Asking For Trouble (16 page)

A lift? In a private house? It looked as if the evening was going to be full of surprises.

I felt better as I climbed out of the tub, freshened up. I’d been afraid I’d discover my toes rubbed raw from the hike in the pixie boots but they were all right which was a relief. I couldn’t afford to be laid up lame now. I let myself out of the bathroom, wrapped in the dressing gown, and turned to shut the door.

The corridor was dark here. As I fumbled with the handle I heard a step behind me and a hiss of indrawn breath. A man’s voice whispered, ‘Theresa?’

I turned. It was Jamie, white as a sheet as even I could see in the gloom.

When he saw who it was, colour flooded back into his face. He snapped, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing wearing my cousin’s clothes?’

‘The robe?’ I twitched at the dressing gown. ‘I didn’t bring one with me. It was hanging in the room. I didn’t think anyone would mind.’

‘Well, I mind!’ He sounded really shaken.

I felt I ought to apologise. It must have given him a bit of a shock. I said I was sorry. ‘I didn’t think anyone would see me. I’ve only come along the corridor in it.’

‘Don’t let anyone else see you! The old people – Alastair. The old boy would have a heart attack! Even if he didn’t, it would be distressing . . .’

He turned and strode off, still visibly shaken, and leaving me by the bathroom door. Something he’d said had lodged in my brain. Old people? Who else, then, other than Alastair?

Back in my – in Terry’s – room, I opened the drawer in the kidney-shaped dressing table and found a jumble of odds and ends of makeup. There was a pink lipstick which wasn’t too lurid. I smeared some on and rubbed the pad from a box of pancake powder over my nose, put on the skirt and my tights, polished up my dusty boots with a tissue from a box on the dressing table, and set off downstairs.

But first I went exploring up to the end of the corridor. Sure enough, just round a corner in a little nook, there was a lift. A lift in a private house? An old house, which didn’t even have modern bathroom fittings? I thought about getting in and pressing the button but decided that might be thought presumptuous. I went back to the stair-case.

As I walked down I could hear voices coming from the sitting room. Jamie was making a speech in a hectoring tone. I could hear Alastair murmuring some kind of protest. Then Jamie said quite clearly,

‘But you don’t know a thing about this girl! She says she knew Theresa. But we all know what kind of company Theresa kept! This girl is probably some heroin-shooting drop-out from God knows where! We’ll be finding needles in the flowerbeds and we’ll have to keep everything locked away!’

I thought it was time I made my entrance. I threw open the door and marched in. I was going to make a little speech about how I didn’t do drugs and never had, nor was I a thief, so they needn’t worry. I wasn’t going to make off with the family silver. But before I could speak, a deep but female voice boomed out,

‘So you are the young lady my brother met in London?’

I hadn’t seen her when I first went in and so when she spoke it gave me quite a start. I fairly leapt round.

I saw a very stately old lady in a ruffled blouse and long skirt which covered her legs. Her hair was white, blue rinsed, and very neatly waved. Her eyes were deepset, but very large, dark and clear with a look which seemed to see right through me. She was in a wheelchair which explained the lift and the noise I’d heard outside the bathroom door. She was also so obviously Alastair’s sister that even if she hadn’t said ‘brother’ I’d have guessed it. She had the same large strong features but looked a year or two older than he was.

Alastair had risen to his feet as I came in but Jamie stayed seated, glowering at me. He knew I’d overheard what he’d said about me. He was glad. It saved him having to say it all to my face.

Alastair said courteously, ‘Yes, this is Francesca, Ariadne. Fran, dear, this is my sister, Mrs Cameron.’ Then, really throwing me, he added, ‘This is her house.’

I’m not the sort of person who’s easily embarrassed. But I felt really embarrassed then, because if this was her house, I ought to have been invited to stay by her and not by Alastair. I hadn’t even known about her and here I was, a real gate-crasher, someone who had just marched in and wangled an invitation. I couldn’t meet Jamie’s eye. I must appear to be confirming every doubt he had about me.

However, Ariadne said, ‘It’s very nice to meet you, Francesca. I hope you’ll be comfortable in that room. It was Theresa’s, as I expect they told you.’

I mumbled ‘Yes’, adding, ‘Please call me Fran. Only the teachers at school ever called me Francesca, so when I hear it, I always feel I’m in trouble.’

‘Hear it often?’ Jamie asked silkily.

Mrs Cameron gave him a look which would have stopped anyone in their tracks. But she spoke quite mildly. ‘Now, Jamie, behave. Fran’s made a long journey to come down here and visit us!’

She made it sound as though they’d really invited me and I was doing them some sort of favour so I was truly grateful to her. She must have noticed how red my face had turned. She and Alastair both seemed so nice, it hardly seemed possible that they and Jamie could be genetically connected.

Ruby came in and told us all to, ‘Hurry up and get to the table, it’s all going cold!’

The meal was traditional, grilled lamb chops with tomatoes, mushrooms and the best mashed potatoes I’d ever eaten, followed by treacle tart and custard. Mrs Cameron didn’t have the pudding, only a small piece of cheese. The rest of us fell on the food and ate it all up. I hadn’t realised I was so hungry.

We all went back to the sitting room afterwards and the coffee was there on a tray, ready for us. It was getting late so I asked, ‘Would it be OK if I rang someone in London and let them know I’ve arrived? I’ll pay for the call.’

‘Of course you must ring and let your friends know you’re safe!’ Alastair said. ‘The phone’s in the hall.’

I went out into the empty hall. From somewhere in the distance I could hear crockery rattling. Ruby in the kitchen. There was a grandfather clock by the phone, ticking softly. But there wasn’t anyone to overhear.

I rang the Patels. Ganesh answered. He said, ‘Thank God, I’ve been worried sick! Where are you?’

I explained I was staying at the Monktons and he needn’t worry.

‘I’ll be the judge of that!’ he said grimly ‘Look, don’t hang around down there. You don’t know those people!’

‘They’re dead respectable, Gan! Don’t make a fuss. Look, I can’t hang on the phone and run up a bill. I just wanted you to know I’m all right.’

‘Fine, but if anything odd happens, anything, right? Get on the phone and I’ll bring the van down and pick you up! Otherwise you might wind up very dead and not very respectable.’

‘I promise. Cheers, Gan.’

I put the phone down and turned round. I was wrong about not being overheard. Jamie was lounging by the closed sitting-room door with his arms folded. He must have made an excuse to go out, just so he could eavesdrop on my conversation. I was furious.

‘Heard enough?’ I snarled.

‘Who is Gan?’ he countered.

‘What’s it to you? A friend.’

‘Male or female?’

‘Male. You don’t mind asking questions, do you?’ I stormed at him. ‘How dare you snoop on me?’

‘Not snooping, sweetie. Came out for a smoke. Ariadne doesn’t like it. Makes her cough.’ He produced his Benson and Hedges packet and held it out to me.

‘I don’t!’ I said coldly.

‘Got at least one virtue, have you? Lost the rest?’ He lit up and grinned at me. ‘As for snooping, I bet you’re no shy violet when it comes to asking around, Fran! Isn’t that what you came down here to do? Or one of the things you came here to do, anyway.’

He’d scored a point over me. I snapped, ‘So what?’

‘So mind your own business!’ he snapped back. ‘This Gan, is he a boyfriend?’

‘Let’s both mind our own business, shall we?’

I’d had enough of him. Besides my relationship with Ganesh was no concern of his.

Jamie and I locked stares but he backed down first. He opened the sitting-room door for me with mock politeness and I stalked past him to join the others.

Mrs Cameron didn’t have coffee. There was a glass of water on the tray. Her brother handed her that and she took a couple of tablets with it. I wondered if they were painkillers. Her face had that drawn look which people have when the pain never quite goes away.

Directly after she’d taken the tablets she said she would ‘go up now’ and bid us all good night. That left me and the two men. Alastair opened a drinks cabinet, but I didn’t want anything else. I was fit to drop with tiredness. I said goodnight too.

I was sure that, once I’d left, Jamie would start trying to persuade Alastair to get rid of me. They were going to have a whisky apiece and were clearly settling down for a talk. Alastair had produced a pipe and tobacco pouch and was fumbling with it. I waited hopefully to see if a book of matches would appear, but he got up, took a paper spill from a jar on the mantelshelf and lit it from the hearth. Jamie had produced his Benson and Hedges again together with his plastic disposable lighter. I was beginning to think the match booklet was going to prove a non-starter as a clue.

I wasn’t worried about what Jamie would say in my absence. I was sure either of the old people could handle him. I did wonder, if he was such a distant relative, just what he was doing there.

But I was glad they were settled for a while. I knew that if I meant to do my detecting properly, I must lose no time making a search of Terry’s room. I was well aware that if there was anything to be found there, which anyone in the house thought I oughtn’t to see, tonight might be my only chance of finding it before it was removed.

But I just felt so sleepy. I knew I’d make a rotten job of looking and probably would miss anything significant. I decided to get up early and search the room before breakfast. I pulled back the curtains so that the early morning sun would wake me.

It was pitch dark outside. Not the sort of darkness I was used to in the city where there’s always a glow above the rooftops from the street lights in the main roads. This was just a solid wall of black night. If there was a moon up there, it was behind cloud.

It was so quiet. In the city there is always the faint background hum of traffic or trains. People stay up later and go out at night to have fun. Here it was only nine-forty-five, but Ariadne was already in bed. I was about to go to bed and, judging from the lack of any sign of life out there, everyone else round here, with the exception of the two men chatting over whisky downstairs, had also turned in early.

As a child, Grandma Varady had lived in a village out on the
puszta
, the great Hungarian plain. She’d described nights there as being like black velvet, dotted with the dancing orange fires of the herdsmen who tended the horses and cattle. Perhaps I will go to Hungary one day, if I ever have the money. There are lots of things I’d like to do if I ever have the money. I could seek out my roots. Not that I feel I have roots there. All my roots are in London. I don’t even speak Hungarian. I’ve often wished I had learned when I was a child from Grandma Varady and Dad. Learning languages is a doddle to kids. But I hadn’t. Another opportunity missed. The story of my life.

Nothing broke this darkness. We were an oasis in the middle of a sea of nothingness. I wished I could see the stableyard because that must have security lighting. But from here, nothing. I pulled myself together and told myself it was the lack of ‘purple’ in my eyes. Someone told me once that city-dwellers lack ‘purple’, whatever that is, and that’s why they can’t see so well in the dark. Country-dwellers are used to darker nights and manage better. I didn’t know if that was true. And I didn’t know whether someone who didn’t mind the dark, as I did, was out there. The watcher, still watching. I had begun to believe in him by now, try as I might to convince myself he was only the figment of my imagination.

As if I didn’t have enough worries about possible events inside the house. I turned the big old key in the door, locking myself in.

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I woke up just as suddenly. I’d no idea what time it was and, for a moment, didn’t even know where I was. The moon had appeared to shine through the undraped window and the room was bathed in clear white light. I could see everything now, all the furniture, my clothes lying over a chair where I had thrown them, too tired to hang anything in the wardrobe, the battered collection of stuffed toys sitting on top of a chest of drawers, the pattern on the wallpaper.

And the door handle. I’d sat up and that made me stare directly at the door, and the handle which was twisting downwards ever so slowly as someone on the other side pressed it down. I watched it fascinated. I ought to have been scared but, in a way, I’d been expecting something like this, and in my own mind I was prepared for it. I wasn’t altogether prepared for anyone actually getting into the room, but what I’d do then would depend on a lot of things.

Besides, I reasoned, the door was locked.

The handle went up again. The person outside was having a rethink. He – I was pretty sure it must be Jamie – realised I’d turned the key. The floor boards creaked. I thought he’d given up and relaxed.

I was wrong. After a moment or two, he was back. He had only gone to collect a sheet of cardboard. He slid this under the door where there was a sizeable gap. I guessed what was coming next but I watched, just to see if he could do it. The key rattled in the lock. He was pushing it through from the other side. It fell out and landed with a click on his cardboard. He began to inch it back, under the door.

The thing to do was leap out of bed, grab the key before it disappeared from sight and foil him. But I’d left it too late. It slithered under. The lock scraped. The doorhandle turned.

I was naked and didn’t fancy offering Jamie Monkton a free show. I jumped out of bed and ran to snatch up the robe, pulling it on, as the door opened.

‘Come in, why don’t you?’ I invited.

He walked in with as much composure as he could muster in the circumstances. He wore tennis shoes, jeans and a sweater. Burglar’s kit and keeping burglar’s hours.