A Short Time to Live (Miss Pink Book 4)

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Lucy Fell’s over there; she’ll ring us immediately if anything happens. She had to be told, you know.’

  ‘Yes; everyone will know in an hour or two. I must go to Carnthorpe and see the police.’

  He nodded. ‘We can’t do anything, and they’ve got the manpower; she could be anywhere between here and London.’

  Arabella went to Carnthorpe too, taking the Rumney Land Rover. They went separately because Miss Pink didn’t know how long she would be kept at the police station. Before they left she said to the girl, out of Harper’s hearing, ‘You might get into conversation with that car-park attendant; it would have been quite early Saturday morning that Wren left his van: before ten.’

  *

  Workmen were clearing the road in the Throat. The water level was still very high and the torrent even more terrifying seen in daylight, but everything sparkled and there were rainbows in the spray. Miss Pink felt the sighs of delayed shock rising to the surface and suppressed them ruthlessly.

  The C.I.D. man was a chief inspector called Hendry. There were no recriminations; there might be later but now a machine started to roll and the machine demanded facts. Miss Pink supplied them. There was a small exchange when Hendry told her that they’d been keeping an eye on Harper not as a professional punter but as a London villain. This was no more than she’d suspected but she was aware of an element of surprise on the part of Hendry when she told him that Harper had kept fifty thousand pounds in Burblethwaite. ‘But he was only a labourer!’ he remarked, and asked her what the notes looked like.

  She had wondered if they might be able to concentrate on the kidnapping to the exclusion of the blackmailing letters (thinking of Sarah Noble and the dead hiker) but there was no chance. Question led to question, explanation to explanation, and at last it seemed that everything was revealed, everything that she knew, even to the theft of Rumney’s sheep. And if she was aware of disapproval lurking in the background she had a momentary sense of balance redressed when she told them about the priest.

  ‘Blood on it?’ Hendry repeated. He was new to his rank: young, alert, never missing a nuance or moment of hesitation. He was going bald quickly but he still had the hard heavy body of a rugby player. He had sharp blue eyes and a thin mouth.

  ‘I thought it was blood,’ she admitted.

  ‘But you didn’t do anything about it.’

  ‘It could have been salmon blood.’

  His mouth thinned further in a closed smile. She was not intimidated; she didn’t think that the police would have found Caroline if she had told them yesterday morning that the priest had blood on it. Hendry thought that here was a woman who knew herself morally in the right and, recognising that her—to him—irresponsible behaviour was in the past, he accepted it without approving it, and concentrated on the present. He said that he was going up to Sandale and asked her to return there herself.

  *

  Arabella followed her up to her room. Harper was sedated, she said, and Quentin wouldn’t allow him to be interviewed for another half hour. The police were at Burblethwaite, having released Lucy Fell from a useless vigil. There were more police at Coneygarth and she guessed some were with Lucy at Thornbarrow. ‘And probably everyone down the road is being questioned,’ she said grimly. ‘I know it’s terrible, Miss Pink, especially when you think of Sarah, but I’ve got this awful smug feeling: thank God we’ve done nothing wrong! How selfish can you get?’

  ‘Perfectly natural,’ Miss Pink observed. ‘Did you learn anything in Carnthorpe about Saturday?’

  ‘I found out quite a bit but I don’t see how it helps. They arrived in the two cars some time before ten o’clock, the attendant said. Jackson was in climbing gear and wearing shades; Caroline attracted his attention—her car is so distinctive for these parts. They left both cars and were away for only a short time. Caroline bought a pair of sneakers.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘You know: canvas boots, for climbing.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘If they were away for so short a time, it was likely they’d bought something, besides, the attendant said she’d been carrying a small parcel when they came back. I thought of presents and I tried the crafts shops first and then I thought it was odd for Jackson to wear breeches to drive to London for a weekend and I remembered about their making arrangements to climb but one can’t climb without boots, so I tried the climbing shop. That was it; she’d bought sneakers. I saw the guy who served them but he’s new there and he didn’t know Jackson so they didn’t chat. He remembered Caroline of course.’

  Miss Pink was silent and after a while Arabella went on: ‘They left in Caroline’s car but the attendant didn’t see which way they went; he couldn’t because of the houses.’

  ‘Someone may have seen them; the police will find out which way they went.’

  ‘It was on the radio news; they’re looking for the Lotus.’

  ‘You could hide a hundred cars in the forests under Whirl Howe,’ Miss Pink said absently.

  ‘But there aren’t any crags round there.’ They stared at each other. ‘I did a lot of climbing with Jackson,’ Arabella explained, and looked puzzled. ‘Why couldn’t they have had a climbing accident?’

  ‘That doesn’t explain the kidnappers’ threats and the ransom demand.’

  ‘Oh no. I was clutching at straws.’ Her little face puckered again. ‘But if they went climbing—I mean, don’t the sneakers imply climbing?—how does that tie in with her being kidnapped?’

  Miss Pink said slowly: ‘He told her that they would climb in order to get her to some . . . hut? Cottage? Are there any crags above buildings: a closed building where you could confine a person? It would have to be a remote crag.’

  Arabella sat on the bed and pressed her fingers to her forehead. ‘There’s a climbing hut round the other side of Helvellyn: Rushwaite Lodge?’

  ‘A climbing hut’s no good because of the likelihood of the owners turning up, particularly at a weekend. It’s Ruthwaite Lodge, not Rushwaite: up above Greenside lead mines . . . no, they’re in the next valley—’

  ‘Mines!’

  ‘Mines?’

  ‘Mine buildings. Some of them are in good condition and if she were tied up it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t lock her in; in fact—’ Arabella shuddered, ‘it wouldn’t be necessary to put her in a building if she were bound and gagged.’

  ‘She’d die if she were in the open; remember the weather.’

  ‘Well. . . . But I didn’t mean the open air. What about a cave? Why—’ She stopped and stared at the other. ‘Wasn’t it raining on Saturday? Of course it was! It poured.’

  ‘Quite late, surely?’

  ‘The cloud was low at daybreak—so that rules out a high crag to start with; Jackson hated greasy rock. I’m sure all the rock would have been greasy, even at a low altitude. It did rain early, Miss Pink, because I did some washing and had to hang it in the barn, then Grannie and I had coffee. I guess it was raining at eleven. I know where they’d go! The Rat Hole in Borrowdale! That’s where everyone goes on a wet day.’

  ‘But if everyone goes there—’

  ‘Oh yes, there are crowds, particularly on a Saturday.’

  ‘—he wouldn’t go there, would he?’

  There was silence broken by Arabella in a small voice.

  ‘Miss Pink.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s Shivery Knott.’

  ‘Zeke said there were caves,’ Miss Pink said quietly, ‘I came back under Shivery Knott on Saturday afternoon and there was something in the woods.’

  *

  Chief Inspector Hendry was talking to the doctor in the living room and two strange men stood by the window. Hendry turned as Miss Pink came downstairs and entered the room. She nodded to Quentin Bright and she told them about Shivery Knott. Hendry looked doubtful and, indeed, the chain of reasoning by which she and Arabella had arrived at this point seemed flimsy in the telling.

  ‘Where would they l
eave the car?’ Hendry asked.

  It was Bright who answered. ‘They’d go up to the scenic car park above the Throat: you know the one, where the car rolled over before the wardens put the tree trunks along the edge. There’s a path going along past Mart Howe to the top of Shivery Knott. Of course, the quickest way to the crag is from here, but since the car isn’t here . . .’

  ‘I’ll send a couple of men up there,’ Hendry said.

  ‘But he’d have moved the car,’ Miss Pink pointed out.

  Hendry’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you suggesting that he’s holding her in a cave at this place?’

  She restrained a sigh. Quentin Bright said: ‘It goes in for some distance; climbers leave it alone because, if you want to explore a cave system, there’s a far better one in Borrowdale. I don’t think anyone goes to Shivery Knott nowadays. We’ve been there because we’re residents and we’re climbers and we go there once out of curiosity, that’s all.’

  ‘Climbers leave it alone,’ Hendry repeated. ‘Do you have to be a climber to get inside?’

  ‘You need a rope,’ Bright said. ‘A layman couldn’t do it on his own.’

  ‘I’ve got no men to spare; even if I had a climber on the strength, which I haven’t.’ Hendry looked at Miss Pink.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said, thinking it was a cue.

  ‘Are you leaving immediately?’ Bright asked. ‘I’d like to come with you, but Hendry’s going to see Harper and I ought to be present; he’s not in good shape.’

  ‘Now, Doctor, you said he can take it; he’s got to take it in the circumstances. Rumney might go with Miss Pink.’

  ‘How long will you be with Harper?’

  Hendry spread his hands and the doctor turned back to Miss Pink. ‘I’ll come up to the crag afterwards, if you haven’t returned.’

  *

  The sun had gone behind a bank of cloud when they left the hamlet and took the path past Coneygarth. The front door of the cottage was open but the opening looked sinister rather than welcoming.

  ‘More rain coming,’ Rumney said gloomily. He was wearing old climbing boots and a stained anorak, and he carried a rope.

  ‘Does Shivery Knott flood?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so. The system’s on the slant, d’you see; the water can’t lie in there.’

  They left the packhorse track and struck up through the trees. There was no path but here and there the undergrowth looked as if it had been flattened although that could have been the result of the torrential rain. No marks showed in the pockets of washed soil between the scree.

  They came to the foot of the crag which was really nothing more than a pile of gigantic blocks separated by cracks and chimneys. The entrance to the system was by way of a chasm where the walls converged to a roof above their heads, and at the end they climbed up broken steps to an enclosed space where they had to start using their headlamps. They didn’t put the rope on. Rumney had brought it for emergencies. He told her that he had been through the system once, looking for a dog, and he’d had no difficulty unroped and alone.

  They left the enclosed space by crawling through a slit at floor level. This was horizontal for a few yards and then it widened so that one could stand. Miss Pink felt her age. The strenuous activity was tiring her and she thought how ridiculous it was to imagine that Jackson Wren could have brought Caroline here. Caroline demanded romance and heroic exploits but in this place the most virile man must lose his dignity. When she joined Rumney, after twenty feet or so of the most racking contortions, for the underground crack was narrow and the walls held her like a vice as she tried to force her way upwards, she suggested they retreat.

  ‘Not likely,’ Rumney said stoutly. ‘With our figures we could get stuck in that crack.’

  ‘But there’s no one here. They would have heard us by now, and shouted.’

  ‘Gagged?’ he suggested. ‘Forced to keep silent?’

  ‘What! You think Wren’s here as well?’

  ‘No, there’s no one here.’ He was reassuring. ‘But we’re not going back. I certainly didn’t when I was looking for that dog. I went on, and there’s a way out somewhere. Are you ready?’

  Their torch beams showed a broken cavern; they were in the bowels of the crag. Beyond Rumney was what appeared to be a bottomless hole but as he climbed down and she shone her torch beyond and below him she could see ledges and bulging walls and he was descending easily, telling her where the holds were. She played the light on the ground at her feet, thinking that she should have done this before, looking for traces of other people. There was nothing but the bedrock, and small stones in the crevices.

  ‘You can follow now,’ he called from the depths.

  She lowered herself over the edge, concentrating on the mental pattern of pockets and ledges which she’d seen from the top. Rumney was standing on a wide ledge above another big drop partly choked with fallen blocks. At its right-hand end it must be very deep or very long or both; the torches couldn’t penetrate the darkness. Leftwards the ledge ran into a slab which sloped steeply down to a glimmer of daylight.

  ‘That must be the other entrance,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Let’s see.’

  They descended the slab which was about thirty feet high and scored with horizontal cracks, the lower section pallid in the natural light. They stepped off the bottom and walked through another chasm to the open air; they were halfway up the crag and a broken gully dropped to the scree at an easy angle.

  ‘Is that all of it?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s that space at the top of the slab: the chasm with the big blocks.’

  ‘I suppose we’d better—?’ She was cross with herself for having suggested this silly caper. ‘We ought to be able to tell Hendry we’ve examined the whole system.’

  They turned and climbed the slab, then moved along the ledge to a point where they could step down on to the tumbled blocks. ‘Watch these,’ she warned, ‘they’re none too stable.’ A big one rocked under her feet with a muffled crack of stone on stone.

  They descended carefully, kicking each block before trusting their weight on it. They reached the bed of the chasm, or so they thought. Rumney directed his torch to the left where the ground slanted down between great red walls that gleamed wet in the light. At the end was a tall and tapering slit, too narrow for the passage of anything fatter than a fox. Cold air came through it. Miss Pink shone her torch rightwards.

  ‘What on earth—? It’s a rope!’

  ‘That’s not rope.’ They moved forward. It was rope: dark in colour, and it was strained horizontally across the rock.

  ‘Mind,’ he warned, ‘there’s a great hole here: a chasm on a lower level.’

  ‘Here’s a peg,’ Miss Pink said.

  The rock receded inwards to form a large oval hollow, the walls of which were coated with some deposit that sparkled silver in their lights. An alloy peg had been driven into a crack and from it the rope ran taut across the ledge and disappeared. It was under tremendous strain and immovable.

  They felt their way carefully to the edge of the pit. They didn’t see the bottom, not because it was invisible but because their lights were arrested by what was on the end of the rope. Caroline was found.

  They moved back to the recess.

  ‘We can’t tell it’s her,’ Miss Pink said sadly.

  ‘It’s like her hair—reddish.’

  ‘Can we get down?’

  ‘We’d better see if we can.’

  ‘Give me the rope; I’ll uncoil it.’

  ‘Of course we can get down!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s a matter of getting back.’ He moved away from her, prospecting along the ledge.

  ‘We can climb down easily,’ he called back, ‘and up again. We don’t really need the rope.’

  ‘We ought to get close to her: to identify her. There’s Harper, you see; there should be no doubt.’

  ‘I’d forgotten Harper.’

  Miss Pink fastened the middle of the rope to the peg. ‘Will it reach the bott
om?’ she asked. ‘It can’t be sixty feet.’ The rope was a hundred and twenty feet long. She coiled it and, stepping to the edge, threw the coils expertly into the abyss. They heard the dry rattle as the rope settled on the ground.

  ‘By the sound of that, it’s only about twenty feet,’ she observed. ‘I’ll make sure it hasn’t snagged.’

  She peered over. The doubled rope descended straight and even beside the body. She glanced at the slack on the floor of the chasm, went to turn away, then checked.

  ‘That’s odd.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Come here. What’s that in the bottom?’

  ‘Why, it looks like— It is! What—?’ He turned to her. ‘Could that be Wren?’

  They stared at the second body and now they could make out the twisted legs, a hand—but no face.

  ‘What an incredible accident,’ he breathed, ‘both of them!’

  She passed the rope round herself. Rumney directed the beam of his torch on the anchorage. She walked backwards to the edge, the rope tight to the peg. She teetered for a moment, spreading her feet, getting her weight balanced, then she started walking down the wall, leaning out on the rope which, round one thigh and the opposite shoulder, ran out slowly as she descended.

  She came to the body which hung heavily against the rock but moved when she touched it. She drew level with the face, held herself in position with one hand and lifted the chestnut hair. The wide eyes of Caroline stared back at her.

  There was a lot of rope festooned about the body, and a loop round the neck. It was from the neck that the rope ran taut to the peg above. The girl’s arms were strained backwards, the hands behind her. Miss Pink felt down the arms to the cold wrists. They were tightly bound together by something which felt like hemp line. The fingers were quite limp.

  There was also a rope round the waist but this descended to the chasm as did another emerging from the looped confusion about the body. Miss Pink moved lower. Caroline was wearing dark slacks and bright blue canvas boots. The ankles were also bound with hemp. She got one arm behind the straight legs and lifted. The knees bent easily.

  ‘Well?’ Rumney’s voice came from above.