‘“Aber” means mouth, so it’s the mouth of the River Angell, right?’ he asked.
‘Named for an angel,’ she explained. ‘The river was thought to be so beautiful it was named River of Angels. At least, that’s what some of the locals believe!’
‘And I’ll see it with my own angel. Perfect,’ he breathed.
* * *
When she woke the following morning she found two pints of milk had been left for her. She frowned. She always used a pint each day, drinking any that was still left after she had finished breakfast. Only when Larry or someone else stayed did she order extra. Who had forestalled her and placed the order?
‘There was a note,’ the milkman told her later. ‘Just a block-printed note asking for extra. All right was it? I mean, you did want it?’
‘Quite all right, and thank you,’ Rosemary said.
* * *
‘Don’t look for mysteries where there are none, darling,’ Larry warned when he telephoned her for an end-of-week chat and was told of the new event. ‘I expect the previous note was still there and was blown about in this wind. Stranger things have happened.’
‘But so many things are happening. Can someone still be listening to my conversations?’
‘The British Telecom engineers found the box and everything has been dismantled. The police and the engineers will be keeping a look out to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’
‘Of course, but too many coincidences are hard to accept,’ she said doubtfully.
The wind was strong, and increasing in force, an empty dustbin placed outside number five for the men to empty and which had not been recovered, was sent bowling along the grass near the stream.
Attracted by the noise, Rosemary looked out of her window and laughed to see Huw Rees chasing it and capturing it just before it fell into the fluttering surface of the wind-whipped water. She waved as he looked in her direction, to share the amusement with him.
* * *
Larry arrived when the vegetable lasagne she was cooking was sending out tempting aromas. He sniffed appreciatingly as he went straight through to the kitchen to make his habitual cup of coffee. He drank it thirstily then prepared the salad. They ate companionably, sharing news of the hours they had been apart.
She told him about the parcel coming for Gethyn and his inviting her in to see the glorious mess he was in sorting out his mother’s papers. He told her of his latest discoveries, including the information that beside being farmers, a branch of his family had once been fishermen.
‘Seems I’m not going to discover an exciting link with your Prime Minister or find myself a dukedom!’ he joked. He spread out his family tree and proudly pointed out the gaps he had now filled, albeit some in pencil and bearing question marks!
The time she spent with him was both exciting and tranquil, Rosemary decided, as she watched him prepare their after dinner coffee. Tranquil, because she never had to stop and consider what she would say, being able to be completely open with him. Exciting, because the way he looked at her, admiration and love blazoning out of his brown eyes, made her feel like a beautiful woman.
Sensuality was not something she had ever considered, but knowing he loved and admired her gave her an extra perception of her femininity. He had increased her awareness of herself as a woman. Since they had become lovers, there was an added sway to her walk and more provocative nuance in her smile. But for him only. When she was with anyone else, the difference in her would have been hardly detected. Loving was giving, and to Larry she gave unreservedly.
The wind increased in force and howled around the cottage like a crazed thing trying to come in. The trees that grew on the far side of the stream groaned and creaked as the wind pushed the branches against one another in a weird symphony.
‘Shall we go to the local pub for a drink?’ he suggested. ‘Those trees sound as if they might fall and I don’t think it’s wise to travel far, but the pub is only a mile along the main road.’
‘I agree about the trees, they look precarious, don’t they? In fact, it might be an idea to move the cars.’
Larry went to the front room and looked out of the window into the stormy evening. Although it was hardly autumn, leaves were gliding down from the trees like giant confetti. Rising and dropping as they were caught and released by the gusts, settling on the banks to roll like hoops or alight on the stream to be hurried along its surface, until finally disappearing under the footbridge. One birch tree was leaning badly, but he decided that if any should fall, none were likely to hit the cars.
The storm continued to increase in severity and as they walked home, they were blown about by the sudden gusts of wind as if some playful giant were taking a deep breath and blowing at them, using them for a game of skittles. As they walked along a dark, narrow section of the road, the creaking and groaning of the trees increased. Something in the wild sounds chilled her and she pulled back, afraid, but without knowing why, an atavistic fear leadening her limbs.
‘Come on, Rose Mary, let’s get home before one of these trees decides to give up the struggle and – Jesus!’
The rest of his words were drowned by the rushing sound of a tree falling, to rest on the hedges that edged the road. They staggered back in time to avoid the main trunk of the slender ash tree but a snapped branch caught Larry a glancing blow on the shoulder and he fell.
‘Larry!’ Rosemary screamed. The tree wasn’t a large one but it blocked all sight of him from her. She felt under the leaves, frantically calling his name. ‘Larry? Larry, darling? Are you all right?’
‘Shit!’ she heard through the wailing of the wind and the cracking of the settling branches. ‘Walking on these Goddamned roads is more hairy than jaywalking on Fifth Avenue!’
She smiled. He was clearly unharmed!
A car approached and stopped before hitting the fallen tree and it seemed no time before the police and the fire brigade had arrived and arrangements begun for the removal of the tree.
They hastened home when it was clear Larry was no more than slightly bruised. They laughed and made a joke of their adventure, hand in hand, running and shouting like children; calling up the wind, defying its fury. Larry went straight into the kitchen to make coffee as he always did, and soon after they went to bed.
They relaxed into sleep, with the wind lashing furiously at the house as if seeking entry. Branches were tap-dancing on the roof. Squally showers were beating a tattoo against the window panes. Then, at two o’clock, the wind suddenly rushed through the house. A door banged back against its hinges and the door to the loft fell down against the wall with a deafening bang.
They both sat up in bed and Rosemary clung to Larry.
‘What is it? Oh, Larry! Thank goodness you’re here.’
Larry reached over and switched on the bedside lamp but it didn’t work. He climbed out of bed, the sound of the wind filling the room with a ululating drone. He tried the wall switch unsuccessfully, then the landing, the second bedroom and the bathroom. All the lights in the house had failed.
‘It must be a power line brought down,’ he said, feeling for his clothes. ‘Stay there, I’ll just find my pants and go down to see what caused the crash though, there must be a window open.’
‘I checked them all.’ Rosemary shivered as she pulled her dressing gown on. ‘And what’s more, darling, I’m not staying here without you. If you’re going anywhere, I’m coming too!’
The banging led them through the house to the kitchen and to their alarm they saw that the back door was open and banging again and again against the wall.
‘But, it’s impossible,’ Larry said stupidly. ‘I made sure the door was locked and everything secure before we went upstairs.’
He took her hand and led her to the front door after relocking the back. The door was locked but the bolt was not thrust home.
‘I didn’t think it was necessary, not with me being here,’ he said. ‘But anyway, it’s the back door that’s been opened and that wa
s locked and bolted, you saw me do it.’
‘The house sounded angry,’ Rosemary said quietly as they went back to the living room. ‘I know it sounds fanciful, Larry, but d’you think the place can have a ghost?’
‘Hey, come on!’ He held her against him, her body trembling with cold and shock. ‘No, I do not!’
‘But what’s happening? I’ve lived here without incident for years, and now, since—’ She tried to remember the date when she first became aware she was being overheard, but Larry misunderstood her hesitation.
‘Since I came into your life, is that what you’re thinking?’
‘Larry, of course not!’ She stared at him in consternation. ‘I was trying to remember the date when I first thought someone was listening! Before the police found the linetapping equipment. It seems to have gone on for so long. Larry, how could I think it was you!’ She hugged him, shivering intensely, cold with the thought that he believed her capable of suspecting him of causing all the furore. ‘Not you, darling. Anyone else, but not you.’
She left him to make coffee and when she returned, he was sitting on the settee, a solemn expression on his handsome face.
‘Darling, it’s only your support that’s kept me on an even keel during these weeks,’ she said. She knelt beside him pleading with him to believe her. ‘I don’t believe for one moment that all this is anything to do with you. Believe me, please, Larry. If you abandon me, then I’ll never, ever, stay in this house again. Solving mysteries might be satisfying, but for me, all I want is to have you beside me. The puzzle solving I can happily leave to others.’
‘I’m sorry, Rosemary. I shouldn’t upset you more. It’s just that I love you and need you so much, I can’t bear the thought that you don’t feel the same.’
‘Darling Larry, I do,’ she whispered as he took her once again into his arms. ‘Whatever you’re involved in, I’m involved too.’ She was prepared to wait until he was ready to tell her the secret he was keeping from her. She wouldn’t ask again.
* * *
Dawn came, and the storm died with the darkness. The sky showed sun-edged clouds when Rosemary opened the curtains a little to help her wake. She returned to the settee where Larry’s concerned eyes were open and watching her. She knelt beside him and kissed him.
The sun came into the room and shone dazzlingly on something in the room. It puzzled Rosemary in a halfhearted, sleep-dulled way. She looked at the reflected light as her mind uncurled slowly from sleep, wondering what it could be. Daylight strengthened and she recognised the objects with a shout of disbelief.
On a chair near the fire where the early sun touched them, were light bulbs. By the size of the pile they made, every single light bulb from the house was there. Someone had come in while they were sleeping and taken each one out of its socket and piled them there to let them know they had been visited.
7
When Larry fully woke to Rosemary’s urgent shaking, he stared at the pile of light bulbs, rubbed his eyes and stared again. He examined them, then looked up at the empty socket with wide-eyed alarm. His first thoughts were the same as hers.
‘Rose Mary, this means that someone was here during the night while we were asleep!’ He ran to the back door which was closed and bolted, then went into every room, examining every inch of every cupboard, even opening the drawers. He searched the obvious places, the unlikely and the down right impossible, not once, but several times. There was nowhere a person of the most minimal proportions could be hidden. Then he looked up at the trap-door to the loft. He turned to Rosemary who, white-faced and breathless, had followed him around as he searched.
‘Could there be someone up there?’ she whispered.
‘I can’t think where else! Dammit, I’ve even looked up the chimneys,’ he whispered back. ‘Where’s your torch?’
‘Don’t Larry! Let’s call the police, he’s bound to be dangerous if he’s cornered!’
‘He’ll be dangerous, but not half as dangerous as I am!’ He took the torch she brought him from her bedroom. There was a chair in the study and he carried it and placed it below the trap-door.
‘He’s got the advantage,’ Rosemary pleaded. ‘You don’t stand a chance.’ She held her breath as he prepared to jump up into the dark space above them. ‘Anyone there would find it easy to strike at you! You’ll have no defence at all!’
Ignoring her, he stood on the chair and raised the flap-door into the attic. His hands on the edge, he hauled himself up and stood in the darkness, shooting beams of light all around him. Slowly, while Rosemary watched with fingers in her mouth to hold back a scream, he disappeared leaving only a flickering light for her to see.
‘Darling, are you all right?’ she whispered, afraid after only a moment of silence.
‘All right so far.’ She heard him shuffling his feet, stepping over objects, she heard the rustle of paper, held her breath when a box slid across the wooden planking, then cried with relief when his head appeared in the opening, smiling.
‘There’s no one here, and what’s more, there’s no way anyone can get from one house to another.’ He jumped down and she hugged him in relief.
‘What I thought might have happened,’ he went on, ‘was that in some very old houses, there’s no separation between the loft areas. There was one place I heard of where someone could walk the length of the street above the ceilings of unsuspecting neighbours. But,’ he said firmly to reassure her, ‘this is not the case here. This partition is the real McCoy, a brick wall that’s as solid as you could hope for between you and your neighbours.’
‘Then how did he get in?’
They went downstairs and Larry put the percolator on for coffee.
‘I have more than a suspicion it was me,’ he admitted. ‘I think I only locked the front door after we came back from the pub; I didn’t push home the bolts.’
‘Then you think someone already has a spare key?’
‘It seems impossible but what other explanation is there? I’m going out to see if the one we hid in the shed is still there. If it isn’t I’ll have the locks altered again. If it is, I’ll bring it in and put it in the Italian vase on the mantle, and there it stays! If you lock yourself out you’ll have to call the police to let you in!’
‘I’m calling the police now, to tell them about this.’
‘Perhaps I’m wrong, darling, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘But why not? Someone came in here while we were sleeping!’ She shuddered at the thought and repeated, ‘Came in here, stood in our bedroom, watched us while we slept, then took out all the light bulbs so we’d know he’d been here!’
‘He’s trying to frighten us.’
‘He’s succeeding!’
‘I mean that if he wished to harm us he’s had the opportunity. I think he’s a trickster, getting his excitement from troubling us. If we ignore the tricks he plays he’ll grow tired of them and perhaps think of some other foolish way to entertain himself.’
‘Or,’ Rosemary argued, ‘he might develop his ‘entertainment’ into something more dangerous for us! If we’re the spice in his life, he’ll want to increase the dose as the excitement fades, not leave it out altogether!’
‘Let’s give it another day or two, then, if we still feel the police should be informed, we’ll go to them and tell them all that’s happened.’
Doubtfully, Rosemary agreed.
Neither of them felt like going on the day out they had planned with such excitement.
‘But,’ Larry said when they had discussed it, ‘we’re still going! Dammit I can’t think what else we’d do. Sit here wondering if someone is going to come in and watch us? No, it’s creepy and we have to get out. A touch of Welsh mountain air is what we both need.’
‘How will I face coming back in?’ Rosemary shivered and looked about her as if the place was a prison from which she couldn’t escape. ‘If I go out I’ll never come back.’
‘Yes you will, I’ll be with you.’
‘I’m working in Aberystwyth. I promise I’ll be back here every evening before you are. You won’t be alone in the house, I promise.’
* * *
‘Why didn’t you call the police for goodness sake?’ Sally demanded, when Rosemary told her friends about the weekend’s happenings. ‘Yes, love,’ Megan agreed. ‘That should have been your first action. How can they help if you don’t tell them everything?’
‘You’re afraid Larry’s at the bottom of it all, are you?’ Sally demanded. ‘That’s stupid! If you suspect him, how can you allow him to share your home – let alone your bed!’
‘He isn’t responsible!’ Rosemary defended. ‘Although I think he might unwittingly be the reason for all this.’
‘Demand an explanation! Talk to the police, now!’ Sally insisted but Rosemary shook her head.
‘I wanted to call the police at first,’ Rosemary told her, ‘but we decided that someone was tormenting us for peculiar reasons of their own and we should disappoint him by not showing any reaction.’
‘But someone who could do such things might be dangerous. How can you tell what he’ll do next?’ Megan asked anxiously. ‘He might be unbalanced and he seems to be able to get in and out of your house as easily as walking down the street! Really, Rosemary, you’re risking serious trouble by allowing this to continue.’
‘If I were living there alone I’d have told them, and I doubt if I would ever sleep in the place again,’ Rosemary admitted, ‘but Larry is going to stay, at least until he goes back to America, and—’
‘When will that be?’ Megan asked softly. ‘Is that something I should, or shouldn’t ask?’
Search for a Shadow Page 9
