

  For Sinead he thought it could be a great benefit and she started regularly seeing a woman in Cambridge once a week to talk over the tragedy of losing her mother. Now she had a double grief to deal with and was a mixed-up, confused child who was often sick, sometimes unable to eat and altogether in a bad way.

  On top of this, the poor child had to deal with starting at a new school, but Holly was being a staunch friend and as understanding as she could be. Eliza still invited Sinead to stay often, a simple arrangement as she picked Holly up from the station daily and Sinead simply came with her on the train.

  Juliet had so much stuff to take with her to university that Eliza drove her down to Bristol, the car filled to the gunnels. It took her quite a while to help her get her things set up in her digs and she decided to stay the night at a cheap hotel. There was no Jay to worry about as he had gone on Bob’s annual trip to Scotland.

  The wide salmon-rich River Tay borders the park of Scone Palace. Here, large numbers of Atlantic salmon migrate from the Norwegian Sea or the waters around Greenland on their migration to lay their eggs in their own birthplace in the gravel on the bottom of the cold fresh water river.

  Every year Bob McKenzie booked eight bedrooms for ten days. Jay and Hamish were generally two of the all-male company. The men were a mixture of friends of Bob’s and businessmen involved in estate management or agencies that Bob was either negotiating with for mergers, takeovers or with whom he had some monetary reason to flirt.

  Usually each man paid for his hotel room while Bob paid the flights and the extras involved such as days shooting, stalking and fishing, none of which were cheap. This year, to Jay’s embarrassment, Bob had insisted on paying for everything. Hamish had paid for his hotel room, but they still felt in debt to Bob for the largesse he lavished on them.

  On Friday, 14 September, the eight men took a plane from Stansted Airport to Edinburgh. When they arrived, Bob had hired three Land Rovers to drive up to Scone. The party would keep these for use during their stay. Some days some of the men would fly fish from boats with outboard motors, others would spin from the shore while the rest who had certificates to prove they were capable shots, would stalk deer or drive up to Forneth Moor to shoot grouse where Bob had paid for four days’ shooting.

  When in Scotland, Bob loved to flaunt his surname as though it would somehow give him some exclusive advantage. In fact, the few remaining drops of Scottish blood in his heritage had long become so diluted to be meaningless.

  Hamish, as his name suggests, was a true Scotsman who had been born in Stirlingshire. Most of his childhood had been spent out of doors and he had been imbued with a love for the countryside. He felt very at home here and was glad to get away from the chaos of home and his lacklustre employers. He enjoyed the company of men and found Bob funny, willing to try new things, extremely generous and good company.

  Jay did too, but found it much harder being, as he quietly told Hamish, in the man’s debt. The reality was that part of him secretly disliked Bob. The only person who knew it was Eliza, who understood the root cause of his antipathy to the man. Jay would never have admitted it and may not have even known himself, but he was in fact jealous of Bob. It annoyed him that Bob didn’t “get” that other men don’t always enjoy being helped and paid for by another.

  Jay didn’t like activities that he declined to call “sports” as he disliked the thought of killing animals for the sake of killing. He could not reconcile himself to the idea of setting out to deliberately kill what he considered harmless prey.

  He did not extend these feelings towards fish though and was mad about fishing, which he did every day during the stay. Some days in the mornings or afternoons while the others were shooting or deer stalking, he would drive up to the peaks in the north of Perthshire and take long hikes across the hills. He enjoyed these solitary hours, walking on beautiful, remote mountains, and felt freer than he had for some time. Although he loved his family, recently he had felt hemmed in, trapped. If he had only realised it, he would have understood that these feelings were a reaction to the nervous tension he had experienced recently.

  On Monday morning, sluggish fleecy clouds barely moved in a pallid sky and the day was unusually still. No breeze ruffled the grasses and heathers on the hills. September is a wet month in Scotland, and they had all come prepared for the worst. The men were grateful for today’s break in the weather since, in spite of their waterproofs, waxed jackets and Barbour hats, they’d had to admit the previous two days’ fishing had been a bit spoilt by the rain that had fallen steadily most of the time.

  They all had a huge early breakfast that started with porridge followed by an egg, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, black pudding, bacon, a potato scone and toast. Some went shooting, others fishing. Clad in warm camouflage jackets, khaki trousers and heavy waterproof hiking boots, Bob, Hamish and a partner of an estate management agency that Bob had his eye on to take over, drove one of the Land Rovers to take part in a grouse shoot.

  That day Jay decided to walk in the morning and fish later. He drove one of the Land Rovers west for about fifty minutes until he came to a loch. Remote, the place was deserted when he parked up and set off to walk a series of wild hills and crags high above sea level.

  For about two hours, he walked along a track beside the entire length of the water. He turned right to walk up toward a high bleak hill. Passing through pine trees, the scent pervaded his senses. Stopping occasionally to take photographs with his smartphone, he forded a couple of burns with small waterfalls. Every so often he would pause to take a few breathers along the way and to look down at the great views back down the loch. As he climbed higher, his pace slowed and when he got three quarters of the way up, he stopped. Sitting down on a fallen pine, he caught his breath. He pulled an apple from his pocket. Crunching on it was the only sound he could hear.

  Conscious of the strong air and the solitude, he stared down at the steel sheet of water below. There was something about the scene that, for a reason, he could not explain to himself, he found unnerving.

  He sat as still as the landscape until, cutting through the silence, a large bird flew into his view, flying slowly at a moderate height over the loch’s surface. Jay’s heart raced.

  The closer it got, the larger it seemed, its wingspan measuring almost two metres. He could not quite believe what he was witnessing. Its outspread wings tipped at their ends like a woman’s open hand with bony fingers and sharp fingernails. Its tail feathers were equally distinctly spread. The spectacular black, white and grey bird was something he had never seen before. It wasn’t an eagle, but its size was similar to one.

  He watched with fascination as the bird slowed to a hover, arced its wings before half folding them and tipped its body forward to become an arrowhead travelling fast at the water. As it neared the loch, it swung forward its powerful legs with their massive talons into a perfectly choreographed position before hitting. There was a huge splash as it struck, went half under the water and came out, a big fish struggling in its fatal grip.

  For a moment, the great bird looked like the angel of death, its w
ings raised high in the air before it regained momentum, lifted off and heaved the flailing pike out of the water. It flew up and away over the top of the hill, the fish still flapping.

  Too mesmerised to remember to take photographs, Jay guessed it was an osprey that, with man’s help, were re-establishing themselves in Scotland. He decided that later he would check them out on his computer.

  Soundless again, the water gradually stilled. As Jay watched the decreasing traces of circles spread gently out from the spot where the bird had fished, he gaped in amazement as something slowly emerged from within them. Gradually breaking the surface of the grey water, a head appeared with long strands of red hair drifting like seaweed around it in the water. A body emerged after it. The figure was face up. Horrified, Jay turned his head away. Rubbing his shocked eyes, he blinked hard a few times. When he turned back to look again, it had gone. He got up and walked back down the hill, peering at the place on the loch all the while. The body had gone but the image would not leave his mind.

  Desperate, he walked back to the Land Rover with the picture of a dead female that refused to leave his thoughts. Coming through the pinewood beyond which lay the car park, he glimpsed a flash of orange and heard the roar of an engine that made his neck prickle.

  Someone was coming into the car park. He hoped they wouldn’t be sitting in their car enjoying the view because he desperately craved a bit of privacy in the shelter of Bob’s anonymous hired Land Rover.

  And sure enough, there was a Ford Mustang parked up. He’d have known that engine noise anywhere. A man was squatting by the side of it looking a bit ticked off. “Ah, mate, you haven’t got a jack, have you? Tyre’s flat and I can’t seem to make ours work–”