The Diary Of Pamela D. (11 page)

‘What? Oh . . .’

‘Come now, you’ve hardly
said two words since you got home. If I didn’t know better, I’d say
you sent your body home and left your mind in Berlin by mistake.
How
was
Berlin, by
the way?’

‘I don’t know. We didn’t see much of anything
except a bunch of ugly, depressing-looking old buildings. The hotel
was nice enough I suppose but I was too busy to pay any attention
to what was going on around me to absorb any real details.’

‘Theo said he thought you did very well.’

‘He would! It was a complete
mess. I was so scared at first that all I could get out was this
shaky sort of squawk. Mr. Müller was absolutely incredible, though,
and so were the people in the choir and the orchestra. I can’t
believe how patient they were- did Theo tell you I threw up? Well I
did. It was so
humiliating
! I ran to the back stage
and barfed. Theo and Mr. Müller had to come get me because I was
afraid to go back out and face all those people. Mr. Müller told me
that he’d seen it all before, that some of the world’s greatest
performers went through what I was going through every time they
had to go out on stage. He said not to worry, that
Deutsche Gramophone
had
done its fair share of recordings that were an absolute disaster.
He played one for me later- it was a trumpet player named Hans . .
. something like
Schermer
; he’s one of those who play
really high all the time; they play these cute little trumpets that
look more like toys than the real thing. Well, this recording was
done ‘way back in the 1970's and it really was awful. The poor man!
But he was already legendary and did lots of other recordings that
were absolutely incredible, so I guess that kind of made up for it.
The long and short of it is,
he
was able to take it all in stride because it
happened late in his career. In
my
case, however, I’m afraid I’m done because it
happened to me right at the beginning, and I don’t have any sort of
reputation to fall back on.’ She sighed, toying idly with her food.
‘Several people there told me that quite a number of the first
chair musicians are people who had the same sort of experience I
did, who gave up their dream of becoming a world-class soloist and
settled for security instead. They said that a lot of people were
left traumatised for
life
by the experience, and spent the rest of their
lives wishing that they could somehow find it in themselves to
“overcome their personal failure.”’

‘Why is it that I’m left
with the impression that you’re
relieved
by this experience?’ Mrs.
Pascoe asked shrewdly as she put the kettle on the stove, cleared
the plates, and served the two of them dessert. ‘It wouldn’t be
because you’re afraid to try your wings, would it? Or is there
another reason? One I’m sure I could put a
name
to, without having to think too
long and hard about it.’

‘Well,’ Pamela said reluctantly, ‘it’s true
that I was terrified just going to Berlin. I’m glad Theo was there
. . . but-’

‘But,’ said Mrs. Pascoe, sitting down once
more and pouring the tea, ‘you were afraid to fail because Theo was
there, and you were afraid to succeed because you thought that
you’d be in danger of losing him altogether.’

‘It wasn’t like that!’
Pamela told her. ‘To tell the truth, my heart just wasn’t in it. I
enjoy singing in the church choir, but I like it because it feels
like . . . like
family
to me; it feels as though I’m singing in the living-room. But
being in a strange city in a huge auditorium, surrounded by all
these professional people who have built their
lives
around something that I just
stumbled into by accident . . . I just don’t feel that it’s the
right sort of life for me. I wish-’ she reddened at making this
admission, and said in a lower voice, ‘I wish I’d done better, of
course, not for myself but to please Theo, to make him . . .
like
me.’

Mrs. Pascoe gave her a wry
smile that was all-too-knowing. ‘
Like
, eh?’ She wisely left it at
that.

By late Spring the weather was absolutely
glorious, the flowers and flowering trees and shrubs on the estate
in full-bloom, the air filled with the smell of rebirth and new
life. The entire household made the trip to Haworth to spend a day
enjoying a family picnic and the sight of the newly-transformed
moor, which had gone from a dead dull brown to every hue of purple:
mauve, lilac, maroon, magenta, and myriad other hues and colours
that may have had no name. They studiously avoided the town proper,
which, now that the weather had warmed up was inundated with
tourists, but the surrounding countryside at this time of year was
truly glorious.

Some younger relatives of the household staff
had come as well: there were several children between the ages of
twelve down to an adorable little sweetmeat named Jennie who stole
everyone’s heart. To Pamela’s lasting delight, the child caught her
eye, and after a shy moment filled with curious peeks and smiles
with one finger in her mouth, came up to Pamela, extended her arms
and queried, ‘Upeego?’ Pamela looked to the child’s mother, Anne, a
young woman married to a nephew of the Pascoes, who shrugged and
said with a smile, ‘It’s your funeral.’

Pamela was a little awkward at first, but
only at first. Guided by an inner-something that could only have
been instinct, she was soon making silly noises and coaxing
delighted squeals from the little tyrant. Abruptly, her own
laughter froze when she chanced to look up and catch Theo watching
her. He was smiling! The instant he registered her gaze, however,
it was as though a blind had been pulled down over his feelings. He
turned away and was himself again, speaking with the other men.

At that moment, the little girl, as though
guided by fate, struggled down from Pamela’s lap and stumped over
to Theo, who smiled wryly at her entreaty. Pamela couldn’t hear a
word he said, but the child acted completely differently with him,
sitting quietly in his lap and staring up at him, her angelic
features utterly rapt. He glanced in Pamela’s direction a couple of
times, not to look right at her, but she felt that he was
surreptitiously ascertaining whether or not she was watching him.
He couldn’t disguise his very real affection for the child,
however, and Pamela found herself wishing that she was sitting next
to him, that-

Oh
,
no
! He had
got to his feet and was walking straight towards her!

‘I see you’ve met little Jennie,’ he said,
passing her the child and sitting down, speaking with the familiar
ironic drawl in his voice that so intimidated and intrigued her. ‘I
didn’t realise you liked children so much.’

For some reason, Pamela practically choked on
a sudden, inexplicable attack of nerves and shyness. ‘I’m not- I
mean, I’ve never even h- held one before- I mmp . . . ’

Without warning, he reached across, put his
arm around her, leaned over her so that she had no choice but to
cling to him, and kissed her. She didn’t dare pull away, or do
anything that might endanger the safety of the child. After a
moment she discovered that she didn’t want to pull away, and
couldn’t have cared less that everyone was probably watching. And
yet . . . and yet . . .

They parted, and he watched her, frowning.
‘What’s wrong? What is it you’re so afraid of?’

She took a shuddering
breath. ‘I’m afraid of
you
. I’m sorry, Theo, but you
scare
me.’ She got up and
took the child back to its mother, who watched her speculatively.
Her ears burning, feeling utterly conspicuous now, as though
anybody and everybody was staring at her, Pamela began walking away
from the gathering in search of a little privacy. At the same time
some inner little voice began shouting at her.

You idiot, what are you
doing? Go back right now and pick up where you left off, or he’s
going to get the wrong idea
!

‘Shut up!’ she muttered to herself, putting
her hands over her ears, ‘Shut up! Shut . . . oh God! Theo! THEO!!’
In an instant he was at her side, as were several of the other
picnic-goers.

‘What is it? What happened? Are you all
right?’

‘I saw
-
Oh, God! Oh my God! . .
.’

‘What did you see? There’s nothing out there
but open moor.’

‘It was Albert! He was- I saw him- what he
did! He was standing there, looking right at me.’

Theo’s look was unreadable, but he said to
the other women, ‘Stay with her, please. The rest of you stay right
here. I’m going to go have a look.’

‘I’d better come with.’ It was Fred Pascoe,
the father of little Jennie. He was a strapping fellow of even
temperament but not one to be mucked about or argued with once his
mind was set on something. ‘I know these moors. If he’s anywhere
about I’ll know it.’

Theo nodded curtly and they moved off.

The two were gone for so long that, though
still in full view and looking at the ground, Pamela began to
wonder it she’d have to suffer the humilation of discovering that
she’d imagined it all, that what she’d seen was no more than a
figment of her own overactive imagination. But the two returned,
brusquely, something chilling and curt about their movements. Going
straight to his wife, Fred said, ‘Give us the mobile, luv, and go
sit in the car and lock the doors.’ Raising his voice so that all
could hear, he said, ‘I suggest the rest of you do the same, whilst
Theo and I wait for the police and get things sorted out here.’

As dusk settled on the moor, the tranquil
evening was shattered by a chaos of sirens and flashing lights. The
commotion grew to a crescendo as a coroner’s van parted the knot of
parked vehicles and a body was carried towards it on a folded
gurney, revealed in a stroboscopic nightmare sequence of flashing
cameras.

After an interminable time Theo came to
Pamela’s window and gestured. ‘Come, CID wants to speak with you.’
Through the open window, he said, ‘Lock the doors and roll up the
windows, please, Mr. Pascoe. You may as well head on home with the
others. We may be here a while, so don’t wait up for us. In fact,
would you mind taking Mrs. Dewhurst with you, and Anne and little
Jennie? Fred and Pamela and I are going to have to answer a lot of
questions, and there’s no telling how long this is going to
take.’

‘Is that wise, Theo?’ Mrs. Pascoe said. ‘You
know how good your mother is with Pamela.’

Leaning on the edge of the
open window, speaking quietly to the Pascoes, he said, ‘Look,
there’s just been another murder of a young woman. Fred hasn’t said
anything, but he’s sick with worry over his wife and little girl
because of . . . something that we just saw, that Pamela may have
been a witness to
as
it occurred. Your nephew and his wife and child will be
staying with us until this matter is resolved, for reasons I won’t
go into right now. As for Mrs. Dewhurst, I don’t want her so much
as
hearing
about
what happened here. It’s bad enough that Pamela saw what she did,
but- let’s face facts, my mother isn’t a young woman, and what
happened here is the sort of thing that even strong men have
trouble dealing with. So, please, do as I ask, and I’ll look after
Pamela as best I can.’

Pamela felt that she was caught in a
netherworld between that of waking dreams and the murky depths of a
subconscious that she was aware of, like an unwilling spectator,
but which was not entirely her own. Albert had risen up out of the
moor like a demon apparition with something in his arms, something
that she couldn’t quite make out. It had a pale oval face, wide,
white staring eyes and dark hair, she knew that much, and its
supplicating look was one of pure abject terror. Then, it had
fallen like a puppet with its strings cut. All the while, Albert
had fixed her with his gaze, with eyes that nailed her to his will,
a will that took away her voice, her volition, her sense of
herself. When she began calling out for help, it seemed as though
it were someone else who began screaming, that she still stood
rooted to that spot, mesmerized, waiting for Albert to come for her
. . .

‘That’s
enough
, gentlemen.’ Theo’s voice was
at once hard and uncompromising. ‘I’ll be taking Pamela home
now.’

‘We’re not done yet,’ the inspector from CID
said impatiently.

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Theo told him.
‘She’s in shock. She needs to be away from here. You’re not blind;
you can see what this is doing to her.’

The inspector sighed, pushed
his glasses up on his forehead and massaged his tired eyes a
moment. ‘We’ve been after Mr. Askrigg for six years now. Six. The
man is like a ghost or a demon, manifesting itself long enough to
do something horrific and then it’s gone again. But he’s never gone
this far. Now, he’s taunting us- or rather, he’s taunting Miss Dee,
here, supposedly because she’s the only one of his victims who has
escaped from him with her life.’ Changing the subject, he said,
‘So, tell me, Mr. Dewhurst, how did Albert Askrigg happen to
know
where
you were
going and
when
?’

Theo was silent a long
moment.‘I’ve been asking myself that same question. The only answer
I can come up with is one I don’t even want to contemplate: that he
has always been close at hand, waiting for the perfect opportunity
to strike; that he has been near enough to overhear conversation.
Devil take the man! He may very well have been
in
the
house
!’