“Not exactly. No, I came down to Cornwall of my own accord. In all the confusion of what happened – and the kind of mental state I was in – yes, lying low for a few days did seem a good idea. In retrospect I’m not so sure it was, but I wasn’t thinking very straight after I heard about…what happened at the salon.”
“Who did you hear about it from?” asked Carole.
“My uncle.”
“Rowley Locke.”
He looked at them curiously. “Are you sure you’re not police?”
Jude promised that they weren’t.
“Because you do seem to know rather a lot about me.”
“Everyone in the West Sussex area knows a lot about you. There’s been blanket coverage in the papers and on television.”
“Yes, I suppose there would be.” He sighed and gestured to the ancient set. “That doesn’t work. Not that I’d get Sussex local news down here anyway.”
“No.”
Carole picked up his narrative. “So you were saying…you came down here of your own free will…?”
“Yes. More or less. Uncle Rowley can be very persuasive.” Both women shared the thought that they were sure he could be. “But when they got me here…suddenly he says I’ve got to be chained up.”
“Does it hurt?” asked Jude.
“Not really. It’s quite slack. Only hurts if I try to get out of it, and I gave up on that idea after the first couple of hours. And the chain’s long enough so’s I can get to the bathroom.” He grinned wryly. “No, as prisons go, I suppose this is a very humane one.”
“But don’t you get bored out of your skull?”
“Well…” He gestured to the bookshelves. “I’ve got plenty to read. And I keep comforting myself with the thought that it’s not for ever.”
“For how long, though?” asked Carole. “Did your uncle give any indication of that?”
Nathan shrugged. “Not precisely. Presumably he’s just keeping me here until the police find out who actually did kill…” Again emotion threatened. Something in his throat rendered him unable to speak his late girlfriend’s name.
“Hmm.” Neither Carole nor Jude was persuaded by the explanation.
“Uncle Rowley did say I was being kept here for my own good. He said if the cops got their hands on me, I’d never escape. They’d stitch me up good and proper.” That sounded in character from what Carole had heard of Rowley Locke’s estimation of the British police force.
“I have to listen to what Uncle Rowley says,” Nathan continued lamely. “He does know what he’s talking about.”
This was a tenet of Locke received wisdom to which neither Carole nor Jude subscribed. They both had strong suspicions about Rowley Locke’s agenda.
“Well,” Carole announced practically, “the first thing we should do is get you free from that chain.”
The suggestion brought a light of paranoia into the boy’s eye. “Oh, you’d better not do that. There’s a girl – my cousin Mopsa who – ”
“We know all about Mopsa. She’s gone off shopping.” Carole consulted her watch. “She won’t be back for at least another twenty minutes.”
“So,” asked Jude, “should we find some tools upstairs to cut through the chain?”
“You don’t have to bother with that.” He gestured towards the foot of the stairs. “There’s a key to the padlock hanging over there. Just about six feet beyond my reach. Don’t imagine I haven’t tried to grab it.”
“Right,” said Carole. “Then the first thing we do is get that key.”
“I don’t think so.”
They all looked up at the sound of the lisping voice. Mopsa stood halfway down the stairs, back-lit from the kitchen above. In her hands was the shotgun that had been hanging on the sitting-room wall.
? Death under the Dryer ?
Twenty-Nine
Carole was unfazed. “Put that down.”
“No, you back off. Get away from that key, or I’ll shoot.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Move back,” hissed Nathan’s anguished voice. “She means it. She will shoot.”
Something in the girl’s eye told Carole that her cousin was speaking the truth. She retraced her steps until she and Jude stood together, an inadequate defence in front of the chained boy. The chamber suddenly felt very small.
Mopsa moved on down the stairs. “I should have been on my guard. A sudden booking out of the blue this time of year. I should have known you were up to something.”
“All we were up to,” said Jude reasonably, “was trying to find Nathan. The police are looking for him. He can’t be hidden away here for ever.”
“Oh no? Prince Fimbador spent seven years night and day in the Wheal Chamber.” There was a gleam of fanaticism in the girl’s eye as she said the words.
“Yes, maybe. But that’s not real. That’s just a story.”
“A story?” Mopsa was deeply offended. “The Chronicles of Biddet Rock tell how Prince Fimbador resisted the evil hordes of Gadrath Pezzekan. The tale of the ultimate battle of Good against Evil is not just a story.”
Carole and Jude caught each other’s eye, as into each mind sank the sickening truth. Mopsa was not sane. This was why she had not followed the course of her sister Dorcas to university. Her unhinged mind had swallowed the nonsense of the Wheal Game whole. For her the incarceration of Nathan as Prince Fimbador was completely logical. She was just fulfilling her role in the legend. And if the fulfilment of that role involved bloodshed, she would not shirk her duty.
She waved the shotgun dangerously in their direction. “You have broken through the Face-Peril Gate. Already you have invoked the Great Curse of the Leomon! The fate of all who sully the purity of Karmenka is death.”
“Mopsa,” said Carole firmly, “you are talking absolute balderdash.”
“Contempt has always been the fate of the Prophetesses of Biddet Rock.”
‘Prophetesses’ was really quite a mouthful for someone with a lisp. The situation would have been laughable but for the fact that the girl so clearly believed all the nonsense she was spouting.
“We rise above it,” she persisted. “We know the Right Course and we still pursue it till the last drop of the blood of the Leomon is shed.”
“Yes, well, fine. Let the blood of Leomon be shed, but don’t let’s shed anyone else’s. How about that?”
But Jude’s jokey approach was not the right one either. The girl pointed the shotgun very definitely in the women’s direction and gestured them to move away from Nathan’s table, till their backs were to the sea-facing wall. Not quite believing the situation they were in, but all too aware of its gravity, they did as they were instructed.
“When you sacrifice your pathetic lives, acolytes of Black Fangdar,” said Mopsa, “there must be no risk of harm to Prince Fimbador.”
Under normal circumstances Carole and Jude would have giggled, but there was nothing funny about the way Mopsa was sighting them down the barrel of the shotgun. Through both their minds went the thought that she could only get one of them with her first shot. Then, since it was a single-barrelled gun, she would have to reload. But neither felt very cheered by the increased odds on survival. And neither was about to volunteer to go first.
Mopsa cocked the rifle. The way she did it suggested a discouraging familiarity with the weapon. Her talk of shooting rabbits had not been mere bravado.
She shifted her stance, so that the sight was trained on Carole’s chest.
“Mopsa, this is daft,” said Jude, the calmness in her voice masking the desperation in her mind. “You can’t just shoot us in cold blood. You don’t even know who we are.”
“I know all I need to know,” the girl responded implacably. “You are intruders who have broken through the
