by Sarah Rayne
He took a deep breath, and went along to his mother’s bedroom. She was sitting in the chair by the window, and, although there were marks of strain around her eyes, she seemed perfectly composed. She had put on another robe and was examining her reflection in a small hand-mirror, tucking a stray lock of hair inside a hairpin, as if the only thing that mattered at the moment was her appearance. Crispian saw she was doing what she always did: pretending everything was all right, presenting a determinedly unruffled appearance.
He asked a bit awkwardly, ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m quite all right. But I’m sorry you had to see that, Crispian.’
‘So am I.’ He sat on the edge of the windowsill. ‘What’s wrong with him?’ he said flatly.
‘He has these spells from time to time,’ said Serena defensively. ‘For most of the time he’s perfectly all right. I dare say he works too hard. Cadences doesn’t run itself; you’ve all said that more than once.’
Crispian thought: but Cadences didn’t do that to him. It didn’t turn him into that cringing, hunched-over thing I saw. And his face . . .
He said carefully, ‘Why does he have to be locked up?’
‘He gets confused,’ said Serena. ‘He’s not a young man any longer. He was over thirty when we married, you know. I was just seventeen – a child bride. People said it was a very romantic match.’ She was watching him from the corners of her eyes to see how he was taking this.
‘He attacked you,’ said Crispian.
‘Not exactly. When he’s confused he mistakes people he knows for enemies.’
‘He’s not only confused, he’s dangerous.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said at once, but Crispian knew she was lying.
‘He must be dangerous or you’d never have made that arrangement about the attic room.’
‘Dr Martlet thought it was best at the times when he’s unwell,’ said Serena. ‘I shouldn’t have gone up there at such a late hour, that’s all. I startled him.’
‘I thought there was an intruder earlier,’ said Crispian slowly. ‘Flagg pretended to search. But it was my father I saw, wasn’t it? How did he get out?’
‘I don’t know. He must have got hold of a key. Perhaps Flagg was careless sometime.’
‘I didn’t recognize him,’ said Crispian. ‘It was dark and he was trying to hide . . .’ Trying to hide, said his mind. Because his face . . . Oh God, yes, of course he was trying to hide from the light. He said, ‘How long has he been like this?’
‘I really can’t remember,’ said Serena. It was the dismissive tone she always used if anyone made reference to something she considered indelicate; Crispian knew that tone and he knew there was no arguing against it. But she seemed unharmed and she did not appear especially worried. Was that because she was accustomed to this kind of behaviour? To the fact that her husband had apparently to be locked away for fear he might attack people? It was purest gothic; the mad relative in the attic. But if he really was mad, what was the alternative? Some bleak asylum? And what if it got out that the head of Cadences Bank was locked away, insane and dangerous? Crispian was not sure if he could cope with this.
He said, ‘Would you mind if I talked to Dr Martlet about him?’
‘Must you?’ Alarm showed in Serena’s eyes.
‘I think I must.’
‘Very well, if you feel it’s necessary.’ She got up. ‘And now, I think I would like to go back to bed. We can talk again tomorrow.’
‘Yes, of course.’
As he crossed the room to the door, she said suddenly, ‘Crispian.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m glad you’re home.’
Chapter 6
Entries From an Undated Journal
Everyone was glad Crispian was home. They all danced and fussed round him – you would have thought it was the Second Coming or a State visit at the very least.
I let them get on with it, but actually I was as glad as anyone that he was home. It’s not impossible to murder someone who’s living miles away in an Oxford college, but it’s difficult.
Murder’s a strange thing. There’s no way of learning how to commit it. You can read accounts of famous murderers – even their own accounts, in some cases – but those are the ones who got caught. The successful ones don’t write about it. So you learn as you go along, quietly and unobtrusively. But one of the things the books don’t tell you is how overwhelmingly exciting it is. To hide in the dark and wait for your victim, knowing all the while you’re going to kill him, is an extraordinary feeling. It’s better than being in bed with a woman – and let’s be honest here, I’ve been with enough women that I’m qualified to say that. Each murder attempt I made on Crispian – and there were several – caused that throbbing excitement.
The first serious attempt was during a big Christmas house party at Cadence Manor. I’ve always hated the place, although that’s not something I’ve ever said, because the family love going there. They’re quite clannish, the Cadences – that’s the Italian ancestry, I suppose – and they’ve always liked to gather there: all the men from Cadences Bank with their beautifully dressed wives and daughters, and all the glossy young men with their complacent smiles and clever eyes, discussing their investments and decrying the foreign money markets. Local people generally came in to help cook and clean and wait at table; there would be dinners for thirty and forty people, elaborate shooting parties for nearly as many. I always thought it practically feudal, but Crispian shone at all those events. He could light up an entire room simply by walking into it, and he talked so easily with the guests, even the most distinguished: joining in the masculine laughter, but somehow keeping an edge of deference; flirting gently with elderly aunts, never once stepping over the line of what was acceptable. Crispian always knew to a hair’s breadth where the line was, and he never once got it wrong.
‘It’s a trick easily acquired,’ he said once when I mentioned it, just casually.
It was a trick I knew I could never acquire, not if I lived to be a hundred. Which, of course, I won’t, not now. (There are six days left to me. That accursed ticking clock counts the seconds away all the time.)
On that Christmas night I got Crispian drunk, hoping it would fuddle his wits. It didn’t. All that happened was that his eyes became brilliant, and his hair was slightly dishevelled. In the end, I was the one who crept away to be sick because I had tried to match him glass for glass and my stomach gave way before my head. No one noticed I left the party. No one noticed either when, much later, I crept along the corridor and went into Crispian’s room.
I had worked it all out beforehand, when I was sober, and being drunk made no difference to the details. In any case, being sick got rid of most of the alcohol in my body and cleared my mind.
My plan was very simple – that’s always best with murder. I was going to tell him I had heard an intruder downstairs and get him to creep along the upstairs landing with me to see if we could catch the burglar in the act. Then I was going to push him down the stairs. Cadence Manor has a wide stairway at its centre, lined with marble and alabaster. It’s a touch pretentious, but people usually admired it. Pretentious or not, a tumble all the way down that stairway onto the unforgiving marble floor below and Crispian would never light up any room again.
He was asleep, but he came fully awake when I touched his shoulder – infuriatingly there was no befuddlement or bewilderment on waking. He opened his eyes, stared at me for a moment.
‘What on earth’s wrong?’
‘I think someone’s broken in downstairs – I heard a window being smashed. I don’t want to rouse the house in case I’m wrong, but I think we should take a look. Would you come down there with me?’
‘Oh Lord, you do pick your time,’ he said, glancing at the clock, which showed it to be just before 1 a.m. ‘But we’d better see what’s happening.’ He reached for a dark blue silk robe lying at the foot of his bed. He tied the cord, slid his feet into leather moccasins, and led the way on
to the wide landing outside his room.
That was when the excitement began for me. It coursed through my body like a flame and, as we went stealthily towards the main landing, I felt as if I was on fire with the power. We stole along the dark landings and I let him get a little ahead. Once I stopped, because I had the strong impression that someone was watching, but of course no one was there. Even so, as we went towards the big gallery at the centre of the house, I felt as if the shadows shivered and flinched from me as if I was already marked as a killer. The mark of Cain. All nerves, of course.
My heart was pounding and my hands kept clenching and unclenching. In just a few minutes he would be dead.
But he was not. I fumbled it, as anyone reading this will realize. As we stood at the head of the stairs, listening for the non-existent burglar, Crispian still a little in front of me, I made a lunge towards him – intending to push him in the small of the back, then stand away as he fell to his death. But at the very last second he spun round, startled at the sudden movement, and my hands missed him entirely. In fact I had to grab the banister to stop myself going headlong down the stairs.
I covered it up quite well – I can think quickly when I have to. I said, ‘He’s there!’ pointing into the deep dark blackness of the hall, making it seem that I had been bounding forward to catch the intruder. We went downstairs and searched, but found nothing, of course. And after half an hour, Crispian went back to bed, making some joke about me hearing things.
I didn’t dare try again that night, but I knew I would in the future. It might be a long time before a suitable opportunity presented itself, but I knew it would do so one day. Every time I thought about it, that fiery excitement burned up and I found my fingers curling into claws again.
Almost as soon as he returned to London from Oxford, Crispian spent a long time closeted with that old fool Dr. Martlet. He thought I was unaware what he was doing, but I knew, all right. I didn’t need to listen at doors or open letters to know what was afoot. And more than once I laughed at his deviousness and the machinations.
But I’d still like it understood that I’m not and never was mad. What I did was nothing to do with madness. It was because of the decision Crispian made in the summer of 1912.
London, 1912
Crispian hated the decision he had made, but he could not see any other course of action.
‘My father is dangerous,’ he said, facing Gillespie Martlet in the small downstairs room that had always been regarded as Julius Cadence’s study. It was lined with books Crispian did not think anyone had ever read, and there was a musty, unused smell about it. ‘He somehow got hold of a key to that hellish room you’ve put him in, and attacked my mother last night.’
‘Is she all right?’ asked Martlet quickly.
‘I think so. She’s doing what she nearly always does with any unpleasantness – pretending nothing happened,’ said Crispian caustically.
‘How did he get a key?’
‘I’ve questioned Flagg, but his own key never leaves his key-ring,’ said Crispian. ‘It’s my guess that my father got an extra one from the locksmith when the work was being done.’
‘Yes, that’s possible. He could have gone up there and engaged the workmen in conversation,’ said Martlet. ‘They wouldn’t have seen anything wrong. For long stretches he’s been perfectly all right, you know. Completely lucid and normal. He might simply have asked for an extra key and they’d have given it to him.’ He paused, then said, ‘But I have to say, these spells of . . . confusion are becoming more frequent. And they’re lasting for much longer.’
He’s avoiding the words ‘insanity’ or ‘madness’, thought Crispian.
‘Who else knows about this apart from my mother and Flagg?’ he asked.
‘No one. Flagg and his wife can be trusted, you know.’
‘I know that. I’m thinking of Cadences,’ said Crispian. ‘If any of the investors were to know . . .’ He paused, looking even more anxious. ‘It could be the end of the bank.’
‘Could it? Yes, I can see that’s a possibility.’
‘I’m also thinking of my mother’s safety.’
‘Oh God, so am I,’ said Martlet angrily. ‘Why d’you think I suggested that grisly little room? Your mother – Flagg too – have learned to recognize the signs now. They call for me at once, I sedate him and we get him into that room until it passes.’
‘But that can’t go on,’ said Crispian, appalled. ‘Not after last night.’
‘No. Oh, no. But until we can think of an alternative . . .’
‘I’ve thought of one,’ said Crispian. ‘I’ll take him away from London. Somewhere where he can be kept safe. Somewhere where no one knows him.’
‘What about Cadence Manor? That cousin of Sir Julius lives there, doesn’t he? Colm, is it?’
‘Yes, Colm. He’s Jamie’s father,’ said Crispian. ‘He’s lived quietly at the manor since Jamie’s mother died. You remember her, I dare say?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Martlet sadly. ‘A beautiful creature.’
‘But the manor is the first place people would think to look,’ said Crispian. ‘Also, my father could escape too easily. So,’ he said determinedly, ‘I think we’ll have to go out of England altogether. A sea voyage – a long one. Down to the Mediterranean and then round the coast of Greece, perhaps. We needn’t go as far as the Turkish coastline, of course, certainly not with that trouble in the Balkans last year, although Thomas Cook say it’s all died down.’
‘Crispian, you can’t do that on your own.’
‘I know. I’m going to ask Jamie to come with us. I think he’ll agree.’
‘That’s a good idea.’ Martlet thought for a moment. ‘But even with two of you, there might be times when it won’t be easy to control your father. I wonder – would you consider taking a second companion?’
‘Who?’
‘Gil.’
Gil. Oh God, thought Crispian, and his mind went back to the last time he had seen Dr Martlet’s son. Gil had been escorting two ladies along a London street, the three of them apparently bound for Gil’s rooms where the two ladies, who proclaimed themselves artistes from the music hall, were going to demonstrate their performance to Gil in private. ‘Would you like to join us, Crispian?’ Gil had said.
He was smiling and Crispian had no idea if he was being serious. He said, as cordially as possible, that he preferred his pleasures in private.
‘Pity. Fair enough, though. Good night.’ The trio went boozily on their way singing cheerfully, and hailed a cab at the end of the street.
Crispian pulled his mind away from this scrappy memory. Martlet was saying that he would provide sufficient funds for Gil. ‘That must be clearly understood. And I know he’s a little wild at times, a little frivolous,’ he said, ‘but he’s actually very trustworthy when it comes to things that matter.’
Crispian hesitated. He did believe Gil could be trusted over this; the trouble was that Gil could not be trusted in other directions. If he accompanied them Crispian and Jamie would spend half the time keeping him away from women and the other half dragging him out of gaming hells.
He said, ‘But would Gil want to come? Would he want to leave London? I thought—’ He broke off, trying to frame his next question tactfully. ‘I thought he was studying medicine at Guy’s. Fourth year, wasn’t it?’
‘It was,’ said Martlet drily. ‘But at present he’s not likely to be reaching the fifth year, let alone the final one.’
Clearly there had been some new scandal, and if Gil had not actually been thrown permanently out of Guy’s, he had obviously been rusticated. Crispian did not want to enquire too closely into the circumstances, and Dr Martlet was watching him with such entreaty that he said, ‘Yes, all right. He can come with us.’
‘I’m more grateful than I can say,’ said Martlet, and Crispian nodded and hoped the old boy was not going to become maudlin. But he merely said, with a touch of awkwardness, ‘You should be warned about Gil’s particu
lar weaknesses, I think.’
‘I know Gil’s particular weaknesses,’ said Crispian rather caustically. ‘And I’ll hide the brandy and the cheque books.’ As Martlet winced, he said, ‘I’m sorry, that was unnecessary. And in the situation we’re facing, things like that aren’t very important. I’ll be glad of Gil’s company.’
And I will be glad of it, he thought determinedly. Jamie’s a bit of dry stick these days and I’ll probably be ready to scream at him before we get as far as Calais. At least Gil’s good company and he’ll balance out Jamie’s earnestness.
Martlet said, very seriously, ‘Crispian, you do realize that this journey could last much longer than you envisage? The four of you might not see England again for a very long time.’
‘We might never see a great many things again,’ said Crispian grimly.
There was one thing Crispian was determined to see before leaving, and that was Cadence Manor. He was not sure he liked the place much. It was a vast echoing mansion, built by his great-grandfather, who could remember the decadent grandeur of his childhood in Florence, and consequently had a taste for ornate black marble and palladian pillars. But it was Crispian’s family’s place, and if, as Martlet said, he might not see England again for a long time, he would like one last sight of it.
He caught a train to the small halt at Bramley. A trap generally met the London train, so that travellers and their luggage could be taken to their destinations, but Crispian, intending to return to London by the eight fifteen train that same evening, had no luggage.
In any case, he liked the walk along the lanes, from where he could look across to the nearby villages, and he liked walking along Sparrowfeld Lane and Mordwich Bank, whose names evoked a much older English countryside. After the stuffy railway carriage, the air was fresh and clean, the hedgerows were frothy and the fields splashed with buttercups. In a distant copse he could see a hazy shimmer of bluebells. I’ll miss this, he thought. Oh God, I’ll miss England so much.
Jamie’s father, Colm Cadence, met Crispian in the big echoing hall of Cadence Manor. Colm was a mild-mannered man, who found London in general and the world of banking in particular bewildering. He had not wanted to join Cadences Bank, so Crispian’s father, with careless generosity, allowed him to live in a suite of rooms at the manor in return for acting as caretaker. Colm occupied three rooms, wandering around his well-stocked library, sometimes venturing into Priors Bramley, occasionally travelling to Oxford to potter happily among the groves of academe. Someone from the village went in to clean and cook meals for him, and the odd, hermit-like existence seemed to suit him.
