The Knapthorne Conspiracy

by Malcolm Ballard

  “Decided that you’re going to enjoy it have you. There’s a good girl.” Rapidly, he removed his shoes and began to unbuckle his belt. Bella’s eyes were still closed and she heard it before he did, a car’s engine. Someone was coming up the drive. Her spirits lifted as it came round the last bend and Kyle finally heard it, his trousers and underpants halfway down his legs.

  “Quiet! Not a word, do you hear,” he threatened, in a whisper. The vehicle parked close by, its engine still running as Kyle bent to pick up the knife. With some difficulty he hoisted his trousers and pants up again then knelt close to her, the point of the knife over her heart. It had become extremely warm in the van and they were both perspiring, Kyle far more than Bella and he raised a hand to his eyes to wipe away the sweat.

  “Hello! Anybody home?” Mickey’s voice came from somewhere adjacent to the van and Kyle was momentarily distracted. Bella seized her chance and lunged forward, nearly pulling her shoulders from their sockets, and butted him in the face. Caught off guard, Kyle fell over backwards dropping the knife in the process.

  “Mickey!” Bella screamed, and began banging her head on the side panelling. “Mickey, it’s Bella! Help me! Mickey!!” She kept on banging with her head as Kyle struggled to his feet, reaching for the knife. Just then, the doors flew open and Mickey stood there, his bright blue eyes firmly fastened on Bella.

  “Watch out, he’s got a knife!” Bella yelled as Kyle ran at Mickey with a demonic roar. In an instant the young postman was prepared for the attack and ducked back from the wild swing of the vicious blade then used the bigger man’s own momentum to toss him out of the van. Mickey held onto him as he cartwheeled through the air and hit the ground with a solid thump. When he tried to get up and reach for the knife, Mickey gave him a back elbow to the chin which laid him out cold.

  Bella watched in disbelief as Mickey, smiling broadly and knife in hand, approached the van. The euphoria created by his appearance began to wear off as she realised she was safe. Minutes earlier she’d given herself up for dead and shock set in as first the tears began to flow then she started to shiver, uncontrollably. Mickey saw her distress and climbed in the back of the van to pick up Kyle’s jacket and averted his eyes as he laid it over her. Then he went to work on the ropes to free her hands, holding each one as he sliced through the rope then taking its weight as it dropped free. Bella was still crying, her eyes glistening with tears as she put her hands round his neck and pulled him forward to kiss his forehead.

  “Where did you learn that stuff?” she asked, sniffing noisily then wiping her runny nose on the sleeve of Kyle’s jacket.

  “Been doing martial arts for years. You never know when it might come in handy.” She couldn’t believe he was so matter of fact about it.

  “Mickey, you just saved my life!” As she started to gently massage her wrists, her head began to pound and she thought she was going to be sick.

  “You ok?” He could see how pale she had gone but, before she had a chance to answer, the roar of the mail van’s engine filled the air. Before Mickey had a chance to move, the van sped past the open doors heading for the drive and by the time Mickey was out he’d lost sight of it.

  Kyle raced off down the muddy drive in a black rage, his head throbbing from the blow to his face. How could it all have gone so wrong? The sight of her naked body was indelibly printed on his memory, robbing him of his concentration as he slammed the gear stick from second to third. As his frustration and anger boiled over he caught a movement to his left out of the corner of his eye. Whipping his head round he found himself staring at a cat, its green-gold eyes appearing to glow against the deep brown almost black colouring. It had been sniffing around the postbag on the floor when Kyle took off, catching the cat off balance and throwing it on its back. Ubix gave out a spine-tingling screech and launched itself at Kyle’s face. In an act of self defence, he raised his hands to protect himself and slid down in the seat. In doing so his foot jammed down on the accelerator and the engine screamed as the van lurched out of control. Ubix slashed at the man’s face and bare torso mercilessly, raking him with its claws and Kyle’s eyes blurred with the pain of it as the van hurtled towards the bottom of the drive. Then suddenly, the cat leaped out of the open window but Kyle didn’t even have time to feel relief. Looking up, his face turned into a mask of horror, the big oak tree seeming to fill his windscreen as the van smashed headlong into it at over forty miles an hour.

  Epilogue

  Lucca, Tuscany

  The afternoon sun created a rippling haze over the flat brown landscape out of which rose the dark, roughly corrugated profile of the low hills some twenty kilometres distant. Tall, leggy trees dotted the view some standing haughtily alone while others huddled in twos and threes, as if in whispered conversation. Looking like some vast agrarian army standing to attention in precise formation, rows of young vines stretched away into the distance, the bare essentials of a future harvest. Little had altered here in centuries, investing the area with a solid, dependable permanence that some found reassuring in a world besotted with change. Bella had come here to look after Maria who had needed chemotherapy after her operation, and she had never gone back. The simple, uncomplicated way of life and the closeness of her extended family combined to give her a sense of belonging, of coming home. After almost ten years the nightmare of Willow Cottage was finally behind her but the scars had taken a long time to disappear.

  Mickey had been her saviour on that day in more ways than one. Coming back from the scene of the crash he had quietly informed her that Kyle would never be bothering her, or anyone else for that matter, ever again. What he had neglected to say was that the van had been written off and she had been so terrified and shocked by her ordeal that it had never entered her mind to ask. Exhibiting a maturity beyond his years, Mickey had calmly taken control and, recognising Bella was traumatised, had got her inside as swiftly as possible and found some warm clothing for her. Then, as she had refused, point-blank, to go back upstairs, in no time at all he had wrapped a blanket around her and made her lie down on the settee. Quietly and efficiently he had phoned for an ambulance then contacted his depot to advise them of the situation. Bella’s condition concerned him, as she had started to ramble incoherently so he had sat alongside her and cradled her head to comfort her. His reassuring presence had soothed her and he’d been able to get Jane’s name from her, as someone to contact, before she had fallen into a restless sleep. It would have been hard to conceive a greater disparity in their respective emotional states at that point. Bella, at the lowest possible ebb of her feelings while Mickey was experiencing what could only be described as a kind of mild euphoria, finding himself playing the role of guardian angel to the woman of his dreams. The next two days were virtually lost to her memory, a blur of hazy images, as the hospital had kept her under sedation and the first definite recollection she had was of seeing Jane at her bedside. In her brisk, no-nonsense manner she had taken charge and Bella had been more than pleased for her to do so. After a brief visit to Willow Cottage, where Jane had gathered the items Bella requested they were on their way to London and Bella was never to set foot in the cottage again. She had spent a full two weeks at Jane’s flat, her friend and editor giving up one week of her precious annual leave allowance to be with her and, by the time she had had to go back to work, Bella was well on the road to recovery. The passage of time had made it easier for her to look at recent events more objectively but it still frightened her to think of the history of Willow Cottage, past and present. Had both Ben and Jane sensed there was something foreboding about the place? It was possible, of course. Anything was possible. Its dreadful secret and the arcane episode of her father’s murder had appalled her but what would be the point of making it public knowledge now? Only more distress for those who had already suffered enough. On that very subject she had written a guarded letter to Samuel Handysides, explaining that she had left Willow Cottage, for good, but she would keep her promise to him. So now she t
oo was an accomplice in their conspiracy of silence. She would have to ring Ben and let him know she wouldn’t be going back, and what would he make of it all? Would he even be interested seeing as he hadn’t been in contact? When Bella had made the call to him, she had been astounded to discover that he was no longer with the firm and it was Laura, of all people whom, with a great degree of relish, had explained the circumstances. Laura had been anxious to learn the details of what had happened to her sister but not out of love for her sibling and had tracked her down at Jane’s. Desperate to hear how life had turned the tables on Bella for once, she traded the information on Ben in return for Bella’s story. Apparently he and a female employee had been fleecing the firm’s accounts and she had ratted on him, resulting in the dismissal of them both and Ben was on remand awaiting his trial. Bella was then shocked to the point of being dumbfounded to find out that he was also charged with attempted murder. Laura had actually been to see him! Bella couldn’t believe it or begin to understand why. Apparently he had tried to kill both himself and his accomplice, with whom Laura mentioned gloatingly he had been having an affair, in a head-on accident but she had wrenched the wheel over just in time to save them both.

  Bella’s head was spinning, to hear this news on top of everything but Laura gave her no respite. Would Bella consider not disposing of the cottage so that she and her friend, Maggie, could go and live there? Bella had needed time to think it over but had eventually agreed and wondered if she, too, should go and see Ben. Jane had dissuaded her, pointing out that she still wasn’t a hundred per cent and she should close the door on a very distressing period in her life and get back to work. And she had done that, once she’d returned to the apartment, but found she couldn’t settle to the task. There and then she had decided to go over and see Maria.

  It was all so long ago now as she sat at the rustic table on the terrace waiting for the old local bus to come into view down the main road, a road which had been a highway of one description or another for a thousand years at least. Bella had written another two books, both of which had emulated the success of Lingering Doubts and firmly established her reputation. Maria had made a good recovery from her operation having received the all clear and it had been she who had put one of the last pieces of the puzzle into place after Bella had been with her for a few weeks. They had been talking in the very same spot, on the terrace, after a meal one evening when she made reference to Patrick’s illness. She had a tendency to flit from one subject to another and the matter had been brought up with no introduction but it had obviously been on her mind for some time. When she and Rupert had once been discussing his brother, he had told her that there was a mental abnormality, a form of personality disorder, that had afflicted the family for generations but only on the male side and only ever affecting a second son. Maria had then made the point that it was highly likely that whatever Patrick had been suffering from was, in turn, passed on to Kyle, as his second son. But she had no knowledge of Patrick’s murder or the death of Ruth Flint and was, therefore, totally unaware of how her own daughter had nearly become a copy-cat victim. It gave Bella no pleasure to know that she was keeping information from Maria, that she knew more about Patrick’s darker side. But telling her would only bring more unhappiness and grief and the picture of a sad old man wreathed in tobacco smoke in a gloomy room came instantly to mind together with the sound of his hacking cough and the smell of the house. There had been more than enough suffering over the years and she was not about to add to it. Besides she was a trustee, party to an agreement she had made at Willow Cottage seemingly in another life.

  In a remarkable twist of fate Bella had entered into a relationship with the son of the man who had relieved her of her virginity all those years ago. Paulo, himself in his thirties, was a divorcee with a young daughter and neither he nor Bella were seeking anything deep and meaningful. Not yet anyway. Through the haze she was able to make out the top of a large vehicle, on the horizon. Possibly the bus or a lorry. Some seconds passed before she could distinguish which but then she recognised the familiar shape and her heart began to beat a little faster. This would not be the first time Mickey had come to see her as they had become firm friends after his timely rescue and paying for his annual trip was the least she could do. The Roffino hospitality was legendary and Mickey was more than happy to be in Bella’s company knowing that they would always be friends and nothing more. As an author Bella had become something of a minor celebrity and he couldn’t believe that she’d chosen to remain in contact with him, let alone treat him so well. But Bella had needed something positive to come out of her stay at Willow Cottage something that, after all she’d been though there, would be a pleasant memory she could focus on above all else. Mickey had been the obvious choice and now that an equilibrium had returned to her life she had taken the opportunity to thank him because, without his intervention, her life would surely have ended on that dark day in a quiet Dorset village all those summers ago.

  IF YOU HAVE ENJOYED READING

  THE KNAPTHORNE CONSPIRACY

  I WOULD VERY MUCH APPRECIATE YOU

  LEAVING A REVIEW ON AMAZON TO

  PROVIDE CONSTRUCTIVE COMMENT

  FOR THE BENEFIT OF POTENTIAL READERS

  Thank you

  Malcolm