Country Pursuits (45 page)

The mystery of the hooded figure and suspicious car was solved that evening. Once again putting out the rubbish at closing time, Jack Turner saw a dark mysterious shadow, wearing a full-length hooded cloak, loitering near the Merryweathers' cottage. This time Jack was quicker off the mark. In a heroic, silent dash across the green he launched himself at the figure and rugby tackled it to the ground.

It quickly transpired the sinister figure was actually not very sinister at all. As the two rolled around on the grass, distinctly female shrieks came from the figure. When Jack rolled off, aghast, he was confronted by a tall, skinny, middle-aged woman wearing a pink ‘Devon Is Heaven' T-shirt under her cloak. She got up and breathlessly introduced herself as 45-year-old Valerie Higgins from Oxford. Wild-eyed and even wilder-haired, Valerie claimed to be Devon Cornwall's number one fan, despite the fact that she had spent months driving round the village unsuccessfully looking for Byron
Heights. ‘I thought he lived in a castle somewhere!' she cried. ‘I only wanted to knock on his door and ask him to sign my memorabilia.' At that point, a whole load of Devon photos and fanzines had fallen out from under her cloak.

At first Jack thought she was having him on. But when Valerie told Jack indignantly that the cloak was one of only fifty limited editions made for Devon's 1982 Pop Phantoms tour, and assured him she had no intention of murdering or robbing anyone, he decided she was fairly harmless. Still reeling from the fact that he'd rugby tackled a woman, Jack gave Valerie Higgins a sharp reprimand for stalking one of his punters and sent her on her way with a flea in her ear.

DEVON AND FRANCES
were walking round the garden at Byron Heights arm in arm. The mist had finally lifted and it was turning into a rather nice, if chilly winter's day. They passed the two stone lions at the end, still poised stoically on their platforms, their majestic faces covered with the remnants of early morning frost. ‘Do you realize this was where we first—' Devon said, but Frances interrupted him with a squeeze of her hand.

‘As if I'd ever forget,' she said, smiling.

They continued walking in the easy, companionable silence that had become so familiar to them. ‘How's Harriet?' Devon asked eventually, pausing to pluck a winter flower off a bush and hand it to Frances.

Her face lit up as she took it. ‘She's good, really good. She and Ambrose are getting on so much better, as well; it makes such a difference to everything.'

Devon looked at her, one eyebrow arched humorously. ‘The old man's giving the poor girl a break at last, eh?'

Frances playfully hit his arm. ‘Stop that! Ambrose
isn't a complete ogre.' She sighed. ‘If anything, I'm the bloody wicked witch of the west. I keep thinking about how I've treated Harriet over the years. Always going on at her about the silliest of things, making dreadful comments about her weight.' She sighed again. ‘I think it all said more about my own insecurities than hers. Harriet wasn't the one who needed to change,
I
was. I am trying now. I just hope she can forgive me.'

Devon stopped and wrapped his arms around her in an embrace. ‘Don't give yourself a hard time, princess. You're a cracking mum. I am sure Harriet feels the same way.' He kissed her forehead and made her smile again.

‘You are wonderful for one's self-esteem, darling,' she told him.

‘Just returning the favour,' he said. ‘I wouldn't have got anywhere near where I am now without you, Frannie.'

They stopped walking for a second, staring at each other and luxuriating in the moment. Then Devon spoke quietly. ‘Frances, I . . .'

He stopped mid-sentence and Frances looked concerned. ‘What is it? Are you all right?'

He tried to laugh. ‘Oh, I'm more than all right! This morning I signed up to a five-album deal with Sony records. You'd think by the way they were acting that the bloody Messiah had been found alive and well living in a phone box in Chipping Norton.'

Frances clasped his hands; ‘Darling, that's wonderful!' She studied him. ‘Why the long face?'

Devon shuffled his feet a bit. ‘They want me to go on a tour first, “Re-engage with my fan base”, I think is how they put it.'

Frances looked even more uncertain. ‘That's still good news, isn't it?'

Devon kicked a stone along the path in front of them, and it went flying off into a sparse-looking rose bush.

‘It's for four months, worldwide. Then they want me to go straight into the recording studios in Miami. They're the best in the world for equipment and facilities,' he explained.

Frances paused and studied him carefully. ‘In my heart of hearts, I knew this day would come,' she said. ‘You're too big for Churchminster, Devon. You always were.'

‘But
you're
here, Frannie,' he said, gripping her hands fiercely.

She smiled. ‘I'll always be here, Devon. It's where I belong, at Clanfield.'

Devon understood what she was trying to say. ‘I can't persuade you to run off with me, then?' he joked sadly.

‘One person in the family running off is
quite
enough, thank you,' Frances said, and put her arms around him so he wouldn't see her tears. It didn't work.

‘Hey, you'll always be my princess,' Devon said huskily into her hair. It smelt of apples.

Late that night Devon and Nigel were asleep in their respective wings of Byron Heights, Devon in the middle of a very pleasant dream in which he was being awarded an OBE for services to the music industry by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Suddenly there was a loud bang downstairs, and Devon shot up in bed gripping the duvet.

Bang! There it was again. Devon, his mind racing with every imaginable horror from ghosts to mad axe-men, was paralysed with fear. When someone knocked softly on his bedroom door, he nearly had a heart attack.

‘Devon! Are you awake?' Nigel's voice whispered urgently. Devon leapt out of bed and ran across the room. Unlocking the heavy wooden door, he pulled it open to find a white-faced Nigel standing there in his striped pyjamas. Devon pulled him inside and hastily locked the door behind them.

For once, Nigel looked positively unsettled. ‘Did you hear that noise?' he asked Devon anxiously.

‘ 'Course I bloody heard it! Now do you believe me? This place is bloody haunted. I knew I should've bought that new build in Cheltenham instead!' Devon was interrupted by another loud bang downstairs, followed by a bloodcurdling guttural howl. It went on for several terrible seconds before fading into the depths of the house.

Devon clutched Nigel. ‘That's what Frances and I heard before! Is there a fucking werewolf down there or something?' His teeth were chattering violently, and not through cold. ‘I-I wish Frances was h-h-here. She'd know what to do.'

Nigel tried to disengage himself from Devon. ‘We've got to go down there,' he told him. ‘It could be a burglar.'

‘Are you off your flaming rocker?' Devon hissed. ‘I'm not going down there!'

Some of Nigel's common sense was returning now. ‘Come on, and pull yourself together, there's
probably two of us against one of him,' he said firmly.

‘Or “it”!' Devon retorted, his eyes two round saucers of horror.

‘I'm going down there, with or without you,' said Nigel, collecting a poker from the fireplace and moving back towards the door.

Devon was in a quandary. ‘Shit!' he wailed. ‘You know I can't let you go by yourself.' Nigel didn't say anything, and Devon looked half-heartedly round the room for a weapon of his own, eventually settling for a rolled-up yoga mat that was propped by the side of his bed.

‘Going to stretch the intruder to death, are you?' enquired Nigel.

‘Oh shut up! I don't know how you talk me into these things.' Devon positioned himself behind Nigel, the yoga mat raised above his head like a baseball bat. ‘Let's go and get killed, then.'

Nigel silently unlocked the door and pushed it open. Outside, the wide sweeping corridor was a yawning chasm of darkness. There was another bang downstairs, this time followed by the unmistakable tread of slow, heavy footsteps. Devon gave a squeak of fear. ‘It's coming from the kitchen!' he whispered.

They crept down the stairs, Devon still hiding behind Nigel, his hands clawing at Nigel's pyjama sleeves. ‘Ouch, let go,' Nigel whispered angrily. ‘I can't move with you clamped on me like a baby koala!' As they reached the bottom, Devon reluctantly prised himself off and reached out to flick on a light switch. ‘Don't do that!' hissed Nigel. ‘We don't want to warn them we're coming!'

‘Yeah, or maybe we'll be able to see when they come for us,' said Devon unhappily, his hand dropping away from the wall.

They were half-way down the corridor, heading towards the back of the house and the kitchen. The only sound to be heard was the ‘tick tock' of the grandfather clock in the hall, cutting through the air with a sinister precision. Devon could taste the rank, bitter flavour of fear invading his mouth. What were they going to encounter? Was it going to hurt them? Just when his life had turned around as well. He stifled a sob.

They had nearly reached the kitchen when another low howl came out of the darkness. ‘No way!' Devon murmured. ‘I am outta here!' But Nigel's hand had closed on his arm like a vice. The two men tentatively rounded the corner and stared through the kitchen doorway.

The sight that greeted them was more horrifying than Devon could ever have imagined. A tall, large apparition swathed in white was standing in the middle of the room. Instantly aware of their presence, it slowly swivelled round, but in the inky darkness Devon couldn't make out any features, human or otherwise. Then it started to glide silently towards them, one claw-like hand stretched out, searching, grasping . . . Beside him, Devon could feel Nigel rooted to the ground in shock. As if independent of his body, Devon's fingers started frantically scrabbling for the light switch by the doorway.

The figure was mere feet from them now, and Devon could smell an acrid, damp decaying smell. The stench of death, perhaps, as though it had been lying in a grave for a long, long time . . .

Devon couldn't stand it any longer. He let out a terrified, high-pitched scream just as his fingers finally found the switch and flooded the room with light.

The apparition blinked, and then said crossly, ‘What the dickens do you think you're doing creeping up like that? Almost gave me a bladdy seizure!'

Standing in front of them was no headless ghost or machete-wielding burglar. Instead they were confronted with the bizarre sight of a wild-haired old man dressed in an old-fashioned nightshirt. His white hair and beard were yellowed around the edges and clearly hadn't been washed for some time. The man glared at them as he ran a gnarled hand across a red, beaky nose criss-crossed with broken veins.

Devon gaped as the man nonchalantly wiped his hand on his gown. ‘Who the bleedin' 'ell are you?' Devon spluttered. ‘And what the 'ell are you doing in my house?'

Despite his ragged appearance, the old man had a commanding air. ‘So you're the new owner, are you?' he asked in a crisp, well-spoken voice. ‘Don't think much of the way you've decorated the place.'

Devon was lost for words. ‘Who
are
you?'

The man drew himself up straight. ‘Sir Jonas Winterbottom,' he said proudly.

Nigel, still silently rooted to the spot, thought the name rang a bell. What was that story Angie Fox-Titt had told him at the Hallowe'en party? ‘ “Mad Dog” Winterbottom?' he asked uncertainly. ‘Killed a grizzly with your bare hands on a hunting trip to Alaska, and once fought off a ship of pirates while
sailing a yacht single-handedly round the Pacific Ocean?'

The man smiled, revealing a ghoulish set of broken teeth, and winked at them. ‘At your service.'

Devon gazed at this strange, fearsome-looking creature and then back at Nigel. ‘Am I missing something here?' he asked in astonishment.

It was all coming back to Nigel now. ‘Sir Jonas “Mad Dog” Winterbottom is a bit of a local legend around here,' he explained. ‘Correct me if I'm wrong but as legend goes, your father, Sir Percy Winterbottom, built Byron Heights at the end of the nineteenth century. Jonas was quite the adventurer and the apple of his father's eye,' he told Devon. Jonas beamed happily at them. ‘But after an unfortunate, er, diving accident in Peru was it?' Nigel looked at the old man questioningly.

‘Bog snorkelling,' Jonas replied darkly.

‘Sorry, bog snorkelling,' apologized Nigel, ‘Jonas came back a different man. He shunned all contact with society and went to live in a cave somewhere round the Malvern Hills.' He turned to the wild-looking old man. ‘But you were meant to have died, no one's seen you for years!'

Jonas tapped the side of his nose knowingly. ‘People don't know where to look, do they? And I don't like people looking. I've been living quite happily in the cellar here for a while now, with no one bothering me. Until you two moved in.' He glared at them.

‘So
that's
where all the food keeps going!' exclaimed Nigel. ‘I thought Devon was having secret midnight pig-outs.'

Jonas looked slightly bashful. ‘My knee's playing
up these days, I can't get out poaching as much as I used to.'

Devon was staring at him. ‘The howling, is that you?' he said faintly.

‘Keep banging my shinbones on your damned furniture!' said Jonas. ‘Bladdy stuff everywhere.'

‘What about the scratches on the skirting boards?' asked Nigel. ‘The ones the Rodent-Kill man found months ago?'

‘Ah yes, that was where I stashed my tobacco behind one of them and made rather a mess getting it out. I'm quite handy with a plane,' Jonas offered. ‘I can always sand it down for you.'