Upon a Dark Night (42 page)

What he had failed to predict was that the engine roared, the lights came on full beam and the car raced towards them.

Thirty-three

Ever since she fell from the kitchen window in the St James’s Square basement and broke her ankle, Rose had been shackled, physically and mentally. The plaster was an obvious constraint; so, also, was her flawed relationship with Doreen. She was not deceived. Yes, her memory had stalled, but not her logic. She knew for certain that the whole truth about her life was being denied to her. There were times when Doreen refused point-blank to answer questions. Her actions - the daily shopping, the care for her comfort and safety - were decent, sisterly, genuine - but whenever Rose asked for more freedom, more space, Doreen was rigid and unforthcoming. She was not malicious; Rose would have detected that. But the trust was absent.

Until this evening.

Doreen’s entire manner had been different when she had arrived in the flat in Prior Park Buildings. Usually so well-defended, she seemed uneasy, as if her strength were undermined. When Rose had asked for the umpteenth time about her family, Doreen had spilled it out, confiding astonishing things to her. The truth was deeply distressing, so painful that she could appreciate why Doreen had delayed discussing it with her. Her father, an elderly farmer living alone, had recently been found dead with half his head blown away by a shotgun. Rose had visited the farm expecting to find him alive. The dreadful scene had affected her brain. In effect, she was denying her own existence to shut out the horror.

She heard all this with a sense that it must be true, but still without remembering any of it. She had no recollection of being at the farm, or walking in on the bloodbath within, or what happened after. She was left emotionally drained.

After a while, Doreen had told her other things. She had talked of the family’s unusual claim to fame, her grandfather’s discovery of the Tormarton Seax during the war. Two generations of Gladstones had resisted all requests to excavate the ground. They wanted only to be left alone to earn their living from farming. But now her father was dead, there was renewed interest in the site, even rumours that other objects had been recovered by the family. The smiling man who had tried to abduct her was almost certainly acting on the rumours.

Rose was white-knuckled thinking about that evil predator. Thank God Doreen had moved her to another flat. This place seemed even more tucked away than St James’s Square. Unless you knew it was here, masked by trees and up the steps from Prior Park Road, you would probably go straight past.

Doreen had stayed with her until late. She left about ten-thirty. Afterwards, horrid images churned in Rose’s brain and she knew she would not sleep. For distraction, she switched on the TV. An old black and white film was on, with James Mason looking incredibly boyish as an Irish gunman on the run from the police. She watched it intermittently while clearing the table. Everything she did was slowed by the crutches, but she liked to be occupied, and she had insisted Doreen left the things for her to carry out.

On about the fourth journey between kitchen and sitting-room she happened to notice two slips of paper lying on the armchair. They must have fallen out of Doreen’s pocket when she took out a tissue. At a glance they were only shop receipts. She left them there; when you depend on crutches, there is a limit to the number of things you stoop to pick up.

She finished washing up and went back to the armchair. The film was reaching a climax. The girlfriend had found James Mason in the snow surrounded by armed police. She would surely draw their gunfire on to both of them.

Involved in the drama, Rose gripped the underside of her thigh and her hand came into contact with one of those scraps of paper. When the film ended, Doreen’s receipts were lying in small pieces in her lap. While watching the last tragic scene she must have been shredding them. Stupid.

They didn’t belong to her. They might have been needed for some reason.

To make sure they
were
only receipts, she spread the pieces on the table and put them together, jigsaw fashion.
Astra Taxis,
the first said,
From: Bath Stn. To: St Jas Squ.
+
waiting, with thanks £30.
She had seen the transaction herself, watched the receipt being handed across after the drive from Harmer House to St James’s Square. Her short-term memory couldn’t be faulted.

The other was a credit-card slip for the lunch at Jolly’s. Doreen had settled that one at the till.

She stared at the name.

But it ought to read Doreen Jenkins.

The date was the correct one.
Two lunches,
it said. The name of the card-holder was
Mrs Emma Treadwell.

Emma?

Frowning, she stared at the name for some time. There was only one conclusion. Her so-called stepsister was caught out. Here was proof that she had been lying about her real identity.

She was crushed by the betrayal. If Doreen concealed her own name, could anything she said be trusted? The story about her father and his horrible death could be pure fabrication, as could the stuff about the Tormarton Seax.

Soon after, the doorbell rang.

Her first thought was that Doreen must have come back. No one else knew who was staying here. That would be it: she had just discovered she’d mislaid the receipts and she was back in a panic.

She called out, ‘Coming,’ and hastily scooped up the bits of paper and put them in her own pocket, hoisted herself up and on to the crutches and picked her way across the floor to the hall.

There was no second ring. She knows I’m slow, she thought. She unfastened the door and opened it the few inches the safety chain allowed.

A mistake.

A metal-cutter closed on the safety-chain and severed it. The door swung open, practically knocking her down, and Smiling Face walked into the flat and slammed the door closed.

She gripped the crutches, terrified.

‘Move,’ he ordered, pointing to the armchair.

She hobbled across the room. She was turning to make the awkward manoeuvre of lowering herself when he grabbed one of the crutches away and pushed her in the chest, slamming her into the chair. He kicked the other crutch out of her reach.

As if she were no longer there, he walked through and checked the kitchen and the bedroom. Satisfied, he sat opposite her, resting a brown paper carrier on his knees. He was in a suede jacket, white sweater and black jeans.

In a shaky voice she asked him what he wanted.

‘You don’t know?’ It was an educated voice, no more comforting for that. His mouth curved in that crocodile smile. ‘Come now, Miss Gladstone, you’re not stupid. You know you’ve got to be dealt with, and it needn’t hurt. You swallow the sleeping tablets I give you, helped down with excellent cognac, which I also happen to have in my bag, and you don’t wake up. It’s the civilised way to go, and it works.’

‘You want to
kill
me?’

‘Not at all.’ The smile widened. ‘I want you to commit suicide.’ From the carrier he produced some cheap plastic gloves, the sort garages provide free at the pumps, and put them on. ‘Oh, and so that no one is in any doubt, I’ll fix a new safety-chain before I leave, reassuring anyone with a suspicious mind that you must have been alone here.’

Rose had not listened to any of it.

He took out and placed on the low table between them a silver flask and a brown bottle full of prescription capsules. ‘Fifteen should do it. Twenty will make certain.’

Terrified as she was, her brain went into overdrive. This man would snuff out her life unless she found some way of outwitting him.

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘What have I done, that you want to kill me?’

He unscrewed the bottle and tipped some capsules on to the table. ‘Take a few.’

If anything Doreen had said could be believed, the man was a treasure-hunter. She knew nothing else about him, so she would have to gamble on its being true.

She said, ‘It’s revenge, isn’t it?’

‘For what?’

She held his glance and began to unfold a story worthy of Scheherazade. ‘Because you didn’t find the necklace and the other things that belong to my family.’

He gazed at her blankly, unconvinced. ‘Just what are you wittering on about?’

‘Certain objects my father dug up years ago.’

His brown eyes were giving away more than he intended. ‘You’re bluffing. There’s no record of anything being found there after 1943.’

He
was
a circling vulture.

‘There wouldn’t be,’ Rose said, trying to sound calm, ‘because Dad didn’t report it. He didn’t want some coroner declaring them as treasure-trove and belonging to the nation. My grandfather made that mistake with his find.’

‘Nice try,’ he said, getting up. ‘I don’t buy it. I’ll fetch you a glass from the kitchen.’

Elaborating wildly, she called out, ‘I’ve tried on the necklace. Dad re-strung the gold beads and the garnets himself. The original string rotted in the soil.’

Smiling Face was silent for some time.

When he returned from the kitchen he was holding a tumbler. ‘It isn’t the right shape for a decent cognac, but it will have to do. I don’t believe a word you’re saying. You don’t remember a damned thing about your father, let alone any gold objects, so swallow these and give us both a break.’ He took the cap off the flask and poured some brandy.

Her brain grappled with the complexities. In this poker game her life was the stake and the cards had been dealt to her by Doreen, an impostor. In spite of the denials, the man had appeared at first to be interested. She had no choice but to play on as if she held a winning hand.

‘Don’t you want to know why I came down here to visit my father?’ Without giving him time to respond she answered her own question. ‘Dad invited me to collect the hoard, as he called it. He wrote to say it would be safer with me. People had visited him, wanting to excavate. If he agreed, he said, they’d find nothing and there was a danger they would turn nasty. He felt vulnerable, being elderly. He was afraid they would break into the house.’ While she was speaking, her eyes read every muscle movement across his face. She was encouraged to add, ‘He said the coins would bring me a steady income sold in small amounts and to different collectors.’

The mention of coins drew a better result than the necklace had. His grin lost a little of its upward curve. ‘What coins?’

‘The ones he dug up.’

‘You mean old coins?’

‘I don’t know how old they are. Silver and gold mostly. They must have been in a pot originally, because they were mingled with tiny fragments of clay.’

His facade was crumbling, even if he tried to sound sceptical. ‘And where are these fabulous coins kept now? In a bank vault?’

‘No. He wouldn’t trust a bank. They’re in the farmhouse.’

‘Oh, yes? Where precisely?’

If she named a hiding-place, he wouldn’t be able to resist checking. He might disbelieve her, but he was too committed to let any chance slip by, however remote. The challenge was to keep him interested without telling him enough to let him believe he could go alone. ‘He didn’t tell me exactly where.’

He was contemptuous. ‘Convenient.’

‘But there can’t be more than four or five places they could be. I knew the farmhouse as a child.’

‘Now you’re lying through your teeth,’ he said. ‘It’s common knowledge that your memory is gone. You know sweet FA about what happened when you were a kid.’

Rose harangued him with the force of Joan of Arc in front of her accusers. ‘Wrong. It came back a couple of nights ago. I woke up in the small hours and remembered who I am and everything about me.’A huge claim that she would find impossible to justify if put to the test, but how much did Smiling Face know of her life? She started talking at the rhythm of a sewing machine, stitching together a patchwork of what Doreen had told her and what sprang to mind. ‘I’m twenty-eight, and I live in Hounslow and I work in a bookshop. My parents separated when I was very young and I’ve seen very little of my father since. I came down from London the other day at his request and when I got to the farmhouse I found him dead, shot through the head. The rest you know.’

He reached for the brandy and drank some, caught in indecision.

‘If you like,’ she offered in a more measured tone, squeezing her hands between her knees to stop them trembling, ‘we could go to the farmhouse and find the hoard. You can have the coins and all the other things except the necklace.’ Trying to do a deal over the non-existent necklace was an inspiration. ‘Dad always promised me the necklace.’

He said tersely, getting in deeper, ‘You’re in no position to bargain. If I believed you for one moment, I could go there and turn the place over. I don’t need your help.’

‘Believe me, you do. Cottage hiding-places are really cunning. People centuries ago needed to keep all their valuables secure. The places they used were incredibly clever. You have to live there to know where to look.’

He passed a gloved hand uncertainly through his black hair.

At the limit of her invention, she added, ‘We can go there now. I’ll show you where to look.’ She pointed at the plastered ankle. ‘I’m not going to run away.’

In the Toyota, he said with his habitual grin, ‘If your memory is back, I’m surprised you want to get into a car with me.’

She didn’t know what he meant, and didn’t care to think about it. she said with disdain, ‘It’s better than the alternative.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

They had been on the road about twenty minutes, going further and further from the lights of Bath, past places with strange, discomforting names like Swainswick, Cold Ashton, Nimlet and Pennsylvania. How this would end, Rose did not dare think. With her injury, she had no chance of running away. Her plan, such as it was, amounted to no more than delaying action - but for what? The Cavalry wouldn’t come riding to her rescue.

The car swung right and up a bumpy track. A stone building, pale in the headlamp beam, appeared ahead. It was essential to pretend this was familiar ground. She felt her mouth go dry. The bluffing was over. He would expect her to deliver now.