Phoebe said that she would take care of it, while Michael, Pyles and Mr Sloane decided to make one final search of the house, to see if there was any sign of Dorothy.
‘We still haven’t talked about your book, Michael,’ Tabitha reminded him, just as he was about to leave. ‘Now you won’t disappoint me tomorrow, will you? I’ve been looking forward to it for so long. So very, very long. It will be just like talking to your father again.’
Michael stopped in his tracks when she said this. He wasn’t sure that he had heard correctly.
‘You’re very like him, you know. Just as I expected. The same eyes. Exactly the same eyes.’
‘Come on,’ said Mr Sloane, pulling at Michael’s sleeve. He added in a whisper: ‘She’s not all there, poor soul. Take no notice. We don’t want to confuse her even further.’
Hilary was left alone with her aunt. She stood for a while in front of the fire, biting her nail and doing her best to make sense of Michael’s latest baffling suggestion.
‘Aunty,’ she said, after a minute or two. ‘Are you quite sure it was my father you were talking to in here?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Tabitha. She closed her book and put it away in her knitting bag. ‘You know, it’s very confusing, with everyone saying that he’s dead one minute and alive the next. But there is a way you could prove it beyond question, isn’t there?’
‘Really? How would I do that?’
‘Why, you could go down to the crypt, of course, and see if his body’s in the coffin or not.’
Hilary had never wanted for courage, and she thought that this plan was well worth putting into action; but the journey involved was not one to relish. She was determined to complete it as quickly as possible, and so didn’t stop to fetch her raincoat before unbolting the front door and throwing herself into the heart of the howling storm, which had been continuing now for two hours or more. Barely able to see through the thick sheets of rain, almost thrown off her feet by the buffeting wind, she struggled across the forecourt and made for the bulky outline of the family chapel, which stood in a small glade near the head of the densely wooded driveway. All around her the trees groaned, creaked and rustled as the gale came and went in a series of wild and unpredictable gusts. Very much to her surprise, the door to the chapel was open, and there was a light flickering inside. Two candles burned on the altar. They had been recently lit, even though the chapel itself appeared to be deserted. Shivering violently — half with the cold, half with apprehension — she hurried across the aisle and pushed open a small, oak-framed door which gave upon a steep flight of stone steps. These were the steps which led down to the family vaults, where generation after generation of Winshaws had been interred, and where one vacant but elaborately inscribed tomb bore witness to the memory of Godfrey, the wartime hero, whose body they had never been able to recover from enemy soil.
Hilary descended the steps in complete darkness, but on reaching the entrance to the vault itself, she could see a thin band of light coming from beneath the door. Fearfully, hesitantly, she eased it open: and saw—
— and saw an empty coffin raised on a dais in the middle of the chamber, its lid removed, and beside it her father, Mortimer Winshaw, standing at a rakish angle and smiling warmly in her direction.
‘Come in, daughter dearest,’ he said. ‘Come in, and all will be explained.’
As Hilary stepped forward and opened the door to its fullest extent, she heard a sudden whirr above her head. Glancing upwards with a short scream, she had the briefest impression of a bulky parcel falling towards her on the end of a rope: a parcel compounded — although she was never to know it — of all the newspapers for which she had written a column over the last six years. But before she could guess what had hit her, Hilary was dead: crushed by the weight of her own opinion, and knocked to the ground, as senseless as any reader who had ever been numbed into submission by her raging torrent of overpaid words.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Five Golden Hours
ALL was quiet at Winshaw Towers. Outside, the wind was beginning to die down, and the rain had dwindled to a soft patter against the windowpanes. Within, there was no sound save the reproachful creaking of the stairs as Michael made his way back to the upper floor, his final inspection of the house completed.
Whether from simple fatigue, or confusion at the dizzying events of the last few hours, Michael once again let the labyrinthine corridors get the better of him, and as he walked into what he had assumed was his bedroom, the first thing he saw was a large and unfamiliar item of furniture: a mahogany wardrobe, with a full-length mirror fixed to its open door. Phoebe had her back to the mirror and was reflected in it, bending over and about to step out of her jeans.
‘What are you doing in my room?’ said Michael, blinking in confusion.
She turned round with a start, and said: ‘This isn’t your room.’ She gestured at the hairbrushes and make-up laid out on the dressing table. ‘I mean, those aren’t your things, are they?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Michael. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t seem to get the hang of this place at all. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
‘That’s all right.’ Phoebe pulled her trousers back up and sat on the bed. ‘Perhaps it’s about time we had a talk anyway.’
He needed no further invitation to come inside.
‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you properly all evening,’ he said. ‘But the opportunity just never seemed to arise.’
Phoebe appeared to regard this as an understatement.
‘I know,’ she said, with a slightly cutting edge to her voice. ‘There’s something terribly distracting about mass murder, isn’t there?’
There was an awkward pause, before Michael blurted out: ‘Well what are you doing here, for Heaven’s sake? How did you come to be involved in all this?’
‘Through Roddy, of course. I met him just over a year ago: he offered to show some of my work at the gallery, and like a fool I believed him, and then like an even bigger fool I went to bed with him, and then as soon as he’d got what he wanted he dropped me like a stone. But while I was up here I met Mortimer. Don’t ask me why, but he took a liking to me and offered me this job.’
‘And you accepted? Why?’
‘Why do you think? Because I needed the money. And don’t look so disapproving about it: why did you agree to take on this book, for that matter? Artistic integrity?’
It was a fair point.
‘Mind if I sit here?’ said Michael, indicating the space beside her on the bed.
Phoebe shook her head. She looked tired, and ran a hand through her hair.
‘How’ve you been, anyway?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been looking out for your novels.’
‘I never wrote any more. I dried up.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘Still painting?’
‘On and off. I can’t really see much future in it at the moment. Not while the Roddy Winshaws of this world continue to rule the roost.’
‘Well, there’ll be one less of them by tomorrow morning, at this rate.’ Not wanting to dwell on this macabre prospect, Michael added: ‘You mustn’t give up, though. You were good. Anyone could see that.’
‘Anyone?’ Phoebe echoed.
‘Do you remember that time,’ said Michael, not noticing her question, ‘when I came into your room and saw the painting you were working on?’ He began to chuckle. ‘And I thought it was a still life, when it was really a picture of Orpheus in the underworld or something?’