The House on the Fen

by Claire Rayner

  The woman over the road stopped by the traffic lights, waiting to cross, and Harriet thought— that coat is exactly like mine. It might even be mine— and then she saw it, saw it with such a shock of recognition that she felt physically sick.

  The passing lights of cars had made the coat vividly clear, the ragged tear under the right-hand pocket that Harriet had mended with sticky tape on the wrong side, mended so awkwardly that the fabric had puckered into a three-cornered shape. It is my coat. That woman is wearing my coat, and the last time I saw it was in my wardrobe at Thaxham. That woman is the impostor. She must be— how else could she have got hold of my coat? And it is my coat—

  Frantically, she plunged forward to push the doors open, to run after the woman and catch her, to haul her triumphantly to the police, to prove her story, to be able to say, “I’ve caught your murderer— it wasn’t me here she is— the woman who took my place and killed my husband. I’ve caught her—”

  But she stopped stopped them, and turned back. Marcus— she must get Marcus. Together they would chase the woman through the rain and dark streets, together solve the mystery.

  Across the crowded foyer, now milling with people making their way back to their seats, for the one-minute bell was urgently pealing, she could see Marcus in the phone booth, see the back of his fair head over the crowds. She turned back to peer out at the street, at the woman by the traffic lights, and saw the lights wink the change, saw the woman begin to move again, across the street, walking rapidly away into the crowds and darkness. I must catch her, Harriet though frantically— I must. I can’t let her go— I daren’t stop for Marcus—

  There was an elderly commissionaire standing on the steps outside the theater, and she plunged out toward him, grabbing at his shoulder. The man stared at her, startled and frightened, bleary-eyed with amazement at her urgency.

  “There’s a man in there— in the phone booth— tell him, for God’s sake tell him— I saw the woman from Thaxham and I followed her— tell him, please! I daren’t stop— please— tell him. I’ll call him at the flat as soon as I can— go on— tell him!”

  “Eh?” the man said stupidly, staring at her. “What was that, missus? Tell 'oo? Tell what? What was that again?”

  But she couldn’t wait. Already the black shiny raincoat was almost out of sight, and she ran down the steps and over the road calling despairingly over her shoulders, “The man in the phone booth— the woman from Thaxham— tell him.” And then she was running full tilt, sending people in her way flying as she rushed past them, ignoring the shouts of anger that followed her.

  She had almost caught up with the woman, who was walking purposefully and rapidly through the crowded street, when common sense took over.

  Suppose I catch her, here in the streets? Then what? I can’t make he come to the police with me, can I? I can’t say, “You are an impostor and you murdered my husband, come and give yourself up,” can I? She’ll refuse, appeal to passers-by, tell them I’m mad— Her imagination sketched the scene all too vividly. People would stare them them— at herself, agitated, disheveld— at the other woman, calm and amazed at Harriet’s behavior. People would separate them, the woman would get away, and she, Harriet, would be left standing in the crowded streets with her only shred of evidence, such as it was, lost to her.

  I’ll follow her, she thought. See where she goes, and when I know where it is she lives, or find out who she is then I can call the police and they can arrest her for me. That’ll be the best thing to do.

  And follow her she did, thought the streets, into the underground at Leicester Square, where for one sickening moment she thought she had lost her quarry in the mobbed ticket machine hall with its many exits. But the she saw her again, getting a ticket from the man at one of the box offices, and she shrank back out of sight, standing with her head bent and her coat collar up, beside one of the ticket machines, watching from beneath her lashes. The woman never looked around, seemed to have no awareness that she was being followed and Harriet, knowing how inept she was, was grateful for that. If the woman had had any fear of the possibility she must surely have spotted Harriet immediately.

  But she went on purposefully down the moving escalator, onto the platform for northbound trains. Harriet took a fourpenny ticket from the machine and followed.

  The train that came in was crowded, and the woman got into a smoking carriage and sat down in a window seat, thrusting her hands deep into her pockets and letting her head fall forward so that her face could not be seen behind the sweep of dark hair that hid it effectively.

  After a moment of indecision, Harriet got into the same carriage. To get into another was too risky. She would not be able to see where the woman got off the train; and one thing was sure, she could not on any account lose her. So she made her way to the rear of the carriage, behind the back raincoated woman’s back, to stand awkwardly pressed against the door, her own chin thrust into the collar of her coat, praying the woman would not turn around and see her.

  An elderly man courteously rose, offering her his seat, but Harriet scowled at him, shaking her head sharply, and the old man subsided, hurt and muttering, to read his newspaper. Harriet was grateful for that the paper made an extra shield behind which she could disappear should the woman turn round.

  At Holborn, the black raincoat stood up, moving so quickly that Harriet only just got out of the train in time. But the followed never turned around to see the follower, walking with that same swift stride so unnervingly like Harriet’s own, to the Central line eastbound platform.

  Once again, Harriet got into the same carriage, once again stood well back at the rear of the carriage behind the woman’s back, though it wasn’t so easy this time. The train was less crowded, and one or two people looked curiously at her, standing when there were so many empty seats available. But she couldn’t risk sitting down, in case the woman moved suddenly at a station to get out and Harriet should find herself hemmed in by other passengers. Better to stand near the doors ready for a quick move.

  It wasn’t until the train reached the Bank and the woman still sat hunched in her seat that Harriet began to suspect where she might be going. Don’t let it be there, she prayed, please don’t let it be there—

  But the woman left the train at Liverpool Street, and there could be no doubt left. She was going to Thaxham, and for a moment Harriet felt sick. I can’t go back there, not even to prove I didn’t kill Jeffrey I can’t, she thought frantically. I’ll just call the police from the station, tell them where she’s going, make them chase her instead of me—

  But suppose they don’t believe you, don’t go to find the woman? That Inspector Blaikie looked very suspicious when you told him about the impostor in the first place. He’ll think you’re telling tales to make your own case stronger— you’ll have to follow her— you can’t let her go—

  At the exit to the underground, Harriet thrust the fourpenny ticket she had bought into the collector’s hand and ran through the barrier, praying the woman she was following wouldn’t hear the irate shouting after her, as she realized she had underpaid her fare. But she seemed not to, moving onward toward the mainline ticket hall without turning her head; and Harriet was able to escape guiltily in the crowds, once again having cheated the railways of their just due.

  Harriet didn’t risk buying a ticket. For one thing, she couldn’t be sure her quarry was going to Thaxham though where else could she be going from here? she thought drearily. Instead, she stood in the shadow of a truck loaded with mail bags, watching anxiously for the back raincoat through the passing crowds. For a sickening moment, Harriet thought she had lost her again, but then she reappeared from the booking hall and moved diagonally across the forecourt to the platform indicator, to stare up at it for a moment.

  From her shadowed vantage point, Harriet could see her clearly for the first time as the light fell on the upturned face. She really is extraordinarily like me, quite apart from the coat. The same green eyes, the same fine bon
es with the shadowed cheeks and strongly marked eyebrows. Who on earth can she be? Harriet thought miserably. If only she was not so very much an enemy. It would be good to have a friend who looked so like oneself

  The woman moved then, away from the indicator, making for the platform, and Harriet began to follow. There was a platform ticket machine near the barrier, and she stopped and collected a ticket that would get her past the barrier. The platform was very nearly empty, though the train was in, and Harriet followed, her heart thumping thickly, as the woman got into a second-class carriage near the engine. Now Harriet could breathe again.

  Swiftly, she turned and went back to the barrier, to stare up at the indicator board above the ticket collector’s head. The train was going northeast, first stop Thaxham-on-the-Fen

  I’ve come this far, she thought grimly, I’ll finish the job. No backing out now. And her anger began to rise in her, stronger than her fear and her urge to run. How dare this woman, whoever she was, how dare she make Harriet’s life a complicated mess by pretending to be Harriet, by murdering her husband? Weak and silly I may be, she thought bitterly, but this is the end of it. I’m going to find out who she is, what she wants in Thaxham, why she’s going there— I only wish Marcus was here—

  There was some activity farther down the line, as preparations were made for the train to pull out. She glanced up at the board again and then at her watch. It was due out in two minutes.

  Swiftly, she ran across the platform and swung herself onto the train, to slip into an empty carriage and sit by the window. No need now to be in the same carriage as the other woman. She would not be able to leave the train without Harriet spotting her for the train was nearly empty of passengers.

  A newsboy’s voice broke across her thoughts, coming closer along the platform.

  “Late night final, late night final— News and Standard. Late night final — new developments in House-on-the Fen murder case— read all about it— new developments in House-on-the-Fen murder— all the results. Late night final —”

  Startled, she opened the carriage window and leaned out.

  “Here— boy” she called. “Standard, please— no, give me both—” She fumbled for a half crown in her pocket, now very depleted of money, and thrust it into the boy’s hand. He pushed the papers through the window at her, fumbling for change for the coin.

  She stared at the headline. “NEW FIND IN FENS MURDER,” she read and then in smaller print. “Another death discovered in House of Horror at lonely Thaxham-on-the-Fen.”

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered— and then the newsboy was pushing change under her nose, and she stared at him, confused.

  “I’ve got to get help,” she said aloud, and he gaped at her, his mouth half open.

  “Listen—” She grabbed at his wrist. “You’ve got to help me. Do you hear? Look— phone him for me, will you— a man called Marcus Cooper, at number —” And then she topped. Marcus wouldn’t be there. She had no idea where he would be. She had left him at the theater, and whether or no he had got the message she had left with the elderly and probably deaf commissionaire, he would be out looking for her— surely. He wouldn’t go meekly home to the flat. There would only be Sue there, and what use could she be? And then she remembered the card in her pocket, and pulled it out.

  “Phone this man, will you, please? Tell him I’ve gone to Thaxham— he’ll know who I am— please tell him, will you? It’s urgent.”

  “’Ere-’oo are yer?” the boy demanded. “Why the ’ell should I go phonin’ some strange geezer for you—”

  The train began to move, and despairingly Harriet leaned out of the window and cried urgently, “Please you must— he’ll— he’ll give you money for it— I’m sure he will—”

  But her words were blown back at her, disappearing in the sound of the train’s whistle and the clatter of its wheels over the rails, and she could see the newsboy standing staring at her, the card clutched in his hand, a look of disbelief all over his round face.

  Harriet sank back in her seat, shaking. She was on this train, going back to the house on the fen where her husband had been murdered, where someone else had been murdered— and here her eyes dropped to read the newspaper headlines again— with the woman she was quite sure had committed the murder. And the only two friends she had in the world, Marcus Cooper and Andrew Peters, did not know where she was or where she was going, and wouldn’t unless the wild messages she had left for them were delivered. And remembering the deaf old commissionaire at the theater and the rather dim-witted newsboy at the station, she thought it extremely unlikely that either message would be delivered. She was alone, following a murderess into heaven knew what danger.

  Chapter Ten

  Sitting there in the dingy train swooping past the brightly lit windows of East London tenements, each tiny square of light framing a cosy domestic scene— women in curlers pouring tea for shirt-sleeved bread winners, pajamaed children kneeling to wave at the passing trains— Harriet felt utterly alone, utterly lost in a hostile world. The train swayed, rattling over points, the grubby electric light bulbs dimming and brightening occasionally in time with the movement, making her feel encapsulated away from all reality.

  There were other people on the train, a few others, there must be. But all she could think of was one other passenger, a woman who looked like her, who was wearing her black shiny raincoat with a puckered three-cornered mended tear by the right-hand pocket. A woman who had committed a murder. Maybe two murders.

  Almost against her will, she began to read the newspapers’ account of the second murder. Both papers told pretty much the same story. Each showed pictures of the house, that lonely house on the fen that had been her prison for so long, and seemed now, that she had left it, to be more of a prison than ever. Until the mystery was solved, it would her as firmly as though she had never run away from it.

  “The second gruesome find in the lonely house on the fen was made today by a farmer. He was walking past with his dog, when the animal suddenly ran up the path and began to scratch at the door. The farmer, Mr. James Charteris, followed the dog and found that the door of the house was unlatched. He went in, to find on the floor of the hallway, the body of Mrs. Edith Joel, aged forty-seven. Her throat had been cut, and she was wrapped in a blue, heavily blood-stained housecoat, thought to be the property of Mrs. Harriet Darnell, the wife of the first victim. Attempts by our reporter to find Mrs. Darnell, thought at present to be staying with friends in London, were unsuccessful.

  “According to unofficial police sources, Mrs. Darnell has made a statement, in which she claims a woman looking like herself was in the house on the night of the death of Mr. Jeffrey Darnell, her husband. When she left Thaxham, her husband was alive, according to her statement. It has not been possible to discover any more about Mrs. Darnell at this stage.

  “Mrs. Joel, the second victim, was a prime witness in this case. She saw someone at the house of death the day Mr. Darnell’s body was discovered— she herself made the discovery— and was able to give police the number of a car seen near the house at that time. Local police say that Mrs. Joel had agreed to come to the station to make a more detailed statement about the case, since she had claimed to have some special information to offer. However, her own untimely death came before this statement could be made. Police believe that her death was an attempt by the murderer to prevent the ‘special information,’ whatever it was, from being divulged.”

  Harriet dropped the papers on the floor of the carriage, and sat staring out into the darkness beyond the windows, now showing few lights. London’s outskirts had been left behind, and the train sped on through the flattening wet landscape toward the fens.

  So, Mrs. Joel had been directly involved, somehow, in Jeffrey’s death. Now, with hindsight, she could understand. The way she had fallen into a heavy sleep that afternoon, so heavy that she had missed meeting Jeffrey’s train— that had been no accident. Mrs. Joel must have given her something in that unexpected
cup of tea, something that would ensure she would miss the train, would be out of the house at the right time, so that the impostor could take her place. She tried to remember. Yes— if fitted now. She had been awakened that afternoon out of her heavy sleep— by what? She screwed up her eyes, taking herself back in memory to that time, now seeming so very long ago. She remembered waking, remembered the sound that had awakened her— a bell. That was it. A bell. The telephone probably. Mrs. Joel? Had she been an accomplice in this mystery, whatever it was? Had it been her job to make sure that Harriet had waked when she did? It seemed likely. But there had been that business of the car. Who had collected Harriet’s car from the garage, so that she couldn’t drive to the station? Whoever it was must have known her well, must have gambled on her going to the station anyway, even without the car, gambled on her not just going back to the house to wait for Jeffrey to make his own way home.

  Only Mrs. Joel really knew much about Harriet’s and Jeffrey’s relationship, knew how miserable a time Harriet had with her husband. Other village people probably guessed that Jeffrey was having some sort of affair with Linda Joel, but only Linda’s mother could know for sure, could know Harriet well enough to be certain that she would behave as she had.

  But why? What was the purpose of it all? Where was the sense in the impostor? That was where Harriet was pulled up short. She could see some of the pattern of that evening, now seeing lost eons ago in a remote past, see how Mrs. Joel had maneuvered her, but she couldn’t see why. Was it because Mrs. Joel wanted to get rid of her, hoping her own Linda would eventually become Mrs. Darnell? But that was stupid— not even Mrs. Joel could be sure that Harriet would have cut and run the way she had. And that would assume that Mrs. Joel had planned the whole business, when clearly she hadn’t. She had an accomplice, the impostor, the women now sitting somewhere on this rattling swaying train. Who was she? Why had she joined in this senseless plot? And— above all, if Mrs. Joel had been a prime mover in the affair, why was she now dead? Why had she been about to give the police “special information”? It had been to prevent her talking that she had been killed— so much was clear from the scrappy newspaper reports.