David silently opened the bathroom door, put a finger to his lips, mouthed something and beckoned.
‘Just coming, Angie.’ I moved quietly to David. ‘What?’
He gripped my shoulders and looked into my eyes urgently. ‘Don’t leave this room for any reason or say I’m here,’ he breathed. ‘Understand?’
Only the English language. I had turned back into Robot Rose. I nodded, he turned off the bathroom lights and backed behind the half-closed door.
I went over mechanically and unlocked my door. ‘Come in, Angie ‒ and I’m so sorry.’
‘Bless you, sweetie.’ She laid her cold cheek against mine and kissed the air.
She wore a long black velvet kaftan with silver embroidery round the neck, hem, sleeves and marking the long slits of the deep pockets. She had removed most of her make-up and looked older, and very sad. Either the shock and distress, or whatever Nick had given her, seemed to have sobered her completely. She walked over and sat in one armchair with such studied solemnity that I had the uncharitable impression she was making a stage entrance. She adjusted the skirts of her kaftan with dignity, then folded her hands in her lap and gracefully lowered her dark head. ‘I feel awful intruding on you like this, sweetie, but I couldn’t sleep and saw your lights still on and’ ‒ slowly her great, dark, red-rimmed eyes looked round the room ‒ ‘I thought you’d probably be alone and hoped you wouldn’t mind. Boy friend snoring his head off?’
I sat in the other armchair. ‘He wasn’t snoring when I last saw him. Just quiet.’
She forced a smile. ‘Fabulous party man, isn’t he?’
‘When he gets going.’
‘Such a sweetie. Renny liked him. I could tell. I expect you could, with your husband?’
‘I expect most wives can.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘And widows ‒ remember. It’s all right, sweetie, you don’t have to answer that. I’ve just found it out for myself.’ She paused and breathed as if she had been running. ‘Oh, I know ‒ I know he wasn’t always a perfect sweetie but for God’s sake who expects perfection and wouldn’t one be bloody bored if one got it? But Renny was so ‒ so ‒’ She looked up with eyes filled with tears that could have been genuine. I didn’t think they were, but I realized I could be wrong. ‘Renny was just so human and so sensible and ‒ well ‒ he was always there and so ‒ so ‒ wonderfully reliable. Of course, he was years older than me, but that never mattered and anyway if you’ve had any experience of men ‒ you have and I have ‒ my God, young men are so demanding! So selfish! All they care about is themselves! You take my advice, sweetie ‒ find yourself an older man. Much better be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave ‒ I remember my first! He was such a sod! I just couldn’t believe my luck when I married Renny ‒ and now’ ‒ she sighed tragically ‒ ‘now I can’t believe it’s all over.’
I didn’t say much as she needed a listener, just as Francis this morning. Only with her I found listening more exhausting than painful. The more she talked, the sadder I grew for Renny.
She talked and talked: of their marriage; of Renny’s first marriage; of his twins; his friendship with Johnnie. On and on. ‘Poor old Johnnie is absolutely knocked out by this. Renny was his best and oldest friend. Everyone’s knocked out. We were having such a fabulous party ‒ we’ve always had a fabulous time at Harbour and those two did so love fighting their war again. God, sweetie, I feel such a bitch now ‒ the times I’ve said, yawn ‒ yawn ‒ not back to that damned desert. And now’ ‒ she smiled a sad little smile ‒ ‘do you know what I’ve just been doing?’
I shook my head. I was so tired, I was having a full-time job trying to keep awake. ‘Tell me.’
‘I’ve ‒ most people would think me crazy but you won’t ‒ I’ve actually been sitting looking at his tatty old war souvenirs. His toys he called them. Men are such little boys. He took them with him everywhere. I knew you wouldn’t mind my showing you and I had to show someone.’ She drew from one of her pockets an old tarnished cap badge. ‘Tank Corps. He wore that at Alamein.’ She put it away and produced a small bit of dark twisted metal. ‘Shrapnel. He always said this should have killed him in forty-three. Imagine?’ I nodded. ‘It got stuck in the silver cigarette case he always kept in the left-hand breast pocket of his battledress jacket.’ She put away the shrapnel. ‘This was his most beloved toy.’ She took a much larger and darker metal object from her capacious pocket and suddenly I was wide awake. She stroked the revolver lovingly. ‘It’s a Luger. Did you know?’
‘No. I’ve heard of them. I wouldn’t recognize one.’
She sighed, lost in memories. ‘Renny said he took it off a dead German officer. He wouldn’t go anywhere without it. Even brought it along on our honeymoon. He called it his lucky mascot. Poor sweetie.’ She pointed the gun at me and smiled gently. ‘It’s all right, Rose. Renny never kept any guns loaded. I’ll show you.’ She turned the gun towards the beds, cocked it, released the safety catch and pulled the trigger. It clicked harmlessly. ‘See?’ Her smile widened as she swung the gun back at me. And suddenly her smile terrified me. ‘Quite safe.’ Again she pulled the trigger harmlessly. ‘What did I say? I’ll just put the safety catch back on.’ She dropped her left hand over the gun without altering its direction and seemed to pull back the working parts. There was another, rather different and much fainter click. I assumed it was made by the safety catch falling back into place and was about to breathe out mentally and physically. I didn’t remember doing either.
David had streaked from the bathroom and pulled the Luger out of her hands before we knew he was there. He held the gun out in front of her and broke it open. ‘You want to be careful with these things, Angie,’ he said very deliberately. ‘You obviously didn’t know this but, as you can now see, there are a couple of magazines left in this butt. If you had just pulled this trigger for fun again, as the gun was aimed straight at Rose, from where you are sitting you would have shot her through the heart. I know that would have upset you very much ‒ and it would have upset me very much.’
She had clasped her face and was gazing at him in horror. She did the only intelligent thing. She went straight into acute hysterics. ‘Leave her, Rose, and get Nick.’ David pushed the Luger into one of his pockets. ‘Tell him why. Exactly.’
I didn’t hesitate though my legs felt weaker than on my first day up after flu. Nor did Nick after my terse explanation. He seized a dressing-gown and his medical bag but didn’t bother with slippers. ‘I guess she’s too overwrought and what with all she’s had tonight she just does not know what she is doing,’ he said over and over.
In an icy, authoritative voice I had never heard David use before, he cut Nick short. ‘Take her back with you, Nick, and don’t leave her alone again tonight. If she’s not responsible for her actions, then you are. Deal with her.’ He ushered them out, closed and locked my door, pulled me into his arms and held me very tightly. Neither of us said anything until I stopped shaking. ‘David. I ‒ I honestly think she wanted to kill me.’
‘I know she did.’
I jerked back my face from his to look at him. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know for sure. I’ll tell you this, Rose. By Christ, I’m bloody finding out and bloody fast.’
I had seen him look angry before but never as angry as this. He looked ready to murder.
‘You can’t do more tonight.’ I kissed his mouth. ‘Come to bed, David.’
Chapter Ten
I hadn’t been asleep long when I woke suddenly. I could think of more than a few reasons for that, but I couldn’t hear one. Not at first. David was a quiet sleeper, there was no wind, not even a breeze, the inn was as silent as the tomb it had become for Renny, and the sea was lazily roaring as it dragged out the pebbles. I must’ve slept longer than I thought for the tide to be going out. It had been high water when we were in the nethouse.
I freed an arm, flicked on David’s lighter, looked at both our watches on my bedside table and knew what had woken
me. Only ten to three. The tide wasn’t going out, it was coming in. It wouldn’t be high for about fifty minutes. Life might be full of little surprises, like a woman I’d never set eyes upon until three evenings ago attempting to murder me tonight; Francis getting his sums right about Sue ‒ and myself; fancy man’s apparent fixation with David’s room and ‒ if only in my mind ‒ determination to destroy all traces of that rug for a reason I still couldn’t fathom; or my now gladly sharing a bed with a man I had thought out of my life and 12,000 miles away when I arrived at Harbour, but there were no surprises about the times of the tides. If the sea now sounded as if it were going out there was something wrong with either my hearing or the sea. I raised my head, and listened intently. It was the sea. Something about it sounded as wrong as something Sue had said in that telephone call.
What had she said? And it was then that, with the crystal clarity that can come to the mind in the small hours, I realized what had been worrying me was not anything she said, but the way she sounded. My subconscious had given me the pointer when I told David I’d never heard her in such a state. That was it. Literally, I’d never heard Sue’s drawl sound so affected, her whine so petulant ‒ in fact, all her vocal mannerisms so accentuated ‒ as accentuated as mine when my voice had come out of Angie’s mouth at the party … My God! I must be crazy! Of course it had been Sue. Francis had said that Sue said at breakfast she was going to ring me ‒ Sue always had rung when she wanted to bleat ‒ and she’d rung from Astead crossroads when Angie had been with the shooting party three miles south of Lymchurch. Lymchurch itself was twelve cross-marsh miles from Astead crossroads ‒ and I was stark raving mad!
David wasn’t mad and he thought Angie had wanted to kill me.
My shivers penetrated his sleep. ‘What’s up, love?’ he muttered tenderly. ‘Nightmare or just cold?’
‘Just thinking. The sea woke me. It sounds odd. Listen.’ He lifted his head. ‘Sounds just like the sea to me. Wonderful thing, nature, but not so wonderful as you. How do you manage to be so gloriously devoid of bones? Mmmmm?’
‘Just a minute.’ I held back his face. ‘Sorry I woke you but as you are awake I’d like to take a look from the marsh window. Just for a minute. I won’t put on the light. I’ve been awake long enough to see my way without.’ I disentangled myself, got out of bed, dived about for my kaftan and found it on the floor. I pulled it on. ‘I must see what the sea’s doing as it sounds wrong.’
He groaned, raised himself higher and flicked on the lighter to see the time. ‘Lofthouse, you’re a failure. Not just slipping,’ he announced sadly, ‘but bloody washed-up. Took you nearly three years to get her into bed and inside of an hour she’s up and off. Prefers looking at the sea. Nothing for you but booze and nicotine. Mind if I smoke in bed, Rose?’
‘Not if you don’t set the bed alight.’
‘What matter if I do?’
‘Stop griping. I’m only being a good citizen.’
‘Huh! “Can’t do more tonight,” you said. “Come to bed,” you said. You didn’t say anything about getting up to bung your thumb in the sea wall. Warn me before you open the window ‒ nasty dangerous stuff, fresh air. And don’t fall out. I don’t fancy having to explain to the coroner why I bedded you with a loaded Luger under me pillow.’
‘I didn’t know you’d put it there.’
‘A failure,’ he mused, lighting up, ‘but perhaps not a total failure.’
I turned at the window to smile at him in the darkness. ‘We’ll have to agree to differ on both counts. You kipper your lungs a few more moments. I can see pretty well through the glass as the curtains are open’ ‒ I faced the window ‒ ‘and thank God you do. I can’t bear sleeping with them shut.’
‘You mean you actually sleep at night?’
‘Belt up! We sea-watchers need to concentrate.’
‘Bet you can’t even see it in this dark.’
‘I can.’
That was true. Dawn was still hours off, but the night outside was lighter than earlier as the clouds were higher, thinner, and had just sufficient movement to let through occasional slivers of light from the weak youngish moon and the isolated patches of stars. The marsh was a black quilt ruched with the faintly lighter shadows of the dyke rushes, edged by the low, solid, darker curving shadow of the wall, and the flat unbroken black sea beyond. A sluggish, waveless sea that had a very heavy smell from the way it was still dragging down the pebbles. ‘Fresh air coming.’
‘Sadist.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and covered his head, so he didn’t see my hand suddenly freeze on the unreleased latch. I pressed my face against the glass and lost interest in the sea. I was no longer at all sure it was what had woken me, but I wanted to be sure before I said anything. That took a few moments as the shadows up against the inn were so dark. Then the the particular shadow that had caught my attention a few yards down on my right moved again. None of the other shadows were moving because the air was so still, and none looked like anything but shadows. The one I was watching had a just discernible form. Then it moved again and I was sure. It was a man and either a stout man or one in a very bulky jacket, with a cap on his head but no boots on his feet. He was moving too lightly.
‘David, I think he’s back,’ I whispered urgently. ‘Put on your glasses and come quick.’
‘All I bloody needed,’ he muttered, but joined me. ‘Where?’
‘Right below us and moving towards that corner of the yard. I picked him up under your window. See? That sort of slow ripple in the shadows against this wall?’
He peered and shook his head. ‘No. My night vision’s lousy. Sure?’
‘Positive. He’s going round into the yard.’
I slid over to a yard window. He hitched up his enveloping eiderdown and I thought had followed. Instead he was getting dressed at the double. ‘Going after him?’
‘Or has he vanished?’
The coachlights were out and the buildings on either side cast deeper shadows over the flags and those against the walls were black. Again it was the movement that was the giveaway. ‘No. He’s moving up against this wall towards the kitchen end.’ David was pulling on another sweater. ‘I’d like to believe he’s an honest-to-God burglar. I can’t. Must be fancy man. Why? Rug?’
‘Not knowing can’t say. Think I should ask him?’
‘I think you should go down, wake Harry, and ring the cops.’
‘They’d be dead chuffed to be hauled out miles at this hour for a bloke merely lingering with or without intent who’ll have vanished before they get here. Where’s he now?’
‘Still by the kitchen ‒ no ‒ he’s going over ‒’ David was beside me before the shadowy figure streaking lightly over the yard disappeared into the blackness against the garage doors. ‘Maybe he’s just a car thief ‒ yes ‒ he’s moving along the garages. He must be after Renny’s Rolls ‒ no ‒ moved on ‒ blimey!’ I seized his arm. ‘My garage.’
He said mildly, ‘Yep. Must fancy Allegros. I must ask him that ‒ let go, love ‒’
‘No! Wait. He’s going to break in ‒’ I broke off as the figure opposite stepped a little back and for once was out of the shadows. I saw clearly his back and his hand moving into a pocket. He seemed to drop something small. I didn’t see it fall or hear any clink, but it apparently sounded like a thunderclap to him. His head jerked over his shoulder and his face jerked up to look at the upper windows of the inn just as a sliver of moonlight broke through. The next moment it had gone, the man was flattened in the shadows, and I felt as if I’d been flattened by a bulldozer. ‘David! Did ‒ did ‒ you?’
‘Yep. Even with my eyes. Figures.’
He made for the door.
I shook my head incredulously. ‘It doesn’t. It’s ‒ plain crazy ‒’
‘Nothing crazy about this. Smart operator. In, yet?’
‘I just don’t ‒ yes ‒ going in ‒ but you mustn’t ‒’
‘Waste more time. Stick there. When you see me below, if he’s still
inside, open and shut a window. If he’s moved off, do nowt. Stay put, lock this door and guard that rug. If you’re right,’ he added tersely, ‘Gordon could need it.’ He was gone.
I didn’t waste any more time. I watched my garage door as I backed for a sweater, slacks and socks. I was dressed when David’s sturdy outline emerged from the side door beyond the telephone alcove. I opened and closed a window silently. He raised one arm in acknowledgement. I didn’t wait to watch him cross the yard. I hadn’t to wait long for him to appear; just long enough for everything that had happened since I came to Harbour to flick through my mind like a speeded-up film. That most of the frames still made no sense was, I suspected, as I either had them in the wrong order or was looking at them from the wrong angle. What made frightening sense was the thought that a murderer who had killed twice wouldn’t be too fussy over the third.
I hauled out the near-dry rug, rolled it, stuck it under one arm and the Luger in my slacks pocket. The gun was hideously uncomfortable but I preferred that to the thought of leaving it behind. I had a final quick check out of the window. David had disappeared.
The silence was throttling when I tore down the passage and stairs. I heard Harry’s snores before I opened the unlocked office door. I went in and closed it before I switched on the light and he sat up with a snort, blinking angrily.
‘Harry, we’ve just seen a man breaking into my garage. David’s gone over, I’m following.’ I dumped the rug on his bed. ‘Keep this safe ‒ give it only to the police or me ‒ and if anything goes wrong tell the police and Walt Ames we both recognized the man. His name’s Francis Denver.’
In answer he grunted and glared at me. Walt said he was all right which meant Walt trusted him. I trusted Walt. I hoped to God we were both right and turned off the light before I let myself out. I heard his curses as he stumbled for the switch, and paused on one foot to peer through a hall window but saw nothing but the empty yard. I raced on down the residents’ corridor and out through the closed, unlocked side door.
Marsh Blood (The Endel Mysteries Book 2) Page 15