But there ahead was another set of traffic lights just turning green and as she came up to them she saw the car with the twisted fender draw away, gather speed and then turn left. And she followed.
They reached a big complex of roads, a roundabout heralded by a confusion of blue and yellow signs, and she thought – Chiswick Flyover – not far now – and was jolted as she realized she knew the house was less than half-an-hour away now. Kensington! crowed the little voice, It’s in Kensington remember?
If you say so, she told it. If you remember it it’s the same as me remembering it, because all you are is another part of me – and then she giggled aloud. I must be tired, to behave in so schizophrenic-a-fashion, talking to my voices. I’ll be thinking I’m Joan of Arc – or is that paranoia? Hell, I don’t know.
She followed the other car round the curl of the roundabout, up the steep little exit road signed ‘Central London’ and realized she would find it much harder now to keep him in sight. The traffic had thickened noticeably, clotting into groups of private cars as well as trucks, with well-lit lumbering red buses careering serenly along on the crown of the road, cutting off her forward vision almost completely.
“What you need for a quick getaway is our motor-oil –” read the advertisement on the rear of the bus behind which she was dodging irritably. What I need is a quick get-away period – she told it, and as it drew in to a stopping place slid past.
She could just see the car she was following, and even as she spotted it turning right, the rear lights winked out. Almost surprised, she realized that dawn had arrived, a grey dawn that held a faint rosiness in it, lighting the sky above the jagged edges of the rooftops with a promise of sunshine to come.
They were away from the heavy traffic now, in roads lined with tall narrow houses, and curbs tighty edged with parked cars. Colour had arrived with the dawn, and she could see winking yellow daffodils in window boxes, the fat blue-and-white spears of hyacinths, the tender young green of plane trees, and her heart lifted a little in spite of her fatigue. Whatever happens to individuals, life goes on, she told herself philosophically. If we’re all dead and forgotten this time tomorrow, those hyacinths will still be lacing the air with their scent–
The car ahead slowed down, and automatically she slid her foot onto the clutch, dropping back a little. It turned right yet again, and slowly, with a new surge of fear in her belly she followed.
They were in a broad square, lined with tall houses with heavy porticoes in front of them and the delicate iron fretwork of balconies above, frowning down on a central railing-enclosed green patch.
Still there were the ubiquitous parked cars, and as she slid the nose of the estate car into the centre of the road, the quarry could be seen backing into an empty space on the garden side.
Moving with a smoothness that amazed her, she stopped the car, put it into reverse, and curled back round the corner, and then chose first gear again, and went across the right hand entry to the square, and round it, so that she traversed three sides of it before coming again into the side where the car with the twisted fender had parked.
There was a space – a very small one – on the corner on the garden side, and she inched the car into it, and turned off the engine. And as she did, she saw him.
He was crossng the road, unbuttoning his raincoat as he went, and as he pushed between two cars, he pulled it off, tossing it over one arm. He crossed the pavement purposefully, and and ran up the steps of a house painted in white, which made it stand out from its neighbours, disappearing into the shadows of the portico which overhung the front door.
I’m glad I chose white paint, Abigail thought, and was jolted again by her capricious memory. She could see herself talking to a man in blue overalls, hear her own voice. “I know white gets dirty quickly in London, but it would look so fresh and hopeful, wouldn’t it?” and he had ginned and said, “All right, lady. It’s your money–”
Stiffly, she got out of the car, and tried to straighten her clothes as she stood beside it, grimacing ruefully as she saw for the first time how she looked. The black skirt and jacket were more than horribly creased; they were smeared with mud and grass stains. Her stockings were torn and her skin grazed and crusted with dried blood from scratches, and her shoes, those elegant high heeled black shoes, would never look decent again, however carefully they were cleaned. God knows what my face and hair look like, she thought, and with a suddden gesture pulled the few remaining hair pins from the back of her head, so that her hair swung into its usual swathes on each side of her face.
Almost on tiptoe, she moved along the pavement, with the parked cars between her and the road until she was opposite the white painted house. And then she shrank back against the glossy black railings, and stared hard at the front of it.
The windows looked blank, drawn curtains at all of them, and she could see the heavy closed door in its shadowed porch. There was no sign of sign of life at all, and as she leaned on the hardness of the railings, her thoughts became woolly again.
Now what do I do? she asked herself. Wait here? Or go in? And if I go in, what then?
Don’t ask me, came the little voice in prompt reply. Don’t ask me–
And then she saw it. High up, at the top level of windows, just beneath the steep pitch of the black soot-encrusted roof, there was a small window, curtained like all the others. And it was there she saw movement. The curtain trembled, slid to one side, and even as she stared a white blur appeared in the black gap left by the movement of the curtain. A face – a small face. It peered out, and then, as abruptly as it had appeared, was gone, the curtain sliding back into place.
“Danny!” she said it aloud, staring up at the window with straining eyes, but there was no more movement, none at all.
That does it, she thought. That definitely does it. Danny’s in there, and that man has gone in too. Unless I stop him he’ll do something to the child, and I’m not going to stand out here like a useless piece of furniture and let him get away with it. I’m going in.
And lifting her head, she limped across the square, between the cars, and climbed the steps of the house. And without looking for it, reached for the bell pull she knew was at the right hand side, while she stared at the blue and red stained glass set into the heavy door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She heard the bell pealing hoarsely, a long way inside the house, and shivered a little. I don’t know what I’m going to say to whoever answers – but here I am, and here I stay, no turning back now.
There was a long pause, and she rang again, and as the peal died away, she heard it. Shuffling footsteps, coming nearer. Through the stained glass inserts in the door she could see a distorted shadow coming closer, and her heart thudded thickly in her chest. The shadow stopped just on the other side of the door, but made no attempt to open it, and again Abigail pulled on the doorbell.
And, this time, there were sounds as the door fastening was fumbled with on the other side, and slowly the door opened a small fraction.
It opened very slowly indeed, and Abigail leaned forward and pushed on it. Through the crack that showed at the side, a pale blur appeared, became a face. A woman’s face.
“Who is it? Who’s there?” the woman said in a sibilant whisper, and irritably, Abigail pushed on the door again,with a show of courage she was far from feeling.
“It’s me – Abigail,” she said, and then the door opened widely, and she was inside.
A woman in a dull green dressing gown, with the collar pulled up and held about her scrawny neck with defensive hands stood staring at her with her mouth open. And as she looked at the thin face, petulant under its untidy brown hair, Abigail remembered.
“Cecily,” she said. “Cecily. It’s only me – Abigail. Don’t look like that–”
“Abigail?” the woman said, stupidly. “Abigail?”
“Yes,” Abigail said, gently, for the woman looked dumbfounded. “Don’t be frightened, Cecily, I’m all right. He didn’t ki
ll me any more than he killed Danny – though he tried hard enough–”
And after a moment in which she went on staring at Abigail with a sort of imbecile amazement, the woman hurled herself at the girl, threw her arms round her and burst into tears.
“Oh. Thank God you’re safe – Thank God – I thought–”
Gently, Abigail disentangled herself, and pushed the other woman away. “Come and sit down, Cecily,” she said, and obediently, Cecily sank down on the heavy mahogany seat under the hall stand.
Abigail lifted her head and looked around her, and felt a deep sense of familiarity as she did so. A narrow hall, floored in squares of black and white. Heavy dark red wallpaper, thickly covered with pictures so dark with ancient varnish the subjects couldn’t be seen. Heavy oak doors lining the hallway, and a flight of red carpeted stairs going upwards into a gloom lit with patches of blue and red light from the front door. This is the house, she thought drearily. This is the house.
Then she turned back to Cecily, sitting hunched up on the hall settle staring up at her with a look of bemused anxiety on her lined face.
“Where is he – the man I followed here?”
“The man you followed here?” Cecily said sharply, her face showing a sudden surprise.
“I haven’t time now to explain properly,” Abigail said wearily. “But my memory’s gone all – peculiar. I know I know him but I don’t know who he is. I just followed him here – and I saw him come into the house. Where is he? And where’s Danny? It was his face I saw at the window wasn’t it?”
Cecily stared at her again, and then said, almost wonderingly, “But there’s no one here but me and Danny – no man – who was it?”
“I told you – I don’t know,” Abigail said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I followed him here, and he came into the house – I saw him.”
Fear sprang up in the other woman’s face, and she got to her feet, poised as for flight. “I heard on one come in, Abigail – oh God, has he come back? Is he here in the house, and I didn’t hear him come in?”
“I don’t know,” Abigail said again. “Listen, Cecily – was it Danny I saw at the window upstairs?”
The other woman nodded. “I hid him – he got here in the small hours – he said he’d got a lift in a truck, and I hid him upstairs – in case Miles came back and found him – I’m so frightened of him, Abby, so frightened.
“That’s why I didn’t date tell the police what really happened here that night, in case Miles tried to kill me too, when the police had gone away–”
“He – Miles, was here that night?” Abigail stared at her, her head spinning with shock. “Not abroad? I had the idea that he’d had to be sent for from abroad – afterwards–”
“Don’t you remember?” Cecil peered at her in the dim red and blue light, her face ludicrously banded with the reflected colours. “Don’t your remember? I came to your room, and I told you – I’d seen Miles come in, and heard him with Danny – and I was frightened for Danny, so I came and told you and you went down to see –” tears began to trickle down her face, “and you went down – and then Miles hurt you too –” and she began to weep helplessly.
Abigail stared at her, and then leaned forwards and took her shoulders and shook her. “But what happened afterwards? What? You’ve got to tell me.”
Cecily shook her head, and gulped sickeningly. “I don’t know,” she said piteously. “I don’t know. I was – so frightened. I – hid in my room, all night, and in the morning, it was all quiet – and I came down, and you were gone, you and Danny – and the drawing room was all – and then Miles came in the front door, and said he’d just come back from France, and I didn’t dare say I knew he’d been here the night before – I didn’t dare – I thought he’d – killed both of you, and then got rid of your – your bodies. And he called the police and I didn’t tell them what really happened – I didn’t dare, Abby. You know I’m a frightened woman – I just couldn’t tell them – Abby, don’t hate me for being frightened!”
And even though she kept her voice to a whisper, there was a thick layer of hysteria in Cecily, a tenseness that Abigail could feel like a tangible thing. She stared at the dressing gowned shape, at the haggard weak face, and a brief disgusting anger rose in her, giving her new strength. Frightened as she was herself, weak as she was herself, she still wasn’t as useless as this trembling weeping piece of humanity.
“I’m not angry – but we can’t waste time. Miles is in this house somewhere. He can’t have heard us, or surely he’d be here by now? The doorbell though, maybe–”
“The milkman usually rings at about this time –” Cecily said.
“Thank God for that – he must have thought – look, Cecily, we’ve got to get Danny out of here, fast, and to the police where we’ll be safe, before Miles gets at him – where is he?”
“Miles?” Cecily said stupidly.
Abigail could have hit her. “No – Danny!” And then a sudden thought stopped her. “Cecily – what does Miles look like?”
Cecily had started to move towards the stairs, but at this she turned and stared. “Look like? Your own husband? Why ask that?”
“Because I can’t remember him,” Abigail said with a spurt of anger. And then added wearily, “Oh, forget it, it doesn’t matter. There isn’t time now. I just don’t know who that man was I followed here. But it must be Miles. I did recognize him, I suppose – in a way.”
She began to follow Cecily who had turned again to the stairs, and then said suddenly, as another though hit her, “Look, Cecily – who is M”
“M? What do you mean?”
“A note Danny wrote – he mentioned an M.”
“Well – Miles I suppose – oh, Abigail –” Cecily turned back from the bottom step. “Abby – is he really in the house? I’m so frightened, Abby. I’ve locked myself in ever since it happened. I only let the police in – and I couldn’t tell them about it in case Miles came back again–”
“But you said he had come back –” Abigail said, her head swimming as she tried to sort out the sequence of events, tried to make what Cecily was saying fit in with her scraps of memory.
“Oh he did – but after the police had finished and all, he went away again. He told the police he was going to find his boy and find you, and just went, and I’ve been so afraid he’d come back. That’s why I locked myself in, why I was so scared when Danny let himself in last night. I heard the key, and thought it was Miles, but it was just Danny, so I hid him, and locked us in again – and oh, I should have told the police, I know I should but couldn’t. I told you, Abby – I’m–”
“I know,” Anigail said tartly. “I know. You’re a frightened woman. Look, we’ve got to get Danny out of here. We can’t talk any more now – Miles is here in this house somewhere and we’ve all three of us got to get out – where’s Danny – ?”
Heavily Cecily began to climb the stairs, and Abigail followed her. As they moved upwards, creeping, Cecily whispered over her shoulder. “I put him in the attic – in case Miles came back and looked in his bedroom. I knew Miles must know he wasn’t dead, you see – once Danny came here last night, it all made sense. Miles must have known he was alive still and gone to find him to – to kill him properly–”
“But why didn’t you call the police then when Danny came back?” Abigail hissed at her. “You had enough proof to get their protection, for God’s sake!”
“I was frightened,” Cecily said, with a sort of dreary persistence. “I was frightened–”
The first landing was dark and smelled heavily of polish and dust, and as they passed one of the dark closed doors Abigail thought with a start – that’s my bedroom. But they went past, to a second flight of stairs, linoleum covered this time, not carpeted.
There was yet another flight of stairs to go up, and as they reached the second landing, Abigail stopped for breath, for complete exhaustion was hovering very close now. And thought she heard something. A scratching sound.
“Abigail – what was it?” Cecily hissed, and Abigail could feel her trembling under her hand.
“I don’t know – whatever it was, it’s stopped now. Come on – where is he?”
“The far attic,” whispered Cecily, and clung to Abigail’s hand with a dry chill grasp as they moved on and up the stairs.
It was very dark on the landing, and Abigail fell back as Cecily fumbled with one of the doors. Then, she pushed it open, and looked over her shoulder at Abigail.
Eagerly, Abigail pushed forwards, and hurried past her into the room beyond, a room filled with the thin yellow light of early morning sunshine.
"Danny? Danny? –” she said breathlessly – and then whirled. For the door slammed shut behind her, and she heard the rattle of the tumblers as the key was turned in the lock. Furiously she hurled herself at the door, and shouted –”Cecily! What the hell are you doing? Cecily–”
“You bloody little idiot!” Cecily’s voice came shrilly from beyond the door. “You bloody little fool. Letting him lead you back here like a lamb to slaughter. If you’d had the sense to keep away, you’d be alive, you hear me? This way you’re dead, dead, dead, dead –” and she laughed again, sick and shrill.
“Shut up, Cissie!” At the sound of the deep note of a man’s voice, Abigail stopped banging on the door, stopped shaking on the handle, and listened, frozen with shock.
“Shup up,” the man said again, his voice a little muffled by the heavy door. “Crowing like some farmyard hen isn’t going to help one bit–”
But Cecily only laughed again, and the door rattled as she did. She was banging on it with a sort of triumphant drum-beat, Abigail realized.
“But I’m enjoying myself,” she cried. “Enjoying myself,you hear me, Madam High and Mighty Jumped-Up Abigail. Thought you’d rob me, did you, rob me of my rights in that boy. Thought you’d get him to love a stepmother more than his own aunt, his own flesh and blood? Thought you’d get his money for yourself, did you? Not enough for you to get a wedding ring, was it. Had to have it all, didn’t you? Well, you’ve got it all, Madam Stupid, you’ve got it all – and much good may it do you – you hear me? Much good may–”
Lady Mislaid Page 8
