‘Easy, love. She was dead when she went in. Even a quick glance told me that. No abrasions to the hands. And the clothes are modern. Long hair, held back with a ribbon. It’s pretty easy to guess that she was killed sometime in the middle of the twentieth century.’
‘When Harry Upshawe died, in other words.’
‘About then, yes.’
‘It can’t be a coincidence.’
‘One wouldn’t think so.’
Belatedly, I remembered Mr Bates and asked Alan about him. ‘Is he all right, Alan?’
‘He will be. It was just a faint. Jim and Ed got him down to the kitchen, where it’s warm. I’m sure his wife will look after him. He’ll be all right,’ Alan repeated.
I sighed, a long, shuddering sigh. ‘What are we going to do, Alan? Just this morning I said to Pat, this can’t go on. But what options do we have?’
‘Very few, but you’re right, it can’t go on. Somehow we must get in touch with the outside world. I have a ghost of— I have a faint idea. It may work, and it may not, but it’s worth a try.’
‘Anything’s worth a try. You’re surely not thinking of a boat, though, are you? Because the river’s way too dangerous until it calms down.’
‘No, not a boat. Fireworks.’
I thought I’d heard him wrong, or had gone crazy from shock. I looked at him dumbly.
‘Fireworks and flares are very much the same thing, you know, and flares are always a danger signal. If we can somehow touch them off, it might attract some attention.’
‘But . . . the rain. And it’s Guy Fawkes Night. Even if you can get them to fire, won’t people just think they’re part of the celebration?’
‘I don’t know, love. We have to try. It’s the only chance we have. I cannot deal with multiple murders on my own, even with you to help.’
‘Two of them are old. And Dave might not have been murdered.’
I was grasping at straws, and we both knew it. We had landed squarely in the middle of a horrible situation, a nightmare, and I wasn’t sure how – or if – we were ever going to get out.
‘What have you done with . . . her . . . it?’
Alan looked at me, considering. ‘I’m not sure you want to know.’
‘Oh. Walled it up again?’ I gulped and pushed the picture firmly out of my head.
Alan nodded. ‘It seemed the most sensible thing to do, until we can get help. I made sure the door was firmly locked, and I have the key.’ He patted his pocket and turned to Tom and Lynn. ‘Shall we go down? I for one could use a good stiff drink.’
That seemed to be the general feeling. We assembled as usual in the kitchen, where Joyce was holding forth, for once.
‘I’m not quite sure what we’ll have for dinner, folks. Mr Bates is still feeling unwell, and Mrs Bates is, naturally, looking after him. So I’m mistress of my own kitchen again! There will be plenty to eat, but it may be rather . . . peculiar. Certainly not what Mrs Bates has accustomed us to.
‘Now there’s something I want to say to you all. I’ve been a terrible hostess all weekend. OK, OK.’ She held up her hand at the protests that arose. ‘I’m not going to apologize for anything, because you’re all friends and you all make allowances for . . . um . . . circumstances beyond our control. Including what the insurance companies call an Act of God. But here we are, and here we stay, perforce, until the army or somebody rescues us, or the river goes down.
‘I won’t suggest that we forget all that has happened in the past several days. We wouldn’t be human if we could do that. But Jim and I moved here because we love England and the English, and one of their traits we admire most is the stiff upper lip. So I intend to emulate them and suggest that we try to relegate all the unpleasantness – how’s that for fine British understatement? – to the back of our minds, and spend the rest of our time here like civilized people. Shipwrecked on an island, if you will, but civilized. And to that end, Jim has opened the bar.’
She made a grand gesture, a sort of visual ‘ta-da!’ Jim, his face fixed in a determined smile, stood in front of a grand array of bottles, including a couple of rare and expensive small-batch bourbons that I had never before seen in England. I gave Alan a startled glance. He smiled and went to get some for both of us.
My mother had a philosophy that guided her through many a rough time. ‘Only worry when you can do something about it – whatever it is. Then it’s not worry, it’s thinking things through, trying to decide what’s best. When there’s nothing you can do, it’s just plain worry, and it’s pointless and self-destructive.’
There was certainly nothing I could do about our present predicament, and I’ve always enjoyed bourbon. Alan learned to like it years before I met him, when he was on an assignment in Washington, DC. It’s still a fairly unusual taste in England, where scotch (called just whisky, with no e) or gin is the preferred spiritous liquor. I like them all, but when I need a stiffener, bourbon is my choice.
And so we sat and drank and talked. In the interests of acting ‘civilized’, we avoided all talk of corpses, skeletons, mummies and assorted horrors. We felt free to talk of storms; surely the weather was a staple of drawing-room conversation. The English talked about the 1987 hurricane, a storm of epic proportions that paled, however, by comparison with the one we had just suffered. The Americans chimed in with ‘can-you-top-this’ stories, a competition I felt I won with the famous Blizzard of ’78 that buried parts of Indiana with over three feet of snow in a single night – though some of the tornado tales came close.
I fear we all drank a bit more than we should. Perhaps it was inevitable, given the strain we’d been living under. It wasn’t gone, either. We had chosen to ignore our problems for a little while, but they’d be back in the morning, in full force. So it wasn’t surprising that we grew a little too loud, a little frenzied, a little too like Blitz parties or dancing on the deck of the Titanic. Ed started coming up with more and more outrageous puns, with Pat topping them. I found myself laughing so hard at one of Ed’s groaners that I realized it was well past the time I should have switched to soda water.
I don’t remember who first noticed that the rain had stopped, or who broached the idea that we should build a bonfire and burn the guy, but once suggested, the scheme caught hold and spread, if the simile can be forgiven, like wildfire. If we had all been entirely sober, cooler heads might have pointed out that our supply of dry wood was limited, and it might be better to save it to keep us warm until power was restored.
Or then again, they might not. We had been making do, camping out (if in luxurious surroundings) for what seemed like months. We were all in a mood to cut loose, and what better excuse than Guy Fawkes Night?
So the men broke into agitated discussion of the best site for the fire, and exactly how to build it, and whether to use any of the newly-fallen wood (‘. . . but some of it was dead anyway – that’ll be dry enough to burn . . .’). They finally decided on a hilltop overlooking the river, on the far west side of the property, and trooped to the outbuildings to find wood.
The women, meanwhile, flocked like homing pigeons to the kitchen to make piles of sandwiches with whatever we could find. The Aga was nearly cold, so there was no hope of cooking anything, but there was plenty of cheese and ham and cold roast beef, and if bread was in short supply, crackers (in the American sense) and biscuits (in the English sense) would do. I managed to find some popcorn tucked away in a pantry and popped it, sort of, over the dying kitchen fire as my contribution to the decidedly unconventional supper. Some of it burned and quite a lot didn’t pop – I’d never have succeeded as a pioneer woman – but with lots of butter melted over the top it smelled great and would taste OK.
Joyce asked Pat to ‘help her find’ the guy. ‘My dear woman, if you’ve forgotten where you put it, how can I help?’
‘Well, I think I know where it is, but . . .’
Pat uttered something between a laugh and a snort. ‘Ah. I see. Yes, I’ll come and help keep the vampires at bay
.’
Well, I would have been afraid myself to tramp through that dark house alone.
As we packed up everything to take out to the bonfire, I ate a few crackers, on the principle that starch soaks up alcohol. I don’t know if the theory worked, since the stuff was obviously in my blood stream already, but my head did feel a little clearer as Lynn and I tramped up the hill together, baskets in hand.
‘If anyplace is dry enough for a fire, that hilltop should be,’ I commented, somewhat breathlessly. The hill was steep.
‘Mmm. Did anyone tell the rest where we were going? The vicar, and the Bateses?’
‘I heard Jim say he was going to. I wish the vicar had been able to come. I think he might be rather fun in other circumstances. But obviously he couldn’t leave Laurence for so long.’
Lynn, who was leading the way with a lantern, stopped so suddenly that I stepped on her heel.
I stopped too, perforce, and put down my heavy basket. ‘Sorry! What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. I mean, everything, but nothing new. Dorothy, what’s going on here? Why are all these awful things happening? I tried to cooperate with Joyce, poor thing, and pretend this was still a party, but you mentioned Laurence and it all came crashing back down on us. I don’t understand anything about it, but I thought you would have figured it out by now.’
‘Hey, have a heart! I’ve been here . . . what, three days?’
‘Or a century.’
‘I know, but things just keep on happening, like . . . like that popcorn. I barely thought I had a handle on the skeleton – so to speak – when up popped more awfulness. Dave Harrison died, and Julie hid in that shack . . . and Mike . . . and Laurence – poor man, I hope he’ll make it.’
‘He’d stand a lot better chance if he could get some medical care.’
‘He’s at the heart of this, Lynn. That’s the only thing I’m sure of. He and the house are the centre of the whole mess.’
‘How do you work that out?’
I thought about that. ‘I’m not sure, actually. I hadn’t stopped to follow my train of thought. You know how your mind jumps around, relating things that don’t seem to have anything to do with each other?’
‘I know your mind does.’
‘That,’ I said with dignity, ‘was uncalled for.’
Lynn giggled.
‘Anyway, I haven’t thought it all out, but I know – I feel in my bones, Lynn – that this house is at root of everything.’
‘You,’ said Lynn, picking up her basket and continuing up the hill, ‘are getting as bad as Ed. Bones and roots, indeed.’
That didn’t deserve a reply. Lynn was back to pretending it was a party. I saved my breath for the climb.
NINETEEN
The men were just lighting the bonfire when we got to the top of the hill. They had somehow contrived a huge pile of wood, and they must have doused it with kerosene, because when they tossed in a couple of matches, the flames leapt up immediately.
It was beautiful, and warm – hot, in fact. I hadn’t been truly warm for days, but after a few moments I had to move away from the fire. It was also more than a little frightening. The ancients thought of fire as one of the four elements, and there was certainly something elemental about this fire, something alive and menacing, as it devoured its fodder, roaring, crackling, almost smacking its lips. Tongues of fire, the Bible called them, and certainly one thought of tongues as the fire licked out to find something new to consume.
‘A good fire,’ said Alan, by my side.
‘Yes,’ I said a little doubtfully. ‘But is it a good idea?’
He looked at me enquiringly.
‘I mean – it’s Guy Fawkes. Bonfire Night. If anyone sees this, will it make them think everything is normal over here? Just the folks at the big house having a good time?’
‘Might do. On the other hand, bonfires aren’t as common as they used to be. And they were once signals, you know.’
‘I do know. But they could stand for either good or ill, if I remember. Come, all is well, or stay away – danger.’
‘Remember your mother, love. We can’t do anything about the way the message is taken, so enjoy the fire. I believe Lynn brought some marshmallows to toast. You Americans do eat the oddest things.’
So we had our picnic and ate our marshmallows (at least the Americans did), and tried not to think about bodies piling up back at the house, about our continued isolation, about Mike and his grand, doomed gesture.
We tried not to think about those things. I, for one, wasn’t successful.
Neither was Alan. For when we had eaten what we wanted of the not very wonderful food, and the guy had been dutifully admired (it was an effigy of a former, not very popular prime minister) and burned, and the bonfire was beginning to die down, Alan went quietly to Jim’s side and spoke briefly to him. Jim looked slightly startled, then nodded and took off down the hill, almost at a run, Alan right behind him.
Lynn, who was sitting on the ground close to the fire, got up with one of the lithe, graceful movements I envied, and came over to me. ‘What are they up to?’ she asked bluntly.
‘I don’t know for sure, but . . . well, Alan had an idea this afternoon. I’m not going to tell you about it, in case it doesn’t come off. If it does, you won’t need to ask.’
And that was all I would say.
In a few minutes Jim and Alan trudged back up the hill, carrying between them a large box, which they carried near the fire and set down.
Jim then climbed up on top of the box and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ in a voice I’d never heard before from him, a voice that reminded me he was a highly paid, valued executive of something-or-other.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he repeated, a little more quietly now that he had everyone’s attention. ‘We were to have had a fireworks display tonight. Unfortunately, those plans were cancelled by the storm and . . . other events. However, Alan has reminded me that fireworks and flares are essentially the same – pyrotechnics, both, one simply more spectacular than the other.
‘We need, pretty badly, some communication with the outside world, and there seems to be only one way to, possibly, attract the attention of someone in Branston Village. Alan and I propose to set off some rockets, the least flamboyant of my collection, in an SOS pattern. If someone sees and understands, our isolation may be nearly at an end.’
‘If,’ said Pat with unusual sombreness.
‘Yes, if. We can but try. So I’ll ask you all, please, to step back at least thirty feet. That’s ten metres to you politically correct Brits,’ he added with a ghost of a grin. ‘Neither of us is an expert at this, and we don’t want to set anybody on fire or put any eyes out.’
So we moved back obediently, the six of us. Pat and Ed stood together, while Tom and Lynn and I kept Joyce company. Six of us. There should have been a crowd there, the other five of our house party, and the Bateses, and however many came from the village. And the display should have been beautiful, fabulous, not a few puny rockets for a puny few people.
We watched in silence as Jim picked out nine smallish rockets and lined them up in groups of three. Then Alan, using a long match, touched flame to the fuses of the first three, allowing a second or two between.
Ffft. Ffft. Ffft. The first three went off in rapid succession and exploded, with loud reports, in showers of red sparks.
The next three, lit at longer intervals. Ffft. Silence. Ffft. Silence. Ffft. Explosions. Sparks.
Then the final volley.
‘We’ll do another set,’ said Jim. ‘Stay where you are until we’re done.’
After all the sparks had died away and the smell of gunpowder had dissipated, we waited on the hill. Waited for what? I wasn’t sure. For some response, I suppose, some sign that our message had been seen and understood.
There was nothing. No answering flare, no gunshots, no – what – smoke signals?
After a while we drifted back to the house and went to bed.
‘He’s awake!’
‘Mmm.’ I turned over and pulled a pillow over my head to shut out the unbearable light. Alan pulled it off.
‘He’s awake, love.’
‘I’m not,’ I mumbled. ‘And I have a headache.’
‘Then have some coffee and a painkiller. I’m going to talk to Laurence.’
He didn’t slam the door. Alan doesn’t slam doors. But he closed it with a definitive click that penetrated my consciousness. I sat up, squinting against the light, hands to my throbbing temples. Ooooh! How much had I had to drink last night, anyway?
Then, finally, his words reached my brain.
Laurence. He was going to talk to Laurence. It was Laurence who was awake!
I fell back on to the pillows. I was in no shape to cope with the implications.
Furthermore, I didn’t have to. I was supposed to be having a nice holiday. Let somebody else deal with Laurence, somebody who didn’t have a hangover. And what an undignified condition for a respectable woman my age! It had been years since I’d got myself in this state. I certainly knew better, but . . . well, put it down to stress. In any case, I needed coffee. I needed ibuprofen. Then I was going back to bed to nurse my aching head. I groped for my bathrobe and made my cautious way down to the kitchen.
No one was there, thank heaven. I didn’t want to talk. I wasn’t sure I could. There was, however, a large Thermos on the table. As I hoped, it contained good strong coffee.
After three ibuprofen and two cups of coffee, I acknowledged the fact that I couldn’t just go back to bed. I was not only, I hoped, a respectable woman but a responsible one, and hangover or not, I had obligations. Several people were depending, at least in part, on me to help ferret out the truth.
Ferrets were rat-catchers. Well, there was at least one rat i’ this particular arras, and he needed to be caught.
What, I wondered with gross irrelevance, was an arras?
I hoped not a hidden room. I did not intend to think about hidden rooms.
Enough! I told my wandering mind. Get dressed, madam, and then be up and doing, with a heart for any fate.
A Dark and Stormy Night Page 13
