torchlight directly in her face on the first go, even if she pulled the trigger, it wouldn’t be likely that she’d be able to hit him. It might work. If he could find her the instant he crashed through the door…
“Maggie’s never seen anyone shot,” he said. “She doesn’t know what it’s like. She hasn’t seen the blood. Don’t make that part of her memory of this night. Not if you love her.”
He wanted to say more. That he knew her husband and her sister had failed her when she needed them most. That there would have been an end to her mourning the death of her son had she only had someone to help her through it. That he knew she had acted in what she’d believed were Maggie’s interests when she’d snatched her from the car that long-ago night. But he also wanted to say that, in the end, she’d not had the right to determine the fate of a baby belonging to a fi fteen-year-old girl. That while she may have indeed done better by Maggie as a result of taking her, they couldn’t know that for sure. And it was because of that simple
He found he wanted to blame what was going to happen this night on the man she had poisoned, on his sententious perspective and his bumbling attempt to set things straight. For in the end, she was his victim as much as he was hers.
“Mrs. Spence,” he said, “you know we’re at the end of it here. Don’t make it worse for Maggie. Please. You know I’ve been to London. I’ve seen your sister. I’ve met Maggie’s mother. I’ve—”
A keening rose suddenly above the wind. Eerie, inhuman, it cut to the heart and then took on substance round a single word:
“Mrs. Spence!”
And then the keening again. It sounded high with terror. It locked round the unmistakable tone of a plea. “Mummy! I’m afraid! Mummy! Mummy!”
Lynley shoved the loud hailer into Constable Garrity’s hands. He pushed through the gate. And then he saw it. A shape was moving just to his left, beyond the wall as he himself was now.
“Shepherd!” he shouted.
“Mummy!” Maggie cried.
The constable came rapidly onward through the snow. He charged straight for the barn.
“Shepherd!” Lynley shouted. “God damn it! Stay out!”
“Mummy! Please! I’m afraid! Mummy!”
Shepherd reached the barn door as the gun went off. He was inside when she shot again.
It was long past midnight when St. James finally climbed the stairs to their room. He thought she’d be asleep, but she was waiting for him as she’d said she would be, sitting in bed with the covers drawn up to her chest and an old copy of
She said, “You found her” when she saw his face and then “Simon, what happened,” when he nodded and said nothing except “We did.”
He was tired to the point of weakness. His dead leg felt like a hundredweight hanging from his hip. He dropped his coat and scarf to the floor, tossed his gloves upon them, and left them where they lay.
“Simon?”
He told her. He began with Colin Shepherd’s attempt to implicate Polly Yarkin. He ended with the gunshots at Back End Barn.
“It was a rat,” he said. “She was shooting at a rat.”
They’d been huddled into a corner when Lynley found them: Juliet Spence, Maggie, and a mangy orange cat called Punkin that the girl had refused to leave behind in the car. When the torchlight fell on them, the cat hissed, spit, and scurried into the darkness, but neither Juliet nor Maggie moved. The girl cowered into the woman’s arms, her face hidden. The woman encircled her as much as possible, perhaps to warm, perhaps to protect.
“We thought they were dead at fi rst,” St. James said, “a murder and a suicide, but there wasn’t any blood.”
Then Juliet spoke as if the others weren’t there, saying, It’s all right, darling. If I haven’t hit him, I’ve frightened him to death. He won’t get you, Maggie. Hush. It’s all right.
“They were filthy,” he said. “Their clothes were soaked. I can’t think they would have lasted the night.”
Deborah extended her hand to him. “Please,” she said.
He sat on the bed. She smoothed her fi ngers beneath his eyes and across his forehead. She brushed back his hair.
There was no fight in her, St. James said, and no intention to run any farther or, it seemed, to use the gun again. She’d dropped it onto the stone floor of the barn, and she was holding Maggie’s head to her shoulder. She began to rock her.
“She’d taken off her coat and thrown it round the girl,” St. James said. “I don’t think she actually knew we were there.”
Shepherd got to her first. He stripped his own heavy jacket off. He wrapped it round her and then flung his arms round them both because Maggie wouldn’t release her hold on her mother’s waist. He said her name, but she didn’t respond other than to say that she’d shot at it, darling, she always hit her mark didn’t she, it was probably dead, there was nothing to fear.
Constable Garrity ran for blankets. She’d brought a Thermos from home and she poured it saying, Poor lambs poor dears, in a fashion that was far more maternal than professional. She tried to get Shepherd to put his jacket back on, but he refused, wrapping himself in a blanket instead and watching everything — his eyes riveted with a kind of dying on Juliet’s face.
When they were on their feet, Maggie began to cry for the cat, calling, Punkin! Mummy, where’s Punkin? He’s run off. It’s snowing and he’ll freeze. He won’t know what to do.
They found the cat behind the door, his fur on end and his ears at the alert. St. James grabbed him. The cat climbed his back in a panic. But he settled well enough when he was returned to the girl.
She said, Punkin kept us warm, didn’t he, Mummy? It was good to bring Punkin like I wanted, wasn’t it? But he’ll be happy to get home.
Juliet put her arm round the girl and pressed her face to the top of her head. She said, You take good care of Punkin, darling.
And then Maggie seemed to realise. She said, No! Mummy, please, I’m afraid. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want them to hurt me. Mummy! Please!
“Tommy made the decision to separate them at once,” St. James said.
Constable Garrity took Maggie — You bring the cat, dear, she said — while Lynley took her mother. He intended to push all the way through to Clitheroe if it took him the rest of the night. He wanted it to be over. He wanted to be clear of it.
“I can’t blame him,” St. James said. “I won’t soon forget the sound of her screaming when she saw he meant to separate them then and there.”
“Mrs. Spence?”
“Maggie. Calling for her mother. We could hear her even after the car drove off.”
“And Mrs. Spence?”
There was nothing from Juliet Spence at first. Without expression or reaction, she’d watched Constable Garrity drive away. She’d stood with her hands in the pockets of Shepherd’s jacket and the wind blowing her hair across her face, and she watched the tail lights of the receding car bob and weave as it lurched across the moor in the direction of Winslough. When they began to follow it, she sat in the rear seat next to Shepherd and never looked away from those lights for a moment.
She said, What else could I do? He said he was going to return her to London.
“And that was the real hell behind the murder,” St. James said.
Deborah looked perplexed. “What real hell? What do you mean?”
St. James got to his feet and walked to the clothes cupboard. He began to undress. “Sage never intended to turn his wife over to the authorities for snatching the baby,” he said. “That last night of his life, he’d brought her enough money to get out of the country. He was perfectly willing to go to prison rather than tell anyone in London where he’d found the girl once he turned her over to Social Services. Of course, the police would have known eventually, but by that time his wife would have been long gone.”
“That can’t be right,” Deborah said. “She must be lying about what happened.”
He turned from the clothes cupboard. He said, “Why? The offer of money only makes the case against her
