by Susan Moody
‘Need a hand?’ His voice was that of another era.
‘Yes, please. Could you possibly—’
‘Can’t help, I’m afraid. Don’t know the first thing about cars. But I know a man who does … Gerry, at the garage. I’ll give him a call when I get home.’
‘Oh … well, thank you very much.’
‘Don’t thank me too soon. I might easily forget. Memory’s not what it used to be. M’nephew says I’m slipping. But then who isn’t?’ Briefly, he leaned an elbow on the window edge, seemingly about to settle into a discussion of this question, but then obviously thought better of it. ‘I’d better go and talk to my hens. Bye.’ He waved a tweed-covered arm and lurched off.
So much for that, I thought. The chances of Gerry-from-the-garage showing up any time soon seemed fairly slim. Opening the door of the car, I rootled around in my bag for my mobile, then for the piece of paper which had Weston Lodge’s details on it. I dialled the telephone number and listened with irritation to the beeps which indicated that there was no reception in this area. Blast! Nothing to do but wait it out.
Luckily, I’d brought a book with me. After twenty minutes or so, when it seemed fairly clear that Gerry wasn’t going to turn up, I heard the chug of another car coming towards me. Again I marched into the middle of the lane and held up a traffic-cop hand. Again a car pulled up in front of me – a low-slung sports car in silver grey – and a man climbed out. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘I do hope so.’ I gave him my best 100-megawatt smile. ‘Are you Gerry from the garage?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Not as far as I’m aware.’
‘Do you know anything about cars?’
‘Almost nothing.’
‘Thing is, my car just gave up and died.’
‘They do that sort of thing, don’t they?’ he said, lifting my bonnet. He stuck a bit of metal he’d found into some kind of hole. ‘Especially when they’re out of petrol.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve run out of gas.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. I filled up only a few miles out of London.’
‘Perhaps your tank’s sprung a leak.’
‘Or my petrol gauge is faulty.’
‘Or maybe you should buy a new car.’
‘What a very brilliant idea,’ I said. ‘Meanwhile, how do I get to where I’m going?’
‘You hope that the guy who has just stopped to help has a full petrol can in the back of his car.’
‘And does he?’ I examined him more closely, noted the cashmere sweater, the Tattersall shirt, the good flannels, and knew that the answer was unquestionably in the affirmative. This was a man who would always have a full petrol can in the back of his car. As Hamilton had. And, like Hamilton, he was nice-looking, if a bit solemn. Big, with a rugby player’s neck, short brown hair, darkish eyes, good hands. My mother had always maintained that good hands meant a good man.
‘As it happens, yes, he does.’
‘So we’re all sorted.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Obviously, I’ll pay for however much I need to get to my destination.’
‘And where’s that, if you don’t mind me asking?’ Good smile, to go with the hands.
‘A place called Weston Lodge.’
‘Ah.’ He stared at me searchingly, and I saw that the darkish eyes held something I could not quite interpret. ‘Are you going for any particular reason?’
‘Uh … not really, no,’ I lied. ‘I saw an advertisement for this special weekend, and all in all, it seemed like a good idea. You know how it is.’
‘Absolutely.’ He finished pouring petrol out of his can into a funnel he’d inserted into my petrol tank. ‘There, that should see you right. You’re only about fifteen miles away from the Lodge.’
‘You’re from round here, are you?’
‘Not at all. But as it happens – and I hope this won’t spoil your weekend – I’m also taking advantage of the special offer. So I’ll be around too.’ He smiled again, and the sombre contours of his face changed as though a lamp had been switched on.
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you there.’ I wondered whether I should wait a bit longer for Gerry-from-the-garage, but given the length of time I’d already waited, plus the faulty memory of my first rescuer, I gave up after a while, and set off for Weston Lodge.
When I had driven up the long poplar avenue to the gravelled space in front of the house, the Lodge looked exactly as I had expected: small country mansion, a bit of Perpendicular, with early-Victorian ‘improvements’, battlements here and there, a couple of miniature towers.
Half a dozen cars were parked on the gravelled drive, with people milling about hefting suitcases or climbing the lichened stone steps up to the big oaken front door. I inched in between a gleaming black Jaguar and a sports car in racing green, praying that I wouldn’t make some terrible driving error and scratch their paintwork.
Bags extracted from the boot, I took a deep breath. Beneath the anticipation of massages and aromatherapy, darker thoughts churned; I felt as though I was standing on the lip of a precipice and any moment now might fall over the edge. Was I going to make it through the weekend, and in any case, whether I did or didn’t, what would I have achieved by coming? I had visions of myself being carted out on a stretcher, a screaming hysterical mess. Perhaps I should get back into the car and drive away again. No one would miss me: they could keep the deposit, even take the cost of the weekend off my credit card if they wanted.
But I knew I was being silly. I could leave at any time, if I wanted to, so I might just as well give the weekend a chance. Another deep breath before I climbed up the curved stone steps and walked through the door into a large circular hall, while my head thundered the phrase I shouldn’t have come, I shouldn’t have come.
A young woman sat at a round rosewood table in the middle of the space, surrounded by receptionist-type apparatus, a big bouquet of beautifully arranged flowers in a heavy Daum crystal vase sitting in front of her. The effect was nothing like the usual hotel reception-desk and created an immediate air of welcome. Light spilled in through tall windows, and I could smell lilac on the air which wafted in through the open front door. It was very different from my expectations. But what had I anticipated? Bloodstains on the walls? Vampire bats flitting about? Guttering candles and intermittent bursts of lightning and thunder?
I laughed to myself as I was shown to my spacious room, which contained not just one but two double beds, both spread with gorgeous quilts and cushions. It was handsomely furnished with an eclectic mix of vintage pieces and state-of-the-art chic. Either the new owner had lots of money and superb taste, or he had lots of money and a really good interior designer. I ran my fingers across the polished surface of an antique side-table, then stared at my reflection in a beautiful carved and gilded fruitwood mirror, thinking that my auction-house employers would love to put some of this stuff under the hammer.
Dumping my suitcase on the webbing-and-mahogany stand provided, I stood for a moment in the middle of the hand-woven oriental rug which covered half the floor, before walking over to the French windows and stepping out on to a small balcony. A rural landscape spread before me: grass, trees, a narrow winding river, the glossy beige of cows, white clumps of sheep. There was a line of poplars in the distance, leaves shaking in the breeze, the silver undersides shining like coins.
For an eye-blink, Sabine swam into my head. She had lived in this house – for all I knew had slept in this very room. I closed my eyes, seeing the oft-reproduced face of her killer, as a familiar rage shifted inside me. The newspapers had called it a brainstorm, an aberration. That was no comfort whatsoever. While Dad and I had to spend the rest of our lives mourning and bereaved, the murderer was being cared for at taxpayers’ expense, even being encouraged from behind the prison walls to continue what had been a promising academic career.
I forced myself to think of something – anything – else. That beautiful ar
t deco cabinet, for instance. The stunning satin throws across the beds. The Victorian ewer and pitcher. My heartbeat gradually slowed.
A notice propped against a bowl of hyacinths informed me that at six p.m., David Charteris, the owner, invited me to a pre-dinner Mingle in the Large Drawing Room. I stared at this for some time. Mingle: what kind of a word was that to describe a meeting of independent adults? And how many of the hotel guests would attend it? I thought of the guy who’d come to my rescue – if he was there, I could at least pay him back for the two litres of gas he’d poured into my tank.
I felt slightly cheered.
I had forty minutes before I had to show up in the ‘Large Drawing Room’. I took ice cubes and tonic from the minibar and dropped them into the glass provided, poured gin from the half-bottle I’d brought with me and listened to the satisfying crack they made as the spirit hit them, then cut off a strip of peel from the lemon I had also put into my bag before leaving London. I sat down in the comfortable armchair, finally feeling the sense of ease which I’d hoped for when I first read the advertisement for this weekend. Maybe I’d stay in this comfortable room for my whole stay, having my meals sent up, being cosseted. Since Ham had died, cosseting had not been high on the list of things I was getting a lot of. How strange, then, how quirky of me, to feel it here, of all places.
On the leather-topped table-desk was my computer case; inside it were the letters Sabine had sent from this very house. I hadn’t read them for years, but I had known I’d have to do so if I was to make any sense of this weekend.
Make a start now? Or wait until later? Now, I decided. Don’t put it off any longer. I really should have read them before I left home. Nerving myself, I swallowed more of my drink, opened my case and brought out an envelope.
Hi, Baby:
I can hardly believe it but I’ve been here for over a week and only now have found time to write to you. There’s so much to tell you – and you did ask to be told absolutely everything.
Anyway, the house first. Gorgeous! Never thought I’d be living in something so grand, all towers and turrets and stained glass windows and the like. Rolling lawns, ancient trees, a small lake, terraces all round: they’ve even got their own little chapel set in the middle of yew-trees and gravestones, with all the ancestors buried there.
The parents are unlike anyone I’ve ever met. He – Harry Redmayne – is a tall handsome man, with black brushed-back hair, blue eyes, olive skin. Very very charming, very smiley, a lovely speaking voice. He wears beautiful suits – Savile Row, of course! – and shirts, handmade in London. The shoes are also handmade, with leather soles. (Some shoe-shop called Lobbs. I happened to see a bill for his latest pair and nearly fell over on my nose!) I didn’t think people bothered with such expensive clothes any more … maybe it’s because he’s an art dealer in the West End and he has to dress like that for business purposes. Also, I heard him talking on the phone the other day, and I had the impression he’s got political ambitions. I can imagine he’d be a real orator, with that voice.
She … the Honourable Clio Palliser (or Redmayne, I suppose, since she’s married to Harry) … now she is really interesting, much more so, I think, than he is. She’s as thin as a toothpick, unlike him (Harry really likes his food and his wine). She’s very pale, etiolated (look it up!), kind of awkward, terribly academic and clever – she has a doctorate in some sort of language studies – Scandinavian or Nordic – and writes articles for learned journals and contributes to books on her subject, attends conferences, etc. Big parcels of books come for her all the time, sent down from London: art books and books on history and music and drama, biography, plus all kinds of fiction from highbrow literary fiction to cheap thrillers. Not to mention numerous literary and historical magazines. I love being able to sit in the library and just wallow in books! She’s told me to feel free to take whatever I want off the shelves, which is marvellous.
But she is a bit weird. Finds it hard to look me in the eye when she’s talking to me, kind of blank-looking and not very smiley, obviously very nervy and shy, which is odd in someone who’s a successful academic writer. And let’s face it, I’m not exactly intimidating, am I? (No, I’m not!)
Must dash, more later, your loving sis, Sabine
Swallowing the last of my gin and tonic, I laid the letter on my knee and stared out of the window. A bit strange … What an understatement that had proved to be. Most of us don’t expect evil to be lurking at our elbow; we accept the peculiarities and eccentricities of our fellow humans without thinking too much about them. Like my sister, we tend not to experience any unease in the face of them. How ironic … but what difference would it have made if she had? None at all.
I looked around me. There was a small bookcase, stuffed with books, and I got up to see what David Charteris felt was suitable reading material for his guests. Most of the books were current paperbacks, but there were several nicely bound classics: some Dickens, some Jane Austen, a copy of Peter Rabbit, an Alice In Wonderland, the Collected Poems of Walter de la Mare, still in its original dust-jacket. We’d had a similar copy at home. I pulled it out to look for favourite childhood poems.
As I skimmed through the volume, the front half of the dust-jacket fell away and I saw a dedication, written in tiny script high in one corner of the cover where it would normally be hidden by the front flap. For my darling Clio, hoping you will enjoy these poems as much as I did when I was your age, with love from Mummy. The Alice In Wonderland had a similarly concealed inscription, also hidden by the front flap: For Clio Palliser on her 8th birthday, with all love, Mummy.
In my hands was a book which had belonged to a vicious killer. Yet for some reason, I found these two inscriptions unbearably moving. They threw a new light on my sister’s murderess, one I felt incompetent to absorb; she’d been a little girl once, she’d read the same books as Sabine and I, she’d had a loving caring mother. Grief swelled inside me like a balloon and moved unstoppably into my throat, while tears filled my eyes. It was years since I had cried over my lost sister but suddenly I was weeping not just for Sabine but also for myself and for the child who’d grown up to become a perverted slayer.
At six o’clock, I showered and changed into black velvet trousers and a rose-pink chiffon shirt, refurbished my make-up and brushed my GI-short red hair, then made my way down the grand central staircase to the big drawing room, which was already full of anticipatory chatter. Our host, if that was the right term, given that we were paying for this weekend, was standing at the door smiling in a suit that must have cost a small fortune. He was a good-looking man in his early forties, and very well-maintained: good skin, healthy hair, no spare flesh beneath his jaw.
‘Hello, I’m David Charteris,’ he said, shaking my hand and launching into a well-rehearsed patter of welcome. ‘I’m so glad to see you, do hope you enjoy the weekend, plenty of nice people here, feel free to wander round the house, do go on in.’
I did, wondering if this whole thing was a good idea. How appropriate was it to be knocking back cocktails in the house where my sister had died a violent death? Since the alternative was to stay in my room (not an entirely unpleasant one, as I’ve already noted), I decided the answer was yes to both questions and took a glass from one of the circulating waitresses. The guy who’d come to my rescue with his gas-can was standing by the window looking glum and apprehensive. A number of couples stood chatting together, the husbands tall and tanned, the wives blonde. An interesting-looking woman stood fingering some kind of ebony and ivory bibelot, a man with an angry expression watching while she did so. My heart sank as I saw someone approaching me with a smile obviously intended to charm. Somebody ought to tell him that it needed quite a lot more work. Was it because I was short that men like him always made a beeline for me? Even more incomprehensibly, why did they always think they were God’s gift to women, when ninety-nine times out of a hundred they very obviously weren’t?
‘So what’s your name?’ he said. Nice approach, guar
anteed to irritate. Well-bellied, in a striped shirt under a tweed jacket, freshly shaven cheeks, slicked-back thinning hair, he seemed to be exactly the kind of self-important twerp I hated. And a prime candidate for a heart attack, judging by his cherry-red complexion.
‘Chantal Frazer,’ I said.
‘I’m Charlie Leeming.’ He spoke as if I ought to have heard of him. ‘Chantal … that’s some kind of a French name, isn’t it?’
‘It is a French name,’ I said. ‘Not some kind of one. My mother was French.’
‘Ah …’
I looked round, hoping someone would rescue me. Like the petrol-can guy – who now was staring at my companion, mouth half-open, looking as though he’d just been landed by an incompetent angler.
‘You seem like an interesting lady,’ the Leeming man said, his would-be seductive smile morphing into a leer as though he expected that any minute, unable to resist his allure, I’d start tearing off my clothes.
‘Why?’ I don’t suffer fools particularly gladly, and self-satisfied fools like this one were the worst.
‘Uh, well …’ He coughed. ‘Wearing pink with your red hair: it kind of clashes, doesn’t it? But it’s very striking.’
‘Do you work for Vogue or something?’ I asked coldly.
‘Vogue?’
‘Or perhaps some other women’s magazine?’
‘No-o!’ He gave a snuffling sort of laugh. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘All these fashion tips …’
He was obviously unsure whether he’d been insulted or not, but recovered quickly. ‘I can tell a woman who knows what she’s about, if you see what I mean,’ he said.
I raised my eyebrows at this moronic remark. ‘Actually, I don’t.’ I saw with relief that Petrol-Can Man was shouldering his way through the crowd towards us. He reached my side and stood there, giving Charlie Leeming’s clothes a supercilious glance. ‘So … what brings you here tonight, Leemers, old man?’ he said heartily.