I glanced through a door at the top of the stairs and saw a bedroom. In fact it was more like a wood-paneled womb with richly textured fabrics and a four-poster bed piled high with velvet cushions. I saw a bathroom leading off it and rushed in.
Coming back into the bedroom, I flicked on the light switch and stopped dead.
The room was a shrine to Shotgun. Every inch of the walls was covered with photographs and memorabilia. Shotgun on stage, microphone in hand and standing in a pool of spotlight.
Shotgun with the band, arms around their shoulders. Shotgun with celebrities. I moved closer to scrutinize each picture. His eyes gave him away. He looked trapped, nervous, uncomfortable.
I turned to the photos in frames on the various surfaces. On each of her bedside tables she had giant portraits of him smiling wistfully at her. Smaller heart-shaped frames showed him cradling Sean as a baby, kicking a football to him as a young boy.
It was an old house with generous sash windows and the deep sills were the perfect place to display pictures. I crossed the room to study the group amassed on the far windowsill and found they were all—predictably—of Shotgun but here there was a difference. Like the ones of Sean downstairs, they were recent pictures taken on Long Island—and it was clear he had not known he was being photographed. I recognized the beach below Mallaby and here and there a shot of him in the woods near the house itself.
When had these been taken? When she was over there for Sean’s
3 2 6 P
Hope McIntyre
funeral? But as I looked closer, I could make out Sean in some of the long-distance shots hovering near his father with Mallaby in the background.Whoever had taken these pictures had been spying on them from the woods.
There was a wooden frame at the back hidden behind the others and I reached for it. This was an older picture, a blurred amateur image of two girls in school uniform.
“We haven’t changed a bit, have we?” said a voice behind me and I turned around to see Martha Farrell smiling at me nervously.
And behind her stood Angie with a twelve-bore shotgun hanging loosely in the crook of her arm.
C
19
H A P T E R
P
IT’S OKAY, I’M NOT GOING TO SHOOT YOU.” ANGIE’S
smile was almost gracious. “At least not in here. Think of the mess! If I used this thing in this confined space you’d be splat-tered all over the room.” She actually laughed. “Martha heard you come upstairs and actually it’s rather cozy in here. Martha, why don’t you go down and get our drinks. We’ll have a little party right here in my bedroom.”
I couldn’t move and I couldn’t speak. All I could do was keep my eyes fixated on the barrel of the gun. I didn’t know anything about shotguns. I didn’t know anything about any gun. I had no idea how to tell if it was loaded. When Martha began to walk across to the door I was convinced the vibration of her weight on the floorboards would cause the thing to go off.
“I had a secret nickname for her when we were at school together,” said Angie when Martha had left the room. “You know what it was? Putty. Because that’s what she was in my hands. I could get her to do anything I wanted. In an instant. All I had to do was throw her a smile every now and then. And here she is today, alive and well and still ready to do whatever I ask her.”
I wanted to ask her if she knew about Martha’s novel because as Angie was speaking I had realized instantly that the fictional monster Martha had created in Iona was of course based on
3 2 7
3 2 8 P
Hope McIntyre
Angie. But I dared not move, not even to open my mouth. I was like a statue planted in the middle of her bedroom.
“You know I was all set to do a book,” Angie went on, “I really was. I knew I had to point the finger at Kip before he broke his silence about me. I knew it was only a matter of time before he told someone even if he did it inadvertently.”
No, I wanted to cry out to her, no, he protected you to the last. He thought he’d be able to tell what really happened but at the last minute he backed out and now I know why. He still loves you. He’ll keep your pact to the end, I know he will.
But I had convinced myself that if I opened my mouth it would cause the gun to go off, so I maintained my rigid and silent stance and the only change was that I was now blinking away tears of terror.
“And then it would just be a quick step and a jump to him telling the world how I smothered the groupie in his bed. I’m telling you, if it hadn’t been her it would have been another one.
I’d had enough. I knew Kip took girls back to that flat. I got up that night after the concert and went round there. I assumed I’d find Kip there with someone and I was just going to confront him. But he wasn’t around, there was just this girl asleep in his bed. I was enraged—” Angie paused and shifted the gun to her other arm and I knew the true meaning of the expression I thought I would die.
“At first,” she said, shrugging casually in reflection, “I think I just meant to hit her but then her eyes opened and she began to sit up. I grabbed the pillow from under her head and smashed it down on her face. I held it there—she was a tiny little thing, too skinny to be attractive, but Kip had all sorts of girls, you know?
He told me it was all in my imagination, his womanizing, but I kept thinking about it, seeing him with them, and the images would fester in my mind, Lee. Have you ever been jealous?”
How to Marry a Ghost
P
3 2 9
She was appealing to me and coming toward me with the shotgun. I wondered why I did not faint with fear, my knees were shaking so hard and my teeth were clacking away like a rattle.
But she moved past me to stand the gun against the wall as Martha came back into the room and handed her the pomegranate juice. I burst into tears in relief and Martha put her arm around me.
“Poor duck,” she said, “here, sit down and drink your wine.
It’ll calm you down.You’re in a real state, aren’t you?”
“Leave her be, Martha. I’m telling her about that groupie nightmare. It’s true, that girl really did look as if she were asleep.
I got out of there fast, leaving a mass of evidence, I imagine.
Which is why I was so amazed when they went after Kip. Everything I told you downstairs, about the two of us making a pact to keep quiet, was a bunch of lies. I never saw him there. He must have come back, found her dead, got rid of everything that would incriminate me, like the pillow I used to smother her. He must have known it was me because I was the only other person with a key to the place.”
She took a sip of pomegranate juice. It was dark red, almost black, the color of dried blood.
“But he would never—ever—talk to me about what happened.When I saw him he said right away he did not want to discuss it. All he did was make me promise that I would never tell anyone. And he said he wouldn’t either. But it was an order from him, not a mutual pact. And then he left and took Sean. We agreed that he would say that I was leaving him but of course it was the other way around. And that was where we left it until Bettina started nosing around. They had no firm evidence that Kip had killed that girl, no witnesses, and both the policeman and the Australian had seen him outside the flat around the time of death.
3 3 0 P
Hope McIntyre
“So,” she said, flashing me a grim smile, “when you told me you knew about Bettina’s meeting with the Australian, I realized it was all over.You knew I went to the flat that night so you were going to be a problem. Just like Bettina, you had to go too far, didn’t you? It’s a shame you had to blow it because up to then I could have let you go. I know Kip didn’t tell you anything. I’ve got the disk of all your transcripts. Quite touching, some of it.”
I stared at Martha. It was she who had taken my disk from the cabin, not Shotgun.
“You know, I always thought I’d get Sean back one day but when Martha told me Bettina had arrived on the
scene I realized things were going to get rough. I remembered what a nightmare she had been the first time she’d tried to do a book with Kip. I knew if she got another chance, she’d dig deep and I couldn’t allow that to happen,” said Angie. “So we hatched a little plan, didn’t we, Martha? When Kip decided to go and bury himself in the back of beyond out on Long Island, Martha was the first person I thought of. She was living in Manhattan, trying to make a go of it on Broadway or some such fantasy. Total waste of time, she was a useless actress. Don’t look at me like that, darling, you were hopeless, you know you were. I told her to stop trying to achieve the impossible and move to the Hamptons to keep an eye on my son for me. We thought about changing her name in case Kip heard about her, but in the end we decided it would be too much aggravation. Martha and I had been friends at school but, although we kept up by phone and letter, we didn’t really get together that often once I was in London. She was never part of my life with Kip. I don’t think he even met her.” She looked at Martha, who shook her head. “I did the right thing, I sent her money.Well, she couldn’t live on what she made from those silly wedding dresses, could she? And she sent me news of Sean as he was growing up, pictures.
How to Marry a Ghost
P
3 3 1
“When Kip called me to tell me Sean was dead he had no idea I was already on Long Island, just down the beach from him in Martha’s trailer. He was calling me on my cell phone and he thought I was still in London. I’m still waiting for that incompetent Detective Morrison to ask me what I was doing in America before Sean’s funeral. He must have learned from Immigration that I was there and he’s asked me a lot of stuff about Kip but he’s never asked me that.”
Because Evan Morrison wouldn’t have wanted you to be the killer whatever evidence he had, I thought. He had been determined to convict Shotgun no matter what. What would he do when he found out Angie was the killer?
If he found out. What was going to happen to me? I knew as much as Bettina and Angie had killed her.Wasn’t that what Shotgun had intimated when he had tried to explain why he no longer wanted me to do his book? He hadn’t named Angie but had he known she was responsible?
And now here I was at Angie’s mercy. Stupidly I didn’t have my cell phone with me. I could visualize it lying on the kitchen table at Blenheim Crescent. Had I mentioned to Max when I was seeing Angie? I didn’t think I had.
“It doesn’t matter if you told anyone you were coming here,”
said Angie with an uncanny insight into my thoughts. “I’m assuming you told that agent of yours. If you suddenly disappear, Martha will be my witness. She’ll tell them she was with me tonight and that you turned up for a while—your prints are all over the place—but that then you left. She’s useful that way, aren’t you, Martha?”
I looked at Martha and I opened my mouth for the first time.
“What happened to you, Martha?” I asked. “You left without saying good-bye, without telling anyone.” Some instinct told me
3 3 2 P
Hope McIntyre
to be gentle with Martha, to pander to her like a child but not in the arrogant, patronizing manner Angie adopted with her.
“Her so-called boyfriend dumped her,” Angie laughed, “so she came running to me.”
“I know,” I said. “Louis. I saw him, Martha.”
Martha’s eyes widened with a pathetic glimmer of hope. “You did?”
“At your trailers. He’d come round to see you but you’d gone.
I found something, Martha. A quiver, buried in the sand. Probably the one that held the arrow that killed Bettina.”
“But I didn’t know it was there,” said Martha, anxiety making her voice rise. “I swear I didn’t. Tell her, Angie.”
“Calm down, for God’s sake. Lee, she had nothing to do with burying that quiver. I killed Bettina.”
“And Sean?” I looked her in the eye for the first time.
“Oh, I didn’t kill Sean,” said Angie. “My own son, are you crazy?” She came over to clasp me roughly by the arm. I pulled away from her in panic and she snapped at Martha, “Don’t just stand there. Help me! I want to put her next door.”
I could see Martha was reluctant, apprehensive even, but she dutifully took hold of my other arm and the two of them propelled me forward. I contemplated trying to struggle free but it was two against one and Angie was surprisingly strong.
They led me out of her bedroom across the narrow landing at the top of the stairs and into what appeared to be nothing more than a small box room. There was no furniture, just bare floorboards. Its message was unmistakable. It was a cell and I was to be the prisoner.
But it was what was lying on the floor in a corner that made me begin to struggle frantically in their arms. A coil of rope—
with the end fashioned into a noose.
With almost superhuman strength, Angie flung me onto the
How to Marry a Ghost
P
3 3 3
floor and before I had time to move she was kneeling over me, holding me down while Martha bound my wrists and ankles.
“I’m not sure whether we can use that here.” Angie had followed my terrified gaze to the noose. “You need a high beam of some kind. But I’ve got to hand all credit to Martha. I got the idea from reading her novel. I found myself getting hooked on that story she wrote. Quite ingenious, I thought, what about you? I told her, didn’t I, Martha? I said, stick to writing. You’re a darn sight better at it than you were at acting.
“But anyway, the noose is an option providing we can find the right place. I’ll be moving you to a different location tomorrow but I’m going to need a few hours’ sleep before I take to the road.”
“Where are we going?” asked Martha.
“Like I’m going to tell you, now, in front of her.” Angie’s tone was contemptuous. “I’m not going to go into any overdramatic details but I think we all know what’s going to happen. But right now I’m exhausted so I’m just going to leave her in here.”
She knotted a scarf around my face and then she pushed Martha out of the room and locked me in.
I lay there listening to the sounds of them moving about the house.Was Martha staying here? My mind was racing with the realization that she had deceived me right from the start. Who knew whether anything she had told me had been true. M saw something.Yet I could not accept that Martha was as deranged as Angie although she was clearly in thrall to her in a way that was very scary. Didn’t I have to take her novel into account? By having me read it, had she not been trying to tell me something? Yet surely she must have known it would be too much of a stretch. I had thought the story was autobiographical in some way but there was no way in which I could have made the leap from those
3 3 4 P
Hope McIntyre
destructive schoolgirls in the book to two crazy menopausal huntresses in the Mallaby woods.
Because I was assuming Angie had involved Martha in Bettina’s murder in some way.
And I was right, as I found out a few hours later in the most unlikely way I would have dreamed—from Martha herself.
I didn’t sleep, not that I expected to for a second, so wound up was I by the events of the evening. I was still awake when they started setting up the market in the early hours before dawn. I could hear the cautious rumbling of the carts of produce being trundled over the cobbled streets of the mews nearby, coming closer and closer. I lay there stiff and aching and wondering what my father would do when he discovered I hadn’t been home for the night. He’d call Cath before he called the police and she might mention it to Richie and he might say something to Max who might guess I’d gone to see Angie. Or he might call Genevieve first but had I told Genevieve when I was seeing Angie? As far as I could remember, I hadn’t said a word to anyone.
And then, over the muffled clattering of the stalls being put up outside, I heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs.
Was this it? Had the time come for me to
be taken away to my fate?
I heard the sound of the key being turned in the lock of my room—slowly, as if the person didn’t want me to hear.
Or didn’t want Angie to hear, as it turned out, because Martha crept into the room and with the help of the moonlight shining through the window I could see she had her finger to her lips. I made a sound through the scarf and she clamped a hand over my face.
“Shhh! Keep absolutely quiet! She’s right across the hall. She’s asleep and the door’s closed but the walls aren’t too thick,” whis-
How to Marry a Ghost
P
3 3 5
pered Martha. “If I untie the scarf, you have to promise to keep your voice down.”
I nodded my head frantically and she released the scarf from my face.
“What about my hands and feet?” I said. “Please, Martha.”
But to my utter astonishment she shook her head. “I came to ask you about Louis,” she said. “I need to know what he told you.
You said he came to find me?”
It was beyond belief. She wasn’t here to help me escape. She just wanted to find out if she still had a chance with Louis. She was a pathetic and pitiful creature but she was, as I realized in a moment of desperate lucidity, my only hope.
So in hushed tones I told her what she wanted to hear, that Louis had regretted what he had said to her and that she would undoubtedly be reunited with him when she returned. And when I sensed that I had her complete trust and attention, I asked her again.
“Martha, please! You have to set me free.”
But she shook her head. “No point,” she said. “You’d never get out of here. I’m as much a prisoner as you are. Don’t you understand? This whole place is boarded on the street side. The only way out is through that steel gate you came through and only Angie has the combination. You can open the windows up here but it’s a sheer drop to the courtyard. I wouldn’t risk it.”
“So why aren’t you tied up too?”
Martha’s answer filled me with dread.
“Because she knows I would never leave her.”
“Martha,” I said as gently as I could, “did you help Angie kill Bettina in any way?”
Bartholomew 02 - How to Marry a Ghost Page 33