“But—”
“I said neither of you had any prior commitments. I said you’d both get down to it and work flat out for the next few weeks. You haven’t got anything pressing at the moment, have you, Math?”
Math’s face was unreadable. “When does she want it?”
“She’s leaving for the States on September 10th.”
He shrugged. “All right.”
Theresa glanced from one to the other, as though their lack of enthusiasm had suddenly filtered through to her. But she was not the type to let a little thing like a smashed love affair stand in the way of a book contract.
“Right, then,” said Theresa. “We’ll get Elain settled back in downstairs. You’re going to need to be close enough to collaborate.”
His face was without emotion of any kind.
Chapter 17
She moved back into Llewelyn’s Room, and then sat staring at the walls. What was she doing here?
“I don’t know anything uglier than you with that lie on your lips.” Elain closed her eyes. It was true. She was ugly. She had always been ugly. Somehow she had believed otherwise for a couple of strange, dreamlike weeks; she had believed that love conquered all. But she was awake now. She would never be trapped into that seductive stupidity again. He had been less clumsy than Greg, but far more brutal. At least Greg had been honest with her. He hadn’t pretended to think her beautiful, once he’d seen her deformity.
The wound he’d inflicted had been, she saw now, relatively clean: one good, deep stab. Math had got right inside before he started slashing her up. I don’t know anything uglier than you with that lie... Would she ever forget the look in his eyes?
What was she doing here? He didn’t want her, and she no longer wanted him. She didn’t want anything except to crawl under the sheet and sleep. Sleep this life away and wake up being born into another life, where she would be strong and beautiful and invulnerable. Instead of weak and ugly and bleeding to death. I don’t know anything uglier than you...anything uglier than you...
She did sleep, and woke feeling sick and groggy to find the sky overcast and the air thundery. She didn’t go down to tea. She took a shower in the ancient bathroom and wandered around her room, unable even to concentrate on a simple task like unpacking.
She didn’t look at herself in the mirror as she dressed. For dinner she drove down to the pub. The storm still hadn’t broken. She ordered chicken and chips and sat in a corner by herself, letting the cheerful laughter and talk wash over her, putting up that protective shield she always carried, so that those who glanced at her with more than casual interest soon looked away again.
Only with Math had she let that shield down. She had enjoyed the freedom, the lightness that came with letting it drop. But it was second nature to her. She was scarcely aware of picking it up again. She was scarcely aware that it was this shield that constituted her prison. She only knew that she felt herself again. In control. Wanting no man.
* * *
The storm broke while she ate, but it was a small one of brief duration. As she left the pub to get to her car, she passed the phone box, slowed down and went in.
“You have reached Derby Investigations. There is no one to take your call at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep.”
“Raymond, it’s Elain,” she began. “I just—”
There was a clatter of the phone being picked up. “Hi, Red,” said Raymond. His business phone rang at home, and he screened his after-hours calls. “How’s it going?”
“Nothing much is happening. I just called to let you know I’m staying at the White Lady after all.”
“Ah.” He didn’t question that. But of course, he didn’t know the full story. He didn’t know how much of a personal betrayal she had committed.
“I guess I’ll be there for a week or two. Until further notice anyway.” And she would pay for it if it killed her to do it. She wasn’t having Math subsidize her. “Any news with you?”
“Ah, yes, what was it?” She heard him flip over the pages of his notebook. “Right. Those two sisters. Esterhazy. We finally got a line on them.”
“Did she write those books, then?”
“Not only did she not write them, Red, she’s not in the business at all.”
“What business? Writing? But I—”
“The psychic business. She’s not a psychic, a channeller, a medium or any other kind of New Age charlatan. None of her friends has ever heard her use the word ‘vibrations.’”
“What?” Elain demanded, her brain whirling. “What the devil does that mean?”
“She’s faking it, Red.”
“Yes, but why?”
There was silence for a moment. The pips started going, and she hurriedly shoved another pound coin into the slot. “Hard to say. The other one, the sister—”
“Rosemary.”
“Rosemary Esterhazy is a schoolteacher. Teaches English and history at a girls’ sixth-form college, medium posh. Due for retirement this year.”
Well, she had certainly pegged that one. “I’m surprised it’s not art.”
“How’s that?”
“Nothing. What does Davina do?”
“Keeps house for her sister. Used to be a secretary, but lost that job five years ago. Nothing since then.”
“But it doesn’t make sense, Raymond. They weren’t even here when the fire started.”
“They weren’t at home, either. They left for an extended holiday the last week of May. Rosemary took leave of absence for the last term. Compassionate leave or something.”
“The fire happened the second week of June, didn’t it? They arrived here ten days later, I think. Is there any way we can trace their whereabouts during those three weeks?”
“Hell of a lot of legwork, Elain. And I’ve got no one picking up the tab now. What I just gave you is on the house. It’s set me back a couple of hundred quid. Digby’s good, but he doesn’t come cheap.”
“Couldn’t you put it to them? Show them how suspicious it is? They’d be happier if it was arson, whoever the arsonist was, wouldn’t they?”
“If they thought they could prove it, they might. All right, I’ll talk to the client. I’ll tell them I’ve kept you on it, too. Try to squeeze some funds out of them.”
“It doesn’t make sense, though,” she had to admit. “Why would Rosemary and Davina want to burn down the White Lady?”
“I’d be guessing, Red. Oh, one more thing. You’re right about Brian Arthur. He’s a dick.”
* * *
“Listen to me,” she begged. “Just listen for five minutes!”
The look on his face was boredom. She might have been a vacuum-cleaner salesman. “You have nothing to say to me.”
“I do! Please, Math! Just forget everything for a minute and listen. Five minutes, that’s all!”
He let her in, and she led the way to the dining table. That had memories enough, but the sofa would have been intolerable. She sat down, dropping a small notebook in which she’d been making her notes. Math remained standing. He picked up the glass of whisky he’d been drinking, but he offered her nothing. There was a small fire in the hearth and a book open on the sofa. Bill was snoring gently on the rug. A cosy evening was all she had interrupted. He wasn’t suffering. He didn’t need her and never had.
She picked up her pencil and pulled the pad to her. “All right,” she said. She wished he would sit down, but not for a continent would she have said so. “Would it interest you to know that Davina Esterhazy is not—never has been up to now—a psychic?”
“Not particularly.”
“But, Math—she’s pretending she knows all about Jessica! She’s—”
“There are a lot of sudden converts, especially this kind, at this moment.”
“But she says she’s writing a book. She’s acting as if—”
“The world is full of phonies, or hadn’t you noticed?”
She sighed, dropped her head and blindly read her notes.
“I’m telling you anyway. They’ve been away from their home since the last week of May.”
“I always knew that. That’s why they didn’t get our message cancelling their reservations.”
“Oh.” That deflated her a little. She began again. “Jeremy Wilkes isn’t related to Earl Spencer. And he’s never been published under his own name as far as...as we can discover.”
This time he laughed. “Jeremy doesn’t fool anyone. When you know him better...if you knew him better, you’d realize that no one here is fooled by Jeremy’s fantasies.”
“Why does he stay here?”
He shrugged. “I suppose because he has nowhere else to go. Before the fire, we had a chambermaid here who was very impressed by his aristocratic connections. She always treated him like royalty. He can dream here, and no one rubs his nose in the truth. But if you’re going to tell me he started the fire...”
“No. I’m just pointing out how—”
“How people aren’t what they seem around here? I had noticed,” he said drily.
She wasn’t going to tell him about Vinnie. That couldn’t possibly have any bearing on anything. “Brian Arthur is a private investigator. But no one knows who he’s working for. Not for—not for the insurance company, I know that.”
“I see,” he said, unmoved.
“Do you see?” she exploded. “Do you see how suspicious it all is? Something is going on, and the target is you!”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Don’t you see? If we pooled our information—”
“I don’t think so,” he interrupted harshly. “Working with you on one project is more than enough.”
She realized then that it was hopeless. He would never believe her, never be able to hear her clearly. He just wasn’t listening.
She stood up, clutching her notebook and pencil. “You’re a fool,” she said angrily.
Math smiled, but not the kind of smile she wanted to see. “There’s never been any doubt about that,” he said.
She didn’t think, she just moved close, put her hands on his chest and called his name again. His hands came up to her shoulders, and she knew he was going to push her violently away, or strangle her. But as he gripped her she felt him tremble. Then, amazed, she felt the control that she hadn’t realized he was using, felt the strength of the control he had needed around her by the power of its snapping. Her heart soared as his hands moved, not to push, but to pull her tight against him, tight and hard, and her head went back and his mouth came fiercely down on hers.
She sobbed once under the touch, and felt his ruthless hands on her back, her arms, her thighs. Then her hips were against the table, and he was pressing against her, his mouth wild, savage on her own. She wrapped her fingers in his thick hair, drawing his head down, then tore her mouth away to catch a ragged breath. She felt his hand on her skirt, dragging it up, and his lips were on her neck, her throat, wherever he could reach.
She was fainting with the wildness of it, drowning in the passion of her own blood. “Math!” she cried, moaning and pulling at his hair, the knowledge of his strength melting her. His voice was in her ear then, as his hand tore at her briefs, slipped inside to enclose her in the heat of his palm.
Then he drew his head back, one hand roughly in her hair to hold her away from him, the other hand still enclosing her centre, and with what seemed to be superhuman effort, he fought for control. For a moment, he watched the passion on her face. Then he said hoarsely, “I’ll have this for my revenge, shall I? You heartless little tramp, you think you’ll get to me this way? You will not get to me, but I’ll get to you, won’t I? This is as deep as you go.”
She was icy cold by the time he had finished this speech, but his hands were still on her, and he pulled her to him.
“No!” she said, panicked. “Not like this!”
He stopped and smiled. “Not like what? Not with the truth between us? You prefer the lies?”
“It wasn’t lies! Not all of it!”
He laughed and let her go, and on his face there was nothing, not even contempt.
* * *
In the other direction from Pontdewi, the public footpath led, as she knew from previous experience, along a valley and up a ridge to a view of the estuary. She had been there and painted the view.
If someone had used the footpath to gain access to the tunnel, she thought, they would not have come up from the village. They could not have risked being seen. People did notice things in a village the size of Pontdewi. Either the arsonist had wanted the hotel to burn down, or for Math to be accused of arson. Either way, they would have expected a full police investigation, with people being asked questions about who had been seen in the village. The arsonist couldn’t have risked that.
Elain took the footpath in the direction of the estuary, and before very long came to what she’d been looking for: a fork in the path. The left fork was the one she’d taken before, on her painting outings. The right one, scarcely noticeable as it branched off, led straight down the slope towards the main road.
And stopped far below, in a small lay-by, which had parking for about five cars. The kind of place built to provide public access to the footpaths.
So, they had driven here and parked, late in the night. Then they walked up the footpath to the stile, went over the stile, over the fortress wall, into the fortress, where they loosened the board over the entrance to the mine. Then down into the tunnel. When the task was done, they came out the same way, carried the tapestry to the car and were gone. Behind them, the flames must have been already leaping to the sky, while Math fought a brutal battle for his home and the lives of his guests.
* * *
They all knew about her now, though not by being told. It was as if the information had seeped out of the ether. The atmosphere was a little chilly.
“Do you think I’m a terrible person?” she asked Vinnie.
“Well, my dear, it’s not as though you knew us before you took the job. I suppose it seems unpleasant to us because you had seemed to fit in so well.”
“But that wasn’t fake. That was real. That’s what made it so...hard for me.”
“But you carried on with it.”
“Only because—oh, I wish I could make him—you—understand. I was trapped.”
Vinnie smiled sadly. “I expect we’ll all manage to forgive you in time. And of course, it’s rather exciting to have been, however briefly, the subject of a professional detective’s interest. I’m sure Jeremy will be painting you in very thrilling colours by next month.”
“Do you—do you think Math will forgive me?”
Vinnie paused. “Well, of course, with Math,” she said sadly, “you have history against you.”
She sat up at that. “History?”
“I wondered if you knew. You didn’t find that out then? Math’s father was a judge, you know. The first of his family to rise so far. His wife—Math’s mother—got a crippling disease early—oh, in her fifties, I think. They went on loving each other, but she wasn’t capable of physical love.”
“I didn’t know any of this.”
“No, it was in all the papers about fifteen or twenty years ago, but it’s never been resurrected since. But I remembered it when I met him.”
“Why was it in the papers? What happened?”
“Math’s father—well, perhaps it’s more common nowadays, or at least such things are more often made public than they used to be. But it was shocking enough then. His father had taken a mistress, my dear, as we used to call it. By all accounts he treated her very well. He told the girl the truth, that he loved his wife and would never marry her. He started an annuity for her, so that she would be financially sound for the rest of her life. It was an amicable arrangement. Then he got his knighthood.”
Elain blinked. “Math’s father was knighted?”
“He was made High Court judge, you see. A knighthood comes almost automatically, I believe, with the appointment to the High Court Bench. It was a tre
mendous achievement for him, coming from a family that had been farming for generations. But the lure of publicity was too much for the girl. When the next honours list was published, she sold her story to the papers.”
“To the papers?” Elain repeated incredulously, though it was nothing new. It was happening every day.
“A scandal sheet—there were only News of the World and The Sun then, I think. Haven’t times changed, though! Now they have a choice of half a dozen. It looked a very sordid story when down in black and white, and of course the judge had to resign. No one at all had known that Math’s mother was sexually incapable, but it was all revealed. You can imagine in what terms.”
Elain could only shake her head in horror.
“No doubt she had understood implicitly, if not explicitly, what arrangement her husband had made, but...she died of the shock within two weeks of the first press story. And the press being what it is, her death simply added fuel to the fire.”
Of course it had. Elain could almost see the headlines. SHAME DEATH OF LOVE-NEST JUDGE’S WIFE.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, suddenly seeing where all this was leading.
“Yes, it must have been dreadful. Math’s father committed suicide two days after his wife’s death.”
She was silent with horror. “How old was he?”
Vinnie understood who she meant. “He was a teenager. Fifteen or eighteen.”
“Where is the—the woman who—”
“As far as I know, she disappeared into oblivion.” Vinnie’s tart voice seemed to express that it was well-deserved oblivion, without saying so.
“I suppose that’s why he writes under a pseudonym. So the story won’t be resurrected.”
“Perhaps,” said Vinnie. “He has always struck me as a very private man. Perhaps he always was.”
“And now he sees me as just another cheat.”
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