by Sarah Rayne
Christa’s brother. That anxious-eyed little boy in the photograph in the newspaper article about vanished killers. It gave Margot an odd feeling to think someone from Christa’s family was still alive; it brought the past sharply into contact with the present.
She said, ‘It’s the first pathway back, isn’t it? The first road we’ve found that might take us back to Lina’s childhood.’
‘Yes. And now we’ve found him, we need to get to know him. To make sure he really is Stefan Klein.’ He paused, then said, ‘So how would you feel about going to live in Romney Marshes?’
‘It’s a small place,’ said Marcus, the following weekend as they set off for Kent. ‘But it’s within commuting distance of the office – just about. That’s important, because they aren’t very happy about me working from home as a permanency. So I’ll have to be in the office for part of each week now.’ He sent her an odd look. ‘But you’d be all right, wouldn’t you? You’d only be on your own for the daytime. I’d be home each evening.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘It’ll be cheaper than living in London, anyway,’ said Marcus. ‘We’d have to find somewhere larger for the two of us.’
‘I could probably get somewhere back at home to rent. And keep working at the office.’
‘Oh, no, you can’t be on your own,’ said Marcus, at once. ‘This will be fine. And as far as I’m concerned, the journey from Thornchurch to London looks manageable – it’s a straightforward drive along the M20 and turn off.’
None of this meant much to Margot, but she said, ‘Oh, I see.’
‘Thornchurch is on the edge of Romney Marshes, but it’s quite an urban part, so don’t go visualizing lonely fens and misty marshlands, or Holmes and Watson prowling through the boggy moor, looking for the spectral Hound.’
‘That was Dartmoor, wasn’t it?’ said Margot, who had never actually read any Sherlock Holmes books, but had seen the films, which was surely nearly as good.
There were not many houses to rent in the Thornchurch area and they had to make a second trip the following weekend. But this time they found a small, two-bedroomed property which Marcus said they could afford.
‘It’s very small though,’ he said, looking round the rooms.
‘It’s not so bad. I’ll make it lovely and really cosy, you’ll see.’ Margot was already visualizing frilled pelmets to soften the rather small windows, and new covers for the chairs. Sanderson did lovely prints and you could get remnants in sales. She would make sure to salvage Mother’s old sewing machine.
‘Let’s take it,’ said Marcus decisively. ‘They’ll do something called a short-term lease, or short-hold tenancy or something. Six months. That should give us long enough to get to know Cain, and find out if he really is Stefan Klein.’
‘If it’s not him, what do we do?’
‘Go on looking. I hope we don’t have to move again, though, because it’s bloody expensive, so for God’s sake go easy on what you spend.’
He sounded angry, so Margot stopped thinking about new curtains and chair covers, and said she would try to get a job so she could contribute to their income. It might be a bit difficult, what with it being such a small place and probably not having many opportunities for work, but she would do her best.
She had looked forward to being in Thornchurch, because it would be their real home together – a place they had furnished and made their own. But it was not quite as marvellous as she had expected.
It was understandable that Marcus should sometimes be a bit snappy in the evenings, because he was tired from the commute. He said it was a real bitch, that journey, more exhausting than he had bargained for, what with the traffic, which could be unbelievable, and having to park so far from the office itself – and pay monstrous parking charges! – and then walk the rest of the way.
But he managed to meet Stefan Cain in the little town – a chance meeting, he said, but a carefully engineered one.
‘Engineered?’ Margot did not understand.
‘Well, of course it was engineered. Why d’you think I’ve been going into Thornchurch every weekend, pretending to wander around libraries, and take an interest in the corn exchange.’
‘Why the corn—?’
‘Because,’ said Marcus, sounding impatient, ‘Cain used to give adult language classes there. German, obviously. I pretended I might be interested in helping out if they were continuing the courses. God forbid, but it meant I finally ran into Cain. And I’ll make bloody sure I run into him again, now I know he still goes along to meet a few of his old colleagues.’
He still sounded impatient, in fact he sounded almost angry, but a week or so later he came home smiling. He had had an invitation for them to go along to a small supper party at Cain’s house, he said. A birthday evening.
‘There’ll be a few local people there, but it’s the very thing I’ve been hoping for.’
‘Do I have to come with you?’
‘Of course you do. It’d look peculiar if you don’t.’
‘I’d honestly rather not. I’m not very good with strangers. And you’ll do it all so much better – talking to people, getting to know Mr Cain properly.’ It was impossible to explain that if she said the wrong things, or made stupid remarks from nervousness, Marcus would be angry with her.
‘We’re both invited,’ said Marcus. ‘You’ll be fine. Oh, and wear something smart, will you?’ He looked a bit disparagingly at the old sweater and jeans which Margot had put on that day to clean the windows. ‘Look your very best. I want us to create a good impression.’
The next day Margot withdrew what was left of her savings to buy a new outfit for the party. Marcus’s salary had to be kept for household bills, and she was scrupulous about not using it for anything else. She spent quite a lot of money so she would look her very best for Marcus.
SEVENTEEN
Greymarsh House was quite large but, close to, Margot thought parts of it could have done with some attention. There were lights glowing in the narrow windows on each side of the front door, though, which was welcoming.
It was silly to be surprised because Mr Cain was elderly. If he was Christa’s brother, he would have to be old. But he was rather distinguished-looking, and he had a nice smile. He said how good it was to be meeting new neighbours. It was difficult to connect him with the young boy with anxious eyes in the old newspaper cutting – to remember that he would have lived through that violent era in Germany.
There were a few other people already there, and before the meal they all had drinks in the hall – actually in the hall! Margot thought this peculiar. Halls were places where you left your coat or your umbrella or your wellingtons if it had been raining. You did not expect to have your jacket cast carelessly into a cupboard, then to be waved to a seat in the hall itself, with your glass of sherry placed on what looked like a large wooden blanket box with carving on its lid.
Margot hoped that she looked all right. The new outfit had looked nice in the shop; the assistant had said beige was always smart, so versatile, because you could wear brown with it, or black.
But the beige two-piece, however versatile it might be, looked drab next to Mr Cain’s goddaughter, who – it appeared – had arranged the evening for his birthday. Margot took an instant dislike to Arabella Tallis, who was wearing bronze velvet and amber beads. It was annoying that Arabella did not even trail the amber beads in the food.
The dining room, when they went through for the meal, had dark red walls which closed in suffocatingly. Arabella said it was an absolute mausoleum and her godfather hardly ever came in here, but she had left the curtains open so they could see the gardens while they ate.
‘Beautifully night-garden and fantastical-forest in this light. If anyone sees a dryad or a rusalka capering about, please say so immediately, because I’ll get the camera.’
‘What on earth is a rusalka?’ asked somebody.
‘Sort of Russian water spirit, but they like trees, as well. If I got one on f
ilm, I’d post it on Facebook, and it’d go viral inside ten minutes.’
There were little menu cards on the table, to tell people what they were about to eat. Margot thought this very ostentatious, and she thought the food pretentious. She ate what she was given, though, and made polite comments, and joined in with the sympathy when it seemed that one of the dishes, used to serve some outlandish vegetable concoction, had cracked in the oven’s heat. Everyone seemed to think this was terrible, and Margot offered what she thought was a very useful suggestion about a stall she had found in Thornchurch Market that could repair crockery so you could hardly see a join. But it seemed the bowl was French from somewhere important, and could not really be made whole again. Margot thought, but did not say, that it served Arabella Tallis right for using it to cook the concoction of tomatoes and goodness-knew what else, which all the guests praised. Marcus even asked for a second helping.
It was during the meal that things began to take a faintly worrying turn, and it was Arabella – of course it was – who sent the conversation in that direction.
She began telling everyone about her new project – whether they were interested or not, thought Margot, resentfully. It seemed Arabella was always embarking on new projects, some of which she seemed to get paid for, and some not. Her latest one was the past – well, to be specific, said Arabella, it was the 1930s. She had discovered the era; well, not discovered it exactly, because it had always been there, but she had not taken much notice of it until now. Now that she had found it, though, she found it utterly fascinating. The Golden Age of Hollywood and Edward VIII abdicating, and Schiaperelli clothes, all padded shoulders and shocking pink. Then she looked solemn, and said she knew you had to remember those years had had a dark side, as well – that gathering menace brewing deep within Germany, like a black bruise starting to bleed outwards into the rest of Europe.
Margot shivered, and half glanced over her shoulder, because she had had the sudden ridiculous feeling that something had crept unseen into the room. She pulled her mind back to the conversation. Marcus was asking, very politely, where Mr Cain originally came from.
Mr Cain seemed to hesitate, but then he said his family had been very ordinary; in fact his father had been a lowly music teacher.
‘He had a music shop in Germany,’ he said. ‘He bought and sold musical instruments, and also gave lessons – piano and violin. It was quite a small place called Lindschoen.’
Margot felt as if she had received an electric shock. Lindschoen. She looked across the table at Marcus, and saw him acknowledge the look.
‘Have you ever been back?’ asked one of the men.
‘No, never. I occasionally hear from one or two people there. Not often, though.’
‘Arabella, you should get Stefan to record all his memories,’ put in one of the women. ‘I bet there’d be some interesting stuff.’
‘There’s an idea, Stefan. What about it?’ said the first man.
‘Oh, never meet your heroes, and never revisit the scenes of your childhood,’ said Arabella, cheerfully. ‘Is anyone having any more ratatouille, or were you all put off by the cracked dish?’
‘We’re not put off in the least,’ said the woman who had made the suggestion about recording Mr Cain’s memories. ‘In fact I’d love to have the recipe for it sometime.’
‘We’re saving space for the pudding,’ said Stefan Cain. ‘You did say there was pudding, didn’t you, Arabella?’
‘Pudding … Oh, my ears and whiskers, the crème brûlée,’ shrieked Arabella, and dashed out of the room, wailing something about setting the grill pan on fire. Marcus went out to help her, which was very courteous of him, although not something he ever did at home.
After they had eaten the crème brûlée, which was extremely rich and which Margot thought would probably give everyone indigestion, they went into a room at the back of the house – it seemed to be Mr Cain’s study, where he sat most evenings – to have coffee. It was a warm, quite comfortable room, although Margot would have wanted to re-cover the old leather chair with a nice chintz, and she would certainly have thrown out the hearth rug, which was as thin as a piece of old silk and looked as if the colours had faded.
‘It’s Egyptian,’ said Arabella, seeing Margot looking at it. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? So finely woven, and those colours are like an aquatint. I found it in one of those street bazaars when I was wandering around the souks, and I haggled fiendishly with the man to get it, because it’s what you’re expected to do in those places, isn’t it, and then I sort of smuggled it through Customs – well, when I say smuggled—’
‘We’d better not know any more,’ put in the man who asked if Mr Cain had ever been back to Lindschoen, and everyone laughed.
‘It’s very nice,’ said Margot politely, and thought she would not have wanted a hearth rug from a street market in her house, and that it was a pity someone had not taken a solution of soapy water and scrubbed the rug thoroughly.
And then she saw the painting.
It was hanging on a wall on one side of the fire, and it was of a young woman, standing against a partly curtained window, holding some sheets of music in her hands. As Margot stared at the painting, the earlier feelings of an approaching threat tugged at her mind a little more insistently, although there was surely nothing especially alarming about a lady with some music. Or was there? She went across to look at the painting more closely. There was a wall light immediately above it – its glow fell directly on to the canvas, lighting the details. Disbelief started to flood Margot’s mind, because at the top of the music, painted in soft brown, presumably to emphasize the fact that it was handwritten, were the words ‘Giselle’s Music’. Giselle. The warm room and the sound of the guests’ voices faded, and Margot was back in the stuffy little music room, watching and hearing her grandmother play music with that name on it. How many pieces of music were there in the world with the name ‘Giselle’ written across them?
She realized that Arabella had come to join her; that she was standing next to Margot, looking at the painting with her.
‘It’s a stunning portrait, isn’t it, Margot. I always think she’s so unusual-looking. Her eyes have secrets in them, somehow.’
Margot managed to say, ‘It’s lovely. Who—?’
Arabella said, ‘My godfather’s older sister.’ She glanced back to where Stefan Cain was talking to the two neighbours about recording machines. ‘I never knew her, of course, and Stefan never says much about her, but I do know he adored her,’ said Arabella, in a lower voice. A pause, then, ‘Her name was Christa.’
Christa. It was as if the name exploded silently inside Margot’s brain, and she had the sensation of invisible hands squeezing all the breath from her lungs. The room tilted slightly, and she reached out to grasp the back of a chair to stop herself from toppling forward, hoping Arabella did not notice that anything was wrong.
But it’s Christa, said her mind. That’s how she looked. Dark hair, dark eyes, not large, but narrow and watchful. But was there a hardness about the mouth as well? No, it was just the shaping of the jaw, surely.
She said, ‘She was at Lindschoen as well?’
‘I think so. Yes, she must have been. But she was a good deal older than my godfather.’
‘She’s dead now, presumably?’
‘Oh yes.’ Arabella glanced back to where her godfather was pouring brandy for the guests, and said, softly, ‘I hardly know anything about her, but I’ve always had the impression of some deep tragedy surrounding her.’ She sent Margot a quick glance. ‘Don’t tell the godfather I said that, will you? It’s only my idea, and I’d hate to upset him.’
‘No, I won’t say anything.’
Arabella moved away and Margot finally managed to look across at Marcus, and she saw that he, too, was staring at the portrait, and that he had heard Arabella’s identification of it as Stefan’s sister. His eyes were glowing with triumph.
The woman who had wanted the recipe was asking about the mu
sic in Christa’s hands.
‘“Giselle’s Music”, it says. That’s rather intriguing. Who was Giselle? Was she a relative or an ancestress? Or even the composer of the music? It’s not printed – it’s handwritten, so it might be something original.’
Margot thought Stefan Cain was about to speak, then appeared to change his mind, and it was Arabella who said, blithely, ‘No idea in the world. Probably no connection.’
‘It’s a French name anyway, isn’t it?’
‘French or maybe German. I only know it from the ballet, though,’ said Arabella, and Margot thought it was like the creature to show how cultured she was. She glanced at her godfather again, then said, ‘But I always like to think of “Giselle” as someone mysterious and intriguing. I think I’d have liked her. Now, would anyone like more coffee? No, it’s no trouble at all. I’ve only got to top up the percolator. And I’ll bring the liqueur bottle from the dining room in case anyone would like a tot.’
‘Let me help you,’ said Marcus, following her out. ‘I’ll get the liqueur, shall I?’
Driving home, Margot could sense Marcus’s delight. As they went into their own house, he flung himself down in a chair and said, exultantly, ‘I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘You were.’
‘All that proof – all those leads we’ve got. Christa’s portrait – God, wasn’t seeing that the most incredible thing? And the fact that Cain lived in Lindschoen,’ said Marcus. ‘And that his father had a music shop there.’
‘And Giselle’s Music is in the painting,’ said Margot.
‘Yes, that piece in the old music stool was called that, wasn’t it? I’d almost forgotten.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘I’d like to find out if there’re any more documents in that house,’ said Marcus. ‘Legal stuff. Cain’s birth certificate, even – that would give his parents’ names. Even address books. Cain mentioned occasionally hearing from people living in Lindschoen. And it’s not out of the question that his family knew Lina’s father.’
