by Amy M. Reade
“I can hold the baby while you put this away,” he offered, indicating the pram with a nod of his head.
I handed André to him, warning him to be careful to support the baby’s head and keep him wrapped warmly. I hurriedly put the pram back in the alcove where Sian kept it and turned around to take André back.
Griff was staring at the baby, grinning as if he didn’t have another care. The sight of the two of them stopped me where I was. I was struck with the memory of the conversation I had with Sylvie about Griff—that I knew more about him than I realized. The way he gazed at André told the story of a man who cherished other people and who would go great lengths to protect those needing protection. Then Griff looked up at me and his expression changed to one of ambivalence. I felt a pained hopelessness—I had made a huge blunder in spending one miserable evening in the pub with Rhisiart. But I had to try explaining myself one more time.
“Griff, do you have a minute? I’d like to talk to you.”
“I’m pretty busy,” he answered. “Rhisiart wanted to meet with me. I don’t know what it’s all about.”
“After you’re done talking to Rhisiart then?” I asked, sounding more hopeful than I wanted to.
“I don’t know about that. It depends on what he wants.” He handed André back to me carefully and I got a whiff of his cologne—masculine and light—mixed with the comforting scent of horses.
Griff went down the hallway in search of Rhisiart and I took André upstairs. I found two thick, soft blankets in a chest and spread them out on the floor in the sitting room where Sian liked to stay with André. I placed him on the blankets on his back and sat next to him. He watched my movements as I reached for a squishy block that was on the floor nearby, then I moved it in the air above his head where he could see it. He was still too tiny to grasp things on his own, but he waved his arms upward and touched the block. His bright eyes didn’t miss anything.
Before long there was a soft sound in the doorway. I turned my head toward the noise and saw Brenda standing just inside the room.
“Hi, Brenda. Is everything all right?”
She stood still, her eyes darting from one side of the room to another. Something was wrong.
“Brenda? What’s going on?” I raised my voice to get her attention. I glanced at the baby, who was happily gurgling to himself.
I stood up slowly and walked toward Brenda with uncertain steps. I kept my eyes focused on her to make sure she didn’t move without warning.
When I reached her I waved my hand in front of her eyes, which appeared unfocused and bleary.
“Brenda, what’s going on? Come sit down.” I led her to the settee in front of the fireplace, trying to keep one eye on André, who was moving his little body on the blankets but certainly wasn’t going anywhere. He was too small to turn over by himself.
Brenda let me pull her gently to a seated position, then gave a slight shake of her head. “Eilidh. What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice sounding far away.
“I was in here playing with the baby. What are you doing here?” I had a feeling I knew where this conversation was headed and I didn’t like it at all.
“I don’t know. How did I get in here?” she asked, looking around as if realizing for the first time where she was.
“Brenda, what have you been doing?” I asked, a warning tone in my voice.
She looked down at her hands in her lap. “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing to me,” I said. “Is there something we should talk about?”
She slouched forward, her head resting in her hands. “Don’t tell my mum, please, Eilidh. I need help.”
“What are you on?” I asked. “Cocaine?”
She groaned, and I took that as a “yes.”
“You know what has to happen, Brenda. You know we have to talk to your mum about this. You can’t go on letting this drug destroy everything. I thought you were getting better.”
She was getting weepy. “But with all the stress of having to look for a new job, and Mum’s always talking about how I need to get out of the village and go to university, and…” She left off, shaking her head in despair.
“There are other ways of dealing with stress, ways that are much healthier.” I dreaded what was coming next. “Brenda, tell me where you got the coke.”
“I can’t,” she said with a whisper. “Something awful will happen if I say anything.”
“What could happen? We get that person to stop giving you cocaine, or selling it to you, and it’s done. If necessary, we call the police and they’ll arrest whoever it is.”
“I can’t.” The words came out in a barely perceptible squeak.
“You have to, I’m afraid. We can’t have you going around like this, especially with a tiny child in the castle. You’re going to have to tell me where you got the cocaine and I’ll take care of it myself.”
“But you don’t understand,” she said, louder now, pleading with me.
“I understand perfectly. You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” I told her. I was getting angry now. I had believed that she was getting clean, and I was mad at myself. Mad for believing her.
But as I looked at her pathetic form, slumped down on the settee, I wondered if I had really understood the extent of her need for cocaine. Was she more dependent on it than I realized? Than anyone realized? And was it leading her down a path of other drug use? And where was she getting the cocaine? My first concern had to be for her safety and health, and then my second concern, almost as important as the first, was the safety of everyone else in the castle, especially little André. I didn’t know what someone under the influence of a drug-addled brain was capable of doing, but I didn’t want to wait to find out.
I stood up. “Brenda, I want you to go downstairs to my room. Stay in there until you’ve had a chance to sober up, compose yourself, whatever you need to do. I’ll keep this between us for the moment because I’m watching André until Sian has had time to rest.”
Brenda turned around to look at the door and then blinked once, turning back to me. “I’m tired.”
“You look tired. Now go do what I told you to do.”
She pushed herself up from the settee and made her way to the doorway, staring at André on the floor as she walked. “He’s so lucky,” she said with a sigh. “Not a care in the world.”
I wasn’t sure how lucky André was, having no father and no grandmother, but I didn’t argue. I wanted Brenda out of the room, away from the baby, and downstairs where no one would see her.
Chapter 18
After Brenda left André began to fuss, so I scooped him up and walked around the room with him, bouncing him gently on my shoulder and cooing to him, but the fussing soon turned into wailing. I didn’t know if Sian used a dummy to quiet her baby, but I didn’t have one. I remembered Greer saying that Ellie used to be soothed by the tip of Greer’s pinky finger, so I put my finger in André’s mouth. He began sucking on it and stopped crying almost immediately. The room grew quiet again and I continued to walk with him. We walked around the perimeter of the room for many minutes. Several times I thought he would go to sleep, but he opened his eyes each time I tried to put him down. I had taken him over to the window to gaze outside when there was a scream from downstairs. I didn’t want to startle André, so I walked swiftly to the staircase and looked over the railing. He began to squirm in my arms as people began to gather in the front hall, which I could glimpse from my perch.
The first one to arrive in the main hall was Cadi. “Who screamed?” she called out, looking in every direction. She didn’t look up, though, and I didn’t answer her.
“I don’t know. Where did it come from?” The voice belonged to Rhisiart, who came running from the direction of the sitting room, with Griff close on his heels.
“I don’t know,” Cadi said. “You two go see if y
ou can find out who it was.” She made no move to help them, but watched as they ran down the hallway leading to my room and to the staircase going below-stairs.
A moment later there was a shout. I stayed where I was, holding the baby tighter and jiggling him gently in my arms. I wanted to know what was happening, but I couldn’t leave André alone and I didn’t want to take him into the confusion downstairs. As I watched Rhisiart appeared, flailing his arms. “Call for an ambulance!” he yelled to Cadi.
“Why?” she asked. He turned on her, his eyes flashing.
“Just do it and I’ll tell you in a minute!” Cadi slipped her hand into the back pocket of her trousers and pulled out her phone. In just a moment she had dialed the number and had a dispatcher on the line. She handed the phone to Rhisiart.
“There’s a woman here who’s been cut very badly,” he told the dispatcher, his breath coming quickly. “You have to hurry. She’s bleeding everywhere!” He listened for a moment and then handed the phone back to Cadi. “I have to try to stop the bleeding. Where can I find a rag?”
“Run and ask Maisie for one!” I cried from my perch above them. Rhisiart looked up, then did a double-take. Cadi looked on in surprise.
“What are you doing up there?” Rhisiart asked.
“Minding the baby,” I answered. “Never mind that. Hurry and get the rags you need from Maisie. Who’s hurt?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was you,” Rhisiart answered, then took off in a sprint toward the stairs leading to the kitchen. My arms started trembling. Me? Why would he think it was me? Holding André close against my chest, I walked as quickly as I dared toward Sian’s room. As much as I wanted her to rest so she could care for her baby properly, it was time for her to take André back so I could assist with whatever was going on downstairs.
I rapped my knuckles loudly on her bedroom door. I could hear a shuffling noise inside the room. After a moment Sian opened the door, her hair rumpled but her eyes bright. “Oh, Eilidh. I hope I didn’t take too long.” She reached for André. “Thank you so much for taking care of him. How long was I asleep?”
“About two hours,” I answered. “I’d be happy to watch André longer, but something is going on downstairs and I think I should get down there to help.” I was turning away from the door as I spoke.
“What’s going on?” she asked, alarm in her voice.
“I don’t know. Cadi just rang for an ambulance. I need to get down there.” Sian gasped at my words, then held her baby closer to her as I sped down the hallway toward the stairs. I heard the click of her bedroom door lock as I descended into the chaos on the main floor of the castle.
Griff was running from the direction of my bedroom and he stopped short when he saw me at the bottom of the stairs.
“What… I mean, how did you… I thought that was you back there!” he said, his features morphing into a look of confusion.
“What on earth is going on?” I demanded. “Why does everyone think I’m somewhere else?”
He nodded down the hall toward my bedroom. “That scream came from your room,” he said. “It’s pitch dark in there and there’s blood…” He trailed off. “Then who’s in there?”
Brenda. Something had happened to Brenda. Only a few short minutes had passed since I first heard the scream coming from the main floor, so there were no answers yet.
“It’s Brenda—I sent her to my room to, um, rest. Something awful must have happened.” I couldn’t stand here any longer chatting about it. I had to find out what had gone on in my room.
I yanked the door open to find utter darkness in the room. The drapes had been drawn and no one had thought to open them. From the dim light of the hallway I could see Brenda’s body sprawled on the bedroom floor. Blood lay spattered around her. I ran to the windows and thrust the drapes open to let some light into the room, then turned on the light next to the bed. She lay face-down on the floor, her eyes closed, her lips white. A pool of blood was seeping around her head. I forced my eyes to focus on her head and neck to determine where the blood was coming from. I didn’t want to turn her over for fear of hurting her more. I knelt next to her and finally saw the blood moving, glistening in the light from the windows. It was pulsing slowly from her neck. I yelled her name, then breathed a huge sigh of relief when she moaned.
“She’s alive,” I said, half to reassure myself. I took her hand in mine.
Rhisiart appeared in the doorway. “I have the rags. Do you want to do it?”
“No, you can do it.” I pointed to Brenda’s neck and said to Rhisiart, “Hold this rag in place. Press hard.” He held the rag against the girl’s neck and pressed. Brenda moaned again.
“It’s all right, Brenda. You’re going to be all right.” I looked at Rhisiart and said in a low voice, “Where’s Maisie?”
“She’s on her way up. She wanted to get some hot water to bring upstairs and I asked her for more rags.” Maisie probably didn’t realize it was her daughter who had been hurt—I wanted to be there when she found out, so she would have a friend close by.
At that moment Maisie appeared in the doorway. She took one look at me and her gaze shifted to the body on the floor. She let out an anguished cry and flung herself beside Brenda, letting the basin of water fall to the floor. She kept her focus on her daughter as she spoke to me. “What happened?”
“We don’t know. I was upstairs with the baby and I heard someone scream. Rhisiart and Griff found her in here but the drapes were drawn and they couldn’t see who it was. They assumed it was me.”
“What was Brenda doing in here?” Maisie asked.
“I sent her here to lie down. She wasn’t feeling well,” I answered. Now wasn’t the time to discuss Brenda’s continuing coke habit.
Brenda moaned again, this time trying to twist her body. I tried to hold her shoulders in place and Maisie held her hand. “Don’t try to move, Brenda. The ambulance is on its way and you’ll be at hospital before you know it. They’ll get you all fixed up there,” I told her.
I looked to Maisie, hoping she would say something to calm Brenda, but it was clear that Maisie was having a hard time controlling her own emotions. She blinked rapidly, obviously not wanting to cry in front of her daughter. She opened and closed her mouth several times, then looked at me and shook her head. I knew she didn’t trust herself to say anything without falling apart. Griff came into the room to announce that the ambulance had just pulled up, as well as two police cars. He knelt on the floor next to me and peered closely at Brenda. “How are you doing, lass? We’ll have you out of here in no time. You’ll be as good as new before you know it.”
Rhisiart hadn’t said a word, but continued to apply pressure to the wound on Brenda’s neck. It was only a moment before the paramedics came rushing into the room, wheeling a stretcher between them. They were quickly followed by three police officers. We all backed away to let the professionals do their work. In just a few minutes they had the young girl strapped to the stretcher and they were wheeling her down the corridor toward the main hall. Maisie and I followed them while the rest of the household stood silently.
“Maisie, don’t worry about a thing here. Go in the ambulance with Brenda and I’ll take care of everything at the castle.” Ordinarily Maisie was one to worry about details, but this time she just nodded and swept into the back of the ambulance after Brenda. She had forgotten all about the castle and its inhabitants and was focused solely on her daughter by the time the paramedic slammed the back door of the ambulance.
I walked slowly back into the castle, where the police had already started to separate everyone in the main hall to talk to them in different rooms. Hugh and Cadi were each with a different officer, and the third kept watch over Griff and Rhisiart, who were both standing in the front hall, glowering at each other. Sian was nowhere to be seen.
“Miss, can you wait right here, please, until you’re called for
questioning?” the officer asked, gesturing toward a chair that had been placed against the wall. I sat down obediently, wondering how long I was going to have to wait. Someone had apparently told the police that Sian was in the castle, too, because she came downstairs a few minutes later holding André, who was setting up quite a wail. She handed the baby to me while she retrieved the pram from its home in the alcove, then she took him back and strapped him into the carriage. She pushed the handle of the pram back and forth while André continued to cry, but as the minutes stretched by the baby eventually calmed down. If it hadn’t been such a grim situation, it might have been comical to watch Rhisiart try to control his anger at having to listen to the baby cry. He clenched and unclenched his fists, muttered to himself, and sighed loudly every time André let out an especially loud howl. Griff, as I had expected, seemed not to be bothered by the baby’s noise. Sian herself was doing her utmost to keep her son quiet, but she was finding it difficult, as I could see by her increased agitation and the tears that slid down her cheeks. At one point I offered to take him and walk with him, but she declined. I think she felt more secure having him with her.
We had been sitting there about thirty minutes when one of the officers came out of the sitting room and beckoned me into the sitting room.
When we were seated across the coffee table from each other he began to ask me questions.
“Why was the housekeeper in your room? It’s my understanding she wasn’t required to clean your room.”
“That’s true,” I said with a nod. “I sent her there to lie down.”
“Why?”
“She wasn’t acting like herself and I knew her mother would worry if she saw Brenda like that.”
“Like what?”
“She was… under the weather,” I answered, struggling to find words that would describe Brenda without revealing that she was high.
The officer eyed me suspiciously. “Under the weather how?”