by P. D. James
There was an embarrassed silence in which people seemed to be steeling themselves to speak. Miss Claudia had taken advantage of it to get up from the table and had quickly led the way from the room.
Afterwards in the kitchen, making Miss Blackett’s coffee, Mrs Demery had been more forthcoming.
‘They haven’t a clue what to do, any of them. That was plain enough. Mr Gerard could be a proper bastard but at least he knew what he wanted and how to get it. They won’t be selling Innocent House, Miss Peverell saw to that, I suppose, and Mr de Witt supported her. But if they don’t sell the house, how are they going to keep it up? You tell me that. If people here have any sense they’ll start putting out feelers for new jobs.’
And now, alone in the office, tidying her desk, Mandy thought what a difference these extra sixty minutes made. Innocent House seemed suddenly to have emptied. As she mounted the staircase to the first-floor women’s cloakroom, where she would change, her feet echoed eerily on the marble as if someone unseen was walking a little behind her. Pausing on the landing to look down over the balustrade she saw the two globes of light at the foot of the stairs glowing like floating moons over a hall grown cavernous and mysterious. She hurried over her change, stuffing her office clothes into the tote bag, pulling over her head the short, multi-layered skirt in patchwork cotton with its matching top, pulling on her high glittering boots. Perhaps it was a pity to bike in them but they were tough enough and it was easier than carrying them in the pannier.
How quiet it was! Even the flush of the lavatory roared like an avalanche. It was comforting to see George, wearing his coat and old tweed hat, still behind the reception desk and locking away the three parcels awaiting collection in his security cupboard. The malicious prankster hadn’t struck since the murder but the precautions were still in force.
Mandy said: ‘Isn’t it funny how quiet the place is when people have left? Am I the last?’
‘Just me and Miss Claudia. I’m on my way now. Miss Claudia will set the alarms.’
They left together, George pulling the door firmly shut behind them. It had been a day of heavy and incessant rain, dancing on the marble forecourt, streaming against the windows, almost obscuring the grey swell of the river. But now the rain had stopped and in the gleam of George’s rear-lights the cobbles of Innocent Passage shone like rows of newly peeled conkers. The air held the first raw bite of winter. Mandy’s nose began to run and she rummaged in her bag for a scarf and her handkerchief. She waited to mount her bike until, with maddening slowness, George began reversing his old Metro down the passage. After a second’s thought she ran to signal that Innocent Walk was clear. It always was clear, but George invariably reversed out as if the manoeuvre was his daily dice with death. After he had given a valedictory grateful wave and accelerated away she told herself that at least his job was safe now, and was glad. Mrs Demery had told her that there were rumours that Mr Gerard had planned to get rid of him.
Mandy wove in and out of the late commuter traffic with her usual expertise and a cheerful disregard for the occasional toots of affronted motorists, and it was little more than thirty minutes later when she saw before her the mock-Tudor façade of the White Horse festooned with coloured lights. It stood back from the road on a huridred-yard stretch where the lines of suburban houses gave way to a fringe of shrubs and bushes on the edge of Epping Forest. The forecourt was already closely packed with cars, including, she saw, the band’s van and Maureen’s Fiesta. She rode slowly to the smaller parking space at the rear of the pub and, pulling her tote bag from the pannier, pushed her way down the passage to the women’s cloakroom and joined the noisy chaos of girls hanging up coats and changing their shoes under a notice reminding them that these were left at their own risk, queuing for one of the four lavatories and spreading their make-up clobber on to the narrow shelf under the long mirror. It was when she had fought for her place and was rummaging for the plastic toilet bag which held her make-up that Mandy made the heart-lurching discovery. Her purse was missing; the black leather purse which was also a wallet, and held her money, her one credit card and bank card, prized symbols of financial status, and the Yale key to her front door. Her noisy exclamations of dismay alerted Maureen from her careful application of eye-liner.
‘Tip everything out. I always do,’ she advised, and returned unworried to the task of outlining her eyelids with black.
‘Fat lot she cares,’ murmured Mandy, sweeping Maureen’s make-up to one side and emptying the tote-bag’s contents. But the purse wasn’t there. And then she remembered. She must have caught it up with her scarf and handkerchief on leaving Innocent House. It was probably lying there still on the cobbles. She would have to go back. The consolation was that there was little chance that a passer-by could have found it. Innocent Walk, and Innocent Lane in particular, were always deserted after dark. It would mean missing the meal, but with luck, not more than half an hour of the gig.
And then a thought struck her. She could telephone Mr Dauntsey or Miss Peverell. At least that way she would know whether the purse was there. They might think she had a cheek to ask, but she was confident that neither of them would really mind. She had done very little work for Mr Dauntsey or Miss Peverell, but when she had, both had seemed grateful and been decent to her. It would only take them a minute to look, a few yards to walk. And it wasn’t as if it was still raining. It was a nuisance about the key. If the purse was there it would be too late to call for it after the gig. She would have to go home with Maureen or, if Maureen had other plans for the night, wake up Shirl or Pete. But they could hardly complain; she’d been woken up to let them in often enough.
There was a delay while she coaxed the necessary coins for a call box from Maureen, more delay while she waited for one of the two telephone booths to be free, and another minute wasted when she discovered that the directory she needed was in the other booth. She rang Miss Peverell first, but got only the answerphone with its usual message, spoken in Miss Peverell’s quiet, almost apologetic voice. There was very little space to manage the directory and it thudded to the floor. Outside a couple of men gesticulated impatiently. Well, they would have to wait. If Mr Dauntsey was in she wouldn’t hang up until he’d been to look. She found the number and stabbed the digits. There was no reply. She let the ringing continue long after she had any real hope before replacing the receiver. And now she had no choice. She couldn’t bear to spend the evening and night in suspense. She must go back to Innocent House.
She was riding now against the stream of traffic but was hardly aware of the details of the journey, her mind a muddle of anxiety, impatience and irritation. It wouldn’t have hurt Maureen to have driven her to Wapping in the Fiesta, but trust Maureen not to miss the chance of a meal. She was becoming aware, too, of her own hunger but told herself that, with luck, she would have time to grab a sandwich from the bar before the gig.
Innocent Walk was, as usual, deserted. The back of Innocent House rose like a dark bastion against the night sky, then, as she looked up, her head flung back, became as insubstantial and unsteady as a cardboard cut-out, reeling against the low scudding clouds stained pink by the lights of the city. The pools in the gutter of the lane had dried now and a freshening breeze caught her at the end of Innocent Lane bringing with it the strong smell of the river. The only signs of life were the lit windows of the top flat at number 12. It looked as if Miss Peverell at least was now at home. She dismounted at the end of Innocent Lane, anxious not to disturb them with the sound of her bike, not wanting to be delayed by questions and explanations. She walked up the lane as delicately as a thief towards the shimmer of the river, to the place where she had parked the Yamaha. There was sufficient light from the lamps on the forecourt to aid her search, but no search was necessary. The purse lay exactly where she had hoped to find it. She gave a small, almost inaudible, whoop of delight and stuffed it deep into the zipped pocket of her jacket.
It was less easy to see the face of her watch, and she moved clo
ser to the river. At each end of the forecourt the two great globes of light supported by bronze dolphins threw shining pools on the heaving surface of the water which as she watched shimmered like a great cloak of black satin, shaken, smoothed and gently billowed by an invisible hand. Mandy glanced at her watch: 8.20. It was later than she thought and suddenly she found her enthusiasm for the gig had waned. The surge of relief at finding her purse had induced a disinclination for further effort and in this mood of contented lethargy the prospect of the cosy claustrophobia of her bed-sitting-room, the kitchen to herself for once, the rest of the evening in front of the television, grew in attraction by the second. There was that video of the Scorsese Cape Fear which was due back tomorrow, £2 wasted if she didn’t watch it tonight. Now in no hurry, she turned almost without thought to look up at the façade of Innocent House.
The bottom two storeys were faintly lit by the lights from the forecourt, the slender marble pillars gleaming softly against the dead windows, black cavernous openings into an interior which she now knew so well, but which had become mysterious and forbidding. How odd, she thought, that everything inside would be just as it was when she had left; the two word processors under their covers, Miss Blackett’s neat desktop with her rack of filing trays, her diary placed precisely at her right hand, the locked cabinet of files, the notice board to the right of the door. All these ordinary things remained even when there was no one there to see them. And there was no one, no one at all. She thought of that small bare room at the top of the house, the room where two people had died. The chair and the table would still be in place, but there would be no bed, no woman’s body, no naked man clawing at the bare boards. Suddenly she saw again Sonia Clements’ body, but more real, more frightening than when she had seen it in the flesh. And then she remembered what Ken the packer had told her when she had taken a message to number 10 and had stayed gossiping, how Lady Sarah Peverell, wife of the Peverell who had built Innocent House, had thrown herself from the top balcony and smashed to death on the marble.
‘You can still see the mark of the blood,’ Ken had said, shifting a box of books from the shelf to the trolley. ‘Don’t let Miss Frances see you looking for it, though. That’s not a story the family like to have told. But they can’t clean that stain away for all that, and there’ll be no luck in this house till they do. And she still walks, does Lady Sarah. You ask any waterman on the river.’
Ken, of course, had been trying to frighten her, but that had been in late September, a day of mellow sunshine, and she had relished the story, only half believing it, feeling an agreeable shiver of self-induced fear. But she had asked Fred Bowling and she remembered his answer. ‘There are ghosts enough on this river, but none walk at Innocent House.’
That was before the death of Mr Gerard. Perhaps they walked now.
And now the fear was becoming real. She looked up at the top balcony and imaged the horror of that fall, the flailing limbs, the single cry – surely she must have cried out – the sickening crunch as the body hit the marble. Suddenly there was a wild scream and she started, but it was only a seagull. The bird swooped above her, perched for a moment on the railings, then winged its way down-river.
She was aware that she was getting chilled. The cold was unnatural, seeping out from the marble as if she stood on ice, and the river breeze was colder now, blowing against her face with the first chill of winter. She was taking a last look at the river, glancing down to where the launch lay silent and empty, when her eyes caught a flash of something white at the top of the railings, to the right of the stone steps which led down to the Thames. It looked at first as if someone had tied a handkerchief to the rail. Curious, she walked across and saw that it was a sheet of paper rammed down on to one of the narrow spikes. And there was something else, a gleam of golden metal at the bottom of the rail. Squatting down, a little disorientated by self-induced fear, Mandy took some seconds to recognize it. It was the buckle of a narrow leather strap, the strap of a brown shoulder-bag. The strap strained down to the puckered surface of the water, and beneath that surface something was just visible, something grotesque and unreal, like the domed head of a gigantic insect, its millions of hairy legs stirring gently in the tide. And then Mandy knew that what she was seeing was the top of a human head. At the end of the strap was a human body. And as she gazed down in horror the body shifted in the tide and a white hand rose slowly from the water, its wrist drooping like the stem of a dying flower.
For a few seconds disbelief fought with realization and then, half fainting with shock and terror, she sank to her knees, clutching at the iron railings. She was aware of the cold metal rasping her hands and then the strength of it pressed against her forehead. She knelt there, powerless to move, terror squeezing at her stomach and turning her limbs to stone. In this cold nothingness only her heart was alive, a heart which had become a great ball of burning iron thudding against her ribs as if it could power her through the railings and into the river. She dared not open her eyes; to open them was to see what she could still only half believe; the double leather of the strap straining down to the abomination below.
She didn’t know how long she knelt there before she was capable of sense and movement, but gradually she became aware of the strong river smell in her nostrils, the coldness of the marble against her knees, her quietening heart. Her hands were so rigid on the railings that it took painful seconds to prise the fingers away. She drew herself up and then suddenly found strength and purpose.
Running wordlessly across the courtyard, she banged on the first door, Dauntsey’s, and pressed his bell. Above, the windows were dark and she wasted no time in waiting for the answer which she knew wouldn’t come, but ran round the house into Innocent Walk and pressed Frances Peverell’s bell, keeping her right thumb on the button while she hammered on the knocker with her left hand. The response was almost immediate. She couldn’t hear the rush of feet on the stairs but the door was thrown open and she saw James de Witt with Frances Peverell at his shoulder. Incoherently she stammered, pointing towards the river, began running and was aware that they were on her heels. And now they were standing together looking down into the river. Mandy found herself thinking, I’m not mad. It wasn’t a dream. It’s still here.
She heard Miss Peverell say: ‘Oh no! Oh please God no!’ Then she turned half fainting and was caught in James de Witt’s arms, but not before Mandy had seen her make the sign of the cross.
He said: ‘It’s all right, my darling, it’s all right.’
Her voice was half-muffled in his jacket. ‘It isn’t all right. How can it be all right?’ Then she broke free and said with surprising strength and calmness: ‘Who is it?’
De Witt didn’t look again at the thing in the river. Instead, carefully, he prised the sheet of paper from the railing and peered at it. He said: ‘Esmé Carling. This looks like a suicide note.’
Frances said: ‘Not again! Not another! What does it say?’
‘It’s not easy to see.’ He turned and held it so that the light from the globe at the end of the railings fell on the paper. There was almost no margin, as if the page had been trimmed to fit the words, and the sharp finial of the railing had pierced and torn the paper. He said: ‘It looksas if it’s written in her own hand. It’s addressed to all of us.’
He smoothed it out and read aloud: ‘“To the partners of Peverell Press. God rot you all! For thirty years you’ve exploited my talent, made money out of me, neglected me as a writer and as a woman, treated me as if my books aren’t fit to bear your precious imprint. What do you know about creative writing? Only one of you has written a word and his talent, such as it was, died years ago. It’s me, and writers like me, who have kept your house alive. And now you’ve thrown me over. After thirty years I’m finished, without explanation, without the right of appeal, without a chance to re-write or revise. Finished. Dismissed, as the Peverells have casually dismissed their unwanted servants for generations. Don’t you realize that this finishes me as a
human being as well as a writer? Don’t you know that when a writer can no longer be published she may as well be dead? But at least I can make your name stink throughout London, and believe me I shall. This is only the beginning.”’
Frances Peverell said: ‘Poor woman. Oh, poor woman. James, why didn’t she come and see us?’
‘Would that have done any good?’
‘It’s the same as Sonia. If it had to be done it could have been done differently, with compassion, with some kindness.’
James de Witt said gently: ‘Frances, there’s nothing we can do for her now. We’d better call the police.’
‘But we can’t leave her like that! It’s too horrible. It’s obscene! We must pull her out – try artificial respiration.’
He said patiently: ‘Frances, she’s dead.’
‘But we can’t leave her. Please, James, we must try.’
It seemed to Mandy that they had forgotten she was there. Now that she was no longer alone the terrible paralysing fear had faded. The world had become, if not ordinary, at least familiar, manageable. She thought: he doesn’t know what to do. He wants to please her but he doesn’t want to touch the body. He can’t pull it out by himself and can’t bear for her to help. She said: ‘If you were going to try mouth-to-mouth breathing you ought to have pulled her out at once. It’ll be too late now.’