It was a silk scarf. Even in the guttering light Jack could see that it was a livid green.
Pantone 375.
He set the candle by the bed and with tremulous hands wound the scarf into a pool of slippery fabric around his hand. He put it to his face and breathed in; he shook with sobs.
The flame died.
Jack wrapped the scarf around his neck and blundered out of the room. Jack knew about the second staircase. All his life he had wondered if the house with two sets of stairs was his invention. There had been no one to ask. He stopped: suddenly he pictured seeing the man called Uncle Tony talking to the boy called Simon by the gate in his secret garden at school. He had kept very quiet so they did not see him; but then perhaps that was a dream.
He glided along the passage, the scarf – the last sign – caressing his skin. He did not feel sick.
The door beneath the main staircase opened and a man came out into the hall, his shadow enormous and then diminishing when he reached the front door. He paused at the foot of the stairs.
Ivan Challoner left his father’s surgery, satisfied that everything was in order for his patient. He trusted Stella would come and that his treatment would be effective. He put a kettle on for tea. Kate liked chamomile at this time of night. He unhooked two cups, deciding he would join her. There were drops of water on the floor and he presumed some had splashed when he filled the kettle. He stopped. They were not by the sink and were not splashes; they were footprints. They led to the cloakroom where the bulb was low wattage but enough for him to make out that the trail started by the back door.
Someone was here.
Kate. He must make sure she was unharmed. It was then that a nasty idea came to him: Kate had not expected him tonight and she had let someone into their house. He went swiftly along the passage to the hall – and froze.
Kate Rokesmith was standing on the landing, her hair framing her face. The scarf he had given her for her birthday was arranged around her neck in elegant folds, pale moonlight highlighting the fine green threads. Slowly, gracefully, she descended the staircase.
The kettle came to the boil, the whistle rose to an urgent hoot like a child hurtling through a subway tunnel, pretending to be a train.
The piercing sound hurt Ivan’s ears.
66
Monday, 24 January 2011
Stella found the van by the church, the driver’s door hanging open. The new Clean Slate logo showed up in bad visibility; she hoped Jack had been able to bear the green. Where was he?
She slewed Terry’s car beside the van and jumped out. She stumbled down the lane past the church; she nearly missed a track to the right because a hedge jutted out, obscuring the entrance. There were no houses. After ten yards she saw the dark hulk of a barn and directed the torch at it: the light barely reached but she could see great cylindrical hay bales piled to the roof. Jack was not here.
Thawing snow had mixed with mud and by the time she had retraced her steps to the lane Stella’s shoes were soaked through. Twice she veered into a wall and once she slithered into a ditch. Soggy earth clung to her trousers and anorak. The darkness was thick and she longed for London’s many sources of light: lamp-posts, headlights, signs, shop windows. Mad shapes were dancing and ducking on the edge of her vision: she saw what Jack meant about seeing signs and spirits in every inanimate object.
Her torch made the darkness more intense. She stopped, her insides shrivelling: entrails of fog were twisting up from the tarmac like cobras charmed out of a basket. She had seen the phenomenon before on a day trip to the country with Terry. Travelling home at night, she had been secure in his warm car, with him there to protect her. Stella could not feel his presence any more.
Somewhere a twig snapped and with a whirring of wings a bird flew out of the hedgerow and away. It might be a rook, or a crow; she didn’t know the difference but had thought all birds slept at night.
She was not afraid, she told herself.
The plaque for Fullwood House was almost hidden by fronds of ivy spreading over brick piers either side of imposing gates. When she lifted the catch, it gave a squeak and the gate shunted down and sank into the gravel.
There was still snow on the drive, which revealed one set of footprints, the tread with the ball of the foot first. Ivan. Where was Jack?
A lethal mix of holly and pyracantha barred the way to the back of the house. Already wet and shivering, Stella launched herself at the tough branches. She found a gap and on her hands and knees crawled along the ground, her knees scratched with dried leaves. She rolled out on to a lawn behind the house; still covered in snow, it was ethereal in the insipid light. Through the thinning fog she recognized the hedge that separated the garden from the church. Ivan lived a stone’s throw from Kate Rokesmith’s grave.
The back door was locked. Stella had jumped in her car and hared down here like some invincible hero, without thinking that when she got here she would not be able to get inside.
She checked each window: all were dark and locked. At the other side of the house a flight of steps led down to what must be a cellar, although no windows were visible. The lower steps were obscured by brambles that trailed over a barred window next to the door. Stella gingerly put a foot amongst the prickly branches. She ripped away ivy to clear a gap and shone her torch at the glass, risking being seen from within. The window had been walled up on the inside with planks of wood. No one could see out and she could not see in.
A hand grabbed her arm. The game was up.
Tugged by strong hands, she had the presence of mind to shake off the grip and aim the torch in the face of her assailant.
It was Sarah Glyde.
‘What are you doing here?’ Stella hissed.
‘I came after you.’
‘To warn your brother?’
‘If I wanted to do that, I’d have rung him on his mobile phone.’
Stella digested the truth of this and wrung her hands. ‘They’re in there, but the windows and doors are locked.’
‘We ought to call the police. I should have before I left, but I had to catch up with you.’ Sarah was matter of fact.
‘We need to find Jack.’ The police would arrest Jack. Revenge was not an excuse for murder. He would not survive a jail sentence.
Stella had found Kate’s murderer. She had solved the case. Damp, cold and in the middle of nowhere, this realization gave her no satisfaction; Jack and Ivan might be dead. Terry would not have let it get to this.
She flashed the beam at the wall. ‘There’s an alarm box, but it looks dead. If we smash a window round the side, the chances are he won’t hear and what do we have to lose? Jack’s in there.’ Stella was channelling Terry; she had to keep her nerve.
‘Or we could use this?’ Sarah Glyde held up a key on a chain.
‘I thought he never invited you here.’
‘This is my mother’s. Antony doesn’t know I have it.’
‘What are we waiting for?’
Stella snatched the key off Sarah Glyde and stalked around the house to the back door.
67
Monday, 24 January 2011
‘She sends me cards with the time of meeting. It’s a game; she loves the secrecy and fooling others. She fears being ordinary; the drudgery of daily life. I would have to cancel what I was doing, often at short notice. This was before mobile phones. The postcards come to my flat, unsigned, in envelopes marked “Private and Personal”. Her handwriting would be identifiable but it’s never come to that. She trusts me to destroy them. I could not reply in case he intercepted them. Mr Rokesmith may have suspected we are in love, but he couldn’t prove it.’