House of the Lost (34 page)

‘Let us know when she does,’ said the sergeant. ‘You might just jot down her numbers for me, as well.’ He passed the notebook to Theo, who scribbled them down. ‘Thanks. Now, how about the attacker? Did you get any impression of anything about him? Any glimpse of his build, or a scent or body smell?’

‘Nothing at all. It was just a dark figure – and it was on the stairs above me, so it could have been any height.’

Leigh nodded. ‘We’ll try for fingerprints, but any number of people have probably tramped in and out of this house over the last few months. I suppose you didn’t spot anything unusual when you came out here, Doctor?’

‘Nothing. I wasn’t looking for anything unusual, I was concerned to get to Theo as quickly as possible.’

‘Fair enough. I’ll get a statement drafted and bring it out for you to sign in the morning,’ said Leigh to Theo.‘We’ll get your prints at the same time, just for elimination. Yours, too, Doctor.’

‘They’re already on file,’ said Innes. ‘They were taken when Charmery Kendal was killed. That was for elimination purposes as well,’ he said, and Theo saw Leigh’s flicker of annoyance.

But he only said, ‘If you think of anything else that might help, Mr Kendal . . .’

‘You’ll be the first to know. Sergeant Leigh – is he likely to come back?’

‘I’m supposed to say no in a reassuring voice, but I don’t think we can rule it out,’ said Leigh. ‘You’re on your own here, are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d happily stay,’ said Innes, ‘but I’ll need to get back home soon because I’m on call from nine to eleven.’

‘Ah.’

‘I’ll bolt all the doors,’ said Theo. ‘And I should think the locksmith would come out first thing in the morning.’

‘There’d be one of those twenty-four hour emergency locksmiths in Norwich,’ said Leigh. ‘You could try that, although by the time they got someone out to you . . .’

Theo said that in his experience, twenty-four hour services were never able to come out when you needed them.

‘We’ll check the bolts before we go,’ said Leigh. ‘And I’ll call the locksmith in the morning as well, just so he knows it’s a priority case. I’m sorry we haven’t the manpower for a permanent watch, but I’ll make sure the local patrols know to stay around this area. Here’s my direct number, and I’ll get you the number for the patrol, so you can get straight through to them if anything happens.’

‘You’re taking this quite seriously,’ said Theo. ‘You don’t think it was just an opportunist house-breaker?’

‘No, and I don’t think you do, either. I think it might be linked to your cousin’s death.’

‘Because the killer’s still at large, and for all we know still in Melbray,’ said Theo.

‘I’m aware of that,’ said Leigh. ‘I was drafted in to the murder investigation team.’ He studied Theo for a moment. ‘We really did do absolutely everything we could to find her killer,’ he said, ‘but we had nothing to work on: no leads to follow, no forensic evidence to speak of, no witnesses who saw or heard anything. It was as if her murderer materialized out of nowhere, then went back into nowhere. It’s easier to track down a killer – or any criminal – in the middle of a city or a big housing estate. People see things, there are shops, parked cars, sometimes CCTV cameras, you can piece together a pattern. But in a place like Melbray you’ve got nothing at all.’

‘Yes, I understand that. But, Sergeant, why would Charmery’s killer come back? It’s not as if there’s any damning evidence to be found anywhere. If there was, you’d have found it in the summer. Unless he’s simply a madman.’

‘Even madmen have their own logic,’ said Innes, softly.

‘Yes, they do, and we never fathomed the logic of Charmery Kendal’s murderer.’ Leigh shut his notebook and stood up. ‘Don’t open the door unless you’re sure it’s us, will you, Mr Kendal?’

‘On no account whatsoever,’ said Theo. He accompanied Sergeant Leigh to the door, then returned to the sitting room.

Michael Innes was standing in front of the blank wall where Charmery’s sketch had been. As Theo came in, he said, ‘You’ve moved the portrait?’

‘Yes,’ said Theo, not explaining. But as Innes did not move, he suddenly said, ‘Michael, how much do you really know about Charmery?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Did she have a child?’ The words were out before he could stop them.

Innes turned sharply. ‘How did you know? Oh wait, it’d be in the autopsy—’

‘Then it’s true? Don’t take refuge in patient confidentiality,’ said Theo. ‘You’ve already given yourself away. What do you know about it? When was it?’

An expression of infinite sadness crossed Michael Innes’ face. He said, ‘About nine years ago.’

‘Nine years,’ said Theo. ‘Dear God. What happened? Where is it?’

Innes sat down facing him. ‘It was stillborn,’ he said.

Stillborn. Theo was not expecting the pain that closed around him. He half shut his eyes against it, but the image he had had the night he read the eerie confession on the laptop, was strongly with him. Tip-tilted eyes and beaten copper hair . . .

‘I was with her when it happened,’ said Innes. ‘It was an emergency birth. Premature. She said you were the father.’

Theo managed to say, ‘We had one of those brief, cousinly affairs one summer. Ten years ago.’ Half to himself, he said, ‘I wish she’d told me about it.’

‘I don’t think she wanted anyone to know.’

‘Did she intend to give it up for adoption?’

‘I think so.’

‘Did anyone know? The family?’

‘She said she managed to hide it from them – I don’t remember the details at this distance. I know she came to Fenn for the actual birth. She said no one was ever here in March and she’d be perfectly safe.’

‘Did anyone here know?’ It did not really matter, but Theo found himself asking anyway.

Innes paused, then said, ‘One person knew – someone who helped me with the birth. But there was a promise of confidentiality given.’

‘All right, I won’t push you. You said it was stillborn? Was it a boy or a girl? Michael – I need to know!’

‘It was a boy,’ said Innes. ‘He was named David because it was St David’s Day, the first of March.’

‘David . . . Was there a funeral? A grave? I don’t know what happens with stillborn babies.’ Innes seemed even more reluctant to answer this, so he said, ‘I meant it about needing to know everything.’

‘All right. The child was born in the boathouse,’ said Innes. ‘It happened suddenly. We – I – only found Charmery by purest chance. The baby didn’t survive – maybe simply because it was premature, but without an autopsy there was no way of knowing exactly what had happened. Charmery was distraught – because of the birth, because the child was dead – everything. We couldn’t stop her— There was a storm – the river was churning – he went out of reach . . . Oh God, he was out of reach before I could do anything,’ he said. ‘He was so small, so fragile.’

Theo stared at him, unable to speak, and after a moment, Innes said in a stronger voice, ‘I think that’s why Charmery kept coming back here. She never had what some people call closure.’

‘So she kept coming back for him,’ said Theo, softly.

‘Yes. I think in some odd way of her own she felt he was still there, in that part of the river. Still just under the surface of the water, so that all she’d have to do was reach down to find him. Once she talked about a rusalka – it’s an old folk tale,’ he said, seeing Theo’s questioning look. ‘A rusalka is supposed to be the soul of a drowned infant. I think she’d read the legend somewhere and it stuck in her mind.’ He smiled. ‘There was a lot more to your cousin than all that flippant frivolity, wasn’t there?’

‘Yes.’

Innes made another of the impatient gestures. ‘I had all kinds of responsibilities that I didn’t shoulder that day. I should have tried to – to recover the child’s body, or got the police to try. They could have dragged the river . . . There should have been an autopsy, the registering of the birth and the death. And I should certainly have reported what Charmery did.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘To protect her,’ he said. ‘You must have guessed how I felt about her. Even all those years ago she was quite simply the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. I’d have done anything she wanted. Then, years after the birth – this last summer – she and I . . .’

‘I guessed that,’ said Theo. ‘Did she feel the same about you?’

‘No,’ he said, very definitely. ‘I was a diversion. For a few weeks that was what I was. You were the one she really loved.’

Michael Innes left just before half-past eight, and after he had gone the old house seemed to fill up with stealthy creaks and rustlings, and with shadows that moved of their own accord. Theo sat by the fire, watching the rain beat on the uncurtained windows.

At the end of that drowned garden, somewhere below the river’s surface might be the tiny body of a child who had never drawn breath in the world. My and Charmery’s son, thought Theo. David, because it was St David’s Day. And she came back here every year on the anniversary of his birth – letting everyone think she liked Melbray in the spring, but really coming back before spring began so she would be here on the first of March. ‘She never had closure,’ Michael Innes had said. ‘She felt he was still there, in that part of the river.’

Had Charmery left Fenn House to Theo because she thought David was still here? Was that romantic and sad, or was it merely mawkish? Theo could not decide, and nor could he decide if it was an emotion Charmery would have had.

He made himself a sandwich and tried to watch television, but although the pills had stopped the throbbing in his head, his balance had not entirely righted itself, and the flickering screen made it worse.

It was still only a quarter to nine, but the pills were having a slightly soporific effect. Theo lay back on the sofa, staring into the flickering warmth of the gas fire. When they were children there had been an open fire here. They used to sit on the hearthrug, staring into the flames, taking it in turns to describe the pictures they saw. Lesley had been by far the best at it. She could conjure up entire fleets of ships and caves with dragons and rose-red cities half as old as time . . .

He was aware he was moving into the borderlands of slumber, and he tried to push it back but, as he did so, Matthew and Mara began to come to the forefront of his mind. He was not exactly hearing their voices, but he was starting to see something that illuminated their lives – rather as if he was reading an old, cobwebby manuscript by candlelight, and as if the flickering light showed up fragments of the pages, lighting up sentences and names at random.

Elisabeth and Andrei and Pitesti Gaol . . . Mara and the Black House . . . Zoia loving Annaleise with that sad lonely desperation . . .

Theo was hardly aware of sitting up and getting off the sofa, but he found he was no longer sleepy. He went into the dining room and switched on the lamp and the computer. He began to type, almost without noticing it. At first only disjointed phrases and sentences materialized on the screen, but then whole paragraphs started to form, and he was as deep inside Matthew and Mara’s world as ever before.

Romania, early 1970s

It was very quiet inside the well-house. Mara had remained in a frightened huddle against the wall for so long, her legs were getting cramp. She stood up and tried to bicycle them, like in gym at school, but she was frightened to move too much because of the black lipless mouth that was the well. From time to time she had the impression that it was breathing out, with evil-smelling breath.

It was impossible to know how long she had been here because time seemed different. Several times she stood under the eyeholes and again shouted to be let out, but after a while her voice became cracked. She tried again to get the door open, but her fingers were too bruised and tender from where she had torn the nails, and the door was clearly not going to move anyway.

It was still not absolutely dark, but it was a lot darker than it had been. It might be just that the sun had gone in, but the trees were whispering to themselves in the way they did when it grew dark, and the forest was full of night sounds. Mara did not like these sounds, so she worked her way round the walls until she was facing the eyeholes. If anything was going to climb in through them, it would be better to know about it. The light coming through the eyeholes had taken on a thick bluish tinge; that meant it was nearly nighttime, which was worrying. Mara’s grandmother told tales of wraiths and shadow-beings who could not go abroad in daylight and walked the world after dark. Trolls came alive at night as well, and if they did not go back into their lairs before dawn they were turned into stone. For the first time, Mara had the terrible thought that this building might once have been a troll who had been turned to stone and the stone made into a well-house. Until now she had been trying to be brave, but this was such an extremely bad thought, she put her head down on her knees and sobbed.

She cried for a long time which made her throat even more painful and gave her a headache. She was just trying to dry her eyes on the skirt of her cotton frock, when, somewhere beneath the sobs, a tiny, thin thought nudged its way upwards. It was so light and so frail that at first Mara was not sure what it was, but the more it worked its way through her mind, the more she began to feel it might be important. Was it something that had been part of her grandmother’s tales? It was not anything about trolls or wolves, that was for sure, but it was certainly something her grandmother had once told her. Something about her own village? Something about Matthew’s family? Yes, that was it! She stopped crying altogether, and sat up a bit straighter, trying to imagine herself back in her grandmother’s cottage. There was her grandmother rocking by the fire as she liked to do each evening and there was Mara herself, curled up in the warm little place by the side of the hearth, on the thick rag rug. She could hear the creak of the rocking chair and her grandmother’s voice, and she could hear her saying some of the stories might be true . . .