The Winding Stair

by Millie Vigor

  When he’d chosen two more books, Brett took them and the ones he’d already selected to be stamped before he took them home. When he got to the bus depot, Nancy Graham was waiting for the bus to Blackton so they travelled back together. During the journey, she wanted to know if Brett had uncovered any more clues as to Ginny’s whereabouts, but he had decided long since that anything he said to her would be repeated to her husband so he told her nothing. But he did agree when asked if he would come to her house for his evening meal.

  ‘Bill’s on shift,’ she said, ‘and food tastes better when it’s eaten in company.’ With this Brett had to agree.

  Later, when the meal was over and they were sitting at the table, each with a glass of wine, Nancy said, ‘When are you going home?’

  ‘I’m staying on a bit,’ said Brett. ‘We make more of Hogmanay, you know, maybe I’ll be able to go home for that.’

  ‘Let’s hope you do and let’s hope that Ginny will be home for the New Year, too. That would be perfect.’

  ‘You still think she’s alive, then?’ said Brett.

  ‘I can’t let myself think anything else. And I won’t until I’m told otherwise.’

  The evening drifted on pleasantly enough, more wine loosened tongues and aided the conversation. At ten o’clock, Brett said he should go, and thanking his hostess, said goodbye and walked down Church Lane to the Wheatsheaf. A dart’s match was in progress and the bar was full of regular and visiting drinkers. Sally, who had been joined by the lugubrious landlord, was busy, but not too busy to stop and have a word with him.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said. ‘But not here and not now, I’ll see you in the morning, just don’t go out until you’ve seen me, all right?’

  ‘Is it that important?’

  ‘Yes, it is. Just you wait till you hear what I’ve got to say. Got to go,’ she said as a fist was being hammered on the bar and a pint called for.

  ‘Well, I could wait now,’ Brett called after her, but Sally didn’t hear. He did wait a while but the bar was so crowded and Sally so busy that he gave up and went to bed.

  They’d had supper and were in the lounge. Ginny was curled up in the corner of one of the two settees that faced each other, Curtis opposite her. Ginny was reading a book while Curtis leafed through a magazine. A sudden movement opposite her made Ginny look up. To her surprise Curtis now sprawled, both legs stretched out on the settee, one arm along the back of it and the other held behind his head which was laid back while he gazed at the ceiling. He turned to look at her and grinned.

  ‘Hi there, honey,’ he said.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Curtis swung his legs off the settee, sat legs apart, feet on the ground and his elbows on his knees. He leaned forward and grinned again. Curtis never grinned.

  ‘Ah was just saying hullo.’ The accent was American. This was obviously one of the ‘others’.

  ‘So how are ya, hon? Or aren’t you goin’ to talk to me?’

  ‘Oh … yes … all right. What are you doing here and who are you?’

  ‘Me. Ah’m Chuck, I guess you’d call me Charlie.’

  ‘Yes, I would. What do you want?’

  Where did this one come from?

  ‘Aw, come, honey; don’t say ya aren’t pleased to see me.’

  ‘It would be better if I had known you were coming, don’t you think? But now you’re here, why don’t you tell me about yourself? What do you do?’

  ‘Ah’m a free agent. My pa left me a lot of dough. Ah don’t have to work so ah ride around on my Harley. How about you?’

  ‘I work at home, when I’m there.’

  Sitting here talking to … well … who was she talking to? This ‘other’ said he was called Chuck, but he was in Curtis’s body.

  ‘Charlie,’ said Ginny. She would not use his Yankee name. ‘Tell your host that I can’t stay here. I want to go home.’

  ‘Aw, honey, don’t leave me. You’re a pretty lady, ma’am, stay and talk.’

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘How about you and me taking a spin on the Harley? Do you like to ride bikes?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, how’s about we get to know each other better?’ Chuck stood up. ‘I’ll come and sit beside you and tell you all about me.’

  ‘No,’ said Ginny. ‘Stay where you are. You haven’t got a motorbike, you aren’t real. Stay away from me.’

  Chuck grinned at her. ‘Ya sure are one feisty lady,’ he said. ‘What’s got you all riled up?’

  ‘I don’t want to be here, I want to go home.’

  ‘Ain’t this your home?’

  ‘No, it is not. The sooner I can leave the better.’

  ‘There ya go again, wantin’ to leave.’ Chuck sat down, leaned back and closed his eyes. His face began to twitch and he blinked. He raised himself up to a sitting position … and was Curtis again.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Virginia,’ he said. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’

  ‘Perhaps you did. Who is Charlie?’

  Curtis swung his head slowly from side to side.

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Charlie. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Charlie was here talking to me.’

  ‘Couldn’t have been,’ said Curtis. ‘All the doors are locked so there was no way anyone was going to get in.’

  ‘You can tell that to the Marines, but OK, if you say so.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘ There you go.’ Sally plonked a plate down in front of Brett. When she lifted the cover, the appetizing smell of bacon, eggs and fried bread wafted under his nose. ‘I snitched you an extra sausage,’ she added.

  ‘You’ll have to stop doing that,’ said Brett. ‘The waistband of my trousers is getting rather tight.’

  ‘Man needs a good breakfast.’

  ‘A working man, yes. But I’m not working at the moment.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, it does. Now, you said you had something to tell me that was important.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Sally pulled out a chair and sat down. She leaned towards Brett. ‘I went to Wilton on Saturday. My sister lives there. We went to the supermarket and who do you think we saw?’ With a knowing grin Sally stared at Brett.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, would I? Who was it?’

  ‘Curtis Brookes.’

  ‘Well, that’s nothing. The man is entitled to do his shopping, isn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, you think it was nothing, do you? Well … you won’t think that when I tell you what he was buying.’

  Brett popped a piece of sausage into his mouth, gave it a couple of chews then said, ‘And what was that, then?’

  Sally looked to right and left of her then, her voice a hoarse whisper, she said, ‘Sanitary towels.’

  ‘Sanitary towels?’

  ‘Yes, and a toothbrush and tights and deodorant and a lipstick, a red one. I always did think he was queer, but they don’t use them … um … thingies, do they? I mean … OK, he might be gay and he’s got to be one. They don’t change their sex, do they?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ said Brett. ‘I have to admit that his purchases do seem rather odd, but then he could have been shopping for anyone, maybe a relation or someone who’s housebound.’

  ‘Not him,’ said Sally. ‘I mean, why would he want to go to Wilton to shop? He could have bought all that in Salisbury when he was doing his own shopping. He’s up to no good, I can tell you.’

  Brett stopped eating and looked at Sally. ‘I don’t think what you’ve told me would stand up as evidence on its own,’ he said. ‘We need something more positive than that. What a pity I didn’t have a camera on me when I thought I saw Ginny looking out of that window. Now that would have been acceptable.’

  Sally grabbed Brett’s arm. ‘My little brother’s got a camera,’ she said. ‘How about I get him to snoop around the house and see if he can come up with something?’

  ‘I take it he’s still at school
, so when would he be able to do that? He would only have evenings and weekends and those are the times when Curtis would be home.’

  ‘Don’t know much about kids, do you?’ said Sally. ‘They do bunk off school, you know, and our Billy would think he’d won the lottery if he could ferret around old Brookes’s back garden. I’ll tell him, shall I?’

  Knowing that if he stood any chance of finding out if he was right and that Ginny was being held captive by Curtis Brookes, Brett had to agree to Sally’s offer. What a feisty girl she was and what a lucky day it had been when his footsteps led him into the Wheatsheaf; if they hadn’t, he never would have met her. A smile spread across his face.

  ‘What a girl you are,’ he said. ‘All right then, ask your brother to take a look around, but do tell him to be careful because if he gets caught, he could be done for trespassing and no doubt I’d have to pay the fine.’

  ‘He won’t get caught. He’s a fly one. He can wriggle in anywhere and if there’s anything to find, he’ll find it. I got to go now; I can hear the missus rattling pots. She always does that if she thinks I’m skiving. See you later.’

  Brett finished his breakfast, drank the last of a cup of cold coffee, then sat for a while and stared out of the window. Empty hours stretched before him. How was he going to fill them? His thoughts centred on Ginny and if, how and when she was going to be rescued. So immersed was he that he didn’t hear the pad of Dog’s feet on the wooden floor, and it wasn’t until he felt the weight of something on his thigh that he looked down and into Dog’s face.

  ‘Want to go for a walk, do you?’ he said. ‘We’ll do that, then.’

  Dogs had been part and parcel of all Brett’s childhood days and, living in sheep country as the family did then, he knew that dogs had to be disciplined. It was a policy that Brett agreed with and when Dog had attached himself to him, Dog had been disciplined too.

  Now, as Brett – suitably hatted and booted – strode out, Dog trotted at his heels. The animal was minus a lead, there was no need for one because Dog knew his place and responded promptly to commands.

  With his hands stuffed into the pockets of his overcoat, Brett decided against the circuit of the village. It was not far enough and as he would be home almost before he’d started, he would just keep walking until he thought it was time to turn back. Turnings to left and right he ignored and strode on. It wasn’t until he was passing a cluster of cottages that he didn’t recognize that he wondered where he was. He was in a village with a pub, a shop, a post office and a signpost that told him that he was only two miles from Salisbury. He had walked much farther than he had intended.

  ‘Come on, Dog,’ he said as he headed for the pub. ‘I could do with a drink, I don’t know about you.’

  To the man polishing glasses behind the public bar he said, ‘I’ll have a pint of your best, a bowl of water for the dog, and what have you got in your sandwiches?’

  ‘We don’t allow dogs in here, the punters don’t like it.’

  Brett made a point of getting off the bar stool he had perched on to look round the empty room.

  ‘I don’t see any punters,’ he said. ‘We have walked from Blackton and we are thirsty, and a pint of beer and a beef sandwich would go down very nicely.’

  Brett stood head and shoulders taller than the barman. It was enough and the man put down his cloth, took a clean glass and began to pull on the beer pump handle.

  ‘Just this once,’ he said, ‘seeing that you’ve come so far.’

  Dog got his bowl of water and Brett his beer. They shared the sandwich. Half an hour after they’d walked in they stood outside, Dog beside Brett while Brett decided which way to go.

  ‘We’ll go into the town, Dog, and then we’ll get a bus home. And while we’re there we might as well go to the police station. No harm in telling them what we’ve found out.’

  They walked on. At the police station, Brett was lucky, for DI Barker was in his office. Dog at his heels, Brett was shown in.

  Barker leaned back in his chair, arms across his chest, fingers linked.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr McIvor,’ he said. ‘Tremayne tells me you have some information for me. But would you tell me first why you are interested in Virginia Harvey’s disappearance?’

  ‘We were at school together, but then our paths went different ways and I only met her again just before I went abroad to work. I thought to look her up when I came back. When I was at Heathrow waiting for my connecting plane to Inverness, I saw a report in a newspaper about her going missing. Instead of going home I came here.’

  ‘I see. So what have you got to tell me?’

  Brett told of seeing the face at the window, the auburn hair and his belief that it was Virginia Harvey. He also mentioned Sally’s sighting of Curtis Brookes shopping in Wilton and what he was buying. He itemized the purchases.

  ‘Not the sort of things you would expect a single man to buy, and as Sally said, why go to another town to shop when he could have bought it all in the place he usually did his own shopping? Sally is a local girl, born and brought up in the village and has known of the Brookes-Taylor family all her life. She doesn’t think much of them.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Barker had been studying Brett all the while he was speaking. He continued to do so. ‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘Thank you for coming to tell me that, but I have to say that the man, whatever his sexual orientation, can entertain whoever he likes in his house and Miss Harvey is not the only woman in the world who has red hair. As to the shopping, maybe he was buying something for a relative or a friend who was housebound. I’m afraid we can’t arrest him for that. We need something that will stand up in court, nothing else will do.’

  ‘I realize that,’ said Brett. ‘But I didn’t know if Curtis was on your list of suspects. I have met and talked to him when I’ve been at the library. I don’t really think he’s gay, but there’s something about him that seems odd to me and he talks about Ginny in the present, not the past. To me that says that he knows where she is. I don’t know what you think.’

  ‘It takes all sorts to make a world, Mr McIvor.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I hope I haven’t wasted your time, it’s just that I would like Ginny to be found.’

  ‘So would we all.’

  There was nothing more to say so Brett looked down at Dog.

  ‘Come on then, animal. Let’s see if we can find a bus to take us home.’

  ‘I doubt if they’ll let you take that one on a bus,’ said Barker. ‘Taxi won’t be cheap.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Brett. ‘Well, we walked here from Blackton, blessed if I’m going to walk back. I shall have to buy a car.’

  It had been said in jest, but as Brett walked away from the police station, he thought perhaps it was not such a bad idea and he made for the nearest car showroom. There was no way he was going to buy a new one, and the grin on the face of the young and eager salesman that came rushing out to greet him fell flat when Brett asked him what trade-ins he’d got.

  ‘I only need a runabout for a week or two,’ he said. ‘Maybe I could be persuaded to trade it in again for something better when I’ve done with it, but we’ll see.’

  In the back lot of the garage amongst an assorted lot of bad to better cars was a Vauxhall Astra with a month’s tax still on it.

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Bret. ‘Now let’s see if we can insure it.’

  Insurance arranged and the tank full of petrol, Dog sat proudly in the passenger seat. Brett smiled, got in and drove away. At the Wheatsheaf, he parked the car and went into the bar. The landlord’s wife heard him and came rushing out.

  ‘My lor’, where have you been?’ she said. ‘You said you’d be back by dinner time and now it’s nearly five o’clock.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Brett. ‘Couldn’t be helped, I’m afraid. We had a long walk. Dog is rather tired and I am as well. You couldn’t make me a cup of tea, could you?’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It had taken Ginny quite a while
to persuade Curtis not to stand outside the door while she had a bath. A shower in the evening was a regular but a bath on a Sunday morning a privilege. At last Curtis had learned to trust her, a trust that she had worked hard to instil in him. She could now lock the bathroom door.

  Life was getting better. Whenever Curtis was at home, she was out of the cellar and instead of being asked to join him when supper was ready, she now sat at the kitchen table and watched as he prepared it. She spent her evenings with him talking or reading or watching television and on Sundays, the whole day was spent in his company. It would be too easy to agree with what Curtis wanted, too easy to let him look after her, shower her with presents and take care of all the mundane matters of everyday life. But then, did she really want that, could she face living with him for the rest of her life? The answer to that was no.

  As she climbed out of the bath Ginny reached for a towel, then, wrapped in it, she sat on a stool and combed the fiery mane of her hair. It had grown and was in need of a cut, but as Curtis had not yet allowed her out of the house that could not be done. Dried and dressed, she tidied the bathroom then opened the door to go downstairs. The aroma of a joint being roasted drifted up to her, lunch must be nearly ready. As she walked down the staircase she could see Curtis in the kitchen; he had left the door open so that he could see her as she came down, and that was a pity because at no point was she out of his sight. No chance then to look in the pocket of his overcoat hanging on the hall stand. If she was right, the front door key would be in the right hand pocket – a place for everything and everything in its place – it must be there.

  Lunch was roast lamb and was as usual cooked to perfection. Home-made mint sauce; roast potatoes, crisp and golden, and broccoli, fresh and green, accompanied it. For a second course, Curtis produced a lemon Queen of Puddings. Not sweet but not too tart, just right to leave a clean taste on the palate. And then he made coffee.

  ‘You should have been a chef, Curtis, and not a librarian,’ said Ginny.