Death of a Raven Page 7

  At last, he twitched out a final electrical lead and looked around in the manner of a small boy hunting for another bubble to pop. Then, having tossed a few cassettes of tape over his shoulder into a corner by way of an encore, he sat on the washing machine and regarded Hartland solemnly.

  What could anyone say?

  Chapter 8

  I have learned since my remarriage to Patrick not to bombard him with questions or demand explanations when he is tired, no matter how strongly I feel. Not that I particularly wanted to do either at the moment, there was just an overwhelming need to communicate. Nevertheless, when he came into the room and threw on to the bed an armful of clothing that Terry had hidden away for him, I kept quiet.

  He began to undress. Lack of sleep and nourishment for the past week or so had produced dark shadows under his eyes, and an unhealthy pallor. His stamina is not so good as it used to be.

  “How’s the leg?” I enquired when I could bear the silence no longer.

  “Which one?” he said from the inside of his sweat shirt.

  Patience really is a virtue. “The one with the hole in it.”

  “Fine.”

  “Please have a bath.”

  “The bandage’ll fall off.”

  He smelt so robustly of compost heaps, horses and heaven alone knew what else that right then, so long as he had a wash I didn’t care what fell off.

  Then I looked at him properly and got out of bed. “Is that where Mark hit you?”

  He winced as my finger traced one of the welts on his back. “He’s a strong lad.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said huskily.

  “What for?”

  “For not stopping him sooner.”

  As usual he sat on the floor to remove his jeans. “I must admit you did have me worried a couple of times today.”

  “I fainted.”

  “Fainted!”

  “You know who Freddie is, surely?”

  He gave me a very straight look then. “Who?”

  “Stalky.”

  Patrick tensed, still looking at me. I did not have to remind him or explain further. Then he said, “I’m starving.”

  I raided the kitchen, feeling both guilty and vindicated, and returned bearing a plateful of cold roast beef, ham and chicken, bread rolls, butter and one of several bottles of white wine I found in the fridge, the removal of none of which was likely to inflict mayhem on Dot’s menu planning for the following day.

  “I’m glad you’re working in the open from now on,” I said, running hot water into the bath while he finished up the last morsels. “Especially now an attack’s been made on Fraser.”

  Patrick grunted.

  “How are you going to keep that injured leg dry when you haven’t a spare to stand on?” I asked a few minutes later.

  “Pass,” he said and got into the bath.

  I had run a bath for him because I wanted the hole in his leg to be immersed in hot water to draw out the dirt I thought might remain. Neurotic of me perhaps but I wasn’t taking any chances. Both of us knew it would hurt like hell. So I hugged him until the worst was over, poured him another glass of wine and then let him get on with washing himself. I was glad to see when I removed the soaked bandage afterwards that there was a dark stain on the dressing and the wound had started to bleed a little.

  “Was it really worth it?” I wondered aloud, applying one of the clean dressings left by the doctor.

  “Oh yes.”

  “But too tired to make further comment?”

  He stroked my cheek with a long index finger, an extraordinarily gentle and delicate gesture after the night’s violence. “I got most of my information from Bill. The Gaspereau brothers have been here before — or, at least, Bryce has. Inside the house, too. The old chap whispered darkly of “goings on” — other men, people he’d never seen before. But he knew Bryce, everyone knows him.”

  “I take it you weren’t pretending to be Freddie then?” But Patrick was smiling to himself, staring into space, remembering. “He was in the war, of course — stationed in Yorkshire for a while. I suppose you could describe him as a modern loyalist — he was more than happy to give me his job, retire to Vancouver and keep mum for five hundred dollars.”

  “Patrick, you told him who you were!”

  “Sort of. But he wasn’t surprised. The place has been crawling with security people ever since Quade was killed.”

  “Then surely they were the men he saw.”

  “No. The ‘goings on’ he referred to happened before, and were spread over quite a long period of time.”

  “Emma’s boyfriends.”

  “Some of them might have been. I’ve got to be sure, that’s all.”

  “I can’t believe Andy was having an affair with her.”

  Patrick was silent for a moment. Then he said, “If I say that ordinary normal women like you can’t understand the effect that women like Emma have on normal ordinary men like Andy, Paul and Terry then I know you won’t be offended. If I then say that she had a go at me the first morning I started work on the garden, then you’ll get an idea of her attitude to the male sex.”

  I battened down prurient curiosity and said, “So where did Andy meet her if he wasn’t living here?”

  “That’s easy. Hartland had invited the team to dinner on a couple of occasions.”

  I was nearly asleep a while later when he said, “In case you’re worried, Terry did ask me if he ought to sleep with Emma.”

  “An unusual decision for you to make,” I commented.

  “We both agreed that it was in the line of duty.”

  “Please don’t make it sound as though he was about to go before a firing squad.”

  Later again, I realised that he was still wide awake. “Does your leg hurt?”

  “I want you.”

  But he wanted reassurance and comfort, not pleasure, and proof that Hartland’s words were only empty malice. Sadly, the lovemaking was a disaster.

  *

  The next morning most of my worries returned. There was no doubt that Ravenscliff was a safer haven than ever for the British engineers now that there were two armed guards instead of one. But I still seemed to be looking at Patrick through a glass darkly, and so I suspect was everyone else. He stayed in bed that day, a Saturday, not expressly resting his leg or saying that he was tired, not making any statements at all, just deeply asleep as though drugged. Saturdays being treated as a normal working day this did not matter, Terry acted the chaperon as he usually did.

  At about four Patrick rose and such was his demeanour that I risked all and rang Terry to warn him of possible boiling oil and flaming arrows treatment on his return. This proved to be perfectly justified. The minder walked straight into a fairly ruthless test of his reflexes and security arrangements.

  The exercise left everyone, me included, in a state that could only be described as elated mild nervous collapse. British stoicism rose to the occasion marvellously, the hungry and tired contingent only protesting slightly upon being shoved down in a heap under the stairs when the lights suddenly went out as they entered the house. What they didn’t see was their protector being hauled outside again, cuffed silly, and then required to shoot at various targets that had been fixed in the trees. Terry, murderous and still upright in the dusk, slaughtered an awful lot of pieces of cardboard.

  The senior member of British Intelligence got up early the following day and went to church. He returned, thoughtful and delicately exuding the scent of Communion wine, and ate a huge breakfast. This meticulously trained and highly paid connoisseur of security then mooned around for a while before wandering into the garden where he pruned a couple of shrubs. Properly though. I am very pleased with my pupil and how our combined efforts are really making something of the cottage garden at home. After this, and smiling like a shark, he commenced to stalk Mark around the property armed with that young man’s riding crop.

  There is no more exquisite embarrassment than knowing that everyone is
embarrassed for you.

  The day continued to evolve like a West End farce. Lunch was consumed at the appropriate hour, the Hartlands ignoring the most recent addition to their table, the rest of us animatedly talking amongst ourselves. All the while Patrick ate like a horse, occasionally pausing to grin at Mark who was ostentatiously sitting on a cushion and who, astoundingly, grinned back. After the meal Emma retired to her room, complaining of a headache, and Hartland to his study, making it known that he was going to ring London.

  “What,” I demanded of Terry when we were alone, “the hell is going on?”

  “I still seem to be learning,” he replied.

  “I’m certain that Hartland’s complaining right now about the standard of personnel. Suppose Patrick’s recalled?”

  “He won’t be.”

  “You seem very sure.”

  “I’m sure of the Major too.”

  “You always were slightly besotted,” I said, perhaps cruelly, but he only smiled.

  “Every job involves different methods!”

  “You call this shambles methods.”

  Terry flexed his broad shoulders against the confines of the gun harness. “I can assure you he was ice cold normal when he was giving me my orders last night. If you ask me, he’s acting a bit loopy with the Hartlands to get them really twitchy. He’s not convinced that they’re on the level.”

  “So I understand,” I replied. “But say what you like, I don’t think he’s …”

  “What?”

  But I’d said too much already. I simply had no business discussing Patrick’s behaviour with a subordinate. “It doesn’t matter,” I finished lamely.

  When I had almost reached the door, Terry said, “I do know that he’s trying to make it up to Mark for all the trouble he got into.”

  “With a riding crop!”

  “That was hellish funny! Marcus bit his backside when he was mucking him out this morning. For pity’s sake, Ingrid — haven’t you ever seen the Major clowning around before?”

  No, I hadn’t. Not like this. Not when a man had been killed in strange circumstances. And now a seemingly promoted Terry was calling me by my Christian name.

  Patrick and Mark were just about to drive off in the pickup.

  Patrick called to me, “We were just on our way to have another look at the accident spot. Coming?”

  “I’d like a word with you first,” I answered. When he reached my side I said, “I’ve had enough. I’m going to try to get on a flight home tomorrow.”

  He took my elbow and walked me further away from the vehicle. “You can’t.”

  “I can,” I informed him. I was genuinely surprised. There had been previous occasions when my presence had proved superfluous and I had simply returned home.

  “I want you here,” he said.

  “I’m not stating a preference,” I said, through gritted teeth, “but a fact. I’m going home.”

  “Aren’t you well?”

  “I’m superfluous,” I said. “I’m an imposition on these people.”

  “To hell with that!” Patrick exploded. “Hartland gets a massive entertainment allowance from London. Those in his position have to put up with all sorts of strangers staying with them.”

  Looking at him, I prepared myself for what was about to happen next, when he would switch on the freezing authority and remind me that I had no choice in the matter, Queen and country over-ruled our relationship. It had happened before. Once. Unaccountably my sight blurred and I discovered with a shock that tears were running down my face.

  He spoke very gently. “You didn’t answer my question. Aren’t you well?”

  “I can’t cope with this,” I blurted out.

  He put his arm around me and again spoke softly, but not as though trying to humour me, I have never been that kind of woman. “Look, I do need you. Can we talk about it later?”

  I nodded, aware that Mark was watching us.

  “Will you come with us to Quispamsis? You won’t have to cope with anything — just sit in the truck.”

  It was a bit of a squash with three of us but I was oddly comforted by their close proximity.

  After a couple of miles Mark said, “This Freddie was a real person, wasn’t he?”

  “Oh canny, canny child,” Patrick breathed, but Mark didn’t seem to mind.

  “You were fourteen,” I said, memories flooding back.

  “Tell him about Stalky.”

  “You tell him.”

  “Not a lot to relate really,” Patrick began. “He lived next door to the school we both attended and was the son of a couple who were by this time rather elderly. All the children called him Stalky because he was so thin and walked like a wading bird. His mental age was pretty low. When he started to make suggestive signs to the girls over the school wall I decided to mount my own crusade and get him away from them. I should have told a member of staff instead.”

  “You were famous,” I sighed. “The Headmaster looked out of his window just as you were doing your bit, yelling and doing a wonderful imitation of Stalky’s funny walk, and he was running towards you to chase you away.”

  “Lolloping, not running,” Patrick corrected. “At the end of it all I got the cane, and then my Dad belted me because my dear little brother had heard rumours about drugs at school, didn’t know what had really happened and put two and two together to make several million. Meanwhile all the mothers were phoning the school demanding that something be done about the sex maniac. It even got into the national press.”

  “Vicar flogs son for tackling man pestering girls,” I intoned.

  “It’s an ill wind,” Patrick laughed. “The church was full to the gargoyles for months afterwards because of the publicity. The collections raised enough money to repair the roof, and the Bishop bought me a racing bike.”

  “It was when I first noticed him,” I explained to Mark. “All the girls thought him a real hero and bought him sweets from the tuck-shop.”

  Mark was laughing so much that, strictly speaking, he was a hazard to other road users.

  “The bike was mainly to appease my mother — she and Dad nearly split up over the belting he gave me.”

  “So this guy really made an impression on your young days,” Mark observed. “What happened to him?”

  “He was put away — in a home.”

  “I suppose I can laugh about it now,” I said. “But I used to have terrible nightmares that he was after me. He used to hide behind hedges and jump out on us when we were going home from school.”

  “Probably quite harmless really,” Patrick said in my ear.

  I thought about it. Yes, probably quite harmless, a lonely, flawed man with a child’s mind. But nevertheless, resurrected by someone else in possession of a vivid imagination, had turned him into what Stalky had been to us. An object of fear.

  “I wish I felt less bad about the other night,” Mark mumbled.

  “What can you remember?” Patrick asked him.

  “Very little. Eating too much. Drinking too much. I haven’t the first idea how I got home.”

  “You drove.”

  “Jeez,” Mark groaned.

  “You arrived about ten minutes in front of your friends and spent most of that time throwing up behind the stable.”

  “Right under your window, I suppose,” commented Mark bitterly.

  “No — round by the manure heap. That’s where I took you after you’d tried to climb the stairs and failed.”

  The pick-up swerved slightly.

  “You had something on your mind but couldn’t even begin to tell me,” Patrick continued. “You were kind of upset about it so I pushed my fingers down your throat and then held you while you suffered the consequences. After I’d ducked your head a couple of times in the horse trough you managed to get out that people were on their way to give me a going over.”

  “I can’t remember any of that,” Mark said.

  “Just as well,” Patrick said with a sideways smile at me.
“I wasn’t exactly tender with you.”

  “You must have come to warn him,” I said. “Was it to make up for asking them to do it?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.”

  He became very quiet after this exchange and did not speak until we arrived at our destination. I had an idea that talking about that night had brought some of it into his mind, and how afterwards he had almost fainted from sheer fright upon beholding Patrick in the living room. The finely drawn taunt: “You’ve been sick” had brought from his subconscious what it was like to be handled by those wiry, wringing fingers and thus ensured his complete co-operation.

  When we were parked at the side of the road, Mark removed the keys from the ignition and sat still, staring at nothing. Finally he said, “What’s the word? Wimp? Spoiled brat? You tell me.”

  “Where did you find them?” Patrick said, speaking rather sharply.

  “I didn’t. They found me. In Bob’s Deli.”

  “But that’s not where you ate.”

  “No. I’d gone in there to buy some sandwiches to take to the trotting races. I knew I’d miss dinner. Bryce came in and asked me to go to Jasper’s Creek with them for a few beers. I didn’t really want to — I don’t usually drink with them other than when they take me fishing. But I did, and it all got out of hand.”

  Frowning, Patrick got out of the truck and strolled away from it, hands in pockets. Then, in mid-stride he turned and walked quickly back to rest both arms on the wound down window, staring at Mark penetratingly for a moment. “Tell you what — I don’t believe you bleated to them about me at all.” With that, he commenced an examination of the roadside by the burnt out trees.

  “What you must bear in mind,” I said in an undertone to Mark, “is that you encountered the very, very best. Not even trained soldiers can withstand him when he’s after information. The MoD let him loose on people accused of spying.”

  “But now he’s being kind.”

  “Oh no, never think that. Patrick is never kind. He gets right to the truth in the most ruthless fashion and doesn’t care if he strips people psychologically naked.”

  “Then why did he say that?”