Brakes screeched, tyres seared along the wet road. The car swerved to the side and stopped on my right, with about three feet to spare. Almost as it rocked to a halt, the door crashed open and a man’s voice, unsteady with shock, demanded furiously,
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
Still marvelling that I was alive, I felt myself caught roughly by the arms and pulled upright. But my legs were no longer capable of support and I promptly sagged again.
“Are you hurt?” The fury died out of the man’s voice. “I didn’t touch you, did I? What happened?” Strong arms lifted me as if I were a child and I was carried back to the car and gently set down in the passenger seat.
“Great heavens, girl, you look all in! What on earth are you doing in this deserted place on a night like this?”
I struggled to control my voice. “Please – will you – take me to – the nearest phone-box – or police station?”
He looked down at me frowningly. “Did someone attack you?”
I shook my head. “I just – ran away. Please!”
He considered for a moment. Then he said briskly, “All right. You’re the boss.” He slammed the door, went round to the driver’s side and got in next to me.
I leant back against the leather, luxuriating in being still, letting the pounding of my heart gradually lessen. “Please – hurry!”
He switched on the ignition. “I hope you appreciate that you’ve knocked at least ten years off my life!”
“I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t see me.”
“You can thank God I did – and in time.”
“I do,” I said sincerely.
“But where did you spring from? Surely there’s nothing within miles except a ruined castle?”
“No.”
“Well?” he prompted, when I did not go on. “Where have you been and what happened to you?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, it’s a long story and I haven’t any breath to spare. Do you know if there’s a phone-box along here?”
“There could be; failing that, there are the motorway services. Where are you aiming for?”
“Just the nearest phone.” I couldn’t think beyond that.
“When you’ll miraculously have recovered enough to speak?”
“I’m sorry,” I said contritely. He had, after all, come to my rescue, and been given quite a fright into the bargain. He deserved an explanation.
“It’s an involved story and I don’t really expect you to believe it, but the gist of it is that some priceless works of art are hidden in that castle. They’re being removed tonight and taken to Swansea, from where they’ll be shipped out of the country.”
“And 007 entrusted you with the vital task of getting reinforcements?”
I said tiredly, “I said you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Ah,” he said quietly, “but you see, I do. I believe every word.”
Slowly my eyes opened. I turned my head to look at him, registering for the first time how good-looking he was. “You do?”
“Certainly; I grew up hereabouts and know all the traditional hiding-places.”
“I don’t know if it’s traditional,” I said doubtfully. Then I sat quickly forward. “Look – isn’t that a phone-box? Oh, thank God!” I looked at him quickly. He was smiling, his eyes on the road ahead.
“There’s a phone-box!” I repeated, my voice rising in agitation. “Stop! Oh please, please!” I caught recklessly at his arm, but it might have been made of steel. The speed of the car didn’t slacken. In a moment the little cube of light was lost in the darkness behind us.
I was close to tears. “Why did you do that? Where are we going?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said.
Too late, I remembered all I had read about girls who accepted lifts from strangers on lonely roads at night. I was a fool, a criminally stupid fool! My head had been so stuffed full of buried treasure and Philip’s dependence on me that I’d ignored the most basic warnings that had been drummed into me from childhood.
Anger at myself steadied me a little. I asked bitingly, “Do you make a habit of this?”
“Only when a girl hurls herself under my wheels. And even then, only when she proves a nuisance.”
“A nuisance?”
“Didn’t it occur to you, my pretty one, to wonder why I was on this road myself at this particular time of night?”
I said slowly, “It’s a main road.”
“True. And to prove your point, there’s another car behind us.”
I spun round. Twin gold stars shimmered among the raindrops on the back window. Morgan already! I was too late!
“We’ve got to stop them!” I cried urgently.
He laughed. “Calm yourself; it’s not your precious getaway car, but whoever it is, we’ll soon lose them.” And his foot went down on the accelerator.
In the wing mirror, I saw the lights dwindle into the distance. “How do you know it’s not them?” I asked uneasily.
Then, all at once, I knew. And I also knew why he had so providently happened to come along. I stared at him, my eyes widening in panic.
“Sit back, there’s a good girl,” said Bryn genially, “and I’ll tell you the whole story. We’ve plenty of time.”
Chapter Fifteen
‘Matrimonial devotion
Doesn’t seem to suit her notion …’
Gilbert: The Mikado
IF THEY find out, they’ll kill you. Well, they had found out; it wasn’t likely I’d be able to fool Bryn. As though reading my thoughts, he said conversationally, “You’re Clare Laurie, aren’t you?”
There was no point in denying it. “How do you know?”
“Carol phoned last night – I’d collected her from hospital and we drove up together. I hadn’t planned to come, but her car was out of action and in any case she wasn’t fit to drive; they’d wanted to keep her in another day.”
I felt him glance at me.
“But I was aware of you, if not your name, before that – since Friday, in fact, when I phoned Plas Dinas to speak to her, and was told she’d already left. I did wonder, later, who’d received my message, but I certainly never dreamed Morgan would think you were Goldilocks.
“I suppose, in true cloak-and-dagger fashion, I should have provided passwords, but it hadn’t seemed necessary. Carol and Philip should have met at the Plas Dinas – where they could hardly have mistaken each other – and when they arrived together at Carreg Coed, it would have been clear who they were.”
The lights of a car coming towards us blossomed through the rain. I wondered, without hope, if I could do anything to attract their attention, but they passed with a swoosh and we were alone again in the rain-filled darkness. Bryn continued:
“But as soon as she arrived, it was clear something was wrong. First there was a note from Philip, telling her to act as though they didn’t know each other, instead of as lovers as arranged. Then, later,” (in the television lounge, I thought) “he spun her some story about you receiving my letter and the brochure, and simply throwing them away.
“Well, you must admit that took a bit of swallowing – only natural for you to have shown some curiosity. So we guessed you’d found out too much, and because he knew you, he was trying to protect you.”
My worst fears were realised; by trying to save me, Philip had become suspect, and unless I could get help in the next few minutes, he’d have to take them all on single-handed.
“Morgan had obviously loused it up,” Bryn went on, “and Carol was set to tell him so at the first opportunity. But since you’re here, as large as life, it seems she didn’t get the chance.”
“Not until this evening,” I said.
“Ah. Well, we still weren’t done with misunderstandings, because when I phoned to tell him this was D-Day, I asked if he’d sorted out ‘Goldilocks’, and he said yes, but she’d been out all day. I thought he meant with Philip at the castle.”
“So why are you here?” I asked accusingly. “I thought you were supposed to keep out of it?”
“Well, my lovely, there’ve been enough hitches to make me decidedly edgy; I needed to satisfy myself that all was going well. Lucky I did, wouldn’t you say?”
I doubt if he expected a reply. Surreptitiously I glanced in the wing mirror. The gold star-lights had dwindled in the distance, but they were still there, and since Bryn was trying to shake them off, they might well be a source of help.
“So what happened this evening?” he inquired with interest.
“Morgan took Philip and me to his room. Philip tried to say I didn’t know anything, but he wouldn’t believe him. Then Carol arrived.” I paused. “You know, Philip did honestly think I was Goldilocks at first.”
Bryn gave a snort of laughter. “Come on, Clare, you don’t seriously expect me to believe that! Not when he knew you from home.”
“But it was three months since I’d seen him. Anything could have happened in that time, and I had all the code names pat.”
“I knew it! So much for Little Miss Innocence! Even so, I’d told him I was sending Carol.”
“No, what you said was ‘one of your girls’.”
“Did I now? And you come into that category?”
“Philip thought so.”
He glanced at me briefly. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Then how come you haven’t seen him for three months?”
I didn’t reply.
“Ah, wait a minute, now. Three months – that would be the time he left the family business. Shock-horror all round. Ordered out of the house and – that’s right – his engagement broken off. By you, I presume?” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “Total rejection all round – I must say I felt for him. Reckoned he could use a friendly face, so I made contact. We’d got on well before, and it seemed the least I could do.”
That surprised me. “You already knew each other?” I’d assumed Philip’s connections with Bryn dated from after his fall from grace.
“Yes, we met a year or two ago, when he was on holiday here. Our stays overlapped at the Plas Dinas, and we spent a couple of days fishing together.”
Another car was rushing towards us, then it was past and vanishing in the distance. It struck me uneasily that we should have reached the motorway by now. Perhaps Bryn was avoiding it.
“We talked about our jobs, as you do,” he was continuing, “and I thought at the time that his contacts would have been useful. But that was as far as it got, because at that stage our Philip was an upright citizen, an insurance broker no less.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm.
“Still, even the mighty can fall. So when the news broke – shady dealings, dishonest handling, the lot – I got in touch, not, I admit, altogether altruistically, and offered him a job. And as I’d hoped, it paid off.” His voice dropped to scarcely above a whisper. “Or did it?”
Icy little needles pricked my spine. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Clare bach, that despite all the checks we carried out, I was never entirely sure of him. Which is why I went to such lengths to cover my tracks and confuse the issue with pseudonyms – though God knows, I finished by confusing the whole lot of us.”
At all costs he mustn’t be allowed to doubt Philip – not now. I said sharply, “He’s retrieving your precious paintings for you – isn’t that proof enough?”
“Not necessarily. You see, the shipment was arranged for tonight all along; telling everyone it was tomorrow was the final safeguard. But if it had been, what’s the betting the boys in blue would have been waiting for us?”
They might well have been, I thought.
“Am I right?” he prompted.
“Of course you’re not right; Philip’s in it up to his neck, as you well know.”
“Then,” Bryn continued, as though I hadn’t spoken, “when it was suddenly brought forward, he told you to run for help. Didn’t he?”
The last two words shot out, making me jump. “No,” I denied quickly, “that was entirely my own idea.”
“You’d have betrayed him to the police, when you say you love him?”
“He doesn’t want anything to do with me, he made that plain enough. He told me to – keep out of his way.” That, at least, was true, and my voice broke most convincingly.
“And hell hath no fury?”
I said in a whisper, “What will you do with me?”
“I’ve been wondering. You’ve caused me endless trouble, you know. Just think – if you hadn’t appeared on the scene, Carol would have received my message – even if belatedly, Philip would have had hers, Morgan would have contacted them both, and all would have gone according to plan. Instead of which, thanks to you, there’s been an unholy mix-up. You agree I have a point?”
“I’m sorry,” I said ridiculously.
“No matter, we shall prevail, given a bit of luck. As to you, well, the obvious solution would be an accident.”
“Like Dick Harvey?” I asked out of a dry throat.
“The archaeologist? Yes, that was unfortunate – especially for him – but in the circumstances, Morgan had no choice. You had your suspicions, did you? I knew you were too sharp for your own good.”
Morgan. I remembered the notes which had arrived so opportunely and prevented him from going walking with me.
I said numbly, “But why was Dick found at Pen-y-Coed?”
“To divert attention from the castle, of course. Morgan guessed that was where he was headed and, by a few devious short cuts, managed to get ahead of him on the road.
“He then stopped and flagged Harvey down as he approached – pretending to be surprised it was him. Told him he was on his way to Pen-y-Coed to meet someone, but had developed a flat tyre. Harvey offered to run him over.”
I said tightly, “Which kindness Morgan repaid by pushing him off the cliff. After which, I suppose, he jogged back to where he’d left his car and returned to the hotel.”
“Precisely.”
It hadn’t been much of a risk, setting straight off after Dick, because I’d gone into the dining-room, and I was the only one who knew he was supposed to be working. He couldn’t have been long back when he knocked on my door and invited me for a drink. How gullible I’d been.
Another swift glance. “Look, it was hellish bad luck, the guy turning up at this juncture and jeopardising everything. In Morgan’s defence, he was quite shaken when he phoned to report it. Said he’d rather liked the fellow.”
“He’d recovered himself by lunch-time.”
Bryn brushed that aside. “Anyway, we were talking about you. You’ve got spunk, Clare Laurie, I’ll say that for you, and spunk is something I admire.”
I was still thinking of poor, kind Dick and his violent end, but a quality in Bryn’s soft voice reclaimed my attention.
“Added to which,” he went on, “I’ve always had a weakness for pretty girls, and you are pretty, aren’t you? I could tell that by the light of the headlamps, even when you were scared out of your wits.”
I moistened parched lips. “So?”
“So I offer you an alternative. More than you deserve, perhaps, but it seems such a waste to kill you.”
“And – what is the alternative?”
He was silent for a moment, and I turned to look at him. His mouth was twisted into a smile, as though at some secret joke.
“Marry me,” he said.
“Marry you?” My voice squeaked on a note of incredulity.
“It’s not such a ludicrous idea, you know. You’d be a valuable asset as a wife; your respectability would silence any whispers, and your uncle, as you’ll appreciate, would be a powerful ally. A charming man, I thought.” He smiled again, and even in this headlong flight, with all our futures dependent on the next half-hour, his voice took on a caressing note.
“Added to which, cariad, I should very much enjoy making love to you.”
H
e was mad – he must be! I closed my eyes on a wave of panic, but his next words proved there was, after all, method in that madness.
“There’s also, of course, the small point about a wife’s evidence being inadmissible. On the down side, Carol wouldn’t be too chuffed, but I’m sure we could accommodate her.
“So – the choice is yours. It’s a funny thing, you know: up to now, I’ve always been on the receiving end of proposals. This is the first I’ve made myself.”
“Thank you,” I said, since it seemed expected of me. In the mirror there was no longer any sign of the following car. Bryn’s foot was hard down and we continued to rush along like the night wind itself. I presumed we were heading for Swansea, though I’d seen no signposts; he obviously knew the way blindfold. The road was narrower now, and I hoped fearfully that we wouldn’t meet any oncoming traffic.
“Do I take it that’s an acceptance?”
“I have no choice.”
“On the contrary, as I explained.”
But the alternatives were equally unreal – Bryn’s wife, or a swift push off a cliff. Quite literally, the devil or the deep.
We flashed through the single street of a village. There were lights in the windows, and I realised with a sense of shock that it must still be only about eleven. Twelve hours ago, I’d been reading by the brook.
The ship sailed, Morgan had said, at midnight. They couldn’t be far behind. And what of the car in which I’d pinned so much hope? Just a family returning late, who had turned into their own drive?
Bryn jammed on the brakes and my seatbelt jerked me backwards, ricking my neck and knocking the breath out of me.
“Bloody hell!” He swerved up on to the grass bordering the road and skidded to a halt.
“What is it?” I asked, when I could speak.
“They’re ahead of us – didn’t you just see their lights go out? I never dreamed they’d use the short cut on a night like this. Quickly, get out!”
Dangerous Deception Page 16