‘Did your daughter — Dulcie — tell you Joey was Bella’s father?’ I stared at her blank face. ‘Did she, Flora?’
‘Well… she’d know, wouldn’t she!’
But you couldn’t be sure with Dulcie. I didn’t say so. But if it were true it would explain the strange relationship between Flora and Edith Payne. They would both be grandparents of the same child.
‘But Joey went away,’ I reminded her softly.
‘Oh yes. With my Dulcie.’
‘I’d have thought they’d have taken their child with them. Bella,’ I explained.
‘Well… they didn’t.’
‘And what became of Joey?’ I knew what had become of Dulcie. And damn it there was a smell of burning. I reached over to feel the edge of the bedcover. Hot, but not singeing.
‘Oh — he kept in touch,’ she said negligently. ‘You ought to ask Edith.’
‘But she’d have told you.’
‘Yes.’
‘So... what did become of him?’
‘He got himself into this telly business. So Edith said. O’ course, she was lying. Stuck-up creature, that Edith. Got me watching some silly thing on the telly. But that wasn’t him. I’d have known. She said it was him, but it was all pretend. Pretend he’d made somethin’ of his worthless life. But that wasn’t him.’ She nodded. Nobody was going to persuade her otherwise.
‘What wasn’t, Flora?’ I whispered.
‘It said it, on the screen. His name. Somebody called Jay Messenger. Nothing like our Joey Payne at all.’
Except the Jay! Oh good Lord! And there was a smell of burning. There were also shouts from the yard below. Quickly, I crossed to the door, and already there was smoke seeping through the cracks around the edges. I opened it, and a great waft of black smoke poured in, choking me. I slammed the door, and Flora was screaming, ‘Fire! Fire!’ Oh why had Kemp allowed her to virtually live upstairs?
There were more shouts from the yard, and banging sounds from the stairs. I ran across to the window and threw it open, thrusting out my head. Oliver was standing below, caught in a flickering red light that seemed to come from the next cottage.
‘Phil! Phil!’
‘Where’s Terry?’ I shouted.
‘Hunting for a tap.’
A tap, for heaven’s sake!
‘You’ll have to jump.’ The damn fool stood there, his one good arm reaching, as though he might catch me. I turned away and ran back to the door, as Flora tumbled out of her bed, nightdress tangling her legs. The inside of the door panels was smoking. I burned my fingers, opening it, and now the smoke was a dense black mass.
It was the worst thing that I could have done. The door at the foot of the stairs had probably been left open, or opened for access. I could hear somebody coughing and cursing down there. But now we had a full stream of air, drawn in by way of the door and up through my opened window. Little snatches of red and yellow flames were writhing in the smoke, like bats. In another second the full flare of the fire would reach me.
I slammed it shut. Flora was screaming in one continuous high-pitched note, dragging bedclothes off as though trying to save them. I leaned out of the window. Terry was down there, standing with his legs apart.
‘You’ll have to jump, Phil.’
‘Oliver…’
‘He’s run to the car. Fire extinguisher! Can you jump?’
‘Flora…’
Fingers were clawing at my shoulder. I turned. Tears and terror distorted her face, then her hands were flying around in a panic search for solidity in a dissolving world. The roar of the fire was now loud.
I took her by the shoulders and held her still, and spoke close to her face, trying to keep from my voice the panic that was surging through me.
‘You’ve got to trust me, Flora. I’m going to drop you out of the window. A man will catch you. You’ll be all right. Be all right.’
‘No, no.’ She could barely speak.
I couldn’t argue, but picked her up, suddenly whipping her from her feet with one arm behind her legs and one under her shoulders. She beat at my face with her little fists. Another stone, and I couldn’t have done it. She must have been no more than five stone, but it was as much as I could do to lift her to the sill, and almost all I could manage when it came to bracing my thighs against the wall in order to lean over, thrusting her out into the night with an abrupt shot of pain in my back. I couldn’t see whether Terry was below, the tears from the smoke and from Flora’s blows blinding me.
‘Terry!’ I tried to shout, but the smoke set me coughing.
‘Ready,’ he called.
I tried to throw her forward, clear of the wall, but it was a feeble attempt, and I nearly went after her face down. There was a brief image of Terry taking one step forward, then she was in his arms, and he fell on to his behind with her on top of him.
I drew back, trying to breathe in the air from the window, but the door was in flames and the smoke filled the room. I couldn’t rescue anything. Her treasured photos! I threw them out. The fire-roar drowned the tinkle of breaking glass. And the letters! I grabbed at the letters, but they fluttered down from my hands. No more time. One only — I crumpled it into my fist, and ran back to the window. Looked down.
Having seen Terry crumple beneath Flora’s weight, I had no faith in his being able to cope with mine. There was a memory of a bank of rotting hay, right opposite, which I could now see clearly from the glare of the fire. There was a possibility that if I backed-up far enough, and could put on enough speed in the distance available, I might do one of those dives through the open window. But there was the width of the cobbled yard between me and the hay, which now looked very thin and meagre, and the yard seemed twice as wide as it had been when I last saw it. Flora was a crumpled shape at the edge of it, and Terry was lying against the rotted wall of the hayloft, clearly unconscious. I couldn’t understand that.
Sweat was pouring from me, I could barely breathe, and the heat seemed to clamp itself against my back. There was no possibility of retreating to the door to try a run. It collapsed in a blanket of flame as I glanced over my shoulder. Terror was screaming inside me.
But then he was beneath the window, legs spread as Terry had done, muscular arms held out, chest firm and strong. Jay Messenger.
‘Jump, Phil, jump!’ he called, and I thought there was taunting laughter in his voice.
I got my feet on the sill and hauled myself up, crouched, poised. Hot air streamed past me so forcefully it almost had me off before I was ready.
I saw his lips form the words, ‘Jump! Phil… jump!’
There was no alternative. I jumped, my cry of fear following me. And he caught me, staggered, recovered, holding me tightly to his chest.
‘What did Flora tell you, Phil?’ he asked, still with that look on his face.
‘That you’re Joey Payne.’
‘Pity.’ Still he held me, talking softly close to my face, because the roar of the fire was now overwhelming. Cinders, glowing, were falling at his feet. ‘I’ll need your car.’
‘The keys are in it.’
‘Thank you.’ He hesitated, then he whispered, ‘I wish you had been Tonia.’
Behind him, I could see that Terry was stirring. Flora was raising her head, her face red, coughing fit to choke. There were running feet from the side, and Oliver’s voice.
‘Phil! For God’s sake…’
There was panic in it until he saw us. Then he stopped, and Jay dropped me to free his arms. He simply loosed me, and I fell on my rump on the cobbles, yelling. Jay stepped past me. One quick sweep of his hand and he whipped the shotgun from where it was still leaning against the wall. For one second he was lost in smoke, then he was standing free with the gun in both hands.
‘Stand back,’ he said, and Oliver stopped dead. Terry lifted his head, and from the direction of the big house I could hear Kemp shouting.
‘They’re coming, they’re coming.’ Then he burst into sight round the corner, his eye
s hunting. ‘Flora!’ He spotted her. She was now daring to peek with one eye. ‘Oh, Flora, Flora.’ He made one step towards her.
‘Stay where you are,’ said Jay, bringing up the gun.
Kemp stopped, as though frozen, his gun looking different from that end.
‘I’m taking the car,’ said Jay. ‘Don’t anybody try to stop me.’
Connaught staggered from round one end of the house, coughing and choking. His hair was singed and his face red, his hands raw and burned and his jacket smoking. He’d been trying to get up the stairs.
‘What’s this?’ he demanded. There was no authority in it. His voice was hoarse. Then, trying for force, ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ It set off another bout of coughing.
With a roar, the flames burst through the roof. The fire had now spread along the complete row, and slates began to rattle down on to the cobbles. It was not a place to stand around.
Oliver was slowly advancing, his left hand held out, palm upwards. ‘Just hand that over,’ he said. ‘You know you’re not going to use it.’
Oh Oliver, you fool, you fool! I tried to scream out at him, but my throat was tight and raw. His face was slashed with vibrating red, but was gaunt with strain, an old and broken Oliver, who walked on and repeated, ‘Give me that gun.’
It came up, Jay’s face distorted above it. ‘Stay where you are.’
Oliver still held out his arm, and kept moving, and from the shadows beneath the hayloft, pushing off from the corner post, Terry went in low, diving, and took Jay’s legs from beneath him. The gun flew in the air, and with a magnificent piece of luck Oliver caught it in his extended left hand. He juggled with it, balanced it, and was ready to fire it with one hand.
Slowly Jay came to his feet, flames from the lower window reaching for his hair.
Connaught touched Oliver on the shoulder. ‘I’ll take charge of that, Mr Simpson, if you please. He knows you’re not going to use it.’
Dumbly, not seeing, Oliver handed it over. I went to him quickly. ‘Oliver… you must be mad.’
He distorted a grin at me. ‘I can still do it, Phil. Still do it.’ The joy of it was naked in his voice.
‘It’s all over now,’ I told him. As it was, bar the shouting, as they say.
Chapter 15
We sat in Tudor Kemp’s living-room, the lights on but the curtains open. The drive outside was littered now with vehicles and support fire appliances. The fire was flickering across them, blazing as reflections in their windows. There was no danger to the big house, they had said. Kemp had told them, ‘Let it all go.’ But the fire chief had insisted on tackling the cottages, if only to uncover evidence as to how it had started — and possibly from that, by whom.
But we already knew who had started it, and I knew exactly why. It had been to destroy Flora’s knowledge, and mine if I’d had time to extract it.
Kemp was upstairs, having carried Flora up to his own bed. ‘Should still be warm,’ he’d said. She had been in shock, whimpering and moaning, but we thought nothing was broken. Kemp’s doctor would be along soon to check her over.
But it was to be an ambulance for Connaught, who was badly burned. He sat at my side on a pouffe, not risking any chair arms touching his red and angry flesh, me beside him in an easy chair with half a glass of brandy in one hand. Kemp had proved himself to be a calm and efficient organizer, ordering us into his house and supplying drinks all round.
All we were doing was waiting. Terry was restless, wandering round the room, trying to distract his mind by viewing the treasures Kemp possessed. Oliver was relaxed, seated to one side of Jay in another armchair, Jay being perched on a straight-backed chair in the open middle of the room, where we could all keep an eye on him.
He seemed bemused, his face expressionless, the life seeping from it so that it no longer appeared attractively rugged, but limp and false, artificial.
Connaught was sitting with his elbows on his thighs so that he could fan his hands in the air, cooling them. He was unable to handle a brandy glass, and Oliver had said that brandy wasn’t a very good idea, anyway. Lying across Connaught’s knees was the shotgun.
We had all been silent for some minutes. Now Connaught spoke quietly to me, though his voice would have reached the far corners of the room. ‘It was the burying side by side that puzzled me. I mean… how? When we knew they’d been buried fifteen years apart, then all that was left was a possible witness to Dulcie’s burial.’
I nodded. He wasn’t looking at me, his eyes straight ahead on Jay. I said, ‘And the query was: why, if Rowley was seen burying Dulcie, wasn’t anything done about it? No interruption, no report to the police, not a thing.’
‘It was what bogged it down.’
‘I can see why you picked on Bella. Terry had already worked that out. At four years of age, that would fit. Creeping away, trying to forget the horror. But there’s another explanation of why nothing could have been done at the time. Somebody tried — but failed. Rowley at that time would’ve had a spade in his hands. Joey went away, and Bella spoke about a motor-cycle accident to him. But I’d guess that what happened was that Rowley smashed in Jay’s face when he tried to interfere.’
‘But he said nothing!’ Connaught’s voice was strained, reaching for something he couldn’t understand. ‘Nothing. Not in hospital, nothing to the authorities. No action at all for fifteen years!’ He just could not accept it.
‘But he went to America,’ I reminded him. ‘The new face got him a wonderful career. It absorbed him. He didn’t give another thought to Dulcie —’
‘Can we stop talking about my face,’ said Jay in a flat voice. My taunt had stirred him into action. He looked down at his hands, then up again, almost in defiance. ‘Dulcie was going to come away with me. It was all fixed. I went… went along to the house. No Dulcie, not waiting outside as we’d arranged. I… I waited, walked around, impatient, then I saw a flicker of light in the house next door. It was supposed to be empty. I went to see… and that bastard Rowley...’
He stopped, a strange light in his eyes, his face now limp and formless. Slowly he rubbed his hands over it, and when he looked up again the agony was wiped away, and all that was left was a manic and almost puzzled joy.
‘I saw Bella… on the stage. I hadn’t forgotten Dulcie, oh no. Never. It was just that I couldn’t persuade myself she’d gone. Not really gone. When I saw Bella on the stage at the Alex, I thought she was Dulcie. Hell, Connaught, I’d been only half conscious for a month after… after Rowley went at me. I don’t remember to this day how I got home, or to the hospital. I’d come to take Dulcie away, see — but I’ve told you that. Dulcie was part of a nightmare. I never really believed she could be dead. All that was left was the fact that I’d got to kill Rowley. Got to. Then the nightmare might go… and Dulcie… Dulcie would come back to me.’
It had been, after all, an abiding passion. There was no one who could replace her — until he saw Bella. ‘So when you saw Bella ... ‘ I allowed it to tail off, a hint, awaiting his confirmation.
His eyes kindled. ‘There she was,’ he said softly, as though to himself, ‘there on the stage, unreal, but all too real to me.’ He kneaded his fists together. ‘My Dulcie, just as she’d been. Dulcie.’
I said, ‘But you must have realized she was Dulcie’s daughter?’ I asked it gently.
‘Well, yes.’ He’d been staring down between his spread knees. Now his eyes lifted to mine. He seemed bemused. ‘I said that. She was Dulcie. Could never have told ‘em apart.’
‘But didn’t she call herself Bella?’
‘Her name, that’s why. And she spoke about Tonia, her sister. I knew who Bella was — Dulcie’s daughter.’
‘Dulcie… come back to you,’ I whispered. But he was no longer listening, so I continued softly, mainly for Connaught’s benefit.
‘You can just see it. He came back here, to this district, to collect Bella and take her off to a new life. And there was Rowley, after fifteen years, and Dulcie�
��s death was not yet avenged —’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Jay cut in. His eyes were bright, his voice brittle. ‘I’d sort of forgotten. In hospital, they told me it sometimes happens. An accident, and you forget the bit before. All I knew was that I’d had one — an accident — oh yes, with my face smashed in. An accident. It was seeing the house again — Rowley’s house and the one next door. It all came back, sort of in a flash. Dulcie, and him, in the house next door...’
He was tense, moving restlessly. I suggested quietly, ‘Later, Jay.’
But he plunged in as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘The house next door. It was dark. No Bella, and Rowley’s place dark. I went to look, next door. Then I saw it all again, Rowley with a torch on the floor, up to his waist in an open patch he’d shifted in the floor-boards, and a spade in his hands, Dulcie lying on the floor beside him. Dulcie dead. He looked up. I went at him. Charged at him, mad to get my hands on him, but I tripped up, and he went at me with the spade… the spade... ‘
He stopped. No life was now in those eyes, his face dead, as his face really was, a mask. The room was rigid with silence.
‘That night,’ he whispered, ‘the night I came for Bella, I went there again. The house next door. Empty, and the floor-boards in place. Me, I was thinking it’d all been a nightmare, but there it was — the spade — on the ground under the boards, when I got a couple up. So I took it for Rowley. Took it — and there he was, sneaking out of his own back door. Sneaking. So I got him. On the head. Dulcie’s spade, it was.’
He lowered his head, and was silent. Connaught cleared his throat. ‘It must’ve been the night we marched up from town. Lucky for him — it laid on so many extra suspects. But I expect Rowley was safely buried by the time we went through the two houses.’
‘And Jay,’ I said, ‘went away and waited for Bella to join him in Dublin. He wouldn’t have dared to hang around.’
I could almost pity him, clinging to Bella in her image as Dulcie, but finding her to be an entirely different personality. ‘And Jay,’ I repeated, louder in order to attract his attention, trying to drag his tattered mind from his brooding despair. ‘And Jay — didn’t you discover that Bella was not simply Dulcie’s daughter, but also yours?’ That was casually said, as though it wasn’t a terrible truth for Jay. ‘How did that come about?’ I asked him. ‘From what she’s said, I’d guess it happened about five years ago.’
Bury Him Darkly Page 21
