Lady Mislaid

by Claire Rayner

  “Your stepson.”

  It happened again, sickening in its horrible familiarity, yet so intense it was like she had felt before. The rising tide of black panic, the scream of terror climbing needle sharp inside her had, the clamouring of that secret voice deep in her mind–

  He was holding her, his hands clamped hard on her arms at the elbows, keeping her on her feet. She let her head droop forwards and tried to breathe deeply, tried to keep control of herself until the panic receded, drawing some strength from the impersonal grip that almost hurt.

  “Stop being a ninny,” he said, his voice gentler now. “Getting into a state of dumb idiocy won’t help in the slightest. You’ve got some sense. Use it.”

  “I’m all right now. I’m sorry. It – it keeps happening.”

  “There is no need to apologize,” he said. “Just try not to give way to it again. You are all right now.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You’d better sit down again.”

  Obediently, she sat beside the tree, curling her legs beneath her, and rested her head on the trunk. Max returned to his tree, to stand leaning against it in the same relaxed yet wary way.

  “You can’t remember anything about why you are here, how you got here?”

  She shook her head, almost ashamed to admit her inadequacy.

  “Then I’d better tell you all I know. I’ve been working on this story since it stared, so there’s quite a lot. Your husband, first.”

  “It sound so odd. To have a husband, I mean. Unbelievable.”

  “You can believe it. It is perfectly true. I’ve seen the records at Somerset House.”

  “I see.”

  “It will help if you don’t interrupt. Just listen,” and again, he produced that considering unsettling stare, so that she dropped her gaze for a moment. But then she sat up more erectly, and said quietly, “Go on.”

  “Miles Tenterden is a painter. A bad tempered morose type from all accounts. He used to live in France, in a tatty villa in Normandy – lived there for eight years, in fact. He went there when his first wife died, when his son was less than a year old.”

  Max looked very grim suddenly. “He was, it appears, so distressed by the death of this first wife that he couldn’t cope with any of his responsibilities. He turned the child over to his wife’s sister for care. There were no money problems – the child had inherited a great deal from his mother. And that was that. Until he suddenly remembered the boy needed an education. He came back to England to make arrangements to send him to boarding school, and managed to get himself injured in a road accident. He’d lived buried in the country for so long he’d probably become careless of traffic. Anyway, he was admitted to hospital, and this is where you come into the picture.”

  “Private Wing,” Abigail said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “I was working in the Private Wing – yesterday, I thought,” she smiled bleakly at him. “It was yesterday when I went to bed, but a year ago when I woke up again this morning.”

  “Yes. Well, Miles met you. And four weeks later married you.”

  She stared at him in blank disbelief. “Four weeks?”

  Max nodded. “Four weeks. Special licence, quiet wedding, the whole romantic bit.”

  “I wish I could remember.”

  He laughed then. “I suppose that must be frustrating. To be the centre of a real life glamorous romance, and not even remember it!”

  “That’s – cruel,” she said quickly. “I don’t just want to remember for–”

  He looked at her closely for a moment, and then made a small grimace. “I’m sorry. I suppose I’m not really quite – well, never mind.”

  “You’re not quite sure you believe me, is that it? Not sure I really can’t remember anything?” Abigail said levelly.

  There was a pause, and then he smiled. A real smile, so wide and friendly that it lifted his face from its heavy cragginess into a much younger friendlier shape. “Not now. I did doubt it, but not now. Your face is the expressive kind. You can’t help showing what you’re thinking. I believe you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and took a deep breath. Perhaps, after all, this man, a story seeking journalist though he was, could be a friend?

  “I’ll tell you the rest. Miles took you to his home – the house where his sister-in-law and son were living, and you settled down, as they say. From here on in, I can only offer surmise – police surmise. As they see it, Daniel’s stepmother – you – got jealous of the boy. And decided to get rid of him and enjoy, through his father, the money he’d inherited. The change came when Tenterden, about ten months after his marriage returned to Normandy to clear up his affairs there, collect his canvases and so on, before settling permanently in England again.”

  He stopped, and then said abruptly “The police suspect that the boy was in fact disposed of, and with such skill that no trace of the body can be found, only the mess left in the house giving any indication of what happened. The puzzle now is not only the whereabouts of the boy, dead or alive, but also – you.”

  The warmth of a few minues earlier had quite gone from his face and his voice. He looked grim, his lips set in a heavy line as he stared at her.

  “You think I did it,” she said helplessly. “That I – killed the child. That’s why you look like that.”

  He frowned then, and shook his hed. “No. I am not convinced you killed your stepson. If I look – sour – it’s because Tenterden makes me sick. To abandon a child for so long and for his own selfish reasons, to behave so–”

  It was curious, the wave of loyalty to the husband she didn’t know, wouldn’t be able to recognize if he arrived in the clearing at this moment. “Perhaps the boy reminded him too much of his dead wife. If he’d cared a great deal for her, it’s understandable.”

  “Your husband he may be, but that’s nonsense. The man’s not worth a light, a selfish louse.”

  Wearily, Abigail said, “Oh, God, I don’t know. Maybe he is. I’m in no position to argue with you. I can’t remember anything about any of it. It’s all crazy, really it is. I’m not the sort to get hysterical amnesia, but I can’t remember–”

  “Hysterical amnesia?”

  “That’s one kind. Then there’s retrograde – after a head injury. It affects memory of what happened during and since the injury, and sometimes, quite a long period before it.”

  “Couldn’t yours be that kind?”

  She looked startled. “I suppose so, I’d rather assumed that it was hysterical–”

  “How nice to find a woman who thinks of that least attractive thing first,” and he smiled his transforming smile again, “Have you got any bumps anywhere?”

  Gingerly, she felt her head. “I don’t think so–”

  He came over, and pushing her head forwards, began to inspect her scalp. She giggled.

  “You’re just like the nurse we used to have at school. Nitty Norah, we called her–”

  He ignored this. ’there does appear to be a bump here. I suppose you can’t remember – no. Of course not.”

  Wonderingly, Abigail explored the scalp above the nape of her neck, just where her skull curved down to meet it. The tender ridge there, that had escaped her hairbrish, didn’t feel big enough to have caused so incredible a response at a retrograde amnesia streching back to a year.

  “It hurts a bit – so it must be recent – ” she said.

  “Excellent,” he said.

  “Thank you!” Abigail said tartily. “It’s my head we’re discussing, not yours–”

  “Stupid woman,” Max said, but in an abstracted way that robbed the words of any sting. “Excellent because it means you were hit by someone. It means you are less likely to have murdered this boy – that probably the person who hurt him hurt you too.”

  She shook her head. “It may convince you of my innocence – but will it convince anyone else? There’s only my word that it hurts, this bump, anyway. So where do I go
from here?”

  “Do you accept my help?” Max asked.

  She looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded. “I’ve no choice,” she said simply.

  “True,” and he grinned at her. “Right. This is what we do.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  He sat on the grass beside her, his arms round his knees. “We start off by accepting as an undoubted fact your loss of memory.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured, a little sardonically.

  He didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. “It says a lot; both for you, and for my power to suspect disbelief, that I do accept. it’s a pretty ‘novelettish’ concept, after all.”

  “People read noveletts because they because they’re believable, I suppose. So why say this is so difficulty to believe?” She felt argumentative, as though she had to defend her own lapse before this grim man.

  “Do you always go off at tangents like this?” he sounded genuinely curious. “Can’t you stick to the point ever?”

  She grinned, a little wickedly. “Perhaps, I can’t remember–”

  “All right. We accept you have a genuine amnesia, dating from the time you woke up this morning. But last night, when you checked in here, you could remember what had happened–”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because you used your husband’s first name as a pseudonym, and you called yourself Mrs.–”

  “Fair enough. I’m sorry I interrupted.”

  “Try not to do it again. As I was saying, you knew what was what last night. So you must have had a reason for coming here to London.”

  She creased her forehead, thinking hard. “That makes some sense. From London – look, where is this place, anyway? I don’t know, you see, whatever I might have known last night.”

  “Cirencester. Gloucestershire.” He turned and looked very closely at her, but she looked blankly back at him. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  She shook her head. “I – I seem to have heard of it,” she said slowly. “There was a girl I trained with who came from Gloucestershire – I think she mentioned the town once. Old Roman site, or something–”

  “But it doesn’t mean anything else to you?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” he said with a return of heavy patience. “You must have had a reason of some kind. Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” she echoed. And could think of nothing else to say.

  There was a long pause, and then he went on. “It’s reasonable to assume your arrival here had something to do with the boy Daniel. Perhaps he’s here too, somewhere–”

  She stared at him, sudden hope stirring in her. “Do you mean you think it’s possible that – he isn’t dead?”

  “I’m hoping he isn’t,” Max said sombrely. “Certainly the police evidence suggests he – or someone – was injured, but in the absence of a stronger evidence it’s as reasonable to assume he’s alive as that he’s dead.”

  She caught her breath then, and said in a low voice “He was injured–”

  “What?” He whirled then, and his voice hardened. “What did you say?”

  “Don’t look at me like that!” she let her fear of him show in her voice, for indeed he now looked so angry that all her original distrust of him came bubbling back. “I can explain–”

  And as she did, the anger in his face settled down. “This scrap of memory – is it a common thing to happen in people with amnesia?”

  “God, I don’t know, for sure,” she said wearily. “I didn’t take specifically psychiatric training. But I believe that it can happen. Memory, when it comes back, doesn’t come in a great rush, but sort of builds up from fragments. I got a brief fragment of that sort, I suppose–”

  He nodded. “I see. Then my idea is practical one.”

  “What idea?”

  “We’re going to go around in this district, take a good look at it. And see if something triggers off memory in you. Gives a reason for your being here.”

  “That indeed makes sense,” she stood up suddenly, feeling again the need for physical action. “At least it would be doing something – I can’t stand much more of this sitting about talking to myself.”

  “Is that what you’ve been doing?”

  She laughed then. “Haven’t I just! Positively schizoid I’ve been, or is it paranoic? Anyway, I’ve been listening to myself tell me what to do till my head spins. It – isn’t as funny as it sounds, really.”

  “No. I don’t imagine it is.”

  He got up too, and began to move towards the edge of the shrubbery.

  “Come on then. Have you got a coat or something at the hotel?”

  “I don’t know – there may be one. I didn’t really look –” she stopped suddenly. “Look, you say I shouldn’t go to the police?”

  Not at this point. There wouldn’t be much sense in it, would there? They think you – killed Daniel. I’m hoping he’s alive, and that you’ll be able to find him. Go to the police, and they won’t give you the chance to look. They might not be able to believe so willingly in your amnesia.”

  “Then I can’t go back to the hotel.”

  “Why not?”

  She told him about the suspicious chambermaid and the picture in the newspaper. He listened carefully, and then nodded.

  “I understand. Look, which room is yours?”

  She concentrated for a moment. “It’s at the end of the corridor, last on the right.”

  “I’ll go back then, and see what’s going on. If there’s been no fuss, I’ll pick up your coat and – have you a handbag?”

  “Yes.”

  “That too, then. If there has been a fuss, I’ll bring all your gear, and you needn’t ever go back. But cutting and running before there’s any need to will create suspicion in the management. Hang on here. I won’t be long.”

  And he disappeared into the bushes, moving remarkably quietly despite his size, leaving Abigail a little bewildered, but with a curious sense of comfort. Rude he may be, but he did seem to believe her, to trust her, even though she might be a murderer. And his motive for helping her in the way he had offered was a reasonable one. Anyway, what choice had she?

  He returned surprisingly quickly, carrying a brown suede coat over one arm, the brown bag dangling ludicrously from his big hand.

  “All quiet,” he reported. “I had a word with the chambermaid making my bed. It appears that the woman who looked after your room marched out in a rage a little while ago – something to do with being caught smoking–”

  “And nothing was said about me being in the hotel?”

  “Not a word. And believe me, if there was anything to be told, that woman would have told me. She’s an inveterate gossip. So there’s nothing to worry about–”

  He helped her into her coat – which fitted as well as the other clothes, but was just as unfamiliar – and looked at her thoughtfully.

  “But we’ve got to be practical. The chambermaid mayn’t have said anything in the heat of job-losing – but other people see the papers and may spot you. We’ll have to do something–”

  She nodded. “I think I know what will help – can we go to a chemist’s?”

  “If you like – what for? Grease paint or something?”

  “Very funny. Hair pins. Then I’ll do a transformation bit that should help.”

  “All right. Come on then.”

  They went quietly out of the shrubbery, and across the deserted lawn, but Max swung to the left as they reached the hotel and led her alongside the building, past a noisy kitchen where pan clattered and voices were raised in the hubbub of lunch preparation, to a small car park. The car he unlocked was an elderly dark blue estate one, rusty and shabby, but with none of the clutter inside one expected to find in a car that is well used.

  He started the engine with a roar, and the car swung out under a low archway, into a broad square shopping street. There were cars parked in the centre of it, and on
the far side, a beautiful old church flung itself upwards in sweeping flying buttresses and a lovely soaring tower that hung delicately against the clear blue of the spring sky.

  The place was quiet, yet gently bustling with shoppers and children, and Abigail felt a moment of elation as she took in the prettiness of the shop fronts past which they drove. A pleasant town. I could be happy here – have been happy here. The thought slid away, and she tried to catch it, as Max swung left into another narrow shopping street, and stopped beside the curb.

  “Hair pins, you say?”

  “Mm? Oh yes – look I’ll get them.”

  “No you won’t. The fewer people who see you before you’ve done your transformation bit, as you call it, the better.” He got out of the car, and left her with her head down, snuggled into the collar of her coat. It felt so odd, to be hiding from people’s eyes like this–

  When he came back, he thrust a small parcel into her hands and drove off, down the narrow street, left again into a quiet road lined with terraces of old houses.

  “There’s a mirror on the sun shade,” he said, and obediently, she pulled the shade down, and peered into the speckled mirror stuck on its reverse side. She found a comb in her handbag, and pulled the twist of hairpins he had bought out of their package. There were sunglasses in the package too, and she smiled as she saw them.

  “Elementary, my dear Watson,” she murmured, and began to comb her hair back, pulling it with practised fingers into a neat french twist, pinning it firmly.

  He looked at her approvingly, “Good. It makes a considerable difference. Makes you look – younger.”

  “It’s supposed to make me look older. More severe,” she said a little petulantly. “I wear it like this on duty.”

  With the sunglasses, which were big and dark, she indeed looked quite different, but after peering at herself for another moment, she swept the fringe back from her forehead, and pinned that too, making a parting in the centre.

  He nodded then, and said. “That’ll do. Short of dyeing it black, you can’t alter it much more. Right. come on.”

  And he started the car again, and drove away, taking them all round the town. It wasn’t a very big town, and as they moved through the traffic, Abigail peered eagerly about her, trying with every fibre of her being to see something – anything – that was familiar, that would remind her of some episode in the past lost year. But there was nothing, not even a renewal of that moment of elation she had felt when she first saw the central square outside the hotel.