by Sarah Rayne
Oh, for goodness’ sake stop it! You’ve had a bash on the hand and it was hard enough to crack a bone and damage a tendon, and your mind’s playing tricks from the pain and the pill, that’s all!
He turned off the radio and the light and he was about to switch off the little electric fire when he caught a sound from outside. He went out into the hall and listened carefully. Nothing there. Imagination. He was about to go back into the study when the sound came again. And this time it was not imagination. This time it was the soft but unmistakable crunch of footsteps on the gravel path outside.
Michael stayed where he was. Someone was definitely out there. Someone was walking around the side of the house, and whoever it was was moving very stealthily indeed.
Might it be an ordinary, innocent caller? It was only six o’clock in the evening, after all. But local people must surely know that Deborah Fane had died and that the house was empty. A salesman, then? Somebody flogging encyclopedias or religion or canvassing for votes? But the house was a quarter of a mile from the road, and unless you knew it was there you would go straight past the turning.
That left the very sinister possibility that it was a burglar. Someone local who knew the house was empty and was going to take a chance on getting in and grabbing anything valuable or saleable. This was such a strong possibility that Michael felt a chill of fear for his own vulnerable condition. He glanced about him for something to use as a weapon. Or would discretion be the better part of valour, and would it be better to simply beat the hell out of it? His jacket, with the car keys in the pocket, was still in the hall; he could grab it and be through the main front door inside ten seconds. He tried to remember what kind of lock the front door had. An ordinary Yale, wasn’t it? Then all he had to do was flip it back and turn the latch. A dozen paces to his car and he could be away.
The footsteps had stopped, but the feeling of an unseen presence was still frighteningly strong. He’s still out there, thought Michael, and with the thought came a movement beyond the uncurtained kitchen window that sent his heart hammering against his ribs. A figure, unrecognizable from here, pressed up against the pane, and a hand came up and tapped lightly on the glass – so lightly that only someone near to the window could have heard it.
As an antidote to a damaged hand and a hefty dose of painkiller, the sight of that indistinct figure and the soft, fingernail tapping was electric. Michael forgot about feeling light-headed, and he forgot about the pain in his hand. His mind went into overdrive, because he had been right – there was a prowler out there, and he was looking in and making sure the place really was empty before breaking in. In another minute he would lever open the back door, or smash the window and climb through. Michael was no coward, but in his current state he was not sure if he would be able to deal with some desperate house-breaker, who might be high on drink or drugs.
Was it possible to sprint down the hall and be out through the front door without being seen or heard? He was just considering this when the most chilling sound yet reached him. A key was being turned very slowly and very carefully in the lock of the garden door. As Michael stared in horrified disbelief, the door began to inch open.
That sprint to the front door was no longer an option; Michael stepped back into the study, and got behind the door. There was a heavy pottery vase on a side table; if it came to a fight he could probably make use of it. But with luck the prowler would see the light from the electric fire, and would realize someone was in the house and beat it back into the night.
The small room was hot and claustrophobic and there was a smell of burning dust from the electric fire. Michael’s heart was beating so furiously that he had the absurd idea that the burglar would hear it. Like the Edgar Allen Poe story where the murdered heart beat so loudly it betrayed the killer.
He had expected the intruder to come into the hall, and every muscle of his body was tense with anticipation. But the intruder did not. He moved around the kitchen for a few moments, and then there was the unmistakable sound of the garden door opening and closing again, and of the key being turned in the lock. The stealthy footsteps went down the gravel path once more.
Michael let out a huge breath of relief, and after a moment went across to the window, opening the curtain the tiniest chink in order to look outside. Was the man walking down the lane to the main road? There had not been the sound of a car – or had there? The radio had been on and this was an old and solid house; he might not have heard a car driving up.
The intruder had not come in a car, or if he had, he had parked it near to the road. He was just coming around the side of the house, doing so quite briskly as if he had just completed a necessary task, and heading towards the lane. But as he came out of the shadows cast by the old beech trees, he paused and turned to look back. Michael froze, praying not to be seen.
The intruder did not see him, but Michael saw the intruder. The man who had spent barely five minutes inside the house – the house which he had entered by means of a key – was Edmund Fane. But it was an Edmund Fane without the prim, rather spinsterish exterior; this was an Edmund Fane with such malice in his face and with such cold mad brilliance in his eyes that if it had not been for recognizing the jacket, Michael might have believed it to be a complete stranger.
He watched Edmund walk away from the house, and when he judged him to have reached the main road, he let the curtain fall back, and sat down. He was acutely puzzled. Why on earth would Edmund Fane steal into the house in that furtive way, spent those three or four minutes in the kitchen, and then creep out again, locking the door behind him?
Unless Fane had found the mobile phone, and had returned it. Was it possible that he had slipped quietly into the house, not wanting to wake Michael in case he was zonked out after taking the pills? This did not entirely square with Michael’s impression of Edmund Fane, but it was the only thing he could think of. In that case his phone should be lying somewhere prominent, perhaps with an explanatory note. This would be very good indeed.
But he had barely taken two steps into the hall when a strong suffocating stench met him, sending him instinctively dodging back into the study. For a moment he was unable to identify it, but whatever it was, it was ringing loud alarm bells in his mind. Something on fire? No, not fire—But something as dangerous as fire—
And then he knew what it was. A strong smell of gas. Inside the kitchen, gas was escaping and filling up the house.
Michael did not stop to think. He tore the sling off his hand and crammed it over his mouth as a makeshift mask. Then he ran into the kitchen, banging the door back against the wall.
Even in those few minutes the gas had built up, and it seized his throat and lungs so that he gasped and breathed in the cotton of the sling for a moment. His eyes streamed, but he realized that the old-fashioned gas cooker near the door was hissing out gas, and that all four rings had been turned full on and the oven door propped wide open. That bastard Edmund Fane had come quietly into the house and turned the gas on!
Keeping the sling across his mouth, he wrenched the switches around and slammed the oven door shut. But his mind had already flown ahead to all the various electrical connections in the house, and then had flown back to the surveyor’s head-shaking report on the state of the wiring. Very antiquated, the report had said, in fact downright dangerous, and the whole house needed rewiring. Michael was no electrician but you did not need a PhD to realize that belching gas and faulty electrical wiring were a lethal combination. If the gas fumes were to reach a flawed electrical circuit – or even, dear God, the electric fire that was still blazing in the study—
He wasted several valuable seconds trying to unlatch the garden door before he remembered that Edmund Fane had locked it, and grabbed a large saucepan, flinging it hard at the kitchen window. Several panes of glass shattered at once, and the cold night air streamed in. Michael, still trying to keep the makeshift mask over his nose and mouth, ran back into the study, knocking the switch of the electric fire off,
and then dived through the hall, snatching up his jacket on the way. As he half fell through the front door, he was expecting the gas fumes to hit some worn-away section of wiring at any minute and the whole house to blow up.
But it did not. Taking deep shuddering gulps of the cold clean air, he reached his car, and unlocking it, slid thankfully inside. The engine fired at once, and he fumbled for the gears. This was going to be hellishly difficult; his left hand was throbbing with pain, and he would be lucky if he could change gear. He did not care. Adrenaline was flooding his body, and he would drive all the way to the White Hart in first gear with the hazard lights flashing if he had to. He depressed the clutch, knocked the car into first gear with his right hand, and then turned the wheel. It resisted slightly and then turned, but there was a grinding sound from somewhere near the back. Michael tried again, and encountered the same resistance and the same grating noise. Like bare steel on stone. Steel— Oh God.
He got out, casting a wary glance towards the house and scanning the dark lane. There were plenty of places for Fane to be hiding, but nothing stirred anywhere and there was no longer that indefinable sense of not being alone. He walked to the back of the car, expecting to find the exhaust pipe on the ground. The exhaust was intact but the cause of the problem was obvious; the tyre on the driver’s side was absolutely flat, in fact it was right down to the wheel’s rim. Presumably it had been punctured by one of the sharp stones on the lane’s unmade surface, or – and this seemed more likely – Edmund Fane had jabbed something sharp into the rubber, as part of his incomprehensible plan.
But I can’t help it, said Michael to the car. You’ve got to be driven: you’re the only means I’ve got of reaching a phone. And I’m certainly not staying out here for Fane to come back and see if I’ve succumbed to the gas fumes, and maybe have another crack at me when he finds I’m still alive.
The steering groaned again against the weight of the flat tyre, but Michael managed to drag the steering wheel around so that the car was at least facing the right way. The wheel rim screeched like a soul in torment, and it would probably not last for more than a few miles, but providing it got Michael to the village, or, at worst, to a house with a phone, he did not care if he tore the car to shreds.
He switched on the headlights and the hazard warning flashers, bounced the car down the lane, and wrenched it on to the high road in the direction of the village.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Edmund was glad to reach his own house, and to feel its clean, well-ordered ambience fold reassuringly about him. He switched on lights and picked up his post, which as usual had been delivered after he left the house. One of the disadvantages of living in a small market town was that you got a very late postal delivery; he seldom saw his private mail until he got home each evening. He had complained a number of times about this, but nothing had ever been done to improve things.
He could not decide when to go back to Deborah’s house to check that his plan had worked and that Sallis really was dead. Would early tomorrow morning be better than later tonight? If he was seen going back there late tonight, it might look a bit odd, even with the very good excuse of returning the mobile phone. It might be better to leave it until the morning. Perhaps he would drive out there before going into the office. He had better not leave it any longer than that, though, because presumably there was no automatic cut-off and the gas would just go on escaping. He did not want to end up gassing half the county, for goodness’ sake!
He was as sure as he could be that Sallis had not heard him steal into Deborah Fane’s house and turn all the gas rings on. If that light careful tapping on the kitchen window had happened to attract his attention, Edmund had had his excuse all ready. He had come to return the mobile phone which he had only just found. And he had tapped at the window first in case Sallis had been asleep – a tap light enough not to disturb a deep sleep but loud enough to alert someone who was awake.
But Sallis had not heard. Presumably he had taken the pills provided by the hospital and fallen asleep, either in the upstairs bedroom or on the deep old couch in the little study – Edmund had seen the glow of the electric fire from that room. It did not much matter where Sallis was because the gas would fill up the house very quickly. Would it affect the old electrical wiring and cause a fire as well? Edmund supposed this was possible.
He switched on the oven and while he waited for the remains of last night’s casserole to heat up, he sat down to consider Sallis’s mobile phone. He had spoken more or less truthfully when he had said he was not familiar with mobile phones, but it was easy enough to see the principle of making and receiving calls, and to call up the directory of saved numbers. Whom did Sallis phone? What kind of friends and business associates did he have? It might be as well to know: to be prepared for any questions that might come hurtling out of the unknown after Sallis’s death was made known. If Michael Sallis had family who might know the truth about Ashwood – who might still talk about it, or hand down the memories – Edmund needed to know.
But when he scrolled curiously through the list of names and numbers there did not seem to be very much of interest, and there certainly did not seem to be any family names, which had been his main concern. There were various hostels and homeless centres and housing associations, which would be connected with CHARTH, and there were several numbers casually listed under first names. Edmund supposed these would be friends. Most were in London, but some were not. A number was listed for Francesca Holland, which was a surprise: Edmund frowned over that for a moment, and then moved on. Doctor, dentist, bank. One or two restaurant numbers, a taxi firm in North London. It was interesting how you could build up a picture of someone’s life from their stored phone numbers.
The oven timer pinged, and Edmund went back to the kitchen and ladled his food on to a plate. He liked to have a proper nourishing meal in the evenings. Normally he had a glass of wine or a small whisky as well, but tonight he would not do so in case he did decide to drive back to Deborah’s house later on. He was always very strict with himself over not drinking when he was driving.
It was just after seven when the phone in Trixie’s house rang, and Francesa’s heart sank. Michael was not coming. Probably it had been just a casual invitation that he would have kept if something better had not turned up, and the kiss and the intimacy in Trixie’s kitchen had been just casual as well. The something better had turned up, and now he was phoning with a polite excuse.
But Michael had not thought better of it, and he was not phoning with a polite excuse. He explained that he had had to drive up to Deborah Fane’s house early that morning, and there had been an accident to his hand which meant he could not drive back. And even if he had been able to drive, his car had been vandalized.
‘I’m so sorry, Francesca,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d be back in London in plenty of time to meet you. But I’m stuck up here, and there’s no means of getting back until tomorrow at the earliest. And even then—’
Fran suddenly had the feeling that he was choosing his words with extreme care. She said, ‘Michael – is anything wrong? I mean – you are all right, aren’t you?’
‘I’m furious at being stranded with a ruined car and a mangled hand,’ he said. ‘And I’m even more furious at not seeing you.’
The thought of Michael being in pain upset Fran so much that she said, without thinking, ‘How will you get back? By train? Or shall I drive up there tomorrow?’
There was silence. Damn, thought Fran, I didn’t mean that to come out. I’ve overdone it. He’ll say, no, it’s fine, thank you, everything’s already fixed up.
But Michael was already saying, ‘Oh Francesca, you have no idea how much I’d like that. But what about your classes?’
‘None until Thursday afternoon. So it really wouldn’t be a problem. I could drive you back.’ Fran was glad to think she had finally managed to get her car fixed and driven back to London by a helpful local garage. ‘It’d be a sort of quid pro quo for you driving
me back to London that day, if you remember that.’
‘Of course I remember it,’ he said softly, and there, without warning, was the sudden slide down of his voice into a caress.
So as not to get too carried away, Fran said in a practical voice, ‘If I set off fairly early – around half past seven or eight, say – I’d be there by mid-morning. Where exactly are you? Still at Mrs Fane’s house?’
‘No, I’m at the White Hart in the village, although God knows how I got the car this far, because—D’you really mean it about driving up? I’d love you to be here, but it’s over hill, over dale—’
‘Through brush, through brier, through flood, through fire,’ said Fran promptly.
‘There’s a beautiful thought. All right, I give in. We could have lunch somewhere and not start back until evening. Or if you bring a toothbrush and some pyjamas I could even book a room here for you for the night, and we could drive back the next day if you’d like that. You’d still be back for Thursday afternoon and it would give me a bit longer to – sort out the car.’
He doesn’t just mean the car, thought Fran at once. Something’s happened. But he doesn’t want to tell me yet – or at least not over the phone.
Michael was saying, ‘I’d better give you directions to the White Hart, hadn’t I? Have you got a pen? Oh, and I’ll give you the phone number here as well in case you get stuck anywhere.’
‘OK, I’ve got all that,’ said Fran a moment later.
‘Good. I won’t hand you the line about keeping the lamps burning for your arrival, especially if it’ll be mid-morning when you get here. But I’ll be looking out for you. Drive carefully, Francesca darling. I’ll be waiting.’
