The Hunted Hare

by Fay Sampson

  She raised her eyes. “Can I go now?”

  “Just one thing. I hear you were at the archery butts this morning.”

  Jenny tensed. “Yes,” she said, tersely.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” he smiled. “We realize you are hardly in a fit state to fire an arrow in anger, even if you had a reason. Miss Jenkins tells me you used a wheelchair.”

  It took a moment for Jenny to remember that Miss Jenkins was Sian.

  “It’s perfectly possible to do archery sitting down,” she said, crisply. “It’s a sport in the Paralympics. I can still shoot standing up, but Sian suggested it would be less tiring in a chair.”

  “Of course,” he said, soothingly. “I’m sure a little light exercise is good for you.” His tone changed. “I understand Miss Brown is also something of an archer.”

  “I haven’t seen her shoot,” Jenny answered. “But when Euan Jones brought me back the arrows I’d shot he said she was good. We have the same tastes, apparently. It seems we both think the natural yew bow I was using is nicer than the new high-tech alloy ones. It feels right, somehow.”

  “Like the longbow men at Agincourt.”

  She felt her face register surprise.

  “Some of us know our history books, Mrs Davison. The yew longbow was a deadly weapon. Not that I’m comparing that to your own hobby.”

  The sergeant’s voice cut across them. “Can ballistics tell which bow fired an arrow? Like with a gun?”

  The inspector turned a weary face to him. “Now how would they do that, boy?” He turned back to Jenny. “Thank you. You’ve been most helpful. I’m sorry we had to disturb your rest.”

  She rose with the strangely disorientated feeling that she was not certain just how much she had said or how he had interpreted it.

  On her way out, his voice arrested her.

  I believe you have your daughter with you.”

  At once, alarm bells rang. “Melangell? Yes.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Seven.”

  “I wonder if you would mind if we asked her a few questions? You or your husband would be present, of course.”

  “She didn’t see anything. She’d only just got back from the walk.”

  “I assure you, we won’t say anything to upset her.”

  Melangell sat, self-importantly upright, in front of the chief inspector. Sergeant Lincoln had been replaced by PC Watkins. The constable was glowing with satisfaction that she had been given this part in the investigation. Aidan stood behind Melangell, while Jenny sat beside her.

  “They were arguing,” Melangell said in her clear voice. “Mr Brown and Mr Caradoc.”

  “Mr Lewis,” PC Watkins explained. “Caradoc Lewis.”

  “Yes, him. He’s a funny sort of man. But I liked his house. It’s got a carving of a hare over his door. And he shouted at Mr Brown that he could do what he liked with what was his own.”

  “Mr Brown could? Or Mr Lewis?”

  “The Welsh one. Mr Lewis.”

  “And what did he mean by ‘his own’?”

  “I don’t know. Before they saw us, Mr Brown went away. We heard his car. Then Mr Lewis shouted at us, but in the end he was nice and let us go through his garden to the road.”

  “Well done, Miss Melangell. You’ve got sharp ears and eyes.” He raised his eyes to Aidan. “I don’t think you told us all of that, Mr Davison.”

  “I’m not sure I remember all the details of their argument myself. But I think she’s got it right.”

  Jenny felt relief sliding over her. Whatever was wrong between Lorna and her uncle, someone else had reason to hate him, by the sound of it.

  Melangell’s voice cut across her thoughts. “There was something else I forgot to say. We were just coming back to the house when this car came zooming past us. We’ve seen it before, when we were on our way here. The car had dark windows, but you could just see two men inside it. In the wrong sort of clothes for here.” She reached up an affectionate hand to fondle Aidan’s Fair Isle jumper. “Suits and ties.” Then she clapped her hand to her mouth, blushing, as the inspector looked down at his own. “They were driving much too fast,” she added, defiantly.

  The inspector’s gaze was enigmatic. Jenny turned a questioning glance up at Aidan. Why had the men in the Jaguar come back to the House of the Hare so soon before Thaddaeus’s death?

  “Thank you, Melangell. You can go now. Don’t have bad dreams. We’ll catch whoever did this. You’re quite safe.”

  Jenny ushered Melangell out of the crowded office. The quality of silence in the House of the Hare was no longer peaceful, but tense.

  Chapter Ten

  “POOR JOSEF,” Jenny said. “I hope they let him get back to his kitchen in time to prepare the evening meal.”

  “I’m not sure anyone’s going to have much appetite.” Aidan had carried his walking boots upstairs. He peeled off his sweater. “Gorse,” he explained, as Jenny watched him removing the spines from the wool.

  Out in the grounds, the scene-of-crime officers were still at work. Jenny tried not to think about it.

  “Mummy! Daddy! Quick!” Melangell’s cry came from across the corridor.

  They rushed to her room. She was at her window, bouncing with impatience. “Look! Look! And there’s that man taking photographs.”

  Jenny was just in time to see Lorna Brown’s black hair bowing beneath the hand of Sergeant Lincoln, who was guiding her into the back of a car. He went around to the other side and got in beside her. Detective Chief Inspector Denbigh took the wheel. The car circled in front of the house and drove off.

  From Aidan’s description, Jenny recognized Marcus Coutts dashing forward to snap the occupants, while a uniformed constable tried in vain to hold him back. She had a glimpse of more photographers outside the gate.

  Jenny sat down suddenly on Melangell’s bed. She felt herself go pale.

  “What are they doing?” Melangell asked. “Why are they taking her away? Has she done something wrong?”

  Aidan’s guilt-stricken face ignored his daughter’s alarm. “I could kick myself for telling them about what happened at the waterfall,” he said, savagely. “I should never have jumped to conclusions as to what that was all about. She could have been jilted by a boyfriend. Her pet cat might have died. It didn’t have to be anything to do with Thaddaeus.”

  “You had to tell him.” Jenny laid her hand on his bare arm. She felt the tickle of sandy hairs under her palm. “So did I. I had to say I’d seen her come back, in distress. About her meeting Euan. I couldn’t not tell him.”

  “It’s all right.” She turned gently to Melangell, whose eyes were darting from one to the other. “They’ve just taken Lorna to the police station to ask her some more questions. They’re trying to find out how Mr Brown died.”

  “Do they think she did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t think she did. She’s nice.”

  “Neither do I. Now get washed. I don’t know where your father took you. You’ve still got blood all over your arms. It’ll be time for supper soon.”

  Hungry or not, the guests of the House of the Hare were gathered in the lounge, waiting for the dining room doors to open. The Davisons passed the sofa where Colin and Rachel Ewart sat staring morosely out at the lawn.

  Colin erupted into life as they came within earshot.

  “It’s a disgrace! ‘Peace and tranquillity’ he promised us. ‘You can sense the healing in the air’. And what do we let ourselves in for? A murder enquiry! Some sort of peace, this is.”

  “Hush, now.” His wife placed a nervous hand over his.

  “I don’t think poor old Thaddaeus could have foreseen this when he wrote the brochure,” Aidan said, in an attempt to mollify him.

  Jenny had a sudden vision of the revised text. “Guests are advised to avoid 24 April, because I shall be murdered that day.” She had difficulty restraining herself from bursting into hysterical laughter.

  Colin Ew
art’s glinting eyes found hers. “You find this funny?”

  “No, no. We’re all upset, I think. It certainly wasn’t what we imagined when we booked a week here. Like you, we came for the peace… and the healing.” Her voice dropped. She met Aidan’s eyes. Spiritual healing? Physical? They had never fully discussed the delicate subject of why they were here. Was it just to remember the golden days of their first love? To show Melangell?

  Melangell said, “What do you think’s for supper?”

  As if on cue, the doors of the dining room swung open. It was not Sian in charge this evening. They were met by a teenager with bouncing dark curls. She wore a red apron over black shirt and trousers. Behind the heavy make-up, her brown eyes flashed with excitement.

  Three tables had been laid. The one in the window, where Thaddaeus and Lorna had dined last night, stood bare.

  Jenny studied the menu. “I’ll have the sausage and mash with onion gravy,” she told the girl. “But could you make that a small helping?” She looked up at the teenager’s face. “You must be Mair, from the next village. I thought Sian said you’d gone back to college.”

  “I’ve got my course work to hand in next week. Business Studies. But you have to help out, don’t you, when it’s a friend? Sian’s been good to me.”

  Jenny looked around the room. “She’s not eating here tonight?”

  “She’s in her office. Crying her eyes out. Something to do with a bow. Says she wishes she’d never told the police how good Lorna was with it.” Mair gave an exaggerated shudder. “Gives you the heebie-jeebies, doesn’t it? She’s no older than me. Lorna Brown, I mean. And to think of her shooting her uncle in the eye. Must have been a horrible sight.”

  Jenny shot a warning look at Melangell. Mair took the hint, too late.

  “Oh, sorry! Big mouth, me. I’ll give Josef your orders. Poor sod. He hardly knows whether he’s coming or going. And Sian’s asked him to do sandwiches for them out there.” She nodded towards the shrubbery that hid the archery butts from the ground floor rooms.

  She swept away, ignoring the peremptory beckoning of Colin Ewart.

  A subdued group sipped coffee in the lounge. In the evening shadows, the SOCO team packed up and walked round the house to their vehicles. Harry and Debbie got up abruptly and left the room.

  “We thought we might drive over to Lake Vyrnwy tomorrow,” Rachel Ewart said, timidly. “Get away from it all.”

  “I’d pack up and go,” her husband snorted. “But that police inspector as good as ordered us to stay.”

  “I suppose they may have more questions to ask us,” Jenny suggested, “when they’ve looked at the evidence they’ve found today.”

  “Obvious, isn’t it? The man was shot with an arrow. And who shoots around here? His niece. Probably did it for the money.”

  “Is there any?” Aidan asked. The pointed beard gave his head a gnome-like air as he cocked it towards the Ewarts. “I’d have thought he was up to his ears in debt, now he’s built all this, and the tourists are hardly streaming through the doors.”

  “Oh, he’ll have been rolling in it. I know the sort. This will just have been a little sideline of his. Something to set against tax. He’s in the money, all right. Look at those two characters who showed up this afternoon in a Jaguar XF. Dark glasses. Savile Row suits. You mark my words. There’ll be all sorts of shady dealing you and I know nothing about. Nor HM Revenue and Customs either, I shouldn’t wonder. The House of the Hare. Peace and healing. Do me a favour! More likely links with the Mafia, if you ask me.”

  Jenny felt wearied by his outrage.

  “I think I’ll have an early night. It’s been a bad day. You all right with your jigsaw, honey?”

  Melangell twisted her mop of curls from where she lay on her stomach. “Night, Mummy. I’m fine. Just this bit of mountain and the sky to do. There’s too much blue.”

  Jenny bent and kissed her. “Sleep well, love. Sweet dreams.”

  What would her own dreams bring her? she wondered.

  Aidan kissed her, too. “I’ll be up later.”

  In the hall she met Sian. The manager’s face was tear-streaked. Her fair hair stood out wildly, as though she had pulled her fingers through it.

  “Oh, Mrs Davison. You’re calling it a day? I don’t blame you.”

  Jenny hesitated. “I’m sorry to hear about Lorna. This is a dreadful business. But I can’t really believe that it was her, can you? To shoot her uncle in cold blood?”

  Sian’s plump face was anguished. “I told them about her using the archery butts.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. So did I. Euan told me she did. He said she liked that yew bow, too. I’ve wondered since. Was it the yew bow that killed him, or one of the modern ones?”

  “Does it matter? They’ll know it has to be someone who’s a good shot.”

  Sian turned away. Jenny watched her go. That morning on the archery range seemed so long ago now. Sian had discussed the equipment with her so knowledgeably. It had never occurred to Jenny to ask if Sian practised archery herself.

  Chapter Eleven

  AIDAN WOKE WITH A SENSE of horror. He was sitting bolt upright in the darkness, sweat cold on his skin. He struggled to put a name to the terror of his nightmare.

  It came flooding back. Jenny. He had to watch, immobile, as she raised the yew bow from the unfamiliar stance of a wheelchair. Drawing back the string to full stretch. And at the fatal moment, Thaddaeus Brown emerged from the shrubbery on to the range.

  A start of her arm. Too late to abort the shot. Unable to move a limb to stop it, he saw their host felled by that cruelly deflected arrow.

  As he had in reality, he looked down into that ruined face.

  Even as he relived the horror of it, his rational mind told him it was nonsense. He and Melangell had left Jenny practising archery in the morning, hours before Thaddaeus’s death. They had come back to find her drowsing serenely on the patio. Even if she had returned to the butts, it was inconceivable that Jenny, who was facing her own death so bravely, would not have confessed to such a ghastly accident.

  But the sense of helpless horror remained.

  He turned towards her. In the dark, he sensed rather than saw that she was sleeping peacefully.

  He was appalled at himself. He must never, ever, let her know what his unconscious had accused her of.

  An air of waiting hung over the valley next morning. The police had taken over a workshop on the far side of the archery range. Melangell watched avidly as a van drew into the drive and unloaded some computers and whiteboards. From Jenny and Aidan’s balcony they could see officers carrying this equipment along the path. Sergeant Morris was uncoiling a cable to the house.

  There was still police tape around the place where Thaddaeus’s body had been found and the games hut at the nearer end of the range.

  “They’ll find my footprints on the grass,” Jenny said. “My fingerprints on the arrows and the bow. But the inspector is gallantly convinced that I’m too frail to have fired a shot with lethal effect.”

  She saw an expression of alarm widen Aidan’s eyes. Then he rallied. “He should see you in action. How many bullseyes did you hit?”

  “Two out of three. The wheelchair took a bit of getting used to.”

  “How do you feel today? Any after-effects?”

  “It’s better if different bits of me hurt. And better still when I don’t think too much about it.”

  “We could take a drive, if you like. It doesn’t look as though they’re in any hurry to question us again. The Ewarts have gone to Lake Vyrnwy. We can tell the police what time we’re coming back.”

  Jenny thought for a moment. “Perhaps later. I’d like to go over to the church, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course. Do you want us to come with you?”

  “That’s up to you. We ought to take Melangell’s mind off things, I suppose.”

  “What I’d really like to do is to take more photos of those yews. They’re astonishing.
I’m fascinated by the way the trunks are knotted and coiled, as though a giant had seized them in his fist and twisted them. Melangell’s fallen in love with them. She’ll be off in some fairy tale adventures about them.”

  There was a policeman on the hotel gate, but most of the reporters had gone. They walked the short distance down the lane to the little church. Outside a cottage, a man in a tan leather jacket was talking to the owner. A camera hung ready round his neck.

  “That’s him,” growled Aidan. “That press photographer who stuck a Leica in my face.”

  “He’s horrible.” Jenny shuddered. “Thaddaeus’s blood was hardly dry when he got into the house. He was taking photos of all of us. Asking all sorts of questions.”

  “Did you tell him anything?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t know anything. But I saw the Ewarts talking to him when they got back. I think they were flattered by the attention. Colin must have fancied seeing himself in the national newspapers.”

  The noticeboard in front of the church announced it open. There was a welcome in Welsh and English.

  They went through the lychgate, overshadowed by the first of the yews. Others spread to left and right inside the low circular wall.

  “That’s the one with the hiding place,” Melangell cried. She ran round to the side of the gigantic trunk facing the church.

  Aidan marvelled at it. “That hollow in the trunk’s so vast, you wonder there’s enough wood left to hold the tree up.”

  It was the perfect place for make-believe. Melangell was already away from them, lost in a world of her own making.

  Aidan was getting out his camera, choosing lenses.

  Jenny touched the convoluted bark. It felt rough against her fingertip, not the smooth polished wood of the bow stave. Yew. Guardians of so many churchyards, and of a sacred meeting place here long before that. Wood for the longbow men of England and Wales, feared across the Continent. A healing drug for cancer.

  The berries were poisonous, she remembered.

  She walked on, into the cool of the church. She sat on one of the embroidered hassocks in a pew and bowed her head in prayer. She had not really formulated why she had wanted to come today, or what she dared to pray for.