61: STORM
After skidding for the second time, Gabe decided to slow down. Fortunately, the Range Rover's stability control and four-wheel drive had helped him avert anything serious, but he knew he had to take greater care: he had no desire to make Eve a widow and his children fatherless.
Forcing himself to ease up on the accelerator, he wondered how his daughters had taken the news of Cam's death. Loren would have been distraught, while Cally… Well, maybe Cally would cry without fully comprehending the whole implication of losing a brother, what loss of life truly meant. He felt his own eyes moistening again and he shook his head as though that would stem the tears. He had to get a grip, couldn't afford to cry, needed clear vision to see the road ahead. Driving was dangerous enough on a night like this.
By now he had left the second motorway behind and was on a smaller, country road. The windscreen wipers were on double speed, but still the glass kept filling up. The rain was not just falling on the car but was pounding it, and the wind buffeted it whenever there were gaps in the hedgerows. He passed through lonely villages that looked battened down for the night, and other vehicles that were travelling more cautiously than he. Several times he had to wait for a clear stretch of road to overtake cars and lorries in front; the headlights of oncoming traffic were intensified by the rain on the windscreen, blinding him so that he was forced to bring the Range Rover down to a crawl until they had gone by.
It was a nightmare drive and, he figured, a fitting end to a nightmarish day. At that time, Gabe had no way of knowing that the nightmare would continue long into the night.
Lightning flared, followed by a deep roll of thunder in the distance.
•
The row of small terraced cottages had been almshouses in days gone by, built for the needy of the parish but now individually owned. They were remote, set back from the main road and reached only by a rough track. In today's market, estate agents would refer to them as bijou residences, and they were the type of properties sought after by city dwellers who dreamed of holiday homes or boltholes in the country. Percy Judd had been lucky enough to have lived in one of them all his life, so price was never a factor as far as he was concerned, although he had been assured of a small (but not that small) fortune by frustrated local agents and developers should he ever decide to sell.
Inside the cottage, which was at the end of the row, Percy sat in his tiny living room in front of a roaring fire, his outstretched slippered feet almost in the hearth, while the storm outside raged, shaking windows and rattling the room's front door like some weather-beaten traveller seeking refuge for the night. He was warm and comfortable, settled there in his old, favourite (and only) armchair, a mug of cocoa in one hand, a self-rolled cigarette in the other.
With no faith in the electricity supply in such extreme weather (power cuts in the district were not infrequent when conditions were bad), Percy had lit two oil lamps, one of which stood on the inside sill of a window, the second on the room's centre table. They and the fire in the grate gave the room a cosy glow; yet despite appearances, the old man felt uneasy.
He was wary of this kind of weather for, although he had been away on National Service with the army when the flood of '43 had occurred, he had heard so many first-hand accounts of that night he felt almost as if he had been through it himself. And last time, he remembered being told, the rainfall had been heavy but not as consistent as these past weeks. Not that he had cause to be afraid: this row of low-roofed cottages was high up on the hill that ran down to Hollow Bay and well away from the river itself. No, it was the properties that stood on either side of the river-banks and the village itself that were in danger should the worst happen.
A mewling caught his attention. The dog was curled up on the rug in front of the fire, inches away from Percy's feet, and it suddenly looked towards the door. It whimpered and turned its head towards Percy, then back at the door again.
'Not tonight, fellah,' he said to the dog in a low gentle voice. 'It's a wild 'un out there, too stormy fer me to be takin' yer out. Jus' settle down now.'
But the animal was fidgety, restless. It uncurled itself and aligned its body so that it directly faced the door that rattled and shook in its frame. It gave a sharp yelp.
'Hush now. Nothin' to be getting' excited about. Yer been out once tonight, no need to go out again, not 'til it's time fer bed.'
Percy flicked the last of his cigarette into the fire and reached down to pat the dog's back reassuringly.
The dog whined.
'What's troublin' yer, lad? Hear a fox out there?'
A shuttering flash of lightning filled the room's two small windows and thunder cracked so loudly overhead that both man and dog flinched. The dog jumped up and ran to the door as if desperate to escape the close confines of the living room. It whimpered frenziedly as it scratched at the wood.
When it stood back and gave a long howling moan, a deep sense of foreboding came over Percy. There was something bad in the air tonight and it wasn't just because of the storm.
62: FRIENDLY EYES
Maurice drained the brandy, unable to make it last any longer. He smiled to himself as he remembered the day he and Magda had dumped the young teacher's corpse into the well. At that stage he'd felt little fear, only a frisson of excitement and an anxiousness to please Magda and Augustus Cribben. The troublesome Miss Linnet was out of their lives and nobody was any the wiser. Magda had covered up the murder perfectly: even the children believed the teacher had abruptly left for London without saying goodbye because of urgent family matters. They had missed her, sure enough, moping for days afterwards, and Susan Trainer was the worst. She was profoundly disappointed in Miss Linnet and spoke to no one for a week, but even she thought that the teacher had abandoned them and returned to the city. The school authorities had merely been miffed at the teacher's unprofessionalism and, what with the war going on and all, they had made no effort to contact her or, if they had, they hadn't tried very hard, nor for very long.
Magda had not told her brother the full story, had just kept up the pretence that Miss Linnet had absented herself. Augustus was not concerned: he was relieved that she was gone.
Scrubbing the cellar and boiler-room floor had been a bothersome chore, but Magda and Maurice had worked at it together. After they had cleaned the relevant areas, they had swept dust back over them so that the lighter patches would not stand out. No one would ever know what had happened down there, least of all Augustus.
Maurice smiled to himself again. Magda had kept her promise to reward him that night, though her reactions as ever were mechanical and her orgasms without abandonment. She never once lost her breath. At least he had learned from her. As he had learned from Augustus. Yes, Augustus had taught him the exquisite pleasure and the power of inflicting pain. It was just a pity that the psychiatrist who had had Maurice sectioned when he was a young adult did not appreciate or understand such joys.
Maurice's smile turned sour at that point. Some things are best forgotten.
Pulling back his shirtcuff, he checked his wristwatch. Time to go. Time he made his way up to Crickley Hall.
He stood and shrugged on his raincoat. Allowing the walking stick to take some of the weight off his left leg, Maurice leaned to pick up his hat from the table. He put it on, then lifted the empty brandy glass.
As he went by, he placed it on the bar.
•
Sam Pennelly, landlord of the Barnaby Inn, broke off his conversation with two local lads at the other end of the bar and sauntered down to where the customer had just left the glass.