A Short Time to Live (Miss Pink Book 4)

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘It’s her; she must have hanged. The rope’s round the neck. She’s been here a long time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Stone-cold and no rigor; it passes off in two days.’

  ‘But that takes us back to Saturday afternoon!’

  ‘I’ll go on; I’m not very comfortable here.’

  She continued to the ground while Rumney climbed down the rocks at the side. She regarded the other body which lay as it had fallen, with twisted limbs. It was Wren. His head was slightly to one side so that the right profile was exposed and about one inch above the eyebrow was a small circular wound which had bled. Rumney approached.

  ‘It’s him,’ she said, ‘I think he’s been shot.’

  ‘Shot? You mean it isn’t an accident?’ He stooped and shone his torch on the head. ‘You’re right. Killed himself, d’you think—after Caroline died?’

  ‘Her ankles and wrists are tied with hemp line.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘Let’s see if we can find a gun.’

  It was quite close to the body: a Walther PPK ·22, fallen between two rocks which was why they hadn’t seen the metal gleam.

  ‘There will be fingerprints on that jacket,’ Miss Pink said. ‘We’ll leave it for Hendry. I wonder where it came from? How are the police going to get here, and all the forensic people?’

  ‘That’s their problem; they’ll probably get the Mountain Rescue chaps to lower—’

  ‘Listen!’ Above their heads a rock had moved. ‘Put your torch out,’ she hissed.

  They stood in the dark, listening, staring upwards. There was not so much as a pin-point of light. Miss Pink knew the meaning of pitch black. Then slowly, as her eyes became accustomed to the totality of this new sensation she realised that it wasn’t total; at some point way up and out to the right, there was movement. It grew and became a glow which increased until it stretched their nerves to snapping point and the rock walls of these modest caves loomed and bulged with an illusion of bulk that rivalled a great show-cavern. Then, in the centre of the glow a bright speck appeared like an anti-climax, vanished and reappeared as someone swung a torch.

  ‘Zeke!’ It was a shriek. ‘Rumney!’ That was better; they breathed again.

  ‘We’re down here, Quentin,’ Rumney called. ‘But watch out: there’s an enormous chasm at the end of the ledge.’

  ‘Where? Oh, I see; what are you doing down there? Found anything?’

  ‘Indeed we have: both of them.’

  ‘Well? In what shape?’

  ‘They’re both dead.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ There was a pause while he digested this. ‘Can I get down?’

  Rumney showed him the easy descent and he joined them at the bottom, talking quietly and intimately now that they were all together. They directed their torches on the suspended body and Miss Pink gave him the details.

  ‘Tied?’ he repeated. ‘Tied and hanged? Unbelievable!’

  ‘And Wren’s been shot,’ Rumney said.

  The doctor stooped and peered at the wound. He held the wrist and raised it gently; it was quite limp.

  ‘I’ve got no thermometer,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t expect to find this. But rigor’s passed off; I’d say he’s been here the better part of two days. Is the girl stiff?’

  ‘She’s quite limp,’ Miss Pink said.

  ‘Tied up by Wren?’ The doctor was questioning himself. ‘And then he went away and came back to find her dead—and shot himself? Where’s the gun?’

  They showed him the Walther. ‘I wonder where that came from?’ he mused. ‘It’s not the kind of thing I associate with Wren.’ Then, briskly: ‘We must get back to Hendry—and there’s Harper. I was there when they questioned him. I think he’s halfway prepared for this.’

  ‘Really?’ Miss Pink said drily, but they didn’t hear; they were already on their way to the outside world.

  It seemed to her that they had been underground for hours, and to be in daylight again was a blessed relief. The cloud had dropped and there was moisture in the air, but the open country, the gnarled oaks, grass, Sandale’s hamlet clustering round the packhorse bridge, all these were homely and familiar after the starkness of those awful rock walls impending in the light of their lamps.

  They slithered down the gully and stopped at the foot of the crag. The splash of the waterfall came to them and Miss Pink said calmly: ‘I heard him: at four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. There was someone blundering about just at this spot. I was on the packhorse track and it was nearly dark. Perhaps he’d just found her.’

  ‘But surely,’ the doctor said, ‘he’d have killed himself when he found her, not gone away and come back?’

  ‘He had to go down to Coneygarth for the gun,’ Rumney put in.

  The doctor turned to him. ‘Then he’d have shot himself in Coneygarth surely? You don’t pick up a gun, determined to kill yourself, and climb back through this wood and enter the caves and go up that slab and along the ledge to kill yourself at a certain spot. It’s too devious.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant,’ Miss Pink said.

  The men were astonished. ‘Irrelevant?’ Rumney exclaimed.

  ‘Because if he died on Saturday, who did I speak to last night? Who told me where to take the money?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  She did not return to the hamlet with them but made no secret of her intentions: she would walk to the scenic car park beyond Mart Howe, the place where Caroline’s car might be. Rumney objected but she pointed out that he and the doctor could come back to the crag with the police; she wasn’t needed. ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘I want to think, and Hendry’s questions at the moment would only muddle me. It’s a peculiar situation.’ As she said it, she realised that this was a considerable understatement.

  They couldn’t detain or dissuade her and they parted, Miss Pink scrambling up the side of the crag to a small cairn that marked its summit. From here a narrow path ran off in a north-easterly direction through heather and scrub, rising gently towards a crest of grey rocks which must be Mart Howe.

  She walked quickly, skirting the rocky knoll and coming, in about twenty minutes, to a fringe of woodland. The path led her through silver birches and the ubiquitous oaks to a clearing on the lip of an escarpment. Tree trunks had been placed in position along the edge and below her the main valley was revealed with its lake grey and tranquil under the cloud ceiling. It was a magnificent view-point but she wasn’t interested in scenery. There had been prints of gumboots on the path, going towards Shivery Knott, but only in the one direction, and she wasn’t surprised to find Cole’s Aston Martin in the otherwise empty car park. She wondered how she’d missed him.

  For a while she roamed about the woods, but with the leaves stripped from the trees she could see for a considerable distance, and if Caroline’s Lotus had been concealed here, there was no trace of it now, and the rain had washed out any tyre tracks. She came back to the car park and tried the doors of the Aston Martin. They were locked. She started home by the way she had come.

  As she approached Mart Howe she saw a figure ahead and mentally prepared herself, recognising the perky walk, the olive green cagoule of Daniel Cole. As they drew nearer she had the feeling that he too was prepared, but then any walkers, approaching over a distance in lonely country, have an air of self-consciousness.

  Cole had a pair of binoculars slung round his neck. They greeted each other with studied casualness and he evinced no surprise to find her in this place. His eyes were hard and she noticed again how aquiline his features were, not in the least blurred by good living. At a tangent, her mind worried at his origins. Suddenly she realised that they were both waiting: herself for his questions—and he? For her explanation of her presence here? She had a most unusual feeling of intimidation and she was uneasy.

  ‘How did he die?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Who?’ She fought for time, her face blank.

  ‘Wren.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking abou
t.’

  ‘You found Wren inside that cliff.’ He gestured impatiently. ‘I saw you come out and I heard what you said.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You said, “If he died on Saturday, who did I speak to last night? Who told me where to leave the money?”’

  ‘I have to go down, Mr Cole; the police are waiting.’

  ‘Rumney and Bright will have told the police. I’m the Press.’

  ‘That’s exactly why I’m going down. You came here because of Peta Mossop’s murder; your assignment has nothing to do with conservation.’ He said nothing, watching her. ‘The police will issue a statement,’ she said.

  ‘I doubt it. I went a little way inside myself, but I haven’t got a torch with me. It looks a dangerous place. Do you think the police will want sightseers up here? They’re not going to tell the Press until they get the body out, perhaps not then.’

  ‘So you’re going to phone your paper with an exclusive story.’

  ‘No.’ A pause. ‘Not yet. Not if you tell me what you found. You have to tell me, you know.’ She showed her astonishment. ‘Look,’ he pressed, ‘you can’t stop me going back to my car now, any more than I can stop you returning to Sandale. But if I go down to the valley, the first thing I’m going to do will be to find a telephone and release what I know: that Wren’s been found dead in a cave. Within an hour the reporters will be here in hordes, and then the public.’

  ‘That’s blackmail,’ Miss Pink said.

  ‘So how did he die?’

  ‘You said if I told you, you wouldn’t release it. Why not?’

  ‘Because, like you, I want to know who telephoned you and made demands for money.’

  ‘How do you know even that?’

  ‘You said so: outside the cave; voices carry. I saw the doctor go inside and I hung about, and then you all came out. I was behind a rock near the bottom so I only heard the last bit of your conversation.’

  ‘Why were you up here in the first place?’

  ‘Two things. Mossop told me about these caves and I’ve been watching all the police activity. I even photographed the packhorse bridge and realised my presence wasn’t exactly welcome. In fact, next time I show my nose in Sandale I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m asked some questions. I saw you and Rumney leave the hamlet—and I’ve got field glasses. Mossop told me where you’d be bound for and how I could get there easily without following you. And although the police have been to the hotel they weren’t there when I rang Mossop, so he was able to tell me they were looking for this girl and her car. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. I’m not a bad reporter.’

  ‘I can believe that,’ she said drily.

  ‘How did Wren die?’

  ‘There’s a wound in his head and a gun close by.’

  ‘What kind of gun?’

  ‘A Walther PPK .22.’

  His eyes glazed. After a moment he asked softly: ‘And was there any sign of the girl?’

  She looked away. When he spoke again his tone was flat. ‘The girl was there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did she die, Miss Pink?’

  She told him. His eyes bored into hers. He asked questions. It was a difficult situation to explain to a non-climber and one who had never been inside a cave system, but he was intelligent. He asked how she thought it had happened.

  ‘I can’t speculate; you’ll have to ask the police.’

  ‘You’ll know better than them; it’s a specialist’s job. You must have some idea.’

  ‘The first reaction is that she was hanged by accident, and that he committed suicide when he found her.’

  ‘But you don’t believe that.’ She blinked, against her will implying confirmation. ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  Her shoulders slumped. ‘He wasn’t the type.’

  ‘But you think the girl fell over by accident?’

  She asked mildly: ‘Who shot Wren?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘who else is in it? Where did you drop the money?’

  So he knew about that too. She told him where, watching his face and learning nothing.

  ‘Did you see any vehicles in the forest?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘None on the road?’

  ‘Some came up the hill as I left the forest; I took no notice of them. How did you know about the kidnapping, Mr Cole?’

  ‘I told you: Mossop and deduction for most of it; you’re telling me the rest.’

  It could be true—and he had heard what she said at the foot of the crag.

  ‘Now what will you do?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to Sandale. I have to see the police. I suspect they’ll put an embargo on any Press release and I’ll have to go along with that, but I’ve got most of it already; I’m streets ahead of the competition once they give me the green light.’

  ‘I think you could be of assistance, Mr Cole.’

  ‘Oh? How?’

  ‘We might work together,’ she said carefully.

  ‘What’s your interest, dear?’

  ‘I liked Caroline. I need to find the person behind Wren.’

  ‘“Need”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They studied each other. ‘Strange as it may seem,’ he said, ‘I have values too. I don’t like kidnappers and I detest black-mailers. No—’ as she made a movement of impatience, ‘—you know what I’m referring to. Certainly I forced you to tell me the story but I didn’t extort money from you; I didn’t make your life hell.’ He said it balefully and saw she was surprised. ‘Perhaps I’ve met more blackmailers than you have.’ He smiled, but not with his eyes.

  ‘Where were you at seven-thirty last night, Mr Cole?’

  ‘I was in Mossop’s bar.’

  ‘Was anyone else there?’

  ‘Mossop, of course.’ He thought for a moment. ‘The fellow who waited on me at dinner looked in. There must have been a cook in the kitchen—a woman, that’s right; she came in the back and Mossop gave her a Guinness. Why?’

  ‘The kidnapper rang me at seven-thirty.’

  ‘So you’re considering me in the role. And Wren was shot on Saturday. I lunched in London with friends on Saturday and I left to come up here about four o’clock. I think I arrived at the hotel at nine. And then I was talking to Mossop—after the customers had gone—until late that night.’

  Miss Pink said: ‘I don’t think you need the money. You have all the signs of affluence; you seem to be a satisfied person—and sane; you’d never hang around afterwards when things have gone wrong—’

  ‘They needn’t have gone wrong, dear; presumably the killer got his money.’

  ‘But two people have died!’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose he meant originally to keep Caroline alive or she would have been killed once they reached the cave and there would have been no need to tie her hands and feet. Did he intend to kill Wren or was that a contingency plan?’ He considered this while Miss Pink stared at him in astonishment. ‘Oh, yes.’ He acknowledged her consternation. ‘They don’t have any regard for life, these people, and less for suffering: look at that poor beggar, Harper. The girl died through an accident but after that Wren would have cracked, so he had to be killed. That was a mistake. The police might have believed it to be suicide, but then the kidnapper went ahead with the plan to get the money. Without the telephone calls the police might think only Wren had been in it, but with him dead and the money gone—’

  ‘That’s circumstantial,’ she argued. ‘It’s depending on Wren dying on Saturday. They might not be able to prove when he died, so he could have made the last call at seven-thirty yesterday. As for the money, again it’s dependent on time of death. He could have picked it up, in which case, where is it now? Alternatively it could have been removed by someone unconnected with the crime: poachers, a courting couple, anyone who happened to be in the forest last evening.’

  ‘Very far-fetched,’ Cole said pleasantly. ‘You’re looking at it from the policeman’s point of v
iew. Let’s be realistic. Your kidnapper is a person who needs money—or someone who’s keeping up pretences—’

  ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘we were thinking in those terms for—’

  ‘For the blackmailer,’ he completed, ‘and the person who killed Peta. Mossop’s been talking—and other people.’

  ‘Wren fitted the bill for the greedy, impoverished type, but he hadn’t the intelligence for blackmail, least of all for this: the kidnapping.’

  ‘Someone used him.’

  They exchanged glances without subterfuge. ‘You know them all,’ he reminded her. ‘Run through them.’

  ‘What, now?’ She was exhausted after the caves and the discovery of the bodies. She craved a cup of tea.

  ‘You did say I could be of assistance.’

  She shifted her feet. ‘The doctor’s wife,’ she said petulantly. ‘This is silly.’

  He ignored the last part. ‘I met her.’ She raised her eyebrows. How he had got about! ‘I have migraine,’ he explained. ‘I called at the surgery for some tablets and met both of them. Nice people.’

  ‘Sarah Noble.’

  ‘She was being blackmailed. And such an old dear. Not Sarah.’

  ‘Her husband,’ she said weakly.

  ‘I met him at the Brights’. He’s not a killer; the type who might strangle his mistress in a rage, but not a plotter. He could have killed Peta, but he’s not responsible for this business—’ He gestured towards Shivery Knott. ‘He hasn’t the guts for a kidnapping.’

  ‘There’s Mossop.’

  ‘The same applies: a petty criminal only.’

  ‘That’s quite definite?’

  ‘Receiving stolen goods,’ he said lightly, ‘and stealing Rumney’s sheep: that’s Mossop’s level of crime. And—’ He stopped and his eyes shifted.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘—moving Peta’s body from his premises because he was terrified of being suspected of murder. An immoral little runt: more concerned with carrying on his fringe activities than in finding his wife’s killer.’

  ‘You make him sound the sadistic type who could have been the kidnapper all the same.’

  ‘No, he’s terrified out of his wits. Kidnappers are cool.’