The Vanishment (15 page)

"Jeremiah Trevorrow died in February of 1887. The death certificate declares that he passed away from 'natural causes.' In fact, his daughter Agnes had been administering tiny doses of poison to him for several months. She let a little time go by after that before striking again. I think she had already some idea of the testimony she planned to give at the eventual inquest, to the effect that Susannah had been depressed following her father's death and so committed suicide. The months that elapsed between Jeremiah's death and Susannah's disappearance were intended to make the suicide more plausible."

Adderstone stopped speaking. I could see that something troubled him. Outside, silence had fallen over everything. A door opened and closed downstairs. I waited for him to resume.

"She was an old woman when she told me this," he said, "but it was as though it had happened the day before. Her memories would not give her peace. She did not tell me all at once, you understand. These were things she had kept locked away in herself for well over sixty years. They did not come into the light easily.

"She did not want to risk using poison again, for fear of exciting suspicion. Instead, she obtained a key to her sister's bedroom on the top floor. One evening, while Susannah was in the room, Agnes locked her inside. Catherine was with her. Agnes had already prepared two large bolts with padlocks to hold the door fast. She screwed them into place, ignoring the cries from inside. She had already nailed the window shut from outside.

"When the door was fastened to her satisfaction, she went downstairs and made herself a meal. She remained downstairs for four weeks. Not once in all that time did she venture to her own bedroom. From time to time, she told me, she could hear her sister shouting. And more than once the sound of the child weeping, day after day, until silence returned. She told me that at such times she would sit with her hands over her ears, waiting for the crying or the shouting to subside.

"At the end of the fourth week, she went up to the room and unbarred the door."

He stopped speaking. I saw him shudder, as though he could see in his mind's eye the scene that had met Agnes Trevorrow's gaze when she opened that door. He had had many years to think about it, to dream about it.

"Susannah was still alive."

"Alive?"

"Please, let me go on. This is not easy for me. I say that Susannah was still alive. She had broken a pane of glass in the window and placed pots on the windowsill outside. That had allowed her to collect a little water when it rained. Luckily, it rains quite often in Cornwall. But having water had only served to prolong her agony. Without food of any kind, Susannah and her daughter had grown pitifully weak. In spite of her mother's attentions, the child had succumbed.

"When Agnes entered the room, she saw her sister squatting in the middle of the floor. She was quite mad, or seemed to be. The room had been ripped to shreds. Driven mad with thirst and hunger, Susannah had torn the bedclothes to pieces. She had stripped the paper from the walls. Her own clothes had been shredded. Agnes found her naked, staring through the window. There was . . ." I saw him choke, as though the words had thickened in his mouth. "There was a lot of blood."

"But how had she . . . ? How had she stayed alive on just water?"

"Surely," he said, looking up at me despairingly, "I do not have to spell it out to you? Please don't ask me to do that."

I felt sick. He could only mean one thing.

"What did Agnes do?" I asked.

"When she realized what had happened, she could not bear to go near her sister, not even to put an end to her sufferings. She closed the door and locked it again. Then she found the ladder and climbed to the bedroom window. Susannah was there, staring out at her. Agnes brought slats of wood and nailed them over the window, closing Susannah in. She left her there in the pitch darkness for another month. This time, when she opened the door, Susannah had been dead for some time. My aunt would not talk to me about what followed.

"All I know is that somehow she cleared the room. She disposed of Susannah's body that night, throwing her over the cliff. What Susannah had left of the child was buried somewhere in Petherick House. Agnes could never bring herself to speak to me of what happened after that. As you know, she continued to live at Petherick. I could never understand why. Not even now. I used to visit her there, you see, and I sensed that all was not well in the house. I would not myself have taken up residence there for anything. And yet somehow she continued to live there for sixty-six years, and I think that every day she relived what had happened all those years ago.

"I do not know what she heard or saw in that time, during those long winter nights when the house was in darkness and she had to face her ghosts alone. I shudder to think of it. But I believe it was with her own death that things took a turn for the worse. The ghosts of Susannah and her child are sad creatures. They can frighten, but I do not think they can do real harm.

"That is not the case with Agnes Trevorrow. She took her hatred and her bitterness and her anger to the grave with her. When I took Bryony to the house, it was because I believed the evil had departed with my aunt. But I was mistaken, fatally mistaken. The house had changed. Before, it had been disturbing. But then . . . then it held something positively evil,"

He looked at me compassionately.

"It reached out for my wife. And now it has reached out for yours. I can only say that I am sorry."

He hesitated, as if steeling himself to ask something hard.

"Tell me," he said, "have you seen her since you were in Cornwall?*'

"Seen whom?"

"My aunt. Agnes Trevorrow."

I told him of the glimpses I thought I had caught of a woman in London. And I mentioned the ring that had been sent to me, the doll that had come for Rachel. I said I thought it had somehow been Agnes Trevorrow's doing.

As I spoke I noticed that my host was growing more and more agitated.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I've been thoughtless. All this has upset you. Your daughter warned me you were ill."

"Please," he said. He was gasping now. "Over there . . . on the . . . bedside table. The . .. silver box."

I fetched it for him and watched as, with shaking hands, he removed a tiny pill and slipped it beneath his tongue. Within a few minutes he had calmed down. He closed the box with a snap and passed it back to me. I replaced it on the little table and remained standing, intending to leave.

"Mr. Clare/ he said. "Please listen to me carefully. Go back as quickly as you can to London. Do not under any circumstances allow the child Rachel out of your sight. She is in grave danger, very grave danger. If my aunt—or the creature that has taken her shape—should appear at your friends' house, for the love of God do not let her inside. And see that your friends do not let her in. No matter what she says. Do you understand me? It is most important. For the child's sake."

I nodded. My hands were sweating.

"Now go," he said.

I shook his hand and turned to the door.

Downstairs, Susannah was waiting for me. She had books ready for me to sign.

"Thank you for letting me see him," I said as I scribbled my name on the title pages. "I'm sorry if I've tired him, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it. There were . . . things which had to be said."

I could sense her trying to read my face to extract some sign of what had passed between her father and myself.

"You seem pale," she said. "Have you and Father had a row?"

I shook my head.

"No. We talked, that's all. We talked about Petherick House."

"And Agnes Trevorrow? Did he tell you that the house and his aunt have always been taboo subjects in this family? I've no idea why. I wish someone would tell me what's so special about them. Some ghastly family secret, I suppose."

I looked at her steadily.

"I think it would be better if you left the matter closed."

The seriousness of my manner communicated itself to her, as I had intended it to. We looked at one another for several seconds, then she drew a deep breath.

"I'd better go up," she said. "He's not as well as he looks."

She showed me to the door. I gave her my card and she slipped it into a pocket. As I stepped outside she shook my hand.

"Did he tell you that I was named after Agnes's sister?" she asked.

"I had already guessed," I said. "When you told me your name." I paused. "He told me he has a photograph of Susannah. I think he meant to let me see it. Perhaps you could have a copy made and sent to me. I'll pay you for it, of course."

"I can show you now if you like."

She reached into the neck of her sweater and drew out a large gold locket on a chain.

"Here," she said. "This is her. This is Susannah Trevorrow."

She prized the locket open with a thumbnail. It was an old locket, chased with fine lines of silver. I bent forward to look at the photograph. As I did so I suddenly felt as though the whole world had stopped moving.

The photograph in the locket was a head-and-shoulders portrait of a young woman with her hair arranged in an old-fashioned style. I knew her face already, I had seen it a million times. It was my wife, Sarah.

Sarah's funeral took place on a wet Monday afternoon the following week. All our old friends were there, many of them people I had not seen or heard from in years. We formed a distinct group from Sarah's family, who occupied one side of the chapel and one side of the grave, as though to signify some sort of perpetual enmity. I knew I would not see the Trevors again, yet I felt genuine sympathy for them and wanted to tell them how much Sarah had meant to me.

The cemetery was the indifferent municipal place I had expected it to be, but there were trees that gave it a softer, churchyard air. All through the burial, there was a crunching sound as people moved from foot to foot on the gravel paths. The sky was the color of slate. A bird moved quietly through it, circling above our heads again and again.

Raleigh was there, a little apart from the rest of us, neither family nor friend. I spoke to him afterward. His condition had deteriorated even in the short interval since the inquest.

"I'm to go into hospital soon," he said. "Things are taking a turn for the worse."

I did not want to give him false reassurances. People had done that with me when Sarah first went missing. "She'll turn up, you'll see." He knew he was dying. Whatever I told him would make no difference,

"I went to see Adderstone," I said.

"And did he have anything to say?"

I told him all I knew. He was silent for a while. The other mourners had reached the gate and were getting into their cars. I could see faces turned in our direction. A light rain had started to fall across the graves. "She was Sarah's double," I said. "Susannah Trevorrow and Sarah were identical. I was shown her photograph." I paused. "I think it's Susannah you see in your dreams," I continued, "not Sarah."

"Does it make any difference?"

"Perhaps," I said. "I'm wondering whose body was found on Zawn Quoits." It made no difference that I had found Susannah Trevorrow's remains in her coffin. When nothing added up, what did reason matter?

"I can't swallow that," he said.

"A few months ago I would have swallowed none of this."

We walked in silence to the gate. As we reached it I looked back. Workmen had started to cover Sarah's coffin with wet soil. Just behind them, a figure in black was standing, watching me. The gravediggers seemed unaware of her.

She was holding a doll in her arms, holding it up so that I could see.

* * *

We drove straight back to London after a short reception at my in-laws' house. It had been a stilted affair punctuated by stony glances and hushed conversations. Rachel was waiting up for us. She had been looked after by a close friend, Jennifer, whom Tim had briefed about keeping the door closed to any strangers. He and I had talked about Agnes Trevorrow and the possibility that she might turn up in search of Rachel, and he had taken the matter seriously. Susan still knew nothing other than what I had told her.

Tim and Susan were both busy with work they had put to one side for the funeral. I volunteered to put Rachel to bed. She had already been bathed and dressed in her pajamas. I tucked her in and read her favorite story:
Six Dinner Sid
, the tale of an enterprising cat who manages to fit in daily meals at six different households in the same street until a sudden cough leads to repeated visits to the vet and exposure.

When the story was finished, I turned down the light and started for the door. Rachel called me back.

"Why did Mummy tell me Auntie Sarah was dead?" she asked.

"Because she is, dear. We were all at her funeral today."

Rachel shook her head.

"No," she said. "That can't be true."

I looked at her. Her small face was fixed in an expression of intense perplexity.

"Why do you think that?"

She looked at me almost as if she knew what was going through my head.

"Because she was here last night. In my room. She spoke to me. She said she wanted me to go with her."

I shivered. My back was to the door. I wanted to look around.

"Did she say where to?"

"Oh, yes. She said I was to go back with her to the house I was in before. She said we would go together. I asked if I could have a kitten. She said I could."

That night I dreamed the last dream. I reached the top story of the house. In front of me the door of Susannah's bedroom was half-open. I did not want to go inside, but I felt a force compelling me, pressing me forward until I was only inches from the doorway. There was someone inside. I could hear a sound of weeping, a child sobbing bitterly.

I stepped inside. An oil lamp was lit on the mantelpiece, filling the room with light and shadows. A small child in a long white dress was standing beside the bed, her back turned to me. I felt my hair stand on end as though a spider had walked over my skin. All the time I wanted to run, but I could not. The child started to turn. It felt as though cobwebs were touching my face. She began to turn, and I felt more frightened than I had ever felt in my life. She turned, and as she did so I woke with a start, snarling and yelping loudly enough to wake the entire household.