The House on the Cliff

by Charlotte Williams

  “But why didn’t you just pick up the phone and report him? Why did you have to involve Gwydion in all this?”

  “I needed to explain why I hadn’t gone to the police before. Getting Gwydion to come to you and say that he had recovered a memory of the incident seemed more believable. Especially if you could act as an expert witness at the trial.” She lowered her voice, as if talking to herself. “It was a good plan. If Gwydion hadn’t screwed it up, it would have worked. But now . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  My anger subsided a little. Arianrhod had used me, used Gwydion, to further her own ends, but I couldn’t help sympathizing with her to some degree. Evan was a man apparently without shame or guilt—I knew that from personal experience. He took what he wanted, when he wanted. And now, as he was moving into his old age, he’d decided to set up home with a younger woman. Leave the wife he’d mistreated for so many years, the wife who had faithfully supported him through thick and thin, put up with his womanizing, covered up the scandal about Elsa Lindberg. It wasn’t surprising that when he’d finally betrayed Arianrhod completely, she’d decided to take her revenge, put her husband in the dock, as a last act of defiance.

  “Tell me, Arianrhod,” I said. “What really happened to Elsa? What do you know? What does Gwydion know?”

  Arianrhod laid her cigarette carefully in the ashtray and began her story. I sensed she was choosing her words carefully.

  “I remember it well. It was a beautiful day for sailing, but I didn’t want Evan to take Gwydion out on the boat. He was only six, and he couldn’t swim. It wasn’t safe, and he hated going. But Evan insisted. I went out for the day, to take my mind off it, and when I got home that afternoon I found Gwydion alone in the house. Elsa wasn’t there, and nor was Evan. Gwydion was in his room, lying on the bed, crying. Something had traumatized him, and I got him to tell me what it was. He said he’d seen his father kissing Elsa on deck, and then he’d felt seasick, so he’d gone to the cabin to lie down. While he was there he’d heard them fighting, so he’d come up and seen Evan pushing Elsa off the side of the boat. I managed to calm him down, and when Evan got home, later that evening, I asked him about it. He told me that Gwydion was lying, that there hadn’t been a fight. Elsa had just decided, of her own accord, to swim back to shore from the boat.”

  She paused, as if casting her mind back, and then went on. “Elsa didn’t come home that night. When her body turned up on the beach the next day, Evan told me it was an accident, that she must have drowned as she tried to swim into the bay. He was distraught, or pretended to be. Then he admitted that the previous day he’d been trying to seduce her. Told me that if it was discovered that she’d been on the boat with him, his career would be ruined. Begged me to help him.” She sighed. “So I did as he said, and when the police came, I backed up his story.”

  “So it was Gwydion who told you that he’d seen Evan push Elsa in the water?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had no other evidence.”

  “No.” Arianrhod looked puzzled. I could see she was wondering what I was getting at.

  “He was only six. Didn’t it ever occur to you that he’d made up the story? Out of anger toward his father, perhaps?”

  “Children don’t make up things like that.”

  I tried a different tack. “The thing is, I noticed, when Gwydion told me the story, he got one little detail wrong. He said that when he saw Evan and Elsa kissing, they were sitting by the wheel of the yacht.” I paused. “I actually went down to Penarth and checked Evan’s yacht, and I saw that it has a tiller, not a wheel.”

  Arianrhod looked nonplussed for a moment. Then she recovered herself. “Maybe he had it changed.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Oh, how should I know. I don’t know anything about boats. I can’t stand them.” She was irritated now. She picked up her cigarette and tried to take a drag, but it had gone out, so she put it back in the ashtray.

  “And another thing. Elsa was a good swimmer.” I didn’t say how I knew that. I didn’t want to give away too much information. “And it wasn’t far into shore. How would she have drowned on the way back?”

  Arianrhod shrugged. “The currents out there are treacherous. And the tide has a way of coming in very fast in the bay. Once it’s in, you can’t get a foothold on the rocks. You’re out of your depth.”

  “Yes, but she could have climbed in on the jetty.”

  “That can be difficult, too.” She paused for a moment. I could see she was thinking about something. Something she wasn’t telling me.

  “I wasn’t going to mention this before,” she said at last. “I wanted everyone to think that Evan was the person responsible for Elsa’s death. But the truth is, there was another man involved.”

  “What d’you mean, another man?”

  Arianrhod put her head on one side and looked at me quizzically.

  “Why do you think your husband leapt to Evan’s defense so quickly?”

  For a moment, I was nonplussed. Then I realized what she was getting at.

  “You’re not implying that Bob had something to do with this, are you?” I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. He would have told me.”

  “Well, it’s the truth. Honest to God. Bob was waiting for her when she swam in to the bay that day.” She paused, as if casting her mind back. “He’d come round to the house, ostensibly to see Evan. But the person he really wanted to see was Elsa. He’d met her at the house before, they’d played tennis together a couple of times. I’d noticed he was rather smitten with her.” There was a sly note of pleasure in her voice. “He was a bit of a lad, in those days, anyway. Maybe he changed after he met you.”

  I didn’t believe a word of what she was saying, but the story Mari had told me about Bob running off on his teenage fiancé came into my mind, along with an image of the translator in the skimpy dress. A pang of fear ran through me.

  “Evan and Bob had evidently locked antlers over Elsa, this pretty little thing of nineteen. They were like a pair of rutting stags. It was quite comical to watch.” She gave a wry grin. “Bob was ten years younger than Evan, of course, so it looked as if he might be in with a chance. But it was clear to me that Evan was going to win out. He always did, one way or another.”

  There was an arrogance in her tone that made me realize how proud she’d been, perhaps still was, of her position as the long-term mate of the alpha male, however much he’d humiliated her.

  “Bob wouldn’t give up, though,” she went on. “He was determined to stick to Elsa like a limpet. So when he came round to the house that day, I sent him down to the jetty to wait for the boat to come in.” A smile began to play on her lips. She looked like the cat that got the cream. “For all we know, it could have been Bob, not Evan, who drowned Elsa.”

  This time, it was Elsa who flashed through my mind. Elsa from the photo that Solveig had showed me: blonde, with long, tanned legs, innocent yet knowing. Could Bob have known her? Tried to seduce her, as he had the others? It seemed impossible. Yet . . .

  I tried not to show that I was rattled.

  “How could he have done that?”

  Silence fell for a moment. Then Arianrhod got up from her chair, as if having made a sudden decision.

  “Come on, I’ll take you down there and show you.”

  21

  Outside, a wind was blowing up. There was a faint rustling of trees as we walked over the lawns behind the house and into Arianrhod’s seaside garden, bounded by its high walls. With winter coming on, it didn’t look as pretty as it had done last time I’d visited. As we passed by, I noticed that she’d been neglecting it. She hadn’t been deadheading the roses, the flowerbeds were full of dry brown stalks, and the vegetable patch had been left to molder, untouched.

  She opened the small wooden door set into the wall and led me out onto the cliff-top path outside. We made our way carefully along the track, trying to avoid the mud, and stopped for a moment at the top of the steps to look a
t the view. There wasn’t much to see that day. A thick mist had descended over the brown water, and the sky above was a leaden gray.

  I peered down the slippery steps cut into the rock that led to the beach below. The tide was in, as she’d said, right up to the foot of the cliffs. I hadn’t seen the bay like this before, the water completely covering the flat expanse of volcanic rock beneath. I shivered involuntarily, remembering the first time I’d come here and stood looking out to sea on the cliff edge, with Arianrhod; and the second, when I’d gone down the steps with Gwydion, to the beach far below.

  Arianrhod noticed me eyeing the steps nervously.

  “Come on. I’ll lead.”

  She began to walk down the steps, turning to wave me down after her. She didn’t hold on to the handrail, balancing herself by holding her arms out on either side of her. I was more cautious. I grasped the rail, maneuvered myself onto the steps, and then slowly, carefully, took each one, feeling its bumps and cracks with my foot before putting my full weight on it.

  Arianrhod looked back and grinned. “See you at the bottom.”

  She walked, practically skipped, down the steps ahead of me. She seemed suddenly energized, carefree almost. I hadn’t seen her move like that before. I wondered, fleetingly, whether it was the danger, the possibility of falling, that had excited her. But mostly I concentrated on my own slow progress down the steps, praying that I wouldn’t trip and hurt myself. I’m not a daredevil, never have been; I know some people get a kick out of taking risks, but I don’t—not the physical kind, anyway.

  When I finally reached the bottom of the steps and walked out onto the jetty, Arianrhod was standing looking out to sea. She didn’t turn round as I came level with her.

  “It’s quite deep out here, isn’t it?” I said. “When the tide comes in like this.”

  “Mmm.” Arianrhod wasn’t listening. She seemed distracted. “Let’s walk out to the end,” she said, still gazing out at the horizon. “That’s where Elsa would have swum in. I’ll show you.”

  I looked down at the boards on the jetty beneath my feet. I hadn’t noticed it before, but some of them were missing. Others were soft with seawater.

  “Is it safe? I mean, in all this wind?”

  Arianrhod turned to look at me. I saw a glimmer of amusement in her eye that struck me as curious, in the circumstances.

  She nodded, took my arm, and led me down to the end of the jetty. We stood there for a moment, the wind blowing in our faces, the water all around, making a peculiar slapping noise as it hit the wooden boards beneath our feet. I thought of the time Gwydion and I had kissed there. The sound of the sea hitting the decking had excited me then; now it just made me feel afraid.

  I wished she would let go of my arm. I didn’t feel comfortable with her holding it, but I felt it would be rude to withdraw it.

  “Why wouldn’t Elsa have been able to climb up here?” I said as we stood there, looking out to sea. I was almost speaking to myself. “It would have been easy enough, wouldn’t it? Unless . . .”

  I felt Arianrhod’s grip on my arm tighten.

  “Unless there’d been someone standing here. Someone stopping her from—”

  I don’t know exactly what happened next. My arm was squeezed tight, and I felt a shock as a sudden jolt came from behind. Shock, and confusion.

  “What . . .” I struggled to get away, but I’d been taken by surprise. Arianrhod was pushing me, pushing me hard, over the edge of the jetty.

  I teetered for a moment, staring down at the thick brown water below. There was another jolt, this one harder, and then she let go of me. I felt myself falling, and as I hit the icy water a stinging pain rushed through my belly, my arms, my shoulders, my head, my back, my whole body.

  My head went under and I found myself gasping for breath. When I came up again, I was only inches from the jetty, so I instinctively put out my hand and grasped on to one of the wooden boards, holding on to it for dear life.

  Arianrhod was standing above me. The expression on her face had darkened to one of pure rage. It was only at that moment that I realized she was intent on stopping me from getting out.

  I tried to grasp the jetty with my other hand and scramble onto it, but she stepped forward, lifted her foot and, quite deliberately, brought it down hard on my fingers.

  I cried out in pain and let go. A wave came in, slapping me over the head, filling my mouth with water. As the water crashed over my head, I began to choke. There was an agonizing pain in my hand. But the wave passed, and I came up, so, once again, I swam toward the jetty.

  When I reached it, I moved to put my hand out to grasp it, but hesitated. Instead, I stayed beside it, treading water, looking up at Arianrhod.

  She bent down. For a split second I thought she was going to change her mind and pull me out, but instead she grinned at me.

  “Now you know,” she said, raising her voice against the wind. “Evan didn’t kill Elsa. And it wasn’t Bob who was waiting for her on the jetty when she swam in. It was me.

  “I drowned her. And I’m going to drown you, too.”

  I found it hard to believe what she was saying, but the look on her face terrified me.

  “Please . . .” I whispered, but my voice was carried away by the wind. “Let me . . .”

  I edged my fingers onto the jetty.

  She stood up, ready to bring her foot down on my fingers again. “That’ll teach you to screw my husband. You. Elsa. And all the others.”

  I drew my hand away.

  “But I didn’t . . . I haven’t . . .”

  “Oh, maybe you haven’t. Not yet. But you will sooner or later, won’t you?” Her voice took on a sneering tone. “What line did he spin you, then? Don’t tell me, he said he’d put you in a film. You’re a bit old for that, I’d have thought.”

  It was a shot in the dark, I felt sure. Arianrhod couldn’t possibly have known about my meetings with Evan. Even if she had somehow got wind of them, I hadn’t done what she was accusing me of. I started to protest, but then I realized, with a growing sense of shock, that even though she was clearly guessing, she wasn’t far off the truth. I’d fallen for Evan’s chat-up line—flattering my intelligence, as well as my looks—just like all the others. I’d behaved like a silly young girl, no different from poor Elsa with the Strindberg line. And about to meet the same fate.

  Another wave hit my head and I went under again. This time it turned me over, so I was upside down under the water. Or, rather, I didn’t know which way up I was.

  I told myself not to panic. Instead I held my breath, keeping my mouth closed, waiting until the wave had passed and I could right myself, come up for air. I could hear a voice in my head, my own voice. This is ridiculous, it was saying. This can’t be the way you’re going to die. This is just water, cold water. You can swim out of it, climb up onto that jetty. You can’t let some madwoman stop you.

  As the water swirled around my head, I could feel tiny stones and pebbles in it, filling my nose, my ears, my hair.

  I kept holding my breath.

  Then I heard another voice, this time a voice I didn’t know, running through my head. Yes, this is ridiculous, it said. But didn’t you know? Death is ridiculous. Everybody’s death.

  I began to flail about. I needed air. I needed to come up, but I didn’t know which way was up.

  This is your death, Jessica Mayhew. And it’s going to be ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous, like everyone else’s.

  Nella, I thought. Rose. Bob.

  Another wave hit me, and I felt my body crash into something hard. This is it, I realized.

  I can’t die now. They need me.

  I put out my hands. It was a pole. An iron pole. The pole of the jetty. If I could just find the end of it.

  My lungs were bursting. I felt my way up the pole, hoping it was the right way, but I didn’t come any closer to the surface. It was no use, I realized. Sooner or later, water or no water, I was going to have to take a breath.

  I was j
ust about to take in a lungful of water when my head popped out of the sea.

  I began to cry with relief, gasping for air. There was hope, after all. I was still in the sea, with no way out, but at least, for the moment, I could breathe.

  I looked up at the jetty. My vision was blurred. Initially I thought I saw that it was empty, that there was no one there. But then I made out the figure of Arianrhod still standing there, towering above me.

  I clung on to the pole of the jetty, determined not to let go.

  She came toward me, ready to push me away from it. Under the water I wrapped my legs around the pole and let my body float away from it, so that she couldn’t reach me. As she bent over, I saw the fury in her face.

  I used my free arms to splash her with water as she leaned down. It was a feeble gesture on my part, but it enraged her.

  “You’ve only got yourself to blame.” She hissed the words, brushing the water from her eyes. “You knew perfectly well what you were up to. You’d no right to mess around with people like that. Flaunt yourself, take whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. It just wasn’t fair. . . .”

  She was looking at me as she spoke, but she seemed almost to be talking to herself, reciting an ancient litany of resentment.

  “I’m only doing what I have to do,” she muttered under her breath. “You bloody well deserved it. Sitting there with that nice, kind smile on your face, as if butter wouldn’t melt.” Her voice began to rise. “Silly little bitch. This is your own stupid fault, not mine. . . .”

  She sat down on the edge of the jetty and began to use her legs to kick me off the pole. As she did, one of her shoes dropped into the water beside me.

  I picked it up and hurled it at her head. She ducked, and it missed. Once again, it was a feeble attempt at defiance, but it served to infuriate her further.

  She took off her other shoe and threw it at me. It caught me full in the face and I felt a sharp pain across my forehead. I gasped, my mouth filled with water, and my legs uncurled from the pole. Another wave hit me, but this time, when my head went under, I managed to remain upright.