‘What, in the caravan?’
‘Not likely!’ Angie replied. ‘We’re going to celebrate my good fortune at a restaurant and then a club in the Barbican after which I’ve booked us into a nice hotel. We may even stay for a couple of nights.’
‘Well, good for you!’ Kate said. ‘See you whenever!’
Thirty minutes later Kate parked her car in the layby. It was a quarter to five. She’d sit in the car for five minutes and then make her way along to Seaview Grange and the garden shed.
She’d deliberately worn a dark blue anorak with a hood, which she now pulled up over her head because not only had it begun to drizzle but her still-auburn hair could be a giveaway and she’d surmised, from the tone of Stan’s message – if it was from Stan – that it was imperative she should not be seen.
Luckily, no one was around. She skirted the building, her head down, becoming equally nervous and increasingly excited at the revelation to come. It must be David Courtney, surely! Or Edgar maybe? Or…? No, she scolded herself, stop this futile guessing! Very shortly you will know!
Kate made her way back towards the garden shed. It was dark early because of the weather and the only sound that could be heard was the drumming of the rain on the roof of the shed. The door wasn’t locked. She peered inside, but no one was there. She’d never been round to the back of the shed before and it seemed as if nobody else had either, apart from Stan obviously, because the uneven ground was littered with undisturbed stones and weeds.
Now Kate could see, lying on the ground, a large iron cover, larger than a normal manhole cover, which had been removed to expose a gaping void. Stan was certainly taking no chances! She looked warily down into the hole and saw stone steps descending into its depths.
‘Stan?’ she called loudly. No reply. Was he down there? ‘Stan – it’s me!’
Still no reply. She looked around and could see no one anywhere. She wondered if the light on her mobile phone could penetrate into the darkness of what was plainly a cellar.
‘I’m on my way, Stan,’ she called out as she cautiously made her way down a couple of steps, still looking anxiously around. He didn’t appear to be there. The light only illuminated the next few steps and, as she turned to climb out, she was pushed roughly from behind, lost her balance, and the next thing she knew she was lying on a cold stone floor with aches and pains in every limb. Had she broken something?
Kate managed to sit up, relieved at least that her back wasn’t broken, and gingerly felt her arms. She’d certainly sprained her wrist and her left elbow was badly grazed from what she could make out in the gloom. She tried to stand and, as she wobbled to her feet, felt her legs buckle. She put out her hand and supported herself against what was presumably a wall, although her eyes hadn’t yet adapted to the darkness. She looked around in the near darkness at the empty cellar – it was probably around nine feet square, with stone walls and a stone floor. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom she realised that the place was completely empty and very cold. Who had pushed her?
Just then she heard someone coming down the steps behind her.
She tried to turn round. ‘Is that you, Stan?’
All she remembered afterwards was the deafening crash on the side of her head before she passed out. And then – oblivion.
Blackness. Then grey mist and everything a blur.
Kate struggled to see, to wake up from this nightmare. She wanted to lift her hand to feel the side of her head where the pain was, but she couldn’t.
Slowly the blur diminished and Kate could just decipher three stone walls and a stone floor, on which she was sitting with her back against the fourth wall. She tried to move her feet but couldn’t. Then she tried to move her arms, but couldn’t do that either. It took Kate a few minutes to realise that her hands were tied behind her back and her ankles were roped together. She tried to shout, then, exhausted, closed her eyes again. Surely she’d wake up from this nightmare in a minute?
‘No point in shouting,’ said a voice, which was definitely not Stan’s. ‘No one can hear you down here.’
Thirty-One
Kate, her head thumping, turned with difficulty towards the sound. Every bone in her body was thumping.
Hetty Patterson smiled.
‘What the—?’ Kate stared in horror at the little woman.
‘Make yourself comfortable, Nurse,’ Hetty said, ‘because you aren’t going anywhere. Ever.’ She smiled again. ‘You’ve meddled once too often,’ she went on, ‘so this is entirely your own fault. I had to hit you, I’m afraid,’ Hetty added politely, ‘because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to tie you up.’
Kate was still staring at her in total disbelief. ‘What have I ever done to you?’ she asked, desperate to rub her head. Was she suffering from concussion perhaps and was this really happening at all?
‘What have you done to me?’ Hetty snapped. ‘I hear you got as far as my jewellery drawer, not that you’d have found anything there. And then you chose the wrong pot, Nurse!’
Kate was still desperately trying to gather her thoughts together. This tiny woman had hidden evidence in a flowerpot then and she, Kate, had chosen the wrong damned one! But… none of this was making any sense. Why had she been so stupid as to think that Stan might have sent that text? Oh, God.
‘You killed Sharon?’ she asked after a moment. She was beginning to feel a wave of terror invading her body.
Hetty leaned down and looked straight into Kate’s eyes. ‘Needs must, Nurse. She found my syringe, damn her! The silly woman thought I’d gone out but I’d gone upstairs to help David sort
