(2011) What Lies Beneath

by Sarah Rayne

  The music was still going on. It was happy music that made Ella think of things like harvest festivals and daffodils. It echoed and bounced all round the church, in and out of the stone arches and carvings, and Ella looked about her to see if she could get nearer.

  On her left was a low archway with a narrow stairway beyond. That must be the stair up to the organ loft. But before she could think whether to go up there or not, the music started to change; it began to be frightening, as if something was creeping into the notes – like giants shouting, ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum’, like evil creatures in forests beckoning with long crooked fingers. Ella thought it might be better not to go up there after all. She was just tiptoing towards the door when the notes stumbled and made a series of jarring sounds. Mingling with the music came the sound of dreadful harsh sobbing, as if the organist could not bear to hear the music, or could not bear to have played it so badly. It went on for quite a long time, that sobbing, filled with pain and anger, and it made Ella’s entire skin prickle. What would make someone cry like that? She was afraid to move in case the organist heard her and came down the stairs, so she stood where she was, hardly daring to breathe.

  But the music started again, slower and somehow sadder now, and Ella managed to get to the door, which had swung shut when she came in. She reached for the handle, but it was old and stiff, and when she tugged it, it screeched loudly. The music stopped at once and there was the sound of someone moving across the upper floor.

  Ella gave a sob and pulled on the handle, wanting to get outside before the unseen musician found her, but he was already coming down the narrow stair. He moved slowly and he sounded as if he was fumbling his way out, like someone creeping out of a very dark place, dazzled by the sudden light outside. As he reached the foot of the stair, the crimson-tinged shadows fell across his face, and Ella felt as if a fist had thumped into her throat. There was something dreadfully wrong about the face, only she could not make out what it was because the shadows were slithering all around him and it was difficult to see properly. She gasped, and this time managed to drag the door open and tumble outside. She ran down the path to the lich-gate, but as she reached it a compulsion to see if he was still there gripped her, and she turned back.

  He was there. He was coming after her. He moved slowly and it was as if the shadows clung to him and moved along with him. Ella sobbed, and ran out through the lich-gate and back to the wool shop. She paused before going inside, because she could not let Mum see her like this, all teary and out of breath. If she told Mum what had happened, Mum might say Ella should not have gone into the church, specially not when someone was already in there. But it was all right now. The street was empty and whoever he had been, that man, he had not followed her. So Ella took several deep breaths, tidied her hair with her hands, smoothed down the skirt of her frock, and went inside the shop.

  She and her mother walked home, her mother talking about the wool she had bought. It was all ordinary and safe, and Ella felt better. But she was glad when they reached Upper Bramley and the lane where they lived. Their cottage was not very big but Ella’s mother always said they were lucky to have it, what with property still so difficult to find. There were four cottages all huddled together and theirs was the end one, looking out over Bramley Fields.

  I’m safe now, thought Ella, as they went inside. He won’t know where I live. As long as I don’t go inside St Anselm’s church I’ll never see him again. I haven’t got anything to worry about.

  Chapter 4

  The Present

  ‘You do understand what I’m worrying about,’ said Ella, refilling the glasses of her two guests.

  ‘The opening of the village,’ said Clem, holding out his glass for the top-up.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ella, and for a moment, the shared memory of that fear-filled morning shivered between them.

  Then Veronica said dismissively, ‘But that was years ago. It can’t possibly matter now.’ She thought Ella always had to make a fuss about things.

  ‘But surely you realize that when they go in they’ll find the body?’ said Ella.

  ‘People have been in since then, though, haven’t they? Wasn’t that the point? They drenched the village with that stuff – Geranos – and then government scientists were going in after a few months to check the results.’

  ‘They did go in,’ said Clem. ‘I think it was about six months later – don’t you remember? That was when they realized the Geranos was far more harmful than they had thought, so they closed the village and shelved the motorway scheme until everything had dispersed or dried out. If they’d found a body we’d have heard about it.’

  ‘It won’t matter if they do find it,’ said Veronica. ‘They won’t connect it to us.’

  ‘She’s right’ said Clem, looking back at Ella. ‘No one even knew we were there that day. It really was empty – everyone had been moved out weeks earlier. People who owned property were given compulsory purchase orders. Most of them went out to the new town.’

  ‘Of course no one knew we were there,’ said Veronica. She drank her wine and wished Ella would not buy cheap supermarket plonk, because it was not as if she couldn’t afford better. ‘He was just some nasty old tramp and he liked the idea of two little girls. He wanted to – well, do what my mother used to call “interfere” with us. Don’t snigger, Clem, it is what it was called then.’

  ‘Ah, the euphemistic days of our youth,’ said Clem.

  ‘I wish you’d take this seriously,’ said Ella.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ said Veronica. ‘We pushed him away and he fell down the chimney. I don’t see why you need laugh about that, Clem. It’s what happened.’

  ‘It’s the falling down the chimney part,’ said Clem apologetically. ‘Like a nursery rhyme or Father Christmas being sozzled.’

  ‘It was an accident,’ said Veronica. ‘It wasn’t anybody’s fault.’ She sneaked a surreptitious glance at her watch because all this was getting in the way of the rather exciting date she had later tonight; a new man, about whom she was not yet telling anyone. She wanted to get home and set the scene for his arrival – scented candles and mood music, and wine chilling in the ice bucket. Some people would say that was a bit cheesy, but Veronica did not think it cheesy in the least. What she did think was that it was annoying to put up with this stupid boring meeting.

  Clem said slowly, ‘Do you know what I’ve sometimes thought, since that day?’

  ‘What?’ Ella was handing round the defrosted canapés again.

  ‘Supposing the man wasn’t dead when we left him? And don’t say you never thought about that,’ said Clem, ‘because I bet we all did.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Veronica at once.

  ‘Of course he was dead,’ said Ella. ‘We knew he was.’

  ‘Did we? You were ten – Vron and I were nine.’

  ‘Excuse me, I was only eight,’ said Veronica, who was not having anybody add even one year to her age.

  ‘Well, none of us was old enough to tell if somebody was dead,’ said Clem, ignoring the interruption. ‘We didn’t even go up to him to check his heart or anything.’

  ‘We didn’t have time! The church clock was chiming twelve and the plane was coming!’ said Ella.

  ‘You don’t really think he was alive, do you?’ said Veronica nervously, because this really was the grisliest idea to put in a person’s mind. It was to be hoped it was not going to spoil her anticipation of the evening planned for later. She had bought new silk underwear and everything.

  ‘But what if he was alive?’ said Clem. ‘I used to have nightmares about that, you know. About how he might have come round just as the bomb went off. How he might have lain there, with all that poisonous stuff choking him.’

  They looked at each other, then Ella said very firmly, ‘That’s nonsense. His neck was broken.’

  There was a rather awkward silence, then Clem gave another of the nervous giggles. ‘This is starting to be like a film about three middle-aged p
eople meeting in a teashop to discuss covering up a murder they committed.’

  ‘It’s not a matter for silly jokes,’ said Ella sharply.

  ‘I know, but on the other hand there’s no need to get it out of proportion,’ said Clem. ‘Or to lose our sense of humour. Or have you mislaid yours?’

  ‘I think that’s very unkind of you, Clem. I have a very good sense of humour,’ said Ella. ‘Derek and I often have a good laugh over all kinds of things.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I was only thinking if anyone filmed this, my part could be played by Anthony Hopkins,’ said Clem.

  ‘And I’ll be Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren,’ put in Veronica eagerly, because this was a much more interesting turn of the conversation, and anything that would push away the really horrid memories was welcome. ‘Somebody with cheekbones.’ In case anyone was still adding anything to her age, she finished by saying that, of course, she was a good deal younger than Helen Mirren.

  Ella banged down the canapé plate with irritable vigour and said, ‘I wish you’d take this seriously. They’ll find the body – because of course he was dead – and when they do they might find something to link it to us.’

  ‘Like what? Ella, it’s over fifty years!’

  ‘You’re just being silly,’ said Veronica.

  Ella said, ‘But there is something that might link us.’

  ‘Oh God, what?’

  Veronica saw that Ella was looking really ill, almost as if the flesh of her face had fallen away from the bones. This was so dreadful she drank some more wine while she tried to think what to say. Perhaps Clem would think of something. Veronica looked at him hopefully, but Clem was simply staring at Ella in goggle-eyed silence.

  In a tight, dry little voice Ella said, ‘My wristwatch. I’d been given it the day before for a birthday present. Don’t you remember – we checked the time on it?’

  ‘Vaguely. What about it?’

  ‘When we got back to Mordwich Bank,’ said Ella, ‘I hadn’t got it on.’

  This time the silence lasted much longer, but in the end Clem said, ‘You mean you lost it while we were in Cadence Manor?’

  ‘I must have done.’

  ‘You never said.’

  ‘There was no need to worry about it while Priors Bramley was sealed off.’

  ‘But . . . it’s only a watch,’ said Veronica. ‘It won’t have survived all those years, and even if it did, nobody will know it was yours.’

  ‘It had my initials engraved on it, and the date,’ said Ella.

  ‘Well, I suppose a date might be traced back, but initials aren’t very recognizable.’

  ‘Mine were,’ said Ella. ‘E.L.F. – don’t you remember? I was Ella Lilian Ford in those days. Have you forgotten how I used to be teased at school about being an elf? And as for the watch not surviving – it was gold. Gold survives everything.’

  ‘Yes, but are you sure it was gold? I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but gold’s frightfully expensive.’ Veronica did not want to say it was unlikely that Ella’s mother could have afforded gold, but everybody knew the family had been really hard up.

  ‘Yes, I am sure,’ said Ella, her mouth set in the stubborn line Veronica recognized only too well. ‘My mother saved up for it for ages because it was a special birthday – double figures – and she wanted to mark it. She did double shifts in the Railwayman’s Arms for months beforehand.’ She broke off, compressing her lips, and Veronica knew Ella must be very upset indeed, because she hardly ever admitted her mother had worked as a barmaid in an adjoining village. Genteel poverty was the usual pitch, generally on the lines of, ‘My family lost their money in the First World War’. Clem’s father had once said that far from losing their money in any war, the Fords had never had any money at all, and had been reduced to all kinds of straits to make ends meet. In fact, in certain quarters Ella’s mother had been known as Barrack Room Brenda. Veronica had never given any of this much credence, because Clem’s father liked to make up dramatic stories.

  ‘My mother wanted me to have something I’d keep for years and years,’ said Ella, and added rather waspishly that this being so, it was a pity she had had to lose the watch the day after being given it. ‘Gold’s indestructible,’ she said. ‘So if they find the watch near the man’s body, they’ll trace it back to me.’ She looked at the other two. ‘And that means to the two of you, as well,’ she said. ‘So you’ve both got to promise me that you’ll keep to the vow we made all those years ago.’

  ‘I promise,’ said Clem after a moment, and Veronica, who wished Ella would not be so intense, because, for goodness’ sake, nothing was very likely to happen to any of them, shrugged and said, ‘I promise as well.’ Then she finished her wine and hoped that her exciting evening could now proceed without any more interruptions.

  In the event, Veronica’s evening was very good indeed. The scented candles burned alluringly and the chilled wine and neat little snacks went down well. Veronica smiled to herself, remembering Ella’s pretentious frozen canapés. She thought she was so great, that Ella. It was a pity she could not see Veronica now, serving this elegant little supper, embarking on the first exciting steps in a new love affair.

  There was nothing quite like the start of a romance – Veronica liked the word ‘romance’; she always used it in preference to anything earthier – when you were both finding out about one another. You planned what you would wear for each meeting, and you devised sexy romantic games to play. It was an adventure, and if Ella wanted to look down her nose and consider Veronica a slut, Veronica did not care.

  When the food had been removed and the glasses topped up, there was nothing slutty about permitting a civilized embrace. It was a testing of the water, as it were, the first steps in establishing how far things could go.

  After a while, the embrace became fevered, and after a longer while it became insistent. Veronica giggled suddenly, and he drew back at once.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  Giggling at such a moment had been a very bad move. It was partly nerves, of course, but men did not like being laughed at, especially when they were revving up to be amorous. He looked angry, and Veronica sought frantically for a way to retrieve the situation and his dignity, and found it.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong at all. I was just thinking you have unsuspected depths.’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ he said.

  It was all right; he sounded mollified. She said, ‘No, but really. You almost seem like a different person.’

  ‘Well, let’s explore those depths and that different person, shall we? Do you want to do that?’

  ‘Now? Tonight?’

  ‘Isn’t that what this is about?’

  And even though one was still not a slut, this was the twenty-first century and Veronica was a modern woman, quite capable of giving those pert twenty- and thirty-year-olds a run for their money. She had kept her figure and looked after her skin, and in a dim light she could pass for a lot younger than she actually was.

  In any case, she had spring-cleaned the bedroom that morning and put lavender-scented sheets on the bed, and it would be a pity to waste all that effort.

  Entries From an Undated Journal

  I had to expend a good deal of effort hiding what I came to call ‘the darknesses’. I think I managed it very well, though. I don’t think even Crispian, with his perceptive mind, knew about that side of my nature. I often thought Serena knew, but she never referred to it. She was a cold-hearted bitch, Serena Cadence. I didn’t hate her, but I didn’t much care for her.

  I hated Crispian, though. It was partly because he stood in the way of things I wanted, but also because he had all the attributes I longed to possess. I used to look at him, and think: how does he exert that charm over everyone he meets? He was not especially good-looking, you understand, in fact you’d have said no one would afford him a second glance. Brown hair, the colour of clear honey, and eyes to match, and the characteristic slanting cheekbones of so many of the Cadence
men. But people did give him that second glance and they usually gave him a third, as well.

  The curious thing was that my decision to murder him never shocked me. It didn’t even frighten me, and it certainly never worried me in . . . in any moral sense, I mean. I believed then and I believe now that I had logical and sane reasons for it. I really was, and still am, entirely sane. Although as the hours tick away in here, I’m not sure if I’ll remain sane.

  Sane . . .

  I wonder if anyone who reads this will be familiar with the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? It was fashionable in the closing years of the nineteenth century and it’s a chilling tale. I’ve sometimes had the eerie feeling that Stevenson was able to look ahead over the years and see straight into my own mind. His tortured misguided Henry Jekyll went through the agonies I go through, and as for the evil-intentioned Hyde . . .

  To those who encounter him, Edward Hyde gives the impression of repulsive deformity, but without having any actual malformation. He speaks in a husky whisper, but with a murderous tone of timidity and boldness (Stevenson certainly knew how to put opposites together to good purpose!), and lives a callous and cruel life, but does so in the shadows.

  The ill-starred Dr Jekyll unleashed his dark alter ego by means of a powerful drug, which he compounded in his own workshop – a drug intended to separate good from evil in a personality. But, drinking its smoky potency, he caused his dreadful inner self to come alive. The change happened in me in much the same way, although of its own accord. A deep apprehension would stir in the dimmest recesses of my mind, and moments later it was as if greedy ogre-hands reached down and took hold of my mind, wrenching it mercilessly, deforming it, until it lay bleeding and panting in a wholly different shape; altering the essence of what I really was. And if I looked in the mirror—