Royal Flush (24 page)

I was trying to control my racing thoughts, wondering what chance I stood if I dove into the water and went for help. There was nothing nearer than Castle Rannoch and by that time she could have killed Podge or taken off with him. I wondered if I could reach the plane first if I dove in and swam to it. I was a strong swimmer and she would have to climb down the ladder then untie the rowing boat, which would give me a good head start. It was worth a try and it was better than doing nothing. She was obviously going to kill me and probably Podge too. What did I have to lose?

I took a deep breath and launched myself into the black water. I heard the shot echoing around the boathouse. At any second I expected to feel the sting of a bullet but I hit the surface and went under. I gasped at the cold and had to stop myself from coming up to take an immediate breath. Instead I kicked out underwater, praying I was heading in the right direction. I kept swimming underwater until I could see brighter daylight ahead of me. I held my breath until my lungs were on fire and I came up, gasping for air. No sign of the rowing boat yet. I struck out for the plane with powerful strokes, swimming faster than I had ever done before. I hadn’t worked out what I’d do when I reached the aeroplane. She still had the pistol and I was still a sitting target, but I’d work that part out when I came to it.

The aeroplane bobbed on its floats tied to a buoy, within easy swimming distance now. I reached it, hauled myself onto the fin and stood up, holding on to the lower of the double wings. It felt flimsy and insecure. I hadn’t realized before that aeroplanes were made of wood and fabric and wires, like large kites. The rowing boat was now clear of the boathouse and she was rowing hard toward me. This was good news, in that she couldn’t shoot and row at the same time. If I could grab Podge and get him into the water with me, we might just be able to evade Ronny in her rowing boat.

As I stood up and looked into the aeroplane, I could see it had two open cockpits, one behind the other. I looked into the backseat first. No sign of Podge. There were a couple of what looked like rucksacks, half pushed under the seat, but they were too small to hold a child.

I maneuvered my way along the fin to the forward seat and couldn’t see him there, either. I swung my leg over and climbed inside, reaching around on the floor to see if there might be a secret compartment where he could be hidden. But there was nothing.

I didn’t have any time to decide what to do next. The plane started shaking, indicating that Ronny had reached it and was climbing on board. I’d better start swimming again. I swung one leg over the side.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Ronny said. She was standing only a foot or so away and the pistol was now pointed at my head.

“He’s not here,” I said lamely.

“No. He’s not.”

“But you said . . .”

“Georgie, you really must stop believing what people tell you. It’s such a pathetic trait.”

“Where is he?” I was really angry now, even though I knew she had the gun and she was probably going to shoot me. “What have you done with him?”

“I told you he was safe, and he is, for the time being. He’s tied up in the boot of my car. He was there, behind you, all the time.” She laughed as if this was a good joke as she moved nimbly along the float and untied the craft from its buoy.

“Then why take the trouble to bring me out here? You could have shot me in the boathouse and tossed my body into the water.”

“I could have, but I decided that you’d do just as well as a hostage. You swam here under your own steam and I don’t have to go to the trouble of carrying your nephew from the motorcar and risk being seen. Please sit down. I promised to take you up, didn’t I? Well, now you’re getting your chance.”

I noticed, really for the first time, that she was wearing a leather flight jacket. She had come prepared. I was already soaking wet. It was quite likely I was going to freeze to death before she shot me or tipped me out.

“Sit,” she commanded again, indicating the front seat. I had no choice. I sat.

She rummaged in one of the bags in the backseat and threw something at me. “Here.” It was a pair of goggles. “Now strap yourself in.”

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “What have we ever done to you?”

“Robbed me of my birthright,” she said. “You know who my father was, don’t you? He was the heir to the throne. The Duke of Clarence.”

“The Duke of Clarence? He was your father? But he died long before you were born.”

“He didn’t die. It was a monstrous conspiracy,” she said. “They kidnapped him and had him shut away up here. He never recovered his health and died when I was a baby, so I’ve been told. So when you look at it that way, I’m the rightful heir to the throne.”

“Even if this is true, I’m sure he didn’t marry your mother, so you’re not the rightful heir to anything.”

“He did marry her,” she said angrily. “He did. She told me.”

“No one would ever believe you,” I said.

“No. That’s why this was the only way to get back at the stupid royal family. And I must say I’ve enjoyed it. I never intended to kill anyone, you know. Just frighten them. Just make them feel they were never safe. And I succeeded.”

“But why? Why waste your energy on that when you have so much to live for? You’re a famous woman. You’ve set records. You’ll go down in the history books.”

“It’s never enough,” she said simply. “There is never enough to fill the void.”

She climbed into the rear seat. “Hold tight!” she shouted. The machine roared to life. The whole contraption started to shake.

Then without warning it started to move, faster and faster, bouncing over the water until suddenly it was airborne. Loch and mountains fell away beneath us. There was Castle Rannoch, nestled among the trees. There was the boathouse and the car parked beside it, looking like a child’s toy. Scotland stretched beneath us—the bleak expanse of Rannoch Moor and beyond it the glittering of the sea and the Western Isles.

“Where are we going?” I turned to shout. It suddenly occurred to me that she was attempting to fly to America and that we’d never make it and come down somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. I was shivering badly now, both from the cold wind and from the fear. She was sitting behind me so I couldn’t see what she was doing. Not that I could take any action anyway. I was strapped into a seat, up in the air.

Then I felt the plane shake. I swiveled in my seat to look at her and saw, to my dismay, that she was standing up.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

“I’ve always wanted to fly,” she shouted back. “Now seems like a good time to try it.” Then she laughed again. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I have a parachute on my back. You’re the one who needs to worry. You’ll be up here alone. It’s perfect really. Much simpler than a hostage. Either you’ll go down into the Atlantic or you’ll eventually crash. If you do, the plane is full of fuel. It will explode and you’ll be burned beyond recognition. Everyone will think it’s me. Poor Ronny Padgett. So sad. Give her a state funeral. And I will be making a new life in America! Land of opportunity, they say.”

I was trying to unbuckle my harness to stop her, but I wasn’t quick enough. She launched herself over the side. I watched her falling, spread-eagled, toward the earth.

Chapter 33

For a long moment I just sat there, too stunned to do anything.

“I am alone in an aeroplane, thousands of feet up in the air,” I said out loud, and added, since there was nobody within miles to hear me, “Bugger.” (I thought the occasion warranted a swearword. I only wished I knew some stronger ones. I’d have used them all. Loudly.)

Frankly I was finding it hard to breathe and it wasn’t just the wind in my face. Even if I knew how to fly an aeroplane, there were no instruments in my compartment. And I didn’t know how to fly an aeroplane anyway. Let’s face it—I had never even been in one before. But I wasn’t just going to sit there and accept my fate. “Do something,” I commanded myself.

For the moment we were flying smoothly forward, out toward the Atlantic Ocean. I forced my freezing, trembling fingers to unbuckle the harness, then I turned and knelt on the seat. The wind was so strong I could hardly move. I grasped the struts that held up the overhead wing and pulled myself into a kneeling position on the space between the two seats. There was a windshield, making forward progress difficult. I had to inch one leg around, holding on to that windshield for dear life. The plane reacted to my weight as I slithered hastily into the backseat.

“So far, so good,” I said to encourage myself. Then I took stock of the cockpit. I stared at the instrument panel in front of me, hoping for a glimmer of inspiration. Needles were moving on dials but I had no idea what any of them meant. There was also a metal handle coming out of the floor between my legs. I moved it tentatively to one side and the machine started to bank. Hastily I restored it to its previous position. So I could turn the machine if I wanted but what use would that be? I presumed that pushing the stick forward might therefore make it go down, but I had no idea how I would slow it down enough to land on water. We were heading due west. Soon we would be out over the Atlantic and then destruction was inevitable. Come to think of it, it was inevitable anyway. I’ve always been an optimistic sort of person and I do have the blood of all those impossibly brave Rannochs coursing through my veins, but I was finding it awfully hard to be brave.

I wondered if I dared experiment in trying to turn the aeroplane before it was actually over the Atlantic. Then I wondered what chance of survival I would have if I brought the plane very low over the water and then jumped out. That made me wonder if the other rucksack contained a second parachute. I opened it and it contained a change of clothing and a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate. I started to eat it. I was halfway through when I became aware of a noise—a loud droning sound. I turned around and found that I was being followed by another aeroplane. Hope sprung up. They had come to rescue me! Then of course I realized that they thought this was Ronny’s machine and they had no idea I was in it.

I waited until the other machine was very close, then I stood up, waving my arms.

“It’s me. Help!” I shouted. Not very informative, but the best I could do in the circumstances.

The other aeroplane signaled to me, a thumbs-up, which I took to be a good thing. I could see two flyers in helmets and goggles staring at me before their machine rose and began to fly over me. It was hovering over me like a giant dragonfly, its shape blotting out the sun, then something snaked down beside me, almost whacked me on the head then swung out again. I realized that it was a rope ladder. Surely they weren’t expecting me to grab it and climb up? On second thought this was a better choice than crashing into the ocean.

As I was leaning out, trying to catch it as it bobbed and danced in the wind, I realized that someone was climbing down it. Soon this person had hold of the upper wing and was standing on the wooden fuselage right in front of me.

“Can you climb up the ladder, do you think?” he shouted.

“I don’t know.” I looked up at the other plane. “My hands are freezing.”

At that moment the decision was taken from me. A large cloud loomed in front of us.

“Too late,” the man snapped and released the ladder. “Quick. Move up front. I need to fly this thing.” I didn’t really have time to think as we were swallowed up in cloud. “Careful now,” he said, as I stood up and he stepped down into the cockpit beside me. He held on to me firmly as I reversed my previous maneuver, inching around the windshield and into the front seat.

“Good girl,” he shouted. “Strap yourself in.”

We came out of cloud into bright sunshine. There was no sign of the other plane.

“I don’t want to do that again in a hurry,” my visitor shouted. Finally I recognized the voice. I turned to look at him. It was Darcy.

“What are you doing up here?” I yelled back to him.

“How about ‘Thank you for coming to rescue me’?”

“Do you know how to fly one of these things?”

“No, but I’ve got the instruction book here. You can read it to me.” He reached into his jacket and then looked at my face and laughed. “Actually I have flown a plane before. I’ll get us down safely.”

Suddenly I felt my stomach drop as the plane swung to the right. We were circling, dropping lower and lower. There was a large sea loch ahead of us. We were skimming over bright water. Then we were bumping crazily until we came to a stop a few yards short of a rocky outcropping.

Darcy unbuttoned his helmet and took off his goggles. “Phew, that was close,” he said, standing up. “I’ve never landed on water before.”

“This is a stupid time to tell me that,” I snapped and promptly burst into tears.

“Georgie.” He reached forward and dragged me into his arms while the aeroplane rocked dangerously. “It’s all right. We made it. You’re safe now.”

“I know,” I said. I tried to stop crying, but I couldn’t. I knelt on the seat with my cheek against his leather jacket and sobbed. “I feel such a fool,” I said at last. “And I’ve made your leather jacket all wet.”

“That’s okay. Cows get wet from time to time, don’t they?” He smiled and stroked my hair, which by now resembled a haystack. “But the rest of you is already wet. How did that happen?”

“I swam to the aeroplane. She tricked me. I thought that Podge was in it, but he wasn’t.”

“You’ve had quite a morning so far.” He was still smiling. “At least you can’t say it was dull.”

“I thought you’d gone away again.”

“Well, fortunately I got in touch with your Sir Jeremy and it turned out we had a few friends in common, so the need to go somewhere was avoided.”

“How did you find me?” I asked, at last.

“Pure luck. We were sitting outside the house and we actually watched the plane take off. Next moment I received a telephone call to say that the rifle that killed Hugo Beasley-Bottome had been found at the Padgetts’ house and that your nephew was missing. Then someone said they’d seen two people in the plane, so we assumed the worst. Luckily Paolo had come back from London in his own float-plane this time, so we were up in the air shortly after you. And Paolo’s machine is a lot faster, so we caught you quite quickly. I take it Ronny
was
in the plane at some point? You didn’t actually take off by yourself?”

“Of course she was in the plane.”

“What happened to her?”

“She jumped out,” I said. “She said she was wearing a parachute but I didn’t see it opening. I think she just fell.”

“A suitable ending for her.” Darcy nodded gravely. “I would have hated to see someone like that be hanged or put into an insane asylum.”

“Her mother is in one,” I said. I was about to say that she had contracted syphilis, but I couldn’t discuss such an unmentionable subject with Darcy.

“Maisie McPhee, right? Sir Jeremy’s men looked her up at the New Register House in Edinburgh, you’ll be pleased to know. She did have a child—unnamed baby girl about the right age for Ronny.”

“And the father?”

“Someone named Eddy Axton, although it looks as if the birth certificate has been tampered with.”

“Eddy Axton. That sounds very ordinary. And she didn’t marry him or have any other children?”

“No.”

“Poor Ronny, all those grand illusions for nothing.”

“As you say, poor Ronny.” He ran his hand down my cheek. “You are freezing. We should get you home as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, we must get back to Rannoch immediately,” I said, remembering, “I know where my nephew is hidden. We have to save him.” I looked around us. Nothing but hills and moorland, lapping water and seagulls circling overhead. “Why on earth did you choose to land here? We’re miles from anywhere.”

“I have no idea where we are, but I wasn’t taking any chances with a plane I’d never flown before. I chose the first open area of water I saw, where I wasn’t likely to bump into a mountain.”

“Well, come on. Let’s not waste any more time. We have to get to shore and telephone the police.”

“Your wish is my command, my lady. Now I suppose you’d like me to swim to shore.”

“It’s shallow. You can wade,” I said. Then as he went to climb out of the aeroplane, I touched his hand. “Darcy. Thank you for coming to my rescue. You were very brave, and you landed it jolly well too, considering.”

He laughed and lowered himself into the water.

“It’s absolutely freezing,” he shouted up to me. “The things I have to do for you!”