Caught in the Light (19 page)

I didn't have to wait at home long before Conrad arrived. True to form, he'd stopped being relieved and started getting resentful. What the hell did I think I was playing at? Did I have any idea what kind of a night I'd put him through? Et cetera, et cetera. I had to do a lot of grovelling. I didn't mind. In fact, it was good for me. It meant I didn't have to think about what had really happened. The effort I had to put into selling Conrad my cover story almost convinced me it was true. We went out to one of his favourite restaurants for a smoothing of ruffled feathers. We could have been back in Hawaii, so remote and unlikely did my experiences in Dorset seem.

But it was only the fleeting effect of wine and good food and the company of a husband who firmly believed I was nobody but Eris Moberly. In the morning, when Conrad went to work and I was alone again, the memories returned. And with them the recollection of Quisden-Neve's stark ultimatum. Give up the only tangible evidence I had of Marian's achievements or have all the forces tugging at my life implode. What was I supposed to do?

I went down to the bank and took the box out of the safe deposit. I sat in Green Park, just staring at it, trying to think of some way out of the dilemma. It can't all be a delusion, can it, Daphne? That's the point. Not when creeps like Quisden-Neve try to blackmail me into handing over a box of old negatives. I can't invent a fantasy that just happens to be true. I can't imagine Marian Esguard if she really existed. I can only .. . meet her. I can only .. . find herself inside me.

That's when I decided what to do. Let go of her. The negatives were what had started it all. Without them I might be released. If I gave them up, maybe she'd give me up. Maybe Quisden-Neve was doing me a favour. Locking them in a bank vault wasn't enough. They had to be out of my reach. And Quisden-Neve would make sure they were.

I drank most of a bottle of wine with a frugal lunch at the Park Lane Hotel, then walked down to Richoux for our appointment. He didn't look in the least surprised to see me, damn him. He looked, in fact, like a man utterly confident in his own tactics. As he had a right to be, I suppose.

"Well, well, well," he said, picking his way through the box. "These really are quite extraordinary. There's barely any degradation. Thank you, Mrs. Moberly. I'm most grateful."

"So am I," I murmured in reply. And that did surprise him.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're welcome to them. And everything that goes with them."

"What might that be?"

"You have no idea, do you? Well, that's probably just as well. Have them with my compliments. I reckon I'm better off without them."

He looked puzzled. But his pleasure at a scam well worked soon blotted out anything else. He was like a schoolboy who'd stolen a stamp collection. Suddenly he wanted to be alone, to ogle his haul. So I left him to it.

"I have your word I'll hear no more of this?" was my parting shot.

"You do, Mrs. Moberly. You have, indeed, my cast-iron copper-bottomed guarantee."

Quisden-Neve's guarantee wasn't worth much. But it's held so far. Nothing's happened since. It's only a week or so, of course. There's no way to tell if it's permanent. Sometimes I don't want it to be. At other times I dread the very thought of another fugue. It's as if, any second, a chasm could open beneath my feet and I'd fall and fall and never stop falling. I keep expecting it to happen, but it doesn't. Am I free of her, Daphne? Or just fooling myself? And why did she ever get a hold on me in the first place? If you can't tell me and make me believe it, I can't be sure she won't reclaim me. That's the worst of it. If you can't convince me absolutely and completely I'll go on waiting. For the first crack to appear in the ground. For the past to swallow me. For the person I am to become the person I was.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I'd listened to the tape three times by dawn. I'd listened long and hard enough to feel I was almost living Eris's experiences with her, both as Eris and as Marian. I was sure now it was all true. Daphne could theorize about fugal delusion as often and expertly as she liked. It wouldn't make any difference to me. This had to be the real thing. Possession, reincarnation, or some other strange overlap between two women's lives. Marian Esguard had lived. And part of her lived still in Eris Moberly. That was why Eris was in danger and why she'd gone missing. That was why she needed my help so desperately. Nobody else, not even her psychotherapist, seemed able to understand that. But I did. What's more, I had a way to help her at long last. I had the lies and evasions of Montagu Quisden-Neve to ram down his Pomerol-rinsed throat.

Daphne would have to wait for the tape. She'd foreseen the possibility clearly enough. I reckoned she'd only made me promise to return it as a means of covering her back. She wanted me to confront Quisden-Neve and Niall Esguard. And she wanted to be able to deny it. So I decided to do her the favour she'd lacked either the nerve or the honesty to ask me. By nine o'clock, the time I was supposed to be reporting to her practice in Harley Street, tape in hand, I was in Bath, sitting in my car a few doors up from Bibliomaufry, waiting for the proprietor to put in an appearance. Nine thirty was opening time, according to the sign in the window, but I didn't take Quisden-Neve for the punctual type. He could easily be late. Still, when he did arrive, I'd be waiting. And I'd be angry. The longer I waited, in fact, the angrier I was going to be. Part of me enjoyed the feeling as it grew inside me. There was some grim relish to be had in knowing I'd been deceived, because deception assumed a motive. And a motive, whatever it was, meant Eris wasn't mad. She needed my help, not my doubt and disappointment. She needed me to trust my instincts as well as my memories. And I was glad to do just that. I was actually happy to do it, happier than I'd been for a single moment since I'd waved to her across the Ringstrasse in Vienna -and seen her face for the last time.

A taxi overtook me and slowed to a halt outside Bibliomaufry. Sudden concentration snatched me back from my reverie. I leaned forward and peered at the taxi's rear window, but I couldn't see a passenger. Then the driver tooted his horn. I glanced across the road to see if he was picking up somebody from the other side, but nobody was waiting and nobody appeared. Then, to my horror, the door of Bibliomaufry opened and Quisden-Neve bustled out, carrying a raincoat and a Gladstone bag. I swore and made to get out of the car, but a horn blared as a lorry sped past, and I recoiled, swearing again when I saw Quisden-Neve was already clambering into the cab. It was too late to do anything but follow. The old devil had been too clever for me.

The taxi headed south down Walcot Street to Pulteney Bridge and on past the Abbey. It looked as if the railway station was our destination, but if Quisden-Neve knew I was following him, which I suspected he did, he had to be aware his ploy wasn't going to work. He just didn't have a big enough lead to shake me off.

The station it was. I hung back as the taxi pulled up outside. Quisden-Neve climbed out, paid the man off and rushed into the booking office, glancing at his watch as he went. I moved in behind the taxi and reversed into a parking bay, gaining a clear view through the station doorway as I did so. For a tubby man, Quisden-Neve moved fast. Already he was halfway up the stairs to the platform. I jumped out and followed.

There was a train standing in the station. Doors were slamming and whistles shrilling as I reached the top of the stairs. And there was Quisden-Neve's tweed-covered backside plunging into a carriage ahead of me. I raced across the platform, wrenched open the nearest door and flung myself in. The next second we were moving.

The train was crowded. Half the passengers were still taking their seats and stowing their luggage. It took several minutes to get as far as the carriage I reckoned Quisden-Neve had entered, and there was no sign of him. Maybe he'd headed further down the train. I struggled on through the ruck.

Then I saw the Gladstone bag and the raincoat, dumped in a seat as some kind of claim. "Excuse me," I said to the woman sitting between them and the window. "These look like they belong to a friend of mine. We seem to have missed each other. Perhaps you saw him get on at Bath. Middle-aged. Grey hair. Lots of tweed."

"Yes. He was here. But only for a second. He went that way." She pointed towards the front of the train. "To the buffet, I expect."

"Right. Thanks. By the way, I know this'll sound stupid, but where are we going?"

"London," she replied, looking as if it did indeed sound stupid.

"Of course. And the next stop?"

"Chippenham. In about five minutes."

"Thanks a lot."

I pressed on, the going getting easier as people settled in their seats. But Quisden-Neve remained elusive. I reached the buffet and he wasn't there. I checked the first-class carriages beyond, drew another blank and turned back. There were the loos to be checked as well, of course, but I couldn't hang around outside every engaged one. Besides, he might be planning to slip off at Chippenham. We'd be there any minute. I heard the announcement as the thought entered my mind. "This train will shortly be arriving at Chippenham." We began to slow. The house backs of the town were already visible through the window. "Chippenham will be the next station stop." I glanced into the first unengaged loo I came to. It was empty. The loo in the vestibule of the adjoining carriage was also unengaged. I crossed to it and pushed at the door, but it only opened halfway. There was some kind of obstruction behind it. I pushed harder and leaned round to see ... He was there, in front of me, his tweedy bulk swaying crazily in my face. I started back and gasped, colliding with a man behind me. The tilt of the train swung the door open. I gaped, and sensed the other man gaping, at the reflection in the mirror of Quisden-Neve, hanging like some huge swollen doll from the coat hook on the loo wall: head lolling, face purple. Something some ligature of wire or rope held him by the throat and was looped round the hook.

"Help me get him down," I cried, gesturing to my dumbstruck companion. "He might still be alive."

"Bloody hell," was the only answer I got. We were pulling into the station now. "I'll call the guard."

Ignoring him, I stepped into the loo, grasped Quisden-Neve by the shoulders and tried to heave him off the hook, but his weight was too much for me. It felt like dead weight, too. My mind was a chaos of wrestling thoughts. What had happened? Had he killed himself? Or been strangled, then hung on the hook like some carcass in an abattoir? It would have taken a stronger man than me to do it. And why in God's ?

The ligature snapped as the train came to a halt, the strain finally proving too much for it. Quisden-Neve hit me like a falling sandbag, jamming me against the basin, his sightless eyes staring into mine. Then he slid onto the floor and flopped out into the vestibule just as the train door opened. I heard a woman scream. Then another. I couldn't blame them. I felt like screaming myself.

"OK, people," said the guard, bustling up from the carriage behind me. "Stand back." He stooped over Quisden-Neve and felt beneath his ear for a pulse. Then he glanced up at me. "You the gentleman who found him?" I nodded. The guard rolled his eyes sadly. "They always think of new ways to top themselves." He looked out at the people on the platform. "There's going to be quite a delay, ladies and gents. Why don't you go and sit down?"

They began slowly to disperse, as did the crowd that had formed in the vestibule, muttering to each other as they went. "He is ... dead, isn't he?" I asked numbly.

"Looks that way to me, sir. But if you want to try mouth-to-mouth .. ." He ventured a smile. "I never took the lessons myself."

"Nor me." I turned and looked out through the window. God, what was going on? Quisden-Neve was no candidate for suicide. But if he hadn't killed himself... My eyes suddenly focused on the car park beyond the platform. A man in a leather jacket and jeans was standing beside a car near the fence closest to the station. It was an old red Porsche. And the man was Niall Esguard. As I watched, he opened the door, tossed what looked like a Gladstone bag into the back, then climbed in and began to reverse out of the parking space.

"Hold on, sir," said the guard as I plunged past him. "The police will be wanting a statement and all sorts."

"I'll be back in a minute," I shouted to him as I jumped down onto the platform. Then I made for the footbridge. The Porsche was already cruising out of the car park. Pursuit was pointless. But so was getting trammelled in the bureaucratic aftermath of Quisden-Neve's death. A post-mortem would probably show what I already knew: he'd been murdered. And I knew who the murderer was. Even though I couldn't prove it. Or suggest a motive. To do that, I had to get back to Bath. Without delay.

I headed for the station exit and climbed into a taxi, reasoning things out as I went. Quisden-Neve must have been expecting to meet Niall on the train, otherwise he wouldn't have left his seat so quickly. For his part, Niall must have planned to get off the train at Chippenham, because he'd left his car there, so he'd clearly set Quisden-Neve up from the start. They'd been in this together. But Quisden-Neve had grown too demanding or he'd had his conscience pricked by my visit. Either way, he'd suddenly become expendable.

"Where do you want to go, sir?" asked the taxi driver.

"Bath Spa railway station."

"Haven't you just come from there? I thought that train '

"Step on it, will you? I'm late."

"Oh, overshoot job, was it?" He started the engine and pulled out of the rank. "Fall asleep?"

"You could say that." I glanced up at the reflection of myself in the rear-view mirror. "But I'm awake now. Well and truly."

Going back to Bibliomaufry was neither logical nor sensible. If there was anything to be found there to my advantage, Niall was going to have removed it by the time I arrived. The most I could hope to accomplish was to catch him in the act, and I had the memory of

Quisden-Neve's bloated, lifeless face fixed starkly enough in my mind to suggest how dangerous that might be. Besides, if I was seen breaking in, and the police matched my description with that of the vanishing witness at Chippenham, I could be storing up enough trouble for myself to spare Niall the effort of lifting a finger against me.