‘Idiot!’ shouted Toby. ‘Head him off from the lane!’ I guessed that Hob was playing for time. Making a dash for freedom?
An angry yell from Sid, and the sound of a heavy blow. A sharp, thin clatter of metal thrown against stone. The knife? The knife with which Hob had ‘killed’ me? Sid was cursing over the sound of blows. Hadn’t Hob been hit enough already?
I sobbed aloud, and then remembered Toby might hear me. The knife handle was slippery. I dropped it, and lost precious seconds groping for it on the rucked-up coverlet.
I could hear something, or somebody, being dragged across the yard. Hob was making it difficult for them. Or was he unconscious? Oh, God!
‘Not that way,’ said Toby, sharply. He sounded distant. Were they in the shed already? ‘Hold him up for me, while I catch hold of the rope.’
‘Hoist him on top of the van?’
‘O.K. You lift him up to me, and I’ll … yes, he could reach the beam from here, if he stretched. They’ll not notice, anyway … not to an inch or two. Hand me up that far length of rope …’
I felt something give. A wrench. No, I hadn’t done enough work on it yet.
‘Keep still, you little brute!’ That was Toby, again.
I tried to brush sweat from my forehead with my shoulder and discovered I was crying. This was no time for tears, I told myself.
‘And … up … further! I’ve got him now!’
I had never hated anyone as I hated Toby.
‘Aargh!’ cried Sid.
‘Did he kick you in the eye? For Christ’s sake, be careful!’
‘Bloody …’
‘Cursing him won’t help. Tie his ankles … Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll knock you out again!’
‘It would be easier …’
‘Too many bruises might look bad—ah you don’t like the sight of the noose?’
With a convulsive jerk I freed my wrists. One was bleeding, but that couldn’t be helped. The wasp buzzed around my head in an interested fashion, and I flailed at it. I flexed my fingers and set to work on the rope round my ankles. It wouldn’t take long to free my legs, but I didn’t see how I could help Hob, even if I did.
‘All right?’ That was Toby.
‘Yup!’
Then I’ll push him off when you let go his feet. Right?’
‘Right!’
‘One, two, three … go!’
A scrambling sound. Silence. I paused, my knife in mid-air. The wasp settled on the coverlet near my hand and started shambling in the sloe gin stain.
‘All right?’ Sid sounding dubious.
‘I think so.’ Toby didn’t sound too pleased with himself, either. ‘Maybe you should have pulled on his legs. He should have fallen clear and broken his neck …’
‘You should have pushed him off.’
‘I did, but he sort of slid down, instead of falling …’
He laughed, but in a sick way. ‘He looks kind of funny … jerking and turning …’
‘I’ll finish him off. Pull on his legs.’
‘N—no. The police might be able to tell that someone had interfered … it must look natural. No one can help him, so let him dance. He’s kicked you and he’s kicked me, so let him kick air for a change.’
They came out of the garage. I heard the grate of the door as they shut it, boxing Hob in with the stolen van.
I could imagine him dangling at the end of the rope, clutching at the rope round his neck perhaps …
‘Here are the keys!’ Toby must have tossed the keys of Rose’s car to Sid. He dropped them, and swore. Toby laughed. I heard them walk round the side of the house to where their cars were parked.
I picked away at the rope round my ankles while yet another wasp homed in on me. There! I was free! I slid off the bed, clumsily, and stumbled into the wall. Suppose they had heard …!
No, the cars were being revved up, and driven into the yard. I inched to the side of the window, and risked a glance down. The two cars were stationary beneath me; Toby was half standing in his car, leaning out of the window and shouting at Sid. Why didn’t they go? Please God, let them go quickly. My Mini was scarred with fire, and the closed doors of the garage stared at me reproachfully.
Toby got out of his car … Oh dear God, why the delay? … and went over to Sid, who was driving Rose’s sports car. Sid was searching through his pockets. He got out of his car, too, and turned out his trouser pockets. He found something—something small—and handed it over to Toby.
‘Oh no!’ I breathed, as Toby pulled open one of the garage doors and went back in. I couldn’t see into the garage from where I was, but Rose could, and so could Sid. Rose averted her lovely head and clasped her hands over her mouth, because whatever she had seen had made her feel ill. Sid shrugged, and got back into the sports car.
I leaned against the wall and mouthed prayers. I couldn’t remember any more than the first line of Our Father, and it didn’t seem to make sense the way I said it, but it helped to pass the awful seconds until Toby came out of the garage again.
I didn’t move when I heard the door scrape shut. There was no point in my trying to get out of the house with the three of them looking on. The front door was locked, and the windows down below were all small. The window beside which I stood was my only hope; that, too, was small, but it lacked the central stone pillar which made the windows downstairs impossible. If I could only wriggle my hips through, I might be able to get out.
Sid drove off first, roaring down the lane. Toby said something to Rose which I didn’t catch, and followed. I waited until I heard Toby change down for the bend in the lane, and then fought the window wide. Try as I would, I couldn’t get my hips through.
‘Fool!’ I swore at myself, as I tore off overalls and boots. ‘Wasting time!’ I could have stripped while I was waiting for them to go. Clad in bra and pants, and striped with blood and sloe gin, I managed to get out of the window without taking more than inch of skin off my left shoulder-blade. Legs dangling, I hung onto the window ledge until I could gauge the distance to the ground. I hurt my ankle in the fall, but not badly enough to cripple me. It was lucky for me that they didn’t build tall in the old days.
The trip across the yard was hard on my feet, and even harder on my nerves. Was Hob dead already? Surely he couldn’t have survived … I forced the garage doors open, my hands clumsy with haste.
Hob slowly revolved at the end of a rope hanging from the central beam in the garage, his feet pointing to the floor, and his hands bound before him. His eyes were closed, and I didn’t like the colour of his face.
I ran for his legs and tried to hold him up. The rope was so tight round his neck that it didn’t run loose when I eased the strain. He felt warm, but I couldn’t tell if he were still alive or not.
I screamed. That was another waste of time and energy, but I was so desperate I couldn’t think what to do. Clasping Hob’s legs to me, I looked around for something to cut the rope, or something on which he might rest his weight. There didn’t seem to be anything in reach, except the van.
He didn’t weigh a lot, hanging at the end of the rope. His knees bent as I lifted them. I guided his body to the van, and opening the door I tried to step up inside, intending to hoist him back onto the roof. I wasn’t tall enough, or strong enough. The ignition key had been thrown into the van and now lay on its seat. That was what Toby had taken off Sid at the last moment. The lack of the ignition key might have spoiled the picture which Toby had so carefully set up, and so he had delayed long enough to throw it into the van—just long enough to ensure Hob’s death.
I tried to ease the rope away from his throat, but I couldn’t take enough of his weight to pull it loose. It wasn’t easy, balanced at an angle, holding Hob to me with one arm, and with the other trying to work the rope loose. I wished I’d had the sense to bring my knife with me. What had happened to the knife with which Hob had ‘killed’ me? Had I heard it clatter on the cobbles in the yard when he made his bid to escape? If so,
it might still be somewhere in the yard, because Toby couldn’t risk carrying it away with him.
I fed Hob’s legs through the window of the van, so that he could rest some of his weight by sitting on the sill, and climbed down to look for the knife. I was crying again, and cursing and praying, all in a jumble. Was I doing the wrong thing by leaving him, even to fetch the knife? Was I killing him, or was he already dead and all my trouble in vain?
I found the knife just outside the garage door, and ran back with it. Was it my imagination, or did his body jerk as I scrambled into the cab? I attacked the rope, trying to hold his shoulders towards me, so that he should not fall to the ground when the rope parted. There! Had he moved? Had I imagined it? I sawed at the rope frantically until it parted, and he half fell and half slipped into the cab with me clutching at his overalls. I got the noose off, and tried to suppress the thought that surely no-one could live with such indentations on their throat … calling his name rubbing his throat, and wondering whether it was the right thing to do … trying to remember first aid … trying to feel for his heart … I couldn’t tell whether he was alive or dead, and the phone was cut, even if I could scramble back inside …
Did his eyelids flicker? Had he moaned, and had I covered the tiny sounds of recovering consciousness with all the noise I’d been making? Should I try artificial respiration? I bent my head to try, and his eyes flicked open. Feebly he drew back his head to gasp for air. His hands were still bound. I helped him sit upright, trying to breathe deeply with him, feeling the effort hurt me as it hurt him. When he bent forward to put his head between his knees, I thought he had fainted, and started to howl. He put his hands on my thigh and left them there.
My body began to make reports to my brain that I’d misused it; my ankle hurt like blazes, as did my shoulder, and the knife slit on my arm. I drew the back of my hand across my face and sniffed, wondering if I dared look in the driving mirror. I decided I’d rather have a wash, first.
Hob raised his head and hoarsely mouthed the word ‘Water’. His voice had gone, but no sound in the world could have been sweeter to me at that moment than that rough gasp for help. He was so exhausted he found it hard to move. I found out later what had happened. As soon as he’d been left alone, he’d tried to swing his body up onto the roof of the van. He’d failed, and lost consciousness about the time I got to him. But since he had managed to slip off the roof of the van, and not fallen, he had taken the strain of the rope round his neck gradually, and not in a jerk, so that he had never been in danger of breaking his neck, only of strangulation.
I told him to stay where he was and rest, while I went for some water. He nodded. Even as I wriggled down from the cab, I wondered how I was going to find water for him, with the house shut up, and how—belated thought—I was to contact the police.
Pushing the garage door wide open, I froze, for a car was coming down the lane. Reversing, making angry, impatient bursts of sound. The back of Toby’s car came into view, with Rose sitting twisted around in the passenger seat, and Toby glancing around now and then to adjust his steering. Behind him I glimpsed the sports car, with Sid’s heavy head twisted back on his shoulder.
For a moment I couldn’t move. We were in no condition to resist them now. All our effort gone for nothing . . . I slumped against the door, defeated.
A scratching sound. Hob was trying to get out of the van. He had heard the cars, too.
‘They’re coming back,’ I said. ‘We’ve had it.’
He made croaking sounds, gesturing to the back of the garage with one hand over his throat, massaging it. I looked, and stiffened. Two pitchforks, ancient but serviceable, leaned against the back wall in a muddle of garden implements.
If we dragged one of the garage doors closed, and shot the bolts into the roof beam and the ground, then we would only have a narrow opening to defend. No matter that our defence could only last a little while. It was sufficient for the moment that the next step was clear.
I secured the one door, and pulled the other almost shut. I thought Rose had already seen me, but I needed time to help Hob, who was struggling to get the pitchforks out, and making heavy weather of it. One out … two. Hob looked awful. He couldn’t stand upright without leaning on something. I wanted that ‘something’ to be me, but for the moment he had to make do with the van. The van? Could we get away if we drove out of the garage in the van? No, they were between us and the lane, and they were three fit people to two convalescents.
Why had they returned?
Pitchfork at the ready, I peered out.
Rose and Toby were getting out of their car, looking belligerent; or rather, Toby looked belligerent, while Rose looked as if she were going to cry. Sid slid the sports car back into line with theirs. He was shouting, but I couldn’t make out the words above the racket of the tractor which was pressing them back into the yard.
The tractor! I eased my door open a little more, and saw Mr. Brent in the driving seat of his biggest tractor, pressing the bumper of the sports car back and back. Hitched behind the tractor was a half-filled wagon piled with bales of hay, and standing on the hay was Mr. Brent’s head cow-man, with a shot-gun pointing at Toby’s midriff. Two of his farmhands clung to the back of the wagon, and running behind them down the lane came the two lads who had helped round up the hens that morning.
‘Sarah!’ bellowed Mr. Brent. ‘Are you all right?’
I pushed the door open, and emerged, pitchfork in hand.
‘My dear girl!’ His jaw dropped, and he killed the engine. He looked shocked, as did everyone else.
‘I’m all right really,’ I said, realising that to their eyes I must appear to be covered in blood. ‘Most of it’s sloe gin, although I have hurt my ankle and …’ I swallowed, thinking I couldn’t afford to dissolve into tears again. ‘Hob’s in a bad way, though. Can you get a doctor for him?’
Toby shouted something … I really think he went out of his mind for a moment as he realised that not only was I alive, but that he’d failed to kill Hob as well. He lunged for me, and I stood there, stupidly gaping at him, quite unable to defend myself. Hob did it for me. His pitchfork snaked over my shoulder and held Toby off. I could see that Hob could hardly hold it straight from exhaustion, but neither Toby nor I could miss the determination in his eye; if Toby touched me, he was a dead man.
Rose screamed. ‘No more killing!’ she wailed.
‘Who’s been killed, then?’ demanded Mr. Brent.
‘Pete and his wife,’ I said. ‘Tell them, Toby. Tell Mr. Brent all about it.’
He said nothing, but his eyes went from me to the tines of the pitchfork and back.
‘I’ll tell,’ said Rose, her voice breaking. ‘I can’t … Oh, why did I say I’d come?’
Toby turned on her. He knocked her flying, and ran for the lane. He didn’t get far, but disappeared under a flurry of arms and legs as Mr. Brent’s men jumped on him.
‘And this?’ Mr. Brent pointed at Hob, whose weary arms had dropped the pitchfork as soon as the moment of danger had passed. Hob sagged. I caught him as he fell, and knelt beside him.
‘He’s not one of them,’ I explained. ‘His name is James Denison, the man you thought had been drowned in the river. Toby ran him down on the road while he was walking along to get some petrol for his car. He ran away when Toby tried to kill him, and fortunately for me, he made his way back up here. I sort of … got fond of him, I suppose. Toby made me drive the van yesterday by threatening to burn James to death. He’s saved my life today, and nearly lost his own … won’t you fetch the doctor?’
*
I’ll never say a word against hens for the rest of my life, for it was they who had saved us. To Toby’s mind I had behaved perfectly when the Brent people had come to collect the hens, but in the eyes of one who had known me from childhood, I had been behaving strangely. For instance, I had been staying with my grandparents at holiday times for years, and I was as familiar with the hens’ routine as with that of my grandpa
rents’—yet the hens had not been shut up the previous night, ready for collection. My explanation on that point hadn’t rung true.
Mr. Brent had been pardonably annoyed at having to waste time chasing hens all over the place when he was busy hay-making. At first he had tried to be charitable, thinking my sin of omission must be due to the presence of my lover, but the closer he observed us, the less natural did my manner appear. I jumped when Toby addressed me as ‘darling’, and there had been a bruise on my arm which had not been there the day before. Also I was limping, and wearing bedroom slippers, instead of the boots which would have been more appropriate wear for the task of rounding up hens.
Again, why was my treasured Mini sitting in the yard, and not tucked up under cover in the garage? And why were the doors of the garage closed, if it was empty? Mr. Brent puzzled over these points, and perhaps even more over my failure to invite him and his men in for a celebratory drink of home-made wine or coffee after the hens had been gathered in.
On their way back to the farm, one of the young lads had told Mr. Brent that there were two smashing cars hidden round the back of the house, out of sight of the yard.
One car Mr. Brent could understand; that could have been Toby’s. But … two cars?
The district was shaking with talk of the murder and the raid on the Festival. It was only natural that Mr. Brent should begin to wonder if the events were in any way connected with the odd goings-on at Elm Tree House.
He did not act, however until after he’d heard the news bulletin at half past eleven which gave my description as one of the raiders. Still he did not call in the police. He could not be sure that he was on the right track, and he felt he might be making a fool of himself. But he called his men in from the hayfield, and taking the tractor just as it was, he set out to pay a visit to Elm Tree House. If he had found me in good health, and there had been a logical explanation forthcoming of the things that had been troubling him, then he would have made some excuse and departed. But coming down to the house he had almost collided with an ugly-looking stranger driving a sports car, followed by Toby who was supposed to be my boyfriend—in another car. Toby’s arm had been round an unknown blonde, and this aroused Mr. Brent’s suspicions further. Sid stopped his car, as did Toby. They yelled at Mr. Brent to back his tractor out of the way. Mr. Brent replied that in the first place he couldn’t back a tractor and trailer all the way to the road, and in the second place, he intended to call on me, at Elm Tree House.
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