Someone Lying, Someone Dying

by Burke, John

  “Be quiet.”

  “Laughed,” said Nell, “about your rival, and your high opinion of yourself, and his father’s illegitimacy, and your own theft of Walter’s embezzled money — after all the high-sounding principles you’d laid down to him! — and about…”

  “You will be quiet, I have said.” The blade of the knife jutted outwards. “You will not speak like this. To me, no.”

  “And it was you who tried to kill Martin, with a do-it-yourself avalanche and then with a knife.”

  “The knife was for the child of shame. For her.” Serafina jerked her head towards the door. The gesture had no direction and no real meaning in this doomed, silent, deserted hotel. “But it is her child who comes … and I am content he should go first. It is a pity, I do not have the time. I make the mistake. He is still alive.”

  Nell said: “Where’s Mrs Hemming?”

  “A few hours and we shall all be the same, all together.”

  “You kill all three of us, and somehow that evens up the score — honour satisfied and all that?”

  “As you say. Yes. Without honour there is nothing to live for, or die for.”

  “It’s barbaric.”

  “I tell you, Mrs Johnson, it is not my wish you are here. I like to let you go. But I do not think you promise to speak to nobody. And if you promise, I do not think you keep it. You are English, and the English have no honour.”

  Nell tried to estimate how long the candle would take to gutter down. In darkness, what chance would she stand against this fearsome old woman with a knife?

  She could blow it out now, suddenly, and jump.

  Or she could sit here and wait and work out exactly what she proposed to do.

  Again she asked: “Where’s Mrs Hemming?”

  This time Serafina did not bother to make any reply.

  There was no sound. Nell would not have believed it possible to insulate a room so effectively from the outside world. To be so close to the sea and for there to be none of that steady background grumble which people in Lurgate took so much for granted; to hear no traffic, not even a rackety motor-bike racing out of the town…

  “It seems so futile to me,” she said. “I mean, you can’t set the past to rights: it’s fixed, you can’t undo it. And you can’t stop the future happening.”

  “I make sure there is no future for Walter Blythe’s daughter.”

  “And what does that gain you? It’s not Betty Hemming’s fault her mother was Walter’s legal wife.”

  Serafina flinched as she must have flinched when Peter jeered his insults at her.

  She said venomously: “My son is dead. I have had to take the life of my grandson. Now that woman’s daughter, too, must die. That is the only justice. Then it is finished … finished … finished!”

  “But it won’t be finished,” said Nell. “There’s Mrs Hemming’s son. And then there’ll be his children.” Brigid’s children, she thought with a pang of loss for what she would never see. Fury snapped and tore within her. “Don’t you see how mad it is — how pointless?”

  Serafina flicked her left hand derisively as though to dismiss this point. Then it fell slowly back into her lap. She hunched up, brooding.

  No, thought Nell. Oh, God, no. What have I said? What idea have I put into that twisted mind?

  Serafina nodded.

  Nell said feverishly: “The whole thing’s a ghastly aberration. Right from the start. Can’t you see that? You can’t go on and on for ever, so…”

  “But yes,” said Serafina. “For ever and ever. You must go on. That is vendetta.”

  She began to stand up. Nell, fighting against cramp in her legs and fear in her heart, tried to rise at the same time. The knife at once flicked towards her throat.

  “You stay,” said Serafina. “And I thank you. I am lazy, I wish to give up and sleep — but you are right, you tell me my duty. So I leave the hotel and I wait. When the hotel is gone, I wait for your daughter and her husband to come home.”

  “You can’t,” cried Nell. “You can’t just…”

  “Do not fear. I will not harm your daughter. Only him. They come back in about a week, I think?”

  Nell gulped. “Yes.”

  “Perhaps when they hear you are found in the ruins here, they come sooner. But I think they do not know I am waiting here. It will be a surprise to him, also, to know that Serafina is still alive.”

  Nell could trust herself only to nod.

  “I think,” said Serafina, “he will not have the time to recover from this surprise.” She stood erect, looking down with stern compassion on Nell. “And now … before I leave, I must see you are … safe.” The word seemed to amuse her. “Safe,” she chuckled to herself.

  The barriers were new. Driving fast up a road he knew well, accelerating over the last lap in the hope of finding reassurance at the end of it, Martin had to brake hard. He followed a diversion sign into a quiet side street.

  They were halfway down it when Brigid let out a gasp.

  “Mummy’s car!”

  They stopped beside it and looked in. There was no way of telling how long it had been standing in this street.

  “Your mother might be staying the night with friends. If there’s anyone here you know…”

  “There isn’t. I’m sure we don’t know anybody living up here. Anyway, she wouldn’t have got out of bed at midnight and come visiting.”

  Martin slid the car gently forward and prepared to turn at the corner along the diversionary route. Then he said: “Wait a minute. This route — it can only be to steer traffic away from the hotel.”

  “Something must have happened. We ought to go and look.”

  “After we’ve checked on your mother.”

  “No.” Brigid remembered what her mother had said about shifting Mrs Hemming’s bits and pieces. But that had been in the afternoon. They would surely not have gone back in the small hours. It made no sense. All the same… “Turn back up this next road. Get as close as you can. We’ve got to go and see.”

  She was grateful to him for not arguing. It was not that he was meekly taking orders; simply that he responded to her sense of urgency, and acted.

  They parked the car and hurried along the pavement past one of the barriers. A policeman stepped across the Fernrock entrance as they approached. He raised an imperious hand, then recognised them. “Oh. You, Mr Martin. Thought you was away on honeymoon, like.”

  “Have you seen my mother go in there?” asked Brigid. “Or Mrs Hemming?”

  “Not this morning, I haven’t. Only the workmen so far.”

  “Workmen?”

  “Getting set to blow it up. Not safe any longer.”

  Martin’s breath hissed in between his teeth.

  Brigid said: “My father, then? He’s here?”

  “Not yet, miss. Due along any minute, though.”

  Martin took her arm and began to march her forward. To the policeman he said: “Tell Mr Johnson we’ll meet him down there.”

  “Well, I don’t know…” They were on their way. The policeman raised his voice. “Stay well clear of the house, now. Way over the side of the slope.”

  They circled the hotel and came out on the top terrace. Men were unrolling a length of thin cable. The foreman came past, a few feet away from Brigid. He looked startled to see her there.

  Brigid said: “You’re sure there’s nobody in there?”

  “Indoors there? Not likely. Had a proper clear-out yesterday. Place locked up. No, miss — no visitors having a free kip.”

  Martin went towards the front door. Brigid followed the foreman indignantly on her heels.

  The door was securely fastened.

  “Now, look here, Miss Johnson…”

  “Mrs Hemming.”

  “Eh? Oh, yes, o’ course. Sorry. But anyways, your Dad wouldn’t be too pleased if you was to get a slate on your head, now, would he?”

  Hankey, the Borough Surveyor, appeared behind them. Brigid gabbled out her disjointed stor
y of the telephone calls, the one that had got through and the others that hadn’t. They must, must have a last-minute check through the building.

  Hankey tried the door. “Your mother,” he said to Martin, “was one of the last to leave. She was asked to lock up behind her. Evidently she did.”

  Martin felt in his jacket pocket. “I’ve still got a key to the side door — our own rooms.”

  “We can’t have anyone prowling round inside.”

  “There’s something wrong somewhere,” said Martin. “You’ve got to hold off blasting until I’ve had a proper look. Don’t worry — I know every inch of the place.”

  Before Hankey could protest, Martin went under the shadow of the trees towards the secluded side door.

  Brigid was about to go after him when a car turned cautiously in from the road and stopped well back from the hotel. Her father got out. He stared, thunderstruck. “You’re supposed to be in Malta.”

  “You haven’t talked to Mummy? She hasn’t told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  “We phoned her last night and tried to tell her…”

  “I’ve been out all night. On some Georgian tiles. Trying to keep them securely where they belong.”

  “Where is Mummy, then?”

  “At home in bed, I shouldn’t wonder. Or having a solitary breakfast in peace.”

  “She’s not,” said Brigid. “We tried to ring her from the airport, and she’s not there. Nor is Martin’s mother. Daddy, you’ve got to stop operations on this hotel until we’ve gone right through it.”

  “Look, if you imagine I’m going to lose time and money…”

  “Serafina,” said Brigid. “Serafina Blythe. Does that mean anything to you? She’s still alive, and we think she’s right here in Lurgate, and we think Mrs Hemming might be in danger. And where’s Mummy?”

  It came out jumbled and unbalanced. She finished by pounding her fists against her father’s chest. He held her off at arm’s length, trying to laugh but seeing how serious it must be to her. “All right, all right. We’ll go through the place. Top to bottom. And I’ll bet your mother and Mrs Hemming will have something to say when they hear about it.”

  He went down the slope to issue instructions, then came back swinging a bunch of keys from his little finger. The door opened. Light fell across the bare hall. No memory now of holidays and happiness; only the echo of their footsteps as they went towards the stairs.

  Brigid raised her voice. “Mummy! Mrs Hemming!”

  There was no reply. She tried again, then began to go up the stairs.

  A door creaked. They stopped.

  Martin came out of the reception office below and looked up. “Fine. You cover the first floor while I go through the rooms down here.”

  Brigid suppressed a tremor and went on to the landing. She walked along it and called again, and again. Was there a mutter, a faint shuffling sound somewhere, or was it just the wind stirring through the empty rooms?

  Her father was flinging doors open brusquely, anxious to prove that she was wasting his time. Brigid tried the doors on the inside of the passage. She looked into the bleak, stripped bathrooms, and into the lavatories.

  One door was locked.

  “This one won’t open,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Probably jammed. The building’s shifted quite a bit.”

  “I’m sure it’s locked.”

  “Mrs Hemming probably took me too literally and went through the place locking every door that took her fancy.”

  “Then why not the rooms on your side?” Brigid moved away, then turned back. “Daddy, please. There must be a master key on that bunch you’ve got.” He tried three before he found the right one. The door swung inwards. Shadows lay beyond the dim swathe of daylight. “Nell! Oh, my God, Nell…”

  They both stumbled towards the slatted shelves on which linen had once been heaped.

  Brigid’s mother was suspended face down from the lowest shelf, her stomach a few inches off the floor. Her wrists and ankles had been tightly lashed to the slats with strips cut from her slacks. Brigid sobbed as she tore at the knots. They lowered the weight gently, and carried Nell out into the corridor.

  “Arthur. But it’s not. Can’t be. Arthur…”

  “My love.” He cradled her against him, rocked her to and fro.

  Brigid said desperately: “Mummy, where’s Mrs Hemming?”

  “She’s … don’t know.” The words slurred out. “Don’t know. Don’t even know if … if she’s alive.” All at once Nell cracked into a hysterical whimper. She abandoned herself to tears and clung to her husband’s shoulders. Then she steadied herself. “Where’s Martin?”

  “Somewhere downstairs,” said Brigid. “It’s a wonder he didn’t hear us. He came in through their old rooms…”

  “But Serafina was going out that way. She’ll be hanging about. She…” Nell’s voice rose in a howl. “It’s Martin she’s after now!”

  Brigid left them without a backward glance. She ran to the head of the stairs and down, calling as she went. “Martin — Martin, where are you?”

  He was not in the hall, and not in the reception office. Their old private rooms were empty. The side door was open.

  The trees and the sheltering wall beyond obscured most of the view from here. Far down the slope a workman sat on a heap of rubble, contemplating the horizon. In the opposite direction Brigid glimpsed a brief segment of road, with a few faces peering over the hedge. Some holidaymakers had apparently thought it worth the effort of getting up here early to see the display.

  Martin stepped out from the corner of the hotel into a patch of morning sunlight. He must, she realised, have opened the French windows from the lower lounge and let himself out into the garden that way, finishing his tour of the ground floor.

  She opened her mouth to call him.

  A dark shape moved from the shadows of the trees.

  Serafina paced the few yards down the narrow path. Her head jutted forward. There was a terrible sinewy energy in her progress. She was stalking Martin with an incredulous joy — whatever else might be going wrong, here at least was Martin, a ready prey.

  He turned to face her.

  Faintly Brigid heard Serafina say: “You can help me, please? I stay here and I leave some property, and now what do I see?” One naive, feeble hand waved up at the building. “There is all this work, and nobody inside. Perhaps you tell me…”

  Her other hand was lost in the folds of a dress too sombre and old-fashioned to be right in Lurgate at this season of the year.

  She and Martin were close now. Brigid wanted to cry out, but the sound gagged in her throat. And then she saw from the way Martin stood that he knew the threat and was waiting for it. This could only be Serafina.

  She took a step forward, leaning confidingly towards him. There was a shrill dazzle against the sky as the knife blade slashed into the sunlight.

  Martin spun on one heel and deftly knocked Serafina’s elbow upwards. She let out an ugly shriek and stumbled a couple of steps down the slope. The knife described a parabola in the air and descended further down, bouncing over the rocks.

  Martin walked towards her. There were shouts from the far side of the terraces. Two workmen began to make their way across at an angle.

  Brigid ran out into the open.

  Serafina shrank from the huntress into a creature hunted. She jerked her head this way and that, her eyes counting them all and hating them as they converged on her.

  She ran.

  She ran along a wild zig-zag course, down a few feet and along the retaining wall of one terrace, then up towards the far side of the hotel, where the drive swept round to the head of the gardens. One of the workmen changed course and went scrambling after her.

  Martin halted, panting. Brigid fell against him and clung to him.

  “If we let her go, she’ll never give up! If she gets away…”

  A truck backed slowly and warily round the end of the building. Serafina
seemed to be racing towards its massive back wheels.

  Somebody yelled.

  The truck lurched and swung madly to one side to avoid Serafina. It thumped heavily against the corner of the hotel. Serafina, not more than a foot behind it, wavered, looked desperately round, and slithered back a few paces.

  The crack down the facade of the hotel widened as though cleft from above by an axe. A ragged pillar of brick and woodwork rocked outwards and stood poised for an interminable second; and then it crumpled down the slope very slowly and majestically. The truck rocked but stayed firm. Bricks came apart, there was a rending and splintering of wood and glass.

  Serafina looked up only once, and any sound she might have made was lost in the concussion as the fragments crashed down on her and on the terraces. Dust rose in a great cloud, drifting across the garden, settling on grass and the torn flowerbeds and the men crouching low to the ground.

  Arthur Johnson and the Borough Surveyor hurried two women out of the main door and steadied them on the drive outside — Nell leaning on Arthur, and Mrs Hemming doubled up, coughing and retching.

  Dust swirled up on the breeze, stinging their eyes.

  It was some time before anyone could see where to start digging for Serafina.

  *

  On the mangled corpse they found the key to Room twenty-two of Fernrock Hotel. They also found a smeared cheque folded in two, its edges almost tacked together by sea water.

  When the police had found the boarding house in which she had been staying,

  Detective-Sergeant Campbell was able to report that in her suitcase were all the souvenirs which Peter had produced as credentials and which she had subsequently reclaimed from Room twenty-two.

  “So,” said Nell, “at least there’s an alternative set of theories for the gossips of Lurgate to amuse themselves with.”

  Arthur nodded. “Nicer if we could have had a signed confession, or set her up in the dock to answer a lot of awkward questions — get it cleared up in public — but it’s better than us being the only ones to carry the weight of rumour.”

  They were sitting in what Brigid tried to think of as her new home. But the tempo and feeling of the place had been established by Mrs Hemming. She brought in a tray of cups and saucers, refusing help. With her knee she nudged a low table into place, equidistant between the divan where Brigid and Martin sat and the chairs where Nell and Arthur had settled.