River of Destiny (49 page)

Rosemary had set the alarm for five thirty. As it rang she groped in the darkness for the button and switched it off. Steve lay with his back to her, snoring. She reached out and shook his shoulder. He groaned. ‘Steve, come on. Get up! You know what we’ve got to do.’

There was no answer. She sat up, beginning to regret her plan. It was cold in the room – the central heating hadn’t kicked in yet and it was still pitch dark outside. Still, the plan was a good one. It had to be done. She punched Steve, harder this time. ‘Come on. I want you awake by the time I’m dressed.’

She didn’t turn on the bedroom light. Even with the curtains drawn someone might be awake and see that they were too. She grabbed her clothes and retreated to the bathroom where she showered and dressed in jeans and a thick sweater. When she returned to the bedside Steve had pulled the duvet up over his head.

‘I’m not coming,’ he groaned when she seized it again and shook it. ‘It’s a mad idea. Stupid.’

She left him. Downstairs she grabbed a mug of instant coffee, pulled on her jacket and picked up the bag she had left by the door the night before, then she let herself out into the dark and switched on her torch. By the time she was halfway to Dead Man’s Field there was a faint lightness appearing in the eastern sky. She began to make her way towards the field and paused, puzzled by the darker lines of blackness across the grass in front of her. Then she realised. It had been ploughed. The bastard! She swung the torch round. He had done about three-quarters of the field. The tractor with the plough lying behind it was parked in the corner by the hedge. She gave a cold smile. If he thought that would stop them he had another think coming; she would be back later with all her supporters and he had left enough unploughed for them to walk across easily.

Heading towards the copse in the middle of the field she found there was enough dim light to make her way without the torch. She shivered, thrusting her gloved hands into her pockets. The wind was cold. The last few days had been so warm one forgot that autumn was well under way and that a hint of winter was already there in the east. Soon the weather would break and fewer people would be interested in walking. It was imperative to get this footpath walked and marked before the really wet weather set in.

She reached the edge of the scrub and stopped, groping for the torch again, shining it in amongst the tangle of brambles and shrubs. She could see guelder-rose berries there and dogwood, and clusters of hawthorn, rich red in the torchlight, and round the edge of the copse the tangled strands of barbed wire. She put down her bag and rummaged in it for the wire cutters. Better to do this now, to open the path and make it easy for the others. It would hold things up if they had to do it with Turtill there shouting about damage to his property. If there was a fuss she could always point out that he hadn’t challenged her while she was clearing the path before, another sign that he didn’t really believe he was in the right to deny her entrance. She reached her gloved hand in amongst the rusty wire and snipped several pieces away. Then she cut back some brambles. Somewhere nearby a pheasant got up with a shriek of panic and flapped away into the darkness.

Some of the wire had been pulled away from the posts it was stapled to and the posts, rotten and collapsing, had pulled out of the ground. She shone her torch carefully along them. It looked as though someone else had been here trying to clear an entrance. She smiled. More evidence. Tomorrow – no, later today – she would bring her camera to prove it. She pulled the wire back and threw several bits of rotting post aside, then she shone her torch into the centre of the thicket. She could see the so-called burial mound clearly now. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as the name suggested. Only a few feet high and covered with nettles, it couldn’t have been more than twenty feet in diameter. She shone the torch around its perimeter and there were the tell-tale signs of a narrow path through the long grass at its base. The torch showed up some rabbit droppings and further on something larger deposited by a fox or a badger. Never mind. It was a path of sorts.

She stepped over the wire and followed the path round, snipping back the brambles as she went. Halfway round, the path veered left and she gave a small whistle of triumph. It was heading out of the copse again, down in the direction of the far side of the field just as she would have expected. She followed it, still using her torch although the daylight was stronger now. There at the edge of the copse she saw the deep furrows of the plough had come close to the edge, so close in fact that it had run into the copse itself, dragging the wire away from the posts again.

She stood surveying the damage; the posts had snapped off and the wire had been wrenched free and folded back, probably by Bill Turtill himself. She traced it with the torch light and saw part of one of the posts levered back out of the earth; nearby there were a couple of rusty spades. She smiled. More proof that there had been access to this area in the past. She remembered her phone and fished it out of her pocket. She could use it to photograph the site, just in case Bill was tempted to arrive early and move the evidence. She clicked the camera several times, blinking to adjust her eyes after the flash, then she stopped and pulled at the spades to arrange them in a closer group. They were hooked up with some other piece of metal, a crowbar of sorts. She bent and pulled it free. It was thin and rusty but still incredibly sharp and she let out an exclamation as it cut through her glove and sliced her palm. She cursed and threw the thing down, then took a picture of it before stashing her phone back in her pocket and looking for a wad of tissues to stanch the blood soaking through her glove.

Suddenly she bent and picked it up again, looking at it closely; it had a crosspiece at the handle, and a strange corroded lump on a short narrow shaft above that. She gasped in sudden realisation. She was holding an ancient sword. The wood around her seemed to be holding its breath. She was intensely aware suddenly of the silence and she shivered. She looked over at the mound. Beyond the brambles and nettles it looked higher than before; a definite shape. Man-
made, not just some natural lump in the field. And she was holding in her hand proof of the fact that this was some kind of burial mound, evidence which would hold up the order confirming the footpath. She glared at it. If she left it lying around, or if she threw it back into the undergrowth there was always the chance that someone would come across it with a metal detector. On impulse she tucked it into her bag. She would dump it somewhere else on the way home.

She glanced round, as she pulled the bag onto her shoulder, the sword sticking out of the top. She had her evidence of a right of way, and she had cleared access for the path. The light was growing. It would soon be sunrise. She could see a line of crimson appearing along the horizon to the south-east. She switched off her torch and listened for a minute, suddenly aware of a noise deep in the copse. It sounded like a groan. She froze, conscious of a sudden prickling at the back of her neck, then she thought of the animal track through the copse and smiled. It was a fox or a badger coming back to its lair. She stood still, listening. The wind had got up now and the leaves above her head were rustling; she could hear nothing else. Time to go back. She didn’t want to be seen out at this hour. As it was, Turtill would probably notice nothing if he came up later in the morning and by then it would be too late for him to deny there was a path; it would be there for all to see.

Carefully she retraced her steps, conscious of how heavy the sword was on her shoulder and as she came to the edge of the copse she paused again, glancing back uncomfortably. She had the strangest feeling that she was being watched. She swallowed hard, amazed to find she was feeling scared. There was no one around but as the wind dropped again she was very conscious of the absolute silence in the trees around her. Not even a bird made a sound. She took a step forward and heard a twig snap under her foot. It sounded deafening. Then in the distance she heard a horn. Not a car horn, not a hunting horn, it was more musical than that and it sounded like a warning, drifting up from the river. A fog horn, that was it, though it wasn’t foggy up here in the field.

She glanced down through the trees, still dark where the dawn light hadn’t reached. It was foggy there. Thick fog. Here, on the edge of the copse, the whole world seemed to be draped suddenly in spiders’ webs, hung with diamond dewdrops. She shivered. Time to go home. She was, she admitted as she hurried forward again, rather pleased that when she returned in three hours’ time she would be in the company of at least a couple of dozen other people, probably more.

Ken stuck his head out of the cabin door and glanced round the
Lady Grace
’s cockpit. With her single dagger keel she lay at an impossible angle on the mud. He glanced at his watch, screwing up his eyes to read the time. The tide must have turned. In fact he could see the water now, a dark shadow at the periphery of his vision. It was lighter now, dawn creeping imperceptibly up the sky out to sea. It was still a long way off sunrise. There was no sign of the mist or the ship it had brought with it.

He hauled himself out of the door and pushed it closed behind him. John was still asleep, though how he had managed it wedged so uncomfortably between bunk and cabin wall he wasn’t sure. He propped himself up on the lower of the cockpit seats and stared out. Birds were beginning to stir. He heard a lonely whistle somewhere out on the mud and saw the silhouette of a small wader already stalking across the wet surface close to the boat, probing swiftly for food amongst the shallow running channels of water. He looked at his watch again. Time was out of kilter. Was it morning or evening? Suddenly he wasn’t sure. The tide was in the wrong place, surely. He found he was shivering violently.

Suddenly remembering, he groped in his pocket for his mobile. There was a good signal now, and he had missed four calls, all from Zoë. He glanced again at his watch and then he called her back. She did not pick up. With a frown he dialled the house phone. It was a long time before Amanda answered. She was frantic and she was alone.

It was another hour before there was enough water to lift them off the mud. Ken made no attempt to sail. The engine started first go.

Amanda was waiting for them on the landing stage. Her face was white and strained and there were huge dark rings under her eyes. ‘She went off with Leo to look for you.’

Ken had already noticed the
Curlew
was absent. ‘When did they leave?’

‘I don’t know. I was asleep. Quite late. We were frantic with worry about you both and I wanted to call the police or the coastguard or something. She said to leave it for a while because of the tides and things, and I went upstairs to lie down. I must have fallen asleep almost at once. I feel awful. I slept right through till you rang.’

John grimaced. ‘So much for wifely concern!’

‘You were worn out,’ Ken said placatingly.

‘We were stuck on the mud without any mobile reception,’ John went on. ‘I am so sorry. The last thing we wanted was to worry you.’

‘And now Zoë is missing,’ Amanda went on. ‘This guy she’s with, Leo, I take it he is an experienced sailor?’

‘Oh yes, he’s experienced all right,’ Ken replied grimly.

They all turned to survey the river. It was deserted.

Neither man had mentioned the ghost ship as they came back up the river. It wasn’t until they had tied up to the buoy and were pulling in the dinghy that Ken had glanced at John. ‘Best not mention what happened last night,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to scare anyone.’

John nodded. ‘I was hoping that bit was a hallucination,’ he said.

‘Let’s agree that it was.’ Ken gave a tight smile. ‘All part of the romance of this lovely coast, eh?’

The three of them walked up to the house and let themselves in. Ken paused on the threshold and looked round as if half hoping Zoë would have returned. They could have landed further down-river and come back by road or something, but the house was silent.

Amanda shivered. She had long ago moved all traces of the séance, but she was intensely aware of the possibility of a presence in the great room. The two men had disappeared upstairs for a shower and, at least in John’s case, some sleep. Within minutes she was alone again.

She went outside and walked down the path and over the grass towards The Old Forge. Pushing open the gate, she went up to the front door and knocked. There was no reply; she walked round to the back of the building and rattled the handle of the back door. To her surprise it opened easily. She stepped in.

‘Hello? Anyone there?’

The kitchen was a mess. The supper dishes were stacked in the sink – a meal for one, she noted, but a messy cook. She stood looking round. Attractively untidy, she decided. Artistic, but not contrived to be so. The real thing. Painting materials, cooking stuff – he was a real cook, there were herbs and olive oil and other tell-tale signs of someone who did the genuine thing, and a pleasant smell of spices and coffee and something sharp – presumably turpentine. Intrigued she went over to the bookshelf. She liked kitchens with bookshelves, particularly when the books weren’t only cookery books. Here there were local guides, a tide table, catalogues of seeds and computer software, a telephone directory, all sorts. She moved along to the table on which lay a pile of sketches.

‘What are you doing in here?’

Amanda jumped out of her skin at the child’s voice so close beside her. She stared at the small skinny girl in the T-shirt and jeans. She had huge grey eyes, red hair and freckles, and her face had a sprinkling of pockmarks which looked angry and painful. This was obviously the notorious Jade about whom they had heard at the dinner party. ‘I’m looking for Leo,’ she answered as she recovered her composure.

‘He’s not here.’

‘Where is he, do you know?’

The child shook her head.

‘I’m staying with Zoë and Ken across the grass there.’ Amanda waved towards the window.