Quest for Alexis (28 page)

“I heard your car, Brett,” he said. “Er ... have you
some news?”

“I just want a word with Gail, that’s all,” Brett said
brusquely. He pointed to the door of the Winter Parlor.
“Can we go in here, Gail?”

“Yes.” Before closing the door, I glimpsed the puzzled, anxious expression on Rudi’s face as he stood
motionless in the hall, staring after us.

Brett dragged off his sheepskin jacket and tossed it
on a chair. He began easing out the contents of the
cardboard tube, all the while talking fast.

“I was planning to come back earlier, but then I de
cided to stay in town and have a second look at all the material we’d chucked out, in the hope that some of it might be usable after all. As it stands, the film is much too patchy, and the whole concept of the thing needs
rethinking. I did find a few extra bits we could use.
However, that’s beside the point. What interested me was a series of stills that Eddie Fox had taken by the
lake here. They’re wretchedly indistinct, because there
was so little light. But look at this one.”

He had unrolled a blown-up photograph and flat
tened it out on top of the bureau. Standing beside him,
I looked at it, puzzled. Possibly, even if Brett hadn’t told me, I might have recognized the lake at Deer’s
Leap, the conifers fringing the far bank. But I could
make out little else, for the picture was foggy and
blurred.

I glanced up at Brett. “I don’t understand. What’s
so special about it?”

“It was Eddie’s first attempt at photography by
moonlight. He’d always felt that as the house is called
Deer’s Leap, it would be a pity not to include some
shots of deer taken in the grounds, and Elspeth and I
agreed with him. But all the time we were filming down
here we never saw a sign of deer. So in the end Eddie
decided he’d surprise us with some stills taken at night.
He waited for the full moon, and set up an automatic camera on that ridge above the lake, timing it to take a
short shot every five minutes. But when the film was
processed, Eddie shoved the prints away in disgust.
They were hopeless, with nothing recognizable as a
deer in any of them.”

The night of the full moon, Brett had said. I had a
sudden memory of the silent moonlit landscape at the
mas
in Provence. It had been a half moon then, low in
the sky, and on the wane.

“When were these pictures taken?” I asked him ur
gently. “Was it... ?”

He nodded. “Yes, Gail, the night Alexis disap
peared. I want you to have another look. Look care
fully. What do you think that is out on the lake?”

I could see only a vague gray blur. But with my
eyes half closed I began to form an image that grew
clearer, more definite.

“It looks like the dinghy, Brett.”

“Yes, and what’s in it? Or rather, who?”

It was all so indistinct. Shadowy figures with no
clear outline. I said doubtfully, “That could be a woman
...
long hair ... and the other
...
I don’t know—it
could be a man.”

“What else do you see, Gail?”

“There seems to be a dark shape between them.
It
...
it looks as if they’re trying to lift it ...” I broke
off and stared at Brett, fear suddenly surging through
me.

“As if they’re trying to lift it over the side?” he sug
gested, holding my gaze intently.

I felt the muscles of my legs begin to tremble, and I
gripped the hard edge of the bureau with my fingers.

“Oh, Brett, can it really be?”

“I don’t see what else,” he said somberly. “When you think about it, the lake at Deer’s Leap would be
the obvious place to dispose of a body they never ex
pected anyone to search for.”

There was a thin mist lying low across the surface of
the lake. I rowed with smooth strokes, dipping the oars
carefully, feeling a curious need to preserve the silence.
From the bank Brett signaled to me with a flash
light, sweeping the light around in a counter-clockwise
circle—a prearranged signal that meant I was to go
more to his left.

The dinghy responded at once to my pull on the oar.
As it glided on its new course, I noticed that the lights
of the house, hazy through the mist, were suddenly cut
off from view by a rise in the bank.

I had been astonished when Brett told me that he
proposed making a dive that night.

“But you can’t,” I’d protested. “I mean, not in the dark.”

“There’s no reason why not, Gail. The lake isn’t
exactly crystal clear, so I’d have to use an underwater
flashlight whether it was night or day. I’ve got to go down at once. I couldn’t sleep not knowing whether
Alexis is down there or not. And neither could you.”

Brett was right, of course. But I was frightened for
his safety.

“Don’t you need all sorts of elaborate equipment?”

“I’ve got an aqualung and all the rest of the gear
out in the car. I borrowed it from a club I belong to.
You don’t have to worry, Gail. I’ve done a fair bit of
scuba diving in my time.”

Brett had slipped through to the main wing of the
house to make some excuse to Caterina about us not
joining them for dinner. I don’t know quite what he
told her. I guessed that Elspeth wouldn’t be pleased. While he was gone I sped upstairs and dressed myself
in the thickest pair of slacks I possessed, a chunky
sweater, and a quilted anorak jacket.

Rudi wasn’t anywhere around when I came down
again. As soon as Brett got back, we went outside and
collected the diving equipment from the rear seat of
the Lancia. Brett carried the aqualung cylinder itself,
the life jacket, and various bits and pieces. I took the
pack containing the “wet suit,” which was bulky but
not heavy.

“I’ll need to wear the full gear for warmth,” he said.
“This time of year a spring-fed lake is going to be
mighty cold.”

At the lakeside we had righted the dinghy, and I
climbed in. Brett shoved me afloat, and then, taking
the flashlight with him, he started clambering through
the tangled mass of dead bracken on the bank up
to the point where Eddie Fox had set up his camera.
By comparing the photograph with the actual scene,
looking at the lake from the same angle, Brett had
decided he could guide me fairly accurately to the
right spot.

He was signaling to me again now, a series of short
flashes, which indicated that I was to go out toward the
middle. After a moment, the light was waved in a
clockwise direction. Responding, I edged a little to the
right.

The light went out. Brett reckoned I was now in
position. I fumbled around at my feet and found the
small marking buoy made of bright-orange plastic and dropped it over the side.

By the time I had rowed back to the little pebble
beach, Brett had already thrown off his clothes and
was climbing into the skin-tight wet suit. Slipping his
arms through the harness, he heaved the aqualung
cylinder onto his back. Then he put on the inflatable
lifejacket. He tossed the pair of fins into the dinghy.

“All set now.”

It was difficult for me to keep the boat steady while
Brett climbed in. I followed him, pushing off with an
oar and rowing toward the center of the lake once
more. When we judged ourselves in about the right
position, Brett shined the bright beam across the water
while I slued the boat around, scanning a wide semi
circle, searching for the orange ball floating on the
surface.

“There it is,” said Brett. “Ease her over a bit, Gail
—that’s right.”

Brett had pulled the rubber fins onto his feet. He
made some final small adjustments, then sat up on the
end board in the stern, facing me, ready to dive.
Silhouetted against the whiteness of the mist, he looked
a strange, almost monstrous figure.

“Here goes, then,” he said. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck ... ?”

“It’s what we want to find, Gail—what we’ve
got
to
find. We know—both of us—that no amount of wish
ing will ever bring Alexis back to life.”

His hand went up to his face, fixing the mouthpiece, holding the mask in place. He rolled slowly backward,
overbalancing and hitting the water with a splash that seemed to tear the night apart. Suddenly freed of his
weight, the dinghy bobbed wildly. I steadied it, grip
ping the sides with my hands, and stared down into
the dark water. For a few moments I could see a glow of yellowish, brownish light. But swiftly it faded until
I could detect nothing.

The boat’s dancing motion grew less, and soon it was
quite still again, the surface of the lake barely rippling.
I could hear a curious faint plopping noise, and at first
I was puzzled. Then I knew what it was—a stream of
tiny bubbles rushing to the surface, the air that Brett
was breathing out.

A plane droned faintly overhead, lost in the vastness
of the sky. Across the surface of the water the mist
was drifting sluggishly in some unfelt wind, curling into
mysterious white wraiths that seemed about to engulf
me. But my thoughts were concentrated on what was
happening below me. Somewhere down there Brett
was moving slowly on the bottom of the lake, groping
his way, searching the mud-stirred depths with his
flashlight.

Minutes crept past. The soda stream of air bubbles
breaking on the surface was my only contact with
Brett. But somehow I couldn’t feel it as a contact. It
was too unreal, too remote to have any meaning.

Yet if it were to stop….

I had never, ever, known time to drag as it did now. Though I knew that in truth it was only minutes, to me
the wait seemed unending.

Peering down, trying to pierce the secret darkness of
the water, my eyes began to play tricks. Could I really
see something, or was it just my wishful imagination?

After another long age I felt certain I could detect
the faintest paling, a lessening of the utter black opac
ity. Very slowly, the glimmer grew stronger, more
definite, until I could see the round yellow disk of the
flashlight itself.

Suddenly, five yards away from me, Brett broke to
the surface in a quick swirl of water. He looked around
him, saw where I was, and swam over. Grabbing the
side of the dinghy with one hand, he slipped out his
mouthpiece and lifted the mask.

The beam of the flashlight shone up into the sky,
but in the light scattered by the mist, I could see
Brett’s face, a circle of white in the black rubber hood.

I waited fearfully, unable to voice the question.

He said at last, “Yes, Gail.”

Even now, something within me wanted to reject
the dreadful knowledge.

“You’re ... you’re sure it
is
Alexis?” I faltered.
“Really sure?”

“Who else?” said Brett wearily. “A body, wrapped
in some sort of canvas, weighted down, at this exact
spot. Who else could it be, Gail?”

There were things to be done now, and that saved
me from breaking down. First I had to help Brett back
into the boat. He unclipped the harness, and I knelt
and took the heavy aqualung cylinder off his back,
then helped him as he heaved himself over the stern,
clumsy and awkward in the slippery rubber suit.

“Row straight back. There’s a good girl. We’ll leave the buoy to mark the spot. I’ve got to get out of these
things. I’m freezing.”

In my bedroom, the room that had been mine since I
was a girl of thirteen, I wandered around touching
things, trying to find comfort in fingering my childish
treasures. There was the collection of china dogs that
Alexis and I had added to whenever we came across
one with a suitably appealing face; the little mother-
of pearl jewel box that had been a birthday present
from Madeleine; a serpent-shaped piece of driftwood
brought back from an outing to the sea on one of Mad
eleine’s good days.