by Clare Chase
‘But it didn’t work?’
‘No.’ His voice shook slightly, and glancing across at him I realised he was angry; angry that she’d had the temerity to stand up to him. ‘She still wanted to hang onto them. But of course the die was cast as far as I was concerned.’ His grip on my shoulder tightened as he thought back. ‘Once I’d seen them, I knew I’d have to have them. Whatever it took.’
His voice made me shiver. I remembered Seb had always been fascinated by his desire for works of art whilst he was at university. ‘That’s my future,’ he’d said once. ‘I could make a lot of money out of people like him.’
I struggled again to loosen the cord tying my wrists, bracing my fists against each other, but it was no good.
Maxwell-Evans felt me tense and realised what I was doing. ‘The knots don’t have to last much longer,’ he said. ‘I’m quite sure I’ve made them strong enough for what remains of your life.’ He smiled and I saw quite clearly that he was enjoying this, revelling in the anticipation.
I tried to fight the panic that rose up inside me, and drew in a stuttering breath. ‘So how did you get hold of the drawings?’
‘I came up here the weekend that Sebastian stayed in London with Mel. I knew it was likely Julia would be on her own, because she’d been expecting to spend the weekend with him. Once I was with her, it was actually quite easy.’ The pride was there in his voice again, he couldn’t suppress it.
‘I presented myself as a fatherly figure. Said I didn’t want to cause her pain, but that I felt I must tell her that Mel and Seb were already lovers. I told her I’d looked into her drawings in more detail, and that I was sure now that I’d been mistaken. They were genuine after all, and it was clear that the only reason Sebastian hadn’t finished with her was that he was still hoping he might be able to get his hands on them. I made it seem as though I’d specifically come up to warn her, because she seemed vulnerable, and in need of a friend.’
‘You got her to trust you,’ I said, the full horror and tragedy of Julia’s situation sinking in.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was much more successful with her then than I had been the first time around, when Sebastian was there to muddy the waters. She was understandably upset, but that helped; it knocked down her defences. I made her promise to keep the drawings safe, and get them to a proper expert the very next week. I think she would have done that already – she had some contact that Farron had given her – only she didn’t have transport and she lacked the confidence to call someone in to see her. Then we had a few drinks, and popped a few pills too, only I didn’t really take mine of course, I just appeared to, to seem companionable. Seb had already introduced her to the calming effects of barbiturates and I think she was forming a bit of a habit. It was hardly responsible of him to let her near them, considering her mental state, but it played to my advantage anyway.’
‘Why didn’t she see you for what you were?’ I couldn’t believe how he had treated her.
‘It was just psychology. I presented myself as being entirely on her side, and then, when it was really late, I said I thought she needed some air, and so we went for a walk round the lake.’
‘To the place where she was found.’
‘That’s right. And by that stage she was so far gone that it was easy to sort out the drowning. There was very little struggling even, because of the way I managed to hold her, and I left her body without a mark. Do you know, I got the impression she wasn’t sorry to let go? Then I simply went back to the house, wiped the few things I’d had to touch clean of my prints and removed my glass. I was back in London with the pictures by morning.’
We had reached the drive of End House.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘she’d been in no fit state to remember to lock her house, so I didn’t have any trouble in that direction. Her key was still in her pocket when she was found.’
It was hard to push away the images he was planting in my mind. They were threatening to banish all other thought, but I knew it was essential to keep him talking. I struggled to focus and managed to find my voice. ‘Seb told me Julia never even admitted she had the drawings.’
‘Well,’ Maxwell-Evans said, ‘what would you have done in his place? He knew all right. And when Julia died and that aunt of hers invited him up to look through her things, he was able to see that they were missing. If she had been a bit less thoughtful he might never have found me out. As it was, he suddenly had a very good idea what had really happened to Julia. A little more investigating, and he was in a position to come knocking at my door.’
‘He’s been blackmailing you?’ Again a shiver ran down my spine. Seb’s face – a face I’d once loved – swam before my eyes, and I felt sick.
‘Of course. What did you think? He wanted the money he would have got from me if he’d been able to sell me the pictures. Hardly fair, I thought, given that Julia would still have had them if it hadn’t been for me. Anyway, I couldn’t afford to pay the whole lot up front, but I gave him a fat lump sum to set up at the gallery, and then paid the rest in instalments.’
‘So he’s pretty keen not to have you caught.’
‘Naturally. I’d report him. He’d do years in prison, and lose everything he’s ever worked for.’
‘So he tried to put me off the scent, with his theory about Darrick’s guilt.’
‘Yes,’ Maxwell-Evans said. ‘Not a bad plan, but I said when we last met that I didn’t think it would work for long. Sex got in the way. It’s so often the case. It was quite clear to me that you were in too deep.’
We’d reached the house now. I was almost immobile with fear, my legs wobbling under me. Time was running out.
He unlocked the door. ‘Through you go,’ he said, and then followed, switching on a table lamp.
The fire I’d lit had burnt down in the grate, the last embers letting out a feeble glow.
‘How nice of you to make it cosy for us,’ Maxwell-Evans said. He locked the front door and bolted it behind us. ‘Move over towards that back wall now, Anna,’ he said. ‘Face away from me.’
His voice had a finality about it. It wouldn’t be long. I was about six inches from the wall. And now Maxwell-Evans was pressing the knife to my back, so I could just feel the force of it, without the point actually cutting through my coat. My mind was blank, fear had taken over, and no words came.
‘You needn’t worry if you don’t like the thought of the knife,’ Maxwell-Evans said. ‘I don’t want your blood all over me. The ligature I used on Toby Mason will do much better. It’s time, Anna.’
And as he spoke I saw the glint of the knife he still held in his right hand as he raised the cord and pulled it down, tightening it around my neck.
Chapter Forty-Eight
I moved in the only direction left open to me, dipping sharply to the left and knocking my head against the wall. Maxwell-Evans gave a gasp of surprise as his hands were yanked sideways. The knife wobbled and I heard it catch on the plaster. He struggled to keep control, attempting to regain his grip whilst still clutching the cord, but it was too much. He stumbled, and I heard the knife crash to the floor and skitter sideways. Then he plummeted down with me, yelling out as his left knee made contact with the quarry tiles. I was still facing the wall, and partly underneath him, unable to see what was going on. It wouldn’t be enough, but I kicked behind me wildly, using every vestige of strength I had. Within seconds he had his right leg clamped round both of mine and my kicking became a twitching. It was inevitable that soon he would make sure even that movement was impossible.
I was aware of him turning the top half of his body away from me, perhaps to reach for whichever weapon came to hand to finish the job he was bent on. Maybe he would have to use the knife after all …
I made one last desperate effort to throw him off, turning to the wall and trying to jam my feet against it for some purchase, when I heard a sickening crack and felt some unseen force, pushing me onto the tiles.
‘Nice work, Anna Morris,’ Darr
ick’s voice said, as the weight of Maxwell-Evans lifted off me. ‘I must admit your methods did have me just a tiny bit worried there for a moment, but forcing him to drop the knife like that was a sound move; even if you did leave it until the last minute.’
Maxwell-Evans was lying on the tiles next to me, pale and still.
I wriggled round to sit up and Darrick reached for the knife to sort out the rope that had been tying my hands. My head spun and I felt sick. ‘He’s not dead?’
‘No such luck,’ Darrick said. ‘A bit of a missed opportunity really. I would probably have got away with it, under the circumstances.’ He took Maxwell-Evans’s scarf off and began to tie his hands with it. ‘As it is, he might not be out for that long, so I won’t take any chances.’
The police wanted to ask questions then and there, which, to be fair, wasn’t exactly surprising. Once I’d said my bit, I multi-tasked by letting a doctor peer at my head and throat whilst I waited for Darrick to finish his explanations.
At last we were allowed to go, with the proviso that we stuck around to make longer statements the following day.
Darrick took a couple of bags, including my own, out to his car and then came back. ‘I’m taking you into Keswick,’ he said, putting an arm round my shoulders. ‘We’ll go and stay at the George.’
It was odd, sitting there in the car with him. I’d wanted to know he was innocent for so long, and just for us to be together again. Now here we were, but I felt detached from reality. It was as though someone had wrapped a thick layer of cotton wool around me that left everything muffled.
I watched him as he drove, his jaw set, eyes fixed on the dark road ahead.
A myriad of questions flowed through my mind – I still had absolutely no idea how he’d found me – but, just at that moment, I couldn’t form any of the words I needed to voice them. I suppose it must have been the shock. I was utterly exhausted. The painful realisation that, in the end, I had actually believed Darrick capable of murder, and that he knew it, also held me back.
After a while I stopped feeling I ought to be saying something and my mind felt strangely blank. It was as though I was in a waking dream and when we finally arrived Darrick had to open the passenger door before I realised it was time to get out.
‘What time were you up this morning?’ he asked.
‘I think I started getting ready at five.’
‘Hmm. A five o’clock start and a standoff with a homicidal maniac. Not exactly your average day at the office.’
We went up to the front desk and he leant forward, talking to the receptionist. After a moment she handed back two keys.
He put an arm through mine as we walked up the wide stairs. ‘Our rooms are next to each other,’ he said, ‘with a connecting door. They normally use them for families. I’ll be listening out for you if you need anything. For now, I’ll come and help you get sorted out.’ He opened up the room and put my case down. ‘They’re going to bring you up a tray of food in case you get hungry.’
I made a face.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘but reaction to shock’s weird. I once ate three pizzas straight after narrowly surviving a knife attack.’
So, he hadn’t got over the habit of saying things that filled me with the gravest misgivings.
I looked at my watch. It was already half-past ten. In my zombie-like state I went and had a bath whilst Darrick sorted out his own things.
I felt slightly more human, and a lot warmer, by the time I’d had a soak. I longed to stay cocooned in the fluffy hotel towel forever, but at last I got dry and dressed. Back in the bedroom, a tray of food had appeared. I presumed Darrick must have taken delivery. It was only a moment before he knocked on the connecting door between our rooms.
‘Darrick, I need to know things,’ I said, as he walked in. ‘My brain is filled with stuff I don’t understand.’
‘I know,’ he said, stopping me, ‘but it’s a long story and you need to sleep. In the morning we’ll talk, but for now I’ve got these.’ He brought out some sleeping pills that the doctor had left for me.
I gave him a look.
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, before I’d opened my mouth. ‘Funnily enough, having narrowly escaped death earlier this evening, you have no desire to plunge yourself into a helpless, drug-induced sleep.’ He chucked the pills into the wastepaper basket and smiled. ‘A woman after my own heart.’
Despite my decision, it seemed there was no way I was going to drop off without the aid of the doctor’s pills. My mind kept drifting back to the dark lane leading to End House. I saw Maxwell-Evans’ car headlights sweeping over the tall grassy banks, the hulk of expensive metal hemming me in. Nowhere to run. I felt as though I’d got a fever. Under the covers I became hot as panic washed over me, but if I strode about the room I was shivering violently within seconds. In the end I put the kettle on to make a drink. After a couple of minutes there was a knock at the door, and Darrick stuck his head round.
‘I came to check up on you. I sort of got the impression you’d been awake for a while, and there was always the danger you’d finally give in and resort to watching the 3 a.m. showing of Ice Road Truckers.’
‘I was getting perilously close to that desperate remedy. Hot drink?’
‘Although I applaud your idea of keeping your wits about you, I was wondering whether this might be better than a dose of caffeine.’ He came right into the room and I saw he was carrying a bottle of brandy.
‘Do you always keep some handy? Just in case you get into rescue situations?’
‘Yes. There’s nothing between me and a St. Bernard dog.’ He went to the bathroom for the tooth mugs and poured us each a generous measure.
We stood opposite one another, I in what now felt like a rather thin nightdress, and he still fully clothed. The drink burnt my throat, though it didn’t stop me taking another gulp. He took a step closer, standing inches away from me.
‘I’m sure I can’t sleep because I don’t understand how everything happened,’ I said, shifting back a little.
‘I’m sure you can’t sleep because you haven’t managed to unwind yet,’ he said, moving another step closer.
I forgot the problem of the burning again, and took another large swig of my drink.
‘I don’t think it would help you to relax if we started going over everything now,’ Darrick said, putting his empty mug down on my bedside table. ‘Other methods of unwinding are likely to be far more effective …’
I found I’d finished my drink too, and as he took the mug out of my hand our fingers touched. I leant forward for a split second, and all of a sudden he was kissing me fiercely, tugging me towards him, and my consciousness of the room fell away. The feeling of urgency and then, afterwards, of pure elation was overwhelming.
He didn’t leave me again that night and by the time I woke it was broad daylight and, in spite of the season, the sun had found its way in through a crack in the curtains.
But when I turned towards him his expression was serious.
I felt a twist inside me. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m worried that when you’ve heard what I’ve got to say, you’ll regret what we just did.’
Chapter Forty-Nine
We were late down to breakfast and the restaurant wasn’t crowded. At a table for two, tucked away in a corner, we started off with toast and some proper marmalade, with the promise of an enormous Lakeland breakfast to follow. Only now my hunger had deserted me.
‘So why might I possibly regret last night?’ I asked, taking a sip of orange juice.
‘I’m guessing you’d like to know how I tracked you down at End House,’ he said.
‘The question had crossed my mind.’
Darrick sat back in his chair and met my gaze steadily. ‘I’d installed spyware on your phone,’ he said.
‘You did what?’ I put my glass down with a start.
He nodded.
‘When?’
He sighed. ‘When you came to my flat,’ he
said. ‘It’s quite a simple process. I only needed access to your phone for about fifteen minutes, and that was easy once you were asleep.’
After we’d had sex, and I’d been on an emotional high. ‘You didn’t trust me? You wanted me on home ground so you could arrange to hack my calls …’
His gaze was still unflinching. ‘Twenty-four hours ago you thought I was a murderer.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I’m effectively a PI for the arts world, and I used the tools of my trade. I was already falling for you, that’s for sure, but I couldn’t let that cloud my judgement. I didn’t think you knew what had really happened to Julia, but you still seemed to have a soft spot for Seb. And that made me all the more keen to keep tabs on you.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘I was sure Seb was guilty, and that he knew what I was up to, even if you didn’t. And there he was, drawing you closer and closer to him, trying to persuade you not to see me. He was watching you, checking to make sure you hadn’t found anything out.’
He took a sip of his coffee. ‘Although I was wrong about the nature of his involvement, I was right about that. And at the same time, I knew that the closer you got to him, the more likely he was to give something away, and that that knowledge would put you in danger. The phone hacking was a way of making sure I could always track you down, if things got out of hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ he added. ‘It was rather unorthodox, I know. But it ended up having its uses.’
It was hard to argue that point. A thought occurred to me. ‘Is that how you knew where I was when you caught me at the tube station?’
‘That and a conversation I’d had with Lawrence Conran. That really put the wind up me. You working with Seb I could just about cope with, but you and him as a couple was way beyond that. The thought of him having you at his side, ready to dispose of if you ever guessed the truth …’