Her eyes snapped open and everything seemed terribly bright. She blinked rapidly, turning her head from side to side. Something tight and itchy had been placed round her neck. She looked up and saw the rope tied round a crossbeam a few feet above her head. That was when Ash realised that she was wearing a noose. Her head felt thick and heavy, as if she had a really bad hangover. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t even swallow.
Looking round, she saw that she was back in the living room in the lodge. Daylight flowed in through the windows, and she could hear birdsong coming from outside. She gasped when she saw Nick’s body lying sprawled at the foot of the staircase, one leg twisted at a weird angle, where it had caught under a step. Thankfully his face was turned away from her. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been in when they’d gone walking — an event that seemed like another life to Ash now — including the black North Face fleece she’d bought him two Christmases ago. His bare legs, usually one of his most attractive features, had gone a strange grey colour.
She tried to whisper his name but all that came out was a toad-like croak. Tears stung her eyes. She had to hold him one last time, even if it was the last thing she ever did. But as she moved to go towards him, she looked down and saw that she was standing on a chair. If she stepped off it, the rope would tighten and she’d be left hanging in mid-air.
She grabbed at the noose, hunting for the knot with shaking, fumbling fingers.
‘Don’t bother, my love. I’m right behind you. All I have to do is give that chair a little kick and you’ll be throttled like one of last year’s chickens.’
Ash froze, wondering what new nightmare was in store for her as Dora walked into view, stopping in front of her. Ash could have kicked the old lady full in the face, but to do so risked knocking herself off the chair and she could see that Dora knew that. The old lady was giving her one of her friendly smiles, but there was a cruel twinkle in her eye. It made Ash think of nasty little boys pulling the legs off spiders.
‘What’s going on?’ Ash asked her, the words coming out in a thick slur.
‘I was waiting for you to wake up, my love. You see, I want to watch you suffer after what you did to my Stuart. I don’t want you to die peacefully in your sleep. I want to see you dangle and kick. I want to see your face change colour while the life chokes out of you.’
She stepped forward, a foot touching one of the chair legs, looking up at Ash as she did so, lapping up her fear. She was still wearing the same dress and pinafore, her hair in the same bun. Even now Ash found it hard to grasp that this old lady in front of her was just about to end her life.
‘Why?’ she whispered.
‘I told you. You killed my youngest child. Beat him like an animal. You’re going to have to pay for that.’
‘We just tried to help the girl.’ Ash was finding her voice again now. ‘That’s all we did. Who was she?’
Something crossed the old lady’s features then. Was it regret? ‘She’s just one of many,’ she answered with a sigh.
‘But why do you do it?’ Suddenly Ash had to know, even though she knew it would do no good. ‘Why do you kidnap girls?’
‘I don’t, my love. They’re nothing to do with me. My sons just look after them, and make sure they don’t escape. Which this time they didn’t do a very good job of. The girls belong to the man who owns the estate — the banker from London. He likes to have his way with them. You know what men are like. But some men are worse than others. And our lord of the manor has some strange tastes. He has his way with the girls, and when he’s finished with them, my boys clean up the mess.’
‘Oh God.’
‘I’m afraid God doesn’t spend time up in these parts, my love. It’s the Devil’s work that we do here. It’s not nice. Not for any of us. But needs must when he comes calling. And the lord pays us very well. Very well indeed. It was just unfortunate that you got caught up in it. A case of the wrong place at the wrong time, I’m afraid. That was Stuart’s fault. The girl should never have got away. The problem was, as soon as she ran into you, you all had to die. There is no way we can afford to let the secret of the manor get out, and have the police sniffing round here. We’re all too involved for that. Stuart’s paid the price for his mistake. And now it’s your turn.’
Ash didn’t know what to say. It was almost impossible to believe there were people out there who could murder young women for pleasure, and others who protected their secrets for money. Maybe it happened far more than she was aware of. After all, Ash had led a sheltered, middle-class life. She knew nothing of the grim lives of the thousands of young foreign women in the country. Many of them were probably disappearing every day with no one to notice their absence.
‘What’s the matter, my love? Cat got your tongue?’
‘You’ll never get away with this,’ Ash told her, desperately hoping she was right. Someone had to be punished for this atrocity. For the murder of her beloved husband, for the murders of Guy and Tracy, for all the other unsolved killings. And for the murder of Ash herself, because right then she knew that she was going to die.
Dora smiled. ‘Oh, we will get away with it, my love. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.’
‘No one will believe you.’
‘Well, that’s our lookout, isn’t it? You should consider yourself lucky, my love. We were going to take you up to the estate to replace the girl who escaped, and let the lord have his way with you. That would have been a lot worse than this, I promise you. Rory and Stuart have told me what those girls look like after the lord has finished with them. I have to say, it makes very unpleasant listening.’
She looked up at Ash, a mocking smile on her fat face. ‘But we thought it would be easier this way. Girl drinks too much. Girl goes mad with a knife. Girl kills her husband and friends. Girl hangs herself in shame. Hard to explain why something like that would happen, of course, but then …’ She shrugged, kicking the chair and sending it flying. ‘Who can explain such things?’
13
‘Messy business this one,’ said DCI Duncan Jarrett of Strathclyde CID, stepping out of the lodge and shutting the door behind him. He was keen to escape the stench of death and decay before it became obvious to his colleagues that it was making him feel sick. He took a deep breath, savouring the fresh forest air, and turned to DS Jimmy Gray, who’d been in charge of securing the scene. ‘Those bodies must have been in there for days.’
‘Four of them, according to the coroner,’ said Gray, scratching at his belly through his shirt.
‘And no one reported them missing? What is it with these English?’
Gray shrugged. ‘One of the couples was from Singapore, and were here on their holidays, so no one noticed they’d gone. The other couple was from London, and you know what they’re like down there. They all ignore each other. It was only the woman’s school that finally raised the alarm after she hadn’t turned up at work for three days.’
‘Anyone got any idea what happened?’
‘Looks like they had some sort of argument, and the woman, Ashleigh Murray, attacked the others. Her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon.’ He stopped itching his belly, leaving his shirt partly untucked. A small roll of flabby white flesh stuck out. ‘There was a lot of booze in her system, so it looks like she sobered up, had a fit of remorse over what she’d done, and hanged herself.’
‘Has she got a record of mental illness?’
Gray shook his head and lit a cigarette. ‘Not that we know of.’
The whole thing didn’t look right to Jarrett. It wasn’t just the fact that a young female teacher of previous good character had knifed her husband and two friends to death. It was the fact that the bodies had been discovered in different parts of the house. Would she really have been able to chase them round with a knife and kill them one by one without being overpowered? If so, why wasn’t there blood all over the walls?