Evil for Evil (13 page)

Then a smell reached her on the air – a rank, feral stench, and suddenly the sound of a coughing roar.

Elena turned. Panic, in the oldest sense of the word, seized her as she saw it breasting the slope below – a massive stag. It stopped when it saw her ahead, as if startled, then its mouth opened wide as it roared and roared again. It began tossing its great head, lowering the crown of rapier-tipped antlers in a threatening, sweeping movement.

The second gate was just ahead, blocking her path as she struggled frantically with the bolt. It wouldn’t shift – and with a sudden trotting charge the beast was on her.

All she could do was to scream and scream and scream.

Christie’s plan was working out just as she had hoped. Kerr had turned to talk to the people on the next table and she and Matt were left together.

He was so controlled it was hard to get near him. He managed to conceal the suffering his disfigurement must still be causing him and she longed to know his secret, which might help her to master her own mental turmoil. Meditation, perhaps? Or medication, even?

She tried to draw him out about himself – most men’s favourite subject – but he shied away from personal questions. Christie could understand that: she didn’t allow rooting around in her past either. It had been bad enough at the time, and until recently confining her memories to an iron-bound chest with several padlocks in a dusty corner of her mind had worked well enough.

Matt clearly had his own iron-bound chest, and his marriage was off-limits too. There was plenty of common ground, though: the army, the farm, the animals with their individual personalities.

Rudolf was Christie’s particular favourite, and Matt was telling her about his moment of glory as star of a TV whisky commercial when his mobile rang. He took it out of his pocket, glanced at the number, then with an irritated apology, answered it.

‘Lissa? Is there a problem?’

The problem, Christie thought sourly, is that he’s having a nice time for once and she wants to spoil it. But as she watched, Matt’s face changed.

‘
What!
’ he said, sounding horrified. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Which one? Go and see.’ He was on his feet, shrugging on his jacket, jerking his head to Kerr and Christie. ‘Yes, I know it’s raining. I noticed. Find a jacket or something, go and look and call me back.’

Kerr and Christie, eying him in alarm, put on their own jackets.

‘One of the stags is loose,’ Matt said, tight-lipped. ‘And apparently some woman’s got between him and where he wanted to go. Lissa’s finding out which one it is. Kerr, get the dart gun and you’d better bring the rifle as well, though I don’t want to shoot him unless there’s no alternative.’

Kerr nodded and went out of the back door. Christie lingered, her heart in her mouth. She’d been in charge of Rudolf; had she failed to secure the gate, somehow?

Matt had gone up to the bar and was banging a beer mug on the counter to get silence.

‘Sorry to interrupt your evening, but one of my stags has somehow got loose. We’re going now to get him rounded up, but please don’t leave until we’ve found him. They’re a bit edgy at this time of year.’

There was a mutter of talk, and Christie could see unfriendly looks being directed at Matt. He wasn’t popular and the idea of dangerous animals at large in Innellan wasn’t going to help his reputation.
However, when he said, ‘The drinks are on me,’ there were some muted cheers, particularly from Andy Macdonald’s friends.

Christie followed Matt out into the darkness. He was walking fast, splashing through puddles, and with her shorter legs she broke into a trot to keep up.

‘Keep your eyes peeled,’ he said tersely. ‘He could be anywhere, and if he’s upset and confused he could think you were a rival.’

His phone rang again. ‘Yes?’ He listened, then said heavily, ‘Rudolf. Right,’ and Christie bit her lip. ‘We’re on our way. Kerr’s ahead of us.’

They were running now and Matt was faster than she was. She knew what he must be thinking – stupid, careless woman! But now she thought about it, she was sure she’d bolted the paddock gate properly after putting in his feed – quite sure, because she’d been edgy – Rudolph had been pawing the ground a bit and he was really stinking already. She was hardly going to leave the gate on the latch and have him come after her.

As he could be doing, even now; she could hear bellowing. That was probably just the other two stags, but even so Christie couldn’t help a nervous glance round the edge of her parka hood as she ran up the drive to the farmhouse, shadowed by trees. Matt was well ahead of her, and she remembered the sage advice, ‘You don’t need to run faster than the bear chasing you, just faster than your companion.’

It was quite a relief to reach the lighted garden area round the house. In its pen nearby the dog, alerted by the bustle, was at the chain-link fence watching her with amber eyes.

Matt was already talking to someone on the phone when she came in. ‘Up on the track to the chalets? Right. We’ll be there.’

Lissa was standing beside him. She was soaked through, cotton dress clinging to her and hair plastered to her head – a mute reproach
to show how unreasonable Matt was, asking her to go outside on a night like this?

If that was her motive, it didn’t work. Absorbed in his phone call, he wasn’t even aware of her. He was listening to what seemed to be a tirade. ‘Yes, of course. Yes, I do appreciate that. I’m very sorry. We’ll be there in five minutes. Just don’t try to go near him … No, I suppose you wouldn’t. But if you’ve shut the gates he’ll be highly unlikely to jump them.’ Then, at something else that was said, Matt’s voice became bleaker. ‘Oh, have you? I see. Yes, of course. Naturally. Anyway, I can only apologise. We’re on our way.’

Kerr came in, carrying his .243 and another elderly-looking rifle. ‘What’s the situation?’

‘He’s in the field area between the two gates on the track to the chalets at the moment. He’s attacked a woman – don’t know how seriously, the woman on the phone was a bit hysterical. They’ve sent for an ambulance. And the police.’

‘Oh,’ Kerr said. ‘Hoped we might have dealt with it ourselves.’

‘We’ve probably got twenty minutes before they arrive and say we have to shoot him. Knocking him out before then is our only chance.’

Matt went to the key board beside the back door, detached one, then chucked it to Christie. ‘Medicine cupboard. Pack of Immobilon. There’s Revivon with it, and we need something called Narcan as well. Packet of rubber gloves, veterinary darts, metal storage box. OK? Fetch them. I’m going to get the trailer on to the forklift and then I’ll come back and explain what we do next.

‘Kerr, take the car and get up there. Try and keep them happy if you can.’

Her heart pounding, Christie hurried through to Matt’s office. She had to steady her hands to unlock the medicine cupboard. She took the pack marked Immobilon down from the shelf – etorphine
hydrochloride, it said below the name – and there was an alarming warning emblazoned on it. She shuddered, assembled the rest of what Matt had asked for and went back to the kitchen. Matt came in just as she set them down.

Unlike her own, Matt’s hands were rock-steady. He donned the thin gloves, took out the darts – for all the world like some strange form of shuttlecock – and the glass ampoules, one holding the immobiliser and another the drug to revive the animal afterwards, scribbling a note on a label to identify them. He explained the steps to her as he prepared the darts, spelling out the dangers. Even a drop on the skin could be immediately fatal for a human and Narcan, the antidote, also had to be ready.

He put the darts in a metal box, collected up the empty ampoules, wrapped them in kitchen roll and put them in a plastic bag with his discarded gloves. ‘Dangerous waste,’ he said to Christie and she nodded, hurrying through with it to the enclosed bin, marked with skull and crossbones, at the back of his office. When she returned, he was ready, holding the box and the Narcan.

When they left, Lissa was still standing there, her mouth downturned and with a little rivulet of rainwater trickling from her hair down the side of her face.

Supper was over, but Marjory and Bill Fleming were lingering at the kitchen table over coffee. They were alone; Cammie had been coy about his plans for the evening, but Marjory suspected there was a girl involved.

‘To be honest,’ Bill said, ‘I’m just putting off going to do the evening rounds. It’s such a filthy night.’

‘I suppose we can’t complain – it’s nearly October, after all. But we got spoilt with those weeks of lovely autumn weather.’ Marjory glanced towards the collie asleep in her usual position, as close as she
could get to the elderly Aga. ‘I doubt if Meg wants to go either.’

At the sound of her name, the dog lifted her head lazily, glanced at her owners, then with a sigh put it back down again. They both laughed.

‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I?’ Bill said. ‘Mind you, she’ll be up and dancing around whenever I make a move. What are you doing this evening?’

Marjory leant back in her chair, stretching luxuriously. ‘I’m happy to say, not a lot, for once. Karolina and Mum between them have everything running like clockwork, and we’re not under the cosh with the new investigation, the way we usually are. I’ve just got a few reports I want to read through again. And I thought I’d phone Cat. I’ve tried a couple of times but it’s always on the answerphone.’

‘Too busy enjoying herself. She sounded quite excited when I spoke to her last night.’

‘I hope she realises how hard she’ll have to work. Vet’s a tough course and there’s not much scope for mucking about.’

Bill smiled. ‘Killjoy!’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘We were young once too, remember?’

‘I remember all too vividly,’ Marjory said tartly. ‘And I don’t want Cat going down that road.’

‘Speak for yourself. Come on, Meg – sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back.’

He went out. Marjory fetched her phone and called Cat’s number, then listened to it ringing out yet again. She didn’t leave a message; she’d done that twice today.

She sat back, frowning. Was it paranoid to think Cat was punishing her? Yes, probably. It wasn’t much more than twenty-four hours since she’d seen her daughter, and Cat was probably, as Bill had said, high on the excitement of independence.

And anyway, if Cat was annoyed, it was hardly unnatural. Marjory
had never managed to fall out with her peaceable, gentle mother, but she’d certainly had plenty of spats with her father. Given time, Cat would forget about it, since Marjory didn’t plan to foster hostility, as her father had done.

Consoling herself with that thought, Marjory stacked the dishwasher and picked up her reports. She went through to the sitting room, lit the fire and settled to read.

The new case was slow-paced but intriguing: as the pieces of evidence started coming in, it would be a matter of fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle – and it looked as if Rosie Drummond’s ghost story and the information about the watch were forming at least a small corner of the picture.

Clinging to the side of the trailer as it bounced up the track behind the big forklift truck, Christie could see the lights of torches ahead and as she got nearer, hear agitated voices. There were three chalets fairly close together beyond the second gate, one still dark but the others with lights blazing and front doors standing open.

Kerr’s car was parked by the first gate with its headlights illuminating the scene. Matt stopped the truck and jumped out carrying his equipment and Christie climbed down from the back with a tin bowl full of potatoes – her own idea.

There was no sign of the stag. She could see Kerr standing on the farther side of the second gate with a little knot of people and they went through to join him.

With an expression of rigidly controlled irritation, Kerr was listening to a small woman with a frizz of permed hair, flanked by a tall silent man and a youth, presumably their son.

‘You have to shoot it, now!’ she was saying in hysterical tones. ‘It’s a monster – it could have killed her!’

‘Yes, pet,’ Kerr said. ‘But if you could just tell me where he is, I could maybe do something.’

‘Up that way.’ The youth stepped forward, pointing up the steep ground of the field. He certainly seemed calm enough. ‘It kind of snorted a bit and then trotted off, that was all. My mum’s just mental.’

‘Yes, but he could come back,’ his mother insisted. ‘He could leap the gate and—’

Matt stepped forward. ‘I’m Matt Lovatt, the farmer – we spoke on the phone. I promise we’ll deal with this safely. But I’m very concerned about the injured lady. What happened?’

‘Well!’ The woman began her recital with relish. ‘We were in our sitting room there when we heard screaming – terrible, terrible screams. Made my blood run cold, didn’t it, Martin?’

The silent man nodded and she went on, ‘And when we came out, the lady from Spindrift was on the ground with that evil creature pawing at her, ready to run her through and through with its horns. I just screamed and yelled, and it looked up – I thought it would come right at me, over the fence – and she somehow managed to wriggle under the gate and escape.

‘Then it attacked the gate and I thought it would break it down and we’d all be murdered, but then it sort of gave up and went away. But you’ll have to kill it, now it’s got the taste for humans—’

Her son burst out laughing. ‘Oh, yeah, like it’s a man-eating lion? Hello? And it so didn’t attack the gate, just, like, butted it a couple of times like it was confused, that’s all. Anyway, the woman wasn’t that much hurt.’

She turned on him. ‘How do you know, Barrie? With internal injuries you can say you’re all right, then ten minutes later, bang! You drop down dead. Isn’t that right, Martin?’

Martin nodded, though with a little less conviction this time.

Lovatt said tautly, ‘Where is she? Perhaps I could speak to her.’

‘I wanted her to come in with us, but she wouldn’t.’ The woman was clearly disappointed. ‘She went back to Spindrift, said she was fine, she didn’t want a fuss—’

‘So you go, “Right, right,” then call 999,’ Barrie jeered. ‘Cool idea! Just want your name in the papers, you do.’

His mother bristled. ‘I don’t want her on my conscience if something goes wrong, that’s all,’ she said shrilly. ‘I know what’s right.’

Still, Christie felt a little more cheerful. It sounded as if the woman’s injuries were minor, and as if she wasn’t hell-bent on revenge either. Maybe Matt could sweet-talk her with an offer of compensation.

He was having a low-voiced conversation with Brodie. Lovatt was holding the dart rifle and as he put on the gloves again and loaded it, she heard him say, ‘So don’t kill him unless you have to,’ as he handed it to Brodie before heading off towards Spindrift.