She resolutely checked this drift of her thoughts, partly on the grounds of self-esteem and partly because it would be far too easy just to follow Upas’s bike blindly and be left with no idea of the route home.
It was still very dark and it was difficult to pick out the young man’s shape. The tail-light ahead bounced and swayed like a disembodied will-o’-the-wisp and she began to fantasize about being led over moor and fen, through bog and briar to some strange unearthly fate. She had worked too many times in remote and lonely places not to have felt that there were appetites in nature which the mere animal kingdom could not understand; her scepticism in the face of people like Crow was nine-tenths self-reassurance in the face of deep-planted fears.
She snapped the headlights full on and the metalled road and the motor-bike shook their heads reprovingly at her absurdity, saying:
‘We are made by man, we are your servants, trust us and follow.’
Half an hour later, without having met another vehicle on the road, she followed Upas through a gateway between two huge holly bushes and along a curving rough stone drive for a distance of some half a mile. Trees and shrubs huddled close on either side, principally gnarled and postulated beeches in a regular colonade crammed between with blackthorn and mountain ash whose red berries gleamed in the headlights like drops of blood.
Then they rounded the final bend and ahead lay the house. It was just a dark rectangle at first, almost invisible against the hills which rose up beyond it. Only one light could be seen and that was the fitful glow of a fire-lit room on the first floor. But when Upas came to a dramatic halt with whatever was the equivalent in motorcycling of a parallel stop Christiania, lights burgeoned all over the house and before Zeugma had brought the Range Rover to a standstill, the front door had opened, laying a carpet of light invitingly out of the stone porchway on to the drive.
A figure moved into the porch, and came to a halt silhouetted against the doorway, tall and thin; for a moment Zeugma thought it was Pasquino, then smiled ruefully as she climbed out of the Range Rover and saw it was a woman.
Her hair was cut close to the contours of her skull, producing an Egyptian Nefertiti effect, and indeed there was something Arabic about the structure of her face. Her skin was pale but with the ineradicable sallowness which derives from generations of familiarity with an uncompromising sun. She stood almost six foot tall and incredibly thin, the black shirt and slacks she wore giving the merest hint of feminine roundness of breast or buttock. Her eyes were huge and brown almost to blackness and around the narrow wrist of her long left arm she wore seven gold bangles which clinked together with a rich dullness as she now moved forward and extended both hands to Zeugma in greeting.
In the woman, the gesture appeared both graceful and natural, but Zeugma (quickly deciding it would be boorishly stuffy to reply with the conventional Whitethorn firm handshake) felt absurdly histrionic as she reached out her own short well-fleshed arms in reply and allowed the woman to grasp them. Her fingers were smooth and cold. They momentarily explored the work-roughened surfaces of Zeugma’s skin, then turned the hands round so she could look at the palms.
Now she smiled and said something in a foreign language, adding almost immediately, ‘Forgive me. I say you are welcome to this house.’
Her voice was surprisingly rich and deep.
‘Thank you,’ said Zeugma. ‘I am pleased to be here.’
But her recent stay in Egypt had left her with more than a smattering of the language and she was trying to recall a welcome idiom in Arabic which said this cow will live for ever.
She withdrew her hands gently but firmly and looked at Upas enquiringly.
‘I’m being remiss,’ he said with a grin. ‘You two haven’t been introduced and clearly in Britain nothing can go any further till this is seen too. My love, this is Miss Gray. Zeugma, this is Amine. My sister.’
‘How do you do?’ said Zeugma.
‘Welcome,’ said Amine. ‘I am sorry to have to start your evening with a disappointment.’
‘Disappointment?’ echoed Zeugma.
‘Yes,’ said Amine, leading her into the house. ‘I’m afraid that dear Leo will not, after all, be dining with us this evening.’
‘What?’ Zeugma found it was quite beyond her to conceal the depth of her disappointment.
‘Yes, I know. It is a blow,’ said Amine sympathetically.
‘But why?’
‘It is idiotic. Today he and a friend of ours borrowed one of our cars and drove up into the Lothians. Leo had expressed a wish to look at the henge and cairn at Cairnpapple Hill. Do you know it? Unfortunately their car has broken down. They just telephoned half an hour ago. In this part of the world, repairs are difficult enough in working hours, at night almost impossible. Fortunately there is an inn close by where they can stay till morning.’
Zeugma could have wept with disappointment.
‘They can’t be all that far,’ she protested. ‘Couldn’t someone fetch them? I don’t mind going in the Range Rover.’
She made a movement towards the vehicle, but the long cool fingers took her hand once more.
‘No. They are quite far. Fifty, sixty miles perhaps. Almost two hours on these roads in the dark. Perhaps you can stay the night and see Leo tomorrow? But come in here now. After the disappointment I have a surprise. Someone I think you know.’
She opened a door and ushered Zeugma into a long drawing room furnished with rather shabby though still elegant Regency pieces. Sitting in a Herculanium armchair with his back to them was a man.
‘Miss Gray,’ said Amine. ‘May I present to you my brother Malcolm.’
The man rose at the sound of her voice and turned.
‘Hello, Zeugma,’ he said.
And suddenly the sense of familiarity she had felt on meeting Jonathan Upas was explained.
The man being introduced to her now as Malcolm Upas had five years earlier been known to her as Hasan bin Radhauri, her friend and lover.
12
Than the time of these Urnes deposited, or precise Antiquity of these Reliques, nothing of more uncertainty.
Lakenheath found himself whistling nervously as he settled down to his self-imposed vigil. He had chosen the former staff sitting room as his base in the centre, partly because it ran the whole breadth of the old fever hospital and thus had windows overlooking three sides of the quadrangle, and partly because there remained here three or four old easy chairs which the Ministry had not felt were worth carting back with the rest of the equipment.
In this room the scientists and administrative staff had been able to gather for coffee or tea, or a mid-afternoon nap if the pressures got too strong. Here also Julie and her friends had set up house during their stay in the centre. It was here that he had found the bits and pieces they had left behind which had given him so much concern.
He thought about Julie and their relationship. In many ways they were totally different. In himself he recognized the desire for change, for new purposes. Julie, on the other hand had wanted nothing, or nothing that society could give her. Her concern was not with the purposes of life, but with living. He had tried her way for a while, but it had left him unsatisfied. Even in his wanderings he had to have a destination.
But they had been close, fitting together like parts of each other, which made sense of their differences. It had nothing to do with physical attraction. They had made love a couple of times, as it seemed a kind of closeness it would be foolish not to try, but it had not added anything to their relationship. That was simple, natural, containing nothing of demands or desires.
And it was too simple, too natural for Lakenheath not to know, despite the hope he had expressed to Crow, that Julie was dead.
It would have been easy to cry. Instead he opened his briefcase, took out and placed in his pocket a large rubber-covered torch, then unearthed a vacuum flask from which he poured himself a cup of coffee, and settled down to wait.
Two hours later his flask was empty
and he was still waiting; but for what he grew less and less sure. Like the man jumping into the cactus bush, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Whatever had happened to Julie had happened here, or close by – of that he was sure. But Sergeant Fell, exasperated by his insistence, had gone over the whole establishment thoroughly without finding anything significant. Of course, Fell’s attitude had been that he did not expect to find anything which would predispose the search to failure, but Lakenheath knew him as a hardworking and conscientious officer who would do his job honestly. It had been the curious business of Diss that had refocussed his attention here. He smiled as he recalled his shock when this creature of his own imagination had actually appeared. It had seemed the clever thing to observe rather than confront, particularly with Sayer around.
And now Sayer was no longer around.
He reached into his briefcase again and pulled out a flat half of Scotch. The chill was really getting to him now and he took a long pull even though he had promised himself moderation. He had no desire to anaesthetize himself to whatever mysteries this place might hold.
Though perhaps it would not be a bad idea, he thought, looking round the room. This place must hold mysteries other than his own. His eyes had become quite accustomed to the darkness now, but it was still very easy to imagine this room lined with truckle beds on which lay the twisting bodies of fever-racked patients who perhaps in their own delirium had seen the slow moving emaciated figures of that old farmer and his wife as they crawled from one snow-packed window to another, no longer believing that rescuers would ever come.
He found he was whistling again. Diss, now. Concentrate on Diss. No ghost he, though no less puzzling and frightening for that. Perhaps more so. Substance-less fingers of the spirit world could not press down on shotgun triggers.
He must, surmised Lakenheath, have gone through the files in the office, come across the Charnell Bearings file (not difficult; there was precious little else to come across) and decided to assume that identity.
But why?
If he had come along saying he was the development manager of I.C.I., he would have been welcomed with open arms and undergone far less immediate risk of discovery. In addition, there was the mystery of his revelation of another identity to the police. Fell had thanked him politely when he had put the facts of the case in his hands that morning, but had not indicated what action he would take, if indeed any law had been broken.
Absently, Lakenheath took another swig at the whisky. Its warming effects were local and short-lived, he found. Carefully he rose to his feet and limped round the room, blowing into his hands. The luminous dial of his watch told him that Zeugma was probably in the middle of her dinner. He imagined the warm room, the polished table, the steaming tureen, the bottles of wine and sighed in envy. Perhaps it wasn’t like that. Perhaps Upas would only run to a fish supper. Perhaps …
He heard a noise and froze.
It was a metallic scraping noise which for a moment seemed to fill the room.
Slowly, with great self-discipline, he sank down to the floor so that from no angle would his body be outlined against the windows. His ear tried desperately to get a fix on the noise but it was impossible.
He moved his gaze slowly over the room, then rapidly from side to side, hoping to catch any intrusive movement on the off-centre sensitive spot in the retina. But whatever had made the noise was as still as he was. Stiller, for he found that his crouch placed too much strain on his damaged ankle and he had to adjust his position. As he shifted the noise came again and he overbalanced, collapsing noisily to the bare boards. If whatever was in the room with him purposed any physical attack, now was the time. The noise again. He rolled towards it, his mind telling his body to do the unexpected. And again the noise, clearly audible through his own raucous breathing.
This time he pinpointed it.
It came from the radiator.
Slowly he rose, dragging from his pocket the torch. Fortunately its rubber casing had saved it from any damage and the powerful beam stabbed through the darkness like the blade of a friend.
There was nothing there, only a radiator. And then he heard the sound a fifth time.
Someone, somewhere in the centre was doing something to a radiator pipe and the noise was being carried all round the system.
He returned to his briefcase and took from the document pouch a folded sheet of paper which he spread on the floor. It was a plan of the Thirlsike Centre. Being chief officer of N.E.C.D.C. had some advantages. It confirmed what his memory had told him, that the central heating system took in the whole of the complex, not just the hospital. This meant the source of the noise could be in any one of more than twenty rooms. For a second Lakenheath contemplated hammering his heavy-duty working boot against the radiator and giving whoever was at the other end a taste of his own terror. But it would have been a stupid gesture, sacrificing his main advantage, which was surprise. He took one last look at his map and then set out on his tour of exploration.
The hospital was linked to the quadrangle buildings by two covered ways. Lakenheath left by the one nearest the staff sitting room. He moved slowly, with the caution both of the stalker and the invalid. His ankle injury was much improved, but he felt that before the night was out he might find himself needing to use his feet as though nothing had happened and till then it was worth conserving his strength.
The covered way was glass-sided from waist-level up, so he crouched low to make as little silhouette as he could. The feel of the heavy-headed stick in his hand was a comfort to him.
In his other hand he carried a bunch of three keys. Every room in the centre could be opened by one or the other of these masters but to his surprise he didn’t need his keys for the first door. A rule of the place since the ‘hippie invasion’ (Sayer’s term) had been that after any tour of the centre with a development client, all doors, internal and external, must be locked. Sayer and Diss had been the last visitors. Officially.
He thought once more of Sayer’s death. When he had talked with Fell about Diss earlier that day, he had asked about the accident. The blow-out theory was repeated, but he was not convinced. That old car couldn’t have been going fast enough to pose such difficulties of control. Sayer was a good driver, used to driving his own three-and-a-half-litre Rover. A heart attack, perhaps? There had to be a first time.
He put the puzzle out of his mind and carefully tried the first laboratory door. This too was unlocked. He pushed it gently open and entered on all fours. It was uncomfortable and undignified, but the nearest he could manage to the shoulder-charge followed by the flying dive and somersault so favoured by cops and cowboys on the telly screen.
He knew the centre well, knew that this lab, like the others, had been stripped of everything re-usuable and was now merely a litter-strewn barn, but the feeling of vast emptiness he experienced now came as a surprise. At least it was emptiness he felt, he told himself. The radiator sound came again, making him start, but also reassuring him. It sounded fainter here, as though he had moved further from its source, or else the source itself was becoming weaker. Now he felt able to switch on the torch and send its beam prying into the darkness.
Instantly the room assumed its proper proportions. It was quite empty.
He returned to the corridor and made his way to the next door. This he knew led down a flight of steps into the concrete bunker which ran the full length of this side of the quadrangle and off which the four main storage tanks were situated at staggered distances. He felt a vague disinclination to descend beneath ground level. The darkness was bad enough when you knew that the sky and open air were yours at the opening of a window; but the bunker was too tomb-like for his present state of nerves.
Besides, the radiator system did not penetrate down there, so it was not an area which concerned his present investigation.
Relieved, though feeling slightly Jesuitical, he passed on.
Fifteen minutes later he had reached the gatehouse and met with no
success. The sound continued and had begun to fall very sinisterly on his ears, less like something scraping against a radiator pipe and more like a chain being dragged across a stone floor, or sometimes a slab being shifted from a sarcophagus.
Neither of which sounds I have ever heard, he told himself sensibly. But it was a relief to step out of the gatehouse and stand in the cool night air for a few moments before crossing behind the gate and resuming his search on the other side.
He paused a while at the gate itself, peering through the close-set bars. The damp road reflected what little light there was and its faint luminescence hypnotized his eyes and his heart. It led to habitations, to people, to lights. It led to the hotel bar, the friendly greeting, the hand going uninstructed to the whisky bottle. It might even lead to the Scottish chambermaid with the cruel teeth and the wanton walk.
He glanced at his watch and groaned. There were hours yet before he could hope to leave this place. At the very earliest, he couldn’t expect the girl to get here before midnight. And from the look of her she was a good trencher-woman and it might be a damn sight later than that.
There was nothing for it but to carry on.
Re-entering the rectangle of buildings was like crawling back down a tunnel from which you have just escaped. Each successive empty room brought a mixture of relief and increased foreboding. He had not yet had to use his keys. All doors were unlocked.
Which means, he reassured himself jocularly, that at least I am dealing with a human agent.
Something scuttered down the corridor behind him and he whirled round, switching on the torch. Nothing. The vacant beam revealed nothing. Dust and a few dried leaves which some previous visit had permitted to be blown in.
Leaves blowing in the wind terrifying me, he thought. This is yet another job I find I’m not the man for. Frightened of dead leaves?
But what causes the wind that blows the leaves?
He found the answer in the next room. He halted outside as he realized the door was ajar. Hanging from it by a single screw was a nameplate which read Dr Albert Healot. It swung gently as he pushed at the door and the image rose in his mind of Healot himself, choking at the end of the rope he used to end his life.
Beyond the Bone Page 12
