Ghost Song

by Rayne, Sarah

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Hilary gratefully and, as she turned into the drive, saw with relief that there were lights in one of the upstairs windows, and that the curtains moved slightly as if Madeleine was looking out. She remembered she had unbolted the kitchen door earlier, and used it now to get back inside. She sped upstairs to call out to Madeleine that everything was being dealt with, the police were on their way, but it might be as well if Madeleine stayed where she was until they actually arrived.

  ‘I understand, Hilary. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Are you?’

  ‘Quite all right,’ said Madeleine in so firm a voice, that Hilary was reassured. She went back downstairs to unbolt the front door for Robert, and found that in his company it was quite easy to behave almost normally; to watch Shona resume her chair by the fire and to suggest to her that they have a cup of tea.

  ‘I’d like some tea,’ said Shona, sounding so entirely sane that Hilary wondered if she had dreamed the events of the last hour. She switched on the electric kettle, then went up to her own bedroom and pulled on the clothes she had worn for the journey, towelling her damp hair.

  The police arrived as she was going back downstairs. A stolid-looking constable sat rather awkwardly in the sitting room, but the young alert-looking sergeant followed Hilary into the kitchen and listened carefully as she gave him a hasty version of the night’s events.

  ‘I don’t know how much of what Shona said is fact and how much is fantasy,’ said Hilary. ‘And I don’t know quite what you do in this kind of situation—whether it’s medical or criminal or what it is. But you’ll have to do something because I think she’s dangerous.’

  ‘And she talked about having killed someone called Elspeth?’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Yes. She said it took all night to wall Elspeth up after she killed her and it was very hard work. She said if anyone knocked down the wall they’d find the body.’

  ‘Well, that’d be easy enough to check, I daresay.’

  ‘She said she’d drugged my coffee as well—sleeping pills. Then she tried to attack me—only I managed to get outside.’

  ‘What I think we’d best do,’ said the sergeant, ‘is ask Miss Seymour to come with us to the police station. It’s the next village—only a matter of eight miles. We’ll say we want a statement from her about what’s been going on—about the intruder she mentioned to Mr Fallon. We’ll get the on-call doctor and we’ll make a decision from there as to what happens next.’

  ‘That sounds fine,’ said Hilary thankfully.

  Shona looked surprised at the request to accompany the sergeant and his sidekick to a police station, and for a moment Hilary thought she would argue.

  ‘All just routine, miss,’ said the sergeant off-handedly, but Hilary noticed his barely perceptible nod to the constable who at once moved to Shona’s side. She had no idea what would happen if the dreadful madness flared in Shona’s eyes again, but Shona merely shrugged and asked Hilary to fetch her coat and handbag from her bedroom.

  ‘And now,’ said Robert at last, when Shona had been ushered into the waiting police car and Madeleine had come downstairs and been introduced, ‘would you please explain to me what on earth’s been going on?’

  He was polite and quiet with Madeleine, and was efficient and courteous about pouring brandy for Hilary and also Madeleine, and switching up the heating. He used his mobile to contact the telephone fault service, explaining that there had been a serious case of vandalism at the house and there was an elderly lady here in frail health.

  ‘So if her phone could be repaired as quickly as possible, I would be extremely grateful,’ said Robert. ‘First thing tomorrow morning? Yes, that would be very acceptable. In the meantime, is there any way you can switch any incoming calls to a mobile? That’s excellent. Here’s the number… And thank you very much for your help.’

  He set his mobile on a table where it would be easily accessible, and Hilary, watching and listening from the reassuring warmth of an armchair, thought there was probably no situation in which he would not remember to be polite. She curled her hands round the brandy glass, and saw how he occasionally looked across at her and how his eyes narrowed when he smiled. But when he sat down and looked first at Madeleine and then at Hilary, and asked for an explanation, she thought she would not be able to give one.

  Then Robert said, ‘Would I be right in thinking it began with the bricked-up cellar wall in the Tarleton?’ and Hilary said, gratefully, ‘Oh yes, it would.’

  She embarked on the tale of everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

  Shona knew she was being extremely clever with these oafish policemen. She had gone along to their absurd police station because she had been brought up not to make a scene, to behave with dignity and restraint. She also knew they did not really believe she had done anything wrong, but she supposed they had to investigate the story she had given to Robert Fallon about an intruder.

  She could deal with policemen: the only slight concern was what she might have said to Hilary earlier on. She could not remember much of that and groped in the unreachable part of her mind for the knowledge. Could she possibly have mentioned Anna or Elspeth? Surely she would not have done that; she had become so used to guarding her words that it was by now second nature. But there was always the small possibility that it had come out of that other unpredictable half of her mind, and that this half had gained the ascendancy for a short while. So just in case that had happened she would be very careful.

  The police station was at a place called Upper Leigh and it was a poky little building with a couple of plodding constables, one of whom looked about fifteen. They locked her in a dreadful room, explaining they would like a doctor to see her. Shona looked at them in surprise because she was here to make a statement about an intruder and could not imagine why she would need a doctor. Unless that sly bitch Hilary had made up some distorted story about her? This suddenly seemed entirely possible. Shona would not have thought Hilary would behave so spitefully; it went to show you could not trust anyone.

  To shut them up she said she would see their doctor if they insisted. But she knew her rights, she said: they were not dealing with a run-of-the-mill petty thief or teenage lout and if they were locking her up, she wanted her solicitor here. She was perfectly polite, and they were perfectly polite back. They said they would arrange for her solicitor to come in, although they were afraid it might not be until the morning. In the meantime, she might as well try to get some sleep. There was a bed in the room—yes, they understood it was not the kind of thing she was used to, but until all this was sorted out…

  Shona took off her shoes and lay down on the narrow bed, making herself as comfortable as she could. It was not entirely dark; a faint glow came from a low light in the corridor outside. It showed up the ugly bleakness of the room and the squalid half screen with the lavatory and washbasin behind it. It showed up the grubby paintwork and floor.

  She did not sleep, and the hands of her watch had moved round to three o’clock when she gradually became aware that the faint light was showing up other things in the room: people standing in the corners—three people in particular. Anna, with the flesh rotted away from her bones, dried and shrivelled, and weary from standing behind the wall in the cellar all those years; Cousin Elspeth, stupid, sheep-faced Elspeth, her head still tied up in the tea towel that Shona had wrapped round it, but able to see Shona all the same, able to shake her horrid raw head in disapproval of everything Shona had done. Mother was there too; Shona supposed she should have expected that. Mother, her mouth awry from the vodka, her hair messy and uncombed.

  They were here to gloat over her downfall—Anna was very gloating indeed—and to disapprove. ‘Oh my goodness me,’ said the thing that was Cousin Elspeth. ‘My word, what bad behaviour. Well, madam, you deserve everything you get.’

  Shona scrambled back to the corner of the bed, and huddled there, wrapping the blanket round her, not daring to ta
ke her eyes off these dreadful things who had somehow found her and got into this sleazy room. It did not much matter how they had done so; what was clear was that despite all she had done, Elspeth had somehow got out from behind the cellar wall.

  Presently she realized there was a fourth person with them. She had not seen him at first, but now she saw him very clearly. He was not gloating or disapproving. He was standing next to her mother, holding her tightly as if he owned her, as if he had rights over her, and her mother was hating it, Shona could see she was absolutely hating being so close to this man.

  He had frightening eyes—knowing eyes—and terrifying hands. Shona had never seen him in her life before, but he smiled at her and said wasn’t this nice, a real family reunion, and very soon now Shona might be living in the place where he had lived himself. Iain Seymour. The man who had raped and strangled girls, the Tantallon Killer, Shona’s own father.

  Shona pressed back against the cell wall, her hands clenched, ready to strike them if they tried to come any nearer, and began to scream.

  Shortly after three a.m. Madeleine suggested they all try to get a few hours’ sleep.

  ‘We’ll have to be giving statements and filling in all kinds of official forms in the morning,’ she said. ‘So we may as well get some rest. You can stay down here on the settee, Robert, or you can have the room Shona Seymour had.’

  ‘You have the bedroom, Robert,’ said Hilary. ‘If no one minds, I think I’d like to stay down here. Would that be all right, Madeleine? I’ll just curl up on the settee—it’s beautifully warm here.’ She did not say that the thought of returning to the bedroom where she had been so abruptly woken by that eerie music was more than she could face tonight, but she thought Madeleine understood.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘My girl who helps in the house will be here around eight. Robert, I’m sorry I can’t offer you pyjamas or shaving things, but I think there might be a spare toothbrush somewhere.’

  Robert said, ‘I think I could sleep on a length of clothes line tonight. You’re being very kind and I’m very sorry you’ve had all this disturbance.’

  ‘I seem to have survived it,’ said Madeleine. ‘I daresay most of it’s my own fault for keeping that Gothic pile in London closed up all these years. Any sensible person would have ignored that absurd will of my father’s and sold it or hired it out long since.’ But she frowned slightly, and Hilary saw the brief twist of pain she had seen last night. There’s still something she’s not telling us, she thought.

  ‘There’s a bit more disturbance you’ll have to deal with, I’m afraid,’ said Robert. ‘It’s actually in the Gothic pile, and it’s my fault.’ He glanced at Hilary, and then said, ‘Last night I knocked down part of an underground wall in your theatre.’

  ‘You did it!’ said Hilary. ‘I didn’t think you would when it came to it.’

  Madeleine was looking at them both, clearly puzzled. ‘Robert, how do you mean, you knocked down a wall? In a car accident or something?’

  ‘No. I borrowed the keys from the Harlequin and had a copy made without anyone knowing,’ said Robert. ‘Entirely unprofessional and also criminal.’

  ‘Dear me, how very enterprising of you. Why did you do that?’ She did not sound angry, she sounded faintly amused and intrigued.

  ‘Because,’ said Robert, ‘I was absolutely convinced there was something odd in that place—and that it was behind a cellar wall. At some time someone had sealed that area up very thoroughly indeed. I don’t know when the sealing was done, but I couldn’t account for it. I’m a surveyor,’ he said, ‘so if I find a mystery in a property, I want to know what it hides.’

  ‘It was that wall that kept disconcerting Shona,’ said Hilary. ‘She kept identifying it with a wall at her childhood home—Grith House. And behind the wall at Grith House was the cousin she had murdered—Elspeth. At least, that’s what she said. She was terrified Elspeth might one day be discovered.’

  ‘If it’s true she was probably driven mad from living with that fear for years,’ said Madeleine thoughtfully. ‘How dreadful and tragic.’

  ‘I didn’t know about Shona’s cousin when I looked at the Tarleton’s wall, of course,’ said Robert. ‘But Shona was defensive about the place, and that, together with the ban on any reopening—well, I decided to find out for myself what was behind the wall and under the stage.’

  ‘So you knocked down the wall.’

  ‘Only a small part of it,’ said Robert, then, speaking very seriously, he said, ‘I will give you the appropriate name and address of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors if you want to make an official complaint about what I did. You’re perfectly entitled to do that.’

  ‘I’ve never bothered over much about royal institutions and officialdom,’ said Madeleine. ‘Let’s hear the rest of the tale.’

  ‘I got enough bricks out to see through to the under-stage area,’ said Robert. ‘And—this part’s a bit distressing, so—’

  ‘Robert, in the last few hours I’ve dealt with a mad killer prowling through my house!’ said Madeleine. ‘I shan’t jib at an ancient mystery behind a wall.’

  ‘At some time in the distant past,’ said Robert, ‘someone had put a—a dead body in the Tarleton’s cellar and bricked it up.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Madeleine, staring at him. ‘How appalling.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Hilary anxiously.

  ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve heard the end of the story. But I’m an old lady, Hilary, and we get fairly used to the idea of death. Other people’s deaths, at least. Robert, I know we’ve only just met but I wouldn’t have thought you were at all the kind of person to get tangled up with dead bodies, never mind smashing down walls in other people’s properties.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Robert. ‘But on this occasion… Anyway, I found the body. It wasn’t particularly grisly, by the way, just rather sad, and I reported it to the police.’

  ‘Did you really? I suspect a great many people in that situation would have put the bricks back as neatly as possible, got out fast, and hoped no one would ever find out what had been done.’

  ‘Throwing the illicit key in the Thames,’ added Hilary.

  ‘I nearly did,’ confessed Robert. ‘But—this will sound ridiculously sentimental—it was the body itself that stopped me. I don’t mean physically—sorry, Hilary, it didn’t suddenly sit perkily up like a horror film—I mean mentally. Emotionally. I simply couldn’t brick it up again and leave it lying down there in the dark.’ He looked back at Madeleine. ‘I did wonder if it might have something to do with the reason for the theatre being closed all these years.’

  ‘I’m wondering the same thing,’ said Madeleine. ‘But my father’s request was that it stayed closed for fifty years after his death. So it would have had to be a very important dead body.’

  ‘True. I don’t know if it can ever be identified,’ said Robert.

  ‘I expect they’ll try, however. What an extraordinary thing. My father really did leave a legacy and a half to me, didn’t he? But thank you for explaining all that, Robert, and for being so honest.’ She smiled at him. ‘I’m sorry about the poor soul who was shut away down there all this time, but I can’t say I’m particularly upset over a few bricks being knocked out in a cellar. I daresay it can be rebuilt if necessary.’ She stood up. ‘I really am going to bed now, my dears,’ she said. ‘Sleep well.’

  It was a good feeling to lie on the deep soft settee with the fire dying down, and to know that Robert was upstairs. It was astonishing that he really had broken through that intriguing old wall and found a body after all. But it had to be a body, thought Hilary, smiling as she drifted into sleep. Anything less would have been a let-down.

  Who had the body been? Could it even be Toby? But Hilary did not want it to be Toby: she did not want to discover he had lain down there in the dusty darkness all these years. Stupid, because it could not matter to him where his body lay. But she would still rather it was not Toby.


  A thin sunlight trickled into the big kitchen next morning. Madeleine’s ‘girl who helps’ turned out to be a cheerful soul who clattered round, scrambling eggs, grilling bacon and brewing coffee. It was surprisingly comfortable to sit at the kitchen table with Robert and eat vast quantities of food. Robert looked slightly raffish because he had not been able to shave; Hilary found this deeply attractive, but she was starting to feel too anxious about Shona to give much attention to this.

  ‘You’re too nice about her,’ said Robert when Hilary expressed this concern.

  ‘She’s my boss.’

  ‘From what you told me last night, she’s a psychotic murderess,’ he said.

  Madeleine, who was sitting composedly drinking her own coffee, said, ‘She’s certainly a very disturbed lady.’

  ‘You saw that?’

  ‘Well, I thought as soon as I met her that she wasn’t entirely calm,’ said Madeleine. ‘I think that’s why I trusted you rather than Shona last night, Hilary. When you told me to lock myself in my bedroom, I mean.’

  Shortly after eleven Hilary went upstairs to collect her coat and handbag before Robert drove them to Upper Leigh, to the police station. The hall was on the west side of the house and the morning sun had not worked its way round here so the hall, which only had narrow windows by the door, was rather dim and shadowy. Hilary paused at the foot of the stairs to study a framed photograph of a group of people, hoping they might be from Madeleine’s family—specifically hoping her father might be one of the group. She had got as far as identifying the clothes as probably belonging to the mid-1920s, and was enjoying looking at the faces and speculating about them when there was the sound of a car stopping in the lane outside the house, its door being opened and closed, then the sound of it driving off. Footsteps came slowly down the gravel path. Hilary glanced towards the door, assuming it was a chance caller for Madeleine, hoping it would not delay their departure, and then felt the quiet hall with its scents of age and polish, blur and shiver all round her.