Amanda came all the way in and wandered about the room, stopping to admire the array of bottles and jars of spices and vinegars on the shelves of the big dresser. Then she spied the picnic hamper. “Ooh, what fun,” she said, folding back the top. “That’s what I’ll do when the rain stops. I’ll take a fishing picnic and invite Stefan. Will you make us something nice, Morag? Maybe a game pie? With cold salads, and a tart?”
I turned away so she wouldn’t see me frown. Stefan had been very chatty with her over the last couple of days and he had lost that worried air. I felt a little disappointed in him. It seemed even a serious man was easily distracted by a fragile-looking woman who made him feel important. And Amanda, I’d decided, was older than she’d first looked. I could see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, even with her always perfectly applied makeup.
I snapped at Stefan the next time he spoke to me and he looked surprisingly hurt, but I’d begun to wonder just what sort of a bloke Stefan really was. Had he told me the truth about why he was spending the summer at Burns House? Or did he have a more nefarious purpose?
The next day dawned fair and the sky was a rain-washed, brilliant blue. The fields around the lodge were emerald, and on the moors the rain had brought out the heather in glowing, purple swaths.
“You know it will be muddy by the river?” Giles warned at breakfast when Amanda proposed her fishing picnic.
“I’m prepared.” She held out a foot clad in a pink designer wellie.
“I’ll take you down to the Avon in the Land Rover,” Giles said, but he didn’t sound happy about it, and neither was I. “Make certain you’re wearing bright colors. There will be guns out today.”
I met Amanda coming out of the kitchen as I was going in. “Just checking out the picnic basket,” she said with a smile. “Giles says he’ll put it in the Land Rover with the fishing stuff.”
I was blocking her way, but I was feeling contrary, so instead of letting her by I nodded at one of the prints. They were my friends now, those old freckled fish. “Going to land a big one, are you?” More fish guts for me, I thought.
“Mmm, I hope so,” said Amanda. “I adore trout.”
I stepped back and she swept past, wellies squeaking on the tiles.
I followed her out. Stefan waved at me from the Land Rover. He looked like an excited child going on an adventure.
I watched them pull away, all the while thinking furiously. Was I paranoid? Or really and truly mad? But if I was right . . . Going back to the kitchen, I told Morag I had to run an errand. Then, my message duly delivered to the gamekeeper, I tried to concentrate on scrubbing the breakfast things and starting lunch.
A half-hour later, I heard Giles come back. He called to Morag that he was going up the fields to check on the shooting party and a minute later I heard the Land Rover drive off again.
I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Go have a lie down,” I told Morag, who was looking decidedly peaky. “I’ll finish the lunch prep.”
“Right. Thank you, Sherry.” She gave me a quick hug. “You’re a gem.”
I felt guilty for deceiving her, but as soon as I heard the bedroom door close on the upper floor, I was out the front door like a shot. I knew the spot where Giles had left Amanda and Stefan. The river ran wide and shallow over a stone bed, then dropped into a deep pool where the trout liked to lurk, snapping for flies, real or false, on the surface.
I could make it, I thought. I ran across the field and down into the woods, glad now for all the stair-climbing and bed-making and scrubbing. When I came to the river I followed it downstream. It was running high and fast. There was nothing merry about the water rushing over the rocks today.
There was a flash of color through the trees—the bright picnic oilcloth, laid out on the high little ledge of grass above what before the heavy rains had been a pool, but was now just a wider place in the torrent. But where were they?
Then I saw them. Stefan, dutifully dressed in his red anorak and his waders, stood at the water’s edge, rod in hand. He was explaining something to Amanda, but I couldn’t hear him over the rush of the water. She nodded and patted his shoulder, as if encouraging him to demonstrate.
Stefan turned and cast his line over the pool in a beautiful shining arc. Then Amanda gave him a hard shove in the middle of the back.
Stefan twisted as he fell, the rod flying from his hand. His eyes and mouth were round with surprise, then the water closed over his face. He came up sputtering and shouting, but the current was strong and his waders were instantly filled. I could see he was being pulled towards the sharp fall at the end of the pool.
Amanda stood and watched.
I started to shout, then froze. Surprise was the only thing I had on my side. I ran towards her, hoping the rush of the water would cover the sound of my boots, hoping she would stay focused on Stefan and not turn around. Some small part of my brain wondered just how I was going to get him out even if I could knock her in, but there was no time for a better plan.