Lady Mislaid

by Claire Rayner

  Four times he drove around the town, until every street had been traversed, every shop looked at. And still nothing. Neither of them spoke, but Abigail felt depression settle over them like a tangible thing.

  “This isn’t getting us far,” he said abruptly, pulling up outside a big grocer’s shop in the main square. “Lunch, I think, then we’ll move out of the town for a while–”

  “Lunch?” she said, alarmed. “I’d have to take these glasses off in a restaurant – and even with my hair up, people might–”

  “Wait here,” he commanded, and left the car quickly to disappear into the shop.

  He was gone a long time, so long she began to fret, feeling as though the passers-by who looked casually at her were really recognizing her as that woman suspected of child murder, were hurrying straight to the police with their suspicions–

  Nervously, she moved in her seat, turning her body so that she looked out across the broad roadway instead of at the pavement, keeping her head down. Between the parked cars that filled the centre of the road she could see glimpses of the opposite pavement, but reassured herself with the realization that it was too far away for any foot passenger there to recognize her. And then, she saw him.

  A slight figure in a pale coat – a Burberry, perhaps. One of those military style raincoats, anyway. He wore the collar up, despite the bright sunshine, his sleek dark head poking forwards out of it in rather a tortoise-like fashion. And then she realized he looked like that because he was staring fixedly through the traffic at her.

  She shivered suddenly, and slid even farther down in her seat. The sight of this stranger filed her with a cold fear, yet she felt her eyes pulled up almost against her will, until she looked at the small figure again, there across the square. Why should he frighten her so? Just a man in a raincoat, lounging against a shop window, after all. Why did he seem so menacing?

  Because you know him, her secret voice whispered. He isn’t a stranger. And her need to know overcame her fear, so that she leanded forwards, staring intently at him, trying to force her memory to release another fragment of the puzzle. Behind her, the car door clicked and opened and, starled, she turned her head. Max got in, and turned to put a couple of bulging paper sacks on the rear seat.

  “Sorry to be so long. Sleepy shops in sleepy towns don’t know how to hurry themselves – but I’ve got a reasonable collection for a picnic lunch –” His voice sharpened as he looked at her. “What’s the matter? Have you – remebered something? You look grim–”

  “There’s a man over there,” she said breathlessly. “He – I don’t know who he is, but he – frightens me. Who is he?”

  “Where?”

  She turned again, indicating the other side of the road with a jerk of her head. “There – by that toyshop window–”

  But there was no one there. All she could see now between the serried ranks of parked cars was the shop window, the red, blue and yellow of the toys displayed inside it, the gilt of the lettering on the facia above. But no sign of the man in the pale Burberry.

  “He’s gone –” she said stupidly.

  “Who was he?” Max asked sharply.

  She lost her temper then, and shouted at him. “How the hell do I know? I told you – he frightened me, but I don’t know why. Asking me stupid questions is as much good as telling me to fly to the moon. Or are you trying to catch me out in some fashion? Still not convinced I can’t remember? If that’s all–”

  “Shut up,” he said, and took her shoulders in his impersonal grasp and shook her so that her head snapped from side to side. “We’ll have a little less hysteria, and a little more of that common sense you can display when you try. Now tell me slowly and quietly. What did he look like? And have you any idea why he frightened you?”

  She took a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. But it’s – difficult to be sensible when I’m feeling so frigtened, so lost and–”

  “I know. Forget it. Now, tell me.”

  “He – wasn’t very tall. Thinnish. And dark. He had that sort of polished look some men have. Smooth hair, you know?”

  “Like a hotel manager?”

  She concentrated for a moment, trying to put herself back at the head of the hotel staircase, looking down at the man at the desk. Yes, he’d that sleek shiny patent leather head, the narrow shoulders – her face cleared.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m like a puppy on fireworks night, jumping at every creak in the woodwork. Of course that was it. That man over the road looked like the manager – maybe it was him. And he scared me this morning, nasty smarmy creature that he was–”

  “Are you sure?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You don’t think perhaps it was someone from that lost year of yours? Someone involved in this business with Daniel?” He leaned towards her, and looked very closely at her. “Try something – Abigail. Close your eyes–”

  After a moment, she did, thinking absurdly – he called me by my name. Nice–

  “– and concentrate. He’s there again, and you’re looking at him. By the shop window. Can you see him?”

  She tried, there behind her closed lids, to see the man. She could see the Burberry, the cars on each side, even a woman pushing a pram coming momentarily between the man and the edge of the pavment, just as when she had actually been staring at him. But the face – that was a blank. Just a figure with a tortoise-peering head but no features on it. Yet a feeling of cold fear wrapping round her at the sight of him–

  She must have been shaking, because Max’s arm was across her shoulders, and he was saying, “All right – take it easy. Give up trying, and let it come when it’s ready – and maybe it was the manager, anyway. Forget it, and we’ll go and have some lunch. You need some.

  She leaned back in her seat as he started the car and pulled away from the curb, staring blindly out of the window as they drove out of town, and along gradually narrowing roads into the quite of the countryside. By the time he stopped driving again, she felt better, only the memory of her fear leaving a faint lingering flavour in her mind.

  Max got out of the car, and lugged out the paper sacks of food. “Come on,” he said briefly. “This looks remote enough. And I’m hungry, too.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  There was game paté and a fresh cool cucumber, slices of locally cured ham and richly pink tongue, potato crisps, and juicy tomatoes, and a crusty french loaf, still warm from the baker’s oven. He’d bought a piece of ripe Brie cheese, too, and crisp green apples and a few early cherries. She ate greedily, for she hadn’t realized how hungry she was. And when he produced a bottle of wine, an unusual sparking burgundy with the body of a red wine but the refreshing tingle of a light rosé, the picnic became almost a celebration.

  And the place he’d found for their lunch enhanced the meal. They sat on sheep-cropped grass, with a tiny wooded copse behind them, and a small hill falling away at their feet into a chequered board of neat fields, some showing the tender green of early crops, others with the rich brown of newly turned ploughed furrows over which birds swooped and fought for exposed worms. There were bluebells in the cool wood behind them and the light breeze brought the delicate scent of them over their heads. And there were sounds, too, country sounds, of birds, and distant farm machinery chugging, and far away a train moving across the pretty landscape. It all added up to peace and contentment, making the darkness of Abigail’s fears, the mystery that this morning had seemed so terrifying, somehow irrelevant.

  She lay back contentedly, dropping her empty paper wine cup beside her, and stretched hugely.

  “I could sleep for a week,” she said drowsily. “Sleep and sleep and wake up a year ago with none of this having happened.”

  “I thought you’d enjoyed this lunch.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that–” she sat up and looked at him, and smiled apologetically. “Of course I did. You’ve been – marvellous, really. And I am grate
ful for your help–”

  “All in a day’s work,” he said, sounding suddenly chilly.

  “Of course.” The return to his usual sardonic manner sparked her anger again. “I mustn’t waste your time. You’ve got a story to write, haven’t you?”

  “Eventually. When there’s something to write about. So we’d better get on our way.”

  Immediately she stood up, the magic of the early afternoon peace and sunshine quite gone. In silence they packed up the remains of their picnic, which he buried tidily under the piles of rotten leaves in the copse, and went back to the car. And in silence they started their peregrinations again, moving from village to hamlet, along country lanes and major roads, while Abigail sat erect and tense beside him, staring out at the passing scenery, williing herself to remember – anything at all, but remember.

  The afternoon stretched itself, lengthening the shadows, as cottages and houses, blank fields and walled gardens, woods and little bridged streams disappeared behind their swishing wheels. The roads filled with cars full of mothers and children coming home from school, and emptied again, and still they moved over the landscape, quartering square mile after square mile. Nothing she saw held any promise of memory, no triggers clicked in her mind, no clues at all came out of what she stared at so fixedly.

  They spoke hardly at all. Sometimes at a cross-roads, Max would say, “Left or right?” and she would just shrug and mutter. “I don’t know – I’m sorry,” and they would drive on.

  The sky had washed itself clear of colour, turning a soft blueish grey before, by tacit consent, they made their way back to town. She sat beside him miserably, lost on a new wave of sick anxiety. There seemed no anwer anywhere in this impersonal Cotswold country, no possible reason for her being there. And the despression that filled her made her very bones ache with unhappiness.

  When he stopped the car, in the car park of the hotel, she stirred herself, and said heavily, “It’s no use, is it? I might as well go to the police now, and be done with it. I’m wasting my time.”

  “You give up very easily. We’ve only covered one side of the area so far – the East. Tomorrow we’ll start on the other side. No need to get so low yet.”

  “If you’re so sanguine about the outcome, why have you been so silent and bad tempered all afternoon?” She let her misery spill over into irritation. “You’re obviously regretting ever getting inolved with me–”

  He raised his eyebrows at her, and even in this dim light she could see the familiar scorn on his face. “Have I said I have any regrets? If I was quiet it was because we were doing a job. If I’d filled the afternoon with scintillating chatter, you wouldn’t have been able to concentrate at all. Are you the sort of woman who thinks every minute has to be filled with pointless gossip?”

  “No, I’m not!” she flashed at him. “But I’m – I’m lost and frightened and a little human warmth would go a long way towards helping. Or are you the sort of man who doesn’t know what it is to be warm and friendly?”

  He was quiet for a second, and then spoke in the friendlier voice he sometimes used. “No. I’ve as much awareness as you of the value of friendship, believe me. But I don’t want to – complicate things. I’ve said I’m going to help you sort out this whole lousy problem, and I will. Then, and not before, there’ll be time for – friendship. In the meantime, let me assure you – when I’m quiet, it doesn’t mean I’m bad tempered, or anything other than abstracted. Can you accept that?”

  “Oh – I suppose so. My God, but you’ve got a marvellous trick of putting my at a disadvantage, haven’t you? You make me feel a complete idiot. And whatever I may have forgotten, one thing I do know – I’m not an idiot!”

  He laughed then. “No, you’re not. And you’re standing up to a very nasty situation with a great deal of courage. It’s my turn to apologize. Look, I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll forget all about the whole thing for a few hours, shall we? We’ll go and get ourselves some dinner somewhere, and behave like ordinary civilized peope out for an evening’s entertainment. What do you say?” and he held out his hand.

  She stared at him for a moment, peering at him in the deepening darkness, and then suddenly tired, held out her own hand. “All right. We’ll do just that.” They shook hands solemnly.

  He got out of the car and helped her out, pulling her coat over her shoulders against the chill of the evening air.

  “I’ll go in first. Give me a few minutes, and then follow me. If there’s no hue and cry after you, you’ll be able to go up to your room and freshen up. I’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes or so–”

  She watched him disappear into the lighted building, standing in the shadow of the car for fully five minutes before following him. The lobby was empty, and she slipped up the stairs to her room like a wraith. Even if there was no hue and cry, as Max put it, she felt too drained and weary to want to meet anyone, least of all that unpleasant smarmy manager–

  As she washed and changed, she thought again about the morning, about the man in the light coloured Burberry who had stared at her across the square, but already her memory was blurred. Had that man been the manager, or someone else? And if someone else – who? Why had he seemed so familiar to her?

  Irritably, she shook herself. “We’ll forget about the whole thing for a few hours –” Max had said. And it was good advice. However hard she tried, memory eluded her. Better to try to forget it all, because that way perhaps memory would be lulled, would allow itself to spill through the defences of her amnesia and bring the answers with it. So, she put on the white blouse and the black suit, amused to see how every elegantly they suited her, and brushed her hair out before pinning it up again in its rather severe french twist. No need to court trouble by looking too much like that newspaper photograph.

  There were friendly sounds coming from somewhere as she let herself out of her room, but the corridor was deserted. She stood poised for a moment, and then, moving softly in her high-heeled black shoes, the ones she had found tucked into a pocket of the suitcase, she went to the head of the stairs and looked down into the lobby. She was halfway down the stairs before she noticed them standing just outside the door onto the terrace, and stopped frozen with sudden fear.

  There were two of them, and when she recognized Max’s burly shape she relaxed momentarily – until she heard his voice, slightly raised in answer to the low murmur of something the other man had said – a tall man she had never seen before.

  “Look, inspector, I can explain a good deal. It’s not particuarly–”

  She heard no more in the wave of sheer panic that oversame her. Inspector! A policeman, a policeman looking for her, for the woman of the photograph – and Max had said she mustn’t go to the police for fear of being disbelieved. Yet here he was talking to the police. Handing her over–

  She was so frightened that for a moment she swayed on the edge of a faint, but somehow she managed to keep hold of herself, managed to move silently backwards until she was in the upstairs corridor again, staring round wildly, wanting only one thing – an escape route. Behind her, from the lobby, she heard the men’s voices again, heard them come in from the terrace, and in terror she ran along the corridor, back past her own room.

  She was in luck. There was another staircase there at the far end, a narrow one, probably for the staff, and careless of being seen she fled down it as though all the hounds of hell were after her. At the foot there was a smalll lobby, cluttered with laundry baskets and crates of empty bottles, and beyond them, a door. She seized the handle, and for one sick moment thought it was fastened, that she was trapped, but the key was in the lock, and she turned it with cold shaking fingers, to almost fall through.

  She was in the car park again, near the noisy kitchens, and desperately she ran past them, not caring for the clatter she made as she kicked an empty oil-can by the door, running headlong – anywhere to escape from the men she was quite sure were behind her.

  She came out under the little
archway, and without thinking lurched sideways to go along the pavement. It wasn’t until she was abreast of the brighly lit entrance that she realized she was passing the main door of the hotel, realized that that there on the steps was the Inspector – and wheeled and ran again, across the square, dodging through the few cars that still parked in the centre of it.

  Behind her she heard a shout, and ran harder, not caring where she ran to. There were iron gates in front of her suddenly, open gates, and she ran between them into shadows under trees, running for the shelter of the big building that loomed before her.

  It was the church, she realized as she felt rough stones against her outstretched hands, felt herself checked by the weight of the building before her and she stopped, almost sobbing with breathlessness, leaning her hot cheek against the roughness of a buttress, gulping the cool night air into her painfully tearing lungs.

  After a moment, she lifted her head, and tried to listen, putting all her concentration into her straining ears. Above the thumping of her own pulses she could hear cars, and above them the sounds of footsteps, moving along the pavements of the square, but no more shouts. But were some of the footsteps coming nearer? She couldn’t be sure and although she was still gulping for breath she started to move, pulling herself along the wall, seeking darkness and a hiding place.

  The wall turned, and she saw that she had reached a corner, and that beyond it, the church was flood-lit. No escape that way. She turned then, and began to move back towards the comforting dimness of the churchyard – and then she heard it. There were footsteps, heavy ones, very close, moving alongside the wall she was clinging to.

  She whirled again and plunged forwards into the blackness of the churchyard, so very black in contrast to the flood-lighting behind her. But in that darkness there was a hiding place, somewhere. There had to be.