Island-in-Waiting

by Anthea Fraser

  “What were you doing here anyway?” I asked curiously.

  After a moment’s silence he said levelly, “I had you on my conscience. I didn’t behave too well last night, did I?”

  I bit my lip. “I’m afraid I made rather a fool of myself.”

  “No, it was I who did that and as you guessed it was because of that phone call. It was the timing of it that was so fatal. I’d been thinking about you continuously since I’d left you the previous evening, and all at once it seemed that I may have been getting things out of proportion.” I felt him glance sideways at me but I was incapable of saying anything. “So I decided to keep my distance for a while. Then last night, when you explained what had happened, you disappeared before I’d had a chance to take it all in. Ironically enough, it was Ray who got through to me. I saw red at the time, but he was quite right.”

  “He told me you almost came to blows.”

  He smiled fleetingly. “If it’s any consolation I had a pretty bad night and I called round at lunch time to apologize. Martha told me you were having a sitting and roughly where, so I drove in this direction on the off-chance that you might have finished, and happened to catch sight of Ray’s car. Then I noticed that the hilltop was covered in mist and remembered the dream you’d told me about, so I came up to look for you. About Ray, though; is that sinister bond between you finished now that his uncle’s dead?”

  “I don’t think so. I heard him calling just now. That’s what woke me.”

  “Heard him?”

  “In my head, I mean.” I shuddered. “Up there in the mist it was exactly as I’d dreamt it, even to you appearing suddenly in front of me.” I paused. “In the dream, you were part of the danger.”

  But Neil was not to be distracted by discussing my dreams. “You know, I think Ray’s really fond of you, in which case letting fly at me on your behalf was decidedly out of character.” Again the quick, interrogative glance. “I know I keep coming back to this, but you are quite sure your feelings for him haven’t changed?”

  “I’m sorry for him,” I said quietly, “but that’s all.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Quite, quite sure.”

  He drew a deep breath. “And you’ll forgive me for being such an idiot last night?”

  I could only nod in reply but it seemed to satisfy him.

  Hugo was in the garden when we stopped at the gate. His first glance must have taken in my tear-stained face, because he came quickly and opened the car door.

  “You found her, then.”

  “Yes. Ray’d gone off somewhere and the mist came down, so I thought I’d better bring her back.”

  “Thanks very much. All right, honey?”

  “More or less. I’ll feel better when I know where Ray got to.”

  “He’ll probably phone when he gets back. Come in, Neil. You’re welcome to stay for supper if you’ll take pot luck.”

  Looking back on that evening it stands out like a small oasis of happiness between my previous misery and the grief and suspicions that were to follow. The warmth of the room and my happiness in being with Neil combined to create in me an almost drugged state of euphoria, so that although I was expecting a phone call from Ray, I was not unduly worried when it didn’t come.

  When it was time for Neil to go and I went with him to the front door he held me for a moment and kissed me gently. “I won’t press my luck any further at the moment, but I’ll be back. All forgiven now?”

  “All forgiven,” I replied, and there was a deep well of thankfulness inside me as I closed the door behind him.

  Sixteen

  Since there was no morning chapel at college that Sunday, Martha and Hugo and I again attended St Stephen’s. By now I recognized several people in the congregation and the vicar had a word with me after the service. My roots on the island were already beginning to go down.

  It was as I was straining the vegetables for lunch that the telephone rang and a few minutes later Hugo came into the kitchen. “That was Len Bennett from Staff House,” he told me. “Apparently Ray hasn’t turned up yet.”

  I dropped the wooden spoon and turned to face him. “You mean he’s been missing all night?”

  “It seems so. He wasn’t in for an evening meal but no-one thought anything of that. Saturday evenings are a bit haphazard anyway. Neil was the only one who’d have placed any importance on his absence, and of course he was here. When Ray didn’t appear at breakfast someone went to his room and found the bed hadn’t been slept in. No-one seems to have seen him since he left to come here yesterday morning. So Neil drove Len to the painting site – they’re just back now. The car’s still there and all the painting equipment, but no sign of Ray.”

  “We must go back at once.” I started fumbling with the strings of my apron. “Perhaps he went looking for me and slipped over the cliff. He could have concussion or a broken leg or something.” Further than that I dared not think.

  “There’s no point in rushing there straight away. Neil and Len had a pretty thorough search round all the most likely places.”

  “But Hugo, I must go! If I hadn’t left him when I did

  “We’ll have lunch first,” my brother said firmly. “Then if you insist I’ll drive you over so you can satisfy yourself that he isn’t lying injured somewhere.”

  “I always knew something would happen to him. How could I have fallen asleep like that? If only I’d stayed with him nothing would have happened.”

  “You might have disappeared, too,” Hugo retorted grimly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that I’m increasingly thankful that Neil arrived when he did and brought you home. Now, are you going to serve lunch or must I do it myself?”

  In view of Hugo’s insistence I served the meal and even managed a few mouthfuls of the lamb I’d put in the oven so light-heartedly before we went to church. Neither Hugo nor Martha ate any more than I did. At one stage I said aloud, “He can’t just have disappeared!” No-one contradicted me.

  By unspoken assent we piled the dishes in the sink and left them. It was a grey day, without either yesterday’s sunshine or its treacherous mists. Ray’s car already had a deserted air about it. My note, sodden with the overnight rain, was still on the windscreen. Followed by Hugo and Martha I set off up the hill at a run.

  The picture was ruined. The colours had run together so that blue tears seemed to course down my painted cheeks in uncanny prophecy. What sudden emergency could have forced Ray to abandon his precious painting – and me?

  Still shadowed by Hugo and Martha I made a quick detour of the hill-top, peering fearfully over the steeper faces to the ground far beneath. Then disconsolately I turned back to the sad wreck of the painting, feeling that it was up to me to salvage what I could of Ray’s scattered belongings. But before I could touch anything a voice behind me said sharply, “Just leave everything as it is, if you don’t mind, miss.”

  I turned to see the blue uniform of Ramsey police force coming up over the brow of the hill.

  “My sister was here yesterday, with Mr Kittering,” Hugo explained to the man in charge.

  “Ah, so you’re the young lady, Miss. Perhaps I could have your name and address.”

  Hugo gave me a small nod of encouragement and the policeman wrote it down. “Now, can you tell me in your own words the circumstances leading up to the disappearance?”

  “Nothing led up to it!” I said a little wildly. “I just left Ray painting the background and went for a walk. He said he’d call when he was ready for me. I sat on a ledge for a while and fell asleep in the sunshine. When I woke the mist was covering the top of the hill and – and Ray’d gone.”

  “And roughly how long was it from the time you left Mr Kittering until you came back here?”

  “I don’t know. Twenty minutes, perhaps.”

  “You arrived here in Mr Kittering’s car?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did you get home?”

&
nbsp; “Neil Sheppard came. He took me back.” Neil’s name and address were noted in turn.

  “At what stage did this Mr Sheppard arrive?”

  “I met him when I was running back down the hill.”

  “Running? In the mist?”

  I moistened my lips. “I was frightened. I thought someone was up here but I couldn’t see anything.”

  “The mist can play strange tricks at times. We’ll be taking a statement from Mr Sheppard, of course. Perhaps he –”

  “How will that help? He wasn’t even up here.” I became aware that as we were talking a group of men had spread out over the hilltop and begun a systematic search, beating at the gorse bushes and clumps of bracken. The idea that Ray might be beneath one of them brought nausea to my throat. Hugo took my arm.

  “My sister is naturally very upset by all this, Sergeant. Would it be all right if I took her home?”

  “Of course, sir. We’ll send a woman police officer round this evening to take her statement more formally. When we’ve finished here we’ll be cordoning off the area.”

  “Can’t I take the portrait with me?” I asked wistfully.

  “I’m afraid not, Miss. It will have to be tested for fingerprints, though I doubt if there’s much hope of finding any after all the rain last night.”

  “Fingerprints? But why –?”

  “We’ve been asked to search for a missing person,” the police sergeant replied stolidly. “You yourself thought someone was up here. If we can find out who that was, it might make a few things clearer.”

  “Yes. Yes, I see.”

  “Come along, Chloe,” Hugo said gently. “There’s nothing we can do here.”

  Neil was waiting at the gate when we reached the cottage. He caught and held me as I stumbled from the car. “You’ve been to the hill?”

  “Chloe insisted. The police arrived while we were there.”

  “Yes, I heard Len phoning them. It’s incredible, isn’t it? I can’t seem to take it in.”

  “People do disappear, though. You read of loving husbands slipping out to the corner shop for a packet of fags and never being seen again.”

  “But not here!” Neil insisted. “It’s not easy to disappear on an island.”

  We went into the house together and the four of us washed the lunch dishes, falling over each other in the small kitchen but thankful to have something to occupy us. We didn’t talk much. I was remembering my first sight of Ray from the kitchen window and the impression I’d received of a shadow hovering over him. Sickly I knew that shadow had caught up with him.

  The afternoon wore on. At about five there was a phone call for Neil to say the police were waiting at Staff House to interview him and he left immediately. Soon after a police woman, fair and neat in her uniform, arrived to take down my statement. She read back what she’d written and I signed it. It all seemed frighteningly formal, the kind of procedure familiar from police serials on television, but which you never expect to experience personally.

  By nine o’clock I was exhausted. At Martha’s suggestion I took some asprin and went to bed.

  When Martha casually mentioned the next morning that the sitting-room was due for a thorough cleaning, I set to work dusting, polishing and sweeping in a frenzy of frustrated energy, but the remorseless circling of my fears would not be blotted out.

  “I’ll come with you to the life class if you like,” I offered at lunch time. “I don’t want to stay here alone and you said the boys need another sitting.”

  “Fine. Thanks.” After a moment she added, “I wonder who’ll take over Ray’s classes. I’ll probably have to go in full-time for a while.”

  “Until he turns up,” I said carefully.

  “Of course. That’s what I meant.”

  There was an air of unhealthy excitement about the college that afternoon, a whispering in corridors and excited speculation in the classroom which broke off abruptly when we went in. It was obvious that everyone from the youngest boy upwards was well aware that I had been with Ray on Saturday. Everywhere I went I was conscious of eyes following me, speculating, wondering. I began to regret my impulse to accompany Martha.

  The lesson finished at last and I went with her to the staff-room. Here the atmosphere was supercharged with tension, no-one quite meeting anyone else’s eye. Only Neil’s steadying smile comforted me. Nicholas Quayle came over with odd, disjointed little murmurs of concern for my alarming experience; Phyllis Lathom gave my hand a brief consoling pat when I went for my tea.

  I looked round their uneasy faces: Philip, who had heatedly warned Ray to stop his scandalmongering; David Clay, who had left the group under his taunting; Pam, whom he’d reduced to tears; John Stevens, Mark Cunningham – even Hugo and Neil. Not one among them had liked Ray. Perhaps, though they could never admit it, they were relieved that he had gone.

  The pervading sense of unease followed us home and supper was a silent meal. Hugo seemed wrapped in his own thoughts and when Martha twice had to repeat a question, she put a hand on his arm. “Has anything happened, darling? Something you haven’t told us?”

  He stirred unhappily. “Nothing very definite, but I’m afraid things seem to be taking a rather more serious turn. Apparently the forensic boys were up there today. There’s a rumour going round that minute traces of blood were found.”

  Detachedly I watched the colour leave Martha’s face.

  “Oh God.” She swallowed, glancing at me. “It’s a wonder they found it after all that rain.”

  “It was on the canvas stool, apparently. You know how these people work, scraping up things no-one else can even see and being able to tell someone’s life history from them.”

  Martha’s tongue moved over her lips. “Do you gather they’re treating it as a case of murder now?”

  The words rattled uselessly against my eardrums. I heard them; I even understood them, but I couldn’t assimilate them. On the other hand, they were what I’d subconsciously been waiting to hear since Saturday afternoon.

  Hugo met my entirely empty gaze. “It wouldn’t surprise me. After all, they’re pretty certain he didn’t simply have an accident, or he’d have been found long before this. If he’d left voluntarily everyone seems to agree he’d have taken the painting, and certainly his car. And if he’d had a sudden brainstorm and rushed down the hill into the sea, his body would have been washed up by now. His family hasn’t heard from him and there’s been no sign of him at the docks or airport. He’s – simply vanished into thin air.”

  Martha’s eyes swivelled to me and I knew what she was thinking. If it was indeed murder, I was presumably the last person to have seen Ray alive.

  The doorbell rang and we all started guiltily. Hugo and I were still at the table when Martha came back with Detective-Inspector Quiggin.

  This time the questioning was in far greater detail. What had Ray and I been talking about during the sitting and over lunch? What kind of mood had he been in?

  “I gather there’s been some unpleasantness between Mr Kittering and several other members of St Olaf’s staff. Did he refer specifically to any of them?”

  From a long way off I heard myself say, “I don’t remember.”

  “Try to think, Miss Winter, it might be important. I’ve had various statements about the flare-ups at the sherry party on Friday evening. There have also been one or two independent reports of an argument later that night between Mr Kittering and Mr Sheppard, which appeared to become quite heated. Did he mention that?”

  My lips were paper-dry. “Only in passing.”

  “Do you happen to know the reason for the confrontation?”

  “Inspector –”

  “Please, Mr Winter. It’s essential I have this in your sister’s own words.”

  “He didn’t give me any details. Neil’s the one who can tell you.”

  “Any comments Mr Kittering made to you could be helpful.” He paused but I only shook my head. “Well, let’s move on to this impression you had of someone
hidden in the mist. Have you remembered anything further which could strengthen it in any way – a scent of tobacco – aftershave – anything like that?”

  “No, it was really only an animal awareness until the twig snapped.”

  “And the only person you actually saw was Mr Sheppard?”

  “Later, yes.”

  “Were you expecting him?”

  “No, it was – quite a surprise.”

  “Now think carefully, Miss Winter. How much time had elapsed between hearing that twig crack and coming face to face with Mr Sheppard?”

  “It’s hard to say. I started to run immediately, but I didn’t know which way to go and I think I went rather a long way round. It could have been three or four minutes.”

  “Time enough, in fact, for someone who did know the right direction to circle round in front of you and appear to be coming up the hill?”

  “It wasn’t Neil,” I said through juddering lips. “He’d only just arrived. He told me so.” My teeth had started rattling together and uncaring I thrust my tongue between them to still the noise.

  “Did he offer any explanation as to why he should happen to be climbing the hillside in the mist?”

  “He was coming to look for me.”

  “In spite of the fact that he knew you were with Mr Kittering, with whom he’d had a violent quarrel the previous evening? Did he imagine he’d be welcome, do you suppose?”

  “He thought I might be in danger,” I said in a whisper.

  The inspector pounced. “And why should he think that?”

  “Because – it sounds silly, but – I’d told him about a dream I had of being lost on a hill in the mist. Sometimes my dreams come true.”

  He frowned slightly. “What exactly was this dream?”

  “That I was looking for someone and couldn’t find him.”

  “That’s all?”

  “And I realized someone else was there and started to run away.”

  “And?”