wandering around outside, his barking would soon raise the alarm. Inside High Tor, he’d just settle down to snuffle in front of the Aga, reconciled to yetanother of his mistress’s unexplained absences. But then, of course, someone who’d been a gamekeeper would know about dogs.
As she led Gulliver and Michael Brewer through into her kitchen, Carole wondered what she could do to escape her predicament. Rush to the phone? Rush out into the street screaming “Help!” Such behaviour wasn’t her usual style, but she was hardly in a situation to care about style.
As if anticipating her thoughts, Michael Brewer said, “I do have a gun in my pocket. I don’t want to use it, but if that becomes necessary, I won’t hesitate.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You have to come with me.”
“Where?”
He didn’t even bother to answer. “We’ll go in your car. You’ll drive.”
“Well, can I just put out some food for the dog?” Michael Brewer allowed her to put out the dog food, then ushered her through into the hall.
“And don’t try calling anyone on your mobile phone.”
“I don’t have a mobile phone,” said Carole icily, as he escorted her out through the front door.
She had hoped there might be someone on the road, someone to whom she could call out to for help, someone who would rescue her. But no, the good folk of Fethering kept sedate hours. Every curtain along the road was discreetly closed.
And of course there were no lights in Woodside Cottage. When Carole needed her most, Jude was in another country.
Like an automaton, following the man’s instrucfions, she opened the garage door. Any thoughts of leaping into the Renault and driving off without him had been anticipated. At gunpoint he saw her into the driver’s seat; keeping the gun trained on her, he moved round the car and jumped in beside her.
Touching her with the gun to remind her that it was still there, Michael Brewer told her to keep within the speed limit and drive on the Fedborough road out of Fethering.
Doing as she was told, Carole thought back to the modus operandi of the other murders. In the form of the Renault was she conveniently providing her own inflammable coffin…
? The Witness at the Wedding ?
Thirty-Five
There was little traffic on the roads. Each sweep of headlights coming towards Carole was a potential rescuer, but she could not think of any way to communicate her plight. In cars people become anonymous; nothing shows the passions, conflicts or dangers of the drivers or passengers. Carole was helpless, all she could do was follow the instructions of the silent man with the gun beside her.
They by-passed Fedborough and joined the main A27 towards Worthing for a short distance. Here there were more cars flashing past, but Carole still had no way of making contact with them. Then Michael Brewer directed her to take a left turn up a small road into the Downs. This snaked its way past a few straggling houses, then deeper into uninhabited countryside. Eventually he ordered her to stop in front of a railed metal gate that gave on to an open field.
He got out of the car, but, while he unlocked the gate, his gun was still pointing at her. Anyway, Carole, almost immobilized by terror, was not contemplating escape. They were in the middle of nowhere. However fast she ran, he would quickly catch her, and her situation was already grim enough; she didn’t want to antagonize her captor further.
Michael Brewer ushered her through the gate, and closed it behind the Renault. Once again there was a potential opportunity. Carole could have put her foot down on the accelerator and shot off into the unknown. But she had no idea what lay ahead, and Michael Brewer did. He wouldn’t have taken the risk, if he thought there was any way she could get away from him.
Getting back into the car, he told her to switch off the lights and drive along the track ahead. At first Carole demurred, saying she wouldn’t be able to see where she was going, but he would not tolerate argument. And, sure enough, her eyes did soon accommodate to the darkness. There was enough watery moonlight to pick up the chalk whiteness of the compacted farm track, dry and hard after the recent hot weather.
After maybe a mile – it was difficult in her distracted state for Carole to judge distance – she was instructed to turn off down a less defined and more overgrown track which led towards a small coppice. At the edge of this she was told to stop. Ahead stood a tangled mass of brambles, briars and other dense undergrowth.
Michael Brewer again got out of the car, and moved to one side of the thicket. Carole couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but she got the impression he was pulling at something, a rope perhaps.
The effect was astonishing. Like a transformation scene in a pantomime of
Michael Brewer didn’t get back in the car, but motioned her with his gun to drive ahead. There wasn’t far to go. Less than ten yards in, she found herself in a small clearing, surrounded by trees. Behind her, she was aware of the masking undergrowth being replaced. Suddenly, the depths of the wood were very dark.
The driver’s side door was opened, and Michael Brewer gestured at Carole to get out of the car. She stood in the lightless wood, wondering whether this would be the last place she would see in her life. She had expected dankness, but a soft breeze filled the clearing with the smell of the fields. In spite of its closeness, so far as Carole was concerned, that fragrant open space could have been on another planet.
Michael Brewer reached down behind a tree, and produced a large yellow torch. He switched it on, keeping the beam focused down on the ground. He gave a flick of his head, indicating that Carole should follow him. Since her capture, he had said nothing beyond giving directions.
She did not have to follow him far – the whole coppice was probably no more than fifty yards across – then the torch beam revealed the ragged outlines of an old building. Once perhaps a shepherd’s hut, its roof had long ago fallen in, the walls had crumbled, and bricks had been displaced by encroaching trees and their disruptive roots. Little of the remaining structure was more than waist-high.
The beam of light directed Carole to follow Michael Brewer through an old doorway into the space inside. So unworried now was he by the chance of her escaping that he put the gun in his pocket and passed her the torch, as he bent down to shift a couple of rotting but substantial rafters that lay across the floor. Then he kneeled, and seemed to be scrabbling for something in the dirt.
There was a metallic clang as he pulled upwards, rising to his feet as he did so. He took the torch back from Carole and directed its beam. The light showed a battered metal trapdoor lifted back to reveal a brick-walled opening in the floor, and steps leaning downwards. –
At last, he said something. “Not the kind of place you’d imagine to have a cellar. I thought there was a good chance it’d still be here after thirty years. Nobody comes this way.”
And the torch beam flicked across to Carole, showing her the way down. Michael Brewer, staying at ground level, lit the individual steps as she descended, then flashed light across to an old chair. “Sit there.” Carole did as she was told.
But he didn’t follow her down. The cellar smelt musty and damp, and she got no impression of what else was in the space.
“I’ll be back soon. Just got to check we’ve covered our tracks.”
And Michael Brewer slammed the metal trapdoordown. Carole heard above her the scrape and thud of the massive rafters as they were replaced over the opening.
The darkness in the cellar was total.
She was not on the balcony, but propped up on her bed by a heap of cushions, and she seemed peevish. Maybe she was in pain, suffering from one of the many infirmities of age. She greeted Gaby warmly, but kept Jude at a distance.
