ON DEVIL'S BRAE (A Psychological Suspense Thriller) (Dark Minds Mystery Suspense) (24 page)

Yet, despite Donald wanting Cassandra’s cottage, she wasn’t one completely sure he was the one playing mind games and creating havoc in her life. For one thing, apart from his running, she rarely saw Donald out walking in the hills, and his attitude was more obvious than cunning.

Fiona would be easier to talk to, and Cassandra considered she was dim enough not to understand she was picking her brain. Fiona liked Bailey, and Cassandra thought it a good excuse to engage Fiona in a little cautious exchange.

Cassandra glanced at her watch and decided there was no occasion like the present. With Bailey lying sore and forlorn back at the vet’s, she had time on her hands. Hopefully, Donald would be at work and Fiona on one of her half days. It was easier than she imagined. Once Cassandra left the Blackmores’ cottage, the first person she bumped into was Fiona, and from then on, Cassandra led the conversation until she found a neat way of asking her about possible strangers in Inverdarroch.

“You’re kidding. No one new ever visits here, except you and your friends, of course.”

“What about kids, teenagers? I’ve never seen any at the farm, but they must have other family. Farms are great places for kids to explore.”

Fiona shook her head and looked round Cassandra’s living room, picking up one of Bailey’s chewed-up toys. “It feels strange without Bailey. Tell me again what happened?”

“He disappeared when Julian and I were out walking, and then reappeared hours later. He must have caught himself on some barbed wire or a jagged piece of wood because he was bleeding quite badly. Either that or someone hurt him on purpose,” she added in a low voice.

“Poor wee thing. Nobody would have done that, surely? Let’s hope the vet sorts him out. Was there a great deal of blood? I remember when your sister’s dog disappeared. She was ever so upset, too.”

Cassandra felt her heart flutter as she remembered the state Bailey was in when she found him at her door. Someone
had
come across the young dog and inflicted the awful injury on him. What she wanted to know was whether it happened up on the mountain or down in the village. At first, she assumed the sword carrier was the culprit, but Bailey hadn’t been around at that stage. She had just heard Fiona mention Susan’s dog. It was odd that she too had gone missing. Someone had told her some time ago that Susan thought she had been stolen and tied up somewhere. It was Angus—she suddenly remembered. It was Angus who told her.

Cassandra wondered about Fiona and Donald’s afternoon and nocturnal excursions. Donald was a bit of an exercise freak, often out running along the lane and no doubt over the moors. Fiona accompanied him on a few occasions, but Cassandra guessed her heart wasn’t in it, as she remembered hearing her complaining more than once when they passed her cottage. But if either of them possessed a key—and it appeared
someone
in the village did—they could easily have let themselves into her house the previous night and the times before. Donald claimed the cottage should rightfully still be in his family. What if he did bear an almighty grudge against her for being there?

What about Fiona? She was employed but spent a lot of her free time with Cassandra as she claimed to enjoy hearing about her photography work. As she mulled things over in her head, Cassandra poured their coffee. Fiona was standing near the window watching the snow drift down.

“Bailey is in the best hands. The vet said she hopes he’ll be home in a few days. Fiona, have you ever come past this place and seen anyone hanging round? You know, maybe if not a stranger—as you say there never are any—but one of the villagers perhaps?”

Fiona took a sip of her coffee before calmly resting it on the kitchen worktop. “No.”

The next question wasn’t so easy, and Cassandra took her time. “What about you and Donald? You know he wants the cottage for himself. Has he ever walked round the garden and peered into the windows? You know, imagining it’s already his and telling you what he’d like to do to the place?”

Fiona looked up, frowning, and thumped her mug back down on the counter. “No! Never! What a thing to suggest. Donald may have his heart set on Shadow Vale, but he’d never trespass on someone else’s property. How could you even think such a thing?”

“Sorry Fiona…I was really just thinking out loud. I know Donald—”

“No, you don’t know Donald! I do. He’s my boyfriend. My fiancé. I know what he wants and what he likes, just remember that. The nerve! Fancy suggesting something like that.”

Cassandra realised she had overstepped the mark and instantly apologised, knowing she couldn’t ask any more questions without pissing Fiona off completely. She should have known. Fiona was possessive about Donald, and Cassandra guessed she wouldn’t have told her the truth anyway.

Cassandra resolved to buy new door locks the next time she went into town to see Bailey. In the meantime, her door would be bolted on the inside at all times. Night or day. Idly, she wondered what talisman was needed to keep the devil at bay…desperate people did desperate things.

***

Once Fiona left Shadow Vale, apathy settled on Cassandra like a dank and heavy cloak around her shoulders. It hadn’t passed her by that neither the Blackmore sisters nor Fiona asked what had become of Julian. She knew all three had been questioned by the police, who asked if they remembered seeing him. It would have sparked off interest, but even so, she considered it odd. Most villagers would have been incredibly nosy or just a little curious about the whole affair.

The day seemed to go on forever. It was as endless as the lonely moor beyond her land, thousands of feet above the sea, and rolling away both to the left and right. The lane outside her front door was a small path hidden in the wilderness. Cassandra thought about loneliness. How intense…how deep and how ironic she had finally recovered from Susan’s death.
Had
Susan committed suicide because she felt she was to blame for little Natalie’s murder?

Cassandra fancied she was finally rid of those awful nightmares of a small child dressed for bed and falling headlong down the stairs. Deep down, she knew Susan should have saved her, and Cassandra should have listened and understood everything better.

Cassandra needed something to do; she refilled the log basket and built up the fire. It was a miserable day, with the snow still falling and a keen wind blowing down the chimney; she might as well be warm. She wanted heat—lots of it—and after putting a firelighter onto the new wood took a match to it.

She slipped the box of matches into her trouser pocket and then turned and glanced through the back window towards the high hills behind her house. Even with the snow lying on the ground, it was easy to imagine she saw him in the distance. He was standing tall and still as he looked broodingly down at her little house lying snug in the valley. How many times had she imagined him gazing in her direction? As Cassandra moved away, she noticed her body was shaking. In panic, she felt an urgent desire to get out into the fresh air, and grabbing only her coat, she slammed the door shut behind her, making sure she turned the key. She paused for a second in the garden as the image of Julian rose up before her.
There was something left undone. It niggled at her as she pulled the gate shut behind her and hurried up the lane. There was a feeling, a strong sense, he was still somewhere in Inverdarroch. Something soft tickled her nose, and she noticed thick fluffy snowflakes caught on the breeze and falling silently to the ground.

Nearing the farm, Cassandra caught a movement in the nearest window and guessed Carol was spying on her. She wasn’t feeling up to placating the capricious young woman and would have carried on if the subject of her thoughts hadn’t slipped from the house and waylaid her in the lane.

As Carol neared, Cassandra was instantly aware of a large black-and-blue bruise on her temple. Whatever Carol had done, the bruising looked severe enough to be painful. Images of the woman’s older brothers and uncle flitted through Cassandra’s mind, and in horror, she wondered if she had been beaten up.

“I’m sorry,” Carol called before reaching her. “I didn’t mean to be so bad. Only it wasn’t my fault in the end, there was nothing I could—”

“Carol what’s happened to your face? Has someone hit you?”

Carol stopped and felt her forehead. Her eyes looked huge in a pale freckled face, which was framed by a mass of unruly hair. She touched the bruise with one finger and shivered. “It wasn’t that, I’m sorry—”

“Get inside, girl, before your mother takes a stick to you. You’ve caused enough trouble.” Cassandra turned round at the sound of the gravelly voice behind her and instinctively took a step towards Carol who gave a squeak of terror and ran round the side of the farmhouse.

“What’s happened? What’s Carol done?”

Rae appraised Cassandra standing before him with her hands bunched up into fists. “No need to worry yersel. She’s unpredictable that girl. We’ve got it sorted.” Rae held up one beefy arm to stop Cassandra following him as he quickened his pace after his sister. “Disne fret yersel.”

Cassandra ignored his gesture and trailed behind him, almost tripping over in the snow-filled ruts of the farm lane. Something odd was going on, and what had Carol meant?

“So your fancy man left you, then?” Mrs Campbell stood at her side door, arms crossed across her enormous bust, her mouth puckered with distaste. Cassandra felt a flare of hope flicker.

“You saw Julian?” she gasped. “Saw his car and me and him out walking with Bailey?”

The old crow hesitated for one second before she snorted and cackled. “Naw. I’m just repeating what the polis said. None of us saw anything. We were here inside all the time. Isn’t that right, Rae?”

No, of course they wouldn’t have ‘seen’ anything, Cassandra thought as she watched Rae carry on walking into the barn. They were as small and closed tightly as the meanest clam. Cassandra guessed they only saw what they wanted. Years of living in the valley and God knew what in-breeding made them as narrow-minded as the wire of a tight-rope dancer. “Carol said something just now,” she began.

“Forget what she said. She’s not right in the head half the time. Anyways, you’ll be leaving too now, no doubt. I always wondered why your sister didn’t go when she had the chance.”

Cassandra’s face paled at the implication. What was it she was saying about Carol? Her own daughter, too. How on earth could Susan have put up with this place for all those years? Was she the keeper of a dark secret she had to hide, living up here in this insular spot?

“What has Susan to do with this? She was an artist who chose to live in a quiet place to pursue her sculpture. She didn’t hurt anybody.”

The old woman refused to be placated and shuddered. “She had her problems. Full of strange ideas that one. And the men she brought here over the years, quite disgusting.”

Cassandra held her hands behind her back lest she lost control and took a swipe at Mrs Campbell. “She seemed perfectly normal to me, and as for men, she was a single woman. She could do as she liked. I’ll just take the cheese I ordered last week, if I may. I don’t want to trouble you further.”

Mrs Campbell thrust out her bottom lip in irritation before nodding and wandering off into the house. Cassandra heard someone mutter something to her and her terse reply. “It’s well braw. Why bother going out when you can stay here in the warm?”

Cassandra waited until she heard the shuffle of the old woman’s boots along the hall on her return. Somewhere a door banged. The woman thrust the carton into Cassandra’s hands and carried on their earlier conversation. “Huh, maybe when she was older she seemed normal. Take it from me—she was a wild one when she first came here. Smoking that pot, drinking. She was even seen dancing up on the hills as naked as the day she was born and with a group of men looking on, so I’ve been told.”

Cassandra could only gape at the woman’s accusations. Susan dancing naked under the moonlight? It sounded like her mother’s worst nightmare come true.

“I know nothing about that, but I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“Aye. So she said. They were a group of historians or something. But I didne believe it one for a minute.”

“Well, if they were friends of Susan’s, then…” She let her voice trail off, knowing she would never change Mrs Campbell’s bigotry. She saw Susan as a harlot, a pothead, and probably an alcoholic, even though Cassandra had never seen any such evidence when Susan stayed in her flat.

The old woman adopted a menacing tone. “She went and took her own life! That was a sin in itself. What dreadful thing was she running away from, eh? It was a good thing my boys stayed well clear of her and her licentious ways. She was immoral, if you want my opinion. Never set foot inside the kirk in all the years she spent here.”

Cassandra didn’t want to hear one word more. She bid her good day and rushed from the yard. Pushing the packet of cheese into her coat pocket, she turned into the lane and walked as fast as she could away from the woman’s accusing eyes and scurrilous tongue. Damn! Damn! Damn! How dare she say such things, especially when Susan was dead and unable to defend herself?

Feeling sick and tired from the previous twenty-four hours, she blinked back tears full of shame and guilt and self-pity. Had Susan been just as their mother had said? But so what? Surely she hadn’t hurt anyone with her distinctive ways and odd quirks. And was she really so shameful anyway? Mrs Campbell was an insulting and slanderous old bitch.