Blood Substitute

by Margaret Duffy

  ‘Have you taken a close look at it?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice normal.

  ‘No, but John has. He said its face is a photograph of someone. He doesn’t know who. I said he ought to remove it now it’s on consecrated ground but he didn’t want to be thought a spoilsport.’

  ‘Elspeth, I have to make another call right now. Please stay right by the phone and I’ll get back to you,’ I said. ‘No, on second thoughts, will you switch on your mobile?’

  ‘Yes, of course. The reception’s terrible so I’ll have to go upstairs into our bedroom and open the window.’

  Did I wait for Greenway to ring me back or get in touch with him about the latest development? I agonized for a couple of minutes and then my mobile rang.

  ‘Someone’s on their way,’ he said. ‘The password’s one that you already know.’

  Baffled by this because I could not remember having been been given any SOCA passwords I nevertheless told him what was happening at Hinton Littlemoor.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he responded. ‘I’ll get an armed protection team there right away and arrange to have the object in question removed for forensic examination. It might be a coincidence and someone playing silly buggers but I’m not taking any chances.’

  ‘Carrie must have been followed. How else would they know where Patrick’s parents live?’

  ‘It looks like it. But hold fast, girl. I’m probably going to end up in prison for killing this bastard with my bare hands.’

  I rang Elspeth. As she had said, the reception was terrible but I got her to understand that the police would collect the scarecrow and she wasn’t to be surprised if she found armed men in the onion bed.

  ‘Again?’ was her reaction to this.

  ‘Please don’t worry.’

  Was I worried? Yes, I was. Very.

  One small reason for this was that my mind was a complete blank on the subject of passwords.

  It was now almost four in the afternoon and I had not had any lunch, not that I was hungry. I was shocked when I looked out of the window to see that the mist I had encountered earlier had rolled down from the high tors and the cottage was enveloped in drizzly greyness. I had to go out and check on the horses, in a field about half a mile away, before it got dark. But I could not, I reasoned; someone was coming to check on the phone and car. In the end I rang a horsey friend and asked her to do it: she never minds as she lives very close by and looks after them for us when we’re on holiday.

  ‘Are you all right, Ingrid?’ she asked. ‘You sound a bit stressed.’

  ‘Just tired,’ I told her. ‘I have to wait in as a man’s coming round to look at the car.’

  ‘Patrick’s not there then?’

  ‘No, he’s working.’

  The female who was not the sort to get the heebie-jeebies then put the phone down and had another little weep instead. Why did I keep thinking that the scarecrow did in fact move of its own volition and even now, in the fog, was coming closer?

  ‘Because of that bloody stupid nightmare,’ I told myself out loud, going upstairs to check that all the windows were closed, and locked. I had already locked the outside doors. I came down again and put the kettle on the hot end of the Aga in order to make myself some tea. It is an indication of the state of my nerves that when Pirate, our cat, jumped up on the kitchen window ledge and mewed to come in I almost dropped the teapot.

  Later again I made a sandwich and ate it, still not hungry but aware that I was not helping myself by starving and furious with my own reaction to what had happened. This was what they wanted; that I would stay indoors, frightened. I thought of going to see my sister but reasoned that if the car had been secretly fitted with a bugging device then by turning up on her doorstep I was risking putting her and her family in danger too. And, abandoning that idea, what then after some engineer or other had removed any unwanted hardware in both vehicle and phone? What should I do?

  Realizing that I was fretfully pacing around the house I went into the living room and switched on the television. No, that was no good either; I wanted to know whenever whoever it was arrived so I could take a good look at them before I opened the door. I also wanted to be able to hear any other visitors walking around the outside of the cottage, the reason the place is surrounded by gravel paths.

  But the scarecrow had had no feet, boots or shoes.

  ‘Oh, shut up, you stupid cow!’ I cried out loud and closed the living-room curtains to block out the swirling mist and gathering gloom. It would get dark early tonight. Then I thrust them aside again, so I could see out, see who was coming.

  Why couldn’t idiotic men realize that I was much safer when I was actually with Patrick, not stuck on a moor a couple of hundred miles away?

  I decided that, in the morning, whatever Michael Greenway said, I would go to Hinton Littlemoor, where admittedly there was possible trouble already but at least something was being done about it. Now though, I fetched a blanket from upstairs, wrapped it around myself and, in the darkening room, curled up on the sofa, the Smith and Wesson cold and heavy company.

  I must have slept, waking suddenly, a noise of some kind half heard, half a memory. It was night, the lighter long rectangle of the window the only detail visible until my eyes accustomed to the darkness. Groping for the gun and struggling out of the blanket I went over to the window. Nothing. Putting on lights as I went I walked through into the dining room – the cottage is an old longhouse so everything downstairs connects in a straight line – and for a moment could see nothing unusual. Then my eye was drawn to the window.

  The scarecrow was looking in at me. With a new face, only this time a dead one, Cliff Morley’s horribly grimacing murdered one, blood trickling from one corner of his mouth.

  I have a vague memory of screaming and then the next thing I was aware of was standing in our bedroom leaning on a wall in the darkness, shaking, crying, my legs giving way so that I was slowly sliding down to the floor. I put the gun down on a chest of drawers, even in this state aware that I might accidentally fire it, even shoot myself.

  Lights.

  Car headlights coming down the drive.

  Shocked at how weak I was I somehow made it over to the window and looked out. The security lights in the courtyard came on as a battered van swung round the corner into it and braked to a standstill. I staggered back to fetch the gun, opened the window and waited. As I watched, an Asian man with a shaven head and wearing overalls got out, went round to the back of the van, opened the rear doors and took out a large toolbox. Then, whistling, he came in the direction of the front door.

  ‘That’s far enough!’ I called, holding the Smith and Wesson two-handed, just the way I had been taught.

  He looked up, did a positive shimmy of terror and dropped the toolbox with a crash.

  ‘Oh, lady, and it is only me coming to look at your car,’ he said shrilly, doing a fair imitation of Peter Sellers doing a fair imitation of a gentleman from India.

  ‘You passed it in the drive,’ I told him.

  ‘And here you are making a good man look like a real cuckoo,’ he wailed, the single gold earring glinting as it caught the light.

  I had already lowered the gun, nay, almost dropped it.

  Ye gods.

  I went down, opened the door and let him in.

  Fourteen

  ‘Does that dye wash off easily?’ I demanded to know first and foremost.

  ‘No, it’s permanent. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to shower.’

  ‘Permanent!’ I shrieked.

  ‘Insofar as it doesn’t wash off but fades over time,’ Patrick said.

  ‘But your hair,’ I moaned. His lovely black – although now sprinkled with grey – wavy hair was gone.

  ‘It’ll soon grow again.’

  ‘You look like a pirate,’ I wailed. Then I really did cry, despising myself, hugging my brown, bald man tightly.

  ‘You’re definitely pregnant,’ he observed lightly when the worst was over. ‘You freaked
out like this in Canada when Justin was on the way.’

  I led him into the dining room and gestured wordlessly in the direction of the window.

  ‘Delete that last remark,’ Patrick said softly and, drawing his own gun, cautiously went outside. The thing disappeared; he locked it in the barn. When he returned he said, ‘God, these people are bloody sick. We’ll take it back to London for tests. The one from Hinton Littlemoor’s on its way there too. Everyone’s all right by the way and they’re well-protected.’

  ‘I hate the thought that they know where we live.’

  ‘It’s not the first time hoodlums have tracked us down. I’m beginning to think we ought to move – this place is too far from anywhere.’

  ‘Someone can’t be too far away now,’ I fretted, nerves still jangling. ‘Whoever moved the scarecrow. Won’t they wonder why a man who looks like a mechanic is staying the night here?’

  ‘Only if they have night-vision glasses or watch the place all night. Which, somehow, I doubt.’

  ‘Anguished lady householder begs hunky car fixer to chase off yobbo indulging in anti-social behaviour?’ I suggested.

  ‘As usual, you’re a genius,’ he said and went out, taking a flash lamp from the toolbox, telling me to lock and bolt the door. When he returned he would use a series of knocks, one of our codes.

  Half an hour, then three-quarters, went by. I had busied myself laying and putting a match to the living-room fire – a basket of logs is always kept by the hearth – even though it was ten-thirty and supposed to be summer, and then sat watching it for a while. I needed the warmth and homeliness. It occurred to me that we would both need something to eat so I prepared the ingredients for cheese omelettes and located oven chips in the freezer.

  After an hour and ten minutes had elapsed there came the agreed set of knocks on the door.

  ‘Good idea that,’ said Patrick, slightly muddy but triumphant. ‘He was perched in a tree at the top of the field with a pair of ordinary binoculars. Not very far up it though, a really useless city yobbo with real city lip. He came down faster than he wanted to when I chucked a lump of wood at him and was then delighted to show me the way to his van where there were two more scarecrows. The faces on those were of the two men whose bodies were left at Sheepwash Farm. It was then just a matter of calling the local police, showing my ID and arranging for the whole shooting match to be taken to London, the scarecrows to the address where SOCA has all its forensics done.’

  ‘He might not have been on his own.’

  ‘I would be surprised if he was. I think we ought to be prepared to repel boarders. Unless they really were only trying to frighten you silly.’

  ‘Someone’s living at Sheepwash Farm,’ I told him, suddenly remembering.

  ‘I hope no one saw you,’ was the sober response.

  ‘No, I was in Andrew’s old Land Rover and it was a real pea-souper.’

  Patrick can’t have been too annoyed with me over this as he gave me a glass of wine, pregnant or no, fixed himself a whisky and said, ‘Both Greenway and I realized that it makes no sense; you down here on your own and me and all the back-up bloody miles away. I’ll take a look at the car in the morning and we can use the mobile I’ve got with me – it’s hack-proof. Then we must leave – I can’t spare any more time here. Do you have a bag packed?’

  ‘I always do.’

  In truth I could hardly take my eyes off him – the man was practically unrecognizable – the business of scarecrows a mere bagatelle right now. ‘Where did you have to go to get dyed?’ I asked.

  ‘To the make-up department of a film studio.’ He gave me a careful look. ‘It’s all over. You can’t risk leaving bits.’

  ‘Bits?’ I enquired.

  Helping me to serve out our supper he snitched a chip and said, ‘Bits,’ with difficulty through the too-hot mouthful.

  I thought it best not to enquire further on that subject and we carried our plates through to the living room to eat by the warmth of the fire. Patrick was alert and wary, listening for any sound outside, and I wondered if we should have left straight away without pausing for refreshment. I dismissed the idea: when your blood sugar is low you make mistakes.

  ‘There’s a possible witness to the murders of Jeffers and Ritter,’ Patrick said when he had taken the edge off his appetite, speaking quietly. ‘Or, at least, to the arrival of several men, four he thought, at the flat in St Paul’s – which is on the first floor of a terraced house – where the killings took place. The witness, a retired man living across the street, then looked from his window again when he heard people leaving. The house has a bad reputation, by the way, and local residents have already complained to the police after drink and drugs problems there. Anyway, he saw the same number of blokes get into a van but they were carrying what appeared to be two rolls of carpet, heavy rolls of carpet. One of the men was very tall and thin and the witness got quite a good look at his face and thought he would recognize him again.’

  ‘Were any carpets missing from the flat, do you know?’

  ‘I haven’t had time to ask Paul Reece for the latest info.’

  Patrick then put his plate on a side table and switched off a lamp that was on it – the only source of light in the room – leaving just the redness of the glowing embers of the fire. I kept quiet; he had heard something outside. We sat in absolute silence.

  ‘Hey, you in there, darkie!’ a man’s voice suddenly shouted from somewhere out the front. ‘We just want the woman. Shove her out of the front door and you’ll be perfectly safe. You’ve got two minutes and then we’re coming in.’

  ‘They can’t get in,’ Patrick whispered.

  ‘Unless they drive a car through this big window,’ I breathed.

  ‘Yes, there’s a risk they’ll hot-wire the van – there’s no room for any other vehicles to manoeuvre.’

  ‘If you retaliate you’ll blow your cover – they’ll know you’re not just a mechanic. They might suspect something already now their partner-in-crime’s disappeared.’

  ‘There’s no connection with me though – unless they were watching.’ Patrick swore under his breath. Then he said, ‘I really do need to take a look at the Range Rover in daylight before we go anywhere.’

  ‘I did check all the likely places yesterday and found nothing.’

  ‘They knew where to come to though, didn’t they?’ Patrick bolted the last couple of chips and stood up. ‘No, it’ll have to be emergency measures. I can’t risk you falling into their hands. Fetch your bag. After I’ve gone outside and created a diversion, climb out of the kitchen window and then over the fence into the field where we put in that new section of post and rail and then follow the hedge up to the top. Go through the gate and then back down the drive to where you left the car. Get the hell out of here.’

  ‘But what about you?’

  ‘I’ll hope to make it to the other end of the village across the field that runs behind the houses. Wait in the pub car park five minutes only for me, no longer, and don’t even stop there if anyone suspicious-looking is hanging around. Take my gun. If anyone tries to stop you, use it.’

  ‘Keep the Glock – I have the Smith and Wesson.’ I did not argue about anything else. The bag, actually a small rucksack, was upstairs. As I ran to fetch it someone started to pound on the front door.

  ‘All right, all right!’ I heard Patrick shout in his Indian voice. ‘I am having to persuade this lady to leave. She does not want to and I cannot say I blame her!’

  He waved his arms conductor-style and, taking the cue, I shrieked, ‘No, please! Please don’t make me go out there!’

  A shot was fired and there was the distinct thump of a bullet hitting the door.

  ‘I come out now with her!’ Patrick yelled, panic-stricken-falsettto, rattling bolts.

  I scooped up the rucksack and, downstairs, also Pirate from beneath the chair under which she had just gone to ground and tossed both, in that order with care but no ceremony, through the kitchen wi
ndow. I was not worried about the cat, she goes to a neighbour when we’re not at home, but could not leave her indoors where she might go very hungry. Moments later I was outside.

  Out the front, Patrick, having opened the front door, was having a pretend argument with someone still inside, supposedly me. I could hear his entreaties to me to co-operate as I clambered over the fence – thankfully there was hazy moonlight now so I was not blundering blindly around in the mist and darkness – and then, in the lee of the hedge, I headed uphill as fast as seemed sensible.

  There was still a lot of shouting going on – I also distinctly heard the front door slam – and then, heart-stoppingly, the sound of another shot. I hurried on, tripped over a protruding stone, fell flat, picked myself up and went on more slowly. Behind me the gun fired again. Another thirty yards or so farther on I could see the gate outlined against the distant and therefore faint illumination of one of Lydtor’s only two street lights. No one seemed to be lurking there.

  Having got over the gate, clumsy with nerves, I turned left. The top of the drive was a mere five yards away but I did not rush blindly, forcing myself to stop to watch and listen for a few moments. I could hear nothing for the pounding of my own heart so had to inch forward slowly until I could peer around the corner. In the distance were the lights of the cottage glimpsed around the bonnet of the Range Rover parked at an angle in a wider part of the drive. Cautiously, I walked towards it.

  The drive is an ancient Saxon lane, the hedge at this point high and unclipped thus forming a tunnel making it very dark. I could see nothing but the lights ahead of me and there was now an ominous silence. These men must have arrived in a vehicle of some kind. Where was it?

  ‘Going somewhere?’ said a voice from the shadows as I was approaching the vehicle.

  ‘I’m collecting for the church roof,’ I squeaked, backing away.

  ‘Bit late at night for that, ain’t it?’

  He moved towards me so I could see him in silhouette – beer belly, bad breath, BO and all – lining himself up neatly for a sideways swipe with the barrel of the Smith and Wesson. Aided by a hefty shove he went down like an overturned roadroller into the nettles growing in the hedge bottom whereupon I abandoned caution and tore towards the car.