by Sarah Rayne
The other man looked at her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Stay there. I’ll be back.’
Then he was gone, running down the stairs after Donal Cullen.
TWENTY-FOUR
At first Phin thought they had lost Cullen – he thought the man had melted into the trees and the mist-shrouded gardens behind Tromloy.
Then Maxim shouted, ‘He’s over there – can you see? Running along that sloping bit of ground.’
‘Shouldn’t we leave it to the Garda?’ The police cars had drawn up at the front of the house, and the men were getting out, talking on crackly radios, and issuing directions.
‘He’ll be gone before they can reach him,’ said Maxim. ‘And I’m not letting that bastard escape. Stay with me, Phin.’
He went towards the trees, and Phin followed.
Donal Cullen was running like a fleeing hare, and Phin thought they could never catch him. But he had reckoned without Maxim. Maxim went after Donal like a man possessed – he covered the uneven ground as if he were flying across it, and Phin struggled to keep him in sight. Once Cullen stumbled on a jutting root or a rabbit hole, but he regained his balance and went on again.
Phin gasped out, ‘He’s mad – he must know he’ll be caught.’
But Donal did not seem to know it. He ran across the ground, and Phin had just realized he must be almost at the ice pit, and he was remembering they had left the trapdoor open, when Donal gave a sudden shout, and plunged below the ground.
Maxim checked his stride, then went on again. In a dozen strides they had reached the old pit, the outline black and stark against the thrusting grass.
‘He’s down there,’ said Maxim, kneeling on the edge of the pit. ‘And what wouldn’t I give to slam that door down on him, and tell the Garda we’ve lost him.’
‘You won’t do it, though.’
Maxim looked up at Phin. ‘I won’t do it,’ he said. ‘But—’ He broke off, and leaned down further, peering into the darkness.
‘He is there, isn’t he?’ Phin knelt down to look as well. He would not have been surprised if Donal had suddenly reared up and grabbed them, pulling them down with him, but he did not.
He did not, because he was lying on the ground, full length, with his head at an ugly, impossible angle to his body. When Phin moved slightly, to allow a vagrant shard of light to lie across him, his eyes were wide open and staring.
Beatrice had stayed where she was in the bedroom. She had managed to get up off the floor, although her legs felt as if all the bones had been pulled out of them, and she was sitting in the button-back chair by the window. She had assured the Garda she was perfectly all right and she had politely declined offers of paramedics.
‘I’d like to just stay here quietly, if you don’t mind.’
Stay there … That was what he had said, flinging the words over his shoulder before he went hell-for-leather down the stairs after Donal Cullen. Stay there … I’ll be back.
Maxim Volf. The man who had been in this house that first night – the man she had thought of as belonging to the shadows, and the man who had failed to save Abigail.
Bea leaned her head back against the chair. Time slid along – it might have been minutes or hours or even longer before she heard his step on the stair.
Maxim Volf.
He came in quietly, and stood for a moment looking across at her. There was such humility and such hope in his eyes that Bea felt as if something had seized her by the throat and was wringing every drop of breath from her. But as he came towards her, she stood up, and waited. He reached for her hand, and the instant his fingers closed around hers, Bea knew unquestionably, with an instinct that overrode everything else, who he really was. She forgot the bitterness she had harboured for the last two years; she forgot the anger and the aching loneliness and the pain of loss. She forgot the infidelities and the deceptions that had gone before, as well, and she only remembered that this was the man who could weave dreams and spin enchantments and who could quote lyrical poetry that caressed your mind even while his hands were caressing your body …
Abigail’s father. Beatrice’s lost, dead love.
In a voice that seemed to come from outside her, and that was barely more than a whisper, she said, ‘Niall.’
And fell forward into his arms.
The fire in the deep old hearth had burned low, and the Garda had finally gone, taking reams of statements with them. Phin Fox had taken Jessica home to the gloomy house with the faded ladies.
And Bea and Niall were alone.
‘I don’t know where to begin,’ he said. ‘But I’ll begin with Abigail. I didn’t save her. You know that, of course. But, oh, Bea, I really did try.’
‘I know that now.’ Bea touched the scars on his face very lightly. ‘It’s a curious thing,’ she said, ‘but there’ve been times when I pretended it wasn’t Abi who died. That there had been someone else in the car, and that the wrong person had been buried. That Abi had wandered off with no memory, and I’d still find her one day. And I got it nearly right, didn’t I? Except it wasn’t Abi who got mistaken for an unknown person, it was you. Who’s in your grave? Don’t shiver like that, it’s only a form of speech.’
‘I only know fragments,’ he said. ‘I truly didn’t remember until – well, until Phin and I came up to the house today. But I know there was a tramp who used to wander around Kilcarne in those weeks. A bit of a local character, I think.’ He frowned. ‘That girl – Jessica – ran into the road – she was running away from someone.’
‘Donal,’ said Beatrice, very positively.
‘It’s the likeliest answer. The tramp was running away from him – I swerved to avoid them both – it was the hire-car, and I wasn’t familiar with it, and—’ A violent shudder shook him, and Bea said, quickly, ‘Don’t go on if you’d rather not.’
‘It’s all right. I remember I flung my left arm across Abi to keep her in her seat.’ He shivered again, and Bea reached out to him. His head came down on her shoulder, and as she put her arms round him, she felt his tears soaking into her sweater, and his hands clinging to her. There was nothing to be done but to hold him, and after a short while, he raised his head, and said, ‘Sorry to be so emotional.’
Bea reached for the whiskey standing on the low table, and refilled their glasses. ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘I’d hate you if you didn’t have that grief.’
‘I know it happened two years ago, but for me I’ve only just heard about it. Bea, will I ever come to terms with losing Abi?’
‘No. I shan’t either. I don’t want to come to terms with it,’ said Bea. ‘I don’t want to stop missing her and being bitterly regretful and resentful that she didn’t have more of life.’
He turned to look at her more intently. ‘It must have been unbearable.’
‘Yes it was. But it’ll be better now.’
‘Now that I’m back?’ His voice was bitter. ‘Fine prospect I am. No money, no real job … Looking like something from a bad horror film—’
‘I don’t care about the money or the job. And you don’t look anywhere near as bad as you think. Even if you did, I wouldn’t care.’
He smiled at that. ‘“Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds”.’
‘I might have known you’d hide behind a quotation. As for a job – could you write, do you think?’
‘God, no!’
But something had sparked in his eyes, and Bea said, ‘Not fiction, necessarily. But something about legends and myths. Remember all those tales you used to spin for Abi?’
‘Tracing the origins? Linking the sources between countries? Comparing them? Abi once said we’d do that. She said she and I would write it, and you’d illustrate it.’ His tone was offhand, but a light was back in his eyes.
Bea said, ‘It’s still a good idea.’
‘You and me working together?’
‘There have been unlikelier collaborations.’
> ‘True. I’ll think about it.’
But as he reached for the whiskey glass, Bea could see he was already starting to think, and that he would go on thinking. Abigail’s Stories, she thought. That’s what we’d call it. But she only said, ‘Go on about the crash. You swerved to avoid the tramp. You thought he was running away from Donal?’
‘Yes, but I can’t think why he would be doing that.’ Again there was the frown of concentration. ‘A lot of it’s still confused,’ he said. ‘But I remember a terrific screeching of metal, and the feeling of being somersaulted across the road.’
‘You were thrown out of the car?’
‘I must have been. The next thing I knew I was lying in the road – I wasn’t sure where I was or what had happened. But I remember seeing the tramp running towards the car – I remember he had a bright red scarf on. Did he get to the car—? Yes, yes, he did! I saw him half climb in through the driver’s side to get to Abi – that door had been torn off in the crash, and the car was lying on the passenger side. But that was when the petrol tank went up.’ Again the shudder shook him. ‘I think I had got up from the road by then, and I started to run to the car, but it was blazing like an inferno. I couldn’t get near. They both burned. Abigail and the tramp.’
Bea said, carefully, ‘The body next to Abi was too badly burned for definite identification – but since it was in the car with her there was no reason to think it was anyone other than you. The police told me about you – about how you tried to get them out—’
‘I’ve known for the last two years that I tried to get to Abi, but that I couldn’t. But that’s all I’ve known. Everything was wiped from my mind.’
‘The shock of the crash and the fire?’
‘The doctors thought so. And I had no papers on me, nothing at all. No name. So I stole an identity I found here in this house.’
‘Maxim Volf,’ said Bea, softly.
‘Yes. I suppose at some level I remembered Tromloy and that’s why I came here.’ He set down his glass and took her hands. ‘About Abigail,’ he said. ‘It was over so quickly. It’s probably the one bit of … of solace I can give you, but it really was only moments.’
‘Yes.’ Bea stared into the embers of the dying fire, then she said, ‘There’s a great deal we still don’t know, isn’t there? Such as why Donal Cullen attacked me – or why he imprisoned Jessica in the old ice pit.’
‘Phin’s talking to the police and Jessica. He’s coming out to Tromloy tomorrow, so we might find out more then. I’m not sorry that bastard, Cullen, is dead, Bea. God knows what he was going to do to you this afternoon.’
‘If you hadn’t got in through the old ice pit – if you hadn’t suddenly remembered the old plans of the house—’
‘Let’s not do the “ifs”.’ His arm came round her, and Bea leaned against him. The room was warm and quiet, and the firelight glinted on the glasses. ‘We used to do this in that other life, didn’t we? Drink whiskey by this fire.’
‘Yes.’
‘And then I’d carry you upstairs to our bed. But now—’ He broke off and drew back, putting a hand across his face in a partial gesture of concealment.
Bea reached for his hand. ‘I don’t care about the scars,’ she said. ‘I wish I could take them away for you, but I don’t care about them. You’re still—’
‘Still Niall?’
‘Not quite. Not any longer. I think you’re Maxim now,’ she said. ‘And I think I might find it very easy to get used to that name. Would he – the real Maxim – mind that, do you think?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve found out a bit about him through Phin, but not very much.’
He was staring into the fire, and after a moment, Bea said, ‘Can you still negotiate the stairs to the bedroom, do you suppose?’
In the light from the fire, the smile she remembered – the smile she had never forgotten – touched his eyes. Bea felt as if something had punched into the pit of her stomach, and delight and longing sliced through her.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Maxim, softly. ‘Oh yes, my darling girl, I do suppose I can still do that.’
Nuala had not stopped crying since Jessica had been brought home, and the Garda had told them that Donal was dead.
As for the circumstances surrounding his death …
‘It will be a mistake,’ said Nuala, sobbingly, when the sergeant had finished the account. ‘Donal couldn’t possibly commit any kind of crime.’
‘He’s a priest – good and devout and hardworking.’ Morna had listened to everything that was said, not crying, but plaiting her hands together over and over again. ‘It must be a dreadful misunderstanding.’
‘Mistaken identity, even,’ said Nuala, daring to hope for a moment.
But there was no mistake. And after the sergeant had left, listening to Jessica, it seemed they could not have known Donal at all.
‘We thought it was that tramp who attacked you that day,’ said Nuala, in a faltering voice. ‘Donal even suggested that.’
‘I know. But it wasn’t the tramp. And,’ said Jessica, leaning forward, gripping her hands tightly together, ‘you do believe me, don’t you?’
‘I’m shocked to hear myself say this, but I find I do believe you,’ said Morna, and Nuala nodded. ‘But I shall never find it in my heart to forgive Donal Cullen. Or to forgive myself for not knowing what was going on.’
‘Jess, why didn’t you tell us?’
‘Donal said if I told anyone he’d say I was mad,’ said Jessica.
‘For goodness’ sake, no one would have believed that!’
‘He said my mother was mad,’ whispered Jess, and she looked at Morna and Nuala with such trust and such fear that Nuala cried all over again, and they both flew at Jess and hugged her.
‘A black, wicked lie,’ said Morna. ‘Catriona was never mad, not in a million years. She was lively and imaginative – exactly as you are – but she was as sane as anyone I ever knew.’
‘If only we’d known the truth.’ Nuala could hardly bear to think of Jess going through all this by herself, frightened and confused. ‘We could have helped. We’d have done anything.’
‘And then the birth itself—’
Memory flared between the three of them, then Morna said, ‘Donal stood back and let Tormod do what he did. He could easily have stopped him, you know. Arranged a proper funeral.’
‘He was afraid to let the child’s existence get out,’ said Nuala. ‘He simply wanted it destroyed. Out of the way and forgotten. He didn’t even give Extreme Unction – pronounce the words of the Last Rites. That should have been almost a reflex action for him.’
Morna said, ‘I’ve tried to forget what Tormod did that day. I really have.’
‘So have I. But—’
‘We won’t say it,’ said Morna, quickly. ‘He’s our brother.’
‘And he was starting to be ill – the stroke he had straight afterwards,’ said Nuala, eagerly. ‘Let’s remember that.’
Jessica said in a thread of a voice, ‘The child … It really was dead, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ Morna’s assurance came instantly and definitely. ‘There’s no question about it. I promise you that, Jess.’
Jess nodded gratefully, and Morna said, ‘But we were cowards afterwards, Jess. We were grateful when you – well, I don’t know the right word, but when you blanked it all out.’
‘We thought it was the best thing for you. We thought we were doing the right thing – protecting you – encouraging you not to remember—’
‘Letting the nuns – everyone – believe you were being given home lessons.’
‘Donal dealt with that,’ said Nuala. ‘He told us not to worry – that he’d talk to the education people. The lies he must have told!’ She looked at her sister, and in a whisper, said, ‘But now – how are we going to tell Tormod what’s happened?’
They told him that night after supper. It took a great deal of courage, but they told him everything – how Donal had taken Jessica up to that
house – Tromloy – two years earlier. How he had forced himself on to her. And then threatened her that if she told, he would cause her to be shut away.
And how he had died today because he had been trying to silence both Jessica and Beatrice Drury, so the truth would not get out.
At first Morna and Nuala did not think Tormod had understood. He did not speak, but his hands gripped the handle of his walking stick tightly, turning the knuckles white.
Then he whispered the name he had whispered in the firelit bedroom at Tromloy. ‘Catriona.’
The sisters glanced uneasily at one another, then Morna said, ‘No, Tormod, it’s Jessica we’re talking about.’
‘Catriona’s daughter,’ said Nuala. ‘Jessica.’
Tormod shook his head, but whether to disagree with them, or to shake off something he could not understand or could not bear to remember, they had no idea.
‘Catriona,’ he said, again, and the dreadful crimson colour flooded his face. Before either of the sisters could do anything he fell sideways in the chair, his face distorting, froth appearing on his lips.
When the paramedics, summoned by Morna’s frantic phone call, arrived ten minutes later, Tormod was still murmuring Catriona’s name.
Phin went back to O’Brien’s, his mind whirling with everything that had happened – with the knowledge that Maxim Volf was the believed-dead Niall Drury; with Donal Cullen’s vicious behaviour and Beatrice Drury’s narrow escape. And with the discovery that Roman Volf and Feofil Markov had been one and the same person, and that Roman had been alive in 1921 and at The Genesius Theatre. And that his last performance might be captured on cine film.
What about Antoinette? Who had she been, and how did she fit into all this? There’s something that’s still there to be uncovered, he thought, but I don’t know if I’m going to uncover it. He frowned, then put Antoinette to one side and checked his phone for messages. There was a voicemail from the rugby-playing neighbour who was, it appeared, still enthusiastically planning the promised party. As for holding it without Phin, they would not think of any such thing.
‘We’ll wait until you’re back in London, and as a matter of fact, my cousin Arabella is coming to stay, and I know she wants to meet you. She saw you moving in last month, and she went into transports – and trust me, old boy, when Arabella goes into transports … She said – let me get this right, because she’s apt to be a bit butterfly-minded, my cousin Arabella – she said you looked as if you might occupy a scholar’s ivory tower for most of the time, but she suspected that on occasions you were exquisitely wild and sinned with the angels.’