As he entered, the top half of the bookcase, unbalanced by the fire eating at its lower shelves, gave way, spilling books onto the floor, where sparks ignited the rug between him and the desk. Smoke billowed up from the debris of the bookcase, stinging his eyes and singeing his ears. With every breath he swallowed more. Through his tears and heaving coughs, he saw Athene’s clothes catch and heard a who of as fire suddenly engulfed her. She stretched forward, her whole right arm ablaze, and laid her hand on the pile of notebooks. Some instinct of preservation some pointless flare of hope drove Harry towards her. But there was another who of of ignition and instantly she and the desk and the notebooks were part of a single flame that jetted to the ceiling.
Harry recoiled, the failure of his attempt releasing fear and confusion in his mind. As he swung towards the door, his foot caught in a curled corner of the rug. He stumbled and fell, the side of his head striking the edge of one of the fallen bookcase shelves as he rolled. There was a moment of dazed disorientation. Then he realized where he was again.
But the realization was not enough. There seemed no air left to breathe, only heat and smoke and choking weakness. The doorway blurred and seemed to turn, as if on an axis. But he was the one turning, rolling slowly onto his side, a hood of darkness and helplessness closing around his head, the will to move draining away as his lungs and muscles failed him. The doorway vanished. Then the skirting-board by which he lay. Then the tufts of the carpet beneath his face. Recognition of the moment for what it was the end of consciousness, the brink of death was a frail and fleeting thought. And it was also his last.
SIXTY-FOUR
“Goodbye, Harry.”
“I’ll take these to the police,” he said, holding up the bundle in triumph as his apprehensions faded. “I’ll get them to check their forensic records for some trace of your presence at the Skyway. A fingerprint. A hair. A fibre. There’ll be something.”
“You’re probably right.”
Then they’ll come for you.”
“No doubt.”
“And you’ll answer for what you did to him.”
“I’m sure I will.”
“Do you understand?”
“Completely.”
She was staring at him with a strange and compassionate soulfulness that touched him more deeply than he would have been prepared to admit. She seemed to be urging him on even as she was calling him back. Still she did not move.
“Goodbye, Harry.”
“Go to hell.” He tore himself free of her gaze and plunged through the doorway.
Back into the study. The room he had just left. With the same contents and dimensions. And the same occupant, smiling benignly at him from behind the desk. “Give me the notebooks, Harry,” she said, her voice echoing behind and around him. In that instant, he saw a difference in her face and in the room. The arrangement of her features and the positioning of the furniture were reversed, as in a mirror. “Give them up.” He whirled round and saw her again, waiting for him back in the original study. “You have to.” Her voice reverberated in his head and suddenly the room telescoped into an infinitely receding succession of its own image, like the reflections he had seen of Slade’s lounge in the magician’s self-regarding mirrors. “You have no choice.” He looked down at his hand where the notebooks should have been and saw that it was empty. “None whatsoever.” Fear filled him and he tried to scream, but no sound came. His throat was dry and voiceless. “You cannot keep them.” He opened his mouth wide, struggling to force out a cry, struggling and writhing and straining. And then
“Hello, Harry.” Donna smiled at him soothingly. “I came in a while back, but you were sleeping and I didn’t like to wake you. You looked as if you were dreaming.” A concerned frown displaced the smile. “Was it about the fire?”
The fire?” His brain wrestled with the shards and scraps of his memory. “Yes. I expect it was.” The fire at Avocet House; his vain attempt to rescue the notebooks; the despair he had felt at the failing of his strength: the components of what had happened reassembled themselves in his mind’s eye like the reversed film of a demolition. As they did so, he remembered regaining consciousness in the ambulance, an oxygen mask held to his face by a paramedic. And being put into the bed he now lay in and told how lucky he was. And that he was going to be all right. And that he should sleep if he could. “What…” His throat was excruciatingly sore. His voice, he realized, was not much more than a hoarse croak. “What time is it?”
“Just gone eight.”
“In the evening?”
“Yuh.”
“So … it’s still Tuesday.”
“That’s right.” She grinned, as if his inane questions were a source of immense pleasure to her. “Still Tuesday.”
“Where am I?”
“In hospital.”
“But… where?”
“Oh, the James Paget, it’s called. At Gorleston. About twenty miles from Southwold. Just over the county border in Norfolk.”
“Boundary,” he said, pointlessly. “English counties aren’t grand enough to have borders.”
“Right.” Her grin broadened. That’s a good sign. Picking me up on little bitty turns of phrase.”
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story. But since you’re supposed to rest your throat, you may as well hear some of it. I flew in this morning and went out to Kensal Green to see you. There was nobody home. So I went to the cemetery, but you weren’t there either. I tried that pub you use, but they hadn’t seen you since before the holiday. Reckoned you must still be in Swindon. I was going to catch a train down there, but I decided to give Mrs. Tandy’s place one last try. While I was there, ringing at the bell, a patrol car pulled up and a policeman got out. He asked if I knew you. They were trying to trace your next of kin. Well, that sounded pretty alarming, I can tell you. And it didn’t get a whole lot better. All he knew was that you’d been pulled out of a house fire in Southwold and rushed to hospital. They’d got the Foxglove Road address from a letter in your pocket.” A letter? She must mean Woodrow’s. Did she know what was in it? he wondered. Was that why she had flown over? “I high-tailed it up here and what do I find? That you’re in miraculously good shape. You’re a lucky guy, Harry. If Southwold didn’t have its own fire station … If they hadn’t got to the scene so quickly … If a fireman with breathing apparatus hadn’t gone straight in … Well, as it is, you’ve only got a few cuts and bruises and the odd minor burn plus a mild case of smoke inhalation -to show for playing the hero.”
“Sounds trivial.”
“It isn’t exactly that.”
“Smoke inhalation’s no problem. I’ve done it all my life.”
“Maybe. But this would be a good time to give up.”
“Can’t see why. As a matter of fact, a cigarette’s just what I need.”
“Absolutely not.” She shook her head disapprovingly. “You’ve got to take care of yourself. And if you won’t, I will.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Kind of. But tell me. What were you doing in Southwold in the first place?” So she did not know what Woodrow had disco vere4 in Philadelphia. She really did not know. “I mean, why go back there? What unfinished business did you have with Athene Tilson?”
“She is … dead is she?” he asked, partly to evade the issue, partly to confirm what he could not quite bring himself to believe.
Donna nodded. “Fraid so.”
“Do they know what caused the fire?”
“It’s too early to be certain. They haven’t even ruled out arson.”
“Arson?”
“Well, I gather there was a live-in housekeeper. You must have met her last fall. Girl by the name of Mace. She’s gone missing. A neighbour drove her down to Ipswich early this morning and she evidently told him the old lady had sacked her. So, anything’s possible.”
“That isn’t. I saw her onto the London train myself before taking…” He hesitated, deliberately amending th
e record of his movements to remove the element of urgency. He did not know how much he would eventually tell Donna, but he knew it was a decision best delayed. For the moment, he was simply unable to muster all the factors in his mind. “Before taking the bus to Southwold.”
“You saw her in Ipswich?”
“Purely by chance.” At least, he supposed it was by chance. But Athene’s calculations had run so far and so deep that almost every chance seemed now like one more cunning contrivance. “She’s got nothing to do with it.”
“I’ll mention that to the police. They’ll want to take a statement from you soon.”
“It’d be good if you could hold them off until tomorrow. I’m tired and … I need to collect my thoughts.” He congratulated himself on the euphemism. What he really needed to do was settle on a story and stick to it.
“No problem. They’ll understand. But I’m not sure I do. You still haven’t said why you were in Southwold.”
“Haven’t I? Sorry. Well, I… er … told the old girl I’d let her know what came of my… enquiries… and … I finally got around to it… today.”
“Oh, so she was expecting you?”
“Yes. We had … an appointment. But of course I never… actually spoke to her.”
“Guess not. The fire had got quite a hold before you went in, right?”
“Yes.” He thought back. “It had.”
“It was a brave thing to do. Trying to rescue her.”
“Or stupid. Depends how you look at it.”
“Do you want me to contact your mother?”
“No. Better ncf worry her. I’ll be out of here before she knows I’m in.”
“What about Mrs. Tandy?”
“She’s still at her niece’s in Warwickshire. Gets home tomorrow. I’ll phone her then. Unless you’re… going back that way.”
“Going back?” She smiled and shook her head, as if amused by the slightness of his trust in her. “I’m staying until you’re fit enough to be discharged, Harry. I’ve already booked into a hotel just up the road in Great Yarmouth. Unless you’d rather…” Her face fell. ‘.. . I booked out again.”
“Of course not.” He patted her arm with his bandaged hand. “I just didn’t know how long … I mean … Hell’s teeth, you haven’t explained either. Why the flying visit?”
“Ah, that’s tricky.” She traced the bindings of the bandage with her fingers. “I have some news. Kind of unexpected. But let’s get you better first, shall we?”
“Suspense isn’t going to speed my recovery.”
“It won’t hold it up, either.” She glanced along the ward. “This isn’t the time or place, Harry. When you get out of here, we’ll find both. OK?” Then she bent forward and kissed him on the cheek. “That’s a promise.”
SIXTY-FIVE
Within twenty-four hours, Harry’s experiences at Avocet House had assumed a dreamlike quality in his mind. He suspected some form of subconscious defence mechanism was at work, enabling his memory to assimilate and cope with what had happened. It reinforced his reluctance to think too deeply about the things Athene Tilson had said. What he could not quite bring himself either to believe or disbelieve was safer un scrutinized Later, he might come to regret turning his back on the central mystery of his son’s life. But that time was not now. And he had never believed in looking too far ahead.
To Detective Constable Waller of the Suffolk Police he proffered a pragmatic lie, hoping nobody had seen him arriving at Avocet House a full hour before he claimed to have done. Waller’s reaction suggested he had nothing to worry about. The Fire Brigade were evidently content with faulty wiring as an explanation. And Athene Tilson’s frailty was assumed to account for her failure to escape before the blaze took hold. It was an assumption Harry was happy to conspire in. He remained unsure what the truth really was. But he felt certain it was a truth best allowed to die with the woman who had stood guard over it for so long.
When he telephoned Mrs. Tandy with a self-effacing report of his futile heroics, she was so concerned for his well-being that she forgot to complain about the state she had found her sitting room in. Harry refrained from mentioning it, trusting his powers of invention to carry him through when the time came.
Two days after being rushed into the James Paget Hospital, Harry was discharged with as clean a bill of health as his lifestyle allowed and a solemn warning to eschew cigarettes for at least a month. He assured the doctor he would and decided not to push his luck by asking what had become of the pack he had been carrying when he was admitted.
Donna was waiting to collect him, looking sophomorically youthful in scarf, sheepskin jacket, jeans and pixie boots. Harry felt happier to see her than he knew to be wise. She would soon be on her way back to California and the best way of reconciling himself to the fact was to crush any preposterous hopes that might enter his head before they had a chance to establish themselves. So intent was he on doing this that he discounted the news she had promised before he had even heard it and overlooked the clues that her manner might have revealed. She was nervous, as if she knew the day held something more momentous than he could have imagined, as if she were confronting a challenge before she was ready to meet it a challenge in which Harry was somehow involved.
His wish to thank personally the fireman who had rescued him from Avocet House necessitated a diversion both seemed to welcome. Donna had hired a car to drive them down to London, but was by her own admission in no hurry. “We’ve got all day,” she said. There’s no need to rush.” Her need, her tone implied, lay all the other way.
A change in the weather had brought grey clouds and spitting rain to Southwold, borne on a keen east wind. A call at the fire station established that Dave Moorhouse was off duty, a call at his home that he could be found on the beach repairing the family’s storm-damaged beach-hut.
He was a phlegmatically amiable forty-year-old unwilling to admit he had done anything out of the ordinary, but reluctant to reject Harry’s gratitude. “You were lucky,” he said deflectively. “If we’d got there a few minutes later… There was no hope for the old lady, of course. It’s a funny thing, that. When I went into that room, do you know what I thought? What my first impression was, like? That she was the source of the fire, the centre of it, y’know?” He shook his head. “She wasn’t just alight. She was… blazing.”
“I thought an electrical fault was suspected,” put in Donna.
“Yeh.” Moorhouse shrugged. “Well, that’s the kind of thing they would go for when they haven’t the foggiest idea what really happened.”
The house was a blackened ruin, the external walls and chimney-stack still standing, but the roof, ceilings, staircase and most of the internal walls gone. A gang was already at work on the place, moving cautiously through the ash-heaped wreckage to make it ready for demolition. Two large skips stood in the road, filled with charred wood, broken glass, rolls of scorched carpet, tangles of twisted pipe work hollow frames of lost paintings, sodden remains of burnt books. And, somewhere midst the chaos, a walking-stick spared from the flames as if by an oversight.
“Dave was right,” said Donna. “You were lucky.”
“Yes,” said Harry, staring around him. “I certainly was.”
“What do you think he was getting at? That business about Dr. Tilson being the source of the fire. Do you reckon he was implying… spontaneous combustion?”
“Do professional fire-fighters believe in such things?”
“Wouldn’t have thought so. Not a level-headed guy like Dave, anyway.”
“Even level-headed guys have to believe the unbelievable if they come smack up against it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not sure.” He smiled, eager to defuse the moment. “Fancy a drink? They told me I should keep the throat lubricated.”
“They did?”
“Actually, no.” His smile turned into a sheepish grin. “I think it must have slipped their minds.”
The Lord Ne
lson was busier than it had been on Tuesday. It was market day, the barmaid explained. Harry and Donna retreated to a small table sandwiched between a fruit machine and a settle-back, where Harry eased his sore throat with several enthusiastic swallows of beer while Donna took one tentative sip at her Perrier water.
“How’s Makepeace?” he enquired, just as the ebb in their conversation began to stretch towards an awkward silence.
“Disappointed She thought like me that with all the publicity the Globescope story’s been getting there’d be a genuine worldwide debate about the predictions we made. Which is about the only way the issues are going to be looked at with the seriousness they deserve. Instead, it’s become just another big business crime story. And the media are rapidly losing interest even in that now it’s become obvious there isn’t going to be a trial. I mean, why worry about whether the planet’s still going to be habitable a hundred years from now when you can spend all day plugged into one cable station or another pondering the vital mystery of whether a retired foot baller murdered his ex-wife? That seems to be the rationale.”
“You sound even more cynical than me.”
“Not cynical. Just depressed by people’s lack of concern for the needs of the next generation and the one after that.” She frowned at him. “When I came over a month ago, you were the one who was depressed. But you seem to have bounced back since. Quicker than I’d have expected.”
“I think I’m just pleased to be alive.” He grinned at her over the rim of his glass, conscious as he was that his mood amounted to more than relief at cheating death. His unwonted contentment stemmed rather from a posthumous pact with Athene Tilson. One he was only now fully aware he had entered into. He and a dead mathematician had helped the next generation and the one after that. They would never know they had been helped. But nevertheless they had been. And Harry had played his unwitting part in the process. “What about that news you promised me, Donna?” he continued. “Aren’t you going to put me out of my misery?”
Out of the Sun Page 33
