Shroud of Silence (17 page)

Minutes later I came back to cold reality. The dining room was empty, save for me. And save for the almost living presence of that foul parcel still lying there on the table.

* * * *

I knew that I must get in touch with Gwen. It was the least I could do to put things right. I shrank from yet more interference, but nobody else knew the truth of the matter. Nobody else knew that Gwen too had confessed blame for Brian’s death.

I crossed the deserted hall to a small cubicle where the telephone was tucked away out of sight.

With the dial tone purring in my ear, I searched through the cumbersome directory, but when I found the entry I scarcely even glanced at it.

Drew is in love with you, Kim.

I was crying inside, dry bitter tears of self-reproach. I’d come to Mildenhall to help little Jane Barrington. I’d stayed on only for her sake, because she needed me.

Yet all I could think of now was Drew. I saw his face, dark with hurt, withdrawn into weary sorrow....

With a tiny click the phone was suddenly dead. I jogged impatiently to get the dial tone again.

Gwen answered almost immediately, and to my relief her voice was quite brisk. She sounded perfectly sober.

“Gwen, this is Kim. Something awful’s happened.” Quickly I rushed on across her worried interjection. “It’s Tansy. She ... she’s told everyone here that she
was
responsible for ... about Brian....”

I didn’t do it very well. Gwen had to ask several questions to get anything like a clear story. Then she fell silent.

I said anxiously: “Could you come down to Mildenhall?”

“Yes ... yes, of course.” She sounded distracted. “I’ll start out right now. Should be there in a couple of hours.”

“I’m sorry, Gwen ...” I said forlornly.

“But why should Tansy go and say a thing like that? I simply don’t understand.”

There was a footstep on the staircase. I ended the conversation quickly. “See you later on, then.”

It was Drew coming down, I dreaded facing him, but it had to be done sooner or later. As I walked out of the phone alcove he had just reached the hall. He stopped. He even made an effort to put something like a smile on his face.

“Oh, there you are.” It sounded as if he’d been looking around for me.

Suddenly he realized what I’d just been doing, and frowned. Not in anger, but with anxiety. .

“Were you phoning for the police?”

“The police? Oh no.” The idea shocked me. That he should imagine I might let my intrusion into his affairs cut so deep. I rushed in to explain that I’d been speaking to Gwen. “I thought she ought to know,” I said apologetically.

“Oh
Gwen.”
He nodded, not really interested any more. “I thought... you’d have had the right to bring in the police, I suppose, after what’s happened.”

I began indignantly, “I wouldn’t dream of doing any such thing.” And then I dried up, wondering what else I could say to him.

Drew was standing with one hand resting on the heavy bannister post, the other hanging limply at  his side.

“How is your aunt now?” I managed to ask him. “Is there ... is there anything I can do for her?”

He shook his head, and I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he said carefully, “She’s resting now, after a fashion.”

His voice sounded bitter, and I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t bear Drew to misunderstand my motives. All at once I was talking wildly, the words tumbling out in a welter of sorrow and pain.

“I’m sorry, so desperately sorry, about all the trouble I’ve made for you. But I was doing it for Jane’s sake. Can you ever believe that? All the time I was being driven to probe further, because I thought I should find the answer to her stammer.” A sob broke through. “I wish I could go back now. I wish I could undo it all, and start over again.”

He spoke so quietly that I had to strain to hear him. “And would you have ever come to Mildenhall if you’d known, Kim? If you could have seen what the future would bring?”

“I don’t know.” My heart and my head were in battle, and cold commonsense was losing. “Perhaps I can still do something to help Jane,” I said miserably. “Even now ...”

He moved two quick steps towards me. He gripped my arm hard. And then, as if he felt my pain, his hold loosened to a gentle touch.

“Poor Kim!” he said softly. “You mustn’t feel so intensely. In this harsh world it doesn’t pay to be so ... vulnerable.”

He was speaking as an expert. I had sat at his dinner table and wondered at the tough veneer of indifference pasted over his emotions. Or perhaps it had only seemed to be tough. Perhaps in fact the layer was thinly brittle.

His sympathy brought quick tears to my eyes, and I was ashamed because the tears were for myself. I longed to help Drew.

“Please let me stay and help Jane,” I said eagerly “I promise I won’t make any more trouble for you. I won’t even mention Brian’s name again. You can trust me ...”

But he was shaking his head sadly. “There’s no going back for us, Kim. It’s too late—much too late. Whatever happens now, it’s something we can’t avoid.”

“It’s all my fault,” I cried in sharp anguish. “I shouldn’t have interfered. What had Brian Hearne got to do with me?” I looked up at Drew pleadingly. “Can you ever forgive me for what I’ve done?”

He let go my arm abruptly, but he managed a faint wisp of a smile. “You did what you thought was right, Kim. You’re much too honest a person to do anything else.”

We stood together in that dim cavern of a hall, and there seemed nothing more to say. Or perhaps we were on the brink of saying too much.

But there was one thing I had to ask him.

“Drew, you don’t really believe that your aunt killed Brian, do you?”

“I don’t know.” He spread his hands in painful helplessness. “I don’t know what to think any more.”

“But you can’t imagine his own mother would ... !”

Tansy had brought Drew up from childhood. It must have hurt him unbearably to admit the possibility that she could do such a dreadful thing.

“How can I know anything for sure?” he said, and I saw the agony in his eyes before he looked away. “How can we ever know just what happened that night?”

“But I do know,” I cut in without a pause for thought. “I know how Brian died.”

He jerked his head round to look at me again, his face tense with astonishment.

From above came the hollow sound of high heels on the stairs, and a moment later Corinne and Verity appeared.

Drew muttered swiftly, “I must talk to you about this later on.” Then, as the two women came closer, he said loudly, “Meantime, I suppose I’d better do something about that damned jacket.”

I had come to my bedroom to escape. I couldn’t take the family’s glances of silent accusation. Everyone blamed me for what had happened.

Even Drew! Though he had tried to be kind, he must hate me now for what I had done to Tansy. I loved Drew, and yet I had hurt him terribly. Would he ever be able to forgive me?

It was impossible to keep still. I paced around the room, back and forth, stopping at the window to pull aside a curtain and stare into the darkness.

Gwen wouldn’t be arriving for at least, another hour, And when she did come, what then? Even if Gwen was willing to admit her own guilt quite openly, would that make this awful situation any better?

Alone now in my room, with time to think, Tansy’s outburst seemed even more fantastic. Why had she made that extraordinary confession?

The easiest explanation was some sudden mental derangement, sparked off by the sight of her dead son’s jacket. And yet ... I couldn’t shake off a growing feeling there was more to it than that.

In the hush of silence that was normal at Mildenhall, the slight noise startled me. A tiny rustling sound. From across the room I saw an envelope appearing under the door.

Swiftly, I went over and picked it up. There was nothing written on it. Just a plain white envelope, sealed down.

I threw open the door, but there was nobody in sight. The dim corridor stretched empty on either side.

My door still ajar, I ripped open the envelope and drew out a small sheet of notepaper. The typed message was brief.

I must talk to you again, urgently. Will you come down to the farm office, where we won’t be disturbed. Make it just as soon as you can, please, I’ll be waiting. Drew.

For some moments I didn’t move, staring down at the note unhappily. I’d been hoping that Gwen would arrive before I needed to talk to Drew again. I wanted her to be the one to tell him what had really happened. But it wasn’t in me to refuse Drew’s urgent appeal, I would do exactly as he asked—go down to the office at the trout farm and see him there.

I grabbed myself a gabardine raincoat and pulled the belt up tight. And I slipped on a pair of walking shoes. Within a minute I emerged and crept downstairs. The house was filled with a false sense of peace.

Outside, there was a half moon above thin, racing clouds. A wind was rustling the heavy rhododendron leaves and whining through the fir trees above. I decided to take the longer way round, sticking to the drive. I didn’t know the short cut through the trees well enough to use it in the dark.

I was glad of the raincoat. The evening air was cooling fast, and the wind made it seem colder still. I turned up the collar and snuggled into it, feeling in some odd way that it gave me protection from the dark unknown of the surrounding woodland.

Suddenly, quite close at hand, a stag bellowed. I stopped. Then panicking, I began to run. Reason told me there was nothing to fear, but still I ran on till I had to slow down for lack of breath.

I was glad when the first of the ponds appeared, glittering silver in the pale moonlight. Within minutes I was out in the clearing, the fish farm spread before me. Everything was quiet but for the wind moaning in the surrounding trees. Occasionally, there came a soft deep plop of a fish from across the water.

I followed the road where it struck between the ponds, heading for the buildings on the far side. Out in the open the moonlight was sufficient for me to walk briskly, yet I couldn’t altogether suppress my old dread of dark water. I remembered with a shudder the night the lights went out and I was left stranded on a precarious narrow path. That episode remained a mystery.

The solid block of buildings cast long shadows, fuzzily grey upon the water, black where they touched the roadway. There was no light showing, but of course Drew’s office was round at the back. He’d be waiting for me there. Was he impatient, unsure perhaps that I was coming?

Right ahead of me a car engine snatched into noisy life, and in the same instant the headlamps were switched on. I hadn’t noticed the car parked in the deep shadow.

As it revved up hard and swung on to the roadway, the blaze of light hit me full square. I was blinded. But stupidly I stood where I was, peering into the dazzling glare, frantically signaling my presence. The thing was coming up fast. Straight towards me ...

I yelled and flung myself sideways with all my strength—just in time. The action was prompted by raw instinct, without conscious thought, without any consideration of where I should land,

I felt myself falling, and then the cold black water closed over my head.

When I came to the surface again I was gasping and spluttering. The full sodden weight of my clothes dragged heavily. I felt around for the bottom, hut I was out of my depth. I struggled, keeping afloat somehow, and managed to kick off my shoes,

My frenzied splashing made it difficult to see anything. Vaguely I picked out a dark figure standing above me.

“Here, Kim,” a voice called. “Grab hold of this.”

It was Corinne! Stupidly, even in this crisis situation, I noted that for the first time she had called me Kim.

“Grab what?” I yelled back “I can’t see.”

I felt a sharp prod at my shoulder, and realized Corinne was holding some sort of pole. She seemed to be trying to catch it under the neck of my raincoat.

So I was going to be hooked from the pond like a fish! Well, that suited me all right. As long as I got out, I wasn’t going to argue about how it was done.

I tried to help Corinne all I could by making a swirling sort of breaststroke towards the side. I’d be pretty heavy for her to manage, with all these wet clothes clinging to me. If we weren’t careful, she’d end up in the water, too.

The pole at my neck seemed to be hindering rather than helping, but at last I reached the embankment. I stretched up and could just touch the concrete edge of the roadway about a foot above my head.

“Go and fetch Drew,” I shouted up at Corinne. “He’s in the office. I can hang on for a bit.”

I couldn’t understand why Drew hadn’t heard all the noise. I’d have expected him to be listening for me. And what was Corinne doing down here at the ponds? And why in heaven had she driven the car so crazily that it almost ran me down? It would have, in fact, if I hadn’t jumped out of the way.

It was as if she’d meant to hit me!

Corinne hadn’t moved. She was still standing above me on the road, still keeping the long pole hooked into my collar. I guessed it was the handle of one of the long sickles they used for cutting water weed.

“Go on,” I yelled. “Why don’t you fetch Drew?”

For an answer I got a savage jab with the pole. Its force took me out from the side and down into the water.

More than fear, I felt astonishment as I choked and struggled desperately, fighting to get to the surface again. But I couldn’t; the pole was pressing me down deeper.

Panic fear and despair took over as I realized that, this was quite deliberate. Corinne was trying to drown me.

I couldn’t escape. There was no hope for me with the pole twisted under the neck of my raincoat, holding me down. It was only seconds before the pressure on my lungs would force me to give up and gulp in water.

My one tiny chance was somehow to get free of the coat. But the belt, pulled tight at my waist, defeated me.

Another self, detached and separate, stood quietly by while odd ideas flashed through my frightened mind. Ideas of life and death. Memories of childhood, and fear of the coming unknown,