The Hunted Hare

by Fay Sampson

  She emptied her mind and let the peace steal in.

  What came was not what she expected, though a reproving voice told her she should have thought of it. Not a prayer for herself, for the disease invading her body, for courage in the months to come, for Aidan and Melangell. To the forefront of her mind sprang the image of Lorna. The lovely black-haired girl with the astonishing blue eyes. Alone in a police cell, her uncle horribly dead. What other family did she have? Jenny felt guilty that she hadn’t asked Sian. It was Lorna who needed peace and courage.

  She got up and walked to the chancel. This time, she paused only briefly at the stone-canopied shrine behind the altar, with its drift of prayer cards.

  She stepped through into the cobbled apse beyond. A simple space, almost devoid of furnishings. To the right, an irregular slab of natural rock, set in the floor. Coffin-shaped. Leaning against the wall behind it was a banner embroidered with the figure of a young woman with a hare at her feet. Jenny gazed down with a strange quickening of her heart. Under that slab had lain the bones later interred in the shrine. A woman’s bones. Almost certainly St Melangell’s.

  Jenny didn’t really believe in praying to the saints to intercede for you. What was wrong with talking straight to God? But the sanctity of centuries reached out and enfolded her. Prayers, like a multitude of snowflakes drifting down out of the vast sky. She added her own.

  “Please, if you can intercede for Lorna, help her now. Hold her safe as you did the hare.”

  She tried to push away the thought that Lorna might actually be guilty. She had looked frightened. A victim, not a murderer. Where would the girl who had come fleeing to Euan have found the steadiness and resolve to aim an arrow so precisely at her uncle’s eye? Whatever Thaddaeus had done to her.

  If not Lorna, then who?

  The answer came with startling clarity. Who had been there to hear her story? Whose arms had gone round the girl to shield her? Surely the police could see that a far more likely suspect was Euan Jones?

  Then she sighed. She remembered Euan collecting her arrows from the butts. The possessive way he had told her that she was using Lorna’s bow. There was nothing to suggest that the young gardener had ever fired an arrow himself.

  Whoever killed Thaddaeus must have been an expert archer.

  Aidan’s viewfinder scanned the walls of the church. It picked out a block of pink sandstone among the grey. Almost certainly a fragment of St Melangell’s shrine, incorporated after its destruction in the sixteenth century.

  The lychgate banged loudly behind him. He turned.

  The tall, stooped figure striding up the path was instantly recognizable, even after a single meeting. Caradoc Lewis, of Capel-y-Cwm near the waterfall, and leader of the opposition to Thaddaeus Brown’s plans. Lank black hair fell forward over his forehead. Dark eyes snapped. He had the air of a predatory heron.

  Aidan felt a stiffening of unexplained alarm.

  “Hello,” he said. “We meet again.”

  Caradoc Lewis stopped with a jerk. His eyes travelled swiftly over Aidan. “Do I know you? Ah, yes. The Englishman with the significantly named little girl. Where is she?”

  Melangell’s pointed face was peeping out from her hiding-place in the yew, like a hare about to bolt.

  “Behind you.”

  Caradoc’s cadaverous face mellowed. He waved to her, somewhat awkwardly. “Hello, Melangell.”

  “Hello,” she said, smiling uncertainly. She did not come out of the hollow tree.

  “Bad business.” Lewis addressed Aidan again. “I gather I have you to thank for the fact that I’ve had to waste half a morning with the police.”

  “Me?”

  “It was you who told them you’d seen me talking to that rogue Brown, while you were trespassing on my land.”

  “Well, yes.” Aidan felt indignation stirring. “We all had to account for our movements yesterday. I couldn’t not tell them that that was the last time I saw Thaddaeus.”

  “Hmmph! Well, I dare say they’d have roped me in, anyway. It’s no secret I couldn’t stand the man. Oh, he played his cards cleverly to get planning permission. Said all the right things. A place to stay for those who want the healing of the shrine. A sort of pilgrim’s hospice. But we all know he had worse plans that that. Or he did until I scotched them.”

  Aidan’s eyebrows went up. What did he mean by that?

  But Caradoc swept on. “The man hadn’t a grain of sensitivity in his body to the spiritual significance of this valley. And I don’t mean the Priest-Guardian, as they call her, and the godly St Melangell’s Centre. There are far older powers at work here.”

  Aidan looked appreciatively at the massive yews. “I know those trees are 2,000 years old. And where this church stands is thought to be a Bronze Age sacred site.”

  “I don’t need an archaeologist to tell me that. Not when I can feel it in every bone of my body. And the hare! Since when was that a Christian symbol? Did you know the Catholics show the Virgin Mary with a white hare under her feet, to symbolize her crushing of lust? The old ones knew better. The hare is rebirth, new life. Have you ever seen hares boxing in the moonlight?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a magical sight. And it’s no coincidence that the hare was found hiding under Melangell’s skirt.”

  Aidan glanced past him at his own Melangell, listening avidly. He thought it time to turn the conversation in another direction.

  “You’re in the clear, though, aren’t you? The police may have thought you had a motive for getting rid of Mr Brown. But whoever did it shot an arrow through his eye. That must narrow down the list of suspects. Did you know they’ve arrested his niece, Lorna?”

  The skull-like face registered shock. “Silly asses! Does she look to you the sort of girl who’d have the nerve to do a thing like that? Wouldn’t say boo to a goose, as the saying is.”

  Aidan shrugged, with feigned indifference. “I’ve hardly met her. I’ve no idea what went on between them.” He would keep his worst suspicions to himself.

  A new thought struck him. Had Thaddaeus really been that second figure with Lorna, on the path to the waterfall? Could it possibly have been Caradoc? What had reduced her to tears?

  The tall Welshman’s avian eyes studied Aidan intently. As if he knew what he was thinking, he asked suddenly, “Did you meet Lorna yesterday on your walk?”

  “Yes. Briefly. She passed us.” He did not think it necessary to tell this man the details of his encounter with the frightened girl.

  “Did she, now?”

  The silence was strained with tension. Was Caradoc Lewis waiting for him to say something more? But Aidan kept the vivid image of Lorna’s tear-stained face and torn shirt to himself.

  Aidan was just putting his camera away when someone else came through the lychgate. He recognized the dumpy figure of Mother Joan.

  She gave him a beaming smile as she approached. “All well?”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to give the conventional answer, “Yes, fine, thank you,” when the truth hit him. His eyebrows lifted.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Thaddaeus Brown has been killed.”

  She halted. He took her blank expression to mean incomprehension.

  “The owner of the House of the Hare,” he explained. “Probably murdered.”

  The priest’s body was rigid now. “How?”

  “Shot through the eye with his own bow and arrow. From the games shed. They’ve arrested his niece.”

  The rigor of shock softened into an expression of concern. “How dreadful! I didn’t know the man, of course. I’m new around here. Just filling in for a week. Still… I wonder… Is there anything I can do? That poor girl.”

  Aidan shrugged. “Everyone’s pretty much in shock at the house. You might have a word with Sian. She’s the manager. She seems the hardest hit.”

  “I wonder. One doesn’t like to intrude. But I could offer. Even non-believers sudde
nly feel themselves vulnerable to God in the face of mortality. Thank you for telling me.”

  She walked on into the church, where Caradoc Lewis had disappeared a few minutes before.

  He heard her subdued greeting as Jenny emerged.

  Chapter Twelve

  “ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE up to an outing?” Aidan looked at Jenny with concern.

  She gave a brave smile. “All I have to do is sit in the car and let you drive me. You’re right. We need a change of scenery.”

  “I suppose I ought to let the police know where we’re going. So they don’t think we’ve done a runner.”

  “The Ewarts went. I bet they didn’t ask for permission.”

  Aidan strolled across the grounds. He noted that the tape had been removed from the spot where he had knelt beside Thaddaeus’s body. The games equipment shed was still out of bounds.

  The workshop the police had taken over seemed strangely quiet for a murder incident room. There were few officers about. The rest were probably out following up leads elsewhere, Aidan thought.

  What leads? It was frustrating to have been so close physically to the murdered man, yet to know so little about him. Those two men in the black Jaguar, for instance. There had been an almost stereotypical air of menace about them, a startling intrusion on the peaceful rural landscape. Business partners of Thaddaeus? Impatient creditors? It was impossible to guess the extent of Thaddaeus Brown’s business ventures, but Aidan felt sure that the House of the Hare must be only one of a multitude of enterprises.

  Who would inherit them now? If Mair was right, and it was the teenaged Lorna, could she cope with the responsibility? How could she possibly stand up to those two men with the sharp suits and the aggressive driving?

  He could not help but see Lorna as a victim, not a murderer. It was ridiculous that the police should hold her in a cell overnight, just because she was one of the few people in the neighbourhood who could fire a bow.

  Did he know that was the sole reason? Might they have other evidence?

  He tapped on the half-open door.

  “Come in,” called a woman’s voice.

  PC Watkins looked up from her computer. She smiled when she saw him. “What can we do for you?”

  There were two male officers in the room. One was the lanky uniformed Constable Roberts, who had been the second to arrive in answer to Sian’s phone call. The other wore a sports jacket and fawn trousers. CID, Aidan guessed. The two men’s eyes were on him, with interest. It was irrational the way the mere presence of police officers could make you feel guilty, he thought.

  He looked round the almost empty space. On one cobwebbed wall, ancient horse harness hung. A rusted hay rake was propped in the corner. There was a startling modernity about the two grey telephones on the folding table. The whiteboard with a sketch map of the murder site. Two computers.

  “I thought it would be busier than this.”

  The policewoman’s merry brown eyes laughed. “It’s only temporary, this. If we plugged in all the computers we need for this enquiry to the electricity supply here, we’d short-circuit half the Tanat Valley. The real incident room’s back in Newtown. But that’s twenty miles away. So you’re stuck with me. What can I do for you?”

  “I was hoping to see DCI Denbigh. I just wondered if it was OK if I took my wife and daughter for a drive over to Lake Vyrnwy this afternoon. We’ll only be gone for two or three hours. He doesn’t need us for anything, does he?”

  “No, he’s over at Welshpool this morning. Suspicious death. A woman died in a house fire. Probably the husband, if you ask me.” Watkins glanced anxiously at the CID man, in case she had said too much. The officer coughed warningly.

  “Well, it usually is, isn’t it, with a murder?” She recovered herself defiantly. “Someone in the family. Or a lover.”

  “Unless it’s for money,” Constable Roberts added.

  “But I thought Chief Inspector Denbigh was in charge of this case.”

  Watkins’ eyes widened.

  The detective threw back his head and laughed uproariously. “You didn’t think we can afford a Senior Investigating Officer for every suspicious death, do you? We’d need a police budget the length of the Severn. Denbigh’s probably got a half a dozen cases on the go. No, sir. Our investigations are, shall we say, ongoing. We’d be grateful if you didn’t leave the area just yet, but there’s no harm in your seeing the sights while you wait. Better get going, though. There’s rain in the wind.”

  Aidan watched Jenny take her medication. She was paler than he would have liked. But they would all be glad to be on the other side of the mountain for a while.

  “Looks like we have to head for Penybontfawr and head up the next valley.”

  Aidan negotiated the gateposts warily. He half-expected to find the lane beyond still packed with journalists and photographers. There was no one.

  Though the day was dull, Aidan felt a shadow fall behind him as he drove along the valley of the Tanat down the narrow lane. Slate and granite quarries scarred the hillsides ahead, evidence of great industrial activity in the past. A few yellow diggers were still at work in one.

  They turned west again, following another clear stream bubbling over stones. Another hillside dark with conifer plantations. The turreted wall of the dam came into view. A sign pointed across it – “LAKESIDE DRIVE”. The sky was patchy with shower clouds. The water was slate grey.

  They pulled into a small car park. “Ice cream?” asked Aidan, twisting round to Melangell.

  “Of course.” She was out of the car instantly.

  Another couple were coming away from the shop. The Ewarts.

  Colin stopped abruptly when he saw them. “You! I thought we’d got away from it all for a few hours.”

  “Sorry.” Aidan grinned unsympathetically. He was finding it hard to like Colin Ewart. “We thought we needed a change of scene, same as you.”

  “I’ve a mind to get in that car and drive away for good, no matter what that officious police inspector says. What right has he got to tell me where I can and can’t stay when I’m on holiday? It’s supposed to be a free country, isn’t it?”

  “They’d just like us on hand in case some more questions come up. And you’re booked till the end of the week, aren’t you? Like us. It’s Harry and Debbie who are the problem. They’re supposed to be leaving.”

  “I can’t imagine they have anything to do with this,” Jenny said. “They were really shocked when they found the body. Debbie looked quite ill.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Colin Ewart snapped. “That we don’t look innocent? I suppose you think Rachel here got a bow out of that sports shed when no one was looking and shot a man bang through the eye?”

  “Colin!” Rachel protested.

  “Well, I’m fed up with being treated as if we were all suspects.”

  “Not suspects,” Aidan protested. The man’s loud protestations were irritating him. “Potential witnesses. None of us knows what we might have seen that’s relevant.”

  “I know what I saw. Damn all.”

  He got into his car and banged the door. Rachel took the passenger seat more quietly. She turned her head and smiled apologetically. “I hope you have a lovely afternoon. Between the showers.”

  Drops spattered the car park. The Davisons hastened into the shop.

  Aidan drove slowly. The road hugged the lake shore, so that they constantly glimpsed the water through a frame of trees. Showers beaded the windscreen.

  At the head of the lake, Aidan turned off on to a parking place. They walked down through the trees to the open shore. The sun gleamed out between the clouds. It lit the woods around the lake. Their varied spring foliage shone almost as colourfully as autumn. Far down the suddenly blue water, the sun caught a group of scarlet canoes. But for once, Aidan did not feel the urge to go back to the car for his camera. They stood in silence.

  Presently Aidan turned quizzically to Melangell. “You’re quiet today, poppet.”
>
  “Yes, I am.”

  He and Jenny looked down at her. What did all this mean to a seven-year-old?

  Melangell wandered down to the water’s edge and began skimming scraps of slate.

  “I wonder if they’re still holding Lorna,” Jenny said in a low voice. “Do you think they’ll charge her?”

  Aidan shrugged. “I can’t imagine she did it. But look at it from the police’s point of view. Who else could have shot him?”

  “Sian?”

  Aidan stared down the ruffled waters of the lake. He tried to picture the well-muscled figure in the ranger-like clothes. Was it plausible? “Why? Her job depends on him.”

  “To protect Lorna from him? She was in tears yesterday when they arrested Lorna.”

  “And if Lorna inherits the House of the Hare, she’ll keep Sian on. Yes… I see what you mean. You really think I was right? That Thaddaeus was abusing Lorna?”

  “I didn’t want to believe it at first, but the evidence is pointing that way. Something upset her.” There was the set of determination in Jenny’s thin face.

  Aidan joined Melangell skimming stones.

  “Seven!” Melangell cried. “Did you see that?”

  Aidan flicked his wrist. “Eleven!”

  “But you’re twenty-five years older than me, so I get twenty-five extra points. That makes thirty-two.”

  “That’s not fair. I’ll never get to win.”

  He was relieved to hear her laugh.

  The chief inspector’s car was parked outside the house again. A dark blue Rover from the turn of the century. The leather upholstery looked somewhat worn, not unlike the inspector himself.

  Aidan felt the tension as they entered the foyer. He glimpsed Sian in her office behind the desk. His gaze steadied on her. He remembered Jenny’s speculation by the lakeside. Was it possible?

  “I see the chief inspector’s back,” he called. “Is there any news of Lorna?”