The Lamorna Wink (15 page)

“The sea was very rough that night and there was a blowing rain, the sort where sounds get lost on the wind. She thought she heard crying but couldn't be sure and couldn't determine the direction the sound came from. The last place outside—the last place she wanted to look was over the cliff's edge. A combination of vertigo and fear kept her from it until she'd searched the grounds as well as she could. But she finally did, she said, and saw them. Down there in their bathrobes, side by side, a little curled up even, as if they were in bed asleep. Waves washed over them; the tide had come in. They drowned. She knew they were dead. She knew it.”

Karen paused, shook her head. “She was afraid we'd think she hadn't done everything she could in not going down the stone stairs, she said. But she couldn't, she was too terrified. Then she called the police; I came back first, and later Daniel. I can tell you this, though, I can tell you this.”

She had a way of saying things twice that had the effect of incantation, as if she might charm answers out of the dreadful night's events. Melrose leaned forward.

“The children meant almost as much to Mrs. Hayter as they did to us. It would have taken colossal fear for her not to go down to them where they lay. Imagine her fright.” Karen stopped.

“And the police?” Melrose prompted.

“Were baffled. It's odd, you know, to see that look on the face of a policeman.” Here she turned from seeking images in the fire to look at Melrose again, and smiled a little. “If the police hadn't arrived before we did, probably there'd be two more bodies fallen down those steps. I tried to get down but they wouldn't let me. That was just before the ambulance attendants brought the—brought the children up. It was hard maneuvering the stretchers—” She stopped, took a sip of lukewarm tea. Then she said, “There's something horrible about all of this.” When Melrose opened his mouth to comment, she shook her head. “No, not just Noah and Esmé's deaths, but the circumstances, the reasons. They couldn't have fallen or been pushed from the top; there was no damage like that to their bodies. Police leaned toward its being an accident, yet they couldn't understand why two little children would go out voluntarily in their night-clothes to clamber down those stone stairs. It made no sense. The only thing I could imagine was their trying to get to the boat. We keep a boat tied up down there to get us to the sailboat, farther out.

“This huge, unanswered question hangs over me. I can't stop wanting to know.” She sat back. She picked up the book she had taken from the shelves.
Poor Harry
was the title. “Noah's favorite.”

She handed it across to Melrose as if it could help him understand or explain the whole dreadful business. As if at least he could contribute a modicum of wisdom, or a fresh vantage point, or a new answer. “
Poor Harry,
” he said, smiling and going through the pages, stopping to look at one or another of the illustrations, which pictured a round little boy in a variety of tight spots. He looked up. “Harry was the fall guy for poor Noah?”

Her laugh was genuine; she appeared pleased that he'd got this much. “A broken cup, a trampled rose-bush, a torn place in a jacket sleeve. ‘It was poor Harry, Mum, that did it.' Oh, yes, we were awash in poor Harry's escapades.”

Melrose smiled and handed back the book.

She went on. “Daniel really couldn't stand living in this house afterwards. He didn't want these constant reminders of the children. He did try, but he had finally to leave. The London house was easier, not so many memories.”

Melrose nodded toward the displays of photographs. “You left everything behind, even these pictures.”

She let her eyes wander over them again. “I know. It's because—I wanted to keep the house as it was when they were here. I wanted it to be familiar to them.” She shrugged and looked away. “I don't expect you believe in”—another shrug—“ghosts, do you?” This was said in an offhand conversational manner. With her eyes trained on something past him—desk or window—she said, “I'm just casting about. How about séances?”

When he laughed, she smiled. He said, “You want me to believe in something of the paranormal.” Melrose drew in a little, turned thoughtful. “It's odd, though. I could almost say, ‘Funny you should ask.' When I first came into your house I was immediately put in mind of an old film which I must have seen on late-night television years ago—are you sure this house has never been used as a film set? No, I expect not; it's cheaper simply to use what's near to hand. Anyway, the winding staircase, the double door to the living room, and the piano room—at least that's what I call it—are so much like a house in a film from the forties or fifties.
The Uninvited
is the name of it. It's perfectly sappy, the story and the
whoosh
-ing special effects: doors thrown open by unseen hands, a young lady named Stella with a dreadful British accent—the actress was American, I think—always on her uppers, hearing things, seeing things, things floating about rooms cold as ice. Anyway, I spent a few lovely moments wondering if the house was haunted and, if so”—he shrugged—“why so?” He smiled.

So did she. “Nothing as far as I know has ever happened. Of course the place hasn't been lived in for years except by a couple of—decorators, I think it was.”

“Ah! The Decorators.”

She leaned back, looking comfortable now. “Anyway, I'm glad you haven't a closed mind to this sort of thing.”

He raised his eyebrows. “In case—?”

“In case, that's right.” She looked at the window.

“It's
dark.
My lord, I've been here ages.” She started to gather her things up.

“Where are you going?”

“Into the village. I'll stay overnight. I can get a room at the Drowned Man.”

Melrose said, “I don't know that Mr. Pfinn would thank you for requesting one.”

“I do remember he had the reputation of being a bit hard to get along with.”

“Why he wants a line of work that forces him to deal with the public, I can't imagine. Of course, he has five dogs to back him up in any negotiation with guests; still, the dogs are friendly enough. It's just that they're always with one; they strike me as being preternaturally interested in a guest's comings and goings. They attach themselves to one. Listen: why don't you stay here?”

“Here?” The suggestion seemed to take her breath away. It was also clear she was pleased by the invitation. “This is very kind of you, but—”

“No, it's no trouble. It's also the most sensible thing to do, since I want to ask you about something, or tell you something, and I need time to talk about it. I don't know if there are sheets on the other beds, but there's plenty of linen—well, you know that. And that's the only chore. That and helping me cook dinner. I've brought a mountain of groceries in, things I really like—potato-y things—and fish.”

“Potato-y
things
? What did you find in the potato line that isn't potatoes?”

“Well, they're all potatoes, strictly speaking. Only different colors and different sizes. I love potatoes. I love mashed spuds, but one doesn't feel comfortable requesting them in Daphne's.”

She laughed. “I see. We live very near Daphne's; we live right off Pont Street. When you come to London sometime, we'll be happy to have dinner there with you. I'll insist on mashed spuds.”

“With lumps in them.”

She laughed again. “That might be more than Daphne can bear. But you must still have dinner with us. You'd like Daniel; he's awfully nice.”

“I'd like that,” said Melrose. “Then it's agreed: You'll stay the night here and we'll divide up the cooking chores. The potatoes will be mine, so they'll have lumps. I don't like potatoes beaten to within an inch of their lives, as most people do. You can do the fish. I have Dover sole, and the fishmonger told me the very best way to cook it is to grill it with a little butter and salt and pepper and nothing else. He was determined on that point:
nothing
else.”

“I can manage that, certainly the nothing-else part.”

“Now we come to the salad. I got a lot of salad stuff. I got a wedge of Stilton and one of bleu cheese with a thought to making bleu cheese dressing.”

“You've really thought this through, haven't you?”

“Possibly I was expecting you. Now, I remember having a particular bleu cheese dressing, probably in another life, for I only came across it once, which was thick and smooth as velvet, not the kind you get with the dribs and drabs of cheese in it; no, this was magnificently smooth. I have no idea what ingredients to use.”

“I do. I think I know just what you mean.”

“Good! Then why don't you check the beds out and I'll go in the kitchen and put on a pot to boil.”

The kitchen had everything; it was the kitchen of a serious cook. Copper-bottomed pots and kettles of every size hung on a rack suspended above the butcher-block table; there were an exemplary and massive cooker and a refrigerator at a subzero temperature that would have satisfied Byrd and his men; there were tiers of herbs and spices.

Melrose dumped one bag of potatoes—new potatoes, he thought—into a colander and turned on the water. He was not totally ignorant of food preparation techniques from his rare visits to his kitchen and Martha, his cook. He knew he was supposed to clean the potatoes, but he did wonder if he was supposed to cut out all of the tiny eyes. They were not at all disfiguring. He thought, If I were a new potato, would I prefer my eyes removed before boiling? No. Satisfied with that answer, he set about scrubbing them.

While he performed this lowly task, he thought about Karen Bletchley and the unceasing sadness that must have been her lot for these four years. While he was thinking this, she appeared in the kitchen doorway to say that she'd found the sheets and made the bed.

“Then that,” said Melrose, dropping a potato in the simmering water, “calls for a drink.”

 

They sat down in the places they had occupied before, with whisky instead of tea, to continue the story.

Having lighted up cigarettes, she said, or started to say, “What did you want—”

Melrose interrupted. “You said there was something horrible in all this, apart from what happened to your children.”

“Well—” She seemed uncertain of going on. “The children told me, perhaps a month or so before this happened—it was this time of year, in September—that more than once somebody would stop to talk to them. I mean somebody taking a walk in the woods. They loved to play out there.” She nodded to the wood to the left of the house. “It was fun for playing hiding games, you know, and for fantasizing. This person, or persons, came upon them in the woods. A man, a ‘nice man,' they said. And, once, a ‘nice lady.' ” Karen sipped her drink. “I didn't always pay the strictest attention to what they said because they invented so much; Noah and Esmé were always pretending; they had a number of imaginary playmates. And tourists like to walk in those woods, too.”

Melrose was thoughtful. “This Mrs. Hayter. She's reliable?”

“I've never had reason to think she's not. Believe me, I asked myself that question many times. But why wouldn't she tell the truth?”

“Perhaps to make it appear that she wasn't here alone, that other people were involved. It could even have been you and your husband. The police must have questioned you pretty thoroughly. It's the parents who immediately come under suspicion.”

“That's dreadful.” She looked away, toward the window.

“Yes, but it happens all too often. Yesterday I read in the paper an account of a mother whose boyfriend didn't want her child around. The mother first fed the boy barbiturates to knock him out before she drowned him in the bathtub.”

In dismay, Karen shook her head. “No.” She was silent for a moment, then said, “You said you had something to tell me.”

“It's rather strange. Do you know a woman in the village named Chris Wells?”

“Chris? Of course. She owns the Woodbine tea place.”

“Her nephew—”

“Johnny?”

Melrose nodded. “Says she's disappeared.”

“
What?
”

“He pretty much exhausted every place she might have gone and reason for going there.”

Karen shook her head again in disbelief. “Did he try Bletchley Hall? Chris does a lot of volunteer work there. But when did this happen?”

“Before I went to Northamptonshire to collect my gear. So it's been over a week. Clearly, the boy's right: she's disappeared. And there's something else. Perhaps you've already heard about the murder in Lamorna Cove.”