by Jo Bannister
There was food to take them up to teatime on Sunday – it would stretch to an extra supper and breakfast. They had power, heat and light. It was an inconvenience, not a disaster.
They could have accepted the situation philosophically but for a growing sense of unease. Even before these new complications, they had made a disturbing discovery: that they’d been tricked into coming here by someone who knew private things about them, who had old and personal photographs of them. They couldn’t imagine who he was or what his motive except that clearly it concerned Cathy Beacham. The puzzlement of a few minutes ago turned to anxiety with the discovery that they were no longer free to leave.
Nor was there much comfort in one another’s company. They were not the random cross-section of humanity they were supposed to be. They traded suspicious glances as it occurred to them, one by one, that if someone had set them up the best place to observe the results was from their midst. They had been learning to trust each other; now they backed off fast. Someone was jerking their strings and, since they couldn’t know who, everyone mistrusted everyone else. It was going to feel a very long weekend.
Even without some idiot boy poking through their belongings and howling like a banshee. Larry looked up as an idea struck him. ‘He really isn’t here, is he?’
‘The boy?’ Miriam shook her head. ‘We’ve looked everywhere.’
The coach’s lip curled. ‘Don’t you understand? If the lift’s off and he’s not here there must be some other way down.’
There was the locked door: the boy might have a key. But Larry didn’t think so. ‘There wasn’t time for him to reach it without being seen. It was just seconds between him haring off and you people getting here. Linford Christie couldn’t have got offside that quickly.’
Sheelagh hadn’t seen any boy. Her tone was sceptical. ‘Linford Christie was here too?’
Larry rounded on her, intimidating in his proximate strength. ‘You don’t believe me? You don’t think there was a boy? You think I bit my own hand, screamed, then sat down in a corner? Have you got as far as thinking why?’
But Sheelagh was the last person he should have got ratty with. She thrived on discord. ‘If that was the oddest thing that had happened it’d still make more sense than something that might be a boy and might be a dog stalking the penthouse of a forty-storey building and vanishing into thin air contrary to the laws of physics and common sense.’
Tariq distracted them with practicalities. ‘Larry’s right, there must be another way down. A fire-escape.’
Tessa looked at him as if he were mad. ‘I am not climbing forty storeys down a ladder!’
‘It’ll be more substantial than that – a fireproof stairwell probably. The first thing they do in a fire is cut the power so the lifts go off. There has to be some way to evacuate the building.’
They’d all seen Towering Inferno. They liked him less for reminding them that they were trapped in a zone where the only passing traffic was weather balloons.
But they searched the corridor anyway, from the blank wall to the locked door, and there were bedrooms and domestic offices but no staircase. ‘It must be beyond the locked door.’
Kneeling, Sheelagh put an eye to the keyhole. ‘Then I hope we never need it. The corridor’s full of stuff – piles of bricks, stacks of timber, plumbing. Even if we could open the door we couldn’t get through.’
Miriam tried to inject a positive note. ‘We could get on with what we came here for. At worst we’re here till Monday morning; at best someone will remember the lift and come back.’ She returned to the conference room, and after a moment an unenthusiastic trickle followed her. They had nothing else to do.
But they didn’t pick up where they’d left off when the shade of Cathy Beacham joined them. They’d been led by the nose long enough: now they were going to set their own agenda.
‘So this is about Cathy Beacham,’ said Larry. ‘Hands up those who knew her.’
Four hands went up immediately; after a moment he added his own. ‘You’re right about one thing,’ he said coldly, looking at Will. ‘I was her coach. Tessa?’
The doctor shrugged helplessly. ‘Possibly. I’m not sure. I see a lot of patients in the course of a year. I don’t remember the name. Where did she live?’
‘The family lived in the Midlands,’ said Sheelagh. ‘I don’t know where she lived in London – I had her number, that’s all. Will, where was she when you knew her?’
The fury that had goaded him to pick a fight with a man he couldn’t hope to beat had dissipated, leaving him subdued and a little sullen. ‘She used to have a flat in Colliers Wood but she could have moved.’
‘Then yes, it’s possible I treated her at some point. I’ve never specialized in sports medicine but I could have seen her as a GP. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific but I have a list of about two thousand patients at any given time and if I don’t see somebody regularly…’ Her voice tailed off apologetically.
Larry said, ‘Five yesses and a maybe. Joe?’
He took time to answer. ‘Yes, I met her too. My daughter played some tennis – most of her friends were other players. We met quite a few of them over the years.’
‘She visited your home?’
‘Yes.’
Larry spread his hand. ‘That’s it?’
Joe bristled. ‘What were you expecting? It’s normal enough for kids to bring their friends home, isn’t it?’
‘Joe, there’s nothing normal about any of this,’ Sheelagh exclaimed impatiently. ‘Tell us again how you heard about this course.’
He looked faintly embarrassed: ‘There was a postcard tucked into a business magazine I still get. Offering stressed-out executives a psychological MOT. I thought, Why not – what harm can it do?’
There was a lengthy pause while the others pondered that. Then Tariq said, ‘So probably all of us have known Cathy to some extent at some time. But so what? What does anyone hope to gain by bringing us together like this?’
It had taken Will almost till now to start thinking clearly again. To learn, this long after, new shocking facts about the death of a girl he’d loved had swept the feet from under him. It had also been a shock to find himself among people he’d previously known only by ill repute. And losing control had shocked him to his foundations: Will Furney never lost his temper, whatever the provocation. So it had taken a little time for him to get his head together again; but now the answer to Tariq’s question seemed obvious to him. ‘Doesn’t it rather smack of grudge?’
‘Revenge? For what?’
Will stared at him. ‘For the fact that Cathy’s dead. She was twenty-six years old. She was beautiful and talented. She had everything to look forward to. But she drove her car—’ His voice cracked on it; he had to swallow and try again. ‘She committed suicide. Someone blames us for that. We don’t know one another but someone knows us all. I think he blames us for her death. He wants—’ He fell silent.
‘What?’ asked Tariq.
Blinking, Will returned from a moment’s reverie. ‘I don’t know. But there’s something he, or she, wants very much. And it occurs to me to wonder if the lift going off when it did was only a bit
of forgetfulness after all.’
Chapter Eleven
‘You don’t think this is getting a shade imaginative?’ ventured Miriam. ‘Isn’t the obvious answer also the most likely – that the silly sods downstairs forgot? They’re not used to having people up here.’
Will frowned. ‘This is the first time you’ve held a course in the hotel?’
She didn’t react as if she’d blundered. ‘In this building, yes.’
‘Who was the friend who fixed it up?’
‘I told you, he’s on the Lazaire’s board.’
‘His name?’
She smiled composedly. ‘You wouldn’t know him.’
‘He went to a lot of trouble. They’re still working down below, but up here we’ve got glass in the windows and doors that lock. We’ve got carpet
s, furniture, electricity and plumbing. Isn’t that a rather odd way to build a hotel – from the top down?’
Miriam said nothing.
‘And all for one weekend. Because you won’t be back, will you?’ The psychologist still didn’t answer. ‘This friend – was it his idea? He arranged it, got us here. All you had to do was turn up and put us through hoops. Not just any old hoops, though: friendship and betrayal. I think, if you told us his name, we might recognize it.’
For a moment she seemed to consider it. Then she shook her head. ‘It would be a betrayal of trust.’
A smile bent Will’s lips. He was still pale but this was a job he knew: extracting information from someone who didn’t want to give it. ‘Dr Graves, this whole thing is a betrayal of trust. We came to you for professional help with problems that have damn near torn some of us apart.’
A faint flush touched the psychologist’s cheek and she nodded thoughtfully. ‘I bet Wormwood Scrubs is full of people who underestimated you.’
Will shook his head. ‘I don’t do prosecutions. I defend.’
The others had followed with more or less facility depending on their intellectual equipment. Sapphire eyes snapping between the protagonists, Sheelagh demanded, ‘Does she know what this is about?’
Will kept his gaze on Miriam. ‘Yes.’
Larry shouldered his way between them. ‘Then it’s time she told us.’ It wasn’t necessarily a threat and he may not have intended violence. But the possibility sent ripples through the tense atmosphere.
Joe moved stoutly to the woman’s side. ‘Now then,’ he rumbled, ‘let’s not get silly. It’s a bit of a turn-up, but let’s think what we’re doing before we start throwing our weight around.’
‘Old man,’ gritted Larry, ‘I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m going to find out what’s going on here and who’s behind it from the only person who knows – any way it takes.’
Joe’s chest swelled and his voice, always gruff, dropped another note. ‘In that case I know what I’m doing too. I’m stopping you.’
If they’d come to blows there could have been only one outcome, though the athlete was past his prime and the printer still a substantial figure. But there were too many disapproving onlookers for it to degenerate that far.
Larry backed down with a bad grace. ‘She doesn’t need your protection. Can’t you see? She’s making fools of us. We were brought here under false pretences, we’re being kept here against our will, and we still don’t know why. Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble. He must want something. You’re afraid I might get rough? Ask yourself what he’s planning. Because we can’t get away from here and we can’t call for help.’
When Will had made the same point Richard had dismissed it as the anxiety of a naturally timid man. But Larry was a tough and pragmatic man who wouldn’t feel threatened without good cause, and that shunted the situation across the shadow line into the realm of fear. The possibility couldn’t safely be discounted that they had been betrayed into the hands of real malevolence. They’d been hunted down and their presence engineered by someone whose identity they didn’t know, whose motives they didn’t understand and whose intentions they couldn’t begin to predict.
And Miriam still wasn’t telling the truth. Tariq knew it too. ‘I may have been talked into it but I booked my own place, and I didn’t send that photograph. Where did it come from?’
Though it amused him to play a role, actually he was both intelligent and intuitive. In fact, none of these people was as they had been described to Miriam. She made a decision. ‘Listen, everyone, this is getting out of hand. No one’s in any danger, I promise. Nobody meant to keep you here by force – the lift going off really was an accident. I’ll tell you what I can, all right?
‘I haven’t lied to you. My friend asked my help in bringing together some people he didn’t think would accept an invitation. He used various personal and business contacts to get you here – Sheelagh’s client, Tariq’s colleague, Tessa’s journal. He offered free places to Richard’s station and Larry’s club knowing that because of their current difficulties they’d be the obvious choice to send. He put a postcard in Joe’s magazine and invented a competition for Will to win. You all knew Cathy. More than that, you’re all people on whom at one time or another she depended – her advisers, her friends, the man who almost saved her life.’
‘Why?’ rasped Larry. He seemed no happier now he was getting the answers he’d demanded. ‘Does he blame us for her death?’
Miriam nodded. ‘In a way. Cathy was a girl who had admirers all her life. She attracted people. They enjoyed being with her, partly because of who she was and partly because some of the glitter rubbed off. They enjoyed the benefits of her friendship. In spite of that she died alone. None of those who made personal or professional capital from knowing her during her best years were there when she needed them. My friend thinks that’s why she died. Because she ended up alone.’
‘But what does he want?’ asked Richard, his voice reedy thin. ‘Even if he’s right and we let her down, we can’t do anything about it now. We’re all sorry for what happened to her, maybe we’re all unhappy with our own performance, but we didn’t kill her. It was suicide. Has he gone to all this trouble only to hear that?’
‘He wants you to understand what you did,’ Miriam said carefully. ‘He’s concerned that, precisely because you didn’t push her in, you aren’t aware of having contributed to her death. He believes that with better friends she’d still be alive.’
‘Maybe he’s right,’ Tariq conceded quietly. ‘Even if he is, what good can this do?’
‘And maybe he’s wrong,’ snarled Larry. ‘Cathy had as much going for her as anyone. What she lacked was the heart to ride out the difficult times. I taught her how to play tennis. I taught her to be a tennis-player, which isn’t quite the same thing. But it wasn’t my job to organize the rest of her life. When she stopped playing tennis there was nothing more I could do for her.’
Will said softly, ‘It’s her father, isn’t it?’
There was a measured silence. Then Miriam said, ‘What makes you think so?’
‘The photographs. Most of them could have come from her effects – mine could hardly have come from anywhere else. Also, there’s no one here from her family and if he was anyone else he’d blame them too. Home’s the last refuge. When everything else goes wrong – your lover walks out and your friends laugh and your boss tells you to stop crying on his stationery – you pick up the phone and call home. Cathy loved her parents. When she sent me packing I told myself at least she had her family to fall back on if things worked out badly.
‘Well, they did, worse than I ever imagined. But for some reason her family was no help. Maybe they’d drifted apart by then, or maybe they let her down too. Either way, whoever’s behind this would blame them if he was anyone other than her father. Or maybe he does blame himself. Maybe we’re here because he’s desperate to share out the responsibility.’
Again it seemed a long time before Miriam spoke. ‘You’re a perceptive man, Will. Yes, we’re here because of Cathy’s father. Did you ever meet him?’
Will shook his head. ‘Cathy visited them sometimes. Not often. It meant breaking her training schedule and her coach—’ He stopped abruptly, his eyes meeting Larry’s like a collision. All he’d known about Cathy’s advisers had been second-hand. Now he had a face to put to what he’d been told and what he’d inferred. His voice dripped acid. ‘Apparently Larry disapproved.’
Larry didn’t like Will much more than Will liked Larry. He shrugged. ‘It’s tough at the top. You have to put everything else on hold for a while. I didn’t mind her seeing them; I did mind her missing training. It would have been easier for them to come and see her but they wouldn’t. Neither would you, as I recall.’
Will flushed angrily. ‘Cathy didn’t want me hanging round the courts. Tennis had taken over enough of her life. She needed somewhere she could retreat where it wasn’t the only topic of
conversation.’
‘I was right about you,’ sneered Larry, the twist of his lips sculpted in the hard musculature of his face. ‘I knew you were no good for her. I didn’t have to meet you – I knew your type. You think it’s all frilly knickers and silver salvers, don’t you, champagne and strawberries. You think it’d be a nice way for well-brought-up young ladies to make a living if it wasn’t for the boring old men in the background taking it all so seriously.
‘Let me tell you something. Cathy wasn’t the girl you took her for. Tennis wasn’t something pleasant to do on a sunny afternoon. It was her career. She worked at it. She pushed herself to the limits, then pushed some more. She shed sweat and tears for it, and if blood had been required she’d have bled too. And gladly, because being an athlete is a privilege. If God gives you the talent you owe Him ten years of your life in order to be as good as you can be. Not everyone makes the top, but if you give it all you’ve got for ten years you’ve paid your dues. Nothing that happens afterwards alters the fact that you were an athlete. No one can take that away.
‘But she couldn’t make you understand that, could she? You thought she should be working office hours, with five weeks’holiday a year. When she was too tired to hold in the tears, instead of saying, Cathy, you can do this, it’s what you want and you’re strong enough to take it, you wanted her to walk away. To give up all she’d worked to achieve. You’re soft and you’re ordinary, Will. You wanted a nice safe ordinary wife, and you couldn’t take it that she wanted to fulfil her potential more than she wanted you.’
This was the woman Will had loved they were talking about, and today he’d learned that she killed herself because her glittering career was over and she was alone. Tears spilt from his eyes. ‘I’d have done anything for her. But all she wanted was for me to leave her alone. So I did. I left her to your care. And you let her die.’
