‘I shall deny it all afterwards,’ Lucy muttered, and the bootmaker wiped his knife on her dress in a slow cross over her left breast.
‘What makes you thinks there’ll be an afterwards?’ he asked.
A look of shock shot across Lucy’s face, and it took me a while to realize that there was anything strange about that.
‘But we have—’ She stopped herself and George Pound clicked his fingers.
‘Of course,’ he said, to my and Sidney Grice’s puzzlement. ‘Now I get it. You were going to say you had an agreement.’
‘Nonsense,’ Lucy blustered. ‘No wonder we need private detectives with such stupid policemen.’
‘And personal detectives,’ Mr G added sotto voce.
I took my eyes off the bootmaker for a moment. ‘What sort of an agreement?’
‘To let him in.’ George stepped forward.
‘Get back against the wall,’ the bootmaker snapped, and then, ‘How did you work that out?’
‘Because the maids didn’t,’ Pound replied. ‘By the way, where is your cook?’
‘Why on earth are you mithering about that?’ Lucy demanded.
But Freddy explained. ‘She has gone to a funeral. All five of her nieces died of scarlet fever in Edinburgh.’
‘Edinburgh.’ For once Sidney Grice was visibly moved. ‘Oh, what a terrible waste.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Of granite.’ He pulled himself together. ‘But why have you not employed an agency woman?’
‘We were going to,’ Freddy replied.
‘Going to where?’ he snapped.
‘Going to hire one,’ she clarified. ‘But the last one was so awful that the girls said they would have a go. They both liked to help Cook.’ Freddy lowered her head. ‘They were lovely girls,’
she sobbed.
‘Certainly were.’ The bootmaker licked his lips ostentatiously.
‘You filthy—’ Pound caught his words before any more escaped. ‘They were in the middle of making scones and both of their hands were covered in the mix. If one of them had gone to the door, she would have wiped her hands or washed them. All the cloths were clean and the sink was dry. I had a close look at it.’
That must have been when I thought he was going to vomit, but he was checking the tap.
‘Perhaps she let him in before she started to help.’ I prayed that he would be able to gainsay my suggestion.
George was sceptical. ‘When I was a handsome young pup of a constable,’ his eyes sparkled as in days of old, ‘I wasn’t averse to sweet-talking my way into a few sculleries on a wet winter’s night. First of all, I would never have gone through the front way. The householders would have wanted to know what I was up to. The maid wouldn’t go on helping Cook and ignoring me. Otherwise why would she have let me in? She’d cut me a thick slice of bread – with jam, if I was lucky – and give me a mug of tea. The kettle was cold.’
‘Gut gemacht? Sidney Grice was undisguisedly impressed.
And George Pound grinned. ‘I’ve waited ten years to hear him say that,’ he told me. ‘Whatever it means.’
And it was all I could do not to run over and kiss him.
‘At last.’ The bootmaker saluted. ‘A peeler with brains. You’re wasted as a copper, Chief Inspector.’
‘The day I see you in the dock, I shall count my time well spent,’ Pound said, with a power that made me shiver.
‘But why?’ I asked Lucy, unable to bring myself to use her name.
‘To lure me in.’ Sidney Grice put a hand to his brow in an odd salute. ‘With a view to curtailing my life.’
‘Not just you,’ the bootmaker said. ‘Your girl has been causing no end of trouble.’
‘She is very good at that,’ my guardian assured him, his hand still in place as though he were squinting into the sun.
‘If I have made your life a bit difficult, I humbly apologize.’ I performed the tiniest of curtsies. ‘For that was never my intention. I meant to make your life very difficult indeed.’ I paused. ‘But why did you hire us in the first place, Lucy?’
‘I wanted you to find the man who attacked me,’ she replied simply. ‘I was not to know you would go delving into Steep House and Silas Spry.’
‘And you really thought he would let you go?’
‘I gave him a non-cancellable bankers’ order for one thousand pounds, but it is post-dated by a week and my accounts will be frozen if I die.’
‘I am not sure that he cares about the money,’ I warned, and Lucy met my gaze beseechingly as the bootman smirked.
‘Think you can hold that gun up forever, do you?’ he asked solicitously. ‘Arm not getting tired?’
‘I am quite comfortable, thank you.’ Though, in truth, it was starting to ache.
He laughed sarcastically. ‘I’m going to enjoy hurting you.’
‘I am not sorry to disabuse you,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘But I could not possibly permit that.’
‘How you going to stop me?’
‘He won’t need to,’ George vowed. ‘I will.’
‘Excuse me, Chief Inspector.’ My guardian puffed indignantly. ‘But I am quite capable of looking after my own goddaughter.’
‘Well, you ain’t making too good a job of it at the moment,’ the bootmaker sneered.
‘Oh, she always looks like that,’ Sidney Grice assured him, and the bootmaker cackled.
‘You.’ He gave Lucy a couple of light slaps as one might try to rouse an inebriate. ‘Tell us about that brother.’
‘And, for the benefit of your erstwhile partner in felony,’ Sidney Grice chipped in, ‘you might like to explain why you killed him.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Lucy’s pique fragmented into a yelp as the wire dug in. ‘All right.’ Tears of pain and frustration sprang up in her eyes. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’
‘Before you do, Lucy . . .’ Freddy paled. She fought to continue. ‘I think you should know something. When you were in my dressing room I saw you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I thought it was a burglar and that he might go away if I pretended to be asleep, and then I saw you – in my new dress with Eric.’ Freddy almost choked on her own words. ‘He was . . . pawing at you . . . slobbering . . . You—’
‘Slobbering?’ Lucy raged. ‘It was not his fault his lips did not meet.’
‘That is not what I meant.’
‘You spurned him,’ Lucy accused. ‘My poor Eric was not pretty enough for you, was he? But do not trouble yourself on that account. He had a dutiful sister to make up for that.’ Lucy looked at the assembled company defiantly. ‘Oh, what is the point?’ she spat. ‘Whether or not you try to escape, the result will be the same.’ For a fraction of a moment Lucy looked almost serene. ‘Whatever happens, I am not getting out of this alive.’
93
The Light and the Dark
I RESTED MY RIGHT elbow on my hip for support.
‘I told you that Eric had a soft spot for Freddy,’ she began hesitantly. ‘But it was much more than that. She obsessed him. He could hardly talk of anyone or anything else – the way she looked and moved, the way she laughed, things she said and did. It was endless. But he was not good enough for dear sweet high-and-mighty Freddy. She hardly even noticed him.’
‘I could not help but notice Eric,’ Freddy objected. ‘But I tried not to. He made me feel uncomfortable, the way he stared.’
‘Of course he stared.’ Lucy kicked the leg of her chair with her heel. ‘How could he not, with you flaunting yourself, smiling and flirting.’
‘I did not,’ Freddy cried. ‘I never encouraged him.’
‘Just get on with it,’ the bootmaker said.
‘Eric was desolate. He wanted Freddy so much but he was too shy to approach her. I offered to speak to her, but when I broached the subject of my brother, Freddy laughed and said he was a funny one. Funny!’
‘I was a child,’ Freddy objected.
‘You were twelve. Girls
used to get married younger than that.’ Lucy chewed her cheek. ‘Eric changed. The happy prankster with whom I had grown up became moody and irritable. On more than one occasion he snapped at me and made me cry and, when I complained to my mother, she told me that it was my own fault. I should be doing more to make Eric happy. I did not understand what she meant, but she told me not to ask so many questions. If I were a good sister I would have more understanding of Eric’s needs.’
‘Can I ask,’ I began carefully, for I still hoped her account was not leading where I feared, ‘if Eric was your real brother – and your mother was too?’
‘Her mother cannot have been her brother,’ my godfather objected.
‘Miss Bocking knows what I mean.’
‘Of course they were.’ Lucy bridled, as if anything else would have been indecent. ‘To start with it was awkward. I was shy and felt too embarrassed to ask, but once Eric realized how much I wanted to please him, I soon discovered what was expected of me.
‘At first he was easy to satisfy. I did things for him and he was happy with that. And then I let him do things to me— No, that is not quite true – I encouraged him. His needs became greater but I was more than willing to fulfil them. I was just so happy that my darling brother had me instead of Freddy. But he kept talking about her and how much he wanted her, and so I let him call me Freddy.
‘Freddy and I had always kept our drapes open since we were children. No one could see us, but we could see into each other’s rooms and wave to each other. Freddy always had a night lamp. She was afraid of the dark. And so we would turn my light off and Eric would do things and get me to do things, while he watched her lying in her bed, and called me Freddy, Freddy, sweet darling Freddy, over and over. But still it wasn’t enough.’
Lucy seemed unaware that her captor was undoing another button.
‘I saw how Eric had looked at Freddy that summer in her yellow dress. She was so stunningly beautiful that he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, and so I stole the dress – it was easy. We were always in and out of each other’s houses. And I put it on for him and that helped a lot. He wanted me all the time then. It was heaven. I made up my hair like hers and even tried to speak like her, in her pretty-prissy way, and Eric was beside himself with want. Once he saw Freddy getting disrobed and he was in ecstasy.’
Lucy’s face lit up with something close to the same emotion.
‘When it was discovered that the dress was missing I hid it in the attic beside the maid’s room, but then her ceiling came down after a leak and she moved rooms, and when I went to get it, she saw me, and so I had to put other things in her room. It was her word against mine.’ She swallowed and cleared her throat.
‘And you let her go to prison?’ I remembered.
‘Well, you could hardly expect me to go.’ Lucy’s voice rose self-righteously.
‘So what happened to . . .’ I combed my mind for the name, ‘Jocinda?’
‘When she came out – after far too short a sentence – she tried to blackmail me. I knew she had no proof, but she could have besmirched my reputation with her filthy insinuations.’ Her tone fell. ‘I told her I had money in a box tied under my window sill, but I was not tall enough to reach it. She was so stupid. I could not believe anyone would be that gullible, but she leaned out to get it. I said I would hold her legs to stop her falling, and I tipped her out.’
Lucy’s face dropped and drained, and she could hardly get out the next words. ‘And then the disgusting creature that spawned her killed my father and my darling, darling mother.’ Her voice broke.
‘Boo-hoo.’ The bootmaker pulled a faux sad face. ‘So what about dear Eric?’
‘I was no use to Eric after the dress was found.’ Lucy’s eyes overbrimmed. ‘I offered to get an identical one made but he said it was no good, it would not be hers, and there was no point in me taking another dress. He wanted one that she had worn.’ She arched her back stiffly. ‘So the next time I went to Steep House I sneaked down and left the back door unlocked. I knew that Fairbank, the butler, would not check it because it was never used. And I took Eric into the house that night, and we crept into Freddy’s dressing room and I put the dress on. It was a terrible risk but that was part of the thrill, and I played Freddy for him in that room next to hers, and just before the end I opened the door a crack so he could see her lying in bed facing him. I was terrified she would wake up, but so excited I could hardly breathe.’
Lucy took a few sharp breaths in memory. ‘But in the cold light of day I realized how dangerous my acts had been and I refused to do it again. Eric was so upset he wouldn’t speak to me for weeks.’ She pouted. ‘And, when I burst into tears over dinner, Mummy dragged me away and said that I had obviously upset my brother. She did not want to know why. She only knew that I should at least try to be an obedient and loving sister.’
She spoke very carefully now. ‘And so I found a new way to please him and at first it was enough, but he would sit all night in my window afterwards, watching and wanting.’ Lucy laboured to catch her breath. ‘Freddy – always that damned Freddy-Freddy-Freddy.’
94
The Burning of Flesh
SIDNEY GRICE FOLDED his arms and surveyed her bowed head. ‘You spent six months in a convent, did you not, Miss Bocking?’
‘St Philomena’s.’ She scowled. ‘What of it?’
‘Even now defiant.’ Mr G reached into his jacket.
‘Not so fast,’ the bootmaker snapped, and Sidney Grice withdrew his hand a fraction at a time to reveal a folded letter.
‘I wrote to that institution, asking if they would like a contribution to their funds, and had a very civil response from Mother Superior Sister Mary-James, outlining all the holy works they perform. Miss Middleton was too idle to read it but I imagine the contents will be of greater interest to some members of this assembly. The particular calling of the Sisters of Misfortune is suggested by the name of their community, for Philomena is the patron saint of infants and their duty is to tend to foundlings and the children of fallen women.’
‘I did not think one could with one’s own brother,’ Lucy admitted in wonder. ‘But I had a child – a monster, they said, who could not even be christened for it was the devil’s spawn. I never saw him and, for all I know or care, they drowned him in the font.’
‘You had a boy,’ Freddy said wonderingly.
‘They wanted to lock me away,’ Lucy said flatly, ‘for I had committed unspeakable sins. But my parents could not countenance the disgrace and so they forgave and took me back.’
‘Did they punish Eric?’ I asked
‘Of course not.’ Lucy’s eyes flared. ‘I had led poor Eric astray, they said, but the strange thing is—’ she became a lost girl—‘I did not really understand what we had done.’
‘Did he stop making demands of you?’ I tried, and the bootmaker snorted. He had four buttons undone now and I could see the top of Lucy’s chemise.
‘He told me Freddy had smiled at him on a few occasions and that she had asked about me, but he knew that it was really just a pretext to get close to him.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Freddy broke in despairingly.
‘He did not want me now that I was despoiled.’ Lucy’s eyes took on a strange lifelessness. ‘And I suppose you could not blame him for that.’
‘I think I could,’ I muttered furiously.
‘But I could speak to Freddy for him,’ she said in a monotone. ‘It was then that I made my mind up. The day after Boxing Day, I told Eric that I had done as he asked and that Freddy had sworn that she loved him too and wanted him to come to the house and spend the night with her, but he must say nothing in the meantime to her or anyone, just to tell our parents that he was staying with a friend. I took him into the cellar and told him Freddy had set up a feather bed in the back room. He was so eager that he never even stopped to think and, when he went to look, I slammed and bolted the door. It was next to the paraffin store. There was a barred aperture between
the room and Eric was shouting and cursing. He thought it was just a silly practical joke until he saw me open the taps and smelled the fuel, and then he started begging – Eric begging from me.’ Lucy shook her head in disbelief. ‘It only took one Lucifer and a soaked rag. Eric was hammering and screaming before the flames even reached him and I stood and listened, but then I worried that he would wake somebody up. So I called Goodbye, my darling brother and went upstairs, and you could not hear a thing when I shut the door into the hallway.
‘The Christmas tree was very pretty.’ Lucy smiled in remembrance. ‘I lit the candles and watched from the terrace until I was sure that the flames had taken. I smashed a window to make it look like a burglary and hurried back to my room.’
‘You must have waited a long time then.’ Sidney Grice held up a crooked finger.
‘How can you know that?’
‘Because the flat window glass lay on top of the curved from the dome,’ he said. ‘But pray continue with your narrative, Miss Bocking.’
Lucy huffed, as she used to when he first irritated her. ‘I could not go to bed. I sat in my window in my beautiful dress – I had taken it that afternoon – and stroked myself as Eric had liked to, and watched Steep House become a bonfire.’
The bootmaker had slipped his hand inside her dress and Lucy closed her eyes. ‘Eric.’ She stretched as if from a lovely dream. ‘And then, when I saw figures on the lawn, I had to go and see what was happening.’
Her smile became distant as the bootmaker’s hand moved slowly round.
‘Do you feel no remorse?’ I asked.
Lucy grimaced. ‘The only reason I encouraged my parents to take Freddy in was so that I could watch her getting uglier every day. And that was my one regret, knowing that Eric had not lived to be repelled by her.’
The bootman withdrew his hand, but only to rip open the rest of her dress to the waist. Lucy hardly glanced to see what he was up to.
‘Over the years, though, I started to realize that I had had no choice. He would have abandoned me and I could not have let him go to Freddy or any other woman. This way was perfect. He had been mine and nobody else’s. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was all Freddy’s fault. If she hadn’t been so beautiful and funny and clever and had that lovely yellow dress, he would have been happy with me forever. And the worst of it was, she did not even want him. She should have had the child and been cast aside. But there she was – so happy and more beautiful than ever, and taking an interest in some earl’s son who had invited her to a New Year’s ball. Surely she had to be punished for that?’
Dark Dawn Over Steep House Page 38
