The Wounded Snake

by Fay Sampson

  Common sense was telling her agitated mind that David could not be in danger. He had played no part in the violence of the weekend. He had overheard nothing, he had found no corpse. If anything, it was she and Veronica who should be victims – or suspects. The police had only their word for it that they had found Melissa already dead. But she was still dreadfully afraid. There was so much else about this weekend which did not make sense.

  She prayed that David had not become part of that.

  She and Veronica hurried up the stair to Lady Jane’s Chamber. Hilary held her breath as she opened the door. It took only a second to scan the crowd of faces that turned to them with anxious curiosity. The one face that mattered, David’s, was not among them.

  Inspector Foulks and DS Blunt stood where Gavin had previously addressed them. These were real-life sleuths, not the authors of fictitious crime. The DI’s face, which had softened when he spoke to Harry, was now taut with anger. Hilary strode towards him, intent only on one thing.

  His voice cut like a scalpel. ‘I distinctly recall summoning this meeting for two p.m. It is now quarter past. Is it a matter of no importance to you that one murder has been committed and two others attempted, and that you might be vital witnesses?’

  ‘What you should be worrying about is not that we’re late, but that someone who should be is not here at all. I demand that you send out a search party for my husband.’

  A gasp of surprise came from the others in the room. Heads turned to check the rows of chairs, the half-familiar faces. DS Blunt conferred with his inspector in a low voice.

  ‘Hilary,’ said Veronica quietly behind her, ‘David’s not the only one who is missing.’

  Hilary turned her eyes from the inspector, but the only face that counted with her was David’s. If there were others who should be here, she could not identify them.

  The inspector’s voice supplied the information her baffled mind could not. ‘Mrs Masters. Your husband was not even on the crime-writing course. He didn’t arrive until after Mrs Standforth was murdered. Yes, there was that incident in the chapel. But what concerns me more is that Mr Standforth is missing, and Miss Blackall.’ Hilary’s mind puzzled for a moment, then concluded the second name must be Theresa’s.

  ‘And Colonel Truscott,’ Jake’s voice added from the front row.

  Fear rushed back at Hilary. She had hovered between suspecting Gavin and Theresa early on to eliminating them from her suspicions, but what if she was wrong? What if David had stumbled upon new evidence that pointed back to them? Someone must have wanted to silence Jo down there on the riverside path. Could that someone have sought to silence David too? Was it too ludicrous to imagine that he might have heard something in the men’s toilets which he should not? But what would Theresa be doing there?

  ‘Have you seen them?’ DI Foulks was asking. ‘Any of them?’

  ‘No,’ Veronica answered for both of them, her voice calmer than Hilary’s had been. ‘We’re late because we were waiting in the Gatehouse Café for David, but he never came. Under the circumstances, we’re desperately worried about him. We asked your policemen on duty in the entrance, but neither had seen him leave. Please, will you start a search?’

  DI Foulks stared at her for a moment, then gave orders to the detective at his side. DS Blunt spoke into his radio.

  The rest of the room was a buzz of speculation. Lin Bell, sitting close to where Hilary and Veronica stood, leaned over and caught Hilary’s arm. ‘We were getting concerned about you. This whole thing has been ghastly. I couldn’t bear to think that something else might happen. Where did you last see your husband?’

  ‘Going to the loos opposite the café.’ The unromantic nature of her answer hurt. Was this the explanation she would have to give people for the rest of her life about the last time she saw David? The quality of their lifetime’s relationship demanded something better than this.

  And how sincere was Lin Bell’s sympathy?

  There were growing voices in the courtyard below the window, mostly male. DI Foulks strode past her to the stairs, leaving DS Blunt like a sheepdog ordered to guard the flock. Hilary hurried to the window. Uniformed police officers and a few in plain clothes, who must be detectives, were gathering in the courtyard, almost under the windows of the Great Barn. While the wedding celebrations went on, DI Foulks was organizing the search that might find what Hilary most dreaded.

  Veronica was beside her again. ‘I don’t see where Colonel Truscott fits into all this. He seemed such a straightforward, old-school type.’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive. You said yourself, he seemed too true to type to be real.’

  The orderly meeting was breaking up. Chairs were pushed back. Voices were rising. Hilary’s eyes were drawn to the knot of people converging on the hapless DS Blunt.

  A couple from the Slowworm group addressed the sergeant in loud protest.

  ‘We’ve got a train to York to catch. You can’t keep us here. We were told this was the final meeting.’

  Blunt was obviously trying to calm them, to persuade them to wait a little longer.

  ‘You’d think they didn’t know there was a murderer loose among us. Or perhaps that’s why they’re in such a hurry to leave,’ Hilary commented.

  ‘I don’t know. You have to sympathize. It’s Sunday afternoon. For people who live in the north of England, there may not be that many more trains today.’

  The mutinous crowd was falling back, some still bristling with indignation, others resigned to the delay. One last couple approached the sergeant. Tania and Rob, whom they had last seen in the Gatehouse. Tania’s mouse-brown hair was damp with rain.

  Hilary’s attention focussed suddenly. There was a change in DS Blunt’s body language. No longer was he holding up his hands to placate irate travellers. He was bending forward, his notebook out. As she watched, he reached for his radio.

  Hilary forged her way across the room. Rob and Tania were just turning away. An expression almost of guilt passed over Tania’s face.

  ‘Hilary! I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was important. Or not till you came in.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘David. We’d just left the Gatehouse Café to come to this meeting when we saw him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Where you said. Coming out of the gents’ loos. Only then Theresa came round the corner from the drive. She was looking really distraught.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rob cut in. ‘She grabbed him by the elbow. We were sheltering from the rain under the arch with a couple of police bods. It was too far away to hear what she was saying.’

  ‘And then the two of them dashed off together.’

  ‘Which way?’ demanded Hilary.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t see,’ Tania apologized. ‘Away from the cloisters. That’s all I can say. I don’t know whether they turned up the hill or down, or crossed over to the car park.’

  ‘We had no reason to follow them,’ Rob said. ‘With the rain coming down, we just made a dash for Lady Jane’s Chamber, the other way.’

  Could she trust anything Rob said?

  ‘But we asked the policemen at the entrance,’ Veronica protested. ‘Both of them said they hadn’t seen him after he went into the loos.’

  ‘They wouldn’t. They were further in under the arch, keeping out of the downpour. From what we saw, David and Theresa didn’t turn into the quad. The loos are set back a bit. They’d have been out of the line of vision of the fuzz.’

  ‘The sergeant’s radioed his inspector,’ Tania tried to comfort Hilary. ‘They’ll have a search party on to it. They’ll find him.’

  Hilary’s imagination took in the route away from the abbey. The cobbled approach that led out to the drive. The car parks beyond. And somewhere past that, another of those paths that led down to the river. Where Jo had nearly died.

  ‘I can’t stand this!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have to see where Theresa’s taken David!’

  She heard the detective sergeant’s shout behind
her as she made for the stairs. She knew he was calling her back, but she didn’t care. The buzz of the crowded room heightened in consternation. There were footsteps pounding across the floor. But she was flying down the stairs at precipitate speed.

  A bizarre sight met her. More uniformed police were converging on the quadrangle, some of them at the run. They were coming, she supposed, from the further corners of the gardens and grounds. The DI was giving them urgent directions. Most made off through the entrance arch at speed.

  But Hilary was not the only spectator. A few Sunday-afternoon tourists had stopped on the far side of the cloisters to gape. Some were taking photos on their phones. And down the steps of the Great Barn the wedding guests in celebratory suits and dresses were spilling out to discover what could be more exciting than the bride and groom’s festive day. There was a flash of white and black as the couple themselves appeared at the head of the steps.

  DI Foulks himself set off, not running but walking briskly. He was following the stream of police to the arch that led outside the cloisters.

  A hand grasped Hilary’s arm. ‘There’s nothing for you to do, ma’am. Leave it to us.’

  She rounded on DS Blunt. ‘Get lost!’

  She glared at him, and he let go of her. With a grim look at Veronica, Hilary followed the stream of police. Outside the cloisters, the two of them paused on the drive opposite the car park. They could see uniformed figures diverging in all directions. It had a random, scattergun look. Hilary knew each officer would have precise instructions from DI Foulks about where to search, but also that the detective inspector had no more idea which was the right way to go than she had.

  She and Veronica were left alone, with no clear directions.

  It was Veronica who said, with an attempt at calm reasoning, ‘If they’d gone straight ahead, or to the right, the policeman would have seen them, even from under the arch. They have to have turned left if they stayed out of sight.’

  Hilary followed her gaze. The drive sloped upwards between outlying buildings and on round a bend. This was the way that would take them through the Morland Abbey estate and out to the village on the corner of the main road. There would be any number of possible ways a couple on foot could diverge from that route.

  She started up the drive, hurrying, but with a sense of hopelessness. Why, oh why, had David not popped into the Gatehouse to tell her where he was going? What could be so urgent that he couldn’t spare time for that?

  She was overcome by a surge of remorse that she should feel angry with him even now. Ever since he had arrived she had experienced stabs of jealousy that he seemed more concerned about Veronica than about her. And now he himself was in danger, taking off into the blue with someone who might be a murderer, and all she could do was feel mad at him because he hadn’t told her where he was going.

  She redoubled her speed, panting up the incline.

  ‘Hilary!’ Veronica’s voice came from surprisingly far behind.

  Hilary turned. Veronica had stopped by a smaller car park, just past the end of the East Cloister. She was beckoning.

  Reluctantly, Hilary trudged back downhill to join her.

  There was a glow of excitement in Veronica’s eyes.

  ‘They’ve all gone charging off, away from the abbey. But what if they’re going in the wrong direction? I can only imagine that Theresa was wanting to take David to Gavin, though I shudder to think why. Suppose he’s injured. Gavin, I mean. Suppose Theresa attacked him and he needs a doctor? Anyway, whatever the reason, don’t you remember where you found Gavin before?’

  Hilary’s mind was a blank. She had seen Gavin in so many places this weekend.

  Veronica gestured behind her, to the path that led between the back of the East Cloister and the tithe barn.

  ‘Here. Don’t you remember? Last night I saw a torch on this path. You and David went haring along it and discovered Gavin …’

  ‘In the Lady Chapel!’ Hilary exclaimed. ‘You think …?’

  Without waiting for an answer, she sped off along the path.

  The soaring roof of the Great Barn rose above her on her right, the Tudor chimneys of the East Cloister to her left. She glanced up at the top floor as she sped past. It was from one of those upper windows that Veronica had watched her and David, the same window Gavin had turned to look up at with such venom. She was coming in sight of the rose garden now, behind the Great Barn. The neatly raked paths and carefully tended flowerbeds, with their glowing roses, seemed at odds with the horror of the weekend.

  A sudden thought made her stumble, as though she had caught her foot on a stone. Someone else had been missing from Lady Jane’s Chamber. Colonel Truscott. But what could he have to do with David’s disappearance?

  Then suddenly she was out in a wilder setting. The old monks’ graveyard beside the ruined abbey church. She remembered that unexpected transition from path to grass in the near darkness the previous night. Now, she saw how the path curved away to the left. In front of her, east of the slab that marked the site of the high altar, was the only part of the church that still bore a roof. The Lady Chapel was built of yellowish-grey stone. On this nearer side was a small padlocked door. But there was another door, out of sight around the further side. As she came in sight of it, the outline of an arch at the west end showed where the sanctuary had once joined it.

  She nerved herself for what might be waiting for her down that short flight of steps.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Hilary was in sight of the second door now. This was the chapel that had been appropriated for the Woodleigh family’s use. There were voices from within. A man’s and a woman’s, though she could not yet distinguish whose.

  Then, overwhelming her with gladness, she heard David’s.

  ‘You can’t keep this a secret.’ And then in alarm, ‘Colonel! This isn’t helping.’

  He was still alive. She would not allow herself to admit until now how much she had feared something worse.

  David’s voice broke off with a gasp. The door was almost closed. Hilary pushed it open and almost fell down the step.

  She had to pull up short. It was a small chapel, but it seemed full of heaving people. They jostled in the narrow confines with their medieval carvings. It took her moments to sort out how many of them and who they were. David, in his tweed jacket, seemed to be struggling, with his back to her. For a moment she could not see his opponent. Even so, it was immensely reassuring to feel that prickle of cloth against her outstretched hand.

  She could hear Gavin’s voice, though she could not see him. He seemed to be crouched beyond David, on a red-cushioned kneeler in front of the altar.

  ‘I didn’t do it. But nobody’s going to believe me.’ From between the other men’s legs, his voice came almost as a whine.

  Theresa, glimpsed now on Hilary’s right, was bending over him, her arm round his shoulder, as though she was trying to comfort him.

  It was the voice on her left which startled her.

  ‘Liar!’ Colonel Truscott trumpeted. ‘I don’t know what this secret is you keep blathering about. But you’ve made it clear it gave you a reason to murder poor Mrs Walters.’

  She could see him now, wrestling to break free of David.

  ‘Is she dead?’ There was even more alarm in Gavin’s question.

  ‘For all I know, she may be by now, poor lady,’ Truscott panted. ‘No thanks to you if she’s not. And a cad who could do that to an attractive young woman, who came here to benefit from your advice, is surely capable of killing his wife as well.’

  ‘I didn’t …’

  ‘What happened? Did your good lady find out you were plotting to do away with Jo? Did you have to silence her before she told the police?’

  He threw himself forward. He was a big man. David was trying to hold him back. The red-faced colonel lunged at Gavin, hands outthrust, as though he would break his neck. The two of them, Truscott and David, struggled in the confined space. On the wall beside them, the plaster fi
gures of the be-ruffed Sir George Woodleigh, his wife and children clasped their hands in prayer. From a roof boss above, foliage spilled from the grinning mouth of a Green Man.

  ‘Colonel Truscott!’ Theresa reared up. Her short figure seemed for once to tower over her colleague protectively. ‘Gavin was more devastated by Melissa’s death than anyone. It’s ridiculous to accuse him of murdering her.’

  ‘Then who did?’ grunted the colonel, still wrestling to get out of David’s grasp. He was a powerful man. Hilary felt herself grow pale. Neither of them was a young man. David kept fit on his morning runs, but she fancied Dan Truscott might be stronger.

  ‘I’ve no more idea than anyone else. Nor who tried to kill Jo.’ Gavin groaned, and buried his blond head in his hands.

  ‘You see?’ Dan Truscott’s accusation was cut off short with a cry of pain. David was attempting to force his arm behind him. Hilary retreated up the step, out of the way of flailing limbs and heaving bodies.

  A peripheral part of her mind was aware that there was an emptiness behind her where Veronica had been.

  ‘Leave it to the police,’ David gasped, as though he too was in pain.

  Watching them struggle, Hilary winced. She remembered the shrapnel wound in his side, a relic of an air strike when he had spent time in Gaza last year as a relief doctor.

  It was maddening to feel there was nothing she could do. Would dialling 999 bring the police officers already on the estate? She fumbled for her phone, and realized she had dropped her bag. The chapel was so small that she could not even work her way around the fighting men to join Theresa in protecting Gavin.

  Did she want to protect him?

  Above her, memorials to more ancient warriors looked down on this scene of chaos.

  ‘Stand aside, ma’am.’ The masculine voice behind her rang with such authority that Hilary obeyed instantly.

  An impossibly tall-seeming police officer launched himself into the fray. In seconds, he had done what David had tried to but could not. Truscott’s arms were pinned with professional ease behind his back.