Chapter 12
Tom
It was one thing to fear something terrible had happened, but quite another to be faced with the evidence of it.
“We need to get it out,” Tom said. In the heat, his eyes stung and watered. He closed the damper, not that it would make an immediate difference.
“It’s a thick wool backing, not easily burned.” Amelia peered inside, shielding her eyes. “It’s still rolled pretty neatly.”
“If I can get a good grip…” His voice strained as he latched onto the nearest end with the gloves and pulled.
The rug took some encouragement to get moving, but once he got it started, it slid out smoothly.
Amelia grabbed a large shovel to help guide it, and it landed on the ground with a thump.
The edge flopped open slightly, shooting sparks into the air.
With the shovel, Amelia stamped out a pile of embers that had flown onto the grass. She held the blade over the rolled rug, but hesitated. It was smoldering rather than burning, anyway, so there wasn’t much to stamp out.
“The smell…” Amelia said, screwing up her nose.
Tom couldn’t bring himself to respond. He grabbed a large poker with a curved end and flipped the top edge of the rug onto the grass, waving away sparks. “Can you weigh down this end with the shovel while I unroll it?”
She nodded, planting the shovel in place. He hesitated a second and then used the poker to coax the rug to roll open. The inside was less burnt, so once he got started, it swiftly unraveled and flapped to a stop.
No body.
He sat down hard on a pile of bricks while Amelia snuffed out the burning parts of the rug, sending smoke curling into the air. When she was done, she sat beside him, covering his nearest gloved hand with one of hers.
“Now it’s you who’s shaking,” she said, looking at him.
He nodded. His throat had tightened up too much to speak. After Eddie’s crash, his grandfather disappearing, his father dying, failing to save the house… He thought he had nothing much left to lose.
A few parts of the rug were unscathed: a rich blue lined with yellow needles, like rays of sun.
There were dark, dirty patches that could be explained by ash from the fire, but none was obviously a fresh bloodstain.
He couldn’t detect any gray hair, either, though it could have disintegrated in the heat.
It didn’t get them any closer to solving the mystery, but it wasn’t the worst-case scenario.
“Wool does smell pretty rank when it burns,” Amelia said. “That might account for the stench.”
She leaned into him, winding her arm through his.
She should not have to be sitting here comforting him after all she’d been through.
She should not be going through any of this.
He had to pull himself together. Get her to safety.
He eased away from her a little, and she got the hint and released him, though she kept a hand on his upper arm as they stood.
“So. This confirms we did see the rug,” she said. “But maybe it was just a rolled-up rug.”
“Being carried at stupid o’clock in the morning by people who had no business being here, whoever they were? And it was much fatter, at least in my memory.”
“Mine too,” she said grimly. “We were both sure there was a body, even if other things are hazy. It was definitely body-shaped. The way they were carrying it, it looked heavy, like there was a weight in it…”
“Plus, the gunshots, the person in Duncan’s house just now, the figure on the lane, even the missing bloody family book… I don’t think these things are coincidental.”
“And that rug is priceless—was. Why burn it unless it was—?”
“Contaminated? Maybe police forensics would be able to detect something.”
“I keep wanting to find some innocent explanation in all this. I don’t want it to be bad.”
Tom scanned their surroundings, taking off the gloves.
“There’s nothing obvious to suggest who was here last night—no footprints, nothing that doesn’t belong.
If there was a body, they could have got rid of it anywhere—the estate, the moor, driven it to Scotland…
And they disposed of the evidence in the most accessible place, thinking it’d be gone by the time anyone got wise to it. ”
“Hard to destroy a rug if not by fire. Who’d have known this incinerator was here?”
“Every estate would have an incinerator, though most aren’t as old as this. You’d just need to follow your nose.”
“My brain hurts—and not in a concussion way,” she added quickly, glancing at him. “At least, I don’t think it is.”
He grunted in sympathy. Between the throbbing hangover, the panic in his body and brain, and the oppressive cold sinking in through his forehead, his headache was approaching a category five. He took a smoky breath. “We should move on. Find that Land Rover key. Get out of here.”
She lightly touched his shoulder. “There’s still hope, Tom.”
He smiled solemnly, wishing he could share her optimism.
He appreciated that she was searching for an innocent explanation.
He too wanted to find one, but it seemed increasingly unlikely.
If only he’d said yes to Connor’s offer to drive back from London…
Though then Connor could well be driving into a death trap.
No one was due back at the abbey until the next tour after the weekend. What would poor Xanthe find by then?
They continued along to the hatch that led to the cellars, though it was so overgrown that it took some finding, and more time to haul ivy away.
It was locked with a rusty old padlock that required a few whacks with a rock to smash.
The hatch whined as Tom hauled it open. He grimaced, but everything around them remained still.
He shimmied down the metal ladder until he found the dirt floor, and switched on his phone torch to guide Amelia.
Once she was down, he gave her the phone while he climbed back up to quietly lower the hatch.
Anyone who came past would easily work out where they’d gone, but he had to hope they had enough time to get in and out before that happened.
Might be wise to take an alternative route out, just in case.
Amelia led the way down the curving tunnel, holding the phone like a shield. “So you have a priceless wine collection down here,” she whispered, glancing at the wine racks, “and all that’s protecting it is an old rusted lock? No security cameras, no alarms? Not even a working gate!”
“We have an air raid siren!”
“Not sure the Luftwaffe is your biggest threat, but sure.”
“We’ve never had problems with people breaking in. It takes commitment to get here. It’s not like someone’s going to stroll by and chance it. Besides, until recently, the house was rarely left unattended.”
“I guess.”
“And every penny we spend is a penny further into debt. Besides, even if we had a top-shelf security system, monitored alarms, the lot, it’s always going to be a while before help arrives, and by that time…” He shrugged, not that she would be able to see it.
“Security is relative,” she said.
“Indeed it is.”
“I’m going to be incredibly safe after this!” she added, so loudly he had to shush her. She looked around in panic, and then continued, her whisper dulled by the close air. “Remember you said last night that I’m statistically safer since the robbery? ‘Incredibly’ safe, you said.”
He winced. “Again, I’m sorry about that.”
“Well, how about now? I’ve been robbed in one country and shot at in an entirely different country, in a totally unconnected event. I will be statistically untouchable!”
“You really are an optimist, underneath all that cynicism. But yes, you’re basically immortal now.” He was not about to remind her that that discussion had concluded with them agreeing that fate paid no heed to statistics. And, strictly speaking, they hadn’t yet survived this.
Amelia shone the light into the nook where they’d found the brandy.
“I can’t see any other bottles there like it.
” She slowed. “You told me a funny story, just after we took a swig of it, while we were walking out. Something about your grandfather. I don’t remember the details.
My mind must already have been going fuzzy. ”
“I vaguely recall. About how he used to make a grand gesture out of taking dinner guests to the cellar and allowing them to ‘select a bottle, any bottle.’”
“Yes. What was the rest of it? You said something about how it seemed like a magnanimous gesture, but in reality he orchestrated it to show off his wealth.”
“The illusion of wealth, because the estate had begun to slide. He kept the truly valuable bottles back here in the darkest depths of the cellar. He would stand beside the light cord at the entrance while the guest chose, knowing they wouldn’t be rude enough to take a bottle beyond the circle of illumination, and that circle was a careful selection that was a decent-enough drop but not truly valuable.
But this one evening, a guest had a torch on her keyring and she marched off down the tunnel and chose something priceless.
He fumed for months. He didn’t even enjoy drinking it, he was that mad. ”
“It would backfire in this era, when everyone has a flashlight on their phone. I wonder if they ever grabbed a bottle of the salamander brandy.”
As they passed the Bordeaux section, a quiet growl sounded. Tom froze, unable to place it. Amelia turned slightly, touching her palm to her belly. “That was me, sorry.”
“You’re joking. That seriously sounded like wildlife. A particularly furious squirrel.” He was surprised his own stomach didn’t reply. “I know I should be thinking about life or death matters right now, but you know the one thing I can’t stop thinking about?”
“Sex, right?” she said, snapping to attention. “I know—me too. I’m so glad you said that. Do you think it’s the salamander effect?”
“I was going to say ‘food.’”
“Oh,” she squeaked, walking away at pace.