Rosie stared out of the window of her flat. The fields surrounding the windmill were flooded with ivory moonlight almost as bright as day. The arched canopy overhead was overcast and grey and provided the perfect backdrop for the swooping, squawking gang of crows that looked more like overgrown bats and instigated a curl of unease in her stomach. Matt had only dropped her off half an hour ago and had offered to sleep on one of the sofas either in her lounge or downstairs in the café. She regretted her refusal already. Whichever way she looked, north, south, east or west, the shadow-filled scene spread out before her had a malevolent feel.
She turned away, her gaze inevitably falling on her bedroom door. There was no way she could contemplate sleeping in there after the incident with the arrow. It was such a despicable thing to do to stab a child’s soft toy like that! However, it meant that she and Matt must have rattled someone’s cage with the direction of their questions, it was just she had no idea whose. She decided to curl up on the sofa with one of the peppermint and white cashmere throws Graham had brought back from Thailand. She began to relax, staring out at the starry sky, praying that sleep would ambush her before she resorted to the brandy.
Unfortunately, that night sleep played on the opposing team. Rosie glanced at her watch and was amazed to see it was only midnight. She groaned, giving herself a stern talking to about the safety of being upstairs in a windmill that had only one access route via a spiral staircase – through two sturdy locked doors. As she reached forward to switch off the lamp on the table beside her, she heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel gate outside the window.
She sat bolt upright, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might actually escape from her ribcage. Tiny electric spasms of fear coursed through her veins and radiated out to her fingertips and for a moment she couldn’t move. She just sat there, straining her ears, waiting for the next sound to send her imagination into the stratosphere. She thought she was going to have a coronary.
Oh God, was it her turn to be impaled by an arrow? Finally, her brain connected to its modem and she scrambled up from the sofa, grateful she hadn’t undressed for her night on her temporary bed. She ran to the kitchen, mentally running through the available weapons at her disposal and deciding on a carving knife. She grabbed the largest from the wooden block, raising it high above her head in a dramatic fashion, and fixed her eyes on the door leading from the staircase - but nothing happened.
She crept towards the window overlooking the terrace, squinting down through the gloom, terrified about what she might see. Would it be an archer, the string of their bow primed and ready to release the arrow, its tip dipped in poison so that it would kill her instantly? However, she couldn’t see anything and was in the process of persuading herself that she had been hearing things when there was a loud knock on the front door and she let out a terrified scream.
Still clutching the knife for dear life, she scrambled in her bag with her left hand, searching for her mobile to call the police. When eventually she pulled the phone from its slumber at the very bottom of her bag, it slithered from her fingers and fell to the floor. As she leaned down to collect it, there was another even louder knock. This time she paused and her sensible side poked its head above the parapet. What kind of attacker knocked on the door? Twice?
A confident one, or maybe one with nothing to lose!
She was about to dial 999 when a handful of stones rattled against the windowpane and she heard a cry from down below.
‘Rosie? Are you awake?’
‘Omigod, Matt!’
She rushed to the window and opened it, leaning forward so she could see him.
‘What are you doing here? You scared me half to death!’
‘Is that a kitchen knife in your hand?’
‘Yes, it is.’
Rosie had forgotten she was still holding it. She briefly considered telling him she was slicing onions but she knew he wouldn’t believe her and she would have to admit to her mistake of believing she would be fine staying at the flat by herself.
‘Why?’
‘Mitzy is skewered with an arrow and then I hear someone creeping around the windmill in the dark. What would you think?’
‘Ah, yes. I get it. I should have called you from the car park. Do you think you could let me in? I think it could be minus ten out here and I forgot to put on my thermal underwear.’
Rosie smiled as a surge of warmth filtered through her veins. She had never been more pleased to see Matt lingering on her doorstep. She would definitely not be sending him home this time. She knew her limitations when it came to dealing with potential attackers.
‘Erm, why are you here? Not that I’m complaining. I know I should have jumped at your offer to take the sofa. Turns out I’m a big fat coward!’
‘No one can blame you – especially after the most recent development.’
‘What recent development?’
‘So you haven’t seen the news?’
‘No.’
‘When I got home, Mum told me there had been a police announcement on the late bulletin about identifying the fingerprints found on the chisel, and after that I couldn’t let you stay here by yourself, so I raced back like a knight-in-a-muddy-SUV in case you were scared.’
‘I was scared, but it turned out to be your fault!’
Rosie rolled her eyes as she filled the kettle, the delayed reaction to the relief that her midnight intruder was Matt making her feel light-headed.
‘So, come on, don’t keep me in suspense. Whose fingerprints were they?’
‘Brad Cookson’s.’
‘They found Brad Cookson’s fingerprints on a chisel that was hidden under a rock next to our camp ground?’ she gasped. ‘That’s … well, that’s…’
‘I know. I couldn’t get my head round it either.’
‘At least it explains why he and Emma didn’t come to the Drunken Duck last night. But what does it mean? Do the police think he shot Rick?’
‘Before I came over here, I called DS Kirkham at Norfolk Constabulary. He was happy to talk to me because when they spoke to Brad he admitted the chisel was his straight away. He told them that he hadn’t noticed it was missing, and it must have fallen out of his rucksack when he and Emma settled down for the night. The police are keeping an open mind, after all, Rick wasn’t stabbed in the ankle, was he? So, we’re back to square one, not to mention the fact that Ultimate Adventures was featured prominently in the news item! At this rate we’ll be bankrupt before Christmas.’
‘I’m sorry, Matt. Are you okay? You look … well, you look exhausted.’
Matt rubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes and Rosie’s heart gave a nip of sympathy. She handed him a cup of decaffeinated coffee and he offered her a weak smile of gratitude, his usual cheerful expression missing-in-action and replaced by a seriousness she had rarely glimpsed before.
Rosie hated seeing Matt like this and she was desperate to help, yet her own scattered thoughts bombarded her brain. There was something niggling at the back of her mind, some inconsistency that was just beyond reach. She knew that if she was going to solve the mystery of Rick’s injury any time soon, she needed to think outside the self-imposed parameters of orderliness and indulge in a little creative thinking – that was what her father would have advised her to do if he’d been sitting next to her clutching his favourite Agatha Christie novel.
However, there was no way she could do that when her eyelids were drooping, so the most sensible thing to do was for them both to get some sleep and start again in the morning when they had more energy.
‘Matt, I think we should get some rest and then go and talk to Brad and Emma ourselves in the morning.’
‘Agreed, and anyway this coffee is disgusting.’ Matt tried to produce a comedic grimace that didn’t quite work, but some of his habitual chirpiness returned as he lay on the sofa opposite Rosie’s, gave her a wink, and closed his eyes.
Rosie wrapped her throw around her body and spent a few moments studying her unexpected guest. She loved the way his eyelashes flickered against his cheeks, the slight twitch at the corners of his lips, and the slow rhythm of his breathing as sleep took him for its own. An unexpected mellowness descended over the room and erased the jagged edges of her anxiety. She wanted to stay awake all night to watch him sleep, to memorize every detail of Matt Wilson at rest so she could conjure up the image whenever she needed a smile. Sadly, her own cherubs of Morpheus had other ideas and she too was soon dreaming of happier times.