edge of his fingernail.
Had she thrust the scissors into Stuart Wagg with sufficient force to cause serious harm? She thought she’d only caught him a glancing blow, on the shoulder rather than the chest. But she hadn’t hung around to check.
In the trees, an invisible owl hooted. If Wagg was badly hurt, he’d have dialled 999. The police would soon be on the scene, as well as an ambulance. Only a question of time before they came knocking on Daniel’s door. Or suppose the injury was life-threatening, suppose Wagg had lost consciousness even as Louise made good her escape? Suppose he lay sprawled on the kitchen floor, helpless and alone?
Heart beating faster, he turned on his heel and raced back towards the cottage as the rain drove down. He took a short cut across a tangled patch of couch grass and brambles that divided the labyrinthine paths. Before leaving for America, he’d laid stepping stones, but now they were coated with moss and as treacherous as on the gravel and stone flags. Within moments, his feet gave way under him and he crashed to the ground.
He ended up in a heap amongst the stinging nettles. Bruised and aching, he hauled himself back onto his feet and wiped the mud off his jeans. The moment he got his breath back, he set off again. Must keep moving. No time to lose.
‘You can’t go to Crag Gill!’
Louise was awake and aghast. She couldn’t have slept for more than half an hour before he roused her, but already the spark had returned.
‘No choice. We don’t know what state he’s in.’
‘I barely touched him. I only picked up the scissors to defend myself. I’d never even have made contact if he hadn’t lunged at me.’
‘He might be badly hurt. Unable to call for help.’
‘It was only a scratch!’
‘We have to make sure.’
Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Stuart will lie about what happened.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘He’s brutal, vindictive, you have no idea. It will be like
Jeremy, but a thousand times worse.’ Jeremy was the student with the overprotective mother.
‘It’s not the same…’
‘Listen to me, Daniel. The things he said simply because I decided to walk out on him before he dumped me…you’ve no idea. His pride’s hurt, he’ll destroy me if he can. He did his best before I picked up those scissors. Now…’
He picked up Louise’s mobile from the bedside table. Cradling it in his palm, he scrolled down the list of dialled calls. She dropped off the bed and tried to snatch the phone from him, but she lost her balance and slipped back down onto the duvet.
‘You can’t do this to me!’ she muttered. ‘It’s so-’
A throaty rumble of thunder interrupted her, followed by rain hammering down on the cottage, like a wild creature demanding admission. Lightning flashed through a slit in the curtains. They were only a mile from the eye of the storm.
‘You’re already in the shit, Louise.’ He found the number for Crag Gill and started to dial. ‘Don’t make things worse.’
‘You’ve reached Stuart Wagg.’ The voice sounded congratulatory. ‘I’m not at home at present. You know the drill, leave your name and number after the tone and I’ll get back to you soon as I can.’
Daniel ended the call and said, ‘I’ll try his mobile.’
‘Hi, this is Stuart Wagg. Leave a message after the tone.’
Daniel took a breath and hissed at the handset. ‘Stuart, this is Daniel Kind. Can you ring me at the cottage as soon as possible?’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Louise’s voice shook. ‘Why did you have to leave a message?’
‘I need to find out what shape he’s in. For all we know, he’s in Westmorland General at this very moment. Let’s hope he’s not in intensive care.’
She wasn’t listening. Her eyes locked on the framed print of Derwent Water that hung above the chest of drawers. She murmured, ‘I’m begging you not to do this. I really don’t want you to talk to him.’
‘And I didn’t want you to stab him with his own kitchen scissors,’ he snapped. ‘Did you keep a key to the house? I’m on my way to make sure he’s all right.’
Bullets of rain bounced off the windscreen as Daniel sped out of Brackdale. The road surfaces were uneven, with deep pools everywhere. Each time he passed another vehicle, spray squirted across the windscreen, blinding him. He couldn’t put his foot down for fear that he too would skid off into the hedgerow. If he crashed, he might not be as lucky as Louise.
Not that she saw herself as lucky. The words echoed in his brain.
All Daniel wanted right now was to be sure that Louise hadn’t destroyed Stuart Wagg. He hadn’t worked out what to say, assuming the man was still in one piece. Better make it up as he went along. He wouldn’t plead, or threaten, just make sure that Wagg didn’t cause his sister any more grief. If he left Louise alone, she’d get over him, given time. She’d had plenty of practice in coming to terms with relationships that didn’t work out.
The storm had eased to an ill-tempered drizzle as he pulled up outside the entrance to Crag Gill. A pair of heavy oak gates barred the drive. On either side of them stretched a seven-foot-high hawthorn hedge. He grabbed a pencil torch and yanked the hood of his jacket over his head. A CCTV camera squatted on top of one of the gate pillars.
He gabbled into the entry phone. ‘Stuart, are you there? This is Daniel Kind.’
No answer.
He yanked his mobile out of his pocket and rang his sister.
‘What’s the code to open the front gates?’
‘2011. His birthday is 20th November. But-’
‘Better get back to bed.’
‘Daniel, this is crazy. It was only a flesh wound, I swear. Anything worse…it isn’t possible.’
As she talked, he keyed the security numbers in sequence, but the gates did not as much as twitch. He tried again. Still no joy.
‘Did you close the gates when you left?’
‘Of course not. I wanted to get away as fast as possible. There’s a lay-by half a mile from the house. That’s where I stopped to phone you.’
‘So, he must have closed the gates himself?’
‘I expect so. You’re worrying about nothing.’
‘Louise, you stuck a pair of kitchen scissors into him. Left him bleeding. I don’t want you to finish up in court on a charge of GBH.’
He switched off the phone. Was he making a drama out of a crisis? Neither of them was exactly rational this afternoon. She claimed Wagg’s injury wasn’t serious, but she might be fooling herself. Wagg could have shut the gates and then collapsed. It wasn’t unknown for stab victims to walk around for a while as if nothing was wrong before they dropped down dead.
There was the narrowest of gaps between one of the stone pillars and the hedge. Barely enough for a child to squeeze through. He took a couple of paces back, put his head down and forced his way into it. The branches fought hard and the thorns tore at his clothes, but he managed to overcome their resistance. Soon he was out on the other side.
It wasn’t yet half past three, but the light was fading. Night came early in winter here. Ahead was the low bulk of Crag Gill. On his previous visit, when Louise brought him to say hello to Stuart Wagg, she’d explained that the house was built on the site of a rambling mansion, for forty years home to an ancient bachelor. The man had inherited it on the day of the coronation and hadn’t so much as given it a lick of paint since. Not even the most zealous conservation officer could argue when Wagg knocked down the old ruin. To replace it, he hired a Swedish architect to indulge in a flight of fancy green enough to dazzle the planning authority. The rebuilt house was modest in size compared to some of the palaces bordering the east bank of Windermere.
Daniel splashed across ruthlessly cropped grass, between a pair of mountainous rhododendron bushes with
