‘Come near me again, Michael Feelburn, and I’ll bash your bloody brains out! I swear to God I’ll kill you!’
Michael lay, curled up and green, gasping on the other side of the bed.
‘You little bitch,’ he spluttered. ‘You treacherous little –’ Suddenly he lunged, throwing all his weight at me, seizing me round the waist and sending me flying backwards in a rugby-style tackle. As we crashed back into the wardrobe together, I brought the lamp base smartly down on his head – crack! – just as a large china potty filled with dried flowers toppled and fell from the top of the wardrobe. It flew down and landed with a crash on his head, smashing into a thousand pieces. There was a deathly hush. I was still under him. Scared witless, I frantically wriggled free of his weight. He rolled over and began to groan.
‘Oh God … Oh Jesus, Jesus …’ he moaned.
I sprang up, panting. Then I jumped clear, up on to the bed. He was lying with his head at an awkward angle in a jigsaw of china and dried flowers. The brass lamp base was at his ear. His eyes were shut and his mouth was open. His face was very pale against his body, and going greyer by the minute. A trickle of blood began to gush steadily down from his forehead. He started to groan again, this time louder, and he moved his head to one side, raising his hand feebly as the blood flowed down his face. He was down, but he was by no means out, and I had a horrible feeling he could come to at any second, find some superhuman hidden reserves and avenge himself with another spectacular dive at my person. I didn’t need any prompting, I had to get out of there.
Seizing my dressing gown from the back of the door I edged round him, terrified a hand might shoot out and grab my ankle, then fled across the landing into Ivo’s room. Despite the noise he was still fast asleep in his cot, oblivious of everything. I picked him up, grabbed his snowsuit from a chair, and ran downstairs with him in my arms. In the relative safety of the sitting room I plunged him into the suit, all the time glancing up to the top of the stairs.
‘Quick, darling, quick, arms in,’ I panted, my heart pounding away somewhere near my oesophagus.
Ivo gazed at me with bleary, startled eyes as I zipped him up. Any minute now I expected to see Michael, naked, covered in blood and gore, bursting out on to the landing, and then with a mighty roar plunge downstairs to finish his business. I was pretty sure a man like Michael would not like to be thwarted. I hoisted Ivo on to my hip, and pausing only to thrust my feet into my boots, opened the front door and ran out into the snow, nightie and dressing gown flapping.
A cold blue dawn was breaking over the distant hilltops as I fled to the car. My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I bundled Ivo into his seat. He’d already had one moonlit drive this night and he gazed at me now in wide-eyed astonishment. What, in the car? Again? All the time I struggled with his straps I glanced back over my shoulder at the open front door. Why hadn’t I shut it, for God’s sake? Locked it even? And why did I frigging well insist on strapping my child into his car seat when there was a madman after me! There, he was in. I ran round to the driver’s seat, dived in, slammed the door, shoved the key in the ignition and … for an awful, heart-stopping moment, the engine failed to turn over.
‘Oh, come on, come on!’ I pleaded.
It whinnied miserably. I glanced back in terror, quickly locked my door, rammed in the choke, gave one last desperate pump of the accelerator – and it roared into life. Crashing the gears I shot off up the drive, wheels spinning.
As we sped towards Farlings, it occurred to me for a second to drive past and go on to Philly’s. Should I go there, should I? My mind was spinning. I felt in dire need of a shoulder to sob on, a hug, some sympathy, but on the other hand Philly would be absolutely horrified. And furious too, quite rightly of course, and then there’d be the most almighty fracas. Mummy would instantly be summoned and Miles and Daddy would be instructed to get every able-bodied man in the village out of bed, and then armed with pitchforks and shovels they’d surround the cottage, ambush Michael and frogmarch him ceremoniously through the village to the police station where he’d be clapped in irons to await God knows what. Was that what I wanted? I bit my lip. I had to think fast but rationally about this, decide exactly who I was going to tell. And I had to think of Alice. I clutched my mouth but a sob seeped through my fingers. Oh God, Alice! My poor, poor, Alice!
No, I couldn’t, I thought as I swung the car decisively up to Farlings’ back door. I couldn’t do that to her. Nor to the girls. I’d creep in here where at least I knew I’d be safe, and then I’d think about what to do in the morning. I had a key so I could steal through the back door and up the back stairs without waking Joss or the children. He’d had a late night so he wouldn’t stir for ages anyway. It was almost light now, must be nearly six o’clock. I’d borrow one of Vera’s pinnies, give Ivo some breakfast and then carry on a normal day’s work without anyone being any the wiser. I could think what to do about Michael later. Right now, I just wanted to get away from him.
I stole in through the back door and locked it firmly behind me. The house was dark and silent. Dram, the border terrier had already smelled me arrive and came wriggling to greet me. I patted his head, whispering softly to him, and moved silently through the kitchen. There was no sign of Truffle, but presumably Joss had locked him in the study to stop him chewing the kitchen chair legs, as was his current wont. But as I crept down the passageway towards the stairs, he started barking. Damn, he was locked in, and now he was pretending to be a guard dog! Quickly I nipped along the passage with Ivo on my hip and opened the study door.
‘Truffle, you stupid berk, it’s me!’ I hissed.
He instantly shut up and greeted me enthusiastically, wagging his fat behind and snuffling gleefully.
‘Get back to bed, you fool!’
He turned obligingly, thumping his tail, and lay down behind Joss’s desk where he would no doubt resume the secret chewing of its back legs.
I shut the door on him and crept back down the passageway in the pitch dark, feeling my way along the walls for the gap where the back staircase would be. There were no windows down this end of the house and I couldn’t see a bloody thing. I was tempted to turn a light on. That wouldn’t wake anyone, surely. I was just feeling along the wall for the spot where the light was when instead of the switch I felt – human flesh.
‘AA-A-ARGH!’ I shrieked, jumping a mile.
At the same time an arm locked round my neck from behind. Something hard and cold pressed up against my cheek. Oh God. It was Michael.
‘Take another step and I won’t hesitate to use it,’ said a reasonable and familiar voice.
‘Joss!’
There was a pause, then the light snapped on.
‘Rosie! What the hell are you doing!’ He was in his dressing gown, shotgun in hand. My heart was pounding.
‘Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me!’ I gasped.
‘Well, I wasn’t too relaxed about it myself! What the blazes are you doing creeping round the house in the middle of the night? I thought you were a goddam burglar!’
‘I went home,’ I muttered, clutching the wall for support and feeling rather faint now, ready to die actually, ‘and then I decided – to come back!’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ I stared at him.
‘Yes, why did you come back?’
‘Because – well, because I couldn’t sleep! So I thought – I’d get the breakfast ready, wash up the supper, do something useful.’
‘Really? How very keen.’ He eyed me suspiciously. ‘I’m impressed, especially since it’s New Year’s Day and the kids won’t be up for hours. Hey.’ He peered a bit closer. ‘What happened to your head?’
‘My … ?’ I reached up and touched my forehead, which now I came to think of it hurt like hell. My fingertips came back red.
‘Oh God, I’m bleeding!’
‘Damn right you are and you’ve got a socking great bruise coming up there too. What happened?’
I gulped. ‘No
thing,’ I whispered.
He led me by the arm into the hall and flicked on the overhead light. He stared into my face. ‘You’re as white as a sheet and you’re trembling. What the hell’s been going on, Rosie?’
I stared at him for a second, then suddenly cracked a smile. ‘Oh! Oh yes, I know, it must have been where I fell against the wardrobe! I was getting undressed, you see, to go to bed, and I think I was still a bit pissed from supper – I had a few drinks when I got back to the cottage too, and I slipped and fell! It’s nothing really, Joss.’
He stared at me for a long moment. ‘Who did this to you?’
‘No one, really, no one. I …’ His face wouldn’t wear it. My eyes slithered away.
‘Come on, Rosie, tell me.’
I swallowed. ‘Someone … got the wrong idea,’ I muttered finally.
‘Who got the wrong idea?’
Suddenly my knees went. I sank on to the sofa, put my face in my hands and burst into tears. ‘Michael Feelburn!’ I sobbed.
‘Michael Feelburn? What, you mean my old tenant at the cottage? That smug, self-satisfied little snake-hipped, womanizing bastard?’
‘Yes, but Joss, he was very, very drunk, I really don’t think he meant it!’ I wiped my face with the back of my hand and noticed it was shaking. Foolishly I just couldn’t stop crying. ‘He came back drunk from a party, you see, and he got shut out of his hotel, so he drove down here and knocked me up in the middle of the night and crashed on my sofa, but then he jumped on me while I was asleep!’
‘Charming.’
‘I bashed him with a brass lamp and then a chamber pot fell on him. He’s probably still out cold!’
‘Well, let’s find out, shall we? If he’s not, he soon will be.’
He took his Barbour from the hat stand, shrugged it on over his dressing gown, pushed his feet into his boots and, still holding his gun, walked to the door.
I grabbed his sleeve. ‘No!’ I shrieked. ‘No, Joss, wait, think of Alice, think of the children!’
Joss turned. ‘Rosie, I’m not going to blow his brains out, I’m simply going to scare him witless, okay? Meanwhile, perhaps you’d like to ring the police.’
‘Oh no, I can’t!’ I gasped, holding on to him very tightly. ‘You see, I don’t know if I want to! I mean – press charges. He is a friend, after all, and he was very drunk, Joss, very drunk, and Alice is my best friend and –’
‘And he’ll get drunk again. And he’ll do it again. D’you think he would have raped you?’
I stared at him. ‘Well, I – don’t know.’
‘That’s a “yes” if ever I heard one. Very well, let’s play it your way. We’ll get him up here first and then you can decide if you want to call the police. But I’d like the pleasure of waking him up with a shotgun in his mouth first, okay?’
He prized my fingers off his arm and reached up for the bolt. But just at that moment, as he was about to pull it open, there was a tremendous banging from the other side. Someone rapped the knocker hard.
‘Christ!’ I leapt backwards. ‘It’s him! He’s come back to get me!’ I scuttled behind Joss.
‘Well then, he’ll get a little surprise, won’t he?’
Joss undid the bolt and swung back the door with a flourish. There, standing on the doorstep, silhouetted like statues in the hard, early dawn, was not Michael Feelburn but two men in overcoats. Their collars were turned up against the cold and their faces were grey and grim.
‘Morning, sir.’
‘Good morning.’ Joss stepped back in surprise.
‘Mr Dubarry?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Sorry to bother you at such an ungodly hour, sir, but it’s rather important.’ The man in the hat reached inside his coat and pulled out a warrant card. ‘Police. We’d like to speak to a Mrs Meadows, who I believe is a tenant of yours. We came to ask if you knew where we could get hold of her.’
‘I’m Mrs Meadows,’ I whispered, stepping out from behind Joss.
‘Ah. May we come in then?’
‘Sure.’ Joss stepped aside, looking somewhat dazed. They moved to the middle of the hall as Joss shut the door behind them. There was a silence. One of the men turned very deliberately to face me.
‘Mrs Meadows, we’d like to ask you a few questions and we wondered if you’d be kind enough to come down to the station with us.’
‘To the … but why? What for?’
‘We’re conducting a murder inquiry and we believe you might be able to help.’
‘A … Oh God!’ My heart stopped beating. I clutched it. ‘Is he dead?’
‘I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, Mrs Meadows.’
I went cold. Fear shot through my body. My eyes turned to Joss. ‘Oh Joss, my God, I’ve killed him!’
I remember the horror in his eyes as he looked at me. I remember touching my head, feeling blood on my hand. It was still warm. My head throbbed strangely, like a muscle. I also remember that I had to stand with my legs apart, to stop myself from fainting.
Chapter Twenty-two
When my legs wouldn’t support me any longer I sank down on the sofa. My head dropped into my hands. There was a creak of shoe leather as the two policemen moved towards me in unison. Joss sat down beside me, Ivo was at my knee. I felt a bit like Custer at his last stand, totally surrounded, except I didn’t even have any wagons. Slowly I slid my face up out of my hands and looked at their faces. The two above me were grim and uncompromising. Joss’s was pale and taut.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ I whispered. ‘It was self-defence! I swear to God, I thought he was going to rape me!’
The sergeant frowned. ‘In the kitchen?’
‘No, in the bedroom, it happened in the bedroom. That’s where I hit him, but I had no idea – oh God, I just grabbed the first thing that came to hand, it wasn’t my fault it was a brass lamp! I suppose it must have been very heavy, but I didn’t realize it could –’ My voice broke and I clutched my mouth in horror.
‘You hit him with a brass lamp?’ The sergeant took off his hat and scratched his head. ‘But the pathologist’s report said he died of fungal poisoning.’
My jaw dropped. ‘Fungal …’ Slowly it dawned. ‘Oh!’ I gasped. ‘Oh no, that was Harry!’
‘That’s right. Your husband, Harry Meadows.’
‘Oh God, I thought you were talking about Michael!’
‘Michael? Who’s Michael?’
‘Oh, Harry! Oh God, no, I didn’t kill Harry, that was just a mistake, just an accident! I thought you meant I’d killed Michael when I smashed him over the head, I thought –’
‘Er, never mind, Rosie,’ said Joss quickly. ‘I’m sure these gentlemen don’t want to be dragged into a silly little domestic incident. It was just a minor scuffle, officer, with a friend of ours. He got a bit overexcited, too much New Year’s Eve spirit and all that.’ He squeezed my shoulder. ‘No real harm done, eh Rosie, just a tiny cut.’
‘Tiny cut, you must be joking, there was blood everywhere! I gave him a hell of a bash – THWACK! – right on his temple! God, I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t still bits of brain clinging to the carpet, splattered on the walls even – oh God, I thought you meant I’d killed him!’
‘Ha ha!’ Joss laughed nervously. ‘A little thing like you? Don’t be silly, you couldn’t hurt a fly!’ He gave my shoulder a slightly more dislocatory squeeze. ‘As I said, officer, no real harm done.’
‘Really,’ he said eyeing me doubtfully and pulling out a notebook. He licked the end of his pencil. ‘Well, let’s hope not. I must say this is all very confusing, Mrs Meadows. Where is the unfortunate gentleman now, do you suppose? The one with the crater in his skull and half his brains on the carpet?’ He looked around, as if half expecting to see a bowed and bloodied man stagger in through the door with a brass lamp base sticking out of his head.
‘He’s legged it,’ said Martha, coming through from the kitchen where she’d clearly been listening for the last few min
utes. ‘I saw him as I come in just now on my way back from the ’ospital, comin’ up the back drive. He was staggering about a bit, clutching his head and swearin’ an’ that, but there weren’t much blood. When he saw me he leapt in his car with his tail between his legs and drove off like a bullet. He’ll have a headache, I should fink, but there ain’t much wrong with him other than that.’ She sniffed. ‘Nothing that taking a meat cleaver to his todger couldn’t sort out, anyway.’ A palpable wince went round the assembled males.
‘I see,’ said the sergeant faintly. ‘Good. Well, I’m … delighted to hear it.’ He looked bewildered. Clearing his throat, he said, ‘Now, Mrs Meadows, leaving aside for one moment this Michael fellow, could we perhaps get back to the little matter in hand? That of your husband?’
‘Oh yes, Harry,’ I said, springing happily to my feet. ‘Yes, I can help you all you like with that, officer, although I have to warn you, I’ve already spoken to the Gloucestershire police so there probably won’t be much that isn’t on file somewhere anyway. Just hang on a tick and I’ll go and get changed and then I’ll come with you. I’m still in my dressing gown, you see.’ I gave a quick twirl just to prove it, then froze. I clutched my mouth. ‘Oh God, you really put the wind up me there though, I thought you’d come for me – thought I’d bloody killed him and someone had tipped you off. God, I honestly thought –’
‘Excuse me.’ Joss suddenly took my arm and hustled me from the room, marching me down the back passage. He swung me round to face him at the foot of the back stairs. ‘Will you shut up!’ he hissed. ‘They’re going to slap a double murder charge on you if you’re not careful!’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Joss, Michael isn’t dead and I didn’t kill Harry so I’ve got nothing to worry about! I’m innocent!’
He sighed. ‘I’m sure you are, but I still wish sex and violence didn’t conspire to dog your innocent footsteps quite so determinedly. Jesus, Rosie, it’s one thing after another with you. If you’re not being raped on my sofa you’re being raped at the cottage, and if you’re not murdering your own husband you’re murdering your best friend’s husband!’
Rosie Meadows Regrets... Page 38