Lady From Argentina
Page 17
He left the Vauxhall on a car park in Norwich and caught a bus that took him most of the way back. He walked the last couple of miles and reached the bungalow soon after midday.
It was apparent that Adelaide was relieved to see him. She had probably been worried all the time he had been away that something disastrous might have happened; like an accident on the road perhaps.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I am so glad you’re back.’ She hugged him impulsively and kissed him. ‘Did everything go all right?’
‘Yes, everything. Has anybody been here?’
‘No, nobody. I’ve been completely on my own and worried sick about you.’
‘There was no need. It all went according to plan. Of course eventually the hire firm will want to know where the car is; but when they trace it they’ll probably think the hirer decided to dump it. There’s no reason to suppose they’ll do anything about it.’
‘So what do we do now? Stay here?’
‘I think it might be best for the present if we did. For a few days at least. We’ll show ourselves in Ringham and everything will seem normal.’
*
But it was not normal. The weather was a delight, but somehow the delight for them had faded. If they gazed out over the broad they could not help but be aware of what dark secret lay beneath that innocent expanse of water. The dead men seemed to haunt the place; they seemed to have imbued it with a sense of evil.
They endured it for three days and then returned to London.
*
‘It’s not working, is it?’ she said.
They were in her house. They had been back in Southwark for two days.
‘What isn’t?’ he asked.
‘This thing between you and me. The whole damned thing.’
He could have protested that she was wrong; that it only required a little more time. But he knew this would not be true. The relationship between them had gone off the rails and there would be no putting it on again.
The trouble had started when he had found himself tied to a chair with Gomez and Villa revealing facts about Adelaide’s life in Buenos Aires. He had been hurt by those revelations; and he knew that he could never look at her in quite the same light again. He could never forget what she had been and what she had done.
True, she might not have killed Marquez; it might have been as she suggested, that Gomez and Villa had done the killing. But she had certainly stolen money and a valuable necklace. And the excuse that it was owed to her for the treatment she had endured made it no less of a theft.
And then finally she had shot the two men. In self-defence perhaps. But she had killed them nevertheless. So, taken all in all, he was really beginning to reflect that this lady from Argentina was a little too rich for his blood.
‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘you could be right.’
‘It’s a pity.’ She sounded regretful. ‘I thought for a time we might have had something going. But then –’
‘But then things happened.’
‘Yes, things happened.’
‘What will you do?’ he asked. ‘Will you stay on here?’
‘I think not. I think perhaps I will go back home.’
‘You mean to France?’
‘Yes.’
‘It might be best,’ he said.
*
When he returned to his own house he found that a letter had come by the afternoon post. It was brief.
‘Darling Brian, I think we should meet and talk things over, don’t you? Love, Elizabeth.’
She had timed matters well, he thought. But of course it was just chance. Anyway, he would go and see her. Suddenly it seemed a very good idea indeed. He remembered the good times they had had together. Maybe there would be more good times to come. Evidently she thought so.
Yes, he would certainly have that talk with her.
*
The grape harvest was in full swing when she walked up the road to the château. She had spent the night at an inn in the nearby village, and her luggage was still there.
She remembered it all so vividly. Nothing seemed to have changed. It was like coming back home; this was what she had really meant when she had spoken the word to Brian, and she felt a lump in the throat. Her pulse quickened as she drew nearer to the château. She wondered what kind of reception she would get. It had been so long. So much had happened.
She saw him before he saw her. He was talking to one of the vineyard workers, and only when the man moved away did he glance in her direction. He seemed to start; and then he came towards her with arms outstretched.
‘Is it you, Adelaide? Is it really you?’
‘Yes, Raoul; it’s really me.’
He kissed her. He looked older, which was natural. But not old; no, far from old; and still as handsome as ever.
‘But where on earth did you spring from?’ he asked. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’
‘Perhaps I should have done. But I was not sure.’
‘Not sure of what? That you would be welcome?’
‘Well –’ and then: ‘Oh, Raoul,’ she said, ‘I am so tired of wandering. Do you think I might stay here for a day or two?’
‘You may stay as long as you wish, my dear. Just as long as you wish.’
‘But perhaps your wife might not –’
‘I have no wife,’ he said. ‘Not since your mother –’
He stood back from her, head a little on one side, gazing at her. ‘You are beautiful,’ he said. ‘I had forgotten just how beautiful you were. I have missed you, you know. I have missed you very much indeed.’
Tears were forming in her eyes. She tried to stop them falling but could not. She was home. She was really home at last.
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