‘Not a single light… What’s happened?’ Antonia said. ‘Where is everybody? They couldn’t have suddenly gone away, just like that, could they?’
‘They might have. Or they might be dead,’ Payne said in a sepulchral voice. ‘You heard what the old biddy said – the secret house of death.’
‘How many people actually live here?’
‘No idea. The letter didn’t say. There are bound to be nurses and people.’ Payne stomped his feet. ‘It’s freezing!’
‘They said it’s going to get warmer tomorrow.’
‘Don’t you believe it.’
‘Shall we go?’ Antonia drew back from the door. It was indeed unbearably cold. She had thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. She longed to be back in the safety of the car, sipping hot coffee from the thermos, listening to Vivaldi on the CD player.
She looked up. No stars, only the florin-like moon. No sign of any ospreys flapping their wings… The secret house of death… It might be interesting to find out why it had been given that name – what exactly had taken place – was there any truth in the gruesome story?
Payne pushed the bell once more, then he reached out and rattled the door knocker. He got hold of the door handle -
Antonia said again, ‘Let’s go.’ She felt the beginnings of a sore throat.
‘Good lord,’ she heard her husband whisper. ‘It’s open.’
Antonia blinked. ‘What? The door is open?’
‘Yes… Look… What’s this muck?’ He stood looking down at his hand. ‘The door handle – it’s covered in some-thing sticky – like jelly – urgh!’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Antonia said.
He muttered an oath. ‘I am not joking -’
Antonia experienced a disconcerting sense of unreality. ‘Don’t tell me it’s blood.’
‘I don’t know. Golly. It might be blood… Yes… Looks black… Someone seems to have had an accident…’
‘Hugh, are you serious?’ Her hand had gone up to her heart.
For what seemed a long time he stood as though petrified. Suddenly he laughed. ‘No, I’m not. There’s no blood. The door is not open.’ He turned round and grinned at Antonia. ‘Only joking. There’s nothing.’
She stood staring at him. ‘It isn’t funny, Hugh,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe you did this.’
‘Sorry, my love,’ he said.
She turned round and walked silently back towards the car. He followed sheepishly, stroking his jaw. She got into the back seat and slammed the door.
He tried to talk to her, to cajole her to sit beside him, but she remained silent. He put on the Vivaldi concerto. ‘Konzert fur Zwei Violinen, Streichorchester und Basso continuo,’ he announced in comically execrable German as he started the car. He was trying to make her laugh.
She pursed her lips and shut her eyes. She decided she wouldn’t speak to him. Her thoughts went back to the dark forbidding house they were leaving behind. Had any-thing happened? What if – what if Ospreys wasn’t empty? What if there were people inside – Ralph and the nurse – lying dead, their throats slit? What if Ingrid had killed them?
On an impulse, Antonia took out her mobile phone and dialled 999.
When the police phoned her two hours later, Antonia was sitting in bed alone, reading.
‘Yes, madam. We did gain access into the house and checked all the rooms. There is nothing suspicious. Nothing’s been disturbed. There is no one in the house. We did check very carefully, yes. Perhaps the people have gone away. We do realize that Mr Renshawe is a very sick man, yes… We’ll check the hospitals… Thanks for call-ing us.’
Though nothing in the policeman’s voice suggested it, Antonia couldn’t help feeling a little foolish… Well, better safe than sorry.
Where had Ralph and the nurse gone?
11
The Heat of the Day
For once the weather forecasts had got it absolutely right and global warming was blamed for it. The next morning at around half past nine the weather started undergoing a remarkable change. As temperatures rose, the packed ice underfoot cracked, puddles unfroze, icicles melted and slithered down rooftops, frost patterns on windows dis-solved. A wave of unseasonable warmth, unknown in the British Isles for at least seventy-five years, was crossing the south – it felt as though someone had left open the door of a gargantuan oven. Scarves and heavy coats were discarded, radiators turned down and then off, windows flew open. The sun had come out and the rooks once more circled over Ospreys, shrieking in great excitement.
Ingrid Delmar stood gazing up at them with eyes that were swollen and red with crying, listening to the rooks’ savage chant. Her face was dry now but her tears earlier on had dug rivulets into the Beatrice make-up. The sun looked like some malign, jubilant eye – no, like one of those ill-fated fabulous diamonds people killed to obtain. (As a child she had been enchanted by The Moonstone and become quite obsessed with those sinister Brahmins.) She felt the sun’s million rays of dazzling brilliant energy beat mercilessly upon the Beatrice wig. She had a headache – a throbbing sensation in her temples, like miniature drums. There was a ringing in her ears, as though she had descended to the very bottom of the ocean. Her whole brain hurt. She would have liked to take it out of her skull and put it through the wash!
She had had a sleepless night. Only at dawn had she managed to doze off. She had had a dream.
She saw herself trapped in the cross-section of some giant frosted wasps’ nest, among walls layered with shelves of bluish ice, which her fall seemed to have shattered. It was extremely cold and she was shivering. All round her feet lay the frozen bodies of giant wasps – as big as sparrows. Realization had then come to her – these were the wasps she had destroyed with cyanide last August.
It was November but today it felt like August. Freak weather – and they said it would be like that for some time. She regarded this as a portent. She was a great believer in omens and auguries. Anything could happen in such weather. Strange days lay ahead, of that Ingrid had no doubt. Strange things were about to happen. She had a picture of herself growing feathers and transmogrifying into a rook, flapping her wings and taking off – flying up, then down, then up again and diving down once more, her sharp beak poised to strike at the treacherous eyes of the enemy.
‘Those to whom evil is done,’ Ingrid said aloud, ‘do evil in return.’
Bee was as guilty as Ralph Renshawe. Bee had ruined her life. But for Bee, Ingrid would have given birth to a healthy child. Her little girl would have been with her now…
She had overheard Bee’s confession only moments after entering the hall. Bee had been talking in her highest and silliest voice, her ‘society’ voice, trying to impress her visitors – that writer woman and her husband. Ingrid hadn’t been able to believe her ears. The truth – at long last the truth had come out. The whole truth. Bee had lied to her. It was to absolute strangers that Beatrice had decided to unburden herself, to make her confession. In a split second the scales had fallen from Ingrid’s eyes and she had seen Bee as she was, with her mask off.
If Ingrid had come back two minutes later, she would have missed the confession. Or two minutes earlier for that matter. Or if the sitting-room door had been closed. Or if Bee had been whispering. Or if they had been playing music, say, one of the interloper’s sentimental tunes or his dreary drums. However, Fate – or was it Mighty God Rook? – had decreed differently. That she had been meant to learn the truth, Ingrid had no doubt.
She stood watching as a rook descended and perched on the edge of the ancient well. The rook looked at her fearlessly and crowed twice. She stretched her fingers towards it. It was a particularly large specimen. The rook didn’t fly away – it seemed to like her! It tilted its head to one side, crowed again and flapped its wings. Ingrid’s eyes started swimming with tears. I am starved of love, she thought. Her parents – precious, self-obsessed, narcissistically verbose academics – had barely acknowledged her existence. Her boyfriend had hated her. Her little girl had been snatched away from her. Her best friend had turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing -