A Dark and Stormy Night (31 page)

‘What will happen to him, Alan?' asked Joyce.

‘It depends on whether the jury believes his story. The injury to Dave's back doesn't jibe with what Bates told Dorothy, but that could have been caused accidentally. It's a pity there were no witnesses to the thing. If I were guessing, I'd say there will be a conviction for manslaughter, voluntary or involuntary, depending on the jury's reaction. If he gets a lenient judge, he may be let off with a relatively short sentence.'

‘I sure hope so!' Jim set down his glass with a thump. ‘Just thinking about running this place without him gives me a backache.'

‘I hope . . . that is, are you going to have unpleasant associations with the house, now?' I couldn't help feeling that if I'd left well enough alone, some of that unpleasantness might never have come to light.

‘I thought about trying to sell,' Jim said frankly, ‘but Joyce talked me out of it.'

‘It was Rose, really,' said Joyce. ‘She came to me in tears, begging us to stay on. She plans to organize a team of John's friends to do his work while he is . . . away . . . and said we would be put to no trouble.'

‘She could get a far better job elsewhere,' said Tom. ‘Even tonight, upset as she was, she prepared food fit for the angels.'

‘I told her that,' said Joyce, fighting tears, ‘and she said, “John would die in prison if he didn't know he had this house to come back to.”'

It was time to change the subject. I looked across the room at our dancer, who was sitting in a chair by the fire, his foot propped up on a cushion. ‘Mike, we managed to spoil your homecoming, didn't we? Or rather I did. The others have heard your story, I suppose, but I haven't.'

‘Oh, I don't mind telling it again. The stripped-down story, this time. I did
rather
embroider it earlier, I'm afraid.'

‘All right, you don't need to spare my feelings. I did ask you to spin it out as long as possible, and you performed nobly. It's not your fault if it did turn out not to be necessary. Go ahead and give us the penny-plain version.'

‘Well, I jumped across the river, as you knew I was going to. And all would have been well if the opposite bank hadn't been so littered with leaves. I slipped on landing, and near as nothing ended up in the river. However, I managed to hang on to various bits of vegetation – what sort, I have
no
idea, not being a countryman. When I got to my feet I realized I'd damaged myself, twisted an ankle or something of the sort.'

‘Mike! Were you badly hurt? Will you be able to dance again?'

‘All in good time, dear lady. I was in some pain, but a dancer learns to work through that, so I started walking. I had no choice, really. I could sit there on the ground and howl till the cows came home, and no one would come to pick baby up and carry him home to mummy. Oops, sorry, poor choice of words.'

Someone snickered.

‘Fortunately the road was more-or-less clear of traffic. Because I had just reached it when I stepped on something that gave way under me, and that's all I remember until I woke up in hospital in – is it Shepherdsford? That just-bigger-than-a-village place not far from here?'

The vicar nodded. He looked very tired, I thought.

‘And there was a
beautiful
doctor's face looking into mine. Unfortunately he was only checking my eyes for the proper response, to make sure I wasn't dead or something. I'd been unconscious for quite some time, I gathered. Some kind person had found me by the side of the road and brought me in, and I gather all the doctors were horrified, I do mean
horrified
, my dears, when I told them how far I'd walked on what turned out to be a broken ankle.'

‘Mike, enough,' I said, interrupting. ‘Tell me this minute, will you dance again?'

‘They say there's no reason why not, if I'm a good little boy and do as I'm told. It seems a good clean break heals much better than torn muscle tissue. In fact that ankle may end up being stronger than the other.'

He had dropped his affectations for a moment. This was a serious matter. ‘I'm delighted to hear it,' I said in great relief. ‘I'm waiting to see you dance Siegfried. But go on.'

‘Well, that was Saturday. I was more or less
non compos mentis
for a day or so, raving like a loony, they told me, and then they eased off those
lovely
pain meds, and I remembered why I came, but there was no way they could notify anyone here, because the phones were still out. I wanted them to go and rescue poor Laurence, but they couldn't do that, either, not without a helicopter, and there was actually
none
available. You have
no
idea, my dears, what the world looks like out there. One would swear a
bomb
had been dropped, and along with all the visible damage, the villages are positively
littered
with the halt and the lame. They pushed me out of hospital the first minute they could, because they needed the bed, what with the injured pouring in from every part of the county.

‘Well, I was feeling very much the fool. All those would-be-heroics, and no one could help Laurence after all. And then he turned up, not doing so badly, and told me all that had happened in my absence, and I saw what a
splendid
opportunity I had been given for publicity, so of course I notified the media – and here I am, like the proverbial bad penny.'

‘And speaking on behalf of all lovers of the dance, I say, here's to your prompt recovery.' Pat raised her glass and we all followed suit.

Later Alan and I were getting ready for bed and doing all but the last-minute packing. We had managed a better connection with Jane and learned that the ‘disaster' she had mentioned was our predicament at Branston Abbey, not some awful damage to our house. So I was trying to tie up the last loose ends of the Abbey problem.

I said, ‘The one thing I didn't work out is what Julie was so afraid of.'

‘Bates, obviously. She followed Dave and saw what happened, but not very clearly. She thought Bates pushed Dave into the river.'

‘She said she didn't follow them.'

‘She lied, love. She didn't want anyone to know what she knew. But while she was still suffering from hypothermia and somewhat confused, she said enough to the vicar to make him very uneasy. He came to me after Julie was “arrested” to tell me he didn't think she could have done it.'

‘So you knew all along what happened!'

‘Not “all along”, only since her arrest. And I didn't “know” anything, only what a confused woman thought she had seen when under the influence of considerable alcohol.'

‘But if you'd told me, I wouldn't have been so worried about helping John and Rose!'

‘And if you'd told me what you were going to do, I'd have been able to fend you off.' He yawned and turned out the light. ‘I think we're square. Anyway, if I'd told you, you wouldn't have been able to go home and tell everyone how you figured out that the butler did it.'

I threw my pillow at him.