Dovecote

by Oleson, Anne Britting;

  “Dad’s missing,” Mary said without greeting. Her voice shook, but then she controlled it. “Have you seen him?”

  Martin. He wasn’t supposed to be exerting himself. He wasn’t supposed to be out. Mary had been, this week, looking into care homes, despite her father’s objections. The visiting nurse was no longer security enough.

  “I haven’t,” Gwynn said quickly, checking the time on the mantle clock. She had overslept again, and it was nearly ten. “How long has he been gone?”

  “I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know!” For the first time in their acquaintance, Gwynn heard real fear in Mary Tennant’s voice, coming to her plainly down the telephone line. “I told him I’d collect him this morning to take him to church—”

  Church. Oh, Martin wouldn’t enjoy that.

  “—and I’ve just got here, but he’s gone. There’s no sign of him. The flat’s empty.”

  “His bed?”

  Mary sniffed. “It was slept in—it’s not made.” There was the sound of Mary blowing her nose. “His hat’s gone. His stick, too. Oh, I knew I should have stayed last night. I knew it. He can’t be trusted. He said he’d stay put, and he had the newspaper, and he’d be fine.”

  Martin’s first night alone since coming home from the hospital. He’d been doing so well, Mary kept saying all last week. Gwynn suspected that that was because he knew what Mary had in store for him: a move out of his long-time home. He had been trying to avert it. He’s just not getting any younger, Mary had said matter-of-factly. He needs watching if we’re going to keep him around. Gwynn had wondered sadly whether he’d want to stay around much longer once he’d lost his independence, his home; but she’d said nothing. Martin was Mary’s father, and, as much as Gwynn had come to love him, this was a family matter.

  “Have you called anyone? Aside from me?”

  Again the sniff. Could she be crying? Gwynn felt the slow fingers of fright: if Mary cried, the world must be coming to an end.

  “Colin, and the police.”

  “What do the police have to say?” Somehow, with her knowledge of the police over the recent weeks, Gwynn had little faith in them.

  “I had to remind them that Dad is past ninety, and that another old man had been attacked and killed outside the village recently. They weren’t very helpful at first, but then I played the senility card.”

  “Your father’s not senile!” Gwynn exclaimed, horrified. “Oh, Mary, no!”

  “Of course he’s not, but do you think they’re going to stir themselves very quickly to find a man who’s in his right mind? Better they think he’s losing his faculties than think they’re just talking to a hysterical woman.” The anger helped Mary get back on track. “Look, can you go out and search along Eyewell Lane? He’s come to you before—he might be headed in that direction again. And if you find him, call me on my mobile, will you?”

  “Of course,” Gwynn said. “I’ll go now.”

  She hung up the phone and got her coat. It was then she remembered Star, doing her duty to dog and country, out in the brambles of the back garden. She went to the kitchen door, surprised she had not heard her scratching. But then, she’d been distracted.

  Star wasn’t on the stoop. Gwynn called for her, and whistled, but it didn’t look as though the dog were in the garden at all, nowhere finding a path among the brambles. She must have got tired of waiting, Gwynn guessed, and taken herself out through the gate. Probably she’d meet Star prowling in the street. Perhaps this was the day Star finally decided to return to the farm? Gwynn really didn’t have time to wait around. She closed the door, the urgency of finding Martin Scott overriding her feeling of unease at the missing dog.

  No sign of Star out front, either. She must have headed off to the farm, Gwynn reasoned, and maybe it was about time. Still early on Sunday morning; Eyewell Lane was empty, The Stolen Child still buttoned up tight. Just as well—she couldn’t bear the thought of Paul Stokes watching her, making up stories about her to spread in the village. Still, she wished Star were with her to act as bodyguard.

  The sun was noncommittal, and the day had a sorry grayness to it that Gwynn had come to expect in this November, neither summer nor winter, but turning toward the colder end of the year. She buttoned her coat as she turned down toward the village, trying to think logically. If Martin Scott were walking from his house to hers, he’d have to be somewhere in between, and as he was ninety-odd, he didn’t move quickly. But then again, when had he left his own house? She wished she’d thought to ask Mary if there had been signs he’d eaten breakfast, for that might have given a clue. Or if not that, what time Mary had left him the previous evening, safely tucked into his bed for the night.

  Was that movement behind the curtain in The Stolen Child? Gwynn refused to look, but walked on resolutely, turning at the foot of the hill away from the harbor, toward Clear Street, the road that would take her north, in the direction of the head of the estuary and Martin Scott’s house. How being housebound must have chafed at the old man—someone who valued his independence, someone who had slipped in and out behind his daughter’s cautious back, justifying the deception by saying he didn’t want to worry her. Now to be threatened with the care home, somewhere he’d be locked down tight. Of course he’d bust out of the joint just as soon as Mary wasn’t looking. He’d had a scare, up there at the dovecote—hell, Gwynn had had a scare when he’d collapsed—and the doctor had said he could go at any time. But Martin Scott was not a man, she didn’t think, who was willing to wait around for the Grim Reaper to come calling. He’d want to be out there, challenging death on his own terms.

  She sighed, scanning the road ahead. Poor Mary. Gwynn so admired Martin, but surely he led his daughter the proverbial merry dance. It must be exhausting, loving her father so much Mary had to keep him alive at all costs—when the costs were not really any that her father cared to pay. Gwynn could sympathize with Mary’s desperate attempts to keep her father in line, but even more, she could sympathize with Martin, who wanted to live while he was still alive. Fighting off the Reaper’s scythe with his blackthorn stick.

  While she was waiting for a Peugeot to pass, so that she could cross the road at the end of Eyewell Lane, she thought she heard a bark. One sharp bark. She whirled quickly, looking back up the road, but there was no sign of Star. Or of any dog. Gwynn frowned fiercely. She’d probably imagined it in her worry. Star was probably making her business-like dog way up to Trevelyan Court Farm by now. She’d be back to Gull Cottage whenever she felt like it. If ever she felt like it. Gwynn felt a sudden stab of loneliness at Star’s desertion. She turned toward the estuary.

  HAVING SEARCHED ALONG the green, passing the park bench where she had, such a short time before, strategized with Martin, Gwynn made it up to the little semi-detached house without seeing much but a passing Panda car. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. Looking over her shoulder furtively, she rattled the doorknob. Locked.

  “Mary?” she called, knocking again. Pounding.

  The police car slid into the drive. Gwynn ran to the door, where the police officer was rolling down the window.

  “Are you family?” he asked. Constable Collier.

  “Have you found him?” she demanded. “Martin. Have you found him yet?”

  Collier peered at her. “Mrs. Forest, is it?”

  “Yes, yes, but—Martin?”

  Collier shook his head. “Not yet. Mrs. Tennant has gone to collect a recent photograph for us, so we can put the word out.”

  Gwynn’s chest constricted. “I’ll keep looking, then.”

  But where? Leaving Collier in the drive, she set off, back down the road this time, rather than by the estuary, her hands in her pockets, her shoulders hunched. The sky was gray, as it had been for as long as she could remember, and she found herself praying that it wouldn’t rain. The thought of Martin out, perhaps collapsed, was bad enough, but the thought of a cold rain on his wrinkled skin, and he unable to get out of it, was unbearable.

  5
1

  GWYNN STOPPED IN at the shop, where Leah hadn’t seen Martin, but where she was keeping an eye on the street. She hurried up Eyewell Lane to Gull Cottage, where she’d left the blue door unlocked in the hope that an exhausted Martin might take shelter there. On the way, she met a Rover which slowed to a stop. Mr. Simms leaned out the window.

  “No sign of Martin Scott yet, then?” he called to her.

  Gwynn took a step toward his car. “I’ve been from here to his cottage, both on the street and the estuary path. Nothing.”

  Mr. Simms pursed his lips. “I’ve seen the police patrols.” He gestured over his shoulder. “I’ve been up to the farm. Bel’s not seen anything up there.”

  The dog. Gwynn looked up sharply—in her searching, she’d forgotten all about the missing border collie. “Is Star up there with her?”

  Simms frowned. “No. Isn’t she with you?” His pale eyes raked the street. “We haven’t seen her up there since you brought her up.”

  Where was she, then? Gwynn looked up the street, then down. Where was Martin? She chewed her lip anxiously. Perhaps dog and man were together? Star seemed to have a predilection for protecting people; maybe, in her inscrutable dog way, she had found Martin and was staying with him? It was a long shot, but it was something to hold on to. Something to hope for. Gwynn thought of the one short bark she had heard earlier. Star. Star trying to alert her?

  But if Star knew Gwynn were close by, and if she needed her—Gwynn thought of the way she’d led her to Giles Trevelyan and caught her breath abruptly—surely Star would have come for her. Surely. She glanced up and down the street once again, her ears straining. She heard nothing save the smooth hum of the Rover’s engine.

  “I’ll be heading down to the office, then,” Mr. Simms said. “If you find out anything, let me know.” He coughed slightly. “Martin Scott is a good man.”

  With that cryptic pronouncement, he released the handbrake and set off down toward the intersection.

  THERE WAS NO sign that Martin had made it to Gull Cottage. Gwynn pushed open the front door and called his name. No answer, and her heart sank. She peered into the dining room, called up the stairs. Nothing. Then she became aware of the movement of cold air through the house, much as if it were breathing. She stopped, listening, her blood pulsing unnaturally loudly through her ears. She had felt this before.

  Slowly she stepped into the sitting room. “Martin?” No sign of anyone here, but in the kitchen the door creaked as it swung gently.

  Gwynn swallowed, staring at the door. “Martin?” she whispered, but she knew it wasn’t Martin. She knew. She forced herself to move forward, one step, another step, another, until she paused with a palm pressed to the door. A breeze from the other side pushed the wood against her hand. She closed her eyes for a second, willing courage into her veins.

  The door to the garden stood open, but the kitchen was empty.

  Gwynn pushed into the narrow kitchen and reached a hand to close the door, but then stopped abruptly. Martin could be out there. In the garden, or—beyond.

  Fumbling, she pulled open the cupboard door and reached the flashlight. Not there. She wrenched open the next door, and the next. No flashlight. And no time. The storm lantern, newly filled just the other day, stood on the counter. Next to it, the scrap of paper, yellowed with age, anchored to the countertop with the sugar bowl.

  Gwynn. Dovecote. T.

  52

  HEEDLESS OF THE brambles, Gwynn ran through the garden. They’d grown up again, and it was as though hands reached for her, tried to hold her back. Ahead, the rotted gate. She grabbed it with her free hand and dragged it back so fiercely it broke from the top hinge and hung drunkenly.

  On the ground just outside lay Martin’s blackthorn. Gwynn tripped over it and nearly fell. The cry caught in her throat, and, checking the lantern flame, she bent quickly to retrieve the stick. He was here. Somewhere. Out here.

  Not somewhere. She knew exactly where he had gone.

  Then she heard the bark. Again, a single sharp yelp, just as it had been earlier.

  Please, Star, she prayed. Please be with him.

  But the note. The note on the counter, just as it had been in her dream. Just as it had been in Gwynn Chelton’s reality. How had it come to be there? She had left it in the drawer of the bedside table, unwilling to touch it again, unwilling to unfold it and look at the incised command. Pieces of paper did not transport themselves from closed drawers in upstairs bedrooms to kitchen countertops. There had to be human agency involved. But what human agency? Please, she prayed again, incoherently. Why would Martin have brought it down? How would Martin have known it was there?

  Again the bark. Seized with a sudden panic, she brandished the walking stick in front of her, the best weapon she was likely to find, and rushed up the hill into the wood.

  THE CLEARING WAS deserted. Silent. Instinctively she looked for dead doves, birds with their necks twisted and broken, but there were none.

  “Martin?” she called. Her voice wavered. “Star?”

  No answer.

  She paused, looking at the door, the way it hung crookedly. Was it closed more than it had been the last time she’d been up? She couldn’t tell. She threw a glance over her shoulder: she should have brought someone. She should have called someone. She cursed herself now for not calling for help, cursed her flagging courage. It wasn’t too late. If she ran back down to the cottage, called the police, called Mary—but no. What if Martin was in there, collapsed again, his life ticking away with the labored beating of his heart? And Star had barked. Star was here. Somewhere.

  Swallowing, she moved toward the sagging building. The lantern was in one hand, the walking stick in the other. She shoved open the door with her shoulder. The blackthorn she held aloft, just in case.

  “Martin?” she called again, stumbling into the soft thick air of the dovecote. In the wavering circle of light from the lantern, she could barely make out the empty boxes, the rotten hay on the floor. “Martin, it’s me. Gwynn. Are you here?”

  She sensed the movement first, and spun. When she saw the rope suspended from the overhead beam, she let out a small scream and dropped the blackthorn stick.

  The door slammed shut behind her with the sound she recognized from her dreams.

  “MARTIN’S NOT HERE.”

  Gwynn whirled. She lifted the lantern and saw, leaning against the door, Paul Stokes.

  “Thought you’d come for that note.” He had his arms crossed over his chest, his cigarette tucked in the corner of his mouth. He held a flashlight, the flashlight from the kitchen. He withdrew a packet of matches from a pocket. He lit his cigarette, shook out the match, and dropped it, then ground it into the dirt floor with the sole of his shoe. “Can’t have that starting a fire.” He blew smoke up toward the rafters.

  Gwynn could not speak. She bent quickly to gather the walking stick, but, his foot flashing out like a snake, Stokes kicked it away.

  “No, you don’t. No weapons for you, cousin.” He picked up the stick, hefted it in his beefy hand. “You could do someone an injury with this—even if it isn’t a rock.” His laugh was unpleasant. He moved closer, so close Gwynn took a step back. “And I’ll have that, too.” He wrested the wire handle of the lantern from her surprised hand.

  “Where’s Star?” she demanded. “Where’s my dog?”

  Now Stokes raised the light to her face, and she blinked, blinded.

  “Least of your worries, I think. Here you are, feeling lonely and depressed, and all you can do is ask about a dumb animal?” Another laugh. “It’s run off, Gwynn. Run off and left you. Like everyone leaves you.”

  Gwynn ignored this. “Star was up here. I heard her.”

  Stokes shrugged. “I dragged that damned dog up here. I knew you’d come looking for it. But it ran off when I needed the rope for—something else.”

  The noose. Hanging from the rafters behind her. Gwynn felt her neck prickle. She blinked against the blinding lantern light. />
  “You’re crazy. If you wanted to frighten me, you’ve succeeded. But I’m done with your game.” She made a move for the door, which she knew was somewhere behind him.

  He thrust the blackthorn stick out at her knees, and she tripped and fell.

  For one hysterical moment, she felt his weight on her—but that was Gwynn Chelton, that wasn’t her; that was Tommy Chelton, not Stokes. That was then, this was now. Gwynn drew a deep breath, full of dust and the must of rotten straw. She coughed as she dragged herself to her hands and knees. “What do you want? I’ll sign the damned paper, but it won’t do you any good. No witnesses. Under duress.”

  The tip of the stick was under her chin, forcing her head up. “I want what’s mine. I want the cottage.”

  Follow the money, Giles Trevelyan had said.

  Stokes might not have simply waited for Gwynn Chelton to die, Giles Trevelyan had said.

  Suddenly Gwynn was very afraid.

  It was hard to breathe, and the blood was pounding in her ears again.

  Be practical, she told herself. Keep him talking. Stall for time. Because, she realized, Star was out there. Everyone was looking for Martin, and someone would come across Star, and she would bring someone up here. If Gwynn could stall for enough time.

  Slowly she got to her feet, the tip of the stick poking uncomfortably into the skin under her chin. She wiped the straw from her hands on her jeans, concentrating on tiny details. “How much money do you need?” she asked, trying to sound conversational. “I have plenty of money. I can help you.”

  His hand was rough on her arm, the same arm he had bruised on Bonfire Night, and she winced more in memory than fact. “Sit here and don’t move.”

  Gwynn hadn’t seen the rickety chair beneath the noose. Stokes forced her down onto it; the chair rocked, and the seat cracked, but it held. She gripped the sides with both hands to keep from shaking.