The Cedar Cutter (37 page)

For heaven's sake, Mrs Winchester believed Ruan should be with Dankworth. She threw a glance around the little house, tossing up the possibility of packing their bags and fleeing—where? Sydney? Dankworth would find her there. She had very little money left and Aunt Lil was too far away to help. Besides, she'd decided she'd fight Dankworth and she couldn't do that if she ran away. She must squash Dankworth's ridiculous idea once and for all. And perhaps in doing that she could help Carrick.

‘Come and sit down, Roisin, you're all tuckered out. I've the billy on the boil.'

Jane led her like an invalid down the hallway. She was incapable of rational thought or reason, numb with disbelief. After Jane settled her in a chair and tucked her shawl around her shoulders, she stoked the fire and took the cups down from the mantelpiece. Ruan sat at the table, questions plastered all over his face. Jane must have told him to wait. He slid his treasure box closer, slipped the brass key into the lock and lifted the lid. Such a good boy, playing quietly and giving her time to recover, time to think, to make decisions. She couldn't hand him over to anyone, least of all Dankworth. How she wished she could talk to Carrick.

Jane placed the teacup in front of her and she wrapped her hands around it, allowing the warmth to seep into her frozen fingers. The steam coiled around her face and she inhaled it, closing her eyes and letting her thoughts drift for a moment.

‘Look, Mam.'

She opened her eyes and smiled at Ruan. ‘What is it, my darling? Something new for your treasure box?' Oh, God, if Dankworth took him would he be allowed this simple pleasure, or the freedom to run barefoot by the brook, or throw a line for a fish? A sob caught in her throat. She tried to imagine him dressed in clothes like a gentleman. A starched shirt frilled at the neck, his unruly hair tamed, plastered to his head.

‘Old Pella gave it to me.'

She lifted her heavy head. Between his forefinger and thumb Ruan held a cork. ‘I think it's from a bottle. Old Pella said to show you.'

‘It's lovely, darling.' She sipped at her tea; it traced a path down her parched throat, bringing some sense of reality back to her crumpled body.

‘You're not looking at it, Mam.'

She lowered the cup. ‘I am, my darling, I am.' She placed the cup on the table and held out her hand, palm up.

Ruan dropped the cork into her hand. She gazed down at it. This was much more than a cork. It was a stopper, some sort of silver-topped lid, well worn. For no apparent reason her pulse began to race. No reason she could place until she lifted it between her fingers to the light.

This stopper was from a flask, not an old bottle, for the top was silver. She ran her finger over it, tracing the raised crest. And her heart stopped.

She let out a cry. The stopper fell to the floor.

‘Mam! Be careful. You'll break it. It's a treasure.'

She dropped to her knees, scrabbling beneath the table, groping for the stopper. Her fingers wrapped around it and she lifted it close to her face, squinting in the half-light beneath the tablecloth. She ran her fingers over the top. Crawling on her hands and knees she heaved herself up, her head throbbing.

‘Ruan, where did you get this?'

‘I told you. Old Pella.' Yes, he had. And she hadn't taken any notice. ‘He said I had to show it to you. Can I have it back?'

‘No. No, you can't.'

‘Roisin.' Jane's voice broke through her tumbling thoughts. ‘Sit down.' Jane's hand was firm on her arm as she forced Roisin back into the chair. ‘You're as white as chalk.'

She shrugged Jane off. ‘Did Old Pella tell you where he found it?'

‘In the forest. He said to give it to Carrick. I told you. That's why I need to see Carrick.'

He was right; she hadn't listened to what he'd said.

Beyond the window the light had faded to grey. The same grey as the morning when she'd found Carrick chopping the wood. Stripped down to his singlet, the light throwing shadows across his skin, across the scar on his shoulder. She ran her finger over the top of the stopper, tracing the letters, not feeling the cold silver of the stopper, instead the smooth raised skin of the brand on Carrick's skin.

‘Mam.'

‘Be quiet.' She had to think. She knew it. Why hadn't she realised before? Why hadn't she recognised it? The entwined initials. GD—Gideon Dankworth. The very crest atop an ebony cane that had thrashed her shoulders and broken Mam's skull. ‘Where's Old Pella?'

‘Dunno. In the woodshed. Can I have my treasure back?'

‘Not for the moment. No. It's time you went to bed.'

‘I'm hungry.'

‘I'll get you some supper.' Jane, dear Jane, stepped towards the table, sensing her confusion.

‘Move your treasure box so there's room for your bowl.'

Roisin glanced at Jane's face; her smile for Ruan barely concealed the frown etched across her forehead and the worry in her eyes.

What to do? Her thumb rubbed backwards and forwards across the top of the stopper.
GD—Gideon Dankworth.
‘Eat your supper and I'll take some soup out to Old Pella.' And ask him where he'd found the stopper. Jane must have read her mind because she pressed a bowl of soup into her hands and the next moment she stood in the fading light.

The door to the woodshed hung open and she waited, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the darkness.

‘Old Pella, I've got some soup. Are you here?' The silence clung to her like a shroud, then the pile of possum furs in the corner stirred and Old Pella's eyes appeared over the top.

‘Missus.'

‘Oh, thank goodness.' She squatted down, placing the bowl on the floor. ‘I've brought you some soup. Sit up.'

He struggled upright and she passed him the bowl, then sank down on the floor next to him, enveloped in his smell of damp animal fur, wood smoke and old man. She let out a long, slow breath while he slurped his soup.

‘Ruan gave me this.' She opened her clasped palm.

He twisted his face from the bowl and fixed his rheumy eyes on her face. ‘For Carrick.' He went back to slurping his soup.

‘Where did you find it, Old Pella?'

‘With King Polai. In the forest.'

‘Why does Carrick need it?'

‘Blind Bunyip left it.'

‘Blind …' Her words petered out. What was the point? So caught up in his Dreamtime stories, the old man could have found the stopper anywhere. He hadn't a clue what she was talking about.

Old Pella inclined his head, tipped the bowl and drained the remains of the soup, then smacked his lips and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Give it to Carrick. Carrick needs it.'

‘But if you were there, tell me.'

He sat up a bit straighter and stared out towards the door, then leaned close to her ear. ‘Bang!' She jumped, almost toppling over. ‘Blind Bunyip killed him dead.'

Right, so now a bunyip had killed the man, not Carrick but a bunyip. It hardly seemed an improvement. ‘Did you see him?'

‘Old Pella there.'

One last try. ‘Old Pella, what does the bunyip look like?'

‘Told you. Blind, white eyes and the black stick. Rap, rap, rap on his boots.'

Boots. A shiver crossed her shoulders and then a surge of excitement. Pale eyes, boots and a black cane. There was only one person it could be. Dankworth, and if he was … Her heart lifted. If Old Pella had seen Dankworth in the forest, then Carrick may walk free.

‘We have to take it to the courthouse, you must come with me and tell the magistrate before they sentence Carrick.' If nothing else it might stall the sentencing, give her time to speak to Carrick, show him the stopper.

Old Pella shook his head from side to side, his eyes wide with fear. ‘No court.'

‘Old Pella, you must. It will save Carrick. You're a witness.' The poor old man didn't understand how the justice system worked. Carrick couldn't hang for a crime he didn't commit. Not if there was an eyewitness to state otherwise.

‘Useless natives can't.'

‘You're not useless, Old Pella. We'll take it to Constable Brown and tell him.'

‘You tell Carrick.' The old man struggled to his feet and tugged the blanket tight around his shoulders. ‘Old Pella gotta go.'

‘Me? No. I need you to come, too, Old Pella.' Why would they believe her? They'd say she was protecting her lover. Just as Dankworth had. How she wished Carrick were Ruan's father and not that evil man who soiled everyone he came into contact with.

Before she'd had a chance to protest, Old Pella slipped past her and merged into the gathering darkness. She stood for a while as the moon rose, watching the fleeting shadows. And for the first time realised there were no eyes upon her. There was no shivering dread. No tension, no sense of foreboding. When had it all begun? And why had it stopped now?

Clutching the flask stopper tight in her hand, Roisin made her way back inside.

‘You should eat something.' Jane placed a bowl of soup on the table. How could she eat? The mere thought of food made her stomach rebel.

She closed her eyes, blocking out Jane and her sympathetic gaze, forcing her mind back to Carrick. She'd woken in the night, watched him as he slept, his body like alabaster in the beam of moonlight slanting through the shutters. She'd run her hand over his skin, across his chest. Heat rose to her face and a long, slow tug of lust snatched at her belly.

‘Roisin, eat, eat now.'

‘Not now, Jane. Not now. I'm trying to think.' Trying to concentrate on her memories, not her emotions, not the way her skin had danced and her soul had soared; she was trying to remember his skin beneath her fingertips. His shoulder. The scar. The brand.

A reminder not to tamper with the English.

There was no mistaking Dankworth's heritage. As English as the day was long. She ran her forefinger over the crest again. There were too many coincidences.

‘Where's Ruan?'

‘He's in bed. I said you would say goodnight to him when you'd talked to Old Pella. He's concerned. Very concerned about Carrick.'

And so was she. She turned the stopper over and over in her hand. What to do? She needed to talk to Carrick. What if she was jumping to conclusions? A thousand men must have the initials GD, but how many were so depraved they'd brand them into another's skin? The only link she had was the word of an old man who'd vanished into the night.

‘Jane, I need your help.'

‘Of course. Anything.'

‘We need to play on some of the scuttlebutt in the town.' Would Jane do it? It was asking a lot, although she'd stood by her until now. She couldn't have asked for a stauncher friend. ‘I need to talk to Carrick and I need to do it without Constable Brown listening in.'

A wide grin broke out on Jane's face and she batted her eyelashes. ‘You want me to entertain Constable Brown. Prove to him the rumours around town about our cathouse are true.'

‘We've suffered the scandal, we may as well use it to our advantage. It's asking a lot, I know. If we fail, your reputation would be in tatters.'

‘Carrick's life is worth more than my reputation.'

‘And mine.'

‘What about Ruan? We can't leave him here. What if Dankworth turns up?'

‘He won't and Slinger's outside keeping an eye out. He promised Carrick. Dankworth will be at the Winchesters'. Mrs Winchester will be telling him all about my visit and he'll be relishing her support. A legitimate way to gain custody of Ruan. Far easier than snatching him from under my nose.'

A cold calm settled over her. She would get to the bottom of this mess if it was the last thing she did.

Roisin shivered and glanced at Jane; she must be freezing. With her blouse pulled low on her shoulders and the lacy black and red corset forcing her breasts high until her nipples almost peeked over the top, Roisin doubted any man could resist her. Aunt Lil would snaffle her up in a moment. Her eyes shone huge in her rouged face and her lips puckered like an overripe cherry. She threw an outrageous wink and swung her hips. If it hadn't been for the fact two lives hung in the balance, Roisin thought she might enjoy the charade. ‘At least I know I can always find a job.' Jane swayed down the road, twitching her skirt to display an expanse of leg above her sensible laced boots. ‘Do you think he'll be interested?'