Carruthers' Demise, Chapters Thirty Two & Thirty Three (standard:drama, 2369 words) [18/24] show all parts
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Nov 10 2012	Views/Reads: 2375/1852	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Martin Carruthers' novelist wife Chelsey has disappeared, and is suspected of murder. Martin is adamant she is innocent, and sets out to find her and clear her name.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

unaware of the fine lines knitting on Casey's brow. ‘Shall we say about 
an hour? Okay, Adrian, that'll be fine.' 

‘Yeah, that'll be fine,' Casey mimicked, stretching over to scan the
directions he'd scribbled down. ‘Where on earth is this place anyway? 
Sounds like the back of beyond.' 

‘It belongs to a friend of his,' Carruthers explained, taking a gulp
from his pint. ‘He's spending a couple of days there.' 

‘Then why the sudden rush this afternoon?' Casey jumped in. ‘Why
couldn't it wait until tomorrow?' 

‘Because it concerns Chelsey,' Carruthers answered with impatience. 

‘That's why. I'm going to take a shower. Shall we say fifteen?' 

‘Okay. I'll do likewise.' Casey glanced dubiously at his sheet of
directions, tracing a finger down it. ‘I should take a few minutes 
digesting that,' she said, assuming an ominous air. ‘We could end up 
getting horribly lost.' 

‘No we won't, I'll feed it into the sat-nav,' Carruthers said casually,
before treading the stairs to his room. But back in the room, over a 
shower, he considered the wisdom of accepting the sudden invitation. 
Adrian's friend did indeed appear to live in an isolated location. He'd 
had a pint, and although that was unlikely to set him over the limit, 
the tribulations of the day had, as usual, begun to grind him down. 
Why, really, couldn't it wait until morning, when he was fresh? After 
all, Adrian had inferred that he'd be staying for a couple of days at 
least. But when he came down to the nitty gritty, if as he expected, 
Adrian wasn't going to be a lot of help, then he'd just as soon head 
back home immediately afterwards. He'd exhausted all possibilities and 
himself in the process. It would be time to face the real world again. 

And furthermore – face it without Chelsey. 

  Chapter Thirty Three 

Carruthers waited impatiently for Casey to appear. She'd diverted to
reception as they'd made their way out, for whatever reason he hadn't a 
clue. His fingers drummed with increasing intensity on the wheel until 
finally she emerged, jet black hair sweeping about her face in the 
strengthening breeze. 

‘I don't know what you're going to achieve by this,' Casey said, jumping
in and settling beside him in one fluid movement. ‘This Adrian chap is 
one obnoxious guy, if he hung around me the way he did Chelsey I'd 
smack him a bunch of fives – and he's her brother too.' 

‘Half-brother. And in any case,' Carruthers couldn't resist the quip –
‘with your taste I doubt you'd be much offended.' 

‘I'll pretend I didn't hear that.' Casey's reply was light enough but
there was venom in her eyes that sobered Carruthers up. 

‘So you noticed it too?' 

‘Noticed what?' 

Carruthers took a deep breath, checked in his mirror and pulled out of
the hotel archway. ‘The man's attitude as much as anything.' Casey 
curled a hand to her brow and yawned. ‘I must say that in the few times 
I met him, I found him – shall we say – abrasive?' 

‘Abrasive?' Carruthers shot her a glance as he drove through the high
street, swinging right across the cattle grid that took them into the 
Forest National Park and onto the Beaulieu road. 

‘Yes, in his manner...' she continued, her eyes focused on a group of
rider-less horses cantering across the hillocks, ‘and he's got those 
sharp features, little short of hostile – and mean eyes darting as if 
they were rife with suspicion. A weird one if you ask me.' 

‘Which makes his change of attitude more difficult to understand...'
Carruthers turned the air conditioning up a notch; the humidity was 
becoming oppressive, even in the Range Rover's spacious interior. The 
Forest closed in for a while as the road swept down into it, the big 
old oaks either side combining branches to form gloomy woodland 
tunnels, before rounding a tight bend the woods suddenly relented, 
yielding to moorland as the navigation system whispered, ”In three 
hundred metres, turn right.” 

Carruthers obediently obliged, flicking on the wipers as large droplets
of rain splattered on to the screen. The sky had developed a 
threatening brown hue and mist began to sweep in on the turbulent air. 

‘Great,' Casey observed dismally, ‘we're heading for a storm.' 

‘You didn't have to come.' Carruthers rattled his fingertips on the
wheel; ignored Casey's raised eyebrows and studied his directions. 

‘Shouldn't be much further – there's a right turn in a mile or so, and
apart from a small lane that's about it.' 

‘Then let's press on while we can still see where we're heading.' Casey
glanced around morosely. ‘Dusk's closing in early.' 

Resisting a sudden impulse to swing round and head back, Carruthers set
the four-by-four in motion. He didn't know what had caused the sudden 
inclination but to have succumbed to it would have been acceptance of 
defeat in his eyes. He had to give this a chance. 

Reaching the turn he veered right. The lane, wide at its junction soon
narrowed, climbed and snaked. Hedgerows encroached on either side, 
their thistles brushing the sides of Carruthers' vehicle. 

The rain began to intensify, adding to the general murk and Carruthers
missed it at first – the makeshift road that Adrian had told him would 
lead to the entrance of “High Warren,” his friend's house. 

Heather and bracken had obscured the track from his view but in the
distance to his left, Carruthers caught the twin chimneys and roof of a 
house. He brought the Range Rover to an abrupt stop eliciting a groan 
from Casey, and reversed the twenty metres or so to a tiny junction, 
the track leading off it only narrowly managing to separate two fields 
of heather and several foot high rye grass. The terrain was rough and 
lumpy, even for a four-wheel drive and seemed to incline continuously, 
until finally they reached the summit and an overgrown entrance with 
the words “High Warren,” engrained into the bark of an oak – the point 
at which Adrian had said he'd meet them. 

Except there was no sign of him – 

Carruthers checked his watch and saw they were ten minutes beyond the
agreed time. 

‘Perhaps he's given up and gone inside,' Casey said glancing about. 

‘Wherever inside is.' 

‘Wherever indeed. Oh to hell with this...' Carruthers flung open his
door, jumped down from his vehicle, strode through an entrance once 
protected by a wooden five-bar gate which now lay rotting amidst a mass 
of tangled undergrowth. Ahead lay a concrete road, reminiscent of a 
war-time runway, but now cracked and riddled with weed and moss, beyond 
which stood a partially collapsed open ended barn, looming like a vast 
hollow in the premature dusk. 

Carruthers heard Casey's footsteps behind him and turned in
exasperation. 

‘High Warren? He's having a laugh,' she said before he could speak. 

‘And the joke's on you – by the look of it.' She raised her eyebrows,
slapped his shoulder. 

‘No, it's no joke.' Carruthers shook his head. ‘There is a house here; I
saw it from the road.' 

‘Okay.' Casey sighed and turned full circle. ‘It's well concealed then.'
She gazed wide-eyed at a wild and desolate landscape. 

‘No, wait.' Carruthers raised an arm, pointing through the barn, beyond
which seemed a blanket of trees, their outlines dimly visible in what 
little light there was left. ‘I reckon the road veers off, leads to the 
house. We can't see it for bad visibility but I'll vouch that's where 
the place is. If not, we'll call it a day.' Carruthers looked 
pleadingly. ‘Agreed?' 

‘Okay.' Casey flinched as she entered the cavernous barn. ‘But I'm not
liking this one bit.' 

Carruthers led the way through the barn, heard Casey's voice resonate in
the hollow metallic surround. ‘This place is kind of creepy. I really 
don't think we should be here.' 

‘It's harmless enough,' Carruthers said dismissively, ‘the elements just
make it seem that way.' 

‘Then where is our friend, Adrian?' 

Carruthers had no answer to that. He pushed on ahead, passing through
the barn, restricting his breathing from the stench of rotting 
vegetation that made him want to gag, and out into the open once more. 
He swept soaked hair from his eyes and turned to Casey, two paces 
behind. ‘There, just as I thought,' Carruthers gasped. He indicated the 
track which did indeed arc tight left through a clearing in the woods, 
passing another disused farm outbuilding – a long, low rectangular 
shed, towards, in the distance a large old Victorian house, a hulking 
shape in the near-darkness, flanked on either side by a pair of 
enormous oaks. 

Carruthers halted, turned to Casey. ‘We'll get the car and drive down,'
he said, placing an arm around her shoulder. ‘It'll save us getting 
drenched.' 

Casey grumbled, ‘If you ask me we're on a wild goose chase – this place
hasn't seen human habitation in years.' 

‘Oh but that's where you're wrong, here's the living proof...'
Carruthers and Casey swung in unison to find Adrian Frampton-Williams 
behind them, arms outstretched. An old grey twill sweater and dark 
slacks were all he wore as protection from the rain. 

‘Sorry I missed you good people. Went for a stroll, never was one to
correctly anticipate the conditions.' 

Carruthers stared through the gloom of the barn at Adrian's silhouette
and the whites of his eyes. His smile seemed static and unhealthy, but 
Carruthers wrote that off as being down to the elements and poor 
visibility. 

‘I'll fetch the four-by-four, drive it through. I take it you're staying
at the house at the bottom?' 

‘I sure am. How kind of you – and then we can have that chat about
Chelsey.' Adrian's expression didn't change one iota as Carruthers 
passed him en-route to his vehicle, aware now of Casey's strong grip on 
his arm. 

‘Some power you've got there.' Carruthers winced and Casey instantly
relinquished her hold. ‘Guess it's just that I'm a bit tense. Perhaps 
we shouldn't be here – you could reverse right out...' 

‘No I couldn't do that. I have to go through with it.' Casey clicked her
tongue, ‘Whatever you say,' and jumped into the passenger seat as 
Carruthers took the wheel. He reached for the ignition, tried to 
trigger it to no avail, tried once more – nothing. 

He glanced at Casey, whose eyes were fixed on Adrian, who stood studying
them with an unchanged mirthless grin. 


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