by Sarah Rayne
As if the half-nervous, half-catarrhal throat-clearing was a signal or a catalyst jerking her back on course, the plan, in all its beautiful symmetry, snapped back into Selina’s mind. She put the knife down alongside the harpy’s body, and then stepped behind the door once again.
He came into the bedroom with a stupid leery smile, and he was carrying two glasses, one of whisky, one of gin.
But when he saw what lay on the bed he turned white and stopped dead just inside the doorway. Selina, in the sketchy concealment of the door’s shadow, saw him put the two glasses down, and approach the bed; he walked unevenly, like a man in a dream or someone who was very drunk. For a dreadful moment Selina thought he was going to go back out of the room and call for help, but he did not. He bent over the bed, his hands going to the harpy’s throat, feeling for a pulse. The cuffs of his shirt dabbled in the blood, just as Selina’s mackintosh cuffs had done. Good. Get as much blood on your clothes as you can. But pick up the knife, you foolish old man, pick it up, because if you don’t my beautiful plan won’t work nearly as well—
But he did pick it up. He did so with a bewildered expression, as if he was not quite sure what it was, and he looked at it, turning it over and over as if it might hold some secret that he could unlock. He looked back at the harpy, and that was when Selina said, ‘She’s quite dead. There’s no point in trying to revive her, or trying to call for help.’
He spun round at that, his face flabbery and patchy with fear and shock, and Selina took a step forward.
‘Her blood is all over your sleeve,’ she said, and then, speaking very deliberately, she said, ‘And your fingerprints are all over the knife that killed her.’
It was the business with the fingerprints that broke him. Selina had known there would be something that would do that–she had known there would be just one single thing that would tip the scales in her own favour, and in the end it was the ineradicability of his fingerprints on the knife.
For a few minutes he tried to bluster; he used his righteous, I-am-your-guardian voice and said he would not be defied or blackmailed, and they would call the police here and now and Selina would be taken off and very likely shut away inside an institution for the rest of her life. She was a monster, a maniac, said Great-uncle Matthew blowing out his cheeks and glaring, and he would not hesitate to see that she received her just deserts.
But he did hesitate. He still stood there, between Selina and the thing lying in its own congealing blood, and he kept looking down at the knife and at his stained coat-sleeve, and he kept looking at Selina herself with an odd furtive sideways look, and Selina knew that he was sufficiently unsure of himself to risk calling the police, and also that he was sufficiently unsure of Selina herself. In the quiet room she could hear his thoughts as if they had been printed on the air: She’s killed once already, and for no reason at all…If I oppose her, might she kill me as well…?
Selina moved to close the door so that no one would come in, and then she sat down on one of the silly frilly chairs, and said, ‘It’s all perfectly simple. I’ve got it all worked out, and if you want to avoid being questioned by the police you’ve got to do precisely what I tell you. And it’s no use blustering or whining, because if you do I shall go out into the street and scream for help. I shall say I saw you come in here and followed you, and that I found you standing over a murdered female. With,’ said Selina, softly, ‘a knife in your hand.’
And the knife has your fingerprints on it, uncle dear…Neither of them said the words because neither of them needed to: the inference lay thickly on the silence. He heard it at once, of course; he was no fool when it came to reasoning. He was only a fool when it came to greedy females. So he swallowed a few times, and looked at the bed again, and even dashed a tear from his eye, the stupid sentimental old idiot, and asked what was to be done and what Selina wanted.
‘It’s simple, really,’ said Selina. ‘I just want a little more money now, and I want to be sure that the money my parents left me is going to be intact when I finally get it. That’s when I’m twenty-one, isn’t it? Yes, I thought it was. You see, I couldn’t risk you frittering all the money away–your own and my parents’ money–on–on this kind of thing.’ She made a brief gesture at the room. ‘I want the money for myself after you die,’ she said. ‘And I want to go on living at Teind House. I don’t want it to have to be sold because you’ve spent it all.’ She paused, her mind brushing against the knowledge of why she must never ever leave Teind House.
‘And also,’ said Selina, ‘I was saving you from the harpy’s greed. Once I discovered what you were really doing in Stornforth, I knew I had to save you, although I have to say that wasn’t the main reason.’
A little frown of puzzlement creased his brow at that, as if he could not quite work this out, but before he could speak Selina said, ‘And so that’s all the explanations. What we must do now is leave this house immediately. If we could be sure no one saw you on the bus we could go back to Teind House and pretend we had been there all along. But we can’t be sure. And so we’ll go into shops together for an hour or so–we’ll buy some new cushion covers in O’Donnell’s sale–and we’ll act very normally indeed. If ever we’re asked any awkward questions about this afternoon–if ever you’re traced through your fingerprints in this room–I’ll swear on the Bible that we were together all the time. I’ll say I was on the bus with you–it’s always crowded, that eleven-thirty bus, isn’t it?–and people will believe me because I’m so young and I’ve led such a sheltered life. And I can put on a very good act if I have to.’
He nodded, dumbly, as if he understood.
‘And so,’ said Selina briskly, ‘you can put on your overcoat–I expect it’s downstairs on the hallstand, isn’t it?–and then the blood on your cuffs won’t show.’
He looked at Selina’s own cuffs rather pointedly, and Selina laughed. ‘Once we’re downstairs all I’ve got to do is take off my mackintosh and fold it into the shopping basket. When we get home it can be burned. Your jacket can be burned, as well, but the knife we’ll wash. It would be awfully wasteful to throw away a perfectly good meat knife, wouldn’t it? You’d hate me to be wasteful, wouldn’t you?’ She picked up the shopping basket, and held it out. ‘Do what I tell you,’ she said. ‘I’ve got it all worked out. I expect you think I’m callous and hard, don’t you? But I had to safeguard my future, you see. I really did.’ I had to make sure I would never be forced to leave Teind House and the shrine…
‘So just drop the knife in here. And now we’ll walk down the stairs–you’d better tell me if there’s anyone likely to be around at this time—No? Good. But we’ll be ready to dodge back in here, just in case.’
It was a little like guiding a life-size doll down the stairs and through the front door. Selina took his arm, which felt stiff and strange, and together they walked out into Farthing Alley, and turned right past the helpful chemist’s shop, and along to O’Donnell’s. They chose new cushion covers–a nice warm rust colour–and Selina took some fabric swatches for new curtains as well. Great-uncle Matthew made some suggestions as to patterns and colours. They had a cup of tea and a buttered scone in the little café where Selina had once had her poached-egg lunch, and then they caught the bus home.
Selina cooked pork chops for supper, with apple sauce, and creamed potatoes and peas. It was one of Great-uncle Matthew’s favourite meals. It was nice to be giving it him after the events of the day. After he had eaten it and drunk a cup of tea, he sat down in his favourite chair with the newspaper. Halfway through the evening he made a gasping, gargling sound, and when Selina looked up from her knitting his face had turned the colour of a ripe plum about to burst and his eyes were staring at nothing. The left side of his face had slipped down so that it no longer matched the right.
Everyone said that Selina was wonderful after her uncle’s stroke. Everyone said she was absolutely devoted and selfless, and that no one could possibly have done more. Even when the vicar’s sister tried
to arrange for poor Mr McAvoy to stay in a very nice nursing home just outside Stornforth for a couple of weeks, in order to give Selina a little rest from the constant feeding and changing and washing, Selina would not permit it. She did not need a rest, she said, and she did not in the least mind looking after her uncle. He was really no trouble at all; he could not speak, of course, but she managed to anticipate most of his needs pretty well. She enjoyed cooking tempting little dishes and spooning them into his mouth, and the washing of the sheets when he had what she politely termed an accident in the bed was no trouble, because Jeannie came up twice a week from the village, and Teind had its own little wash-house with the big copper boiler. And he liked her to read to him–there was the morning newspaper with all the current events and politics, and there was the evening paper which was chattier and less serious. She had bought a second wireless for his room, so that he could listen to the Home Service. He had never been over-fond of music, but he liked the Home Service.
And as for getting out and about, said Selina in answer to people’s concerned queries, she actually got out quite a lot. There was the Church Ladies’ Guild, and the Flower Rota, and her little shopping trips in Stornforth. And she very much enjoyed what she called her nature walks–they might sometimes have seen her walking around Teind, perhaps? There were so many interesting places to explore–oh yes, the old Round Tower was certainly one of them. Yes, she often walked in that direction, said Selina serenely. Poor dear Great-uncle Matthew’s illness did not hinder any of her activities really, she said, and people told one another how brave she was, and how selfless. The vicar’s sister made it a rule to invite the dear good girl to lunch on Mondays when Jeannie from the village went to Teind, and could be left to give Mr McAvoy his midday meal.
Everyone was extremely kind and sympathetic to Selina when, shortly after her twenty-first birthday, Matthew McAvoy died quietly in his bed. There could be no reproaches whatsoever, they said; it was a thing that might have happened at any time, and Dr Leckie had no hesitation in writing out a death certificate.
No one thought it was odd or strangely coincidental that Mr McAvoy had died just one month after Selina came into her inheritance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Emily had cried for quite a large part of the night after Patrick left, and she had cried again when she woke up next morning. What she had really wanted to do was burrow back under the warm safety of the bedclothes and shut the world out, and to go back to sleep until all the pain of so nearly having Patrick and then of losing him so completely had gone.
It will go, said Emily to Emily. You know it will. You’ll leave Inchcape, of course–yes, that would be best–and you’ll finish your degree, and you’ll meet somebody else. Oh yes, of course I will. And what would I have done in Inchcape anyway? Something at Moy, said her mind with sneaky and surprising promptitude. Taken some further training of some kind so that you could really understand people like Christabel, and do something to help them. This was suddenly a very alluring prospect indeed. Emily considered it, and then quenched it firmly, because ten to one it was only a side-product of having fallen for Patrick.
And it would be great, really, to be back at Durham, finishing her course, picking up the threads of friendships. She had shared a house with two girls and a boy, and they had had a lot of fun. She might phone one of the girls later today, in fact, to see if there was still a room available for her. She would probably be able to go back next year–her head of department had suggested the spring term, and Finals in June. It would be a tragedy not to at least try after getting so close, the head of department had said.
Emily thought she would phone the head of department later as well, to see whether this was still on. Dad was pretty much back on course after mum’s death by now, not that he would ever be completely over it, of course, any more than Emily would ever be completely over it. But he could probably be left on his own now.
And she could not stay in bed today, or any other day really, because that would be giving in, and she absolutely refused to give in. But today was especially awkward for giving in and staying in bed because it was Tuesday, when she was due to go down to Teind House later on. Monday was wash day at Teind, and Tuesday was what was called linen day, which meant ironing everything in sight and checking it off on a list before consigning it to the airing cupboard. They had agreed to do this later than usual, because Miss March was going into Stornforth with Lorna Laughlin this morning, which was a long-standing arrangement with the Stornforth library, but when Emily had suggested they have their linen day tomorrow it seemed this was not to be considered. If the world had been forecast to end on Wednesday, with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse due to ride into town any minute, Selina would still have Monday’s wash day and Tuesday’s linen day, and she would still expect Emily to help.
Emily stared up at the ceiling, and considered phoning to say she was too ill to turn up, but the prospect of Selina’s ditherings at this disruption to her routine was simply too exhausting to contemplate and anyway life had to be faced.
She stood drearily under the shower, and then she thought she might as well wash her hair while she was there, and then she thought she might as well change its colour while she was about it.
Black. Pitch-dark, raven’s-wing black. She had a spray-on, wash-out tint labelled Ebony. Exactly right. Once on, her hair dry, it looked startling. It made her look like Morticia Addams, or Shakespeare’s Dark Lady the morning after a night on the town. Emily glared at her reflection, and put on a dark purple sweater and a black knitted skirt, because since life had to be faced, she might as well face it looking the way she felt.
After that astonishing episode with Emily, Patrick had gone back to his own rooms in Moy, and had divided the rest of the evening between the whisky bottle and work.
Work was the panacea for everything, of course; there was the old tag about Nature’s abhorring a vacuum, and there was the undoubted fact that if you filled your mind up with something–anything–the forbidden memories could not slip through the defences. The whisky, viewed as an analgesic, would not hurt, either.
The forbidden memories would get through the defences, of course, whatever he did, and they would probably do so at night, returning to taunt him in dreams. Because you could have had her right there on that sofa, or on the carpet in front of the fire, said his mind bitterly. And afterwards? Afterwards she might have been with you for a little while–even a year or two–but inevitably at some point the gap of the years would have widened, and there would have been other, younger, men.
He reminded himself that he was thirty-eight to her twenty-one. Seventeen years. Verging on the indecent, really. Svengali was a dirty old man anyway, if you thought about it from one angle. Emily would meet a younger man, and she would remember that brief incident in the cottage–if she remembered it at all–as a strange, slightly bizarre, slightly flattering adventure. Yes, it was better to let her go now. But go quickly, my dear love, thought Patrick, because I don’t think I can stand feeling like this for very long!
He forced himself to focus on the immediate. On poor mad Christabel Maskelyne’s extraordinary story and its repercussions. Yes, that was the way normality lay. Think how she’s lived for nearly fifty years with those appalling memories; how she’s constantly seen things that were invisible and inaudible to most people. The wings of ogre-birds beating ceaselessly on the air, for instance…
There was an air of Gothic darkness about Christabel’s insanity: a flavour of blood-dripping cobwebs and slavering, human-hunting giants; of black windowless towers. And which of us, thought Patrick, is not haunted by some deeply buried childhood fear that we never admit? Yes, but how severe must those gibbering phantoms have been to make Christy kill, and with such viciousness that one of her victims had clawed out one of her eyes…?
He tipped the whisky bottle into the glass again, and slumped back in his chair. His hair was tumbled and uncombed, and he had loosened his shirt collar an
d thrown his tie into a corner of the room. When he caught sight of his reflection in the glass front of a bookcase he thought he looked like a tramp. It did not matter.
He rose the next morning with a skewering pain above one eye, and the impression that something dark and dreary beyond bearing was pressing down on his shoulders. He drank two cups of tea and took three aspirin, and then forced down a slice of dry toast. Better? No, but it will have to do. And I’m as good as I’m likely to be for some time.
He spent the morning closeted in his office, reading Christabel’s case notes, looking for leads as to what might have happened to her previous records, and telephoning various health authorities. Later today he would talk to her, but Don Frost had already reported that she was still dazed and unfocused from the chlorpromazine.
‘Thanks,’ said Patrick, speaking a bit curtly because it was suddenly awkward to speak to Don in the old, ordinary way. To soften this, he said, ‘I’ve no idea yet how I’m going to approach her,’ and Don had merely nodded and gone away.
It was midway through the afternoon, and from the darkness beyond his office windows it looked as if Inchcape was in for another of its spectacular storms. Patrick was just reaching out to switch on his desk lamp, when from somewhere within Moy’s jumble of buildings issued a deep, muffled sound.
It shivered through the darkening afternoon, and it was so unfamiliar and so abruptly invasive a sound that for several minutes Patrick simply sat there, trying to make sense of it. Whatever it was, it was coming from within Moy, of course, and in a minute he would recognise what it was, and he would know what he was supposed to do about it.