In the Shadow of Winter: A gripping historical novel with murder, secrets and forbidden love. Lorna Gray
Читать онлайн книгу.
tension that still hung about him had pulled at his face to make him look much older than his thirty-four years and there was a stiffness to his shoulder that made me wonder if his wounds were healing as well as they ought. The coarse stubble that was almost a beard by now seemed only to emphasise the current wild nature of his existence, and the paradox of it was, surprisingly, it actually rather suited him.
He ran a hand though his hair and unexpectedly looked up to catch me watching him. His mouth twitched into a sudden smile, making the lines of strain and worry abruptly vanish, and my heart twisted painfully as he became the kind, gentle man I remembered once more. Sorry, he mouthed. I gave him a flicker in return before reaching across the table to take his empty plate away.
“Is anybody going to tell me what’s been going on?” Freddy finally broke the silence with an exasperated shout. He leapt to his feet to carry his bowl to the sink, waggling his spoon as he went. “I’ve been sneaking food out for no more than a word of thanks and now you’ve been hiding with the horses all afternoon and he’s been off on an adventure. It’s not fair!”
This outburst broke the impasse remarkably.
“Steady on, lad!” Matthew flinched back as the rapidly descending jug splashed milk onto his sleeve and he and I were united in protest as cups and teapot came crashing down swiftly after.
“Oh, sorry.” Freddy grinned sheepishly, reclaiming his seat, “But won’t someone tell me what’s been going on? Please?”
I cast Matthew a silent challenge of my own as I passed him a tea-towel.
He reached for the cloth. “All right …”
His attention fixed upon the towel in his hands and if it were possible, his demeanour became even more impassive than before. Even now, it was not willingly that he was divulging his part in this thing.
“Eight days ago I got a message at my office that Jamie wanted to see me and it was pretty insistent, so I went over as soon as I could, which was probably about two hours or so later by the time I managed to grind my way up the hill out of Gloucester. I’ve been staying at my mother’s for the past month; it’s easier when you don’t know whether the lanes are going to be hedge-high with snow from one day to the next, and at least it stopped her from worrying …
“Anyway, when I got there, he was lying flat out on the floor and—” A grimace, a furtive glance. “Sorry, the details really aren’t for your ears. Suffice it to say, murder was not the first thing that crossed my mind.” He had to take a moment to collect himself. Then he added; “So there I was, trying to find a pulse and as I felt his neck, it finally began to dawn on me that this was no accident. But I didn’t get much time to think about what it was, because at that point something hit me from behind.”
His thumb nail was rubbing at a loose thread and I don’t think he realised he was working a little hole in my tea-towel.
“I must have been laid out for a little while because when I came round, I was face down in the dirt and my head was hurting like the devil. I tried not to move, but out of the corner of my eye I could see the boots of at least two men and they were discussing what to do with me. Their accents were odd, Irish, I think, but it is hard to be sure. But of this I am sure: one of them picked up the telephone and it was clear I was in for it.”
“Why, what did he say?” Freddy’s question was anxious. I glanced over at him with a concern of my own but he seemed relatively undisturbed.
“Let’s just say that the person on the other end of the line wasn’t exactly my friend. They were to fix it that my fingerprints were all over the room, which they were anyway because I’d walked in like a friend, not a criminal. Then he was to put Jamie’s watch and money in my pockets and say that he had burst in on me as I was standing over the body. After a brief struggle he was, in self-defence of course, to land an unlucky blow which was to kill me. Nice, eh?”
“But you did manage to escape?!” Then, as his eyes lifted, I realised what I had said and muttered crossly to myself, “Of course you did, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Idiot.”
He gave a rare smile, “You’re not an idiot and yes, I managed to escape. Just about, anyway …”
I could picture the scene. Two men, knowing that one man was dead and believing the other to be at least halfway on the route to becoming the same, were taking their time as they rifled through the corpse’s pockets.
“I heard something heavy being lifted. I don’t know what it was, a bar of some sort; a lamp stand perhaps. Whatever it was, by some miracle I managed to roll aside just as it came crashing down. Then I rolled back and by a second miracle I managed to bring the fellow to the ground. And then I ran. I ran until my lungs hurt and then I ran some more. They fired a shotgun at me but I was unbelievably lucky and I managed to throw myself down into the streambed. Then, using the stain of frozen water to cover my tracks, I made for the trees. It was dark by then and they couldn’t track me so long as I was careful, and believe me, I was very careful – I could have slipped under the nose of a fox, I was moving so quietly. That whole night is just one hideous exhausted blur of motion in my memory now; I didn’t dare to rest for even a moment in case they found me.”
I asked, “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Because …” He stopped. Then he shot me an odd little frowning glance. “Because,” he repeated carefully, “pretty soon it became clear that the police were on the hunt, too. I would have handed myself in, but seeing all those men and dogs, I didn’t get the impression that they were likely to be inclined to believe me – my fingerprints are all over the scene, the house, his things…and you can be sure that those two villains left no trace of themselves. To be frank I’m not sure I’d believe me, my tale sounds pretty fantastical and I’m damned if I’m going to hand myself in to be hanged for something I didn’t do.”
“So then what happened?” Freddy’s prompt was given with all the enthusiasm of a boy hearing an amazing adventure story.
“Well, then I made a mistake. I’d been out there on the run for two nights in this ridiculous weather and I was getting pretty tired and hungry. There’s only so much food just lying about waiting to be taken by passing fugitives so as dawn was just coming up I thought I’d drop in on Jamie’s sister to see if she could shed any light on this thing. She lives in Miserden, you know? Lord only knows what I was thinking, going there. Anyway, as any fool could have guessed, they were there, waiting for me.”
“The police?”
“No, Freddy, the same two men who had attacked me before.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and I think his shoulder was hurting him. “Luck abandoned me then; I got cornered. They managed to stay out of sight until I was very nearly knocking at the door but suddenly a car’s headlights flicked on and I was blinded, pinned against the wall by the light. I didn’t wait to see who it was – whether police or crooks – I ran round the building and dived behind an outhouse but they must have anticipated it because just as I ran out the other side, they cut me off. I was forced to jump a wall and scramble across some pretty deep drifts. Until that point I’d had a reasonably good lead but all of a sudden I was exposed; I turned to see where they were and at that moment one of them fired his gun. I didn’t even realise immediately that I’d been hit. You don’t always …”
I had the horrible realisation that he was speaking from previous experience and suddenly I knew how little my quiet enquiries had told me beyond the information that he had been caught in the bloody retreat through Ypres. It had been an impossible situation, having absolutely no right to the information and knowing how the gossips would get to work if I mistakenly asked the wrong person.
“All I knew was that something had knocked all the breath out of me and I hit the ground hard. But some rush of adrenalin got me to my feet again, and somehow I managed to get far enough under cover of some young saplings to shake them.” A fresh grimace. “It was just starting to snow again, I remember, and I was getting pretty panicky by then. I didn’t know how badly I was hurt and I didn’t want to hole