by Sarah Rayne
As she went back through the old gates, someone came walking towards her – someone vaguely familiar. A girl – a young woman – with a tumble of dark hair, a bit untidy, and an odd set of features, a bit like a cat. Who . . . ? The throbbing pain in Ella’s head suddenly cleared and she felt the world wrench itself back into its correct place. Behind her were the ruins of the old manor, and it was derelict because it had been empty for fifty years, the air all round it diseased from Geranos. How could she have been so confused? She had been thinking about her mother and the scarf, and how they had gone home to watch Ella’s television serial.
The girl coming towards her was Amy, and she was the one Ella had to deal with next, because she had found those things Ella had buried: the sweater with Veronica’s blood on it, and Clem’s diaries. That was what she had been trying to remember, only the past had become mixed up with the present. But she knew it all quite clearly now and she knew Amy must not be allowed to tell anyone what Ella had buried in the garden.
Amy had seen Gran coming from quite a long way off, but she had not immediately recognized her. At first she thought it was a gypsy or a semi-vagrant, someone who had been scavenging through the ruins. This was deeply sad. Amy had a five-pound note in her bag; when the woman got nearer, if she looked really down and out Amy would give her the money. She was not very good at doing that kind of thing and she could not really afford to give away five pounds, but she would mumble something about having had a windfall and please share it with her.
It was a huge and sickening shock to realize suddenly the woman coming towards her – the woman to whom she had been planning to give money – was Gran. Amy stopped dead in the middle of the road. Was it Gran, though? It was certainly Gran’s waxed jacket, and that was her leather bag slung over one shoulder. For a wild moment Amy wondered if her first assumption had been right, and this was a vagrant who had mugged Gran and stolen all her things. But as the figure came up to her, she saw it really was Gran, although Amy had never seen her like this. Her hair was all over the place and it was powdered with what looked like brick dust. And there was a dreadful look on her face – a kind of mad, staring-eyed look.
Amy managed to say, ‘Hi,’ in a rather wobbly voice, and Gran came up to her and stopped. Amy saw her dart a look up and down the deserted street. She said, ‘Gran, what on earth are you doing out here? Is anything wrong? It’s not Gramps, is it?’
‘No. I’ve just been looking round. Interesting to see the place after so long.’
‘How did you know I was here?’ said Amy, trying to convince herself that Gran was sounding perfectly normal.
‘What? Oh, I thought you might have gone down to the Red Lion to find that man you’ve been seeing. But they thought you might be out here.’ She took Amy’s arm. ‘Let’s walk up to the manor before we go home. You’ve never seen it, have you? It’s an interesting old place. And there’s a wonderful view from the lodge.’
Amy did not really want to go up to the manor, but Gran was propelling her along, and it seemed better to humour her. As they went, Gran talked, not in her usual way, but in a half-mumble, almost as if she had forgotten Amy was there. Most of it was inaudible, but once she said, very clearly, ‘You have to silence people, you know. It’s not always a very nice thing to do, but sometimes it’s necessary.’ But before Amy could think how to answer this, she said, ‘Here’s the manor gates,’ and they were inside.
‘It’s a bit sad here, isn’t it?’ said Amy as they approached the lodge. ‘A bit lonely.’
‘Yes, but we’ll be able to see the whole village from upstairs. We might even see traces of Geranos. It’s like amber, you know. A kind of dirty copper glaze. It smothered everything all those years ago.’ She did not quite look at Amy. She slewed her eyes round very slowly, then finally focused on the top of Amy’s head.
Amy said, ‘But have the police finished here? Is it all right to go in?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Gran pushed open the door and went in, and after a moment of uncertainty, Amy followed her.
It was dim and chilly inside the lodge, but Amy hardly noticed it, because the minute she stepped through the door a wave of such intense unhappiness hit her she flinched. Whoever lived here had been deeply, deeply, unhappy. Or was it simply that she knew a dead body had lain here for a great many years?
Gran seemed to be sensing the atmosphere as well, and Amy said, ‘Are you all right? You don’t look very well.’
‘Of course I’m not all right,’ said Gran sharply. ‘And I shouldn’t think I look well at all, with your grandfather in prison for murdering that bitch Veronica Campion.’
Amy was standing just inside the door, in a narrow hall. She forgot about the aching despair in here, and said, ‘But we don’t believe he really did it, do we?’
Gran had been looking towards a staircase with carved banisters, but when Amy said this, she turned her head very slowly. ‘Why don’t you believe it?’ she said, and as Amy was trying to frame a reply, Gran said, ‘You found the things I buried, didn’t you?’
Amy was still not exactly frightened but she suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that the lodge was very remote and very quiet. No, it wasn’t so remote at all – Jan was somewhere nearby.
She said, ‘What things? Let’s walk back to the car and go home and talk about it. There might be some news from the police station.’
‘You found the things I buried,’ said Gran, as if Amy had not spoken. ‘The sweater with that slut’s blood on. And the diaries – Clem’s diaries with all the things about the past.’ She moved back to the doorway, and stood there, blocking the way out. The light was behind her and Amy could no longer see her expression.
After a moment, she said, ‘Yes, I did find them. I absolutely wasn’t prying, but I saw you bury them. I couldn’t sleep that night, so I got up. I know there’ll be an ordinary explanation, of course.’
‘People always want an explanation,’ said Gran. ‘That’s always the danger. And people remember things. Things they mustn’t be allowed to talk about.’
Clearly Gran was having some kind of breakdown or suffering from nervous reaction to finding Veronica’s body and Gramps being arrested. It was hardly surprising. But there was still the question of that sweater and she had just said something about Clem Poulter’s diaries . . .
‘It’s important to stop them talking, you see, Amy. But I’ve always been very careful to be considerate. I was even considerate with Veronica . . .’ She seemed to suddenly recollect herself. ‘It’s Veronica’s blood on that sweater I buried,’ she said.
Summoning up her courage, Amy said, ‘From when Gramps killed her?’
‘It served her right,’ said Gran. ‘Forty-two years of marriage and he goes to bed with my oldest friend.’
‘Shouldn’t we get back . . . ?’ If Gran would only move, Amy could scoot out through the door.
‘Let’s go upstairs to see the view. I came in here to see it a little while ago. Oh, the stairs are a bit slippy, though, and they’re quite steep. You’ll need both hands for the banister – put your bag down here. You’ve still got Derek’s camera, I see. It was a very expensive one, so you hadn’t better drop it.’
Amy was starting to feel very uneasy, and the last thing she wanted to do was go up the dark stairway, but Gran was still standing in the doorway, so perhaps it would be better to humour her. She slung her bag over the end of the banister and went up the stairs, Gran following. There was a square landing at the top with several doors opening off it. A smeary light came in through the grimy windows, showing the marks of recent footprints, and debris left by their investigations. A coil of tape with ‘Police Investigation’ on it lay in a corner.
‘It’s a lot bigger than it looks, isn’t it?’ said Amy, hoping to strike a down-to-earth note, willing Gran to snap back to her normal self.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Gran was holding Amy’s arm. ‘This is the room I told you about.’
Amy said, ‘But there’s a bolt on the door
.’
‘Exactly,’ said Gran, and gave Amy a push so hard it sent her stumbling forward. She half fell, knocking over an old gramophone, but before she could scramble to her feet, Gran had pushed her flat to the ground and was twisting her hands behind her back and tying something round them. Amy fought and kicked out, but Gran was frighteningly strong.
‘It’s the camera strap that’s round your wrists, in case you wondered,’ said Gran. ‘I took it out of your bag before I followed you up here. It’s leather, so I don’t think you’ll be able to break it.’ She gave a vicious tug to the strap, jerking Amy against the window wall. Amy’s shoulder banged against one of the iron bars, and she gasped at the sudden pain. Before she could recover, Gran said, ‘I’m looping the strap round one of the bars. I’m wondering whether I ought to gag you as well so you can’t shout for help. I don’t think anyone will come out here – the police have finished all their investigations – but I don’t think I’d better take the chance. I can use my scarf. It was Veronica’s, so it won’t matter if it’s found.’
Trying to sound as normal and as calm as possible, Amy said, ‘You don’t need to do any of this. Untie me and we’ll talk about it. I’d like to hear about everything.’
‘Oh, I can’t do that,’ said Gran at once. ‘I can’t risk you talking to anyone ever again. You know too much.’
‘But you can’t leave me here,’ said Amy, incredulously.
‘I can,’ said Gran. ‘I don’t want to leave you to die if I can help it. Of course not. And if I can think of another way of keeping you quiet, I will. But for the moment you’ll have to be kept out of the way. I made sure you left your bag with the phone downstairs, you notice? And I might decide you need to die. I’m not ruling it out. It’ll be quick and clean, if so.’ But Amy saw the sudden doubt in her eyes.
‘Someone will find me,’ she said quickly. ‘So we’d be much better to go home and sort this out.’ Jan will find me, she thought.
‘No one will find you,’ said Gran, in eerie echo. ‘Not now I’ve killed him.’
‘Who?’ A lurch of new fear jabbed at Amy.
‘The man from the church. All these years and he was there all the time. You wouldn’t think it was possible, would you? But it’s true. He saw what happened when Mother killed Serena Cadence, you see. That’s why I had to get rid of him. He might have talked – told what he saw.’
‘Your mother killed Serena Cadence?’ I’ll keep her talking, thought Amy. And she’ll see that she’s got to release me. ‘Tell me about your mother,’ she said. ‘I never knew her.’
‘She didn’t mean to kill Serena Cadence,’ said Gran. ‘It was an accident. But she sat there in a chair, dead, staring at me with dead eyes. And her skin was . . . there was some sort of disease on her skin. It was terrible. I never forgot how terrible she looked that day.’ Her eyes were glazed and staring, as if she was seeing something terrible. ‘He was there as well – he saw it. He could have thought it was deliberate. I was afraid he would tell people my mother was a murderer. They’d have put her in prison – they might even have hanged her. People were still hanged in those days. I couldn’t have that.’
‘No, of course not. You couldn’t have been very old when that happened.’
‘I was nine. If my mother had been hanged they’d have put me in Bramley Gate Orphanage,’ said Gran. ‘Where they put children nobody wants.’
‘Awful for you,’ said Amy. ‘I do understand. Who was the man who saw you?’
‘I never knew. I thought I’d killed him, but he’s still here. I found that out today. I saw him inside the church. Imagine it, he’s been living in this poisoned village all these years. It’s extraordinary. That stuff they dropped burned my mother. It scarred her dreadfully, even after just half an hour in the village. It didn’t burn him, though. I don’t understand it.’
The body they found, thought Amy. Oh God, that’s who she’s talking about.
‘I heard him a while ago, playing his music in the church,’ said Gran. ‘That’s how I knew he was still alive. So I hid in the manor. That’s what we did all those years ago, Clem and Veronica and me.’ Incredibly and eerily there was a faint childlike note to her voice now. ‘We thought we’d be safe in there, but we weren’t. He came looking for us that day. He came looking for me today as well – I saw him come out of the church.’
‘Gran, that wasn’t your man, that was Jan Malik! I was there with him.’
‘No, it couldn’t have been. Because of the music, you see. That other time when he came after me, I pushed him and he fell. But I really have killed him this time. I strangled him with Veronica’s scarf.’
Amy’s mind was tumbling in horrified disbelief. She had not sorted out all the threads of this mad narrative, but one thing stood out starkly and clearly: Gran had heard the music Jan had tried to play on the dead church organ, and somehow linked it to a man she had killed fifty years ago. And so she had killed again, identifying him with the same man – the man who had seen her mother cause Lady Cadence’s death. Amy felt a bleak cold despair close over her at the possibility of Jan being dead, and for a dreadful moment she did not care if Gran left her here to die or not.
‘And now,’ said Gran, ‘I think I had better gag you.’
Amy discovered she did care about living after all. She fought for all she was worth, kicking and writhing, but she was hampered by having her hands tied behind her back, and also – she had not bargained for this – she was hampered by it being Gran she was fighting. But in the end the scarf was over her mouth and knotted at the back of her head. It felt soft and light and it had a faint expensive scent in it. But it stopped her from making any sound.
Gran stepped back and considered her handiwork, then nodded to herself, and went across the room. The door slammed shut and Amy heard the bolt slide home. For a moment there was silence, but Amy could sense that Gran was still there. Was she considering whether she was doing the right thing? Would she come back and free Amy?
Then there was the sound of Gran’s footsteps crossing the landing and going back down the stairs. Silence closed down over the old lodge.
Jan came back to consciousness slowly and painfully. At first he was not sure where he was – it seemed to be somewhere shadowy and dank-smelling – and it felt as if a thick band was clamped around his throat and his chest.
Memory began to trickle back in little threads. He was in Priors Bramley and he had gone into the old manor house, hoping to find the person who had been outside the church so he could explain about the music. There had been muddy footprints, which he had followed, and then hands, impossibly strong, had clutched at his neck and wound something around it, pulling it tight. A scarf? Yes, there had been a glimpse of orange and brown. He remembered struggling and trying to tear it off, then he thought he had passed out, presumably from lack of oxygen. So what had happened to his assailant? Had he panicked, or had he assumed Jan to be dead and run off? Jan got cautiously to his feet, wincing as a jag of pain went through his throat. For a few moments the floor tilted, but he held on to a piece of masonry and waited, and the dizziness passed. Had he been mugged? But when he felt for his wallet it was still there, and so too, when he checked, were his money and credit cards.
A different fear suddenly rushed in. Whoever had attacked him might have run back to the village, and Amy was still there. Would she be in danger? He felt in his pocket for his phone. He had no idea how much time had passed since his attack, but he would call 999 right away, and the police would come straight out. He was still feeling light-headed and infuriatingly weak, but he would worry about that when he had made sure help was on the way and Amy was all right.
The phone was not in his pocket. It was not in any of his pockets. Jan checked them all again, then looked around him, hoping it had slid out when he was attacked, but it was nowhere to be seen. He frowned, then another memory came back. His phone was in his briefcase, still in St Anselm’s. Then there was nothing for it but to get back there as quickly
as possible, and trust to all the gods at once that he would not meet his attacker a second time, and above all that the attacker would not meet Amy.
Infuriatingly, the dizziness was still with him, and every step he took needed a huge effort. Jan got as far as the hall and paused, gasping for breath, his chest and throat feeling as if they had been scoured. But he managed to get outside, and the fresher air cleared his head slightly. He stood for a moment, considering what to do, then began to walk down the drive to the gates. It took an immense effort. His legs felt as if lead weights hung from them, and his throat was still raw.
He could see the gates, rusted and brown with age, but tiny glints of their original gilt were catching the watery sunlight. To the right was the old lodge house. Jan summoned all his strength and began to walk down the drive. He had no idea which way his attacker had gone, and he had no idea, either, where Amy would be. He reached the gates, paused for a few moments, then forced himself to begin walking down the road to the church.
The lodge house was the eeriest place Amy had ever known. Several times she thought she heard soft footsteps approaching and hope bounded up, before she realized it was only the old roof creaking, or the drip of water somewhere after the rainstorm. Once something scrabbled over her head, then there was a light beating of wings beyond the bars of the window. The aching loneliness she had sensed earlier seemed to press in on her, and she had the feeling that invisible hands reached out, begging for help . . .
And if she was going to let herself start imagining that kind of thing, she would end up a gibbering maniac and she would never get out! Gran would come back quite soon, and this would all turn out to be a gigantic mistake. But then Amy remembered how Gran had talked about a woman sitting dead in a chair, staring out of a diseased face, about how Gran had said she killed some man when she was a child. She had said it quite clearly: she had killed him then and she had killed him again today. Oh Jan, thought Amy. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.
