by Sarah Rayne
Arabella Tallis
Phin stared at this extraordinary email for a very long time. Then he phoned Toby back.
‘Remarkable, isn’t it?’ said Toby, answering on the first ring. ‘Ottomar says Arabella was staying at the Lindenbaum, and that was only yesterday.’
‘And Felix Klein was Stefan’s father,’ said Phin. ‘Should we have made the connection? Maybe we should, although … But Toby, that’s extraordinary about Arabella being here.’
‘I’m not sure it is,’ said Toby. ‘I think Arabella was intrigued when Stefan threw out Christa’s portrait, and I think she wanted to find out more about Christa’s life. She’d want to do it in secrecy, as well – she’d see herself as a kind of female spy or something.’
‘And if she found Silke’s letter at Greymarsh House, which is quite likely …’ said Phin.
‘Exactly. I’m heading for the Lindenbaum now,’ said Toby. ‘I’ll call you later. Or you call me if there’s anything to report.’
‘All right.’
The Torhaus, seen through its tall gates, was a daunting place. It was fairly large, and its walls were of harsh stone. There were darkened windows, behind which anything might lurk – or out of which anything might be peering. Phin glanced uneasily at the windows, but nothing stirred.
The gates were firmly locked, but there was a section of collapsed wall, and Phin, who was by this time starting to feel uneasy, made his way to it. He might as well at least try to get a bit nearer to this place that Ottomar Volk had said was the scene of the Wewelsburg murder.
As he went towards the house, his misgivings increased, because the door at the house’s centre was open. Phin took a deep breath and went inside.
The house was dim and there was a smell of damp and age and desolation. At this point, Phin remembered that he might be trespassing – that the owner of the parked car might even be the house’s rightful owner – and he called out, at first automatically in English, and then in hesitant German. He did not really expect any response, but there was a sound from the rear of the house. Phin’s heart jumped nervously, then a young man came out of one of the rooms.
‘Hello?’ he said, in English. ‘My God, you made me jump about a mile – I didn’t hear anyone drive up, and I certainly didn’t hear you come in.’
‘I did call out,’ said Phin. ‘And I’m sorry if I’m trespassing. I expect I am, but I was intrigued by the house.’
‘Glad to meet a fellow countryman. I’m Marcus Mander.’ He did not move; he stayed in the open doorway.
Marcus Mander, thought Phin. I know the name, don’t I? Then he remembered Toby talking about phoning neighbours of Stefan – and saying their names were Marcus and Margot Mander. And there had been a voice-mail message at Greymarsh House from Marcus Mander. This is all a bit coincidental, thought Phin, but he smiled, held out his hand, and said, ‘Phineas Fox.’
He waited for Marcus Mander to ask what on earth he was doing out here, but he simply said, ‘This is a gothic old place, isn’t it? An old gatehouse to the castle, I believe. I’ve been trying to trace a property that might have belonged to a great-aunt of mine.’
‘Is this it?’
‘’fraid not. Much too grand. I couldn’t resist looking inside, though. The door wasn’t locked.’
There’s something very wrong about all this, thought Phin. Marcus Mander hasn’t just come here because he thinks his great-aunt might have owned it. Who on earth owns a castle gatehouse these days, anyway?
Marcus Mander stepped out of the room, closing the door as he did so. Phin glimpsed a piano inside the room. Its lid was open and there was even music on the stand. It seemed incredible to find a piano in this desolate old house – or did it? Might it be anything to do with Felix Klein? Surely it could not hold a clue after so long, though. He was about to make some suitable farewell and go back to his car, when sounds cut through the silence. Someone in an upstairs room was screaming.
Phin was halfway up the stairway almost before he knew it, going instinctively towards whoever was shouting with such desperation. But Marcus was after him, dealing him a blow that knocked him against the wooden banister. There was a sharp crack of pain against his head, but Phin struggled to get to his feet, fighting against the spinning dizziness. Marcus seized his arms and dragged him up the remaining stairs.
‘Let me go,’ shouted Phin. ‘There’s someone shouting for help – someone’s locked away—’
‘You’re perfectly correct,’ said Mander. ‘But it’s a pity you heard it, isn’t it?’
They were at the head of a narrow flight of stairs now. Phin was struggling to get free, but his senses were still confused from the blow. Marcus unlocked a door, and pushed him through it. The door was slammed, and a key turned in the lock.
This time Phin did manage to get to his feet, and he hammered furiously on the door.
From beyond it, Mander said, ‘At least you’ve got company in there. That’s my sister who’s with you. She’s a murderess. That’s why I locked her away.’
Phin turned to look into the room, and saw a thin-faced young woman huddled on a window-seat, staring at him.
‘I intended,’ said Mander’s voice from beyond the door, ‘to leave her there to die. She deserves it, the bitch. And no one would come looking for her. But now there’s you.’
‘People will definitely come looking for me,’ said Phin, at once. ‘There’s someone – the friend I was travelling with – who knows I was coming out here. In any case, I can phone …’ He thrust a hand into his jacket pocket, then realized that the phone he had so carefully remembered to bring from the car was no longer there.
Marcus Mander was laughing. ‘First rule of imprisonment,’ he said. ‘Disable your victim’s means of communication. An old army rule, probably, not that I was ever in the army. I took your phone after I’d half knocked you out and I was dragging you up the stairs. It’s a pity you’ve come blundering in, though, because I’ll have to rethink my plan. I don’t think I can just leave you here. My mad sister was one thing, but the two of you together might manage to break out. Let’s see – if I start a fire in the hall, it should work its way up here reasonably quickly. What do you think?’
‘It’ll be seen,’ said Phin, hating the note of desperation in his voice, wishing his head would stop throbbing. ‘The fire services will be here at once.’
‘Of course it won’t be seen. This place is miles from anywhere. By the time anyone spots smoke rising, it’ll be too late. Sorry and all that, but I really can’t risk you talking.’
Phin stayed where he was, against the door. He heard Marcus go back down the stairs, and he heard him pause – that would be the turn on the half-landing, which was narrow. There was a sudden bump, and a cry, and then a series of bumps. And then silence.
Behind Phin, Margot said, ‘What’s happened?’
Phin turned to look at her. ‘I think he’s slipped on the half-landing,’ he said. ‘I think he’s fallen down to the foot of the stairs. And,’ he said, not moving from the door, ‘it’s a very steep flight of stairs.’
‘He’ll be unconscious?’
Phin said, ‘Unconscious or dead.’
‘Yes, I see. And,’ she said, ‘no one knows we’re here, and there’s no way of getting out of this room.’
It was then that Phin saw the half-open drawer and the silver bracelet.
TWENTY-EIGHT
‘It’s a very long shot indeed,’ he said. ‘But this looks like silver, so it ought to be tough enough to use on the door hinges. It’s certainly worth a shot.’
‘Can you do it?’
‘If I can stand up long enough. That was a hell of a blow your brother gave me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, in a rather colourless voice.
As Phin began to chisel at the hinges, he spared a thought for the owner of the bracelet who had left it here – when? why? – and who might unwittingly have provided the means for them to escape.
At first he thought
it was not going to work, and he tore the skin of his fingers several times in the attempt to loosen the hinges, and had to wind Margot’s handkerchief around them. As he did so, he was remembering Marcus’s accusation. ‘She’s a murderess,’ he had said. ‘That’s why I locked her away.’ Phin did not dare wonder how much truth there was in what Marcus had said.
The metal of the hinges was still sound, but it was becoming apparent that the wood of the doorframe was not.
After about ten minutes, he said, ‘I think the hinge is coming loose,’ and he was so pleased that he turned to smile at his companion and forgot, for the moment, about her being a murderess. When, after a further ten minutes, the door suddenly sagged as the hinge broke free, he said, ‘Grab the door – no, from that side – keep it as firm as you can so I can loosen the other hinge.’
‘All right, I’ve got it.’
The second hinge, already loosened when the heavy door sagged, came free more easily, and the door fell sideways. Phin grabbed it, and pushed it to one side, and there was the shadowy landing and the stairs.
‘We’ve done it!’ he said, so relieved that he managed to ignore the pounding headache and lingering dizziness. ‘I’ll be forever grateful to whoever left that silver bracelet.’ Almost without thinking, he dropped it in his pocket. ‘Downstairs now, and I’ll find my phone and call for help.’
Marcus was lying in a distorted sprawl at the foot. There was blood on one side of his head, and one leg stuck out at an unnatural angle. Margot went to him at once, and bent over, feeling for a pulse in his neck, and then thrusting a hand inside his jacket to find a heartbeat. Phin, seeing his phone nearby, snatched it up gratefully.
‘I’ll call the medics at once – do you know the number for emergency services out here?’
‘No,’ said Margot. ‘I don’t actually know any German. Actually, I don’t know a lot of things. Driving a car, for instance. What to do in bed with someone. Sad, isn’t it?’
It was as if her voice had changed key. Major to minor, thought Phin, unease stirring again. But he scrolled down for Toby’s number, thinking Toby would still be with Ottomar Volk and Volk would know the numbers to ring for help. As he did so, Margot bent over her brother, and Phin saw her hands go around Marcus’s neck, and press down hard.
His unease ratcheted up into real fear, but he managed to keep his voice normal. ‘Is he all right?’ he said. ‘Is he dead?’
Margot straightened up. ‘He’s dead now,’ she said, and Phin saw, for the first time, the madness staring out of her eyes. She began to walk towards him, and he backed away, then saw that – although the front door was still open – Margot was between Phin and the door. He felt for the phone, trying to find the last-number button to get Toby, but dreadfully aware that it might take some time for help to get here.
Margot began to walk towards him, and Phin hesitated, remembering the stories that people in the grip of genuine insanity could possess three times their own strength. He backed away, hoping he could get into one of the rooms that opened off the hall and barricade himself in. The room with the piano was the nearest – he took a deep breath, and sprinted into it. She was after him at once, but he was inside the room, and slamming the door. Did it have a lock? Yes, but there was no key. Of course there wouldn’t be a key, thought Phin, with helpless fury and frustration. But if I can keep her out for long enough to phone for help … He was leaning against the door, but she was pushing against it, and Phin felt it give slightly. He groped for his phone, and this time he managed to tap Toby’s number in. Please don’t go to voicemail, he was praying. Please pick up.
Toby’s voice said, ‘Phin? How are you getting on? Listen, I’ve—’
Phin said without preamble, ‘Toby, I’m in the Torhaus and I’m in dreadful danger. You must get police and medics out here at once. Yes, I am being serious. As quickly as possible.’
The door gave way again, and Phin dropped the phone into his jacket and threw all his strength into keeping Margot Mander out, thankful that at least the door of the room opened inwards. He had no idea how long she would keep up her attempts to get to him, but she would certainly want to stop him telling the police what she had done – and what Marcus had said about her. He had no idea how long it would take for the police to get here – it would depend on where the nearest police station was, and it could be ten minutes or the best part of an hour. Might she give up and make a run for it? Where to? She had said she didn’t drive.
He would have to barricade the door. There was a small desk just about within his reach, and a table … And the piano. It stood against the wall, but it was only a few feet from the door. If I could get that across it, she’d never get it open, thought Phin.
By dint of stretching out his leg, he managed to hook his foot around one leg of the desk, and drag it across the door. Margot pushed against the door again, and although it opened by a good six inches, the desk impeded it considerable. But Phin had already dragged the table across, and wedged that in place as well. Better. Now for the piano.
At first it felt as if the piano had been bolted to the floor. Margot was hammering at the door, and the desk and the table were already being pushed aside. Phin gasped, and threw his entire weight into moving the piano, and felt it shift, and then slide across the floor. It came to rest against the already dislodged table, and he pushed it more firmly into place. Now then, murderess, get through that! He thought exultantly.
He was just getting his breath back, and trying not to count the time and wonder how long it would be before help arrived, when he heard what were obviously German police sirens. Phin thought he had never heard sweeter music.
Marcus Mander’s body had been taken away by paramedics, one of whom had checked Phin for concussion, and pronounced there were no signs of it, but please to call for help if there was any drowsiness or double-vision, that was understood?
‘Completely understood,’ said Phin.
The courteous German police officers had taken careful statements from him, and asked if he could perhaps call at their offices tomorrow to sign them and make sure everything had been recorded correctly. They would provide an interpreter for reassurance.
‘Of course I’ll come,’ said Phin. ‘I’m more grateful to you than I can say.’
Was Herr Fox feeling able to drive himself back to his hotel? If not, they would happily provide a driver?
‘I’ll be perfectly all right,’ said Phin, who now wanted nothing more than to get away from the Torhaus and return to some semblance of normality. He explained that the friend he was travelling with would be arriving soon anyway. While the officers went on with their evidence-collecting and photographing of the scene, Phin wandered back into the music room. The piano had been shunted more or less back into its original place. Even the rough handling it had received had not dislodged the music from the stand.
And then everything seemed to stop, because for the first time Phin saw the words written across the music. Giselle’s Music. It’s the music from the portrait, he thought. It’s the copy of the Siegreich. Or is this the original, and is what I found at Greymarsh House the copy?
He glanced back to where the police were still working on their evidence-gathering. Would the music be classed as evidence? It did not seem to have any bearing on Marcus Mander’s murder or Margot’s actions. With a deep breath, feeling almost as guilty as if he were committing a murder himself, Phin lifted the sheets from the music stand, and put them inside his jacket.
He went back into the hall, to hear a car drive up, hasty footsteps half running towards the house, and Toby’s voice calling out to know where the devil he was, and what in God’s name had been happening.
Toby himself appeared in the doorway, his hair dishevelled, looking like a worried puppy, and behind him was another figure.
A female voice said, ‘It’s a bit late to be rescuing the hero from deadly peril, and it’s supposed to be the heroine who gets rescued, anyway. Phineas Fox, I hope you realize that this
is the wrong way round.’
‘Phin,’ said Toby, ‘this is my cousin, Arabella.’
Arabella Tallis was not in the least what Phin had expected, and as they sat in the shop that had once belonged to Felix Klein, the shutters just sufficiently open to glimpse the old square outside, he was aware of a faint disappointment. Arabella was small and fine-boned, with a tumble of fairly ordinary brown hair that was scooped up a bit untidily allowing curling tendrils to escape, large, dark-lashed eyes and a mouth that was a bit too wide. He thought he would have passed her in the street and certainly not given her a second look.
Ottomar Volk, delighted at the drama, had bustled around pouring drinks, eagerly anticipating hearing what had happened. When Herr Volk sat down, Phin said to Arabella, ‘Toby thought you’d been kidnapped. I still haven’t fathomed how you came to be in Lindschoen.’
She smiled at him, and Phin’s opinion was instantly revised, because – after all – this was the vivid creature who had organized dinner parties that might have included extravagant entertainments; who had looked for rusalkas in the garden of Greymarsh House, and who sometimes considered wearing curtains to parties. In that moment he understood why people did not mind if Arabella ruined Sèvres dishes and burned puddings, or caused people to crawl around floors looking for contact lenses.
‘What happened,’ said Arabella, ‘was that when the attics at Greymarsh were cleared, I found that letter from Giselle’s cousin, Silke. You found it later, didn’t you, Phin – well, Toby told me you did. And what a lot of fluff and speculation! All that rubbish about how Christa had been responsible for Giselle’s death in a concentration camp, and how everybody had known, and Silke couldn’t bring herself to use the word murderess. Personally, I think she sounds utterly feather-brained, that Silke,’ said Arabella, ‘and I don’t think she had the merest inkling as to what really happened to Giselle. Anyway, when Stefan flung Christa’s portrait out with that marvellously theatrical gesture … Actually, I must ask Stefan sometime if there’s anyone in his family who ever took to the boards, because of all the grandiloquent melodrama—’
