Written in Blood (50 page)

Amy flung on some more paper and took a few sticks from the pile. She laid them carefully on top and picked up several more in readiness should the first ones ignite.

It was then she noticed there was something underneath. More paper? A label certainly - bright yellow with blue lettering: Hotel Masima, Tangiers. Amy swept the sticks aside. More labels, almost covering the top of a brown suitcase.

She dragged it out, laid it flat and pressed the catches. The lid sprang open. Amy knelt down, ignoring the grit and dirt beneath her knees and examined the contents. A black suit and veiled hat, lingerie, including a suspender belt and filmy stockings, high-heeled shoes. Two plastic tubs holding costume jewellery and cosmetics. And a shoe box crammed with photographs. How absolutely extraordinary.

She took a handful of the photographs out and started to look through them. Some were in colour, others black and white. Many featured a blonde-haired woman both on her own, with a couple of friends and playing with a dog. There was a relaxed holiday air about the snaps and several had actually been taken on a beach or around what appeared to be a hotel swimming pool. Two men wearing the briefest swimwear imaginable stood in front of a splendid boat.

And there was Ralph. Even in the poor light there was no mistaking his vivid smile, dark curls and direct gaze. He was with a crowd of people apparently at some sort of party. Certainly an air of jollity prevailed. They were all sitting round a table covered with glasses and bottles and paper streamers. Perhaps it was someone’s birthday. The picture was a large one taken by flash. Ralph was wearing a square-necked, short-sleeved white cotton top, part of the Royal Navy’s summer rig.

Amy peered more closely. There was something about the person next to her husband. A handsome man with blurry features, hair all over the place and a flower stuck behind his ear. Amy climbed the cellar steps and held the picture up to the light and gasped in disbelief. It was Gerald!

Full of excitement she ran into the hall. Words and phrases chattered in her head, primed her lips. ‘You’ll never guess . . . the suitcase . . . you remember . . . Mrs Bundy said . . . someone has put it . . .’

Honoria was standing, motionless, in the doorway of the library. The words curdled in Amy’s mouth. She knew and understood the situation immediately. A pulse of apprehension fluttered, gained strength, then started to beat forcefully at the base of her throat.

For no reason the phrase ‘save your breath’ came into her mind. Might as well save your breath. She started to inhale slowly and deeply and exhale shallowly as if the air about her was already in short supply.

Her mind was cleanly split. Half ran underground, chattering with fear, making no sense. The other summed up the extreme danger of her position and hunted for a way out. Front door locked, bolted, not opened for years. Back door locked, bolted, would never have time to undo. Must not,
must not
be forced back down cellar steps to die like a dog. Ground-floor windows locked but she could break one and climb through, bleeding but alive. Alive.

The dark mass across the hall shifted slightly. Hardly a step, more a bulky cleaving of the air. The movement brought Amy’s heart into her mouth.

Stairs. Same distance for us both. I’m smaller, younger, lighter, faster. Get to my room. Bolt the door. Open the window. Scream.

She tried to remember what you did before a sprint. Bend the knees? Up on the toes? It was vital that she got it right. It could mean the difference between . . . it could make all the difference.

But then all thoughts of preparation fled, for Honoria did something far worse than just redistribute her weight. She started to laugh. A soft, growly, vibrating thrum like the warm-up of a powerful engine, followed by a series of harsh barks. These were punctuated by honking noises when Honoria ran out of oxygen and snorted more in through her nose.

Amy ran. Hitting the stairs. Up the stairs. On to the landing. Down the landing. Honoria close, so close behind. Panting, lumbering, grabbing handfuls of emptiness but once, when Amy stumbled, brushing the hem of her skirt.

Beneath their feet the ground flew. For Amy, reft of breath, all thought was stripped away. She was no longer even conscious of running, for other darker rhythms had taken her over. Into her room. Fall on the door. Close the door.

Too late.

Amy heaved and pushed but Honoria’s iron foot was already implacably there.
She
did not push, for there was no need. Or apparently any hurry. Several seconds passed before she started to speak. Before she pushed her snout into the gap and contorted her mouth to spew out her dreadful revelations.

And Amy was forced to listen, for she dared not lift her hands from the door to cover her ears. Nor could she move away. Soon she was crying out at the horror of it but Honoria merely raised her voice, drowning the sounds of Amy’s anguish.

And then, quite suddenly, the streaming poisonous flux dried up. And, shortly after, Amy’s lamentations ceased. She listened intently in the silence, leaning hard against the door, praying that the terrible force on the other side would not decide to do the same. Her face was screwed up grotesquely with physical effort and her cheeks shone with tears.

Honoria punched the door with all her might. Amy hurtled away, falling on her back, and Honoria walked into the room. She stood, looking down at Amy. Honoria’s rough, high-coloured slabby countenance was ghastly pale. Her eyes slithered and slipped about in their sockets or rolled so far back that only the whites showed. Glistening strands of spittle swung from her lower lip.

Amy scrambled up and moved away in a crablike manner, knowing that she must keep looking directly at Honoria, for that was what you had to do with wild things. Lions, tigers, mad dogs. Then they didn’t spring. The pupils of Honoria’s eyes were dark red. Her gross shadow stretched across the wall, the head lolling and wagging.

Amy fetched up against the sash window. She put her hands behind her and felt the cold glass and crumbly paint on the surround. If she could only open it. That would mean turning her back, but only for a second. And where was the alternative?

Amy swung round, reached up and started tugging at the catch. It was rusty and very stiff. She had to push and pull it hard to work it loose. Once she glanced over her shoulder. Honoria stood there, watching, wrapped in a terrible silence.

The window flew up with a crash. Clean cold air swept Amy’s face. She put her hands on the sill and leaned out, looking down the long drive and through the open gates. Far below stretched an expanse of stone slabs.

As Amy stared down at their hard unyielding surface she remembered Mrs Bundy, doing the rough. Describing, as she scrubbed, what Gerald had looked like. What it had looked like.

Amy, feeling dizzy, closed her eyes. The stones rushed upwards. Slammed into her soft body, broke her bones. Sickened, she pulled herself upright and turned round.

Honoria said, ‘Jump.’

Amy gasped aloud in horror and disbelief.

‘Go on.’

Of course she would want that. The case and all that it contained burned and Amy dead. What could suit her better? And a suicide would be perfect. Grief over her husband’s death, I’m afraid. She never got over it. Talked about ending her life quite often, but I never really thought . . .

A bitter wind stirred Amy’s hair. Ralph was in her mind and in her heart. Neither of them were believers. But what, Amy now wondered, if the believers had got it right and that, after the dreadful tumbling through that dark, yawning space, the slamming impact and spreading of tender flesh and breaking of bones, she and Ralph would be miraculously once more conjoined. How wonderful, how truly wonderful that would be. But Amy could not believe it. For her it wasn’t true and there was no way she could make it so. The real truth was that she and Ralph would never meet again. Amy felt such extreme pain at this realisation that it was as if she had already fallen.

‘
Jump
.’

‘No!’ Amy’s profile was transformed into a hard, angry silhouette. ‘I’m not doing it for you.’

Honoria glowered and her feet kicked and pawed savagely at the floor. She looked brutally sure of herself, less mad, much more frightening.

‘I shall fight,’ said Amy. ‘And it will show. They will find you out.’

‘Do you think I care.’ Honoria’s voice was thick with contempt.

‘You will care,’ shouted Amy, ‘when you are in prison for years and years shut up in a cage with the sort of people you despise.’

‘You’re an even bigger fool than I took you for. Once your death is accomplished I shall seek my own. What else have I to live for?’

The appalling desolation behind this remark, springing from a hatred of life that Amy could not even begin to comprehend, evoked unwilling pity. For the first time she was moved to use her sister-in-law’s name.

Honoria crossed swiftly over to Amy and spat in her face. Then she spun Amy round, seized her wrists and wrenched her arms together behind her. Amy kicked out backwards. A high strong kick like a spirited horse. It connected with Honoria’s shins and hurt Amy’s heel even through her boots.

Honoria began to drag her captive towards the open window. Amy’s arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. She dug her heels in, rucking up the carpet but, like a chicken on the way to market dangling from tied legs could do little to help herself.

When they reached the window Honoria pushed Amy violently against the frame. The sash bar struck her hard on the nose and blood flowed into her mouth. Now she was being forced to the floor. Amy planted her legs astride, made them rigid and strong, braced the front of her thighs against the sill. Honoria let go of Amy’s wrists, put both of her hands on Amy’s shoulders and bore down with all her might. Amy’s knees gave way with a crack.

Honoria grabbed the neck of Amy’s sweater, bunching it up, pushed Amy through the window opening and half across the sill. Amy threw up her arms and gripped the sash, digging her nails into the wood. Honoria stopped pushing and began to prise loose Amy’s fingers.

It was then that a vehicle appeared on the drive. Amy saw the headlights and yelled out. Screamed over and over again. Great shrieks so loud that her head filled up with the sound and rang like a bell.

Honoria hauled her back inside. Amy fought maniacally - kicking, punching, scratching. Fought with all her substance and all her strength. Far away she heard the sound of breaking glass. Honoria heard it too. Amy could see by the change in her expression. An acknowledgement that time was running out. Her hands closed around Amy’s throat, the thumbs pressing into the windpipe. A spasm of mad joy made her body tremble and marked her face with a profane radiance.

Amy choked. She could hear humming, like the wind through telegraph wires, and saw redness everywhere. The pressure on her ears was terrible. The inside of her head expanded, pushing harder and harder against her skull until at last it gave way and she fell into the dark.

 

It was past midnight. Barnaby was in a private room at Hillingdon hospital staring out over the parking lot which, even at that hour of the night, was half full. He had been there for five hours. Unnecessarily, if he was honest with himself, for she wasn’t going to run away. And she wasn’t going to die. Thank God. Two bodies in one evening were more than enough.

They had been putting the first into the mortuary van as he pulled up outside Gresham House. The second, so much lighter, lay in its zippered polythene sheath in the hall.

Barnaby could see it as he got out of the Orion, for the huge doors, against which so many twigs and leaves had been piling themselves on his first visit, now stood wide open.

Laura Hutton’s Porsche was parked at an oblique angle halfway round the back, as if she had drawn up carelessly in a tearing hurry, skidded in a half circle then rammed on the brakes. The keys were still in the ignition. Later Troy had driven it back to the little jewel box of a house and put it in the garage.

There was a sound from the bed, where Amy lay looking very small beneath tightly stretched, fiercely tucked bedclothes. Audrey Brierley sat close by, her white-gold cap of hair shimmering beneath the bedside lamp like a pearl helmet.

A staff nurse came in to take Amy’s pulse and blood pressure. Amy had been sedated, but lightly, and the nurse’s ministrations woke her up. Much as Barnaby wanted to talk he couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy. After shining a light into both her patient’s eyes the nurse said everything was fine and went briskly off, her shoes squeaking on the linoleum.

Amy stared at Audrey Brierley, who gently took hold of her bandaged hand. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Lyddiard. You’re all right now.’

Barnaby picked up a chair and carried it over to the bed. He positioned it carefully. Not too near but not too far away, for he feared her voice might not carry.

‘Hullo.’

‘Hullo. It’s you.’

‘Again.’

He was right. It was little more than a whisper. He sat down and they smiled at each other. That is, he smiled. The corner of Amy’s lips twitched very slightly, then gave up. And was it, he thought, any wonder? He began to speak, keenly aware that his opening words were hardly likely to improve matters.

‘I’m afraid your sister-in-law is dead, Mrs Lyddiard. She took her own life. There was nothing anyone could do.’

‘She said . . . she would . . . after . . .’

These few words seemed to exhaust her and she closed her eyes again. Barnaby sat in silence for a short while but then continued, for he was anxious she did not drift back into sleep.

‘I’ll be as brief as I possibly can. We can talk at greater length when you’re feeling better.’

‘Hurts . . . to talk . . .’

‘Of course. I thought I would give my ideas on what I think has been going on and you can just stop me, shake your head or whatever, if I’ve got it wrong. How does that suit?’