by Dominic Luke
But the grey shape exuded no menace: it was simply floated there, on the edge of sight. She wondered if she might be mistaken, if it was not her husband but somebody else….
‘Jocelyn?’ She stretched out her hand.
‘Letitia? You must stay with me, Letitia.’ Megan’s voice was hard and solid blue, blotting out the spectral shape. ‘Tell me about Jocelyn.’
‘He was my brother.’ Letitia stared at the blue, was drawn into the blue. ‘He got married too but, unlike me, he was happy – they were happy. But they had no children. Jocelyn, you see … they had locked him in a cupboard when he was a boy … he couldn’t … he couldn’t…. But they didn’t mind, they were happy. They were happy until … until …’
What had happened next? Trying to remember exhausted her. She didn’t want to remember. Her eyelids were heavy. She wanted to sleep. Just to sleep.
‘Letitia? Are you there, Letitia?’
Letitia’s eyes fluttered open. ‘Annie? Is that you? But I thought you were on holiday.’
‘Not Annie. It’s me, Megan.’
Letitia roused herself. A last vestige of energy flickered somewhere deep within her. She grappled with the hazy thoughts taking flight from her mind.
She was drunk, that was the problem. All that champagne had gone to her head.
But wait. They had not touched the champagne. The cork had popped, and then … and then …
There was a sudden noise, a rending and squealing, the sound of bricks crashing down and timbers falling. The ground quivered. Flakes of plaster and brick rained onto her face. Then it stopped, and the water was dripping again and everything else was still.
‘Hello! Help! Hello there!’ Megan began shouting. ‘We’re down here! We’re trapped! Hello!’ She paused, listening, and then said quietly, insistently, ‘Look, Letitia! Can you see the light?’
‘No. There is no light.’
‘But I can see now. I can see you. Reach out your hand towards me, towards my voice. That’s it. Just a little more. There! I’ve got you. I’ve got you.’
Megan gripped Letitia’s hand. In the dim, grey light she could see that Letitia was trapped, a beam having fallen across her ankle. Her body was twisted at an angle and her face covered with dust. The rubble beneath her leg was stained red. It was impossible to assess how much blood she had lost. She needed to examine the old lady as soon as possible, Letitia sounded weak, befuddled, Megan was anxious; but the rubble was unstable, she dared not move.
‘Jocelyn?’ Letitia’s voice wavered.
‘What is it, dearest? What’s wrong?’
‘Jocelyn is going away. He is leaving me. He has waited too long. I promised to follow him. I made a promise on his grave. He has grown tired of waiting.’
‘Don’t worry. We are going to be all right. They will get us out. They are coming. They are nearly here. Can you hear their voices?’
Letitia seemed not to hear, lost in her own world. ‘Do you think he will be angry with me? I read his journal, you see. He left me his journal.’
‘I’m sure he won’t be angry, Letitia. I’m sure he won’t mind.’
‘They said it was an accident. It was dark when he fell out of the boat and he was not a strong swimmer. But it wasn’t an accident. When I read the journal, I understood: I understood why his wife lost her reason so they had to put her in an asylum. And Jocelyn … Jocelyn drowned. He drowned himself. My father didn’t care, you see. All that mattered was to carry on the family line. He had to make up for Jocelyn’s shortcomings. He had to make up for them himself. That’s why he did it. And Arnold never knew….’ The voice trailed to a stop.
‘Letitia? Letitia? What was it Arnold didn’t know? You must tell me. You must talk to me. It’s important.’
‘Important? Yes. Yes. It is important. It’s important that Arnold should never know. Arnold must never be told that Jocelyn is not his father. Jocelyn, you see, is his brother.’
There was a heavy thump, a grinding sound, and light suddenly poured into the pit. Megan, kneeling in the wreckage, hemmed in by fallen masonry, was half-blinded. She felt woozy, leaned against the fallen joist in front of her. On the other side of the joist, Letitia was pinned in a narrow, coffin-like space. Her sightless eyes were darting this way and that. Gradually she seemed to become aware of the light. She held up her free hand, pawing feebly at the air.
‘Please, William. Let me alone. You’re hurting me. Take the candle away now. Please, William. Oh, please …’
Megan squeezed Letitia’s hand. ‘Letitia! It’s all right. You’re here with me, with Megan. There is no William.’
At the sound of Megan’s voice, Letitia grew calm. She lowered her hand. Her face, which had showed terror when she thought her dead husband was near, became blank and neutral.
‘There is no William?’ she echoed. Her eyes stopped moving, seemed to focus on some distant point. Suddenly lucid, she spoke in her ordinary voice, as if they were sitting gossiping in the kitchen. ‘How silly of me. He is gone. I had forgotten he had gone. I had forgotten that I killed him. I gave him poison. I put it in his porridge. I watched him die and then sent for the doctor. I expected they would take me away, but they never came. I waited but they never came. It was his heart, they said. It was his heart that killed him. We will leave you to grieve, they said. We will leave you in peace. But I could not grieve – not for him. Not for him.’ She shuddered, then was still. ‘I was alone but I could not forget what I had done. I could not live with myself, with the memory of it. So I made a promise to Jocelyn – I promised on his grave. I told him that I would join him. So I sent Annie to the seaside and then I went up to the attic where the poison was hidden. I lay down and I went to sleep.’
‘But you didn’t, Letitia! You didn’t take the poison!’ Megan spoke urgently. ‘You are still here, still alive! You’re with me, and we are going to be rescued!’
‘I didn’t go to sleep?’ For a moment Letitia looked confused, eyes fluttering; but then unexpectedly she smiled. Her whole face lit up. She seemed relaxed – at peace, if that was possible. ‘Of course! I remember now! It was all arranged. Annie was packing, I had written my letter, everything was in order. And then the doorbell rang. I was not expecting anyone. I didn’t know who it could be. But that was the day Hugh arrived.’
‘What have we got here?’ asked the policeman, arriving at the emergency scene.
‘Another of Adolf’s bleeding rockets.’ A short, wiry man was looking down at him from a pile of rubble. His face was dour and grimy. ‘It flattened that house over there, made a crater here, demolished those others.’
‘Any survivors?’
The man shook his head. ‘None so far.’
A faint voice carried across the bomb site. ‘Here, Bill! There’s someone here! She’s alive, and all.’
The policeman scrambled up onto the rubble, followed Bill across the ruins, slipping and sliding. He could see a woman with red hair being lifted clear. Her head was lolling, but she was conscious, groaning.
The policeman knelt beside her. ‘Hold on, love. Soon have you safe.’ Her lips moved. He leant close, put his ear to her mouth.
‘What’s she saying?’ asked Bill.
The policeman looked up. ‘She says there’s someone else. Someone else was buried with her.’
Bill scrambled down into the pit, agile as a monkey. The policeman shone his torch.
‘I can see her!’ Bill called. ‘An old lady.’
‘Want any help, mate?’
‘No need.’ Bill’s voice came floating up, grim, matter of fact. ‘It’s too late for her. She’s had it. Pegged out.’
The policeman switched off his torch.
Copyright
© Dominic Luke 2012
First published in Great Britain 2012
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7198 0610 0 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0611 7 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0612 4 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9813 3 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Dominic Luke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988