Death on the Downs

Forty-One

The vehicle clattered to a halt and its lights were switched off. The darkness around them was thick, almost tangible. They had left the village on the track that led towards South Welling Barn, but soon veered off cross-country, over bumpy fields, through woodland. Carole had quickly lost her bearings. Apart from the fear, all she felt was a desperate desire to pee.

She had tried talking to him at first, but got no response and soon gave up.

Carole had no idea where they were. Just before the lights had been switched off, she’d had an impression of something rising up ahead of them, some barrier, but she hadn’t had long enough to identify it.

She felt a solid point pressing against her side. Not pressed hard enough to pierce her layers of clothes, just enough to remind her that he still had the knife. And wasn’t afraid to use it.

“We get out here.” He reached to a shelf under the steering column and produced a large rubber torch, which he switched on. He flashed it across into Carole’s face, probably just to blind and disorient her while he got out of the vehicle. Then he opened the door her side.

“Out. Don’t try anything.”

“What do you think I’m going to try?” demanded Carole, glad at last of the opportunity for some kind of dialogue. “I don’t make a habit of carrying hidden weapons. I’ve no idea where we are, so I’m hardly going to make a run for it, am I?”

“I’m sure you’re not. But, in spite of that, I’m afraid I’m going to have to tie you up.”

A coil of rope was lifted into the cone of light. He must have picked it up at the same time as the torch. Nylon rope, stridently orange. The bright colour brought to Carole’s mind the piercing blue of the fertilizer sacks that she’d found in South Welling Barn. She shivered as she stepped out into the torch-beam.

But other priorities were more pressing than her fear. “You’re not going to tie me up before I’ve had a pee. Otherwise it could be extremely messy.”

He hesitated for a moment. Then, “All right.”

The torch was still focused on her. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of privacy,” Carole snapped. “But I suppose, if you imagine that I’m about to run away with my tights around my ankles, then you’d better keep me fully illuminated…”

She reached down through the folds of her Burberry to lift her skirt. The torch-beam stayed put, then faltered and moved discreetly away. At least he had some decency.

The pee was a merciful release, but Carole felt the coldness of the night on her bare flesh. How long was he planning to keep her there? She wondered again where they were, and what he planned to do once she was tied up.

Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness and, as she straightened her clothes, Carole managed to get some impression of her surroundings.

There was a cliff ahead of her. Though mostly obscured by scrubby vegetation and dangling tendrils of ivy, here and there a dull white glowed through. They were in an old chalk pit. She knew there were many such workings on the Downs. Some, like the one at Amberley, were even tourist attractions.

But it was a long time since anyone had visited the forsaken spot where Carole Seddon found herself. Thick woodland had grown right up to the foot of the chalk cliff.

“Done?”

“Yes.”

The torch-beam swung round to frame her as she finished straightening her Burberry.

“Right. Don’t try anything. I’ve still got the knife. Put your arms behind your back.”

She could do nothing but what she was told. She felt the rope tightening around first one wrist and then the other as he strapped them together. He wasn’t gratuitously sadistic. He tied the rope over the cushion of her jumper and raincoat, and not so tight as to wrench her shoulder blades.

But tight enough. There was no way she could free herself.

He stopped when her wrists were secure.

“Aren’t you going to do my feet too?” asked Carole, managing to find a note of insolence from somewhere.

“Not yet,” he replied ominously. “Come on, walk ahead of me. I’ll show you where to go.”

The beam of the torch marked out the route. They seemed to be heading through a tangle of snagging undergrowth straight towards the cliff face.

Carole stopped. “I can’t go any further.”

“Yes, you can. Down on your knees. Push that lot aside.”

Once again, the torch-beam showed her the way. Pushing through the natural barbed wire of roots and creepers, she saw a narrow horizontal crevice in the chalk. Its lips were stained green with the slime of old vegetation.

“Inside.”

A cold recollection came to Carole. She was sitting in the Forbeses’ dining room and Harry Grant was talking to her. “There are some nasty places out on the Downs…Marshy bits…Chalk pits…Caves…We used to scare ourselves witless, some of the games we played. Tying each other up, that kind of stuff. Not very nice to each other, kids…Certainly we lot weren’t.”

She started to object. “But I – ”

“Inside!”

Once again, obedience was Carole’s only option. She kneeled, crouched and slid, awkwardly crabwise, into the gap.

Inside she found herself slipping down, and would have rolled, but for the tension of the rope securing her wrists.

She didn’t slide far. The cave was bigger than it appeared from outside, but not very big. She felt a sepulchral chill. There was a smell of death, of trapped air, stagnant water, rotted vegetation.

The space filled with flickering light as he came in after her.

“Now we do your feet.”

Again, he wasn’t vindictive as he trussed her ankles together. But he was efficient. There was no way she’d be able to free herself unaided from those knots.

But Carole’s panicked mind was still circling on thoughts of escape. Though the floor of the chalk cave was lower than its entrance, she still reckoned, if she were left alone, even tied up as she was, she’d be able to work her way back up and out.

He put paid to the thought even before it had taken proper shape. The low curved ceiling of the natural vault was broken here and there by gnarled rafters of tree roots. And round one of these thick loops of wood he tied the loose end of the orange rope.

He left enough slack so that Carole’s legs weren’t actually lifted off the ground, but not enough for her to be able to stand up. She was stuck where she lay until someone decided to untie her.

“Why’re you doing this?” she demanded. “What do you hope to get out of it? This is only going to make things worse for you.”

He didn’t answer, just let out a little dry laugh.

Then he flashed the torch over his handiwork to check the knots were solid and rolled back out of the cave. Leaving total darkness. And the smell of death.

Carole felt her body trembling uncontrollably.

It trembled more when she heard the engine spark into life. The noise of the motor receded until it was lost in the silence of the dark.