House of the Lost

CHAPTER FIVE

As Theo went back to the dining room, he was smiling at the prospect of plunging back into Matthew’s world. And as he switched on the laptop, that other house and its atmosphere were already closing round him.

Matthew’s story seemed to be shifting focus and his small friend was insinuating herself more definitely into the plot. This was the girl who accompanied him to school each morning. She apparently lived in a small cottage, and each evening she liked to curl up by the fire with her back to the brick chimney breast. The firelight spun garnet and black shadows in the room, and an elderly lady sat in a rocking chair, her own shadow falling blurrily on the walls as she rocked and talked. The girl’s grandmother? Yes, of course.

Theo typed all this, then stared at it in surprise, because he seemed to be going back into the land of fairytale once more. Small girls and grandmothers who rocked by fires, and views of thick trees through the window, suggesting the house was in the middle of an old forest… Once again he was aware of puzzlement as to where this was coming from.

The girl was swept along by the tales grandmother wove in those fire lit nights. ‘Tell more,’ she said eagerly, leaning forward, her small face alight.

‘They’re only stories,’ said the grandmother. ‘Some of them written by clever men, but they’re all stories made up out of people’s minds, remember that, Mara.’

‘But some bits might be real,’ said Mara. ‘You can’t be absolutely sure, can you?’ She leaned forward, her eager little face vivid in the firelight. ‘Annaleise is real.’

Annaleise… The shadows seemed to shiver at the sound of the name.

‘Yes, Annaleise is real,’ said the grandmother. ‘You must keep out of her way, though, Mara. You must keep your brother out of her way, as well.’

‘I do,’ said Mara earnestly. ‘I truly do. Tell me about Annaleise. Why does she come here?’

‘To watch people. To listen to what they say. That’s why you must always be very wary of her, Mara. She’s not watching you, not at the moment, but one day she might.’

‘Who is she watching?’

The old woman glanced round the room again, as if making sure no one could be hiding and listening. Very softly, she said, ‘Your friend Matthew’s father.’

Mara sat up very straight. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I listen to what’s said. I know what happened in that family once, and I can guess why Annaleise sends the men to that house. Others might know as well – we have long memories hereabouts.’ The shadows shivered again, but this time it was the movement of the rocking chair and of the old woman’s head as she nodded to herself.

Mara leaned forward eagerly. ‘What is he trying to keep secret?’

The grandmother paused, and then said, ‘The truth about what happened to Matthew’s mother. Elisabeth her name was.’

‘But Matthew’s mother died when he was a baby,’ said Mara, puzzled.

‘Did she? Are you sure about that?’

‘It’s what Matthew thinks,’ said Mara after a moment.

‘It’s what Matthew was told,’ said her grandmother, and again the shadows seemed to twist themselves into eager, listening shapes as if they, too, wanted to know about this. ‘It’s what his father wants everyone to believe.’

‘But what happened to her? Where is she?’

‘No one really knows what happened to her, and no one knows where she is, either, not now, not for sure. But—’

But people in this village have long memories.

The shrilling of an electric doorbell sliced through the silence, shattering Theo’s concentration and sending the crimson shadows fleeing into the corners of the forest cottage. He swore, blinked at his surroundings, hit the Save key more or less automatically, then went across the hall to the front door.

‘Mr Kendal? I’m Michael Innes – Dr Innes. I hope I’m not interrupting you, but I thought perhaps we should meet…’

The man who had found Charmery’s body. He was recognizable from the TV news bulletins, although he was slightly older than he had seemed then – probably thirty-eight or forty – and he had a careful manner of speech, as if he considered every word before actually saying it. Theo thought he looked clever and slightly intense. He bade a mental farewell to finding out more about Mara and the forest cottage for the next hour, and said, ‘Come into the dining room. I’ve been working there and it’s probably the warmest place in the house at the moment.’

‘I don’t want to disturb you if you’re absorbed in something,’ said Innes, taking in the open laptop and the sheaf of notes on the dining table.

‘You aren’t disturbing me,’ said Theo, not entirely truthfully, but wanting to talk to this man who, according to Sister Catherine, had ‘admired’ Charmery. Had he done more than just admire her? Was he the kind of man Charmery might have found attractive?

‘Apart from anything else,’ Innes said, taking one of the fireside chairs Theo indicated, ‘if you’re here for any length of time you might like to know the whereabouts of the local medic.’

‘I’m probably here for a couple of months,’ said Theo, ‘so it’s nice to know there’s help at hand. I’m fairly healthy at the moment, though.’

‘Good. Actually,’ said Innes, ‘the real reason for coming is in case you want to talk to me about Charmery – I was the one who found her.’

‘I know,’ said Theo gently, as Innes’ face suddenly became haggard and drawn.

‘Mr Kendal—’

‘Theo.’

‘Theo, I’m supposed to be used to dead people and traumas and in the main I am, but when it’s someone you know and when you aren’t expecting…’

Theo said carefully, ‘You’d have been fairly friendly with my cousin, I expect. In a small place like this where everyone knows everyone else…’

Innes appeared grateful for this tact. He said, ‘I met her quite a few years ago – when I first came to Melbray. Only briefly, though. She lived in London most of the time, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, I think so. I think she liked to come to Fenn in the spring, though.’

‘Yes, she once said that,’ said Innes. ‘And spring is lovely here. But this year she stayed much longer and I got to know her properly.’

And you fell for her, thought Theo. ‘If there’s anything you can tell me about her life – about what was going on in her life before she died… It’s a long time since I last saw her, you see. I’d be interested in even the smallest detail.’

‘The police asked me that,’ said Innes. ‘I couldn’t help them much, though.’

‘They asked all of us,’ said Theo. ‘They tried to build up a picture of her life, her friends, what she did for a living.’

‘I remember she talked about some PR work she did last year for a small advertising agency,’ said Innes. ‘She made it sound fun – amusing.’

‘She always made things sound fun and amusing,’ said Theo. ‘I think that’s how she found life.’

‘Yes. But there was nothing unusual about her while she was here,’ said Innes. ‘I’d seen her that weekend – she’d sprained her wrist a couple of days previously. Quite a bad sprain; she’d tripped over some stones in the garden and come in to the surgery. I checked there were no fractures, strapped her wrist up, then gave her a lift home – she couldn’t really drive with the sprain. She asked me in for a drink. Surgery was over, so I accepted.’

And, thought Theo, perhaps the drink became two or three drinks, and perhaps the two of you ended up in bed.

‘I left around half past seven that evening,’ said Innes. ‘She was perfectly all right. And then the next day…’

‘The next day someone killed her,’ said Theo softly, and felt a stab of pain at the thought that Charmery might have spent her last few hours making love to this unknown man. The only way to go, Theo darling, she would have said, with the smile that was half angelic, half mischievous.

‘I phoned her the following evening but there was no reply,’ said Innes. ‘I had surgery the day after that, so it wasn’t until the next day that I called at the house. I was passing on my way back from a clinic day at St Luke’s, so I thought I’d look in to see how she was. There was no response when I knocked on the door, but her car was in the drive so I thought she might be in the garden. She liked the garden in summer, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, very much,’ said Theo. He had no idea what Charmery’s likes and dislikes had been for the last ten years, but he did not want Innes to know that. And Charmery had liked the garden in those long-ago summers.

‘I remember she once showed me a rose bush in the garden here – she said it was called Charmian and that Charmian was her real name,’ said Innes.

‘It was. My Aunt Helen – Charmery’s mother – planted the rose bushes.’

‘She seemed quite proud of them,’ said Innes. ‘And that,’ he said, his face white and pinched, ‘was the last time I saw her alive.’

‘Tell me about finding her,’ said Theo suddenly. ‘I’d feel better if I knew exactly what you found. It can’t be worse than all the things I’ve been visualizing.’

Innes nodded. ‘I went round the side of the house and down through the garden,’ he said. ‘People say, after a tragedy, that they had a feeling something was wrong, don’t they? I’m a man of science, Theo, a doctor, and I don’t have feelings of that kind. But as I walked down to the boathouse that day, I had a very strong feeling of – this will sound impossibly melodramatic – but of something very dark close by.’

‘And that’s when you found her,’ said Theo.

‘Yes. I went into the boathouse – you’ll know it very well, of course. It smelt of the river and it was very dim…’

It always did smell of the river, thought Theo, but the dimness was a good dimness, green and secret, with waterlight from the river rippling on the walls.

‘She was wedged under the landing stage,’ said Innes. ‘Right underneath it, jammed against two of the main timber uprights supporting the platform. She had been there for at least two days and probably three.’ He made a brief gesture with his hands. ‘I saw my fair share of violent deaths – car crashes and accidents – when I was training. But since I came to Melbray – well, a country GP deals more with flu and eczema or chicken pox. There’s my work at St Luke’s clinic as well, but that’s more orthopaedics and osteopathy – it’s a branch of medicine I’m quite interested in. The nuns do a very good job with their patients.’

‘I met one of them this morning,’ said Theo. ‘Sister Catherine. She seemed very dedicated to her work.’

‘Yes, she’s very good indeed,’ said Innes. ‘I don’t think the restrictions of religious life come easily to her, though. I think she might be a bit of a rebel under that cool exterior.’ He broke off, then said, ‘I’m sorry, you want to hear about Charmery. Well, as I said, it looked as if she had been dead for at least two days, so…’ Again the abrupt gesture. ‘There were post mortem changes,’ he said. ‘But she had been in the water all the time and creatures live in rivers – not just fish, but scavengers. Water rats… There was erosion of the flesh, and the face was— It wasn’t pleasant.’

‘No longer recognizable,’ said Theo, half to himself, and Innes said explosively, ‘Oh God, her face was almost entirely gone and the eyes had been eaten—’ He stopped and swallowed hard. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I honestly didn’t mean to say that.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Theo, knowing it wasn’t all right for either of them.

‘The police surgeon concluded she had been held down in the water, probably with a boathook,’ said Innes. ‘She had lacerations on her shoulders where the hook had torn into her flesh. I don’t think they ever found the boathook. I think they agreed it was probably thrown into the river after – after the killer finished.’

He stopped, and Theo, who was feeling slightly sick, but who was also feeling sorry for Michael Innes, said, ‘Let me make you a cup of tea. Or something stronger if you’d prefer.’

‘Tea would be welcome.’ He looked up gratefully, and his eyes widened suddenly, as if he had seen something behind Theo’s chair that startled him. Theo half-turned and realized it was the framed sketch of Charmery.

‘It’s a startling likeness, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘I’ve never seen it before.’ He seemed unable to take his eyes from the sketch.

‘It looks quite a good drawing, although I’ve no idea when it was done or who the artist might be. It isn’t signed or dated and there’s nothing on the back – I looked. I thought I might get it appraised some time – I’ve got a cousin who’s just finished studying art at the Slade – she might know how to go about it.’

‘Lesley?’

‘Yes. Did you know her?’

‘No, but Charmery mentioned her,’ said Innes, still staring at the sketch.

‘It makes her look quite different, doesn’t it?’ said Theo, going out to make the tea. ‘But then my cousin Charmery possessed a chameleon-like personality.’

‘Able to be all things to all men,’ said Innes, half to himself.

‘Exactly.’

After Innes left, Theo did not attempt to reclaim Matthew, or Mara’s forest cottage. Instead, he sat at the table, his chin resting on his hands, staring through the French windows.

Darkness was creeping across the garden, as if a veil was being drawn down slowly over it, and the small courtyard was already in shadow. In the old days they usually had breakfast there in the summer because it caught the morning sun. Charmery always wore a huge 1920s sunhat; it made her look like something from a soft-focus romantic film. But the wrought-iron table and chairs were covered in moss now, and the rose garden Helen had planted – the garden that had scented the air every summer – was choked with weeds and smothered in shadows.

Charmery had said summer twilight was deeply romantic – black-bat nights and poets entreating their ladies to come into gardens, she said. Moon rivers and the deep purple falling over sleepy garden walls. It was a secret time, she used to say, her long narrow eyes smiling. It was a time when no one quite knew where anyone else was, and when you might vanish for a magical mysterious hour of your own… ‘Let’s run away to the boathouse, Theo…’

It was on the crest of this memory that Theo saw, quite definitely, a flickering light inside the boathouse.

He unlocked the French windows and stepped outside. Cold night air, dank from the nearby river, breathed into his face and he stood on the step, listening and trying to see. Was the light still there? Yes. But who was creating it? How mad would it be to investigate on his own? Should he try calling the local police? But a vagrant light in an old boathouse was hardly cause to call out the cavalry. In any case, by the time they got here the light would probably have disappeared. He frowned and went back into the dining room to pick up the poker. Twice in two days, he thought wryly. He tried to remember where a torch might be kept and could not. He would have to trust to luck that he could see the way.

Once outside he locked the French windows behind him and pocketed the key. Then he went warily down the twisting path that he had once known as well as he knew his own reflection. Here was the little rockery where the lavender bush had been, and here were the four mossy steps to the lower level. Once down the steps, a big old apple tree screened the boathouse, and Theo could no longer see the light. Supposing he reached the boathouse to find someone waiting for him? Charmery’s murderer? Or Charmery herself? ‘Let’s run away to the boathouse,’ she had said that afternoon, giving him the shining smile that had always melted his bones. She’s dead, said Theo silently. She’s been dead these four months and the dead don’t return.

But supposing they did? Supposing they came back to a house they had loved and set its heart beating again…?

There was no longer a light, and Theo paused, his heart pounding. I’ll have to go inside, he thought, and taking a deep breath, walked up to it and peered into the dank interior.

It was very dark inside. The far end of the small structure was open for the boats to come and go and a faint misty radiance came in from the river itself. Waterlight rippled on the walls and on the staging where a small rowing boat used to be tied up. The memories rose up like a solid wall but Theo pushed them away and scanned the shadows.

There was nothing here. He could see traces of the police investigations – some polythene sheeting rolled up and presumably forgotten, and tattered remnants of tape that had probably once said crime scene and been wound round the entire structure. But there was nothing else. If I saw anything it was simply a shaft of moonlight, he thought with relief, and turned to go back up to the house. The dining room light shone like a beacon, and Theo unlocked the French windows and stepped thankfully inside. The warmth of the room closed round him, and he locked the windows again and drew the curtains against the night. Safe.

He was crossing the room to the hall, thinking he would make some supper, when he saw that the portrait of Charmery was no longer in its place. He looked round, wondering if it had fallen off its hook.

It had not fallen off its hook. It was on the table, near his laptop, set upright against the desk lamp. This was surely not possible, because he had absolutely no memory of putting it there. Had Innes done so? No, they had not even taken it off the wall when he was here. Walking a bit unsteadily Theo went over to the table. The desk lamp was still on; it shed a golden glow over Charmery’s enigmatic stare. But something had changed about the sketch. Was it just the light? Was the frame damaged? But even as the questions formed, Theo saw what was different and his mind tumbled in disbelief.

In front of the sketch, half propped against it as if it had been placed there very carefully, was a dried flower. Its colour was faded and cobwebby, and although Theo knew very little about flowers, he recognized this one. Several times in those long-ago summers he had cut one and laid it on Charmery’s pillow for her to find when she went to bed.

It was a Charmian rose.

Theo had no idea how long he stood staring at the fragile, sinister outline of the flower against Charmery’s portrait. He had managed to convince himself that the chiming clock in the bedroom was due to some quirk of the weather or the house itself, but there could only be two explanations for what he was seeing now. One was that someone really was managing to get into the house and that someone had waited outside and crept in while he was investigating the boathouse light. But this was so elaborate and pointless, Theo could not bring himself to believe it.

But outlandish as it was, the other explanation was so bizarre Theo did not intend considering it, even for a second. It was that Charmery herself had returned.