Dovecote
Page 20
Somewhere far off, she could hear Mary’s voice, still puzzled, still angry, still querulous, still frightened. “Why? He’s never done anything like this before. Never. Not until you asked him about Mrs. Chelton.”
The you hung heavy between them.
“Mary,” Gwynn said at last, still clutching her head. “I—I’m sorry.” She couldn’t explain. Mary would never forgive her if anything happened to her father. Anything else. Mary would probably never forgive her anyway. “I tried to stop him.” And he tried to stop me. “I tried to make him go back.”
Under the antiseptic lighting, Mary’s suspicions and disapproval pulsed, beating at her, exacerbating her pounding headache. Gwynn bent double now, resting her forehead on her knees. The nausea was creeping up again, and she could taste the bile in her throat. Don’t be sick, she ordered herself, alternating the words with her silent plea to Martin: don’t die.
She wanted someone to pat her back, to soothe her, to comfort her.
Where are you, Colin?
There was no answer from Colin, or from anyone else.
MARTIN WAS WHEELED back into the cubicle, and his eyes were closed. An IV monitor clicked fluid into his arm; an oxygen tube snaked up his nose. Turning away from Gwynn, Mary crossed to his side, her displeasure still apparent in the stiffness of her back. She leaned over and took his hand from the top of the sheet and held it between both her capable palms.
“Oh, Dad,” she said, and there was sadness and frustration in her voice.
He opened his eyes and looked up at his daughter, his expression softening. “I’m all right, Missy,” he said, his voice rough. “Just a bit of a heart thing. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“What on earth were you doing up at that ruin, Dad?” Mary demanded.
Gwynn studied her hands, waiting.
Martin shifted on the bed, the mattress crackling beneath him. “Don’t blame Gwynn.”
Mary leaned closer. “What?”
“I went up there. I’ve been thinking all this week.” He stopped, coughed a small dry cough, then started again. “I wanted to see the place where—where—Tommy Chelton died.” Again he shifted, and his eyes searched the cubicle until they fell upon Gwynn, but only for the smallest of moments before he looked back into Mary’s worried face. “She didn’t want me to go. She followed me up there. She tried to get me to go back, to call you, to go home.” He smiled crookedly “But you know how stubborn I am.”
Mary nodded, still holding his hand, but her shoulders relaxed a bit.
“I know, Dad,” she said quietly. “I know how you get.”
The look Mary now cast at Gwynn was as close to an apology as she would be getting, Gwynn knew, even if she deserved one.
“I know exactly what you’re like.” She pulled a chair closer and sat at the bedside, uncomfortably low, having to look up into his pale face against the pillows. “But I want you to stick around, Dad. I want you around a bit longer.”
Martin nodded, and patted her hand. “I’m sorry, Missy. I’ll try to be good.”
Gwynn chose this moment to slip from the room, leaving them alone together.
42
PAUL STOKES WAS leaning against the stone front of The Stolen Child when she returned from the hospital in a cab. As she paid off the taxi driver, she saw him, out of the corner of her eye, push himself away and start across Eyewell Lane toward her. Without waiting for her change, Gwynn turned her back and hurried toward the blue front door. It was locked, of course, and as she fumbled in her bag for her keys, she heard his steps on the path behind her, then his breath, uncomfortably close.
“You want me to unlock that for you?” he asked.
“Get away from me,” she growled.
“Just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he protested, holding his hands up to illustrate his harmlessness. “What with the paramedics and the ambulance here and all. Just a little bit of familial concern.”
“Yeah, right.” Gwynn found the key at last and jammed it into the lock. “More likely you were hoping I was dead or something.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “So you could inherit.”
Stokes shrugged. “That would save time,” he agreed. Nastily. “Of course, you’d have to die intestate, or name me in your will.”
“Highly unlikely.” The key refused to turn. She pulled it out and pushed it in again. “How do you know I wouldn’t be leaving the property to some other relative in my will? Husband? Child? You don’t know anything about me.”
His smile was ugly. “No husband. No child. No time, I guess, since your husband died so—tragically.”
Gwynn staggered back as though slapped. She stared at her cousin. Before she could turn thoughts into words, though, he held out his hands once again, palm up. “I just wanted to check on you, that’s all. Make sure you’re all right. And Martin Scott? Mary’s father—that’s who that was in the gurney, wasn’t it?”
“If you know so much, why the hell are you asking?” The key turned at last, and Gwynn kicked open the door. “Why don’t you leave me alone, Mr. Stokes? Just leave me alone.” She stepped inside, then turned to slam the door behind her, but not before she heard his laugh.
“Like your lover Colin’s left you alone?” he asked. “Looks like everyone’s leaving you alone, Gwynn. Leaving you all alone.” There was a threat in the words. “It could really depress a woman, I expect. Make her feel desperate.”
Now she did slam the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily. After a moment the laughter died away, as did the steps back down to the street.
43
GWYNN PUSHED THE sketch block away peevishly. Scattered on the floor at her feet were several unsatisfactory attempts at pictures of items on Belinda’s list, along with line drawings of the cottage door, of the dovecote, of a curtain blowing at a broken window. I don’t care, Belinda had nearly shouted down the telephone line earlier. Scan them all. Email them to me. I need something. We’ve got a deadline here.
The silence in the cottage was mind-numbing.
Gwynn had to do something other than fail at drawing. Anything. She had to move. Shoving her arms into the wool pea coat, she pulled on some gloves and headed out the door. Purposely, she did not spare a glance for The Stolen Child; if her cousin were watching from the front windows, waiting for her to leave so he could let himself in and rifle the place, let him. Let him. She’d had enough of him. She’d had enough of all of them. She wasn’t even sure who all of them encompassed, and she wasn’t even sure it mattered at this point.
She turned right and headed uphill, away from the village. Soon her thighs were burning with the effort, and other than slowing her pace a bit, she did nothing but welcome the feeling. Action. She found herself fitting her steps to the cadence of the song in her head; then she realized what the song was: “No Ghosts.” A hell of a lot he knew. She pushed on, determined to out walk this hopeless feeling. She would leave it behind if she could.
Gwynn turned into a lane, then another. To her right, a footpath. She was tempted, but she had no ordinance map. She was nearly to the end of her endurance anyway, she ached so much. The vista that opened out beyond the hedgerow, however, called to her. She looked to the bleak sky—no sign of a break in the regular clouds, but no more storms on the horizon for a while. Still, she’d heard of people wandering off into the maze of public footpaths and getting turned around. A movement caught her eye, and she looked up to see a red kite soaring away overhead. Taking a deep breath, she turned her steps along the path.
Gwynn didn’t want to think. Instead, she looked, slowing her strides. The footpath would be lovely in June and July, with the blazing sun overhead, the bird calls, the scent of the wild roses that would line the way. Now the branches on either side were bare, the leaves fallen or lusterless. It suited her, the November countryside. It suited her bleak mood, the general feeling of anxiety, as though something were on the verge of happening, something just out of sight, something she was powerl
ess to prevent. She touched her finger to a startlingly red rose hip, and moved on.
In the distance she could make out a cluster of buildings: a white-washed stone house surrounded by outbuildings which had been left their natural color, and were nearly faded into the landscape. There was something familiar about them. She rifled her memory with little success, until she saw the spot, midway between the high hill on which she found herself and the cluster of buildings, where a blackened circle marred the brown grass. Trevelyan Court Farm—from a different angle. A rueful smile played about her mouth as she found herself patting her own pockets; but she had left the extra packet of matches in her purse, and she had left that on the kitchen countertop back at the cottage. If she came upon Giles, she would be unable to help him in his never-ending quest to light his pipe. Again. Poor man.
Gwynn thanked what providence had set her feet on this particular track. The Trevelyans. Of course. Giles and Bel and their warm welcoming kitchen. Practical human conversation. Touching her upper arm gingerly—even though the bruising was nearly faded away by now—she headed along the worn track down toward the farmhouse. She hoped that same providence would have them at home; she hoped they wouldn’t mind an unexpected visitor.
She heard the frenzied barking as she skirted the curve of the upper field. Star. Gwynn felt her mood shift. She trailed her eyes over the surrounding fields, looking for the flock of sheep the dog would be working, but she did not see them. Still, the barking. She shaded her eyes with her hand, searching the high meadows for the flash of black and white, the streak that was Star on a border-collie errand, but could not find her. Her speed on the hillside increased, and the barking grew closer. More frenzied.
“Star?” she called. “Where are you?”
The dog shot up the hillside toward her, from a hollow that still remained hidden from view. Gwynn stopped, held out a hand, but the sheepdog circled her, just out of her reach, still barking, and then streaked back down the hill again.
“What’s wrong, Star?”
Again she appeared, circled, ran back down to disappear into the hollow.
Gwynn broke into an awkward run.
GILES TREVELYAN LAY hidden in the tiny hollow as though cupped in a hand. Beside him, standing guard, Star looked up at her and barked one more time. Then she sank to her belly, her head on her paws. She whined gently.
Gwynn’s breath caught in her throat. She stumbled the few feet to his side and fell to her knees. Giles lay on his stomach, his legs tangled, his arms thrown wide, as though welcoming the ground as it rushed up to meet him. A few inches from his splayed fingers lay his unlit pipe, a chunk of tobacco, burned around the edges, dislodged next to it. She reached out a shaking hand and touched Giles on the shoulder of his barn coat.
“Giles?” she said. Then, urgently, “Giles?”
He did not answer, did not stir. She hadn’t expected it, she thought wildly, but she had hoped. Beside them, Star whined again.
“Hush, girl,” she said distractedly, trying to pull her flyaway thoughts together. Trying to think. “Hush.” She touched Giles’ cheek, above the bristles of his white beard; his face felt cold, so cold. Frantically, with both hands, she grasped his shoulder and turned him over, gasping. “Giles?”
He was heavy. Gwynn lost her grip, and he rolled over onto his back, his black-current eyes staring sightlessly upward. There was blood on his scalp, blood on his face.
Gwynn scrambled to her feet. Star lifted her head, but did not cease whining. “Stay,” she whispered to the dog, holding a hand out—it had blood on it, she noticed, in shock. “Stay.” It seemed dreadfully important that someone stay with the old farmer, but she had to go for help. She took off down the track, past the blackened bonfire site, toward the cobbled farmyard.
Bel must have seen her coming through one of the kitchen windows, for she opened the door as Gwynn stumbled into the farmyard. Bel’s face paled at the sight of her, and she looked upward, beyond the barns, into the high fields. “Giles?”
“Get help,” Gwynn gasped.
Bel just stood, still looking up at the hillside, and began a high keening.
THE FIRST PERSON to show up, even before the police and paramedics, was James Simms. Today he wore his shiny business suit, apparently having just come from the office.
“Bel,” he said, letting himself into the kitchen. Bel looked up from her seat in the rocking chair, her face drawn and white. Her lips moved, but she said nothing. He hurried to her side. “Where?”
Bel made no move.
“Up in the pasture,” Gwynn said. Her voice was thick, not her own. “Beyond the burn circle.” She swallowed. “Star’s with him.”
Simms looked her up and down, his eyes narrowed behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Stay here with Bel,” he ordered, and disappeared back into the yard. The kettle whistled, and automatically, Gwynn rinsed and filled the teapot, letting the leaves steep while she watched through the window as the solicitor headed up into the pasture. Star would find him. Star would bring him to the place where his master lay, staring into the bruisy November sky.
Gwynn was pouring a cup of tea for Bel when she heard the sirens heading up the long track from the road. Bel did not look up, merely rocked. The chair creaked steadily against the tiles. Gwynn set the cup and saucer on the small table beside Bel and slipped out into the farmyard. “Up there,” she shouted to the paramedics, waving a hand toward the tiny dark figure up on the hill. An officer swung himself out of the police car, which then followed the ambulance out of the yard. As the policeman approached, his eyes widened with recognition.
“Mrs. Forest, isn’t it?” he asked.
She nodded.
“You found him? You called?”
Gwynn nodded again, and with one last glance up at the procession on the hillside, she led the policeman into the kitchen. Bel Trevelyan still rocked, white-faced, the cup of tea untouched beside her.
“Mrs. Trevelyan?” The officer, Gwynn thought now, looking at him where he bent over Bel, was young, terribly young. Too young for this job. She returned to the teapot and fixed him a cup. “Are you all right? It’s me. Evan. Evan Collier?” He took his hat off and set it aside.
Bel looked up at him, her expression uncomprehending. She put a hand on his sleeve. “Giles,” she whispered. She dropped her hand to her lap and looked away.
At the sink, Gwynn lowered her head. In her pocket, she fingered the pipe she had picked up from the ground.
BY THE TIME Penny showed up, darkness was falling, and with it, shock had set in. Gwynn couldn’t bear to sit in the kitchen with Bel, who was, it seemed, close to catatonic; she had never been invited further into the house, so now she sat on the bench outside the door in the encroaching night. The paramedics had gone away with their burden, the attending doctor having declared Giles dead. Now Star sat at her feet, staring out into the darkness in her silent dog way. Up on the hillside, lights had been set up in a mockery of the bonfire, the hollow cordoned off.
Penny lowered herself slowly to the bench beside her. She touched Star on her grizzled head, once, as though acknowledging the dog’s grief. Gwynn held herself stiffly away. There was something odd and awkward sitting here with Colin’s ex-wife, Giles’ great-niece.
“All right?”
“I bought him matches,” she said, bewildered. “At the shop.”
Penny sighed, running a hand down the length of her braid before tossing it over her shoulder. She turned toward the lights on the hillside. “He would have liked that.”
It didn’t matter now, Gwynn thought numbly.
“I didn’t know the footpath came here,” she said, aware of the non-sequitur, but unable to think of anything else to say.
“You were walking?” This was the same question the young policeman had asked, the same one she had answered.
“I had to get out of the house.”
Penny nodded. She seemed to want to say something, but then bit her lower lip and remained silent.
Penny answered the second question first. “She’s got Jamie. He’ll take care of her.”
“Who is he? What is he?” Gwynn shook her head. None of it made sense. She remembered back to the night of the bonfire—the morning after, really—and watching Bel Trevelyan pluck a bit of hay from Mr. Simm’s thinning hair. There was an intimacy there that she didn’t understand, but one which was totally unremarkable to everyone else in the room.
“He’s her brother. Youngest of them.” Penny leaned forward, looking away from the place where the bonfire had been lit just nights ago, and where the police klieg lights shone now. The place where the fire had been lit for so many years previously. Gwynn wondered inanely who would light the fire now. Whether anyone would. Whether Trevelyan Court would continue as a farm, or whether the stone outbuildings would be converted to holiday homes and sold off to incomers. Incomers such as herself. But what did that matter? What did anything matter, in the face of Giles’ death?
“Someone killed him,” she said slowly, looking down at her hands. For a moment she could still see the blood, though she had washed it off in the sink hours ago, watched the tainted water swirl away down the drain. “Someone killed him.”
Penny gasped, looked at her sharply. “You’re sure of that.”
“He was—face down. There was blood on his head.” She saw again those black-current eyes, blindly staring up at the November sky.
“He could have fallen,” Penny offered. “He could have had—I don’t know—a heart attack? And fallen.”