The Haunting of Maddy Clare (32 page)

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Authors: Simone St. James

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical

BOOK: The Haunting of Maddy Clare
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I opened my eyes to yellow sunlight coming through my window.

Groggy, I lifted my head. I was still in my room, in bed. It came back to me in a rush—Maddy, crouched over me. What had happened?

I flung the covers back and put my feet on the floor. Sunlight in the window—what time was it? I picked up my watch from the bedside table and a sound of sickened alarm came from my throat. It was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning, and I had been sleeping like the dead.

I ran a hand through my hair. It wasn’t possible that I had slept. I had been too terrified. I remembered my panicked urge to find Matthew. There was simply no way I had fallen asleep after that unspeakable episode.

I pressed my hands to my face, realizing. Oh, God. Maddy had somehow put me to sleep. Why? What had she wanted to do without me?

I washed and dressed in a fumbling rush, then hurried to Matthew’s room. When he didn’t answer my knock, I pressed lightly on the door. It was unlocked.

Matthew lay on the bed, facedown, one arm sprawled across the pillows. He was deeply asleep. It took minutes to rouse him; he seemed drugged, the way I had felt, the groggy sensation only falling away from me now through sheer panic. I shook him and shook him until he reluctantly rolled over and looked at me.

“Please, Matthew,” I said. “It’s Maddy. She put us to sleep. She came to me last night. She’s doing something.”

He blinked his dark lashes and his brow creased. “What are you talking about?”

“Get up,” I said. “Come on, Matthew, get up. Maddy put us to sleep. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning!”

I watched comprehension thread its way through his consciousness. He pushed himself upright and swore.

“Get dressed,” I said.

“The private room,” he said, awake now. “I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”

I hurried back into the hall, and stopped. A woman was coming out of Alistair’s room. She was in her midthirties, with heavy arms and wide hips, her hair pulled back in a bun, her dress of serviceable serge. She closed the door quietly behind her.

“Excuse me,” I said as I approached her. “Who are you?”

If she noted my rudeness, she did not show it. “I’m the nurse, miss,” she said, as she looked me discreetly up and down. “I started this morning.”

I stared at her in shock. “Nurse?”

“Yes.” She motioned to the door behind her with a nod of her head. “The fellow in there has taken ill. Mighty ill, if I can say so, but I’ll see to it.”

“I—I know,” I said. “I am his employee. I know he’s ill.” This
could not be Matthew’s doing, as we had argued about sending Alistair to the hospital just last night. “I beg your pardon, but I had no idea anyone had hired a nurse. Who sent for you?”

“Why, my employer did, miss. I work for an agency. As to who wrote my employer, I don’t know, as I’m not normally told. Usually it’s the patient’s family, though this poor boy”—she nodded at the door again—“seems to have taken sick while traveling on holiday. It wasn’t you that sent for an agency, then?”

“No,” I said stupidly.

She shrugged. “It must be the family, then. Probably they’re worried about him. It’s terribly trying to be sick on holiday—I’ve done cases like it before, though never quite as bad as this one.” She put out her hand to me, like a man. “Nan Chambers, miss, though you can just call me Nan.”

I shook her hand and told her my name. As a fellow employee, she had decided we were on the same level, so I saw her relax a little and she became confidential. “I was just about to get him some tea.” She shook her head. “I’ve seen some terrible illnesses—and not all of them of the physical kind, if you know what I mean.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “You see a lot of things in my line of work. But this one is particularly bad. The poor boy thinks he’s still fighting the war. The things he says!”

I ran a hand through my hair. Nan’s tone was concerned, but she didn’t sound nearly as hopeless as I felt. “Do you think you can do anything for him?”

She shook her head, though more in pity than in negation. “He needs tea, and broth if I can get it into him, for certain, and a proper change of sheets. He doesn’t want any of it, but you’d be surprised how strong I am. I’ve dealt with some brutes in my day. He needs a good rest and a bit of care. It helps some of them, to
know there’s someone there. Some of them…” A flicker of doubt crossed her expression. “I’ll do the best I can—that I can say.”

I sighed. “Nan, you sound very competent, and I’m sure whoever sent you had the best of intentions, but I think I should warn you—you may not be here long. The landlord here at the inn wants Mr. Gellis removed.”

“Bless you, dear, no, he doesn’t. I just talked to him not a minute ago. He’s told me that as long as I keep the patient quiet, I’m welcome to whatever I like.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Matthew ten minutes later, as we sat in the common room and I explained what had happened. “Alistair simply has no family. And who talked to the landlord? I don’t even know how we’re going to pay the bill here.”

“Matthew, the bill is paid—though I don’t know how. Does Alistair have a solicitor?” I asked. “Some sort of a man of business?”

“If he does, I don’t know anything about it. Which begs the question, who does know? And who wrote him?”

He dropped his forehead into his hand and rubbed it. Though he had washed and dressed in a rush, as I had, he had still managed to put on a clean white shirt, even if the button at his throat was undone. I could still see drops of water in his hair. Despite the problems that surrounded us, I took a brief moment just to look at him, to take him in when he didn’t know it. I felt as if I could look at him for years.

“I don’t know who did this,” I said finally, “but I’m grateful for it. I feel better knowing Nan is here. We have other problems to solve.” I told him about Maddy’s visit to me, the terrible details coming back as I spoke. I finished and stared numbly at my cold cup of tea.

Matthew thought it over, though he looked nearly as ill as I
felt. “Jarvis,” he said. “That’s what she was talking about.
I’ve already done it.
She’s done something to him. Killed him somehow.”

I closed my eyes. “That means—that means he was one of the men who attacked her.”

“Or so she believes.”

I shook my head. “Do you honestly think she could be mistaken in that?”

“I don’t know anything,” he replied. “She’s not even supposed to exist.”

My stomach turned. I had stood in that musty living room with Jarvis, looked him in the eye, listened to him lie—a man who had abused a helpless girl and left her for dead. But had I led Maddy to him, caused his death? “She’s so vague,” I said, trying not to believe. “Perhaps she wasn’t talking of Jarvis at all.”

“It all fits together.” Matthew raised his head and looked at me. “She’s been following you, ever since the barn burned down. She said she’s been watching you.”

“The birds,” I said.

“Yes. And last night she said,
I saw you with the other one.

I felt myself heat. “I thought she meant you.”

A slow beat of silence, as we both remembered our lovemaking the night before.

Matthew spoke softly. “I think we would have noticed if she was watching. Don’t you?”

I bit my lip and said nothing.

“She didn’t mean me.”

I took a breath and nodded. I was thinking of the birds I thought I’d heard yesterday, as we left Roderick Nesbit’s shabby little house. “We need to check on Nesbit.”

“No.” His voice was thoughtful. “
You
need to check on Nesbit.”

“Where will you go?”

“There were three of them, according to Maddy.” He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it. His gaze went past me, directed inward where I couldn’t see. “Jarvis was one, then. And it’s possible Roderick Nesbit was another.”

“God,” I said, as it hit me that I had again been in the presence of one of Maddy’s pitiless attackers. “Do you think so?”

“If he is, Maddy has already found him. So you can’t do any harm by going to him now.”

My blood chilled. I looked at Matthew’s face and couldn’t help but ask him, “Doesn’t this bother you? I feel so angry that these men could have done this to Maddy. And yet—when I think of her, how cold she is, how mad—I don’t know what to think of it. Do they deserve the revenge she wants to give them? Can we say that anyone deserves it?”

Matthew stood, paced away, and looked out the window. “It’s utterly insane, all of it.” He crossed his arms. “I don’t know what Maddy did to Jarvis. Perhaps nothing, and we’re worrying for no reason. But if she did something to him—if she killed him…” He paused for a long moment, his shoulders tensed. “I’ve seen enough men killed. Good men who didn’t deserve it. I shouldn’t worry about what will happen to a few rapists. I wish I could call up the necessary heartlessness.” He turned and faced me again, lines of strain etched in his features. “Maybe I’ll manage. To save Alistair, we have to find Maddy’s grave. We have to find where they buried her that day. That’s what you’re going to get from Nesbit—if he’s still alive.”

“And you?” I said softly.

“There’s a key person in all of this we haven’t talked to yet, not really. I’m going to see Tom Barry.”

Despite myself, I felt a cold chill of fear. “Are you sure?”

Matthew shrugged on his jacket. “It makes sense. Barry is friends with both Jarvis and Nesbit. He’s either the third man, or he has information that will lead me to him. I intend to get that information out of him. I can’t do that if you come with me and bring Maddy with you.”

“You don’t want her to hurt him,” I said.

“No.” He came toward me, strong and so full of purpose. “She’s cut off Jarvis as an interview subject. She may have found Nesbit. I don’t want her tracking our movements until we’ve solved this.” He took my elbow, his hand warm through my sleeve, and looked into my eyes. “We can do this, Sarah.”

I nodded. “And we leave Alistair to Nan.” I stood and brushed at his lapel, lightly, any excuse to touch him. “Do you know, she lost a nephew at the Somme?”

“Excellent,” he said. “So she thinks Alistair is a war hero.”

I touched his face, ran my fingers down the rough skin of his cheek. “He is.”

Matthew pulled away. “Let’s go, then. It’s already late.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

R
oderick Nesbit’s small house was quiet, the windows shuttered under the bright June sunshine. I approached through the thatch of weeds in the front garden, taking in the silence around me. It was the heavy, eerie hush of a house of sickness or death. My throat closed and I stood before the front door, helpless as I remembered the day I had come home to my parents’ house with my basket of strawberries. The silence had been much the same.

I raised my hand to knock, but the same instinct that disliked the hush around me would not let me do it. After a brief hesitation, I instead pressed my palm to the front door and pushed. The door swung open, unlocked and unlatched.

The house inside was dark and gloomy, belying the pretty sunshine of the day. I stepped into the main room, where we had interviewed Roderick Nesbit the day before, and let my eyes adjust. The room sat dusty and quiet, undisturbed.

I heard no movement in the house, no voice. I walked through the short hall, past the stairs, to the kitchen at the back of the
house. Here was a small bachelor’s kitchen, with a compact stove, a single, cold teapot, and mostly empty shelves. A greasy plate sat on the small, heavy wood table, the remnants of a pork chop and a spoonful of peas. Last night’s supper, interrupted.

Still, there was no sound. I thought of calling out, forcing words from my stricken throat, until I noticed the door to the back garden. It was ajar, just as the front door had been.

It was too much like what Constable Moores had said happened to Jarvis—the silent house, the interrupted life. I walked back to the sitting room and looked at the wall over the fireplace. Roderick Nesbit’s rifle was gone.

I swallowed, took a deep breath, and went back to the kitchen. I pushed open the garden door and walked out into the sunlight, squinting my eyes. The ground here was cleared, the dirt hard-packed around a rough stone walk. No garden was planted, and the wildflowers ran rampant, as they did in the front. The small woodshed stood off to the left, flanked by the woodpile.

I stood for an uncertain moment, listening to the breeze and the faraway larks in the trees. A soft metallic click made my palms sweat and my stomach turn. The sound of the rifle.

“Mr. Nesbit?” I called softly, turning toward the woodpile and walking slowly toward it. “Are you there?”

No voice, but a soft shifting shuffle, the scrape of a shoe against the dirt, told me someone was there.

I came closer. “Mr. Nesbit?”

The click did not come again; whether the first had been the cocking or the uncocking of the rifle, I did not know. I was close enough to the woodpile now to see around it. I took one further step and looked at the other side.

He was sitting there, his back to the pile, his legs stretched before him, the rifle in his lap. He did not look at me, but looked straight ahead. It was Roderick Nesbit, but whatever had happened to him since I had last seen him seemed to have aged him twenty years. His face was as haggard as an old man’s.

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