She was ambivalent about her own feelings. "It's impossible to stop loving your children," she told him. "You always hope things will change for the better. The trouble is, somewhere along the line they abandoned the values we taught them and decided the world owed them a living. It's led to so much resentment. They think it's their father's bloody-mindedness that's caused the money to dry up instead of recognizing that they took the pail to the well once too often."
Mark sat back on his heels as the fire roared to life. His own feelings for Leo and Elizabeth were anything but ambivalent. He disliked them intensely. Far from taking the pail to the well once too often, they had installed permanent taps that worked through emotional blackmail, family honor, and parental guilt. His own view was that Leo was a psychopath with a gambling addiction, and Elizabeth was a nymphomaniac with an alcohol problem. Nor could he see any "mitigating circumstances" for their behavior. They had been given every advantage in life, and had failed spectacularly to build on them.
Ailsa had been putty in their hands for years, torn between maternal love and maternal guilt for her failures. To her, Leo was the same blue-eyed boy that Vera adored, and all James's attempts to contain his son's excesses had been met with pleas to give him a "second chance." It was no surprise that Elizabeth had been desperate for attention, no surprise either that she was incapable of sustaining relationships. Leo's personality dominated the family. His mood swings created strife or calm. At no point was anyone allowed to forget his existence. When he wanted, he could charm the birds from trees; when he didn't, he made life miserable for everyone. Including Mark…
The sound of the phone intruded into his thoughts, and he glanced up to find James looking at him.
"You'd better go and listen," the Colonel said, offering him a key. "They might stop if they see you in the library."
"Who?"
A tired shake of the head. "They obviously know you're here," was his only answer.
When he first entered the room, Mark assumed the caller had hung up till he leaned toward the answerphone on the desk and heard the sound of stealthy breathing through the amplifier. He lifted the receiver. "Hello?" No response. "Hello?… hello?…" The line went dead. What on earth…?
Out of habit, he dialed 1471 and scouted 'round for a pen to jot down the caller's number. It was an unnecessary exercise, he realized, as he listened to the computerized voice and noticed a piece of card, propped against an old-fashioned inkstand, with the same number alongside the name "Prue Weidon" already written on it. Puzzled, he replaced the receiver.
The answerphone was an old-fashioned one with tapes rather than voicemail. A light flashed at the side, indicating messages, with the number 5 showing in the "calls" box. Miniature tape boxes were piled in stacks behind the machine, and a quick search showed that each one was dated, suggesting a permanent record rather than regular erasure. Mark pressed the "new messages" button and listened to the tape rewinding.
After a couple of clicks, a woman's voice filled the speaker.
"You won't be able to pretend innocence much longer… not if your solicitor listens to these messages. You think by ignoring us we'll go away… but we won't. Does Mr. Ankerton know about the child? Does he know there's living proof of what you did? Who does she take after, do you think…? You? Or her mother? It's all so easy with DNA… just one hair will prove you a liar and a murderer. Why didn't you tell the police that Ailsa went to London to talk to Elizabeth the day before she died? Why won't you admit that she called you insane because Elizabeth told her the truth…? It's why you hit her… it's why you killed her… How do you think your poor wife felt to find out that her only grandchild was your daughter…?"
After that, Mark had little choice but to stay. In a bizarre reversal of roles, it was James who now set out to reassure. He hoped Mark understood that none of it was true. James wouldn't have kept the tapes if there was any question of guilt. It had started in the middle of November, two or three calls a day accusing him of all manner of beastliness. Recently the frequency of the disturbance had risen, with the phone ringing through the night to stop him sleeping.
This fact was certainly true. Even though the bell was muffled by the shut library door and the phones in other rooms had been disconnected, Mark, infinitely more sensitive to the sound than his host, lay awake, his ears waiting for the distant jangle. It was a relief each time it came. He told himself he had an hour to try for sleep before the next one, and each time his brain went into overdrive. If none of it were true, why was James so frightened? Why hadn't he told Mark when it first began? And how-why?-did he endure it?
Some time during the night the smell of burning pipe tobacco told him James was awake. He toyed with the idea of getting up and talking to him, but his thoughts were too confused to attempt a discussion in the dark hours. It was a while before he questioned how he could smell tobacco when James's room was on the other side of the house, and curiosity drew him to his window, where a pane was open. He saw with astonishment that the old man was sitting on the terrace where Ailsa had died, swathed in a heavy coat.
On Christmas morning, James made no mention of his vigil. Instead he took the trouble to spruce himself up with a bath, a shave, and clean clothes, as if to persuade Mark that he had slept soundly in recognition that personal care, or rather the lack of it, was an indication of a disordered mind. He made no objection when Mark insisted on playing the tapes in order to understand what was going on-he said it was one of the reasons why he had made them-but reminded Mark that it was all lies.
The difficulty for Mark was that he knew much of it wasn't. Various details were constantly repeated, and he knew for a fact they were true. Ailsa's trip to London the day before she died… the constant references to Elizabeth's hatred of her father in uniform… James's fury that the child had been put up for adoption instead of aborted… Prue Weldon's certainty that she had heard Ailsa accuse James of destroying her daughter's life… the undeniable fact that Elizabeth was a damaged woman… the suggestion that if the grandchild were found she might resemble James…
One of the voices on tape was disguised with an electronic distorter. It sounded like Darth Vader's. It was the most chilling and the best informed. There was no escaping the conclusion that it was Leo. There were too many historical descriptions, in particular of Elizabeth's bedroom when she was a child, for a stranger to know: her teddy bear, called Ringo after the Beatles' drummer, which she still had in her London house; the posters of Marc Bolan and T-Rex on her walls, which Ailsa had carefully stored because someone had told her they were valuable; the predominant color of her patchwork bedspread-blue-which had since been moved to the spare room…
Mark knew that just by questioning James he was giving the impression that his mind was open to the allegations of incest. Even his assertion at the outset that the calls were clearly malicious was qualified by his admission that he didn't understand what the intention was. If it was Leo, what was he hoping to achieve? If it was blackmail, why didn't he make demands? Why involve other people? Who was the woman who seemed to know so much? Why did Prue Weldon never say anything? How could anyone unconnected with the family know so many details about it?
Everything he said sounded halfhearted, more so when James flatly refused to involve the police because he didn't want Ailsa's death "resurrected" in the press. Indeed, resurrection seemed to be an obsession with him. He didn't want Mark resurrecting Elizabeth's "blasted teddy bear" or the row over the adoption. He didn't want Leo's thieving resurrected. It was history, over and done with, and had no relevance to this campaign of terror. And, yes, of course he knew why it was happening. Those damned women-Prue Weldon and Eleanor Bartlett-wanted him to admit he'd murdered Ailsa.