by Sarah Rayne
It was raining even more heavily now and Amy scraped the earth back, replacing the twigs and branches. Then she put the spade away and went back into the house, thinking hard. After a moment she went to the phone and dialled the number of the Red Lion, praying the news about Veronica and Gramps would not have got out yet.
It seemed it had not, but it also seemed Dr Malik had gone out first thing after breakfast. Who was this speaking? Oh, Amy Haywood. Well, in that case, they could tell her Dr Malik had mentioned going out to one of the villages. Something to do with his research, seemingly – a nearby church, the receptionist thought he had said. He was going to check on something he had found a couple of days earlier. Was that any help?
‘Yes, it is,’ said Amy. ‘Thank you very much.’
She put the phone down. It was just on half-past ten and Gran would probably be at the police station for another hour at least. Amy went upstairs to dry her rain-soaked hair and combed it more or less into shape, her mind still going over what she had found.
Back downstairs, on the message pad Gran kept by the phone she scribbled a note saying she had borrowed Gran’s car and was going out for an hour or so. She would pick up something for their lunch. After a moment, she added a note to say Gran must of course call her if she needed to. She would leave her mobile on. As she drove off the drive she found she was already feeling better at the thought of talking to Jan.
Chapter 37
By the time Ella reached the police station she was already feeling better. She knew how she must play this. The brave wife, determined to help her errant husband through an ordeal, but, just under the surface, a hint of bitterness and anger – the kind of anger that might let an unguarded, potentially damning remark slip.
The duty sergeant took her to see Derek. He unlocked the door and Ella paused before going in, taking in the bleak tiled walls and the squalid lavatory arrangement behind a half-screen.
Derek seemed fairly composed. Ella had wondered if they were going to have embarrassing or emotional scenes, but he was neither embarrassing nor emotional. He thanked her for coming, and said he was very sorry indeed that she had found out about his fling with Veronica. That was all it had been, he said, very seriously. Nothing more, nothing deeper. It had been a lapse, a brief weakness, snatching at his vanishing youth, wanting to feel he was still attractive.
‘You do understand that, don’t you?’
‘I understand everything,’ said Ella, sitting primly on the edge of the narrow bunk bed. ‘Have they charged you with the murder yet?’
‘No, but I’m told they’ll have to do so in the next few hours, or let me go. They can’t hold anyone for more than about twenty-four hours without making a formal charge. Habeas corpus, you know.’
It was like Derek to show off his stupid pointless knowledge at such a time. But Ella only said, ‘I see. Have you got a solicitor? Do we need to arrange that?’ This would be the normal thing to ask, although the only solicitor they knew was the man who had done the conveyance of their house fifteen years ago, and he had probably never seen the inside of a magistrates’ court, let alone a criminal one.
‘The police said they can arrange that if I want,’ said Derek. ‘There’ll be a duty solicitor they can call in.’
‘We don’t want legal aid,’ said Ella sharply. ‘I hope you made that clear. We’ll pay whatever fees are necessary.’
‘Let’s not worry about that yet,’ said Derek. ‘I expect it won’t come to it anyway. Clearly some mad house-breaker got in and killed her. It’ll all be sorted out quite quickly, I dare say. I’m just glad to think my parents didn’t live to see this. You haven’t phoned Andrew, have you? Well, don’t – not yet, at any rate – and don’t let Amy phone him either. There’s no sense worrying him unnecessarily.’
Ella agreed she would not tell Andrew and went out. The duty sergeant showed her into CID to go through her statement with the inspector. Ella was not particularly worried about this because the story she had told was so very near the truth it was unlikely she would be caught out.
She was not caught out. The inspector took her through the details once again, then thanked her and said everything seemed clear. The statement would be ready for her to sign later that day. They would bring it out to the house, if that was all right? By then they would know if they had enough of a case to charge Mr Haywood. Would she be all right on her own?
‘I’m not on my own,’ said Ella. ‘My granddaughter’s with me. And I have very good friends – although I’d rather not tell anyone about this until I know what’s happening. My husband might be back home tonight and this sorry business over.’
The policewoman drove her home. It was still raining, although not as hard as it had been earlier. Ella went into the house to find the note from Amy, saying she had gone out, taking Ella’s car, which Ella found annoying; Amy might at least have waited in to hear how her grandfather was.
It was almost twelve o’clock. She went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and look what they might have for lunch, and it was then she saw the tiny pieces of mud on the kitchen doorstep and the small, still-damp footprint next to them.
Ella stood looking at the marks for a long time, all thoughts of lunch gone. Probably the footprints and the mud were not in the least sinister. Most likely Amy had gone into the garden for some perfectly ordinary reason and had not wiped her shoes thoroughly enough on coming back inside. But Ella could not think why Amy would need to go into a rain-sodden garden at all. There was no washing to take in or hang out, and no rubbish to be emptied. Milk was delivered to the front of the house and had been brought in first thing.
She opened the kitchen door and looked out, trying to persuade herself she was being neurotic because she knew what was buried out there. Amy would not know about that, though. Or would she?
Ignoring the rain, Ella went down the paved path to the potting shed, and opened the door. It was dark in here. For years she had asked Derek to fix up some kind of light but he had never got round to it. Too busy, he always said. Now Ella knew what he had been busy with, the cheating adulterer.
Last night she had used a trowel to scoop out the earth and pat it back in place. The trowel was where she had left it, slightly muddied but dry. But alongside it was the small spade Derek used for borders, the spade that was seldom called into service. Somebody had called it into service recently though, because it was wet and smeary, and clumps of soil clung to the edges.
With the feeling that she was moving through a nightmare again, Ella closed the shed and went down to the place where she had buried the sweater, handbag and diaries. She could remember exactly how she had left the ground in the small hours: the ground patted flat and smooth, the hedge clippings so carefully arranged over it.
The ground was no longer flat and smooth. It was churned up, the wet earth scattered around, the hedge clippings in an untidy heap.
Amy. It must be. Somehow Amy had found out what Ella had done – perhaps she had even seen last night – and had investigated. Amy knew. She knew. Ella felt sick and dizzy at the realization.
But where was Amy now? Had she gone to that man, that academic she had become so friendly with?
Ella went back to the house, locked the kitchen door, then, glancing at the steadily falling rain, put on her waxed jacket, and wound a scarf round her neck. It was Veronica’s scarf, the one Ella had taken to hide the bloodstains after killing her. It was a very nice scarf, silk and cashmere, and she might as well make use of it. She picked up the keys to Derek’s car and set off.
She went first to the Red Lion. She had no idea what she would do or say if they seemed to know about Derek and Veronica – news travelled so fast in a small place like Upper Bramley. The receptionist, whom she knew slightly by sight, was not at the desk, but one of the barmen wandered out and asked if he could help. He was ordinary and friendly and Ella was fairly sure he had not heard.
She explained about trying to find Amy, saying there had been a muddle ab
out meeting up and she thought Amy might be here. ‘And her mobile’s switched off.’ This was untrue, but he would expect her to have tried phoning.
‘Nuisance for you,’ said the barman sympathetically. ‘She isn’t here, but as it happens I had to go out about half an hour ago and I saw Amy driving out of Bramley. That’ll be why her phone was off. If she was driving, I mean.’
‘Are you sure it was Amy?’
‘Oh, yes. In fact she waved to me. She’s been in a few times so we’re on waving terms, you might say.’
‘Which way was she going?’
‘Oh Lord, where was it? Sparrowfeld Lane, that’s it. Down Mordwich Bank,’ he said. ‘Does that help?’
It did not really, but Ella said, ‘Oh yes, thank you.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘Is Dr Malik in, by any chance?’
‘No, he went out first thing. Off on some of his research, I think. He said he wouldn’t be back until this evening.’
Then it could not be Malik Amy had gone to meet. Ella was relieved to know that at any rate. She thanked the barman, went out and got back in the car.
Sparrowfeld Lane and Mordwich Bank. Where on earth had Amy been going? Ella drove down Mordwich Bank, going rather slowly because she was not very used to Derek’s car, which was bigger and more powerful than her own, looking out for her own car as she went. She absolutely must find Amy before she could talk to anyone about the stuff buried in the garden. She would not phone, because she needed to see Amy’s expression and reactions. At least Amy had not gone to the police station, which was just off the High Street. Or had she? She might very well have some misguided idea of helping her grandfather by reporting her findings; she thought a lot of Derek, Ella had often noticed that. Supposing Amy had gone to the station first, asked for the CID inspector from last night and been told he was out at Cadence Manor, working on the unidentified body case? Mightn’t she go out there to find him?
Ella glanced to her right, to the shallow dip of Priors Bramley. Dare she go down there? Yes, why not? If she met anyone she would say she was curious to see the place now it was open again. If she met any police, who would know about Derek, she would say she had to get away for an hour or so to clear her head.
There was not much traffic and, as she turned off the main road and went down the last stretch of bank, Priors Bramley looked deserted. There were lengths of blue-printed tape saying ‘Police Incident’ lying on the ground, but that was all. But however deserted the place might be, one person was certainly here, because parked a bit untidily on a grass verge was Ella’s car.
Ella parked nearby, locked the car, and set off. If Amy did know about the sweater and the bag and diaries, Ella had to persuade her they were innocent. If she could not do that, then a way must be found to prevent Amy talking about them.
As she walked along, hoping to see Amy at any minute, her own childhood memories stirred. There was the little shop where her mother liked to buy knitting wool, and further along was the bakery that had sold Clem’s currant bread. A thin mist lay everywhere and droplets of moisture clung to the buildings – Ella did not know if this was from the rain earlier or from the decontamination spraying.
As she went round the sharp bend in the high street the past pressed in more insistently. The grey misty desolation heightened it: she had always remembered the past – her own past – in monochrome, like an old newsreel.
Just around the curve of the road was St Anselm’s; at the thought of it Ella’s apprehension ratcheted up several notches. But probably she would not need to go as far as the church – she was bound to see Amy at any minute. There was no sign of Amy, however, and, despite her resolve, as Ella reached the church she slowed down and then stopped, staring at what had been the path going up to the main entrance.
The trees that had screened St Anselm’s still stood, but they looked dry and diseased, the trunks pitted and the remaining branches grotesquely twisted. Had the Geranos done that? For a moment Ella saw her mother’s scarred face, and she shuddered. The lichgate had partly collapsed, but it was almost as she remembered it. ‘Sometimes they rang a lich bell,’ Clem had said. ‘The death bell, they called it.’ How long was it since the lich bell had rung? No one would ring it for the man who had poured out the music and sobbed so painfully that day. And that second body? Would anyone have mourned for that person? Who had it been, anyway? Because I only killed one person that day, thought Ella.
Whoever the dead people had been, their stories were in the past. Today Ella could go inside that church right at this minute if she wanted to and nothing would hurt her. She stepped through the lich-gate and went a little way along the path, thinking she would take a brief look. Amy might even be in there. She had talked about some holiday project or other involving the place, although Ella could not believe Amy would be thinking about work this morning.
The headstones of the graves jutted up like dark teeth against the damp air, and mist clung to the sick-looking trees. Ella glanced up at the clock tower. Would anyone wind the clock again?
The church seemed to have withstood its half-century of desolation well, despite the stories about it crumbling away from dry rot or deathwatch beetle. Ella stood in the porch, trying to see inside. There seemed to be only the grey shadows and the brooding silence, and she turned to go back. She was halfway down what remained of the path when, from inside the church, came a sound that caused an icy hand to clutch her stomach. She spun round in horrified disbelief.
Music. Harsh, difficult music – not quite melody, not even quite chords, but unformed embryo sounds, ugly but recognizable, as if a piece of music was struggling to be born . . . Or as if music smothered for half a century was trying to make itself heard again.
It was as if huge invisible hands had picked Ella up and flung her back into the dark fear of her childhood. Panic coursed through her. He was still in there. Even though she had killed him fifty years ago – even though she had been sure he was dead! – he was still here. Somehow he had survived and he was trying to play his music again.
The struggling, fragmented sounds came again – deformed, like he had been deformed – then died away. The silence closed down, but Ella was scarcely aware of it. She was nine years old again, terrified of the man who had come down the stairs from the organ loft and crept towards her with that shambling walk . . . The man who had stood in the dim room inside Cadence Manor and looked at her, while the dreadful dead figure of Serena Cadence sat in the shadows, staring at nothing . . .
From out of the church came a figure, the outline blurred in the leaden light and the face obscured by the shadows the old church cast, but recognizably the figure of a man. Ella’s reason spun wildly away from her, and she gasped and stepped back.
As the figure started to walk towards her, she gave a sob of fear and turned to run, not towards the main street and her car, but towards the left, towards Cadence Manor.
The past was still swooping and darting about Ella, but she was remembering the manor as somewhere she could hide, somewhere she had hidden in the past. Sobbing and gasping she went towards it. Here were the gates: the massive stone pillars on each side were cracked and eroded, and one gate lay on the ground while the other hung drunkenly from its hinges. But the lodge was still there, and beyond the ruined gardens she could see the outline of the manor.
Ella stopped, aware of a jabbing tightness in her chest. A stitch, that was all it was. Mum would be quite annoyed with her for running so fast and getting so upset. No – her mother was dead, she had been dead for years, and Ella was grown up. But everything around her seemed to be distorting. The entire landscape was somehow skewed and it was confusing her. But he was still here, she had not been confused about that. He had walked out of the church towards her, the reverberations of the distorted music still thrumming faintly on the air. She looked back down the street, then went up to the gates.
At one level of her mind – the level that was still maintaining a fragile hold on the present – she registered the signs
of the police investigations. There was a kind of Portakabin parked alongside the lodge with ‘Police’ on it, but there was no sign of life from within the lodge, and everything was silent and still. Ella looked back down the village street again, then, taking a deep breath, stepped through the stone pillars.
As she did so, the remaining gate moved slightly with a groaning creak that sounded as if a hoarse voice whispered the word ‘murder’. The past closed around her.
Chapter 38
‘You see the problem,’ said Amy, sitting on a dusty window ledge of St Anselm’s church.
‘Yes, certainly.’ Jan had prowled round the edges of the ruined church while she talked, but his absorption in what she was saying was unmistakable.
When she stopped he came to join her on the window ledge. He was wearing the herringbone greatcoat again and the hem was dusty where it had trailed on the ground. His hair flopped over his forehead and Amy wanted so much to reach out to smooth it back that she had to sit on her hands.
‘Amy, I’m desperately sorry about what’s happened,’ he said. ‘You must be utterly shell-shocked.’ He did not proffer meaningless conventionalities; he did not say he was sure it was all a mistake and not to worry because it would all turn out all right. He said, ‘It’s polite to say I’ll do anything to help, isn’t it? And I will, of course. But maybe the best help I can give you at the moment is to see if we can find an innocent explanation for the sweater and the handbag you found.’
