by Lorna Gray
I made her smile. I felt like a fraud. It made me abruptly reach for my own cup of tea from the waiting tray. Somehow, miracle of miracles in this time of rationing, she’d even managed to purloin a couple of biscuits. I nibbled one tentatively. It was a mistake. It awoke my stomach to the concept of dinner. But at least it was a way of ignoring the fact that Adam seemed to have forgotten that we were supposed to be discussing the mention he’d made of Rhys’s name in the breakfast room many hours ago. Instead he seemed to be closely scrutinising my behaviour now. His examination was intense.
Bravely I lifted my head. For my part, this wasn’t the kind of openness I’d hoped for; I hadn’t intended it to be me who was baring yet more secrets. I’d expected him to make the confession. I’d been wishing that he would make the obvious declaration that he wasn’t a criminal; and that he wasn’t part of this game being played with my mind. And above it all, I really wanted him to tell me that he was definitely not a grief-ridden former friend to Rhys.
I didn’t get a chance to ask him any of it. Mary told me brightly, “We went to your house, you know.”
“My house?” I blinked, confused. Now I had to calculate what else might have spilt out of my mouth unnoticed. “Which house?”
“The one with the mysterious tunnel. That Nanteos place.” Mary pouted. “Only there was no gaping tunnel-mouth ready to welcome us. Just tales of ghosts in the attics where the nuns lived during the war.” She gazed thoughtfully at Adam as he gave in and reached for his cup. Then she turned her attention back to me. She remarked dryly, “Though apparently for some people that counts as atmosphere.”
Adam had relaxed again. He was examining the state of his cooling cup of tea. And it was a good job too because it meant he didn’t notice the way Mary was examining him and measuring him against the impossible muscle of Jim Bristol. I think she was interested to note that he didn’t exactly suffer for the comparison.
Then Adam’s head suddenly lifted and she was looking at me innocently with a smirk behind her eyes and saying, “You know, you had us worried when you missed dinner today. We thought you’d left.”
“Oh?” I said lamely. “No.”
She wasn’t satisfied. She continued, “And thinking of unexplained absences; where did Jim get to? I brought him a cup and everything. He’s your real hero, Katie. He was the one that heard the fracas and raised the alarm. Though perhaps it’s a good job he didn’t stay otherwise we’d get terribly muddled. He’s a James, I’m a James; imagine how confusing it would be if we were married. I’d be Mrs James Bristol or perhaps even Mrs James Bristol-James … By the way, you do look truly very tired. Shall we go? We’ll go. No, don’t get up.”
She reached across and gave me a motherly kiss upon the cheek. “You do brighten up life around here, Katie.”
She got up and fussed over the effort of rearranging her hair – which was immaculate – and swept the shadows from under her eyes, which, continuing the theme of the day, were entirely imaginary. And then while she adjusted the opening of my window and Adam moved to return his cup to the tray, I said urgently, foolishly, “Adam.”
At a distance of only a yard or so from me, his eyes were very dark. He knew what had alarmed me, even if Mary was wilfully blind to it. It was the proof that Jim alone had heard the supposed cry that had necessitated their break-in. It was Mary’s admission of her warmth of feeling for that man.
My heart was beating fiercely as he told me, “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
He stepped closer and reached for my empty cup. His eyes were his own again. As I nodded, I knew all my stern lectures to myself this afternoon were for naught. If the game for these men was to find yet another way to gently erode my sense of control, so be it. Adam had what he wanted. Every speck of my willingness to believe in him lay burnt upon my heart.
He etched it all a little deeper when he told me quietly, “We terrified you just now and I’m sorry. At the time it seemed necessary but now I can see it wasn’t entirely … wise. You look exhausted. Sleep well, Kate. And if you need me, you know where I am.”
Then he took my cup and the tray and they left, gently clicking the door shut with the air of those who were leaving me quietly tucked up in bed. Only I wasn’t a child and of course I had to get up after them because I had to lock the door. This time I put a chair under the handle too.
Chapter 16
I slipped along the corridor to take a bath just as soon as the first kitchen lights shone out onto the courtyard beneath my window and I couldn’t be accused all over again of disturbing the perfect peace of my fellow guests. I hadn’t slept. It was impossible when there was too much to think about.
There was the hope that Adam’s words in the dead of night had implied that he was already beginning to suspect the truth about Jim and his interest in me here. There was the fear too that I was mistaken. At least today I had a strategy for my escape. It was not a particularly good strategy, consisting for the most part of simply leaving this place by the earliest train possible, but it would do and I had a timeframe too, dictated as it was by the decision I had made while brushing my teeth. I would stay just long enough to recount the whole mess to Adam. And Mary too, if her sister would let her listen.
I slipped back to my room again and locked the door and dressed, selecting at last an off-the-peg skirt in a sensible shade of beige. The brightly coloured frocks of the past two days had been creations from my recent past, a sort of crimson-hued experiment I’d made for myself in recognition of my re-emerging status as a practicing artist. Today’s choice was an older and more faithful servant and inconspicuous enough under the matching jacket and my coat.
After that there was little to do except pack. The case was only small – part of a larger set of luggage that before the war would have been used to transport a lady’s make-up and smalls rather than my entire wardrobe of clothes. It had a shoulder strap and a dent in one corner where the cardboard lining had been bashed. The borrowed copy of Jane Eyre was left out on the bed to remind me to return it to the lounge library. The shopping bag containing the ruins of Rhys’s clothes and his battered camera was rejected, I am afraid, to save room. On that thought, I reached into my handbag and drew out the packet of photographs. Only one was missing, as expected.
It was one of the group shots, the one where Rhys had been grinning happily in the foreground with his admirers and his new work gleaming just behind. Stuffing them back into the envelope, I had to pause over another image. It caught my eye because it was that portrait of the model – Christi – and behind her was the same twisted metalwork that had featured in my dream. I knew now where I had seen it in real life as well. It was the line of sagging railings that fringed the edge of the road at Devil’s Bridge.
I opened the door. The holes that showed where the lock keeper had parted from the doorframe were ragged but not as ragged as they might have been had the metal plate been attached more securely in the first place. Then I stopped thinking about hotel maintenance very quickly indeed.
Clarke must have been standing at the bottom of the stairs because I couldn’t see him but still his applied charm carried along the corridor with all its accompanying terror. I hesitated, door only slightly ajar, and listened.
He was saying smoothly, “First floor, you say? And what number?” Then less patiently, “Yes, yes of course. It’s just like I said yesterday. She’s been a touch unwell.”
Then another short stutter of speech, and one that sent my heart plummeting. It was Adam. Very gingerly I pushed the door closed and locked it. I set my bag and my case down blindly upon the bed. I moved the chair back to its place against the door as a second line of defence. There was no telephone in my room or, of course, any other exit. There was only the space beneath the bed, a small slatted wardrobe and the window.
The window.
In a flash I had the lower sash up and was hanging out, examining the rusting metal of that favourite roost of pigeons: the crumbling fire escape. I
t wasn’t designed for me, perhaps after all it was only intended to facilitate access for the chimney sweep to the roof, but I judged that if I leaned from a perch on the windowsill, the nearest rungs could just about be reached, and that was chance enough. I slipped back across the room and listened at the door. I didn’t need to listen hard because there was a rap right beside my ear. I jumped back.
The next part sounds mad, even to me. Slinging my handbag and suitcase over my back, I slipped to the window, straddled the sill and then slid my feet outside. The gap was much farther than I thought, and so was the drop to the slimy green stone flags in the small courtyard at the bottom. Then I realised that my coat was likely to get in my way. I slipped back inside, took it off and bundled it into a knot on the strap of my handbag and then tried again. This time the view from the window was far worse now that I’d had time to think about it. But then I heard someone try the door. There was a faint whisper of something entering the lock. It is amazing how quickly I made that twisting slide across the gap.
Somewhere in the distant past I was sane. Sometime ago I would have found a practical solution to being cornered like that; such as screaming the place down, or letting them take me down the stairs first and then screaming the place down when the odds increased of someone actually seeing them and believing me. But today I had no faith in reality ever working how I expected it to. And I certainly didn’t intend to leave it to someone else to ensure my salvation.
So I hitched up my skirt over my knees so that I could freely move my legs, adjusted my grip on the ladder and began to descend.
It was easy after all. My hand was in its place, my foot met its rung smoothly and took my weight, and then found the next and the next. Unlike the rickety wooden things of my childhood that a neighbour had used to clean his upper windows, this ladder was blessedly secure. But unfortunately it was also a difficult descent in a flapping skirt and flimsy shoes. All the same it seemed to progress quite well. Until, that is, I reached the bottom rung.
The gap between this and the grimy yard was not, I realised after braving the swift glance down, the full three yards I had thought. It was at worst only two but even so that was quite far enough. The trembling began in earnest and my hands were sweaty now so that the grip on the rusted metal was tighter than it needed to be, and painful. I looked down again and winced. My only hope was to lower myself as far as I could and then trust that the remaining drop would not be too much. Very carefully and with a fair few anxious searches of the empty window above, I moved my hands down a few rungs. This didn’t help much because with my feet firmly fixed on the lowest bar I only achieved a position that was inconveniently like an upside down version of a child preparing to play leap-frog.
I intended then to lower my feet from the ladder. I had planned to hang by my arms to brace myself for the drop. What I hadn’t anticipated was my total lack of upper body strength, the pain of increased weight on my hands or the drag of those bags on my back. I fell about six feet.
In fact it was probably the presence of those bags that saved my life, or at least saved me from serious harm. I landed in a heap and that was bad enough but thanks to the case I had a buffer between my back and the ground. It was a nasty jolt, all the breath was knocked out of me and my suitcase was now seriously crushed. There was a great deal of unpleasant green staining to my skirt. It blended nicely with the oxide streaks from the rusted ladder.
After a few numb seconds while my brain ran through a check on all the usual body parts, I managed to stagger to my feet. I don’t think it had occurred to me that a fall could hurt quite so much. There was a smear of blood on my ear. I think it was then and only then that the other options crossed through my mind. I was suddenly aware of the very grave danger I had been running of giving my head another serious bashing. The doctors had been very severe on the likely consequences if I should risk sustaining a second concussion so soon after the first, and at the time of mentioning it they had only been scolding me for wishing to walk out of hospital rather than allowing myself to be wheeled out to the taxi in a chair.
A shoe had disappeared beneath some crates but I found it and replaced it. I pulled my coat over my dirtied clothes and then I was weaving an unsteady path through the kitchen, through the exclamations of the cook and serving staff and out through the door into the void between the stairs and the lounge door. The serving girl followed me, talking anxiously, and there were people in the doorway to the dining room but I didn’t acknowledge any of them except to give something that resembled a drunken smile as I darted past into the foyer. I was already passing the reception desk when I heard Adam call my name.
I should have known he would be the obstacle that delayed me.
I whipped round. I saw him step out from the dining room. In two seconds he had crossed the floor. In the next he had laid a hand upon my arm. It startled me. I don’t think he even knew he’d done it. He was saying hastily, “Are you coming for breakfast? I hope you slept well.” Then his eyes settled on the battered case slung from my shoulder to hang behind my left hip. Those lovely grey eyes widened. “You’re leaving? Without even saying goodbye?”
I didn’t really have time to register that he was absolutely dumbfounded. He was saying, “If you’re worried about what the other guests will say after last night …”
I snapped, “Of course I’m not.” I couldn’t even begin to tell him how little I was worrying. I was glancing past him to the stairs. There was no sign of my two men. Then a sudden prickling on the back of my neck made me throw a desperate look behind. The doorway was safely clear and beyond was only the dull grey of the promenade and the equally bland sky above and then sea; beautiful, featureless sea.
He still had a hand on my arm. It was on the point just above the elbow where Clarke had gripped and hurt me yesterday. It was obviously the ideal spot for taking hold. Adam’s head was briefly drawn towards the agitated serving girl. She was creating quite a fuss. Guests were not allowed to walk through the kitchen.
His attention returned to me. His brows were puckering into dawning suspicion as he realised that he hadn’t met me coming down the stairs. I saw the deepening disbelief as the only alternative suggested itself; and then the release as logic dismissed it as impossible.
His mouth was already framing a lighter tone as he said, “Oddly enough, I’m leaving today too. Do you have to go right away? Can you come and have breakfast with me first? You said we’d talk this morning. Come on.” There was something painfully different in the way Adam was speaking. Today he was not the man who had helped me last night. Or perhaps I wasn’t the same woman. All along I’d had a sense that regardless of whatever else had been left a secret between us, it was important to him that everything that was spoken was at least safely grounded in basic honesty. But now, whatever this speech was, it wasn’t honest.
He was rushing on amiably, “My sister is having a family crisis so I’ve got to get back to collect May. The perils, you might say, of—”
His eyes had alighted upon the rust marks on my skirt and the scuff upon my stocking. Those grey eyes returned to mine. I suppose it didn’t suit him to acknowledge my distress. I could read all the options passing behind his eyes, all the possible ways of handling this latest inconvenient disagreement; of handling me. Alternately confrontation and kindness. I despised them all.
The stairway was still empty. Presumably my little barricade was holding Clarke.
Adam was saying slowly, thoughtfully, “You know, you’re looking at me like you hate me again.”
“No, no I don’t. It’s—” My denial failed pathetically, dismally, frantically when I ran out of words to explain that it wasn’t him I hated, but his present actions. He had been steering me step by step back across the foyer. I pulled back while something else worked its way across his mouth. I wasn’t afraid of him but when he drew breath to speak, I broke in desperately, “Why did you tell them about me? Don’t you even know why they—?”
But he didn�
��t hear because he was interrupting me.
“Look,” he said. He’d released my arm to unconsciously put up his hand to his hair. He found his room key already in his palm and impatiently thrust it into a pocket. No wonder his grip had hurt. “This is going to sound strange, but I’ve got something to ask you. Don’t rush off like this. Come and sit down for a few minutes. You can do that, can’t you? Please?”
He had hold of my hand now. Somehow he’d moved to place himself between me and the front door. My breath was coming in short jerks. Adam was saying persuasively, “Don’t you think you’ve drawn this out for long enough? Surely you can see it’s the best way to resolve this? Even you must know this is the only way to bring the whole thing to a natural … conclusion. All this running away, it’s not helping. Trust me. Come with me.”
I said disbelievingly, “Resolve this?” It was hard to keep my eyes fixed on any single point. Then, more sharply, “Go with you where?” Now my eyes were fixed firmly on him.
He said, “Where do you think?”
He was looking down at me as though I were stupid, or mad; which I suppose I was. I knew where. He wasn’t talking about breakfast now. He meant Cirencester. The draw of his hand upon mine did what he thought it would. The memory coursed through my mind that I could trust him. I could depend on him. I just had to make him understand. It was a very cunning ruse. The stairs rumbled with the distant sound of footsteps, coming at a run.
When a figure stepped out on this lower floor from the dining room it didn’t surprise me to learn it was Jim. Today he was clean-shaven once more. He’d decided that today he would make his play in the open without disguises.
“Have you asked her?” Jim was as relaxed as ever.
Somehow I’d put out my other hand to cling to Adam’s. He said, without ever lifting his attention from my face, “I just have.”
“And?”
I knew now these actions were Jim’s, not his own. Adam was behaving like a man who’d been given an uncomfortable job to do and was almost as displeased about it as I. I saw his mouth compress into a line and it was because of the predictability of my reaction now as soon as Jim’s part in this was revealed. Adam must have warned them that this was how I’d take it.