Spider Light (26 page)

‘Yes, of course. I’ve finished anyway. Thank you again for the ticket thing.’

‘My pleasure,’ he said formally, and glanced at the leather-bound folios with their tarnished metal clasps. ‘Remarkable how soulless those old records can be, isn’t it? Do you have a particular interest in church history, Miss Weston?’

‘Not a particular one. It’s Latchkill Asylum I’m trying to trace.’ She caught a flicker of something behind his eyes. ‘Just a research project. Or were you wondering if it was a case of poacher turned gamekeeper?’

‘Not in the least. You clearly saw something yesterday that frightened you. I shouldn’t think you were normally an hysterical type.’

‘I’m not,’ said Antonia shortly, and then, ‘Could I buy you a cup of coffee by way of peace-offering for the hysterics?’ It came out awkwardly, because she had got out of the way of this kind of thing, and she fully expected a polite refusal.

But he said, ‘If you’d rather have something stronger than coffee we could walk across the square to the Rose and Crown.’

They ended up having cider and cheese rolls in the Rose and Crown–the boy from the library came in after them, and nodded politely, before seating himself near the bar, and becoming absorbed in a book and a plate of sandwiches.

Oliver Remus talked–a bit guardedly at first, and then more easily–about Quire House and Amberwood and the villages around it. Antonia was interested, but had to remind herself not to relax too much in case an awkward question was suddenly put to her. Are you here on holiday, Miss Weston? Where are you from? Do you have a job, or do you just make a career out of bizarre hallucinations?

But Oliver Remus did not ask any questions, and he did not volunteer anything about himself. Antonia, who had built her own barriers, was aware that he was deeply reserved, but by the time he had ordered two cups of coffee to round off their modest meal, she thought it was probably all right to ask how long he and Godfrey Toy had been at Quire.

‘Six years,’ he said, readily enough. ‘It was very neglected. After Thomasina Forrester–you’ve come across the lady, have you?–well, after she died there was no heir, and it got passed around various local authorities, none of whom were really responsible for its maintenance. Rather bizarrely the First World War saved it–it was requisitioned for a military nursing home and the army spruced it up quite well. We’re just starting to get it on the tourist map now. Along with the antiquarian books set-up.’

‘That must be rewarding.’

‘Yes, it is, but there’s not a great deal of money in it. Or were you cherishing a romantic view of antiquarian book dealers? Tracking down lost Shakespearean first folios or unpublished sonnets of Keats? Ransacking forgotten libraries and archives in remote corners of ancient cities, with sunlight picking out the tooled leather of calf-bound books—’

‘Trekking out to ancient houses whose owners have died, and haggling with greedy relatives,’ said Antonia caustically. ‘And flogging the results to collectors with money but no discernment or museums with discernment but no money.’

He smiled, and Antonia saw that he was younger than he had first seemed–perhaps early forties–and also that he was no longer so hostile. He said, ‘Godfrey is always expecting all kinds of priceless gems to turn up, but they rarely do.’

It was said with a kind of affectionate exasperation, but there was still an air of distance about him, as if he disliked the world and preferred to keep it at arm’s length. Antonia had the sudden impression that he had buried his real self so deeply that a kind of brittle ghost-façade had developed and was called into service for public occasions. There had been a time when this would have attracted her professional curiosity and when she would have wanted to get behind the carapace and find out what had created it. But she only said, ‘Will your Trust buy up any of the other old buildings?’

‘We’d like to, but it’s down to funds.

‘There’re some marvellous old places in this area; I’m loving seeing them all. I want to take a look at Twygrist Mill.’

‘You’d probably do better to avoid Twygrist,’ he said at once, and if the reserve had been melting, it was instantly and firmly back.

‘Is it so derelict?’

‘It’s not a place for tourists,’ he said. ‘It has a rather distressing atmosphere.’

So that was it. He had remembered he was talking to a flaky female, and he was warning her away from potential triggers. Antonia said, ‘It looked interesting.’

‘Not so very interesting.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘Miss Weston—’

‘You could drop the formality and call me Antonia. Especially since we’ve been on hysteria-exchanging terms.’

‘Antonia. May I ask a small favour?’

‘Yes, of course.’

This time the hesitation was more marked, then he said, ‘Don’t mention Twygrist to Godfrey Toy.’

Antonia looked at him in surprise.

‘Some years ago there was a–a tragedy there,’ said Oliver. ‘It affected Godfrey very deeply. I don’t think he ever really got over it. He’s a sensitive man for all his comic ways.’

‘I’d already realized that. Of course I won’t mention the place to him.’

‘Thank you.’ He set down his cup, and glanced up as the boy from the library came over to their table.

‘Professor Remus, they’re bringing that archive stuff up for you at two.’

‘Thank you, Kit. I’m on my way back.’ Oliver Remus hesitated, and then said, ‘Antonia, Kit is a bit of Amberwood’s history in a way.’

‘You don’t look like history,’ said Antonia smiling, liking the boy’s narrow green eyes and mop of tow-coloured hair.

‘I’m afraid he is. He’s the present holder of the Clock-Winder appointment–the memorial clock on the side of the mill.’

‘The wretched job was wished on me when I was too young to resist,’ said Kit promptly. ‘They’re a sneaky lot around here, Miss Weston. And it’s kind of a hereditary thing. Father to son or nephew, all the way back to the Flood.’

‘I read about the Clock-Winder tradition,’ said Antonia. ‘I rather liked it: it’s so very English.’

‘It’s so very tedious,’ said Kit. He gave her a sudden blinding smile, and went out.

‘His family’s lived here for generations,’ said the professor. ‘Kit pretends that the clock’s just a joke, but he does the job faithfully, and I think he’s actually quite proud of it.’ He stood up. ‘And now Miss Weston–Antonia–if you’ve finished, I’d better get back. I enjoyed our lunch.’

Donna could not believe it. She simply could not believe that the bitch had picked up not just one man, but two. Two! One of them was the donnish-looking Professor Remus from Quire, but the other was a young man! At it again, you slut? Not five minutes out of prison, and already you’re getting your claws into another young boy!

If Donna had not been parked in the concealment of trees outside Quire’s main gates, and if she had not followed Weston’s car to Amberwood Magna, she might never have known about this. And she needed to know everything–knowledge was power. She must overlook nothing about Weston’s life.

She had followed Weston and Oliver Remus into the Rose and Crown, and had bought a drink and some sandwiches, taking them into one of the chintzy alcoves along with a newspaper. She read the paper, checked her watch rather pointedly a few times, and then pretended to make a call on her mobile phone. Anyone particularly watching would assume she was here to meet a friend and that the friend had been delayed.

Weston and the professor seemed very in tune with one another; it was odd how you could sometimes sense that. But it had not stopped the trollop from sending out her lures to the
golden-haired boy who went over to their table to talk to them. It had not stopped her from looking at him with the harpy-greed in her eyes.

Weston and Oliver Remus went out together, and Donna, glancing through one of the pub’s narrow little windows, saw Antonia walk across to her own car and Remus go back across the square. Weston was blithely swinging her shoulder bag as if she had just passed a pleasant hour, and was finding life enjoyable.

She should not be enjoying anything at all. She should have been disintegrating with fear and nervousness, but here she was carousing with a pair of attentive men, apparently not turning a hair. If Donna was not careful, Antonia would end up being happy–more to the point, she would end up unpunished.

Donna had intended to make several more moves before the final one–she had thought out a number of ploys–but she saw that she would have to bring the finale forward. Her heart began to beat faster at the prospect. Could she do it? She remembered Don’s beloved face, and knew she could indeed do it.

Tonight?
Yes…

Godfrey had been delighted to hear about Oliver’s encounter with Antonia Weston in the library, and the lunch they had had. Oliver had been offhand about it–saying he had merely lent Miss Weston his research ticket and then it had seemed courteous to accept her offer of a lunchtime drink–but Godfrey was pleased to think of Oliver having some female companionship for an hour or two. He did not socialize much, these days, poor Oliver, not unless you counted the sales and the occasional trips to London for the Reading Room or Oxford for the Bodleian, which Godfrey did not.

It was entirely understandable that after what had happened five years ago, Oliver had put up barriers against the world. Godfrey often wished he could put up a few barriers himself, because no matter what the professor might nowadays feel, he, Godfrey, could never see that grisly watermill without a sick shudder. He would prefer it if the place were closed down, but just as Quire House had not seemed to belong to anybody after Thomasina Forrester’s death, neither had Twygrist, and none of the local authorities wanted to admit responsibility. Oliver said it ought to be possible to trace the mill’s ownership through land registration and Ordnance Survey maps, but they had never got round to it, and it continued in its owner-less state.

Godfrey hated Twygrist, just as he hated autumn, although once it had been his favourite season. But the memory of one November night was printed indelibly on his mind and he would never forget it, not if he lived to be a hundred and twenty.

Oliver had returned from a buying trip and had got back to Quire just after lunch. He had managed to buy some really beautifully bound early editions of Shelley’s poems quite reasonably, and a box of excellently preserved early copies of
Punch
and the
Strand
magazine, which would command very good prices among enthusiasts. There was a remarkable market for that kind of thing. There had been some nice lithographs as well.

Oliver and Amy had been going to the theatre in Chester on that November night. Godfrey could have gone with them, but he had a sniffly cold and was going to tuck himself up with some hot milk and whisky. Quire was not open to the public in November anyway so he could lock up early, and Amy had promised to brew up her grandmother’s marvellous honey posset for him before she went out. She liked making a fuss of Godfrey; Godfrey liked it as well. He thought Amy beautiful and intelligent and good company, and he liked the way she kept Oliver from becoming too serious and too deeply absorbed in his work and made him laugh.

He had been hunting for aspirin when Oliver had come into his flat to ask if he knew where Amy was. But Godfrey had not seen her since the morning, although he had heard her car drive off before lunch. It was a Mini with a distinctive growly note because the exhaust was blowing, and Amy could not be bothered to get it fixed. She found mechanical things boring and usually forgot to get them dealt with. Oliver found mechanical things boring as well. He and Amy had almost exactly the same way of looking at life, which was probably why they had such a happy marriage.

By four o’clock Amy had still not returned which was slightly worrying. It was to be hoped she had not had a prang, although they would surely have heard. Most likely she had met a friend
for lunch and her car had broken down miles from a phone. This had been before mobile phones were as common as they were today. Still, it was not like her to be out so long, and it was nearly an hour’s drive to Chester which meant they would have to leave about six.

At half past four Oliver had rather diffidently phoned the police, just to make sure no accidents had been reported. Godfrey, perched on the edge of the sofa in Oliver’s flat, worriedly sucking throat lozenges, had heard the disinterest at the other end of the phone, and Oliver had heard it as well. He had slammed down the phone, and walked out. Minutes later Godfrey heard his car roar away down Quire’s main drive. He had wasted at least ten minutes wondering whether to follow but, in the end, he had put on his quilted jacket and a woollen muffler and gone outside to his own little car. St Michael’s church clock had just been striking the hour as he set off, five o’clock it had been, he remembered hearing the chimes very clearly indeed.

At five o’clock on an early November day, it was not completely dark, but it was already the vaguely eerie half light that Godfrey disliked. You could never be quite sure what might be hiding inside that kind of blurry dusk.

Driving through the deceiving light, his cold expanding to include a pounding headache, Godfrey turned left instead of right, and the car he had thought was Oliver’s turned out to be driven by a stranger. It was not until they went past the brooding outline of Twygrist that he realized this and slowed down, thinking he had lost Oliver anyway and it might be better to head back to Quire to await events. Amy was probably long since back and wondering where everyone was.

If he had not reversed into a farm gate, he probably would not have seen the car parked off the road, under some trees at the side of the mill. But he did see it, and saw at once it was Amy Remus’s scarlet Mini.

There would be some very ordinary explanation for Amy’s car being here, Godfrey thought. Perhaps it had broken down and
she had pushed it off the road and gone in search of a lift or a phonebox. Yes, but she went out shortly before twelve and it’s now well after five. How long does it take to walk into Amberwood or even back to Quire House? An hour? Certainly no more than that.

Godfrey had never actually been inside Twygrist–it was the kind of place you drove past, and said, vaguely, that one day you really must explore it. Spooky-looking old place, you said comfortably, and drove on and forgot about it. But clearly he could not do that now, clearly he must investigate, and so he took a torch from the glove compartment, locked his car, and went up the slope.

The eerie dusk-light was lying over Twygrist like a shroud. When Godfrey pushed the door open the stench of dirt and decay met him head on. Dreadful. Like a solid wall of black sourness. There was a smell of damp as well–that massive volume of water in the reservoir, held back by the sluice gates!–and there was a dull rhythmic beating of something overhead. It was several moments before Godfrey realized it was the horrible old memorial clock, ticking away to itself, reverberating inside the mill’s emptiness. It was rather a macabre sound: like a monstrous heart beating somewhere deep in Twygrist’s bones. Godfrey found himself remembering the classic Gothic tale about the murdered heart that went on beating after death. Edgar Allen Poe, was it? Yes, it was, and it was not a story you would want to remember in these circumstances. Still, he would take a quick look round to see if there were any clues that might indicate Amy’s whereabouts, and then he would go back to Quire.

He shone his torch, trying not to squeak in surprise when the light fell on the massive silent machinery. Everything had long since fallen into disuse, but you could see how it would once have operated. There were the millstones that once had ground the corn, and the culvert where the water would have rushed in from the reservoir, and a chute for tipping the sacks of grain down from the mezzanine floor above. There were the huge mute
waterwheels enclosed in their vast, rotting tanks, their teeth festooned with dripping cobwebs.

There was something extremely menacing about the waterwheels. Godfrey thought that even though it must be dozens of years since they had moved, there was still a latent energy about them, as if it would not take much to call them into clanking, ponderous life. If the sluice gates were opened–or if they gave way with age–and the water came pouring into the mill once more, would the force of it smash the half-rotting tanks? It seemed strange to have wooden tanks, but perhaps they had been more durable than metal. Metal rusted and corroded; wood, if you treated it carefully, lasted well.

The lower tank had not lasted very well, though. Even from where he stood, Godfrey could see how the wood had crumbled to an unpleasant sponginess; he could see long pallid streaks near the bottom. Some sort of timber infestation, most likely. There had been a small patch of dry rot in Quire’s attics–like a network of thin strands of spun cotton, it had been, and the surveyor had said the spores would multiply and spread at an alarming rate, and they must have it treated absolutely at once. Godfrey remembered it had cost a great deal of money to get rid of it.

It would cost an even greater amount of money to get rid of the dry rot in here because it looked as if it had spread over most of the tank’s side. In the light from the torch it almost looked like long pale strands of hair growing out of the split corner, wetly plastered to the old wood.

Pale strands of hair…It was curious how this half-light could play tricks with your vision. Godfrey could almost imagine there was a hand within the hair–a thin hand with long tapering fingers, reaching out in supplication…

At this point he realized he was shaking so badly that the torchlight was shivering, lending a horrid semblance of life to the machinery. He made himself grip the torch more firmly and the eerie illusion vanished. Godfrey remembered that light and shadows were notorious for twisting quite ordinary things into
something sinister-looking. Still, he would reassure himself before he went away.

Still gripping the torch, he went forward. The floor sagged as he walked across it, and the worn joists creaked like giant’s bones. The nearer he got to the rotting tank the more it looked as if human hair really was spilling out through the rotting wood, and as if a human hand really was reaching out…And the beating of the horrible clock no longer sounded like the minutes ticking away, it really did sound like a human heart.

‘The hellish tattoo of a terrified human heart in the minutes before death?’

Oh for pity’s sake! He was standing in the middle of a medieval watermill with a smeary twilight all round him and Twygrist’s hideous clock pounding the seconds away, and all he could do was quote Edgar Allen Poe! He reached the waterwheel in its decaying tank and, taking a deep breath, shone the light.

Oh God, it really was a human hand reaching out through the rotted wood, and it really was human hair spilling out. Godfrey felt as if his temperature had soared to at least a hundred, but an icy hand seemed to be clutching at the base of his stomach. There
was
somebody inside that grim tank. Somebody had fallen inside it–all the way down–and was lying under the monstrous teeth of the waterwheel. The force of the fall had caused the decaying wood to rupture so that whoever it was had half fallen through.

Amy? Please don’t let it be Amy. But if it does have to be Amy–and I know it won’t be–please let her be just injured, nothing worse than that. A bit bruised–a broken arm or leg. Repairable. And let her just be knocked out, because you come round from being knocked out…

Godfrey began to shake so violently that he thought he might fall down. He took several deep breaths, and set the torch on the ground so it created a little pool of light against the water tank. It showed up the burst-open sides, and the small pool of black brackish water that had spilled out. It showed up the reaching
hand, and made a square-set amber ring in an old-fashioned setting glint. Godfrey recognized the ring at once. Amy always wore it; she liked Victorian jewellery. He knelt down and reached for the hand.

Dreadful. Oh God, it was the most dreadful thing he had ever known. The nails were broken and bloodied, and the hand itself was appallingly bruised and torn. But the skin was cold and flaccid, and it was Amy, just as he had known it was, and she was quite certainly dead. Oliver’s bright lovely wife was dead.

The post-mortem showed that Amy Remus had suffered multiple injuries, and had been badly torn by the jutting cogs and pinions of the ancient waterwheel. Her injuries were too many and too severe to draw any safe conclusion, but her death had been caused by massive trauma to the skull, almost certainly from where she had fallen against the inside of the tank. She had died sometime between midday and two p.m. on the day Godfrey found her.

The inquest, held two days later, concluded that Amy had fallen into the tank, although there was no telling how it had happened. It was not the kind of place into which someone would fall by accident, just as Twygrist was not a place anyone would enter without a definite purpose.

Godfrey, there to give evidence of finding the body, in agony for Oliver all the way through it, had seen the shuttered look come down over the professor’s face at this part of the proceedings, because the implication was unpleasantly clear. The coroner and the police believed Amy had gone to Twygrist to meet a lover, although nobody actually came out and said so. But Godfrey could feel them thinking it, and he wished he had the courage to stand up and denounce this unsaid accusation. Amy would not have had a lover in a million years: she and Oliver had been deeply happy.

The final twist of the knife had come from the police pathologist. From the position of the body when it was found, he said
unhappily, and from the condition of her hands, they were forced to the conclusion that Amy Remus had not died instantly from the fall. The splits in the ancient wood were not from the force of her falling. They were from where she had tried to batter her way out.

They had never talked about it. After the inquest and the funeral were over, Godfrey had tried several times to discuss it with Oliver, but the the professor had retreated behind barriers so impenetrable that it would have taken a braver person than Godfrey to force through them.

The local newspaper had made the most of reporting the tragedy, of course, and some bright journalist had dug out an article about how two people had died at Twygrist several years earlier, and used words like deathtrap and eyesore. The paper had mounted a campaign, saying Twygrist should either be properly renovated or demolished, and people had sent in letters saying it was a disgrace to let such an historic place fall into decay and that somebody should do something about it. There had been talk of setting up a Save the Mill Society, but in the end people had been too engrossed in their own lives, and in any case, the various communities around Twygrist were too small and too widely spread. Godfrey was aware of the irony of it all, because once he and Oliver would have suggested the Quire Trust spearhead such a society. But in the end, the responsibility for Twygrist had again been shunted from local authority to county authority, and all the way back again, and in the end nothing had been done at all.