The puny power of the dead witch-woman had brought this about. He was beleaguered, his work unfinished, his salvation in jeopardy, the last stronghold had fallen with his falling power — the force had got into the house.
For hours there had been a drumming, a relentless noise as of rain pelting on hollow roofs; as it increased in volume he strained to hear — the least sound, the faintest footfall that would indicate approach.
But she came from the borders of magic, the creature who was not-Helen, with the supernatural ability to be where she wished, soundless and insubstantial. His door crashed open as if wrenched from its hinges — yet she stood not on the threshold but some distance from it, at the extreme edge of the gallery. And as she stood there she smiled and put out her hand to him.
Seated in his great carved chair, robed, hooded, he stared at her through the slits of his mask, summoning his will to banish her. The effort was too great, his mind shrieked soundlessly, torn by the strain as through the roar of the rain another sound insinuated itself — a dreadful, tearing sound of something easing itself from the reluctant earth ... The stones were moving on the hill.
He stared up, gasping with terror. But even along the distance of his lamplit room he saw her against the black fall of space beyond the gallery, saw how peacefully still she smiled, still held out her hand to him.
He was driven to her by fear, by the knowledge of the gaunt, crushing monoliths in motion up there beyond the house, but as he made towards her she turned her hand in a dismissing gesture. His perception concentrated by dread he understood at once and, casting away his last pitiful protection, he put aside his cloak and hood.
When he reached the gallery she had vanished. The one high window in the wall was filled, engulfed with the leer of stone. He cowered, searching for her, and found her tall figure down in the hall. Her fatal calm reached out to him with the welcome of her outstretched arm ... She was not Helen, but ...
Had he been betrayed?
When he reached the hall she was nowhere in sight. The house was trembling now before the onslaught of the advancing weight of the stones; the rackety grandeur quivered, the foundations moaned.
She was outside. He heard her call. He heardthe child’s voicecall to him, and as he strained to catch its faint echo he saw her clearlythroughthe obstruction of the great barred front door. She was standing with the rain in her beautiful hair, the rowan trees clustered lovingly about her, calling in the sweet little voice of Helen: Come with me. I will take you where you will be safe. Come with me. Trust me ...
The locks gave to his shaking hands. The effort of dragging open the door sent him lurching out to the porch where he halted, staggered against the wall for support, caught in the paralysis of awe.
There were no rowan trees, there was nothing but stone. Nothing but the huge monoliths, the pressure of their presence enormous in the night, their ancient fissured surfaces streaming, gleaming with wet. Massive as the weight of stones were, the creature stood unharmed in their midst. She, who was not-Helen and yet in whom — fearfully and with anguished longing — he perceived Helen resided, innocent and redeeming, a child beckoning, waiting to guide him through to safety.
She had come at last.
He had not been betrayed.
*
The estate agent, Mr Tiptoe, was a neat little man, alert, nosey — but not inconveniently so: he knew when to leave his clients to their own affairs, when to gossip in comfort; and as he had time on his hands and his curiosity about the property — the Hawthorns — had never been satisfied in twenty-one years, he invited Henry to join him in a cup of tea and discuss it.
‘Dreadful state of neglect,’ he tutted professionally. ‘It never was much, but now ... And there’s talk of it being haunted, even tramps don’t stay there long. I haven’t been in the place myself for years.’
‘You handled the sale? And you can recall the details from all that time ago? You must have a memory like an elephant,’ Henry flattered judiciously.
‘Yes, I am pretty retentive. But that was the first deal I ever handled, I’d just come into the business with father — he’s passed on now, poor old chap — and you never forget your first deal. Besides, the odd ones stay in your mind.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘Well, this man came into the office just out of the blue one morning. He’d seen the “For sale” notice outside the Hawthorns and had a look round the outside. He said he was a writer and he was looking for somewhere very quiet to get on with a book, it seemed just to fit the bill for him but he wanted to take a look at the inside, naturally. Father was out, I had an appointment and so couldn’t go with him. I gave him the keys and off he went. He was back after a couple of hours. I thought he might have changed his mind — the place was pretty primitive — in a reasonable state of repair, but stark, if you follow me: electricity laid on but water from a well. However, these writers and whatnot are a pretty eccentric lot. He asked me the price — it was going for eight-fifty. “Seven-fifty, cash,” he said. And there it was, seven hundred and fifty pounds in twenties, bulging out of an elastic band. That was a fair amount of money then for property in that state — but he had it, and we had what he wanted.’ Mr Tiptoe shook his head musingly, stirring his tea, looking back into the past with conscientious attention to detail.
‘Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. There was the contract to be drawn up by the solicitor and the other legal formalities to be completed. But we could get the business of the contract over and done and signed in twenty-four hours — as he was pressing, and then providing my client and the solicitor agreed there was nothing to stop him taking possession. He was no stranger to money, I could tell by his manner he was a business man — hard, professional — I suppose some writers have to be, to look after their own interests, but I must say I’ve never heard of him, either before or since.’
‘What was his name?’
‘John Brown. Does it mean anything to you — literary-wise?’
Henry shook his head, it meant nothing in any wise. John Brown ... a good, unremarkable, lost-in-a-crowd sort of name.
‘Well, I phoned my client and the solicitor there and then and we settled he could have the keys the following day after signing the contract. And that was what happened. He came back the next afternoon; everything was signed, sealed and delivered — so to speak — in record time. I handed him the keys and off he went.’
‘And that was that.’
‘Almost. Just by chance, though, a couple of weeks later, I discovered I had another set of keys to the Hawthorns and I decided to take them round to him myself, more out of curiosity than anything else, and I had a shock, I can tell you. There were a couple there — man and woman — and they were the most villainous pair I ever set eyes on. Surly, slovenly — and yet with that cheap, nasty sort ofsurface ... If ever there were criminal types — not that I can claim much experience in that direction — those two were prime examples. It’s something you can’t define — well, I don’t need to tell you, you’re a policeman, you’d know if anyone would what I mean. They said they’d been put in charge of the place temporarily by Mr Brown — there was nothing I could say about that, it was his property and he could do as he liked with it, no business of mine.’
‘There was no sign of Brown — or anyone else? Anyone at all?’
‘There was no sign ofanything. What I mean is this: they wouldn’t let me in, I only got a glimpse, but nothing had been done, no carpets, furniture, same old curtains that had been left by the previous tenant; they just seemed to be — camping out, living really rough. Well, I just didn’t feel inclined to hand the keys over to them. Silly, I know, they were already in the place but ... I don’t know, I felt uneasy. I left a message for Brown to call at the office — and they saw me off the premises pretty damn quick.’
‘And did he call?’
‘Yes, a couple of days later. I wasn’t in, my secretary handed over the keys to him and that was that. No
one ever saw him again — to my knowledge. I doubt that he was at the Hawthorns long. As for the other two ...’ Mr Tiptoe shrugged at the vagaries of human behaviour. ‘They disappeared, too. The place was just abandoned, left to rot to the state it’s in now.’
‘This Mr Brown — what address did he give as his own? Can you recall?’
‘Somewhere in London. He said he was staying with a friend and wanted to move out straight away. He wasn’t exactly what you could call communicative, but he did say that — he wanted somewhere very quiet to get on with his work.’
‘Did you check the address?’
Mr Tiptoe looked at a loss. ‘There was no occasion to, everything was settled so simply, even our solicitor acting for both parties — which couldn’t happen nowadays but it was quite legal then. So, under the circumstances ... no.’
All the while he had been listening Henry had been putting the facts together in his mind, by a wild chance he had the opportunity of proving a theory there and then. Asking Mr Tiptoe to wait for a moment, he went out to his car and fetched Max Holme’s book; there was a photograph of Holme on the dust-jacket. ‘Is this anything like the man?’
‘Why, how extraordinary. I’d say it was the man. Yes. Of course, he’d look different now.’
‘He doesn’t look anything now. This was taken at least twenty-one years ago, the book was published posthumously. He was killed in a car crash just before he finished it.’
‘So he was a writer after all. But the name’s different — ah, I see, a pen name. Isn’t lifeextraordinary ...’ Mr Tiptoe’s face glowed with the pleasure of discovery. ‘Just think, to have a mystery cleared up after all these years.’
Only to uncover another mystery. Just what was Holme doing buying property under a false name in this out of the way place?
As if the answer isn’t shouting at me ...
A trickle travelled down Henry’s spine, the cold elation of the hunter at last in sight of the quarry. Max Holme.
He said, ‘There’s another — house — a poor looking place just down the lane from the Hawthorns. That’s empty, too, but it would have been lived in then I suppose.’
‘Mmm, by a pretty poor sort of family, the Lees.’ Mr Tiptoe’s face registered distaste and the embarrassment of the well-heeled forced to acknowledge the condition of the unfortunates of the world. ‘Dreadful sort of existence. He was an uncouth, drunken type, eked a living dealing in scrap, when he wasn’t living on National Assistance. His wife was a cowed — well, slut’s the only word. They were both illiterate. I’m afraid as a source of information you’ll have to write them off. She died quite a while back, he’s been in a mental institution for years. As for the daughter —’
‘Yes, the daughter,’ Henry said carefully.
‘Well, she came and went, used to get jobs living away from home — if you could call it home. Poor girl, I remember her as a child, shabby, underfed little thing; but in spite of that terrible life — debt, drunkenness, violence, she was always smiling, chattering away. Told terrible lies, compensating of course, and who could blame her? Her name was Ethel but she used to call herself Leonora — the way kids do give themselves other names. We all knew her round here, liked her, in spite of the fact that you couldn’t believe a word she said —’
Yes, that’s Leonora, Henry thought. Then he watched neat little Mr Tiptoe’s mouth opening and closing and heard the words coming out and at last he leaned forward, stupidly, finding his voice to question the words that echoed inside his head. ‘What did you say? She what?’
He drove a little way from the town and pulled up in a quiet lane; he had the feeling of being forcibly wrenched from reality yet all the while he was mechanically putting his thoughts in order.
Max Holme. A financier, a man who had clawed his way up from nothing; a man whose complicated business empire would, no doubt, here and there touch the fringe of the criminal; a man whose wealth could buy anything — except Jessica Rayle. He could only love her — if love was the word — hopelessly, protectively, and when Wynter destroyed her ... When Wynter destroyed her he could buy revenge for her: seven hundred and fifty pounds wasn’t much to pay for the pleasure of witnessing a man’s anguish.
Max Holme. From an unassailable position, with the ruthless efficiency that characterised his life, he had reached into the murk of gangsterdom and fished the scum to do his work for him. After establishing the initial contact, risking no more go-betweens, he would work directly; it was quite possible the people he had chosen remained in ignorance of his true identity. He was John Brown, the man who demanded, arranged and paid. They did as they were told. They picked up a child in a quiet village one day (Holme would have taken care to be miles away, in London probably), they carried her off to the place they had been directed, and there they waited. When Holme put in an appearance he would deal with them, the child remaining out of hearing, out of sight, because Henry had no doubt that the original intention was to return her to Wynter — eventually, when he had suffered enough.
But chance intervened. Holmes had been killed in a car crash (possibly, by some ironic turn of fate, on one of his rare journeys to the Hawthorns), and the two left in charge waited for an appointment that was never kept, a pay-off that was never made. Too fearful to retrace the chain of events and discover Holme’s identity — and he had covered his tracks so well it was doubtful they could have succeeded even if they made the attempt — too ignorant to take any independent action (significantly, there had never been the slightest suggestion of ransom), they had realised the trap had closed onthem; degenerate as they were they would give way to panic and ...
And all the time, unknown to them, a shabby little girl with a romantic turn of mind had found her way to the imprisoned child. Somewhere, in that dense hedge, that terrible house, was a space small enough for her to wriggle through undetected: once? twice? to bring company, comfort, to live out the wild fantasies that enriched her poverty. No one would listen to her if she talked and, her experience of adults being what it was, it was unlikely she would talk at all.
It was when he tried to think of Leonora — in the light of what he had learned — his mind came to an impassable barrier. No matter how hard he tried he could not get beyond it; facts gave way to speculation, speculation to that disordered sense that he had been dislocated from the real world. The only thing he could do was make the effort to put her from his mind, erase her, pretend she had never existed. When he did that he saw clearly what he must do. Now that he had discovered Holme’s ownership of the Hawthorns he could not disregard it; he had his suspicions and his duty, he was under an obligation to meet the demands of both. He started the car, drove back to the town and found the police station.
*
It was late when at last he reached his flat. As he walked in the telephone was ringing insistently. He knew it would be Cass; on the long drive he had had time to think over what he would and would not say to her — whatever he told her he could revise later in circumstances as they transpired.
When he picked up the receiver and she spoke her voice had a frayed edge that indicated an over-strung state: ‘Henry — Henry, where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for hours.’
‘I’m here now. What is it?’
‘Oh, I wish you werehere, it’s been awful all day. Henry — Augustus is dead.’
‘Dead ... How?’
‘Crowther found him this morning — on Mark Hill, between the avenue of stones.’
‘Mark Hill ...’
‘There’s got to be a post-mortem or something. And Mandy had to go and identify him. I went with her — moral support, actually as audience to her great dramatic performance; she’s wearingdeep purple, she must have had it all ready. Oh, it’s all been awful. Why aren’t you here?’
‘Mark Hill — what happened to him?’
‘What happened? For heaven’s sake, Henry, don’t start thinking about foul play — what was fouler than last night? God knows what
the temperature was, and the rain pelting — everywhere’s in flood, it’s quite frightening. The bridge over the river’s broken, that must have happened after he crossed it. He was ancient, Henry, how could he survive a night like that, out in the open? But why did he go?’
‘Senile dementia.’
‘Yes, it must have been that, they wander off, don’t they? And he must have been out of his mind of gothere, he was terrified of the place, wild horses wouldn’t drag him there.’
‘Something did. Something urged him to go.’
‘Mmm? What? Yes. One final dramatic act of defiance — the last fatal gesture — I’ve thought of that, it’s the only thing. Can you imagine what the press will make of it — Evelyn’s in a dither. But,Henry, that isn’t all — it’s Leonora.’
He fumbled for his cigarettes, repeating dully, ‘Leonora.’
‘Yes — listen, first, did you find anything?’
‘Nothing. It was a false alarm, nothing. There’s no Leonora Lee up there.’ He held his breath, heard her exasperated groan.
‘Oh, curse, isn’t that typical. But, Henry, she’s gone. She’s just — gone.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since ... well.’
‘Who saw her last? And when?’
‘Me. We went to bed. I took some cocoa — she was sleeping on the sofa in the sitting room. But she wasn’t there this morning and there’s no sign of her anywhere —’
Of course there was no sign of her. How could there be?
‘— I mean, things here have been a bit confused, we haven’t had much time to look — You know what she is for wandering off.’
Yes, I know. Little Mr Tiptoe told me exactly how she had wandered off.
‘Henry — are you there? Are you listening? Leonora’s gone. Say something.’
‘Yes, darling. As you say, things are a bit confused. You’re probably right, she has just — wandered. Have you said anything to anyone about her — Crowther?’
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