Death on the Downs

Forty-Three

Carole had passed a night of misery, probably as close to despair as she’d even been. Immobilized in her cold prison, she envisaged the slow death that she must suffer. Would hunger get to her first, or would the hypothermia win? Either way, it wouldn’t be an easy passage out of life.

After the departure of her captor’s vehicle, the total silence had begun to be broken. Not by human sounds, but by the rustling and scuttering of small animals, to whom the night belonged. In their world, Carole was an intruder, an alien presence. At first they would keep a proper distance from her, but then, when they realized she was incapable of movement, they would become bolder. As the strength drained from her body, they might not wait till death to obey their scavenging instincts. It was not a cheering thought.

She didn’t think she slept at all, but the suddenness with which she was aware of the light outside meant that maybe she had dozed fitfully towards the end of the night. Her body felt bruised, aching from the hardness of the floor and the constrictions of her bonds. In spite of the cold, she had managed to control her bladder through the night, but she knew that couldn’t last for ever.

Carole Seddon was a fastidious woman; she didn’t want to die in a mess of her own making.

She didn’t want to die full stop. Now that death was a realistically imminent possibility, she realized how enormously she wanted to live. She wanted to see Jude again. She wanted to see Ted Crisp. She wanted to experience another bone-headedly enthusiastic welcome from Gulliver. She wanted to walk again on Fethering Beach with the dog scampering manically around her.

But none of that looked very likely, as thin sunlight, reflected in pools of stagnant water, began to play on the slimy dome of the cave. The day had started for the rest of the world. In her prison that was irrelevant. However hard they searched, no one would ever find her here. She had been left to die in her own time. She found herself praying for a big freeze-up so that that time would be as short as possible.

She had reached the point where she could deny the imperative of her bladder no longer, when she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Even though she felt certain that it was her captor returning, the fact that he had come back gave a disproportionate lift to her spirits.

His return changed the nature of her incarceration. All through the night she’d thought he’d left her there to die. Now it was clear he had some other agenda. Carole Seddon wasn’t about to be murdered; she had merely been kidnapped.

She shut her mind to the other reasons why he might have come back to her.

His body blocked the light as he rolled in through the narrow aperture. Carole wasn’t feeling light-hearted, but she thought a light-hearted approach might be worth trying.

“If you’ve come to give me another loo-break,” she said, “you’re only just in time.”

He didn’t speak, but untied the end of the rope from its root and helped her out into the open. The air was cold outside, but didn’t have the deathly chill of the cave.

“You’re going to have to untie me or I’ll wet myself.”

He obliged, releasing her legs. But he only freed one hand, keeping her like a child on a parental lead in a shopping precinct. For a moment Carole thought she’d fall over, but she stamped some consciousness into her legs and arms, before giving in to the urgency of her bladder and squatting down. Again he averted his eyes.

Once she’d rearranged her clothing, Carole sat down facing her captor. “How long are you planning to keep me here?”

“That depends,” he said, the first words he’d spoken to her that morning. “Depends on how much you know.”

“About what?”

“Don’t play games!” He snatched at the rope that still held her wrist and gave it a vicious tug.

Carole realized that, up until that point, she’d just been lucky. He wasn’t afraid to hurt her; he just hadn’t hurt her so far.

“I know some of what you know,” he went on. “Will Maples keeps his ears open in the Hare and Hounds.”

“And he tells you everything, does he?”

“Will Maples owes me a few favours.” He grinned complacently.

“Why? Is it something to do with drugs?”

“Oh, well done. Not just a pretty face, are you?” His grin turned cruel. “Not even a pretty face. Still, you’re right. Will Maples has been dealing drugs from the Hare and Hounds ever since he’s been there. I’ve known that for a long time, and so for a long time he’s done exactly what I tell him.”

“Otherwise you’ll shop him to his bosses?”

“Exactly.”

“Is he involved with the Brighton dealers?”

“Yes.”

“Strange life yours, isn’t it?” Carole felt defiant now. Since nothing she said was likely to do her much good, she might as well say what she thought. “A counterbalance of threats and blackmail. You’ve got information on someone, they’ve got information on you.”

“Exactly, Carole. And so long as the people concerned agree to keep that information to themselves, everything in the garden’s lovely.”

“And, if they don’t agree to keep that information to themselves?”

“Ah, then…” He shook his head regretfully. “Then, I’m afraid, they have to die.”

Suddenly he was alert to a sound that Carole had not heard. “Get in the cave!” he hissed. “There’s someone coming!”