‘She’ll dine out on it for years,’ he said. ‘So the mistresses – the crooked ones – bump up the marks?’
‘Worse than that,’ I said. ‘I think they do the work. I never could understand why the mistresses were always burning the midnight oil while the girls were draped around like temple nymphs. Or why the mistresses were writing in black ink, and not red pencil. Or needed so many textbooks and dictionaries just for marking. Constable, if you shut down such a hotbed of blackmail and corruption, it might even offset the – um – borrowing of Mrs Turner’s motorcar.’
‘Depends what’s waiting for us at the other end o’ this,’ Reid said, and all my triumph at solving the riddle of St Columba’s was gone again. No one was dying there. No one was drowning. Nothing but fairness and justice was harmed. When I thought about Mrs Aldo and what might have been done to Fleur in the time Joe Aldo had had to do it, I fell silent again. My silence spread to the other two and now, in the moonlight, five miles from the lodge, all three of us were wound like watch springs, champing to be out of this rattling, fizzing little machine and dreading what we would find when we arrived.
‘Corner coming, right,’ I said and Reid made another of his sickening two-wheel turns. The chassis sounded like a falling load of scrap metal as the other two wheels hit the ground again. ‘I take it back,’ I said. ‘Alec please put the hood down and let me have some air.’
‘Midges,’ Alec said.
‘They can have me,’ I groaned. ‘There’s a crossroads in less than a mile, William. You want the left turn and it’s a sharp one.’
‘How come you ken this place so well, missus?’ Reid asked me.
‘Shooting,’ I said, through clenched teeth. ‘Friends of ours used to take the next place along for the deer.’ In truth, I knew the twists and reversals of the road because every time Hugh and I had travelled it I had sat in a mulish huff about the dripping black pines and the humpback bridges. I could not see the point of leaving Gilverton for somewhere – in my estimation – even worse.
At least it was not dripping tonight, and with the moon glaring down it was not really all that black either, but I anticipated something a great deal more hellish than dull company and a day’s dreary shooting at the end of the road.
‘Gates,’ I said, spotting them, and we were off the road with one final twist of the steering wheel and rocketing silently on the deep cushion of pine needles which covered the drive, down and down to the lodge at the water’s edge.
‘He’s here!’ shouted Alec, seeing just before I did the motorcar pulled off the lane at the edge of the carriage sweep. ‘That was Donaldson’s car for sure.’
‘Aye, he’s here,’ said Reid and for the first time I heard a shake in his voice, not only caused by the rattling up his arms of an engine under strain. We were old hands at this caper, Alec and I, but what did Reid know of chasing a murderer down in the night and capturing him?
‘House is dark,’ I said. The stones of the lodge were pale and glinting in the moonlight the way that granite can, but every window showed a black, blank gaze of emptiness. Reid killed the engine and the little Mercury, creaking and steaming, slowed and stopped on the gravel. We sat still and listened. The silence was absolute, a perfect endless silence with no breath of wind, no lap of waves, not so much as the call of an owl or the crack of a twig.
‘Has he a gun?’ said Reid and his voice, once again, was trembling.
‘Shouldn’t have thought so,’ Alec whispered back.
‘He’s had plenty of time to find the guns in the house, though,’ I put in and then wished I had not, for there we sat, the three of us, in a motorcar with the top down in the middle of the gravel in the bright blare of moonlight and any of those black windows could have Aldo behind them, watching.
‘Let’s get under cover,’ said Alec and opening his door he slid out and ran, hunched over and scuttling, into the shadow of the trees. I followed him, calling softly to Reid to do the same.
‘He can’t be in there,’ Alec said when the three of us were huddled under the draping arm of a cedar, breathing in the sweet scent of its bark and sharp tang of its needles under our feet. ‘He had a perfect shot at us then. Like wooden ducks at the fairground.’
‘Now he tells us!’ said Reid, with some of his old vigour. I rewarded him with a chuckle – anything to keep his courage up – and sat back against the tree.
‘So what shall we do?’ I said.
‘If we could find the gun room…’ said Alec.
I took a deep breath before replying. His suggestion, not quite made out loud but strongly implied, was a good one. I had never shot so much as a hare and the thought of shooting a man, even a man as conniving and evil as Giuseppe Aldo, was a monstrosity to me. William Reid too was surely too young to have been in the war and Alec’s plan would change his innocent life for ever if things went that way. But what else was there for it?
‘I suppose I should say that this place looks exactly the same as Corrie Dubh, up the road,’ I said. ‘David Bryce’s best Scotch Baronial. He turned them out like muffins, you know.’
‘Eh?’ said Reid.
‘I know where the gun room is at Corrie Dubh,’ I said. ‘So I think I could find it here. Of course breaking down the door will bring him running…’ I hoped that one of them would agree and stop me, but neither did.
So, still bent double and keeping close to the trees, I led them around the side of the house to the yard door. If I was right about the floorplan, the gun room should be just along the corridor beyond it. Internal, of course, no window to smash for entry, but the yard door had a top half of glass and Alec took off his shoe in readiness.
‘All right?’ he said.
‘Wait!’ I whispered. ‘Might as well…’ I tried the handle, turned it and the door swung open.
Alec laughed softly and put his shoe on again.
We had run out of luck, though. The gun-room door, although just where I thought it would be, was locked and the key nowhere to be seen. Alec sent Reid to the corner of the corridor as a lookout and shoved me into an alcove for safety and then, taking off his coat, he put his shoulder to the door and gave it a mighty thump. It sent him staggering back a few steps without emitting anything like a crack or splinter which would hint at submission.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘That was just a tester.’ I did not quite believe him, but with his next assault he took a run at the thing and made a kind of roar as he connected. With a metallic ping the lock gave way and the door burst open, sending Alec sprawling into the gun room to land heavily on his side. Reid rushed from the corner and I shooed him in like a mother hen, then followed, slammed the door and pulled a nearby cabinet in front of it.
‘God damn it to hell,’ said Alec, rolling on his back. ‘I think I’ve broken something.’
‘Your turn, darling,’ I said, thinking of the time I had skidded down a staircase in pursuit of a murderer and smashed my ankle. ‘What?’
‘Rib,’ Alec said, sitting up and groaning.
Reid was listening at the door.
‘No sound o’ nothin’,’ he said. ‘Mind you, it’s a big house.’
‘Right then,’ I said. ‘Reid, keep listening. I’m switching on the lights, but if you hear anyone coming you hiss and I’ll switch them right back off again.’ I clicked the switch and blinked against the sudden brightness.
The doors of the gun cupboards were all closed and the little cabinet – for shot – which I had moved in front of the door was padlocked. I went round swiftly, rattling the handles, and peering through the grilles.
‘There’s nothing missing,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he’s been in here.’
‘Good,’ said Alec. He shuffled over to a desk which stood near where he had fallen and hauled himself to his feet. ‘So he doesn’t have a gun. Pity, because I’m not up to a brawl this evening. Ow! Two ribs, at least. Bloody agony, but only if you breathe, as they say.’