The Amber Shadows

by Lucy Ribchester

  But he had a slick answer. ‘He’s holding it for a fellow in London who’s worried about the Blitz. Shipped the whole set of family crockery up to the country. You know how these things work.’ She didn’t. But she nodded.

  Something about his nonchalance rang oddly, but she wasn’t quite sure why. There were limited nefarious things you could do with paintings. She told herself she’d been watching too much Hitchcock.

  ‘They’re shipping out paintings from various museums too. In case of invasion. Going to a sort of hoarding station, caves, you know. It’s been a project for a while, but . . . hallo—’ He broke off and gave a small double whistle.

  A whistle returned from the road. She hadn’t heard the approach, but now she looked back there was a car with its headlights switched on very dimly. A blue glow cast Felix’s features into strange shadows.

  ‘Give us a hand, old girl?’

  The rain was still hammering sidelong in sharp needles and hit their faces hard as they scurried, two hands on each side of the frame.

  The man driving the motor car got out and rushed to help. He had on a thin mackintosh that sopped already at the collar and shoulders. They made a little pantomime of English gents, calling each other ‘old chap’ and shaking hands while they talked about the cold.

  ‘Out on the razzle tonight, then?’ the man in the wet mac asked. Who on earth said ‘razzle’? Perhaps, she thought, Cary Grant might, at his most villainous.

  Felix hefted the painting into the rear seat of the car, stood back and tapped the roof twice. The man heaved himself back in and the car crawled very slowly away from the kerb. As it picked up pace, sputtering the dirt, the gloom took them both again. Felix removed from his pocket a heavy and elaborate cigarette lighter. He twisted it in his palms for a second, then dropped it back.

  ‘No use bothering about that in this weather.’ He looked at the door of the house and Honey had the impression that he might be considering if it was possible to ask her inside. She was considering how she could decline, when she felt his hand on her wrist, very gently.

  ‘Come on, the dog’s inside. I’ll fetch him and we can go for a walk.’

  ‘In this?’ She gestured around her, to what, she wasn’t sure. The cold? The rain? The war?

  ‘Greyhounds don’t stop needing to walk because it’s raining. Wait here.’ Being close to him, in those few minutes her senses had sharpened, the way senses do in the wet, and as he passed her his scent drew her in; musk, leather and something like turpentine. She felt like an idiot for her suspicions.

  He opened the door of the squat building, letting a buttermilk warmth slide out into the night. ‘In there?’ she said. ‘You live in there?’

  ‘Wait under the eaves, will you,’ he said. ‘You’ll soak. I’ll bring you an umbrella.’

  Mindful of the ARP wardens who would fine you for even a chink of light, she pulled the door until the glow faded into amber shadows. Down on the road she could hear the beginnings of laughter and singing in choral harmony. A concert must have just come out, or a rehearsal. Cold breath was fa-la-la-la-ing Christmas carols, and snippets of Handel’s Messiah. It had only been three nights since the revue, when Moira had taken her by the arm and asked her about sweethearts. How swiftly things could change.

  She thought then of how many things there were a person needed to keep in her head all at once: people who were far away, people she was only just acquainted with. How was it that she was able to walk a dog and talk to a man when Moira was in bed half-conscious and fearful of the future? How was it that a building that had given her the terrors three nights ago could be the billet of a man she knew? She felt suddenly uneasy about Felix again and had the urge to run, when the door opened and a thin silver muzzle with a wet black nose blew breath onto the back of her fingers.

  ‘Nijinsky.’ She felt his silk brow. How the touch of a dog could make a person feel normal again. She took one of his ears between two of her fingers and slicked them along it. The rain had begun to ease off the worst of its assault but Felix handed her an umbrella anyway and propped up the collar of his coat. Nijinsky shook his hindquarters as soon as he was free of the front door. He was wearing a slip of the same oilcloth as the painting, with a cut-out hole for his head, tied round his absurd little waist with a piece of string.

  ‘You made him a coat.’

  ‘He’s only a runty thing.’

  ‘It’s not as good as the one you made yourself.’

  He laughed. ‘Shall we go this way, or do you want to cut through the churchyard?’

  ‘I don’t mind the churchyard.’

  ‘You’re not afraid of the coffins?’ He grinned.

  It struck her as odd that he didn’t say ‘ghosts’ or ‘bodies’, but she smiled anyway. ‘They’re no more spooky than stage scenery banged together,’ she said, and took the arm he offered.

  The dog bounced, ears alert, sniffing the air and the ground in quick succession and struggling to walk at heel. The umbrella he had given her wouldn’t open.

  ‘Here, give me that.’ He wrestled with it for a few seconds, shaking out the spokes, then gave up and leaned it against a tree. ‘That’s that then.’ She caught his sidelong glance, the hand on the belt of his coat, as if he was about to loosen the knot and offer it. Then he dropped the hand again; the offer, if it was ever there, was put back. The rain had begun to turn into spittle anyway.

  ‘You’re on days at the moment?’ he asked.

  ‘Switching to nights.’

  ‘When?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘I’m not about to ask what you do. I’m not so much of a dolt. Here, shall we take this path? I’ll walk you all the way to your front door.’ Dead winter branches reached out from between the headstones, along with soft yew and other evergreens. She tried to keep an eye on her feet for the mud and slippery leaves. The air was frigid with a cold humidity left hanging after the rain, and her hair clung in threads to her face and neck. There was a small amount of moon; the clouds had cleared.

  They passed a thriving cluster of bushes and Felix said, ‘Thankfully they haven’t turned the graveyards into vegetable patches. Yet.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘You’re quiet, aren’t you? I don’t believe in the few times we’ve chatted you’ve given away much about yourself at all. Except that you like dogs. I know that much.’

  ‘Why did you want to know about my working hours?’ She raised her glance to him but his face was obscured by shadow. She could only see the sharp tip of his nose.

  She was ready this time for his response. ‘Because I wanted to ask if you would consider coming to the cinema with me one night? If we could tie our shifts together.’ He stopped walking. As she gathered her bearings she realised they were beside the church door. It was slightly ajar. The stained glass had been blocked with blackout blinds but there was a thin red glow coming from inside; someone burning candles, incense, rearranging the flowers or prayer books. She looked to her other side and saw moss-bitten headstones.

  ‘You do pick the strangest place to ask a girl out.’

  ‘I’m not the one who suggested the British Restaurant for its reasonable meals.’

  ‘What do you want to see?’ She felt colour in her cheeks. She tried to look casually at him but he had that firm stare he’d worn in the Park grounds earlier in the day. Mr de Winter. It popped into her head all of a sudden. Then just as swiftly she remembered what Mr de Winter had done to his first wife.

  He broke the gaze and shrugged. ‘Anything you like. A musical?’

  ‘I don’t like musicals.’

  ‘Just as well, neither do I.’

  She gathered courage to smile. Her heart was beating unfathomably fast.

  ‘Look, we don’t have to go and see a film. It’s just I thought you liked—’ He began to walk slowly again. ‘It doesn’t have to be a film. We could go to one of the Christmas concerts. In the town, not at the Park. See enough of that place.’

  Honey consi
dered him for a second. She tried to remember whether she had ever mentioned cinema to him before. How would he know . . .? That night, the first night they met, she’d been at the flicks. Perhaps she’d said something about it . . . ‘There’s a new Hitchcock coming,’ she said. ‘Shadow of a Doubt. It’s a crime story. Want to see that?’

  ‘You don’t get enough horror in your day-to-day life, is that it? Is Mr Hitchcock required to supplement your nerves with fear?’

  ‘No, it’s . . .’ She hadn’t thought until then about why she might like watching frightening movies, alone in the dark. Sometimes twice in a row.

  Why had she watched Suspicion twice that night? It was to make sure of Cary Grant’s innocence, because she didn’t believe him. She hadn’t wanted to step outside the cinema thinking a woman would be murdered inside it the moment the film finished. She needed to know it was safe to leave her alone with him. Or was it just because it was late and it was something to do? Or was she so afraid of the film that she thought by stepping outside the cinema she would be murdered? That perhaps in the blackout, and the cold and the wartime crumbling laws, perhaps there would be a young man waiting for her, just as handsome, just as charming . . .

  ‘I like to be frightened,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a strange thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why do so many people read detective novels? They can’t all be looking for inspiration to plot the perfect murder.’

  ‘Is that why you think people read detective novels?’ Felix laughed as he held open the graveyard gate that led to the main road. ‘Curious. On the contrary I think people want to see the world restored to safety. There are always clues in a crime novel. The villain always makes a slip. You always know they’ll be caught. Red herrings too, of course, but it’s the amount of information rather than the lack of it you get. Most detectives I shouldn’t think have that luxury. Most detectives suffer from a lack of information.’

  ‘Bosh,’ said Honey. ‘Most murders are extremely dull and easily solved. It’s much harder in a detective novel. That’s what makes it fun. So elaborate there’s barely a logical trace to anyone who did it.’

  ‘But there’s only ever one solution, isn’t there? And it’s all very neatly wrapped up. You see that’s where real crimes are different. There are usually a number of possibilities, often you’ll never truly know. Beyond reasonable doubt, that’s what they say to a jury, isn’t it? Because in real crime there are no definites, no flashbacks. It’s that maddening fact that drives you lot to your Christies and your Hitchcocks. You want reassurance, not thrills.’

  ‘You lot,’ Honey muttered. The moon had dipped behind a cloud, casting them into darkness again. She had taken his arm earlier as the ground dipped and she hadn’t yet let go. His coat felt rough. Day-old soap came in warm drifts from under his collar, but she couldn’t see him.

  ‘What do you mean, you lot?’ she pressed. ‘Don’t you like a good murder?’

  ‘I prefer opera,’ he said, and though she still couldn’t see his face she had the impression from the direction of his breath on her cold cheeks that he had turned to look at her. The thought of her mother squirmed between them for a second and she felt an unexpected panic, something that made her step a little quicker. Her cork heels slid precariously on the wet pavement. He has my arm, she thought. Vm safe if I fall.

  ‘Steady now. I know Puccini’s not for everyone.’ He laughed and then quickly said, ‘If you read detective novels you must know how to plan the perfect murder. What would you do? Ice pick through the heart? Melts and there’s no weapon left. Isn’t that the classic? Or would it be better to hire a hit man with a secret identical twin? That way your man would have an alibi.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Honey. ‘I think anything strange like that, anything that draws attention to the murder means you’re less likely to get away with it. Make it commonplace, I say. A brawl in a public house. Shot in plain sight. Brazenly dump the body where it will be found.’

  ‘Or double-bury it? Hide it in an existing grave? Bribe a coffin maker to make an extra layer for the latest corpse.’

  ‘Oh, ridiculous,’ she laughed.

  ‘You say that but actually in a brazen brawl in plain sight you are more likely to be spotted. In real life it’s one in a million who actually gets away with it and they are the ones who go to extraordinary lengths. The ones like Crippen—’

  ‘Ones like Crippen we hear about precisely because they go to extraordinary lengths. Murder is very tawdry really, and more common than you think.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I think people get away with it all the time.’

  Felix was quiet for a couple of seconds while they turned past the brickworkers’ cottages onto Honey’s street. They were approaching from a different route to the one she usually took. She could see the thatch of the Steadmans’ in the distance. Fine grey smoke puffed out of the chimney. She thought about what was lying under her bed there; in her pocket now.

  Felix took in a breath. ‘And how do you think people get away with murder? If not through ingenuity.’

  ‘They change the laws, don’t they? Make it fine to kill people you don’t like, that’s the way people get away with murder, isn’t it?’ She knew then that without wanting to she had altered the atmosphere between them and she wasn’t sure why. Why was it all right for her to watch Hitchcock films to forget the war but not all right to talk about it with him? She felt their conversation was nasty, and yet she didn’t want to talk about opera or music either. Those were parts of her family that belonged to her.

  The silence hung for a moment. ‘I’m sorry I brought it up,’ he said. And then, with a quiver in his voice, ‘I thought you might be the sort of girl who liked murder.’

  She sensed the smile on his lips. He was playing with her, the way he had played with her when he knew it wasn’t her birthday.

  ‘Have you received any more birthday gifts?’ he asked.

  The shock rang up her in a little wave. Could he read her mind? Or was it the approach to the street that had reminded him? Nijinsky was pulling ahead now, tugging on the ribbon. He could smell the rabbits in the Steadmans’ garden.

  ‘No more,’ she lied. ‘It was a parcel from my brother. Emergency chocolate. Heaven knows how it passed the censor. I suppose because he put it in a jewellery box along with some things I really did need, like old jewellery.’ It was rather easy to lie once you got going, embellishing the details. Felix said nothing. While they continued to walk, he reached down and straightened the oilcloth on the dog’s rear.

  ‘What have you missed most since rationing came in?’ she asked.

  ‘Theatre.’

  Honey frowned ‘But you get plenty of that.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. The army stuff and am-dram. What I meant was that I’m too much at work these days. I don’t hardly get to catch any of it. I try to make it up to London but it’s so damned expensive and with the trains being foul and taking four times as long as you expect them to. Then . . . well, so many extra shifts.’

  ‘What was the last thing you saw?’

  She still couldn’t see his face but she heard him hesitate. ‘Probably that awful revue at the recreation club. Did you see it?’

  ‘Yes. It was very strange seeing the man from the billeting hut dressed as a squander bug.’ She paused. They had reached the garden gate. ‘I didn’t see you there. You must have come on a different night.’

  ‘I was helping out with sets. Saw some of the rehearsals.’ He reached inside his coat, took out a cigarette and tried to light it, concealing the flame and holding the dog lead aloft. There was a breeze up and the flame danced.

  ‘Let me help you.’ Honey reached up to shield the lighter and their fingers touched. His skin was cold and uneven, and very coarse. So much coarser than she had thought it would be. She could feel his creases and gristled knuckles, the calluses and wrinkles of hard labour, not chess and mathematics. She held her hands still. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she felt the mo
vement of his thumb deliberately and ever so slowly along the soft part of her index finger, stroking towards the palm.

  The cigarette flared amber. He cupped it and sliced the light off quickly. ‘Doubt Jerry could see a flame from all the way up there but still. Can’t be too careful with these ARPs. Fine you a shilling or whatnot. Shall I give this one to you?’

  ‘I don’t want one.’

  She watched him in the tiny halo of light the cigarette gave off. It only really clarified his mouth, the dense pinpricks of dark round his neat, rather girlish lips.

  ‘So you make stage sets as well. Busy, aren’t you? Surprised you have time to ask a girl to the cinema.’

  He waved the cigarette. ‘I help out.’ The dog started to whine. ‘Shush, Nijinsky.’

  She couldn’t help but snort. The name.

  ‘All right. You don’t want murder. How about I take you to a music concert, then? How about something Christmassy, something Russian?’

  The word stuck a pin into her. She felt herself lurch, her warning hackles throwing themselves up underneath her coat, just as they had outside the squat building, while she waited for him to come out with the dog. Say it, she dared him inside her head. Say what I think you’re about to say. It was a sort of masochism. In that moment, by naming the name on her tongue, by saying the word ‘Stravinsky’, he’d have the power to destroy the illusion of their walk, to make manifest every suspicion, every doubt she’d had about him since she set eyes on that very first parcel. He had the power to then and there snatch back like the gauze in a theatre the picture of the little girl who wanted to believe her father was alive and speaking to her. He was from the Park. It was a test after all, she knew it. Or something worse.