The black Hunter

by Donnelly, Jane

  Maybe it was because she had once thought that her father was strong and that her life was safe, and then overnight there had been nothing left. Perhaps that made her unable to trust one man entirely again.

  Whatever the reason she wasn't making a great success of her personal life, and all the immediate future offered seemed to be trouble and a chance of destruction.

  Now there she was being melodramatic! She tried to smile at herself as she parked the car behind the shop, and went in through the back door into Simon's workshop. Coll Sullivan couldn't destroy them. He could make things very unpleasant and he would, for her at any rate, but he couldn't destroy her and she won-

  dered why she was finding it impossible to smile.

  Simon wasn't in the workshop. Dora went into the empty shop and called up the stairs, 'Anybody home?' and Thea appeared within seconds, carrying Kiki, and with Tip underfoot.

  Dora dropped Tip in each morning before she left for work. She opened the back door and in he trotted. Sometimes she looked in if she had a few minutes to spare, but this morning she hadn't felt like talking until she'd seen Neil.

  `You're back early,' said Thea. From the top of the stairs she gave the shop a quick glance around, although she would have heard customers enter by the ringing of the front doorbell, Tip always yapped to alert her. 'Come on up.'

  She was rushing through her morning chores, and she led the way back into the kitchen, replacing Kiki in a playpen, then darting into the bedroom to finish making the bed. 'Why are you back early?' she called.

  Dora peered into an empty coffee pot and filled the kettle. 'Because I'm not working my month's notice for Neil. Coll spoke to him on the phone last night and said I was working for him, and this morning Neil heaved me out.'

  `Oh,' said Thea.

  'Where's Simon?' Dora switched on the kettle, and came to stand in the doorway of the bedroom. Kiki was beating a drum with a wooden building brick and the sound was echoing in Dora's head.

  'Gone to London with Coll,' said Thea. She pushed the duvet into shape and looked up a little anxiously. `They're seeing the lawyers. You wouldn't have wanted to go on working for Neil, would you?'

  Everything was rushing on and Dora had no say in

  any of it. Neither had Thea and Simon. Who could say 'No' to an offer like Coll Sullivan's? She said fervently, 'I only hope and pray that Simon reads every line of anything he signs, particularly the small print,' and at that Thea straightened, smiling, trying to be reassuring.

  'But of course he will, you're not the only one with brains in the family.'

  It was nothing to do with brains. Simon had been a first-class student, getting excellent grades. He was a very intelligent man, but, 'He trusts Coll and I don't,' Dora said bluntly.

  'Why don't you?'

  The two girls faced each other and Dora said heavily, 'He's a thief for one thing—I do know that.'

  'You mean he used to be? When he was a boy, travelling with his father who got his living in scrap metal and clapped-out old cars?'

  Thea always looked for the best in everyone, and now she was going to remind Dora that the moral standard of the two children at the Manor House might not apply to the tinker's son. In him light fingers might be less of a crime.

  'Very likely,' said Dora, 'but if he took anything in the early days I never heard about it. I'm talking about the last time he came while we were living in the Manor. He was twenty then and he took my pearls.'

  'Your pearls?' That was before Thea came into Dora's life, and she looked shocked.

  'They weren't worth all that much.' Dora went back to Kiki and tried to take the drum away. Kiki resisted, she didn't want to bang a woolly rabbit, she wanted to bang a drum, and faced with a tantrum or another

  tattoo Dora put the drum down again, and sat down to wait for the kettle to boil.

  'How much?' asked Thea.

  'I don't know. They were real, but it was a small necklace that had belonged to my mother. It was the only thing I had of my mother's, my father gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday. It was about six months later that Coll came.' Her face was pale and set. 'We hadn't seen him for years and he just turned up one evening, about the same time of year, the summer like he always used to.' She spoke jerkily, as though she was intent on keeping the account brief and telling nothing but the bare facts.

  'Simon was home from Oxford and we were in the drawing room and I was going out somewhere and putting my pearls on. It was a party or something, Simon was supposed to have been going too. The clasp was awkward, so I didn't wear the pearls. I left them on a table and—he took them.'

  Thea frowned, shrugged, gestured bewilderment. 'What do you mean, took them? Did he just put them in his pocket? Didn't you ask for them back? What did Simon say about it? And your lather?'

  'My father wasn't there, I think he'd gone to a race meeting somewhere.' Dora managed' a faint grin. 'Simon was livid when I said Coll had taken them. He said I'd worn them and lost them, the fastener was faulty, they had slipped off before, and I was a bit careless in those days.'

  'But you don't think that happened?'

  `No.'

  The kettle boiled and Thea made the coffee. Kiki went on banging the drum, accompanying it with a chant given at full lung power, and Dora rubbed the

  spot between her eyebrows where the frown was settling.

  'Hush, darling,' said Thea, scooping up the drum. 'We can't hear the customers.' Kiki roared with fury, and as suddenly accepted the situation and the rusk that Thea offered her.

  Dora was remembering it all again. She hadn't gone to that party after all, she had gone riding instead. Simon wasn't going now that Coll had turned up, so why should she? She had been out of the house for about two hours and when she came back Coll and Simon were listening to the hi-fi. She had gone up to her own room, and woken early and come downstairs for a glass of milk.

  That was when she had found that her pearls were missing, and she had gone to Simon's room to ask if he'd seen them.

  He was in bed, still asleep, when she started to question him, leaning over him and shaking his shoulder. 'No,' he'd said, and buried his head in the pillow.

  'I left them on a table in the drawing room. No-body's been in there, have they?'

  'At this time in the morning?' It wasn't seven o'clock yet, the house was silent and his voice was muffled by the pillow.

  'Well, they've gone.' The staff had all been with the family for years, and the pearls had been lying around in her bedroom for months. They had gone when Coll had come.

  'What's gone?' Simon had mumbled.

  'My mother's pearls.' Her voice had risen shrilly. 'Where's Coll?'

  And then Simon had yawned and stretched and sat up asking, 'Why?'

  `Where is he? Is he here? Is he coming back?'

  'No.' She had been sure then. She remembered now how she had felt then.

  `He's staying at the Fleece,' Simon had said. 'I asked him to stay here, but he said he'd booked in there for the night.'

  'I'll bet he's booked out now,' she had said fiercely, and rushed out of the room. Simon, grabbing a robe, had followed her shouting,

  'Where are you going?'

  'To think, aren't I?'

  She had run down the stairs and out of the house, and gone on running all the way down the drive and along the road until she came to the green and the village pub.

  She had gone to the back door where the landlord had answered her knock, surprised to see her, saying, 'Miss Holcroft?' as though he wasn't sure he recognised her although he knew her.

  'Do you have a man called Sullivan staying here?' she had asked.

  'Yes.'

  'Could I speak to him, please?'

  'He's having breakfast. Go on up.'

  She had gone to the dining room which ran the full length of the eaves; black beams and white stuccoed walls, and a dozen or so tables, with red lamps and red napkins on white tablecloths, laid for tonight.

  The Fleece was famous for ham a
nd egg suppers, but there was only one overnight room, and Coll sat at the far end, at a table laid for breakfast. He was eating toast, she remembered, and drinking coffee, and wearing jeans and a faded blue shirt.

  When he saw her his eyes narrowed, and she waited

  until she was right by his table before she spoke. `You're leaving early, aren't you?' she said.

  `So?'

  'I'm lucky to catch you.'

  `You think so?'

  She held the back of the chair that faced him, so tightly that her fingers hurt, somehow that seemed to steady her voice when she said, 'You wouldn't have picked up my pearls last night, would you? Absentmindedly?'

  He started to grin. 'Lost them, have you?'

  'I know where I left them.'

  `But you don't know where they are now?'

  'I think I might.'

  `Prove it.' The grin was triumphant, and she knew that she could prove nothing, they wouldn't be found on him.

  What had he done with them? Hidden them? Posted them? She could accuse him, call in the local policeman and prove nothing, and Simon would be furious with her and so would her father.

  But Coll Sullivan had taken her mother's pearls, and he said now, with a savage bitterness, 'You self-satisfied little slag, it's time somebody took something away from you.'

  No one had ever spoken to her like that before, no one had robbed her before. She wanted to hit him, claw him, but she knew that if she tried he would hit her, and she hunted wildly for words to throw at him like stones, to bruise him with. All she could find was, `You—you gipsy-scum! '

  That didn't hurt him. He didn't flinch at that. He said, 'Not gipsy-scum, tinker-scum.'

  'All right then, keep them,' she flared. 'Much good will they do youl '

  'Thank you.' He sounded as though she really was giving him a gift, and she hissed at him,

  'Where is your father? In jail?'

  He still didn't flinch, although she knew now that that must have hurt. 'Thank you for everything,' he said, and she turned and he called after her, 'Don't worry, this time I won't be back ...'

  There was a cup of coffee in front of her on the kitchen table, and Thea was coming in, from serving a customer down in the shop.

  `So you think he just took off with the pearls?' said Thea.

  'Yes.'

  'But Simon thought you'd lost them?'

  'Yes.'

  'Could you have lost them?'

  'It's possible,' she conceded, but she was convinced that Coll had taken them, although she could never prove it. She could only warn Thea so that, however Simon felt, Thea would be a little on her guard.

  'It's water under the bridge, isn't it?' Thea sighed. All this had happened ten years ago and today was what counted, but Dora suspected that Coll Sullivan was still taking from the Holcrofts, not giving.

  She said, 'After you'd gone last night he asked if I'd mind if he tried to seduce me,' and Thea's face cleared, the worried look dissolving into laughter.

  'Did he? He was giving you fair warning, wasn't he?'

  'I would mind,' said Dora.

  'Of course you would.' But Thea was still laughing. 'But it's an ordinary healthy lusty male attitude. Most

  men mist fancy a knock-out of a girl like you.'

  `Why, thank you,' said Dora, smiling too, although it wasn't like that at all. Coll Sullivan didn't admire her, he despised her, he would humiliate her if he could.

  It wasn't going to happen, but even talking about him making love to her made her head ache and her throat close up so that it was hard to swallow her coffee.

  She picked up her handbag and started to empty it on to the kitchen table: an assortment of pens, four lipsticks, a pocket calculator, a pair of tights in a cellophane pack, a red and white spotted headscarf, two nail varnishes, a bottle of moisturiser, a jar of cleansing pads and a large packet of safety pins.

  `Not much to show for two years, is it?' she said. 'And another broken engagement.'

  'And that,' said Thea, pointing to her daughter, who was clutching the bars of the baby-pen and trying to shake them loose.

  'Thanks to you and Simon,' said Dora.

  'She's part yours, though, isn't she?'

  'Oh yes, please!'

  'And I've got a feeling that the next two years are going to be a lot better,' said Thea, looking wise and knowing, trying to cheer Dora up.

  'It's the next six months that are making me break out in a cold sweat,' said Dora wryly. 'Here,' she pushed the lipsticks into a little pile, 'have a lipstick.'

  Thea tried them all out on her wrist, scoring four lines in varying reds and presenting a gory spectacle. 'I'll have these two,' she decided.

  Dora swept the rest of her office souvenirs back into her handbag. 'Well,' she said, 'I'm working for Coll

  Sullivan now. I've got to make a list of furniture up there that won't be needed—well, that I think won't be needed. You and Simon made some notes, didn't you?'

  'I'll get them.' Thea brought the notebook from the bureau in the living room, and asked anxiously, 'You will be all right?'

  'On my own, you mean?' Thea nodded. 'I've got to get used to it, and you can't shut up the shop.'

  Dora didn't want to go up to the Manor alone, but there were a lot of things she didn't want to be doing that she would have to do in the next six months.

  'I'll close early,' Thea offered. 'I'll come up about four.'

  'Oh, please.' By four o'clock this afternoon Thea would be very a welcome sight. 'Where's the key?'

  It was in a drawer, in the kitchen, and Thea handed it over. It was heavy, a heavy old dark key to the back door of the Manor house, and Dora held it, weighing it in her hand, remembering the shape of it. It had always been in the lock in the old days. She had never held it before.

  The key to her past and her future. 'They made them to last. didn't they?' she commented. There were keys like this downstairs in the shop. People bought them for ornaments. Keys to old houses that had gone.

  'See you later,' she said. 'Come on, Tip. If I need company I can always talk to you.'

  She drove past the lodge. That seemed strange, she had never done that before in her little car, always turned and tucked it comfortably in beside the lodge. But this morning she drove up the drive, and round to the garages that had been part of the stable block. She got out of the car, leaving it in the open, and turned

  the key in the lock of the back door and stepped into the house that had been her home.

  She went straight through into the hall, because it was obvious what had to go from here. The counter, the shelves behind, the rack where newspapers had been displayed.

  Simon had suggestions in his little book, and she wished he hadn't put down a grandfather clock and an oak settle. Because those things had been here before. It wouldn't be the same clock, nor the same settle, but she would have preferred as little as possible to remind her of the house she had grown up in.

  She went from room to room, as Thea and Simon had done. They had jotted down suggestions of furniture Coll might want them to look for, in some cases pieces Simon knew he could get. Dora was doing the take-away job, suggesting what might go.

  Some was obvious. Some she was less sure about because she didn't know what Coll Sullivan's tastes were. He'd said he wanted the house back as near as possible in period, and he had the money to do it. But pictures, for instance. There was nothing valuable, but there were pretty prints in the bedrooms and some quite attractive landscapes in the downstairs rooms. Some of them she liked, but she didn't know what kind of pictures he'd want on his walls.

  It was very quiet. She could hear birds singing outside, but in here, except for the occasional creak of old timbers, there was only the sound of her own footsteps and breathing; and Tip keeping close because this was a big empty house and he didn't fancy being lost in it.

  She wished she had brought a radio along. The TV had gone from the drawing room, and there was noth-

  ing to switch on to fill
the silence. As a rule she didn't mind silence. She was alone most of the time in her little home, and she took silence for granted. It didn't make her lonely the way this silence did.

  The trouble was that she was listening for voices she was never going to hear. She would get used to it. After a while there would be other voices and the house would have moved with the times, but tomorrow, if she was up here tomorrow, she would bring a radio.

  When the phone bell rang it seemed to shatter the air. It wasn't very loud. It rang in the hall, on the reception desk, and Dora was in one of the rooms leading off the hall. But she nearly dropped a tin box she had just picked up, the ringing seemed so loud in the silence.

  She thought it might be Thea, or Simon. She didn't want to think it might be Coll, but when she gave the number he said, 'Dora-Lily?'

  'No,' she said tartly, 'it's the Grey Lady. Didn't you know the place is haunted?'

  He chuckled. 'Is that a fact?'

  'At the moment, no,' she said, 'but in future very likely.'

  'By you? You'd never make a Grey Lady,'

  'After I've worked for you for six months my hair could be snow-white, let alone grey.'

  'You are working for me? Neil told you to run along?'

  He knew what Neil would tell her. He had seen to it that she got no support from Neil. 'More or less,' she said. 'He also told me you phoned him last night.'

  'Then he's a liar,' said Coll cheerfully.

  She would probably never know who phoned whom, but as she hadn't asked Neil she couldn't argue. She

  asked, 'Has Simon signed everything you put in front of him?'

  'Oh yes.'

  'Well, I haven't.'

  'You don't need to, do you?' he drawled. 'In this case one Holcroft signature is as good as two.'

  He was right. Simon had signed for Thea and Kiki, and Dora was hostage for them all. She made her voice brisk, businesslike and impersonal. 'What's happening about this furniture? The stuff that's here now?'