The Rhyme of the Magpie (14 page)

I froze in my spot, staring up into those cold black eyes. He was a tall man in his forties, bigger in person than in the newspaper or on television, and broad like a bodybuilder with a thick, muscular neck and a chiseled face. His dark-blond hair was barely long enough to run a comb through. He wore a gray suit and a red club tie ill-suited to his coloring. Linus performed introductions.

“Ms. Lanchester,” Woodcock said, holding out a hand to me. “What a delight to meet you. You are Rupert Lanchester's daughter, aren't you? I had no idea you were working here on the Fotheringill estate.”

Liar, I thought.
Liar
—what's your game? Are you the one who sent Rupert a menacing letter to get him to back off? And now you're hoping to scare his daughter into going along with your latest ploy?

I locked my eyes on Linus, shocked and light-headed that he would even entertain the idea of taking money from Woodcock. Linus saw my look and reddened, but smiled tentatively.

“Mr. Woodcock,” I said. I reached across the counter, shook once, and pulled my hand away, wiping it on my skirt when they weren't looking.

“It was a particular desire of Mr. Woodcock's to stop and meet you today, Julia,” Linus said, flicking a bead of sweat from his forehead. “I've told him a great deal about what you've accomplished and what our hopes are for the estate. He believes that investing in our enterprise today will make a difference tomorrow.”

And you actually swallowed that?
But I didn't say it aloud. It can't be Linus's fault that Woodcock saw an opportunity to stick it to Rupert, but to use the Fotheringill estate for his egregious purposes was cruel.

“We'll leave you now, Julia,” Linus said. “I must get ready for my tour this
afternoon—taking
our volunteers round the Hall. And I know that Mr. Woodcock needs to be on his way as well.”

Linus acted the border collie and herded Woodcock out the door before I could make a scene. As soon as they left, I followed, taking my bag along and feeling round inside for my phone as I stood out on the pavement. Linus's bike leaned up against the wall by the chemist's shop three doors down. He and Woodcock shook hands; Linus donned his helmet, clipped his trousers, and cycled away. I made straight for Woodcock and caught up with him just where the road bends to the left.

“Mr. Woodcock,” I called. He held up and turned, looking not a bit surprised.

“Yes, Ms. Lanchester.”

“I don't know what excuse you gave Lord Fotheringill for choosing his estate as a cover for your company's dealings, but I know it isn't out of goodwill. You knew I was here, and you thought it would be the easy way to get to my father. Will you try to hold the entire estate hostage? What do you think you can get for buying off Lord
Fotheringill—Rupert's
surrender when it comes to your latest wind-farm scheme—the one north of here, near Weeting Heath?”

His face revealed nothing. “I'm not sure I understand you. Are you turning down the offer of investment in the village and estate? An injection of cash would not only keep you employed, but also provide needed services to those less fortunate Fotheringill tenants. We have some exciting plans for the area—won't you listen before you reject us out of hand?”

“You don't like what Rupert is doing—exposing the way you sidestep evidence. It's already been shown what a wind farm would do to stone curlews on that site—the sort of damage the turbines could cause. Collisions, for one thing, but apart from that, the birds will be displaced from a highly suitable habitat. This is a special place for wildlife—move your wind farm elsewhere.”

“Rupert has taught you well, Ms. Lanchester,” Woodcock said coolly, looking away.

“You're pretending to make amends here, because your plans are rubbish, and so is your public image—but you know that, don't you? And so the next thing you'll try is intimidation.”

“Intimidation? I don't know what you mean.” Woodcock frowned, but it was a toy frown, not a real one. He was mocking me. “I assure you that the control of our image—the face of Power to the People—is well under control. I'm surprised you haven't realized that already.”

The “face” of Power to the People was dead.

“Was Kersey getting cold feet about working for you?” I asked, and Woodcock's jaw clenched.

“Mr. Kersey lost his usefulness to the company long before he died,” Woodcock said. “I won't have my people turning tricks while my back is turned.”

Did Woodcock stop Kersey before he could talk to Rupert and blow the whistle on Woodcock and his dealings? A wave of nausea swept through me, and I broke out in a cold sweat as I realized I could be standing in front of a killer. For just a moment, I panicked, telling myself that perhaps I shouldn't leap so readily into his line of sight. But I paid no heed to my own advice.

“Did you do that to him?” I whispered.

“You should watch your accusations, Ms. Lanchester—and tell Rupert to take care how close he gets. After
all”—Woodcock's
smile was nothing more than a straight line across his face—“your father's reputation isn't all that it's cracked up to be, now is it?”

My mind, like a pendulum, swung in a wide arc and arrived back at the letter. “You think threats are enough to get my dad to back off? You're mistaken—and you'll be in for an unpleasant shock when the police pay you a visit.”

I whirled on the spot, charged round the corner, and ran smack into the two stout women walkers.

“God, I'm so sorry,” I said as I chased after their walking sticks, which had clattered to the ground and rolled into the road. I glanced back round the bend. I noticed Woodcock, already to the next corner, in a heated conversation with someone I couldn't see who stood deep in a shop doorway. Woodcock pointed an accusatory finger at the person. I returned to the pavement and gave the sticks to the women. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, dear, we're not hurt,” said Janet as she straightened her jacket. But the women's faces were flushed; they took their walking sticks in chokeholds and looked at each other as if waiting for a cue.

“Are you sure you're all right?” I asked, with one more look over my shoulder in Woodcock's direction.

“It isn't us that's hurt,” said the one with the brown hair. “It's that fellow.”

My head whipped round to them. “What fellow?”

“The one camping near the brook just inside the wood.”

No, this wouldn't do. We didn't have anyone camping in the area, and I was sure that Linus didn't want to open his fields to just anyone without some sort of filtering system.

“Did he bother you? You should've reported it to me right away; we'll have to get the police out.”

“We were up by those caravans, and he left us alone. It isn't that,” Janet said, taking my arm in a firm grip. “But you will want to ring the police—we've come in to report an abduction.”

“My God, he abducted someone? You saw it?” This was getting worse by the second. I dug for my phone.

“No, no,” Janet said, waving her hand in my face. “We think someone took him. Well, we don't think—we saw it.”

“Here now, Janet, let me tell the story from the start or she'll never understand.” I held my phone in my hand, poised to dial 9-9-9 as the one with the brown hair began. “You see, he was there when we set up camp on Wednesday evening, but as we told you, we mind our own business and expect others to do the same. And that's what he did—just gave us a friendly wave is all. Then yesterday, in the afternoon, he left. Drove off in his car—a little blue one. He left his camp behind, and didn't return until this morning.”

I stared at the brown-haired walker, my attention stuck on something she said, but I hadn't time to think about it before Janet took up the tale. “We began packing today, and it looked as if he was doing the same. Then a dark car drove into the wood and a small man got out.”

“He was wearing a suit,” the other one interrupted.

Janet nodded and continued. “The two of them started to talk. We couldn't hear what they said, of course, we were too far off, and so we turned back to our kit. Next thing we knew, we heard a voice, louder this time, and when we looked over”—Janet covered her mouth as if she couldn't go any further.

“It was dreadful,” the other said. “We think the man in the dark car might've had a gun. We saw him push the camper into the boot of his car.” She whispered the words and looked around the pavement as if we were being overheard. “Off he drove. We were so shocked, we couldn't move.”

“There was nothing we could do,” Janet said. “We've come here to report it—it'll be a police matter now.”

I rubbed at the pricking sensation creeping up my arms. My voice was weak, my breath shallow, and my face felt cold with sweat.
“Terrible—that's
terrible. Yes, I'll ring the police now.”

The women eyed each other. “We went over to his campsite before we came here, and we brought something in—evidence, I suppose you'd call it. He wore it the whole time we saw him, but it must've got knocked off his head when that fellow…”

Janet set her rucksack on the pavement and unzipped it. “See here what he left behind,” she said. Out of her pack she pulled Rupert's field hat.

I lost all sense of hearing, and the world became vague, unfocused shapes as I stood barely breathing, my eyes riveted on the hat, taking in each tiny detail. I could see where Mum had patched it along the brim. Dad replaced his field hat regularly and should've done last summer, but when Mum died, he refused to give this one up. He'd always kept it clean, but this hat had been living rough for a few days—the brim was grimy and bent. This couldn't be Rupert's hat—what would Rupert's hat be doing camping in the wood on the far side of the Hall?

My hand reached out in slow motion until I touched it and knew it to be real. My hearing returned, and I understood that the one with the brown hair was talking.

“Here, you take it,” she said, thrusting the hat into my hands.

“And there's his car,” Janet said. “Parked behind a scrubby holly.”

“Sky-blue Fiat 500,” I said, barely able to speak the words.

“Oh, you do know him,” Janet said, and they both sighed with relief. “There now, we've done what we should and you can give the police our report. We'll be off—there's camping at the White Horse at Tattingstone and a quiz night on Sundays.”

They left in a hurry, and I stood clutching their piece of evidence to my chest, afraid to confirm what I suspected, and, at the same time, afraid not to know. At last, I put my face into the hat and breathed deeply. I could smell him—my dad. My dad camping a stone's throw from my own village. Hiding out? And now, stuffed into the boot of a car.

I rang Flint's number and, at the same time, began to run, Dad's hat and my bag in hand, to the end of the high street and beyond the village. By the time he answered, I had reached the drive of the Hall and stopped to catch my breath. I tried to focus on the pain in my side and not the fear in my heart.

“Flint,” he answered.

“Gone!”
I screamed, and heard my voice come back as a distant echo. “Someone has taken him. He was here, and now he isn't.”

“Ms. Lanchester?”

“Someone has kidnapped my dad,” I said, just managing to get the words out ahead of a sob.

Flint shot questions at me—where was I, who had seen him, where were these two stout women witnesses, how did I know this was Rupert's campsite?

“Remain at the scene, Ms. Lanchester. Is anyone with you? I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll ring Sudbury station—they can be out quicker. And please don't walk round that campsite—not until we've been able to take a look. I'll phone you from the car on my way.”

I'd reached the wood where the secondhand caravans sat like a gaggle of geese in the corner of the field. I climbed over the stile, panting, and wiped the sweat out of my eyes. I took in the scene as I caught my breath.

The women had camped near the caravans. I walked round the ashes of their fire and looked toward the wood—I could see Dad's brown tent behind a stand of elder only because I knew to look.

I walked over, and when I got closer, I recognized not only the tent but also the camp stove, chair, and cooler. Dad always had camping gear in the shed at Marshy End, ready to leave for the wilderness at a moment's notice. Mum, Bianca, and I had always preferred a more refined
holiday—something
at least out of the weather.

“Dad?” I called without hope toward the tent. “Rupert?” I called to the trees.

I stood in the middle of the campsite as I held Dad's hat and shivered, feeling a fine mist settle on my thin cardigan and nest in my hair. I scoured the scene and saw a set of tire tracks coming in from the road that led straight to my Fiat behind the holly. I scanned the field and peered into the wood, looking for movement. I stuck my head inside the tent and saw a change of clothes folded up on his sleeping roll, a battery lantern, binoculars, and his notebook.

I grabbed Dad's notebook out of the tent before I picked my way to the edge of the wood and made my second call.

Michael answered with “Where are you?”

I fought tears and struggled to keep my voice even. “He was right here under my nose, Michael, and he never said a word—right here, and now he's gone. Someone's taken him—a man in a dark car,” I added, in barely more than a whisper. As I talked, I paced back and forth between two rowan trees, flushing out a linnet on my way. “I rang Flint—he's on his way.” I wiped away the tears that dripped from my chin.

“Julia,
where
are you?”

I spread my arms out. “Here,” I said. “There's a field beyond the Hall with a few caravans in it. Next to a wood. You come out if you want, but I won't stay any longer than I have to after the police arrive.”

“I'll be there in five minutes.”

I moved away from the campsite and waited by one of the caravans, unable to stop trembling. Three minutes later, Michael pulled off the road, hopped the stile, and ran to me just as the Sudbury police arrived.

“Kidnapped,” I said into his shoulder as he held me tight. I choked out the rest of what I knew to him and the two PCs, who began circling Dad's campsite as if taking the measure of it. Flint arrived not long after, the blue police light flashing in the window of his car.

I began with a description of the women walkers, although I could identify them only as Janet and the other one. Flint wondered why they hadn't recognized Rupert Lanchester from the television. He took Dad's hat out of my hands and gave it to a PC.

Michael and I now told him every bit of information about Rupert, speculation or not. I'd been carrying the crank letter about in my bag—I now handed it over. Flint read it, his caterpillars drawing together in a frown. “Withholding evidence,” he said with a steely gaze at us, “is not only against the law, it can hinder an
investigation.”

He said it mildly, but I could feel the weight of the law on me, and I frantically searched my memory for anything that might appease the sergeant, whether it was about the letter or Kersey. I pointed the finger at Gavin, offered details about the Wheaten Cairn, and added the encounter with Woodcock—my latest prime suspect.

“Woodcock was talking to someone in the village, just after I saw him,” I said. “I think they were arguing. I couldn't see who it was—someone standing in a doorway—but it might've been one of Dad's captors.”

“It was me,” Michael said. The force of his words almost knocked me over.

“You were…talking with Oscar Woodcock? You know him?”

“I was in the village to see you after your lunch with Rupert,” Michael said to me, “and I ran into him. I asked him about the Weeting Heath wind-farm project, and he told me to mind my own business.”

Flint cleared his throat. “Rupert rang the station this morning.”

“What? You spoke to him? What did he say?”

The sergeant shook his head. “I was in court all morning, and had only just got back to the station when I heard from you. I rang, but his wife answered and said he was out and would I ring back later.”

Oh God, Beryl.

Flint returned to the scene and Michael stayed. I kept my eyes on the police officers' movements to see if I could read anything into their body language, but looked up at him briefly and put my hand over his.

“Here,” he said, pulling my TIC keys out of his jacket pocket.

“How did you get these?”

“When I went to see you, the door was wide open, lights on, and no one was about. I was ready to phone when you rang. I found the keys on the table in back and locked up.”

“Oh God,” I said with a groan. “No one is at work. But I can't go back now—I need to go and see Beryl. She'll be frightened if the police show up.”

“I'll drive you.”

How tempting it was to think of Michael by my side, taking the edge off the painful job I had to do. I shook my head. “No, I need to do this alone.” I kissed him on the cheek. Beryl didn't need an audience when she heard this news, and I must do this for Dad, if not for her. I went to find Flint.

The sergeant released my car. It had been dusted for fingerprints and the police had looked at every inch of it, finding it clean except for a heavy chain and lock in the boot—I explained that was for the door of my lockup. Now the black interior of my Fiat was covered with a white powder that stuck to my hands when I tried to brush it off.

“Will you let me know if you need anything?” Michael asked.

“Yeah.” I was reluctant to leave him, and we stood for a moment, holding hands and not speaking. I was grateful he had been so close when I needed him. “Why were you looking for me? You weren't going to cancel our date, were you?” I asked it with a weak smile.

Michael shook his head. “I wanted to talk with you—there's something I need to explain. I thought it would be better this afternoon—it would only complicate the evening.”

The evening hadn't seemed complicated to me—just highly anticipated. Dinner and then what came after dinner. But not now. “We'll have to postpone,” I said. “I'm sorry—I should be with Beryl.”

“No apology necessary. When Rupert's really and truly home, then we'll make an evening of it.”

Standing on the front step in Cambridge, I gave a passing thought to my appearance. I rang the bell and quickly tucked my blouse back into my skirt and slipped off my shoes, which were caked in dirt and grass. I reached up and smoothed my hair just as Beryl opened the door.

Emotions flew across her face—surprise, delight, and confusion. What was I doing on her doorstep when I should be having lunch with my dad? Then she took in the state of me.

“Oh God,” she said, clutching the door with both hands and swaying slightly.

I caught her, amazed at how light she felt. “No, no—it isn't…he's all right, I'm sure he is. Come on, I'll tell you everything I know.”

We walked to the kitchen, and she sank into a chair at the table, her eyes wide and her face pale.

“Beryl, did Dad come home yesterday?”

“Yes, he appeared at the door in the late afternoon,” she said weakly. “Full of apologies. And then this morning”—thank God she didn't try to provide me any details of their evening—“he said he would go back and gather his gear and have lunch with you.” She swallowed hard. “Was it an accident?”

“Dad is missing, but that's all, Beryl.” That's all we knew. Amazing the words that come across loud and clear even when they aren't spoken.

“Missing? Julia, please tell me what's happened.” She straightened her spine as if steeling herself for a blow.

I told her.

She took the story with her signature composure, except for the tremor in her hands. She clasped them tightly, but it didn't help.

“The police are looking. They'll find him.” I got up to fill the kettle to avoid her gaze, which demanded the bare truth. “I spoke with him yesterday.”

A bit of color came back into Beryl's face, and she managed a smile. “He told me. I'm so glad, Julia. He was surprised, though, all that you and Michael had been up to.”

For one second I was back in bed with Michael, but the vision vanished and left me with an empty feeling. I stuck my chin in the air. “Well, I'll catch him up when he's home.”

Flint arrived. We settled with our cups of tea as the sergeant, still wearing his raincoat, questioned Beryl on Dad's homecoming.

She shook her head. “He apologized for not being in touch sooner, but it's his way and I told him I understood. He told me where he'd been and I said wasn't Julia surprised and he…”

She cut her eyes at me. Yes, wasn't I just surprised to learn Dad had been camping a short walk from my front door.

“We are taking this matter quite seriously, Ms.
Lanchester”—Flint
looked at Beryl but seemed to realize we might both be Ms. Lanchesters. He paused and flipped through a small notebook. “Ms. Fenwith?”

Beryl gave me a sideways look. “Mrs. Lanchester.”

A sliver of ice cut through my heart. I surprised myself how quickly I could turn.

Flint continued. “We are talking with everyone Rupert might have been in contact with recently, and we will conduct a door-to-door in the area. If either of you think of anyone else, ring me no matter what the time.”

The sergeant offered up a few more details. They'd not located the walkers yet. After Michael's chat with Woodcock, Michael had seen him driving out of the village in his bright red BMW. So, not a dark car.

An uneasy feeling began to stir inside me, and I pushed away my mug. What had Michael wanted to talk with me about? Or had he really intended to meet Woodcock, and now that Rupert was missing, that sounded too suspicious? That feeling I'd had the past few days that someone was watching me—was that Michael or Dad?

Flint interrupted my line of thought. They'd found Gavin, who had said he'd been at Otmoor all day observing a glossy ibis. I pointed out that Otmoor was only Oxfordshire, not the ends of the earth—he easily could've made the drive.

“What will he do—the man who took him?” My voice sounded high and tinny in my own ears.

“Celebrities can be the target of misdirected ill will,” Flint said, his voice kind and soothing, “but that in no way means harm will come to him. I'll have an officer nearby, and I'll be back in touch later. You may receive a phone call.” He didn't say a ransom demand, but isn't that what we were thinking? “If so, promise nothing and contact me at once. Will you return home?” he asked me.

“No, I'll stay here,” I said, and then turned to Beryl for confirmation. She reached out her hand, and I met her halfway. We had a common goal now, Beryl and I—find Rupert.

After Flint left, an awkwardness fell over the two of us. In the silence of the kitchen, familiar sounds that usually faded into the background stood out front and center. I heard ticking and looked above the sink to remind myself of the clock Mum had put up years ago. Instead of numbers, the clock face had twelve little bottles of wine. I remember being mesmerized by it when I was quite young, and would shout out the time—“Five bottles past the hour!”—often enough to drive my sister batty.