The Crow Trap (31 page)

Charles Noble had much more of a motive for killing his father than Bella had.

She was so excited by this new idea, so thrilled as she pictured dazzling Edie with it, that when she first saw the headlights coming out of apparently open countryside directly towards the passenger door of her car, she wasn’t frightened. She just thought, “I wonder who else can be out at this time of night?”

This only lasted for a second. Then she got her brain into gear and began to work out what was happening. The car was coming towards her down the forest track, the track she had taken by mistake on her first drive to Black Law that season. She knew that the track dwindled into a footpath so the car must have been parked there. It surely couldn’t be a walker who’d left a vehicle there while he spent a day in the hills. Not at this time of night. Had someone been waiting, sitting in the car, watching for her headlights through the trees? Or had they expected to have the place to themselves and been more surprised by her approach than she was by theirs?

She reached the junction before the other vehicle, then looked in her mirror to see which way it would turn. If it was being driven by country kids on an illicit joyriding trip in their parents four-wheel drive or lovers wanting romance under the moonlight, it would turn back now towards the main road and the town. But it turned the other way and began to follow her.

All right then, she told herself. There’s still no need to panic. It must be one of the police officers. Out on surveillance perhaps. Or Joe Ashworth’s sent someone to keep an eye out for me. Deliberately she tried to slow down. She was nearly at Black Law. She was approaching the ford. If she drove at this speed into the water she’d flood the engine, the car would stop and she’d look a fool. But if anything the car behind came faster. The driver had turned up the headlamps to full beam and when she looked into the mirror she was blinded. She couldn’t see the passenger or any details of the car.

She was almost at the ford when it hit her. Her neck jerked backwards and for a moment she lost control of her steering. Instinctively she stuck her foot on the accelerator to pull away from it. The car jumped forward down the bank, hitting the water at an acute angle, bonnet down like a dive. Water sprayed the windscreen so she could see nothing.

The engine hissed and steamed and then it stalled. She turned the key but nothing happened. She heard the burn eddying around her and in the distance the purr of the other car at idle.

She craned her head to look behind, expecting all the time to feel the crash of another impact. She could see nothing but the hard white light of the headlamps. She turned the ignition again but the engine was quite dead.

Into her mind ridiculously, came the image of the steward on a flight she’d once taken to the States. He had stood at the front of the plane, demonstrating, with elaborate pantomime, the brace position. She put her feet firmly on the floor of the car, where water was already seeping, and bent forward with her arms protecting her head. Behind her suddenly she heard the roar of the other car’s engine. As powerful as a jet.

Nothing happened.

The engine noise increased but instead of releasing its energy to shoot down at her the car screeched backwards. At this point the track was wide. There was a place where vehicles could turn if the ford was too deep to cross. The car backed into that and screamed away. Rachael listened to it disappearing into the distance. Then everything was quiet except for the sound of water lapping around the wheel arches.

Still sitting with her arms around her head she began to tremble.

She sat for twenty minutes before she accepted that she would have to walk back to the cottage. She turned the key over an dover again but the car wouldn’t go. By then her feet were soaking and she was cold.

There were three options. She could wait until morning when Joe Ashworth or one of his cronies would come along. She could hope that Vera Stanhope would still be awake and would send out a search party.

Or she could take the risk of walking. She knew it would be a risk.

The car had driven away down the lane but it could have parked again in the forest track and the driver could have returned on foot.

What prompted her to action in the end was an urgent desire for a pee.

No way was she going to sit there all night and wet her knickers. She unlocked the driver’s door and got out, having to push against the flow of water. There was a thin sickle moon which gave a little light. She looked once back up the track but she could see no shadow and she heard no footsteps. She didn’t want the inspector to see her in such a state. But she couldn’t make the last few yards to the cottage. She couldn’t face going past the open barn where she’d found Bella. She banged on the farmhouse kitchen door and when it wasn’t immediately opened she pushed it and almost fell inside.

Vera Stanhope was sitting in the rocking chair where Bella had often sat. There was a beer can on the table beside her. She was reading a pile of papers. She wore spectacles, which Rachael had never seen before, attached to a chain round her neck. Besides the pen which she held in her fingers like a cigarette, a pencil had been tucked behind one ear.

Why doesn’t she ever go home, Rachael thought. Isn’t she happy there?

Then she began to cry. Vera got to her feet, took a fleecy jacket which had been folded over the back of the kitchen chair, and put it carefully around Rachael’s shoulders.

Chapter Thirty-Eight.

When Rachael got up the next morning Vera had already turned up at Baikie’s. She stood in the kitchen with a piece of toast in one hand and a mug of Anne’s filter coffee in the other. Even coming down the stairs Rachael could hear her eating.

So Vera had spent another night at Black Law. Another night working.

What drove her? Ambition again. A fear of failure. Or perhaps, like Rachael, she didn’t have much to go home to. A husband or lover had never been mentioned and it was hard to imagine the inspector in domestic comfort. An evening curled up on the sofa watching telly wouldn’t have fitted in with the image at all.

“We didn’t catch them,” Vera said. “I thought you’d want to know.”

She’d left the kitchen door open and the room was flooded with sunlight.

“Nice day,” Rachael said. “I should have got up early. I could have got my survey finished.”

“Plenty of time for that surely.”

“There’s still Grace’s stuff to check.”

“All the same. No rush.”

She doesn’t want us to leave, Rachael thought. She wants us here. The crows in the trap. She wants it even more than she did before. Last night the decoy worked. Besides, if we went, there’d be no excuse for her to stay. She’d have to go home too.

“I thought we might get them,” Vera went on. “There was an outside chance they’d still be in the area.” “Not they,” Rachael said. “There was only one person in the car.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, but I don’t know why. An assumption perhaps. No, when he drove off there was a shape in silhouette. Only the driver.”

“Man or woman?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Not by the size?”

“No. It was all too quick. A blurred shape. That was all.”

“There was a patrol car on the Al,” Vera said. “It searched the lanes around Langholme, but there was no one driving like a maniac. No one at all except a lad on a motorbike and a local woman on her way home after visiting her mother. Which means he didn’t panic. He had the sense to lie low somewhere until the morning.”

Rachael poured herself coffee from the Pyrex jug. It was still hot.

“Where’s Anne?”

“Upstairs getting ready to go out in the field.”

“I’d better be quick then.” “Like I said, there’s no rush, is there?”

“I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.” “No,” Vera said. “Last night would have put the wind up anyone.” It was said in a matter of fact way but it made Rachael defensive.

“Look, I’m really sorry I was such a fool last night.

If I’d left my car as soon as the other vehicle drove off you might have caught it at the other end of the track.”

“I doubt it. Not if it was driving as fast as you say.”

“I suppose not.”

“Have you remembered anything else overnight?”

“Nothing. It was a powerful saloon. That was all I could tell.”

“Colour?” “White. Pale anyway. Not metallic.” She paused and added bitterly, “Pathetic, isn’t it? That was probably the person who killed Grace. If I’d made more effort, got the registration number, you’d have been able to trace him.”

“Can’t be helped,” Vera said breezily. “We might be able to trace him anyway.”

“How?”

“I’m going to make some more toast. Fancy some?” She cut two thick slices of bread, put them under the grill and lit the gas. The matches were damp and it took some time to get a flame. Rachael, watching, thought it added to the performance. Vera wanted her audience on the edge of its seat.

“Go on,” she said, playing along.

“Well, it’s always been a mystery how our chap pie got onto the hill.

At first we thought he walked from Langholme, but that’s miles and we’ve talked to everyone who lives in the place. No one remembers a strange car parked that day. He couldn’t have driven all the way down the track because Mrs. Preece was here and she didn’t see anyone. But if he’d parked down that forest path no one would be able to see the car from here, from the farmhouse or even from the main track. As soon as he drove down that dip he’d be hidden by trees. It’s all conifers there and planted really close together.” Vera was getting more excited. “We had a team searching the hill of course but we didn’t deploy them that far into the forest. A mistake. My mistake. I’ve looked at the map again and the path goes on through the trees and comes out near the mine workings.” “Close to the crow trap,” Rachael said. “I know it.”

“I’ve had Joe Ashworth up there sniffing about.” The inspector bared sepia teeth in a malicious grin. “He’s not a happy bunny. I called him back here at first light.”

“That wasn’t very kind.”

“Don’t give me that. He had all evening on the nest. I could have called him in last night but I waited. Compassion itself, that’s me.

And I let him back to the farm for breakfast. He’s back in the forest now though, waiting for the forensic team.”

“Has he found anything?”

“Enough to put a spring into an old detective’s step. Last night certainly wasn’t the first time the car had been along there. The path’s sandy. There are some nice tyre tracks. And what looks like traces of paint where the car turned.”

“What colour’s the paint?”

“White. Why?”

“I went along there by mistake the night I found Bella’s body. I didn’t attempt to turn but I made a hash of reversing. Paint from my car could be all over the place. My car’s white.”

But Vera seemed determined to maintain her good humour. “We’ve had rain, snow and gales since then, haven’t we? I’d have thought any traces you’d left would have disappeared weeks ago. But we’ll have to do a test. That’s the brilliant thing about scientists. They’ve got tests for everything. Not so many answers but lots of tests.” She pulled a piece of bread from the grill and inspected it. It was the colour of weak milky tea. She turned it over and replaced it.

“You should get a toaster in here. I’ve got an old one knocking around the house somewhere. I’ll donate it. My contribution to Natural History.” She looked at Rachael as if she expected gratitude for the generous gesture. “We pulled out your car. It’s in the nick in Kimmerston. More tests. There might be paint on the back bumper if the burn hasn’t washed it off. Will you be able to manage until we get it back from the garage?”

“Edie’ll be back soon. We can share hers.”

“She’s arriving at about lunchtime. She phoned.”

“You didn’t tell her what happened?”

“Not in any detail. I’m too much of a coward. I thought I’d leave that to you. She’ll blame me of course.” No, Rachael thought. She’ll blame herself for once, which’ll be worse.

Vera Stanhope finished her toast and licked her fingers. “I hear you went chasing after Charlie Noble.”

“You know about that?” Rachael felt like a naughty school kid “Oh, you can’t keep much from your Auntie Vera.”

“We did ask Sergeant Ashworth if it was OK.”

“No problem. It’s a free country.”

“Do you know Mr. Noble?”

“I met him. He was living at home when the old man was killed. Why did you go to see him?” “We thought someone might have threatened Bella with exposure. We thought that would explain her suicide.”

“Well, you thought wrong,” Vera said bluntly. “At least if you had Charlie in mind as blackmailer. It wouldn’t have been him. It would be far too horrid. Charlie’s always avoided anything horrid. That’s why he ditched butchery.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Not since the investigation.”

“That was years ago. He was hardly more than a child. He could have changed.”

“You’ve met him. What do you think?” “No,” Rachael said. “I don’t think he’s changed much.”

“I remember him very well. Surprisingly well after all these years.