Call of Glengarron (22 page)

“Lucy ....”

I flung  myself  forward the remaining few steps. “Mr. Lennox, help me, please. Craig will kill me....” For a second he just sat there.

“What did you say?”

“Please, please help me. Craig will kill me, I tell you ... .”

Alistair Lennox acted swiftly then. He leaped down and helped me into the jeep. As best I could, I slid across to the passenger seat. Jamie was fighting in my arms, demanding to know what the commotion was about.

To my surprise, Alistair Lennox didn’t wait to face up to Craig. He jumped back into the jeep and immediately drove off, accelerating fiercely.

Craig was left behind in the darkness and the rain.

Safe in the cabin of the jeep as it roared away from the crossroads, I was able to give my attention to Jamie again. I hugged him to me, stroking his damp hair and murmuring soothing words of reassurance. In a few moments he was quiet, peacefully asleep.

I wished I could forget so easily.

After about a mile, Alistair Lennox eased back the throttle slightly. But we were still traveling fast, hurtling into the wet night. He flicked a glance in my direction.

“Well, then, young lady—suppose you tell me what all the excitement’s about.”

“It’s Craig.” Suddenly it seemed an enormous effort to explain. I found I didn’t want to explain.

“Well…?”

“Craig was after me,” I said reluctantly.

“Of course he was. We were out looking for you.”

“But he was going to kill me.” My voice rose as panic gripped me. “What am I going to do, Mr. Lennox ... ?”

He remained quite calm, controlling his astonishment “Now why should you imagine Craig would want to do any such dreadful thing, my dear?”

“Because ...” I hesitated, then it came out in a rush, shrill and harsh. “Because I know he killed Margo.”

This made him stamp on the brake, causing the jeep to buck violently and slide on the gritty wet surface. But then Alistair Lennox seemed to change his mind. He accelerated away again.

“What on earth are you talking about?” he demanded angrily.

I had to convince him, now I’d said so much. I had to make him believe me.

“Craig killed Margo—he murdered her.”

Alistair Lennox gave me a swift sideways glance and then looked at the road ahead, concentrating on his driving. We had left the moorland behind us and were charging down through a narrow glen.

“You’d better tell me all about it,” he said in a flat voice.

“Well, Craig was in my cousin’s apartment that night— the night she died.”

“But that’s nonsense. He wasn’t even in England.”

“Yes he was—he stopped off between planes. He just had time to get into London, and go and see Margo.”

“How do you know this?”

I felt I couldn’t go through everything—not now. Not all about Lambert Nairn, and then about finding Craig’s incriminating passport.

“It doesn’t matter how,” I said. “I know—I just do. Anyway Craig’s admitted to me that he was there.”

“What time?” The words were rapped out.

“What time? I don’t understand.”

“I mean what time was Craig at the flat?”

I tried hard to remember, to see through the mist in my mind.

“He got there about nine-thirty, I believe.”

“And he left at ... ?’

“I’m not sure. I think he said before ten.”

“I see...” With exact precision Alistair Lennox drove over a narrow hump bridge. “And how long have you known about this?”

“Oh, several days now.”

“Then why didn’t you speak to me sooner? How could you go on living at Glengarron if you believed Craig had ... murdered your cousin?”

“Oh, but I didn’t think that at first. He told me he’d gone there to plead for a reconciliation.”

“And you believed him at the time, but not afterward? What made you change your mind?”

I told Mr. Lennox about my two “accidents”—the falling logs and the faulty towel rail. He heard me out, listening carefully, interrupting only when he couldn’t follow my emotional rendering of the facts.

I stumbled to an end and he asked, “Why are you so certain that it was Craig who did all this?”

“Who else could it have been? He’s the only one with any motive. And he made such a point of asking me not to tell anyone about him visiting Margo that evening.”

“Do you know what happened between them—did he explain?” There was an urgency in Alistair Lennox’s voice.

“Of course not. He’d hardly have admitted that he killed her.”

“Naturally. But what
did
he tell you?”

“Only that they quarreled. He said he’d begged Margo to go back to him, and that she had flatly refused to listen to him.”

Alistair Lennox gasped: “My God. Was it all for nothing…?”

I couldn’t follow him. “What do you mean, Mr. Lennox?”

But he didn’t answer my question. “Did she really refuse to consider going back to him as his wife?”

“That’s what Craig told me. And I think it must be true. It would account for him killing her....”

“How do you make that out?”

“He was jealous, of course—jealous because Margo had no room for him in her life. Because she could do without him....” I trailed off. Somehow, what had been so crystal clear to me earlier was beginning to seem unreal, almost incredible.

Alistair Lennox slowed down and brought the jeep to a halt with smooth deliberation. Hunched over the steering wheel, he seemed to be brooding. It was as though he had forgotten I was there.

Suddenly he exploded with a sort of quiet fury. “The bitch. She didn’t say a word about all this.”

“What do you mean? Who didn’t?” Mystified, I turned to stare at him. It was too dark to see, but I could sense the coldness in his eyes.

“You’re in love with Craig, aren’t you?”

The starkly direct words came at me like a hammer. I was bewildered, both by his abrupt change of manner and the extraordinary things he was saying.

It was fantastic to suggest I was in love with Craig, a man who had schemed to murder me. Alistair Lennox must be insane....

As I opened my mouth to deny it utterly, the unreality of the idea hit me again, choking my words.

In love with Craig McKinross. How could anyone even begin to imagine such a thing?

Craig’s uncle misunderstood my silence. “You don’t have to be so coy about it,” he said. “I’ve seen you with him ...”

“But... I don’t...”

“... in his bedroom. And he in yours. I’ve seen you with my own eyes, so you needn’t try to deny it.”

I was dismayed by the inference. My cheeks burned with anger and humiliation. Did Alistair Lennox really believe ... ?

There had been a time when Craig was my idea of perfection. But now I knew him for what he was—a man infinitely worse than even poor Margo had imagined.

Alistair Lennox gave a sudden harsh chuckle. “Craig worked himself up into a fine old rage when we tried to bundle you off back to London. I’ve never seen him in such a fury. Then he went rushing upstairs for a touching little scene with you. He was determined not to let you go.”

“That was because he dare not let me go,” I cried. “Don’t you understand what I’ve been saying? Craig has tried to kill me—twice.”

Still Alistair Lennox refused to take me seriously. “You should have gone away when my wife suggested it,” he said in a tone of friendly interest. “But now, I’m afraid, things have gone too far for that to be a solution.”

“Why did you try to send me away? Was it because you guessed about Craig?”

“It was obvious that Craig would be proposing to you before long if we didn’t put a spoke in the wheel.”

“But that’s absurd…”

“Is it so absurd? Don’t you realize how much you resemble your cousin? Craig was crazily in love when he married her, and we’ve seen it beginning all over again.”

“But you wouldn’t have put everything right just by sending me away,” I flung at him. “You couldn’t have dismissed the fact that he killed his wife....”

A peal of merry laughter drowned my words. “How very persistent you are, Lucy. Can’t you get it into your pretty head that Craig did not murder Margo. Neither has he been trying to kill you.”

I was distraught. “I tell you somebody fixed those ‘accidents’ of mine. And who else but Craig?”

Slowly, in a leisurely way, Alistair Lennox reached forward and switched off the headlights. The engine spluttered to a stop when he cut the ignition.

“Well... what about me, for instance?”

“You ... I”

There was a breathless silence as icy needles pricked my skin. Even the extraordinary behavior of Alistair Lennox these last minutes hadn’t prepared me for this explanation.

I must have tightened my arms around Jamie, a spontaneous gesture of protection. The little boy stirred and muttered a sleepy protest.

“Is the lad asleep?” asked Lennox quickly.

I managed no more than a croaky whisper. “Yes.”

“Good. We wouldn’t want to have an audience.”

Somehow I found my voice. “Mr. Lennox, I ran to you for help. Why are you talking like this, as if you ... and not Craig ...
?”

Still quite unhurried, he went through the motions of lighting a cigarette. As the match flared I was shocked by the sight of his face. The lips were thin and hard, the eyes narrowed.

Yet through my shock I felt a surge of gladness. I had been so certain, so utterly convinced it was Craig.... How could I possibly have believed it of him?

My joy was so intense that for a moment I completely overlooked the danger I was in now. Alistair Lennox had to tell me again, and bluntly, before I really took it in—that I was sitting next to a murderer, defenseless, beyond reach of help.

“It was not Craig who killed Margo,” he said easily. “It was me.”

That hammering of my heart—was it fear or was it happiness? Craig had not been plotting to kill me, after all.

I was still too confused to make proper sense. “If this were true, if you had really killed Margo, you wouldn’t be telling me about it.”

“Why not?”

“You’d know that I would tell Craig. And he’d go straight to the police, even though you are his uncle....”

“How incredibly naive you are, Lucy.” The words came out as a thin sneer. “You don’t imagine I’m going to allow you to talk, do you?”

Jamie shifted suddenly in my arms, and I realized I’d forgotten him. I
eased
the sleep-heavy little body as far away from Lennox as possible.

My instinctive movement didn’t pass unnoticed.

“You don’t have to worry. Nothing is going to happen to Jamie—not unless you force me to ...”

“Force you?”

“By being silly. You must let me have Jamie, and I’ll take care of him.”

“No,”
I cried. “I’ll never hand him over to you.”

“Now don’t shout,” he reproved mildly. “You might waken the lad. And even not yet five-year-old witnesses have a nasty habit of talking. If you want to spare Jamie’s life, you had better make sure he stays asleep.”

“You wouldn’t ... you
couldn’t ...
” But all the same I dropped my voice to no more than a whisper in my sudden fear for Jamie.

I could sense Lennox’s shrug of indifference. “What would another one matter after Margo—and then you?”

The man was entirely without scruple, if he could so lightly contemplate killing an innocent child, his own great nephew.

Then the full horror of my position came crashing through, overwhelming me. I didn’t stand a chance myself. The countryside all around us seemed one vast emptiness, and Craig was miles away, crippled with a sprained ankle. I couldn’t even try making a run for it. With Jamie, I’d hardly manage to get out of the jeep before Lennox stopped me.

All I could do was to play for time. God knows what I hoped for, but I would keep on talking as long as I could....

A voice I didn’t recognize as my own asked, “Why did you kill Margo? What harm had she ever done you?”

“It was more a question of the harm she
would
have done me.” His tone was conversational now, almost chatty. “There seemed a very real danger that she’d agree to go back to Craig. From what he told us in his letters, he was prepared to go to any lengths to achieve a reconciliation.”

“But—”

“Even,” he went on meaningfully, “even to the extent of granting her dearest wish.”

“Her dearest wish?”

Lennox said, “Come now, my dear, you must know why it was that Margo left her husband.”

“No, I don’t.”

It was true—I didn’t know. It seemed to me now that Margo must have been crazy to leave Craig.

“She told me it was because he treated her so badly,” I said. “That he was utterly selfish....”

“Selfish? That bitch had damn near everything—except what she’d set her heart on.”

He stopped speaking and I asked quickly: “What was it Margo wanted so much?”

“Do you really mean you don’t know? That cousin of yours married Craig for just one thing. She wanted to become the wife of the Laird of Glengarron.”

“But that’s exactly what she was.”

“No she wasn’t. For all practical purposes I am regarded by everyone as the Laird. I certainly wasn’t going to have a cheap upstart like her pushing me out.”

“But Craig would never have allowed that. He told me he was determined that nothing must ever interfere with your position here.”

“That’s easy to say,” he snarled.

“But he meant it—I
know
he meant it.”

When Lennox spoke again, the confidence had gone from his voice. He sounded puzzled, almost plaintive.

“Did I kill Margo for nothing, then?” He sighed heavily. “But it’s done now, and I’d never have been entirely easy in my mind as long as she was around.” Already he had argued himself back to easy acceptance of his dreadful crime.

“How can you be so complacent about it?” I flung at him. “To think you killed Margo for something so utterly trivial....”

“Trivial? You can’t begin to understand what it means to me. For nearly twenty years I have lived as the Laird of Glengarron, with all the respect and honor that goes with it. Was I just to let that
go?”