Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Then let him come to me now,’ she raged, rain streaming down her face with the tears. If she could get hold of him, and somehow bypass Graham …

  ‘He’ll stay right where you can see him,’ Graham assured her, ‘but for the moment, we’ll let Barry hold him. Now please, let’s go inside.’

  Feeling sure she shouldn’t do it, she stepped in through the door, and beckoned to Eddie again. Though he tried to come, he couldn’t, and as Graham closed the door she rounded on him in fury. ‘Let him go!’ she snarled. ‘If you want me to listen then you have to let him go.’

  Graham’s eyes flickered over to Fellowes, then, with a sorrowful shake of his head, he said, ‘I promise, no-one’s going to hurt him, but if you’re afraid, which you obviously are, we don’t want him attacking us. Now, come along into the warm. Betty’s gone. It’s just us …’

  ‘Why’s Betty gone?’ she cried.

  ‘Because of the dog,’ he reminded her.

  She was shaking her head. ‘I’m staying here,’ she said, edging back towards the door. ‘I’m not going into the sitting room, and I’m not listening to a word you say until you let my dog go.’

  Again Graham looked at Fellowes, then, sighing, he turned back to Carla. ‘No-one killed your mother,’ he said. ‘She died, just as you’ve always believed, by falling and hitting her head on a rock. The fact that it happened so soon after Betty told her our secret, combined with the fact that it bore such a similarity to the way we had disposed of the drunk, was nothing more than an unfortunate, though of course tragic, coincidence. That was why we had to do everything we could to find the letter, because it stood to reason that anyone who read it would think exactly as you’re thinking now, and though an investigation would probably have cleared us of suspicion in the case of her death, we certainly can’t be cleared in the other case.’

  Carla’s eyes were staring at him hard, hair plastered to her face, water dripping from her clothes, but though her heart was still racing, and her body trembling, she felt slightly less panicked now as she struggled with whether or not to believe him.

  ‘So you see, we don’t mean you any harm,’ Graham said. ‘We only want the letter.’

  Carla glanced at Fellowes, then took another step back towards the door. ‘I don’t know where it is,’ she told them. ‘I’ve never seen it, except for that one page.’

  Graham’s head went down. ‘It has to be somewhere,’ he said, stroking his beard.

  ‘But even if I had it,’ she shouted rashly, ‘you can’t expect me to be a part of the cover-up, any more than my mother could. So it seems that you don’t have any choice but to kill me too.’

  Graham lifted his head, but before he could speak Eddie began such a frenzy of barking that it was impossible to hear anything else. Graham turned to look at him, while Fellowes struggled to hold him. Graham shouted something. Fellowes grabbed Eddie’s throat. Carla screamed for him to stop. Then suddenly the door burst open and Betty stepped into the room, a gun clenched tightly in her hand.

  John’s Range Rover was speeding through the country lanes, keeping hard on Richard’s tail, now they’d finally caught up with him. The rain was still pounding the windscreen, making visibility dangerously poor, and occasionally the wind slammed so hard into the side of them that the vehicle rocked on its chassis. They were little more than three miles from the village now, but with no answer yet on the phone they still had no way of knowing if their urgency was called for, or futile – or even if Carla was there. However, the fact that her phones had gone unanswered for so long was alarming them greatly, since none of them could come up with any logical explanation.

  Avril had stopped calling Richard on his mobile now. The lanes were too dark and winding for him to do anything but keep the car on the road. She’d tried Sonya several times more, but there was still no answer there, so Avril had started hoping that Sonya and Carla were somewhere together, and preferably somewhere safe. But that hope was dashed when her mobile suddenly rang and Sonya’s voice exploded down the line.

  ‘Avril! Thank God! I went to the station, but she wasn’t there. Then Courtenay fell down the …’ The line suddenly broke up, swallowing the next few words, until she said, ‘… take him to hospital. I haven’t had a chance to call till now.’

  ‘So you don’t know where Carla is?’

  ‘No. She’s not answering her phone.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Nor’s Graham. Oh God, do you think I should call the pub and get someone to go over there?’

  Avril’s eyes rounded. ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Do it now!’ Then, clicking off, she said to John, ‘Why didn’t we think of that? To call the pub.’

  His eyes remained concentrated on the road ahead.

  It was debatable who heard the sirens first, him or Richard, for they seemed to slow in unison, and as the blue flashing lights came speeding up behind them they both pulled in to the side of the road.

  ‘Shit!’ John muttered, ‘this is just what we need.’ Then his eyes widened as first one, then another police car went roaring past, heading straight for the village.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he murmured.

  ‘It might not mean anything,’ Avril declared.

  In front of them Richard’s car was stuck in a ditch, wheels spinning, mud flying. Immediately John pulled the Range Rover alongside him. ‘Get in!’ he shouted.

  Richard glanced over, then gave his car one last rev, which was all it needed to get it back on the road, and seconds later they were all once again speeding towards the village.

  Betty’s eyes moved from Graham to Fellowes and back again. The gun trembled in her grasp, her face was bloodless and scared. Outside the wind continued to howl. Rain splashed in through the open door.

  Long seconds ticked by. Carla stood rigidly where she was, too terrified to move. The gun was no longer pointing at her, but there was still no knowing what Betty intended to do.

  ‘Betty,’ Fellowes said.

  Betty glanced at him, but kept the gun trained on Graham.

  Carla could see how hard she was breathing.

  ‘It’s got to stop,’ Betty said harshly. ‘Do you hear me? It has to stop. One person dead is enough.’

  Graham’s face was strained, though his voice was steady as he said, ‘But Betty, you’re the one holding the gun.’

  ‘It’s wrong,’ she snapped. ‘What you do. What you made Barry do. The way you try to control people’s lives.’

  ‘Betty, just put the gun down,’ Fellowes said.

  Betty was still looking at Graham. ‘All this time, what you’ve been doing to Carla … The way you’ve listened to her through the walls of this house, the things you got her to do … You’re a wicked man, Graham.’

  A horrible heat passed through Carla’s head. She didn’t want Betty to go on. She didn’t want it confirmed that sexual gratification had been a part of Graham’s plan. It was better not to know.

  ‘I care deeply for Carla,’ Graham said gruffly. ‘You know that, Betty. I was trying to help her …’

  ‘I know what you were doing,’ Betty interrupted, ‘and it’s obscene …’

  ‘Stop!’ Carla cried. ‘Please, just stop!’

  Betty glanced at her.

  Carla suddenly saw red. ‘Put the gun down,’ she shouted. ‘Just stop this and put the gun down.’

  Graham started to move forward.

  Betty swung round and Eddie growled. In an attempt to avoid Graham, Betty stepped back hard into Carla. Carla gasped. Then suddenly Eddie was rushing forward.

  ‘Stop him!’ Betty yelled.

  ‘Eddie!’ Carla shouted. ‘No! Stay!’

  Eddie stopped. The gun was pointing straight at his head. Without thinking Carla grabbed it, and shoved Betty hard into the Aga. ‘Eddie stay!’ she shouted again, then the breath left her body as Fellowes grabbed her, trying to wrest the gun from her grasp.

  Immediately Eddie pounced, clamping his jaws round Fellowes’s arm.

  Fellowes kic
ked him hard in the gut. Eddie yelped. Then Fellowes grunted in pain as Carla kneed his groin with all her might.

  She was still holding the gun. Her eyes were wild, her breath short and erratic. She’d never held a gun before. She didn’t know what to do. For God’s sake, what was she going to do? ‘Eddie! Go outside!’ she shouted.

  Graham looked at her beseechingly. ‘Carla, no-one’s going to hurt you, or Eddie,’ he said, edging towards her.

  ‘Stay back!’ she cried. ‘Just stay back.’

  Graham spread his arms, as though to show he meant no harm.

  Carla looked at the open door, then back to Graham. Eddie was still at her side, but if she left he’d leave too. She just had to get past Betty. But Betty didn’t mean to harm her … Except Betty was screaming …

  Then another voice spoke from the darkness outside.

  ‘Carla! Carla! Are you all right in there?’

  Carla swung round as Maudie’s anxious face peered in through the door. The old woman turned instantly white when she saw Carla with a gun. ‘I saw the door open,’ she said feebly, then gasped as Fellowes lunged for the gun, and in one deft movement grabbed Carla round the neck and jammed the weapon into the side of her head.

  ‘Get out!’ Fellowes snarled at Maudie. ‘Just get the hell out and take that damned dog with you.’

  ‘Eddie no!’ Carla cried, as Eddie pounced on Fellowes’s ankle. ‘Maudie, please, get him out of here,’ she implored.

  But Maudie could only gape in horror at the way Eddie was tearing at Fellowes’s trouser leg.

  Furious, Fellowes lowered the gun, ready to shoot.

  Carla jerked back with all her strength, screaming, ‘Eddie! Stop!’

  ‘I called the police!’ Maudie suddenly shouted. ‘I called the police!’

  Fellowes turned the gun towards her.

  ‘No!’ Betty screamed, and slammed a pan into his outstretched arm.

  He howled with pain, and, breaking free, Carla dived for the gun as it hit the floor. Somewhere, amongst all the madness, she registered the sound of police sirens. Snatching up the gun, she backed around the table and pressed up against the sink. She was looking at Graham with wide, panicked eyes and a reeling brain. Then she looked at Fellowes, who was nursing his shattered arm, and Betty, who seemed as agitated as Maudie. ‘Get out!’ she shouted. ‘All of you. Just get out.’

  No-one moved.

  Then Graham stepped forward. ‘Carla,’ he began.

  ‘Get out!’ she screamed.

  ‘It’s the police, they’re here,’ Maudie blurted, as someone banged violently on the front door. And seconds later, with no warning whatsoever, two policemen forced their way in past Maudie through the back door.

  Minutes later the kitchen was so full of people that Carla could hardly move. The gun had been taken from her, and four policemen, all in uniforms and luminous jackets, were attempting to take charge. Maudie was still there, and so, for some reason, were Fleur and Perry Linus. No-one seemed to have any real idea of who to speak to first. Two policewomen came in, walkie-talkies squawking, as one headed towards Betty and the other to Maudie. The trauma was still so recent that it was hard for Carla to register what was happening. Then she saw Graham, watching it all, absorbing every detail of the participants’ behaviour. His manner sickened her, and made her angry, but she was too numb to speak. She looked at Betty, who was sitting at the table, her face buried in her hands, while Fellowes attempted to explain what they were doing there. For a long time it seemed as though everyone was talking at once, until in the end one of the officers shouted for silence, then announced that he was taking everyone to the station.

  As they all began moving out Carla stood up against the dresser, Eddie pressed in close to her side. The mayhem seemed to go on and on, looming in and out of focus, as she struggled to fight back the nausea. Then suddenly a new shock rendered her almost senseless.

  ‘Richard?’ she whispered, as he shoved his way past a policewoman and came into the kitchen.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, moving swiftly towards her, his face taut with concern.

  She looked at him, too stunned to answer, and did nothing as he gathered her into his arms and held her tight, the way he always used to. For a moment she wondered if the past two years had all been a dream. Maybe she was going to wake up any minute and find that none of this had happened. There were no police in her kitchen, Graham hadn’t become a monster, Richard had never betrayed her, and her mother was still alive. Then a policeman shouted to the crowd outside to go home, and, coming to her senses, she pulled away.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she gasped. ‘I’m OK.’ But she wasn’t, for the shock of him turning up like this, on tonight of all nights, when she was still so confused about what was truth and what was lies, and shaken by the fact that she’d held a gun in her hands, not to mention that she’d been terrorized and stalked by a man she’d almost considered a father, and still didn’t know whether her mother had been murdered, or had died in an accident … Her eyes closed as the staggering weight of too many emotions threatened to engulf her. Then Avril was beside her, hugging her hard. ‘What the heck has been going on?’ Avril demanded.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Carla answered, too dazed to feel any more surprise. Lifting her head she saw John standing in the doorway, watching her. She moved towards him, her heart suddenly so full that tears were welling in her eyes as he drew her into his arms.

  He was still holding her when, moments later, a police officer said, ‘You need to come with us too, Miss.’ He looked down at Eddie and wearily shook his head. ‘And there was us thinking the worst we had to deal with tonight was a couple of trees down over on the Trowbridge road.’

  Eddie sat to attention, and gave a few nervous wags with the tip of his tail. Overcome by a wave of love, Carla stooped to put her arms around him and kissed him on the head. Then to John she said, ‘I can’t leave him here on his own, not after all he’s just been through. Will you stay with him?’

  John smiled. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he told her. ‘But we’ll take him with us.’

  ‘If there’s someone who can take care of him,’ the policeman said, ‘it’ll be better not to bring him along.’

  Knowing there would be any number of volunteers outside, Carla dug Eddie out a few biscuits, then Avril took over, while she ran upstairs to change into dry clothes. Only then did she really start to wonder how on earth Richard, John and Avril had happened to arrive when they did – and apparently together. But that particular mystery would have to wait, because she was just too bemused and exhausted to go into it now, and besides she was going to need every ounce of what little energy she had left to get through the next few hours of police interrogation.

  It was nearing midnight by the time Carla and Avril finally came out of the police station, to find the storm only marginally less belligerent, and the moon still smothered in cloud. John and Richard were behind them, though Maudie, Fleur and Perry had left a while ago. It seemed that Fleur and Perry, with their alien search technology, had managed to tune in to the equipment Graham had installed in Gilbert’s cottage, and having heard what was going on at Carla’s had called the police only minutes before Maudie had spotted the back door open, and made a call herself. Apparently it was common practice for Fleur and Perry to make recordings of all their contacts, so most of what had occurred at Carla’s was on a tape that was now in police hands. If any privacy laws had been violated, then it seemed the Avon and Somerset Constabulary was turning a blind eye, since they had the far more serious matter of a fifteen-year-old murder to deal with. A murder, as it turned out, that they were already aware of, for they’d long ago been contacted by the Yorkshire police, informing them of their suspicions regarding Graham Foster and the two members of his household staff. It was thanks to this warning that Valerie Craig’s untimely, and similar death had been investigated much more thoroughly when it had happened than her family knew. So the coroner’s verdict of accidental death had been r
eached with all the forensic, medical and circumstantial evidence necessary to clear it of murder.

  ‘I can’t tell you what a relief that is,’ Carla said to Avril, as they stopped at John’s car. ‘To think of her being murdered … I don’t think I could bear it, and then having to go through the investigation …’ She shivered, and turned to John and Richard as they joined them. Still stunned by the fact that Richard was there, and not yet having had a chance to ask why, she slipped her hand into John’s and took him to one side.

  ‘Do you mind if I ride back with Richard?’ she said. ‘I’m not sure we really need to talk that much, but as he’s here …’

  Tilting her chin up, he kissed her gently on the mouth, and said, ‘I don’t mind. But for God’s sake, don’t overdo it. You’ve been through a lot already tonight …’

  ‘I know.’ Her eyes went off to one side, as the wind tore between them. ‘I still can’t get to grips with the fact it was Graham,’ she said. ‘All those emails …’ She laughed dryly. ‘Boy do I feel a fool. I don’t think even the police know if there’s a crime in there somewhere, it’s all so new and uncharted. Perhaps if he’d been impersonating Richard in order to extort money, or to conspire in a recognized crime …’

  The police hadn’t questioned her about the sex, and she wasn’t going to tell John about it either. It was simply too humiliating, and she just hoped to God that it wasn’t more research for Graham’s book, because if it ever got published …

  ‘Come on,’ John said, giving her a quick hug. ‘It’s freezing out here, and I for one could do with a drink.’

  A few minutes later Carla was sitting beside Richard in his BMW, watching John’s tail lights through the rhythmic sweep of the wipers as they cleared the rain from the windscreen. Though Richard was explaining how he’d come to be there, she was only half-listening, for her thoughts kept wandering off in so many different directions, recalling disjointed scenarios from the past few months, as well as this evening, some that burned with a newfound clarity, and others that had no real significance at all. For a while her thoughts settled on the evening when she’d first told Graham about the single page she’d found in the thesis. She couldn’t recall him showing even a moment’s unease, or urgency, though he’d obviously known right away what it was. Probably she’d been too absorbed in herself to notice even if he had been alarmed, but then it was forgotten as she began wondering what had run over her foot in the shed tonight. Then she was thinking about Fleur and Perry’s transit van buzzing around the countryside in search of spaceships, which soon yielded to the strangeness of Graham putting more coal on the fire tonight. Then she was thinking of Eddie on his lead being held by Barry Fellowes; the phone going unanswered; Rousseau’s Philosophical Dictionary; the fact that Richard hadn’t turned down her mother’s request to be there when she disclosed his betrayal to Carla, because the letter, which she now knew Sonya had the rest of, hadn’t been about that. Then she was reliving the questions the police had asked tonight, which led her back to times she’d spent with Graham, discussing possible meanings for the emails.