Midnight is a Lonely Place (49 page)

‘Well, you go carefully,’ the old lady nodded. ‘And you watch out for the Black Dog on the marsh.’ She chuckled as she watched Anne pull up her collar and run out to the car.

‘Black Dog!’ Anne muttered to herself as she restarted the engine. She had heard of the phantom Black Dog of East Anglia; she gave a wry grin. She had not expected to run into the supernatural quite so soon.

As the car slithered down the lane and turned at last onto a slightly broader road which showed signs of having been recently sanded, the snow lessened and a patch of clear sky revealed a high, cold moon, only a fraction off the full, sailing amongst a trail of huge, bulbous clouds. Cautiously Anne accelerated a little, following the winding road with care. The woman had described this as the estuary road, and suddenly Anne saw why. A steep incline, where the car tyres spun wildly for a moment gave way to a flat straight stretch and she found she was looking down on a broad river estuary, glinting like silver in the moonlight. She brought the car to a standstill and stared. It was breathtaking. A landscape of white and silver and polished steel. And completely deserted. She had not, she realised, seen another car for over half an hour now. Turning her back with regret on the view, she set off again, more slowly this time, determined not to miss the turnings which would take her across the arm of land which led behind Redall Bay.

The track was in the right place. There was no doubt she had reached it at last, but it was obvious that that was as far as the little car was going. The wind had piled the snow across the turning in heaps four feet deep. She climbed out and looked round in despair. The moonlight was so bright now that the road was clearly visible in both directions for several hundred yards. She had passed a farmhouse some half a mile back. Perhaps she should drive back there and ask their advice? She glanced at her watch. It was after eleven. Not too late, surely, to knock on the door.

But the farmhouse, when she reached it, was in darkness and her repeated knocking brought no answer.

She shivered. The moon was half veiled now and the clouds were building once more. In another few minutes it would have gone. Climbing back into the car, glad of its lingering warmth, she sat back for a moment and thought. There were only two alternatives. Either she could drive on to the next village and beg a room at the pub or she could leave the car on the road and walk down the track to Redall.

Pulling back onto the road she drove slowly back to the top of the track and stopped. It was clearly visible, in spite of the snowdrifts, winding into the trees. She put on the light again and stared down at her map. The track could not be more than half a mile long, less probably. She measured it with her thumbnail. It was crazy to go away now she had got here. She glanced up at the sky again, peering through the windscreen. The moon was clearly visible now, lighting the whole place like day. The banks of snow cloud she had seen over the estuary did not seem to have advanced at all. It would be easy to see her way down the track.

She made up her mind. Climbing out of the car she pulled her bag out with her. There was a bottle of Laphroaig in there, produce of Scotland. She had not forgotten her sister’s fondness for malt whisky and if she fell in a snowdrift, to hell with all the received wisdom about cold and alcohol, she would drink it herself. Turning off the lights she locked the car and, shouldering the bag, with a rueful glance down at her far-from-waterproof Princes Street boots, she turned towards the trees.

For the first twenty-five yards the moonlight lit the path with brilliant clarity and it was easy to put the thought of Kate’s poltergeist out of her mind. The snow was soft but not very thick and she found the going easy, though it was strange how quickly her bag grew heavy. Then abruptly the track turned at right angles into a densely growing copse and the moonlight, deflected by the trees, shone elsewhere. The path at her feet was black. In spite of herself she glanced over her shoulder into the deeper shadows. It was very quiet. The wind had died and she could hear nothing but the steady crunch of the snow beneath her boots.

She stopped to swing her holdall onto the opposite shoulder. Without the steady sound of her own footsteps the night was eerily quiet. No wind; no patter of leaves; then, in the distance she heard the manic tu-wit, tu-wit of an owl, followed by a long wavering hoot. It was a primitive sound which brought a shiver to the back of her neck. She walked on, unaware how tightly her knuckles were knotted into the straps of the bag on her shoulder.

Her eyes were used to the darkness now and she could make out more detail. The gnarled oaks, their solid profiles clearly recognisable, the tangled mass of less easily identifiable copse which crowded to the edge of the track, the dense curtain of some creeper or other – traveller’s joy, perhaps – which hung in clusters over the path. The track turned again and she found the snow at her feet bathed in moonlight once more. With a sigh of relief she quickened her pace, slithering out of control as the track steepened, staggering to keep her feet.

It was then she saw the upturned car. Cautiously she approached it, her heart thumping uneasily, pushing her way through the broken branches. The skid marks were still visible beneath the snow, and the dark stains which in daylight would probably be blood. Her mouth had gone dry as she peered round the upturned bonnet. There was no one there. Relieved, she touched the cold metal and saw the drift of snow which had settled on the inside console. The crash must have happened a while ago and whoever had been in the car had gone.

The loud crack of a breaking twig stopped her in her tracks. She looked round. She could hear her heart thundering in her ears. She glanced up at the sky. The moon was almost gone. In another few seconds it would be swallowed by the thick, snow-heavy band of cloud which was drifting steadily in from the sea. It was nearly midnight and she had never felt so lonely in her life.

The skin on the nape of her neck began to prickle as she walked on. She tried to view the feeling objectively. It was a primitive reaction to fear of the unseen; or was she sensing something out there in the dark? Something watching her. Swallowing hard, she made herself go on. Surely it could not be far now to the farmhouse? A flicker in the strength of the moonlight made her glance up again. Only a few seconds more and the moon would be gone. She held on to her bag more tightly, refusing to quicken her pace. A fear of the dark was an irrational primitive throwback; this was the twentieth century. There were no wild beasts out there, queuing up to eat her, no enemy tribes, no evil spirits, no ghosts. She was a rational, liberated modern woman; a scientist.

But in at least one of the books in her bag there was a very convincing argument that ghosts and spirits were real entities.

The darkness when it came was total. Her step faltered – a logical reaction to sudden blindness which would pass as soon as her night sight came back. She knew the path was clear; she had been able to see twenty feet in front of her a moment before, so why had she stopped? Why was she convinced that there was someone standing there on the path immediately in front of her? Why did she have this terrible urge to turn and run back the way she had come?

‘Come on, Anne!’ Like her sister she was prone to addressing herself out loud. ‘Get a move on. Your feet are getting cold!’ The sound of her voice seemed shocking in the silence; an intrusion. ‘You’ll be singing Onward Christian Soldiers in a minute,’ she went on conversationally. ‘Go on, you bastard.’ She was no longer addressing herself. ‘If you’re out there, show yourself, whoever you are.’

This was ludicrous. There was no one there. No one at all. She gritted her teeth and walked on, concentrating grimly on the wild beauty of the night. She could understand Kate’s enchantment with this place. The silence, the clean pure air which came, she supposed, straight from the arctic ice, the occasional glimpses before the moon had gone, of glittering, still water through the trees. She pictured the cottage where Kate was by now probably tucked up cosily in bed. A warm stove, oak beams, pretty, chintzy curtains, an old bed with a soft feather mattress and an old- fashioned patchwork quilt. When she arrived there would be coffee and food and whisky of course, and a long night of gossip with their toes tucked up near the fire –

She snapped suddenly out of her reverie. In the distance she could hear the sound of galloping hooves. It was coming closer. The creak of leather, the hiss of breath through a horse’s nostrils. She flung herself back off the path, feeling the ground shake beneath the rider as he hurtled up the track and then he was gone. Shocked, she stared back the way she had come. She had seen nothing. How could anyone ride at that speed in the dark? And why? What was so important?

With a heavy sense of foreboding she slithered back onto the track, renewing her grip on her bag, aware suddenly of a new smell in the fresh coldness of the air. A foul, acrid smell. The smell of burning.

She stood for a moment looking at the still smouldering barn, feeling the heat striking out from the black stinking ashes, then she walked slowly towards the farmhouse and banged on the door.

For a long time nothing happened. No lights came on. There was no sound. She was beginning to panic that there was no one there when at last she heard the sound of a door opening somewhere inside.

‘Who is it?’ A man’s voice sounded strangely hollow from behind the door.

‘Hi. I’m sorry to arrive so late. My car couldn’t make it down the track. I’m Anne Kennedy. Kate’s sister.’ It felt faintly ridiculous, speaking to a bolted door. She wished they would hurry up and open it. There was something not right out here, something frightening in the air. ‘Please. May I come in?’ She tried to keep the panic out of her voice.

‘Wait.’ The voice was curt. Almost rude.

Anne stared at the door in disbelief. It had not crossed her mind that they might not let her in. She glanced behind her at the dull white sheen which was a snow-covered lawn.

‘Anne? Is that you?’ Suddenly Kate’s voice came from behind the door. The flap of the letter box rose and a torch shone out into the darkness. ‘Crouch down, so I can see your face.’

‘For God’s sake, Kate. Of course it’s me. I sincerely wish it wasn’t!’ The last of her stamina was going. Anne bent over and stared into the letter box. ‘What is the matter with you all?’

‘It’s her. Let her in.’ She heard the muffled words as the letter- box sprang shut followed at once by the sound of bolts being drawn back.

‘Quickly. Come in.’ Kate pulled her over the threshold into a darkened hall. Anne was dimly aware of a guttering candle on a saucer as someone closed the door behind her and shot the bolts across once more, then she was ushered into a candlelit living room. It was warm, and smelled of wonderful cooking and it was full of people.

She stared round, doing a double take. ‘It’s like the hospital at Scutari,’ she blurted out. ‘Kate, love, what’s been happening?’

A woman, wearing a sling and with a black eye lay on the sofa; a girl, wrapped in rugs was lying on pillows in the corner; a man, his bandaged foot propped up on a stool sat beside the fire. Behind her the two men – one man and a boy, she corrected herself as she glanced at them – who had opened the door with Kate were standing staring at her as if she had just appeared from Mars. Two other people and a girl stood nearby, all looking at her. ‘What is happening here? What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, Anne!’ Kate threw herself into her arms. ‘I’ve never been so pleased to see anyone in my life!’

‘The
dea ex machina
, come to rescue us, I presume.’ The words came from the man with the injured foot.

Anne stared at him blankly then she turned to Kate. ‘You’d better explain,’ she said.

LVII

He rode fast, leaning forward on his horse’s neck, the brooch, the native
brooch which had pinned her gown, holding his own cloak now against
the wind. The prince of the Trinovantes had paid the price and gone to
his gods and the hell-cat woman with him, with her curses and her hate.
Well, let her curse. Who would ever know what had happened here
today? There were no witnesses, no survivors. Her sister, simple docile
girl that she was, would believe him when he told her Claudia had fled
with her lover to his brothers in the west. She would be shocked, but she
would believe him. And she would understand the need for divorce. He
smiled as he rode, and raised his hand to flog his horse on faster as it
scaled the rise in the track, its hooves throwing up clouds of dust. He had
already decided that he would remarry. Her sister was much like her to
look at, much younger and more biddable by far. She could take over
his household and raise his son; provide him with more sons if she did
her duty well. And he would see to it that the prince’s tribe came no
more to Colonia Claudia Victricensis. They incubated sedition and plotted
with the Iceni against Rome. A burning straw would ignite the mood
against their overlords, but it would not be his straw; no uprising would
be of his instigation. Nor hers. Claudia. The woman he had treated as a
goddess. No one would ever know what had occurred here today. She
would never tell; she had taken her betrayal and her fury with her to
her muddy, inglorious death
.