Somewhere in the yard outside, Mrs Hingley’s dog barked, invisible beyond the darkened window. Reardon laid down his pen.
It had been eight-fifteen when Arthur Foley had seen Edith go past his study window. A dark, wet night with no moon, pitch-black by then. If Foley had looked out of his window with the curtains undrawn, he would only have seen, as Reardon was seeing now, his own reflection staring at him. Why had he lied? Or perhaps he hadn’t, had simply been mistaken, and had meant to say seven-fifteen, the time the servants said Edith had left the house, when it was not yet fully dark. Eight-fifteen was the time the butler had brought in his whisky and water.
He woke next morning in the lumpy confines of the musty flock mattress Mrs Hingley provided for her lodgers, fighting nameless fears, with an equally ungraspable depression hanging over him. It was not, nowadays, an unfamiliar sensation to wake up with, this knowledge of having journeyed, in those unconscious hours beyond his control, back to somewhere beyond the limits of human endurance. Nor was the relief of being able to tell himself that was all it was, now, a nightmare past and gone. He hoped he hadn’t shouted his terror, or screamed, or otherwise made an unacceptable disturbance, but there had been no banging on the wall or ceiling from any of the other lodgers.
It had rained again during the night. He stood at the open window and took deep breaths. The air was cool on his overheated face, but smoky and polluted. Street lamps were pale in the foggy dawn. It was never totally dark, here: the clouded night skies were always crimson with the reflected glow from the forges and blast furnaces below.
He made a hurried toilet then left the house that lay in the shadow of Dudley Castle, its round, grey stone towers standing on its hill, high above seven counties, feeling better despite having taken nothing but a cup of what passed as tea. Tea begrudged and water bewitched. It was time he got out of here, found a small house away from the grime, somewhere he could live alone and do for himself, he thought as he roared off on his motorcycle, comparisons with Broughton Underhill and one of the Greville Arms’ breakfasts foremost in his mind.
The rush of clean, cold air, the exhilaration of speeding along on empty roads cleared his head, drove away the demons as he left industry behind and met the country roads. He didn’t realise how fast he was going until he hit a patch of ice and skidded on a corner, almost coming into contact with a farm cart. It brought him up short. One motorcycle accident was more than enough.
An inglorious end to his army career he still believed it had been, never mind they’d seen fit to give him a commendation for it. He had recently been drafted into the Signal Corps, and as a sergeant despatch rider, was taking urgent messages from the front line back to base. December, 1917. Snow, ice, frozen mud. Driving along a road clogged with ambulances, the walking wounded, supply wagons, limbers and horses carrying field artillery. Swerving to avoid two Tommies limping along in front of him, each supporting the other, he’d hit a crater, which had thrown him clear, unhurt. But the motorcycle had toppled over and trapped both the soldiers underneath it before bursting into flames. No time to wait for anybody else, in all that chaos, to get to them. The only way was to lift the bike off them bodily, himself. He never knew whether the soldiers had survived. Didn’t remember anything, until he woke up in the base hospital with half his face gone.
The first thing he’d done, as soon as he was free of the first of the hospitals he’d spent the rest of the war in, was to get on a motorbike again, otherwise he knew he’d never have done it.
Mr Hatherley did not look pleased to find Reardon waiting for him when he came out of his front door to where his spanking red limousine was drawn up on the gravel drive, ticking over, his uniformed chauffeur in attendance at its open door. He glanced unfavourably at the leather-helmeted figure propped against his motorcycle.
‘What is it now?’ he demanded testily. ‘I really haven’t the time to be bothered this morning. I’m due at the magistrates’ court in…less than an hour,’ he said, pulling his watch out. He had still not recovered from his cold, his face was pasty and he did, in fact, look quite ill.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t wish to inconvenience you unnecessarily. Perhaps when your court duties are finished, you could come down to the Greville Arms, where we have our office?’
Hatherley looked even less pleased at this. ‘Well then, a few minutes, but be quick about it.’
‘In private, sir?’
‘Come inside.’ He dismissed the chauffeur with a wave of his hand. ‘Ten minutes, Larkin.’
Reardon followed Hatherley into the same room as before. He switched on an electric lamp and sat by the fireplace in the same chair he had previously occupied, but the dead ashes of the fire had not yet been cleared and the room had a cold, stuffy feel to it. He waved a hand and Reardon took a seat opposite, placing his gauntlets and leather helmet on a small table by the side of his chair.
‘Now then, what’s all this? I’ve told you all I can about poor Edith Huckaby.’
‘This is not about Edith. Our enquiries are at the moment concerned with the night Marianne Wentworth died.’
Hatherley’s face became suffused with colour. ‘This is intolerable. I have already told you exactly what happened that night. I went home via the lakeside, but that was long before Marianne died.’
‘How do you know what time she died, Mr Hatherley?’
There was a pause. ‘I don’t, of course, but it must have been after I left the lake. There was no sign of her while I was there. If I’m not mistaken, we have been over all this before.’
‘Maybe, if you give the matter a little more thought, you might change your mind.’
‘And just what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?’
‘A long time after the party broke up, Marianne was seen there with Greville Foley. He left, and then later, she was seen struggling with another person.’
‘And that person is supposed to be me? You think I pushed her into the water and left her to drown? Good God, what do you take me for?’
‘A man who is suffering from guilt? Yes, I do think you were that person, Mr Hatherley. But I don’t think you pushed her into the water. There seems to be little doubt she was alive when you left her. But afterwards, after you had gone…our witness saw her run to the edge of the jetty in a very agitated state…Why were you arguing with her?’
There was no doubt in Reardon’s mind that he had struck home. Hatherley’s complexion had grown even more ashen, if possible. He suddenly stood up and walked over to a side table which held bottles and glasses, poured himself a substantial amount of amber-coloured liquid and drained the glass in one gulp. He stood, his hand on the mantelpiece, looking into the cold fire. Then he turned, his face patched with colour.
‘All right.’ He resumed his seat, sitting down heavily, like an old man whose knees had difficulty in bending. ‘All right. I did see her. I waited for her, I knew she was going to be there because I’d overheard her making the arrangement with young Foley to meet, after the party was over. At least, what I suspected was an arrangement. I was on the terrace where I was finishing a smoke, before going home. Everyone else had left, except the Wentworths who were waiting for the car. She and Grev were just inside the French windows. Just a few words, but put together, it seemed enough: ‘…tonight…you wouldn’t dare…the lake…yes, I would, no one would ever know…’ Something like that. I don’t remember exactly, but it was enough to make me feel very much afraid they were planning something…very, very stupid.’
‘So you waited there at the lakeside until—’
‘Until they both arrived, and until he left her. She had been, that night…well, radiant, but now I could see something must have happened between the end of the party and then. I saw how upset she was, how upset they both were, in fact. Too much so for any romantic interlude, I thought. Then he…he embraced her passionately, and left. She was in a storm of tears. I didn’t know what was going on, or what to do. In the end I went over to her, asked her what was
wrong and tried to comfort her. But she begged me to leave her alone. I refused at first, and said I would see her home, but she would have none of it, said she’d be quite safe. In fact, she was quite angry with me and pushed me away. And, God help me, I left her. It has haunted me ever since.’
The spirit-induced colour had left his face, and his brow was beaded with sweat. He looked wretched, and for the first time, Reardon felt pity for him. If he had told this in the first place, he could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. But Reardon had got what he wanted and kept his own counsel.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Another night of heavy rain was followed by a morning so glittering it seemed to Amy that the whole earth had been rinsed clean. Birds sang, a hawthorn had burst into blossom overnight, and the sun dazzled from the puddles in the lane leading to the pottery. She tried to steer her bicycle to avoid them and the hem of her skirt grew soaked with brushing against the rain-soaked weeds alongside the edges, but she scarcely noticed.
‘Is Steven in, Mrs Rafferty? He hasn’t gone back to Cambridge yet?’
‘Amy, how nice to see you! No, he’s still here – he went to the village to post a letter and he took a book to read by the river on his way back. It’s simply too lovely to stay indoors.’
‘Oh, then I’ll go and find him.’
‘Stay a moment and tell me – I heard you had some storm damage, at the rectory.’
‘A yew tree was struck and smashed through Susannah and the Elders.’
‘Oh dear, the stained-glass window.’ Mrs Rafferty tried to look sympathetic, but only succeeded in smiling. Amy warmed to her.
‘Well, good riddance to the horrid old thing. The new window will be plain glass, thank goodness. It’ll be so much nicer and lighter in the hall without it.’
‘Yes, I suppose it might be a good thing out of a bad one. No one was hurt, I hope?’ she added, looking closely at Amy and thinking how subdued and pale she looked. Nothing like her usual bright and bouncy self.
‘We were all in bed when it happened, but you never saw anything like it. Half the tree, right through the window. They had to saw the branches off where it was, and they’re still chopping the trunk and the rest up outside now, Sam Noakes and his Uncle Ted. Well…Mrs Rafferty, if you don’t mind, I’ll just walk down to find Steven. I have to see him, and then go back home to help. There’s still a lot of clearing up to do.’
‘Then take this with you.’ His mother lifted a piece of oilcloth from a chair. ‘It’s very wet out there and I told Steven to take it with him to sit on, but of course he forgot. He’ll get rheumatism, though I don’t suppose he’s noticed the wet.’
‘I don’t suppose he has,’ Amy said, smiling faintly and taking the oilcloth.
‘And call in on your way back. I made a big pot of soup this morning and I know you’ll be at sixes and sevens at the rectory with no time to cook.’ She patted Amy’s shoulder and then, because she looked so woebegone, gave her a kiss.
His mother need not have worried. Even Steven could not avoid noticing how wet the ground was and he was half sitting, half propped, against what looked to be a rather uncomfortable rock, a book in his hands, but jumped up immediately when Amy came down the path. ‘Amy! What brings you down here?’
‘Oh, Steven!’ she burst out straight away. ‘I’ve done such a terrible thing – what am I going to do?’
‘Well, I think you’d better tell me what this terrible thing is first. What’s that I see under your arm – the oilcloth I forgot?’
He spread it out for her and Amy sat down with her knees to her chin. He perched again on the large rock, opposite her, so that he could see her as she spoke. She hadn’t bothered to put her hair up, just tied it back with its black bow, and she was wearing an old grey dress and no hat. That she – Amy! – didn’t seem to have noticed how she looked was clear indication of how upset she really was. He watched her with concern.
‘It was the storm,’ she began, wanting to get it all off her chest before she panicked and took fright and bottled it all up inside her again, as she had done for upwards of five years. ‘Nella found Marianne’s notebooks, you know, the ones she was always writing in, and she’s going to give them to that policeman who’s back here because of the murder – oh, Steven, it’s simply too awful!’
‘Yes, poor Edith Huckaby. Who would have thought—’
‘What? Oh, yes, Edith. Yes, that is shocking, of course, but…’ She reached out and plucked a feathery stem of grass, running it top to bottom between her fingers, stripping it to the bare stem.
‘But what?’
She looked up and her eyes were swimming with tears.
‘Whatever’s wrong?’
‘Oh Steven, you must help me, I don’t know what I’m going to do, and you’re always so…reasonable.’
‘Am I?’ he said, oddly, looking down at her. ‘However, I can’t help if you don’t start at the beginning and tell me sensibly what it’s all about.’
She swallowed. ‘I don’t know what you’ll think of me.’
He reached across and tucked her hand into his. His own hands were long and bony, but they held hers with a very warm and comforting grasp, and he smiled. ‘No worse than I’ve always done, I don’t suppose. Go on.’
‘Well, you know, she discovered I’d been reading them, one day. Yes, I do know I shouldn’t have done that, but I was curious, I wondered just what the big secret was. And – well, I read them again and that time she was very cross with me, I mean really angry, you know? I’d never seen Marianne so furious before. She said everyone in the family knew she wanted to keep her writing private and what right had I…and oh, a lot more horrid things. She called me a silly little girl, and after that she used to stow them away somewhere secret.’
‘And now, in some way that you haven’t told me, Nella has found them and is going to hand them to the police—’
‘That’s not all,’ Amy said in a small voice, scuffing the toe of her shoe into the damp sandy soil. He waited patiently, and after a moment, she went on. ‘That night, after we got home from Oaklands, after Grandy’s party, the night it happened – to Marianne, I mean. We went straight to bed but I woke up about an hour later feeling thirsty, and I went down for a drink of water – and there she was at the kitchen table, scribbling away. Just to tease her, I pretended to try and see what she was writing, though I wouldn’t really have looked, not after she’d been so mad at me. After that time, she was always accusing me of prying, but this time she just told me to go away…Steven, she was crying. I asked her what was the matter, but she wouldn’t tell me. She looked so sad, and unhappy, but then she kissed me and said she was sorry she’d been so cross with me lately, and told me to go back to bed.’
Amy herself looked unhappily down at the ground. She raised her eyes, full of unshed tears. ‘When they…found her, next morning, I went into her room – not to pry, I swear, just to be there, do you know what I mean? I couldn’t believe what had happened, well of course none of us could. And, you know, it was so awful, her room was in such a mess, when she always kept it much tidier than either Nella or me kept ours. The things she’d been wearing for the party were thrown all over the place just anyhow, her new cream shantung dress and her bronze party slippers and her seed pearl necklace and the rose Grev had given her, everything! It didn’t seem right to leave them, somehow, so I just started to tidy things up a bit and that was when I found it.’
‘What did you find?’
‘The exercise book she’d been writing in at the kitchen table, the one I told you about. I think she left the house in such a hurry she forgot all about hiding it with the others Nella found. I…haven’t told Nella about this one.’
‘And where is it now?’
‘In my stocking drawer, at the back. I’ve kept it ever since because…because, I thought, one day, it might be…useful.’
‘Useful?’
The colour rose like a tide in Amy’s neck. ‘Well, I just thought if Aunt Sybil
knew what I know, what Marianne had written, it might persuade her to let me…you know, all the London thing with Eunice.’
Steven didn’t let go of her hand, but for a long time he said nothing, just stared down at her. Then he said, ‘There’s a nasty word for that sort of thing, Amy.’
She looked chastened, sad and suddenly older. ‘I know. I knew you’d think badly of me…but I never have used it, and I never will, now. I don’t think Eunice will ever agree to be brought out now anyway, and even if she does, I don’t think I want to be part of it. It doesn’t really seem to matter now, all that,’ she added in a low voice. ‘I suppose I can burn the book and nobody else but you need ever know about it. But do you think I should, Steven? Throw it away, I mean?’
‘That surely depends on what was in it, doesn’t it?’
‘It was—No, I simply can’t tell you – tell anybody – oh, I don’t know!. It doesn’t seem possible that it really can have been true. Maybe she was only making it up…’
He said patiently, ‘Amy, if you’re sure you want my advice, then don’t you think I should see this notebook?’
Still she hesitated. ‘All right,’ she said at last, reluctantly. ‘I will let you see it. Oh, if only William were here, he’d know what to do, but he’s not, and I know you’ll help me.’ Amy never had any doubts that everyone was ready to help her. ‘Only promise me, Steven, you’ll never breathe a word to anyone about it?’ She added, almost under her breath, ‘It was a very stupid idea, to think I could frighten Aunt Sybil, especially after all this time, especially now they’re both dead.’
That afternoon, she stood outside her father’s study as she had stood so many times before, in the shadow of the Susannah window. Only now that was gone and the space where it had been was empty, waiting for the new glass, which they said might be weeks in coming. The hall was exceedingly draughty without it, oddly empty and light, leaving nowhere to hide. Her palms were damp. She half turned to run away but she remembered the way Steven had looked at her when he said, tightly holding her hands, ‘You know what you must do, Amy, without me telling you.’
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