Heathen/Nemesis

Sixty-Two

The cottage stood about two hundred yards back from the road, accessible only by a narrow drive flanked on both sides by stone walls. The walls extended round not only the front garden but the entire property, stark grey against the white walls of the cottage. The slate roof was mildewed in places and the guttering shaky, but otherwise the place was in a good state of repair.

Ward had bought it four years earlier with part of the advance on one of his books. He and Donna used it during the summer, making frequent weekend trips; Ward himself had written at least two books there. The cottage had no phone, something he had insisted on to prevent interruption when he was working. The nearest neighbour, a farmer well into his seventies, was more than five miles and a range of low hills away.

Donna guessed that it was more than two months since she had been to the cottage.

She wondered if he had ever brought Suzanne Regan here and found it more than usually difficult to wipe the thought from her mind. Even the stress of the past few hours had not removed the memories of his betrayal.

She stood in the small sitting-room and ran her finger along the top of a sideboard, drawing a line in the dust that had accumulated. The room was about twelve feet square, furnished with old, antique oak merchandise they’d bought from a shop in Chichester during their first visit to the place. It had few ornaments: a vase or two, an ashtray and a couple of ceramic figures. The windows were leaded.

The ground floor consisted of just the sitting-room and a large kitchen. The entrance hall seemed disproportionately large. There was a trap-door in the centre of the kitchen floor, which led down to a deep cellar. Ward kept old manuscripts down there. He also kept a substantial store of wine in the subterranean room. He had never been a great wine drinker, but on every visit to the Mayfair Hotel in London (which he used often) he was presented with a complimentary bottle of wine. He never drank them but always brought them home with him to add to the array in the cellar.

The floor of the lower ground room was of earth. Donna rarely ventured down the wooden ladder into it; it was not well lit and, despite Ward’s attempts to convince her otherwise, she was certain that the entire cellar was seething with spiders, creatures she was frightened of.

A bare wood staircase led up to the first floor, which comprised a bathroom and two bedrooms. In the first bedroom a door opened onto a short flight of rickety steps that led to an attic. Ward had often threatened to have it converted into a work room but, as is the case with most attics, it remained nothing more than a storehouse for junk that wasn’t wanted elsewhere in the cottage.

The obvious thing seemed to be to retire to bed; both women felt crushing exhaustion. But they seemed to have reached that point where they could not sleep despite their tiredness. Donna took a hurried bath, Julie made them some tea and, as the hands on the clock above the open fireplace crawled round to 3.56, they both sat down, one on either side of the table in the centre of the room.

In the centre of the table were two aluminium boxes resembling metal attaché cases.

Donna flipped the first one open and lifted the lid.

In the half-light cast by the lamps the metal of the Smith and Wesson .38 and the Beretta 92s gleamed.

Donna took each weapon from the case in turn, checked it and replaced it. She then opened the second case and performed a similar ritual with the .357 and the Charter Arms .22.

She flipped the cylinders from the revolvers and checked the firing actions, listening to the metallic click of the hammers on empty chambers. She worked the slide of the Beretta, then took fifteen rounds from the box of 9mm ammunition. She thumbed them into the magazine before placing it carefully back in the box with the weapon.

She loaded the revolvers, too, leaving the chamber beneath the hammer empty. Those two she replaced, then carried upstairs.

‘I hope to God you know what you’re doing,’ said Julie when her sister returned.

‘This is life and death, Julie,’ she said solemnly.

‘Then why don’t you just call the police?’ the younger woman said, agitated.

Donna didn’t answer; she merely sipped her tea.

‘I think you want it to come to this, don’t you?’ Julie snapped. ‘You don’t care if you kill them.’

‘They tried to kill me.’

‘And if you do kill anyone, you’ll be the one who’ll go to prison.’

‘I’ll take that chance.’

‘Let’s just hope it doesn’t go that far.’

‘It already has.’

They regarded each other for long moments, then Julie reached into her handbag for the envelope. She handed it to Donna, who turned it over in her hands, seeing Ward’s handwriting on the front. She smiled thinly and ran her index finger over the Biro scribble.

I miss you.

‘It can wait until morning,’ she said quietly. ‘We should get some sleep.’

Julie agreed.

Donna took the envelope upstairs with her and laid it on the bedside table. Before she got into bed she touched it once, running her fingertips over the smooth manilla package. Then, naked, she slipped between the sheets.

Her last waking thought was of her dead husband. As she drifted off to sleep, a single tear rolled from her eye.

I miss you.