She staggered a few feet further toward the centre of the hall, a feeble attempt at making herself safe, creating a distance between herself and what had happened. She felt her palm, wet and sticky with blood, and the realisation dawned on her that she could be badly injured. She glanced up the stairs . . . where had Will and Sue gone? What was taking them so long? Anger mingled with the terror.
She had to be with people, she suddenly realised. Had to get some help. Still clutching her head, she started back toward the dining room, back to the party. A sudden moment of clarity hit her, however. She couldn’t go back in there. A party, in full swing, and in walks a woman bleeding from the head, injured by an object thrown at her by something unseen? Martha trembled. No one would believe her for starters, they’d think she was crazy – and it would cause such a scene. Questions – people would ask questions that she couldn’t answer. Where the bloody hell was Will?
She thought about calling for him, but was worried that it might attract more attention to herself in the silence of the hall. She could go upstairs after him, but she didn’t know where he was. She hadn’t so much as set foot on the first step since she got here, and she didn’t want to have to go searching in the dark when she hadn’t a clue where she was going. Not here, not now. Her chest tightened with another wave of panic and she looked yet again at the library door. She had to get away from there, reason out what had happened to her. She’d have to go back to the cottage. That was it. Mrs Hibbert . . . Gabriel said that the staff knew that something odd was going on. Perhaps she wouldn’t think Martha was crazy . . .
She felt a fresh throb of pain from her head. Be practical, she thought. She had to get her wound seen to. The practicality of the thought spurred her onwards and she turned sharply and began walking at first, breaking into a run as the terror of what could yet come behind her gripped her.
Martha pelted back the way she had come when she had first entered the castle earlier in the evening, through the door under the turn in the stairs, into the dark passageway beyond. She paused for a second, feeling a little braver as the door to the hall closed behind her, a barrier between herself and what had just happened. Then fresh anxiety rippled through her as she was confronted with the darkness. She reached her free hand to the wall and felt for a light-switch but could find none. Stay calm, she told herself, her breath still coming in short gasps, keeping her hand pressed to the cold stone for security. Her eyes adjusted a little to the darkness and she looked down, teetering for a second on the edge of the top step of the steep flight of old stone stairs which spiralled down before her, which she had climbed to initially enter the castle. She took a deep breath and tried to ignore her racing heart as she began her shaky descent, her legs trembling, her knees threatening all the way to betray her.
It seemed like an age before she felt the different floor surface of the flag-stoned passage under her feet. There was a hint of light now, and sounds of people and clattering pots and pans. The kitchens, of course. A wave of hope washed over Martha. She contemplated for a moment seeking help from the kitchen staff – they’d have first-aid kits, training . . .
She banished it. Again, she couldn’t face it. The scenario was too unbelievable. She was best braving the elements and just getting back to the cottage, getting out of the castle altogether. She reached out in the dark and found the wall opposite her, then turned left and felt her way along the wall.
It was growing brighter ahead of her, a passage off to the right throwing some light out into the passageway and she was able to remove her hand from the wall where it had guided her, finally able to see where she was going. She winced as her head gave a throb, and carried on, trying to move more quickly now, comforted by the faint bustle she could hear from the kitchens, a clatter of pans and glassware, conversation. She walked on, getting closer to the sounds. It was dark again down here, but she didn’t care. She could feel the hint of colder air and knew that she was near the back door. Her steps quickened with relief. She wouldn’t bother with the raingear – she knew she’d get soaked but she didn’t have the time or the patience to fumble with it. She didn‘t care about her party dress, she wasn’t going back up there anyway.
She glanced back, as though she might see something, the thought flashing across her mind that whatever it was that had injured her in the library could still be coming, could be anywhere.
She didn’t see the dark shape before her step from a door on her right – wasn’t aware that there was anyone – anything – in the small passage with her until she touched against it, the fingers of her free hand brushing against something too late for her to withdraw. Martha walked directly into a human form, her mind flashing white with fear, turning blank as she squeezed her eyes shut and finally screamed.
CHAPTER 38
The red handprint on Mrs Hibbert’s pale pink sleeve where Martha had tried to fight her off was vivid. The blouse was ruined, Martha knew, and she burned with a sudden and fierce embarrassment, made more intense by her bubbling emotions, the residue of the terror she had experienced upstairs.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs Hibbert,” she managed.
It struck her that she should make some attempt to let Will and Sue know where she had gone, but she felt so drained all of a sudden, sitting there in some sort of old kitchen, the woman fussing around her, peering at the cut on her forehead. It felt so warm in here, so comforting. She’d just stay here a while, have someone else look after her for a bit . . .
“That’s fine,” replied Mrs Hibbert in a soothing tone. “I must have given you a terrible fright stepping out in front of you like that. Your wee girl is fine by the way, I’ve left Laura with her – she’s one of the weekend girls and she’s very good. I’d only popped in here for a moment myself to find something Mr Gifford needed.”
Martha blushed again. Ruby. It hadn’t even occurred to her to be concerned that the woman in whose care she’d left her daughter was here in front of her. She felt exhausted and overwhelmed.
“That’s such a nasty cut,” fussed Mrs Hibbert as she crossed the room to the old Belfast sink under the high window and ran water into a bowl. She rummaged then in a cupboard until she found a first-aid box. Crossing back to the table, she removed a thick roll of cotton wool and dipped a segment in the water. She dabbed gingerly at the wound at first, tutting as she peered closely at it.
The room was lit by a single fluorescent strip that hung directly over their heads. Martha sat in a wooden chair at the head of a long formica-topped table with her back to the doorway. The chair faced toward an unused solid-fuel stove, old-fashioned but highly polished.
“You shouldn’t have tried to come down in the dark, my dear,” said Mrs Hibbert and Martha realised the old lady thought she had hit her head against the rough brickwork of the wall in the dark. “But of course you didn’t know where the light-switches were . . . I should have told you . . .”
Mrs Hibbert looked up suddenly as someone entered. Martha couldn’t turn her head but she heard the squeak of a door and the kitchen sounds that had guided her down the dark passages outside grow loud for a moment. A man’s voice spoke.
“Everything all right here, Mrs Hibbert?”
“Everything’s fine, Mr Gifford,” the old woman replied, holding Martha’s head still as she spoke. “We’ve just had a wee accident here but nothing to worry about.”
“If you’re sure then? I’ll be off so. Thanks for finding that serving dish for me by the way. Sorry to drag you out on a night like this.”
“Not at all.” The old woman resumed dabbing at the cut, wetting a clean piece of cotton wool and swirling it over Martha’s cheek. “Safe home and I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ve ten for lunch.”
“Ten. That’s good then. Goodnight, Claire.”
And with that, the squeak as the door closed again and the man was gone.
Mrs Hibbert concentrated on cleaning the cut.
“Is it all right?” asked Martha tentatively. “There was so much blood . .
.”
“Nothing to worry about at all,” repeated Mrs Hibbert. “I thought at first you might need a stitch but you don’t. The cut’s a little bleeder all right but I’ve cleaned most of it away. I’ll put some disinfectant on it and pop a plaster on it. That should do you.”
Martha was grateful. “Thank you so much,” she said sincerely. “I really wouldn’t fancy a trip to hospital on a night like this.”
The housekeeper continued to busy herself with the first aid. “Och, I could sew you up myself in no time,” she said, applying the disinfectant while Martha winced. “I’ve been in this job so long I’ve seen my share of slipped carving knives. It saved a lot of time and effort for me to learn how to do a few stitches.” She smiled warmly and looked full on at Martha.
It was then that she saw it. The faint trace of the eye turned inwards, not as evident as when she’d first looked at this face, in the grainy photograph. Martha gasped.
“You’re Claire Drummond, aren’t you?” she blurted, without thinking.
The old woman stopped what she was doing. “How . . . how do you know that?”
Martha wished she had said nothing. “Your picture . . . I saw your picture . . . we were looking at the files about . . . what happened here. About Laurence . . .”
Concern spread across Mrs Hibbert’s features and she stared at Martha. “How did you get that cut?” she then asked sharply. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”
It was Martha’s turn to feel uncomfortable but she didn’t have anything left in her to make something up. “I was in the library . . .”
Mrs Hibbert gave a start. She stood up straight, the expression on her face turning to pure worry. She turned her back on Martha to rummage in a drawer.
“There was a book . . .” began Martha, allowing the sentence to trail off, unsure if the older woman was listening to her at all.
Mrs Hibbert turned, brandishing a plaster, and came back to Martha, all the while avoiding eye contact.
She made to pull the package apart to retrieve the bandage inside but, as Martha’s eyes travelled down to watch, she saw that her fingers were trembling violently and she gave up.
“I knew it. Knew that it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt in the castle,” she said, looking away from Martha.
She was talking almost to herself and Martha leaned closer to hear what she would say next.
“I asked Mr Gifford if there was any way at all to cancel this party,” the housekeeper said a little louder, her voice trembling, “but he said Mr Calvert was having none of it. He doesn’t know he’s here, of course. Or if he does, he chooses to ignore it . . .”
“Who doesn’t know who’s here?” probed Martha, a feeling of uncertainty creeping through her. Did the old woman understand what she’d said or rather what she hadn’t said about how she’d obtained the wound? Martha at once became fearful of continuing the conversation, of facing what Mrs Hibbert might say next.
The housekeeper looked Martha straight in the eye finally, before she spoke.
“If you saw me in those files then I’m sure you’ll have seen him too,” she whispered, her voice quaking.
“Who?” asked Martha again, unsure whether or not she wanted to hear what she knew would come next.
It seemed to take an age for Mrs Hibbert to finally speak. “Uncle Jack,” she whispered, so low this time that had Martha not faced her directly, had not read her lips, she wouldn’t have known what the old woman had said.
Martha felt herself turn to ice.
“Jack Ball,” said Mrs Hibbert by way of clarification. She looked around her, taking in whole room, as if checking that they were alone. “He’s come back for someone. Come back for Martin.”
Martha sat there in silence herself. She felt herself reel a little. She wasn’t sure what to do, what to say next. “You mean Martin Pine?” Her voice shook as she spoke the words.
A tear rolled down Claire Hibbert’s face and she stifled a fearful sob. She nodded and Martha sat back in her chair to take it in.
“It’s all my fault,” sobbed Claire, looking around the room frantically. “I made a promise to Martin and I haven’t kept it yet – I promised I’d tell someone, that I’d give her the letter he wrote before he . . . There was an injustice done here. So long ago that you’d think it wouldn’t matter but it does. If I’d just done what I promised him, then he wouldn’t have to be here, do you understand? And if he wasn’t here, then Jack Ball wouldn’t be here and none of this would be happening!”
Martha leaned across and grasped at one of her hands which rested on her lap. “Calm down, Claire,” she said softly. “I’m sure it’s not your fault.”
“But it is,” gasped Claire. “We were in love, me and Martin . . . I should have said something . . . I knew he couldn’t harm anyone. He didn’t do it . . .”
“Wait, Claire, slow down,” Martha said insistently, and then more quietly, “When you say he didn’t do it, when you say that an injustice has been done, what do you mean? Are you saying what I think?” Martha paused, gripping the wrinkled hand, searching the woman’s face. Could it all be true then? Could there be substance to it? She could only whisper the words. “Was Martin Pine innocent of those murders?”
Martha felt the warm old hand grasp hers back. Claire Hibbert looked down at where their fingers were joined, sniffed, took a breath, and looked up again. She nodded.
“That’s right,” she managed. “You do know about this, don’t you? All of you? It’s why you’re here? Why Gabriel and his friend were here in the kitchen so early this morning?”
Martha blinked. This woman had actually been here when it had all happened. When Laurence and Jack Ball were murdered. If she said – if she somehow knew that Martin Pine was innocent, then all of this was true – the messages in Gabriel’s flat, Will’s theory about what they meant, Angeline Broadhead’s chilling words . . .
Martha’s head throbbed as she tried to take it all in. Up until now, it hadn’t seemed real somehow, despite the newspaper cuttings and the constant conversations, despite actually going to the bother of coming to the castle. But suddenly, as she touched the woman’s skin, she felt a strange connection to it all, felt the story suddenly come to life. It grew vivid in an instant, the characters not just pictures in Sue’s file, but real people – here was one of them before her. And Martin Pine really could be innocent. A picture of his face, that photograph from the files, flashed suddenly in front of her eyes, so real that Martha felt she could reach out and touch it.
She watched as Claire Hibbert gently released her hand from where it was intertwined with her own and, with weary movement, pushed herself upright. She walked slowly and with effort across to the worktop beside the stove where an electric kettle stood.
“I’ll make us some tea, shall I?” she asked, and Martha shivered as a loud gust of wind screamed past the castle, flinging rain like a handful of pebbles against the window.
CHAPTER 39
The day was glorious as the woman stepped from the black cab and eyed the buildings nervously. She wished that she hadn’t bothered with her heavy raincoat now. She took it off and draped it over her arm. The sky was cloudless, sharp blue as far as the eye could see. Which wasn’t very far, she noted, as the five tower blocks soared high above her, casting shadows over the courtyard. This place was no different to thousands of other tower blocks across the world – children playing in the shade of the courtyard below, washing hanging on the walkways between the flats, women watching their offspring and sharing gossip with their neighbours, unemployed men staring with suspicion at the newcomer from doorways, cigarettes dangling from lower lips.
The boy – an old man now – lived on the fifth floor and the woman, too terrified to take the stinking lift, was bathed in perspiration by the time she reached his door. She hesitated for a moment to collect herself, smoothed back the grey hairs that had strayed onto her forehead during the climb and ran her hand under each eye to wipe away the ligh
t sheen of sweat on her cheeks. She took a breath and, after another second of hesitation, knocked lightly.
Everything about Martin Pine had turned grey in the years since she had seen him – his curly hair which remained thick, the faint traces of a beard appearing on his chin – even his skin was grey. He opened the door nervously and peered outside with his grey, sad eyes, registering no emotion when he saw who was outside. The visit wasn’t a surprise after all.
The woman – Claire Hibbert, formerly Drummond – entered slowly, stepping carefully over the threshold and peering down the hallway before her. She couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose a little. The smell wasn’t of cooking or human waste or anything so unpleasant, but the air was thick with the musty smell of a human body and cigarette smoke. She had found Martin’s smell reassuring once, but now it assaulted her and then enveloped her as she stepped timidly inside and he closed the door with its cracked frosted pane of glass behind her.
Nothing was said at first. Pine, remembering himself, twitched his arm in the direction of a door at the end of the hallway to indicate that Claire should go through. With a small nod of acknowledgement she did, taking four steps and pushing the door at its end, with its thick layers of yellowed gloss paint and scratched metal handle. She was hit at once by a wall of light – the beaming sunshine of the day filling the picture window that looked out over the square created by the grouping of the apartment towers. Claire blinked a little, registered that the smell was stronger here, and that there was little or no ventilation except for a small top window which was open an inch.
The Dark Water Page 33