Dangerous Deception (2 page)

Imprinted on my memory from that time was a tea-party at Conningley, when Aunt Margot had casually said, “Pass this to your father, Philip,” and the boy had drawn himself up and answered clearly, “My
father
is dead.”

In fact, throughout all those early years I never heard him call my uncle by any name that implied relationship, and as soon as he was eighteen, he addressed him as Matthew. Recalling this for the first time in years, it seemed ominously significant.

After the marriage, we inevitably saw less of them. Matthew and his wife sometimes had Sunday lunch with us, but Philip was by then away at boarding school. When the two of us did meet, there was still a faint animosity between us – on his side, perhaps, simply because I was a girl, but on my own due to lingering jealousy.

So our paths seldom crossed until the summer of six years ago. Philip had just left university and was about to join the family business when Aunt Margot died suddenly of pneumonia. The memory of those days was still painful – Matthew disappearing for long stretches to walk until he was exhausted; Philip, white-faced, abruptly leaving the dinner table; my mother in tears over the dishes.

But at least, with them spending so much time with us, the tragedy brought us close again, and a result of this was that Philip and I necessarily became more tolerant of each other.

However, I still regarded him as ‘only Philip' until one day, Cora Browne – I haven't thought of her in years! – called round while he was there and pierced my unawareness with her blushes and giggles.

“Clare!” she whispered. “He's gorgeous! Where have you been hiding him?”

“Philip?” I had said in astonishment. “Gorgeous?”

Suddenly, looking at him with her eyes, I saw that perhaps he was, and it wasn't long before I began – quite shamelessly, it seemed now – to make use of him. If at any time I found myself without a partner – for a tennis match, a party, even to go to the cinema – I'd ask Philip to take me. Surprisingly, he always complied, and although I'd no particular feelings towards him, I enjoyed having him as an escort.

Philip's interest in me developed so slowly as to be for a long time unnoticeable. When, instead of waiting for my phone calls, he began inviting me out unprompted, I scarcely noticed the difference; and although we were spending more time together I attached no importance to the fact, ignoring the meaningful glances which passed between Matthew and my parents.

No one rushed us; we drifted along together and, because we were now coupled in the minds of our friends, no one else made a counterclaim. Philip's kisses never lit fires inside me, but they were acceptable enough, and he always stopped when I asked him. Obviously those wild, impassioned affairs I'd read about happened only in books. I was content, and the families were overjoyed. The only formality of our engagement was buying the ring.

My fingers had been unconsciously pulling and tearing at the paper napkin and it now lay shredded in my lap. I stared down at it. Was I after all ready yet, detached enough, to go back over everything?

There was a tap on the door and Bronwen came in. “Is there anything else I can get you, miss?”

I wrenched my thoughts back to the present. “No, no thank you. That was delicious. Did you get through to the hotel?”

“Yes, they have a room free, and they're expecting you. The Carreg Coed it is – you can't miss it.”

“Thank you.” At least I'd have a bed for tonight.

The sun was lying in wait for me, a suffocating gold dust in the car park. Reluctantly I turned the car out on to the road again. My departure from home that morning seemed light-years away.

I pictured the bleak little flat, empty and waiting. This was the time I arrived back in the evening, and I knew exactly how it would be looking, even to the slant of sunlight which fell across the sideboard.

Suddenly, stupidly, I was overcome by a wave of homesickness for it, lonely as it was. At least I didn't have to pretend there. I wished vehemently that I'd not allowed myself to be persuaded into taking this holiday.

But it was too late for second thoughts. I straightened my back against the driving-seat and concentrated on the road ahead.

I heard the motor-bike before I saw it, a tiny speck in my driving mirror that grew rapidly bigger. Moving over slightly, I waited for it to pass, but to my alarm the rider slowed down as he reached me and waved at me to stop.

Horror stories of deranged attackers flooded my mind, and my foot was already on the accelerator when, to my untold relief, I recognised the waiter from the hotel I'd just left.

“Glad I managed to catch you, miss,” he said breathlessly. “It's Gareth, from the Plas Dinas. There's a message just come for you.”

He handed me a slip of paper.

“For me?” I said blankly. “But it can't be – no one knows where I am.”

“Well, see, a gentleman phoned from London. Wanted to speak to a Miss – Lawrence, is it?”

“Laurie?”

“That's it. Said you were calling in for tea and he'd hoped to catch you – a fair-haired young lady on her own.” His shrug was self-explanatory. “Queer message it is, and all. Couldn't make sense of it myself, but he said it's to do with a treasure-hunt. Made me read it back to him, word for word.”

I glanced at the paper in my hand, and if the gods of chance were holding their breath, nothing warned me of the fact.

Aladdin delayed
, I read in an unformed scrawl,
but Beanstalk still on schedule. Sinbad will make contact. Jack
.

“I'm not surprised you couldn't make sense of it,” I remarked, “but I can assure you it's not for me. As I told you, no one knows where I am. What else did this mysterious caller say?”

“Wanted to know if you'd left for the Carreg Coed. I asked Bronwen and she said you had.”

“Curiouser and curiouser. Well, thanks, Gareth, but I'm no wiser than you are. Sorry you had a wasted journey. Have a drink on me when you get back.”

“Oh, I couldn't do that miss, specially if it's not for you after all.”

I smiled. “Then put it towards a night out with Bronwen!”

He grinned delightedly. “That obvious, is it? Well, thank you, miss, and sorry to have troubled you.”

The slip of paper had dropped to my lap and I hastily held it out, but he was already revving up his bike, and with a raised hand roared past me back down the road to the Plas Dinas.

I re-read the message, hoping that the treasure-hunt could proceed without it. Then, with a shrug, I slipped it into my bag and started the car again.

It was only a few minutes later that I came to a side road on the left, with a notice-board proclaiming
Carreg Coed Hotel 200 yards. Full Board, Morning Coffee, Lunches, Teas, Dinners
.

I turned the nose of the car on to the unmade private road and bumped gently along until I came to the hotel gateway on the right. The road ahead petered out into a footpath leading up the hill and as I turned into the gravelled drive I had my first sight of the Carreg Coed, a rambling stone building against a background of shrubs and rocks.

As Bronwen had said, it was altogether bigger than the modest little Plas Dinas and there were more signs of life about it. Two children played on the grass, bags of golf-clubs and fishing tackle were stacked in the porch, and on a tennis court behind the car park, a young couple were engaged in an energetic game. The sound of their voices came through the open car window.

It all looked much as I'd expected, a comfortable hotel catering to the tourist trade, and there was certainly no ripple of unease, not the faintest premonition that I was about to be catapulted into danger.

I parked the car and, with absolutely no thought of the consequences, went inside.

‘Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow …'

Shakespeare:
Macbeth

THE HALL, unlike that of the smaller hotel, was large and bright, the woodwork all painted white. There was a reception desk across from the door with what looked like an office behind it, and, on the counter, a visitors' book and a bell.

To the right, a glass wall separated the lounge from the rest of the hall. My quick glance took in a couple of old ladies and a man studying a map. I rang the bell, and almost immediately a pleasant-faced woman appeared from the office.

“Good afternoon. Can I help you?”

“I hope so; someone phoned from the Plas Dinas to reserve me a room.”

“Ah yes.” She pulled a book out from under the counter. “You're in luck, we've had two postponements today, both singles. The lady in number five won't be here till Sunday, which will give you two nights. If you decide to stay longer, I'm sure we can fit you in somewhere.”

She raised her voice. “Evan!” A boy appeared at the office door. “Bring in the lady's case, would you, and take it to number five.”

“The boot's open,” I told the boy. “It's the blue Golf.”

He nodded sullenly and went through the swing doors.

“Would you mind signing the visitors' book? We don't seem to have a note of your name.”

“It's Laurie,” I said, scrawling it, together with my address and the car registration number, in the appropriate columns.

She lifted the counter and came out into the hall. “I'll take you up. I'm Mrs Davies, by the way – my husband and I are the proprietors.”

I followed her up the wide, shallow staircase which adjoined the glass wall of the lounge, self-consciously aware of the interested gaze of the old ladies. At the top she turned left, stopped at a door and unlocked it.

The room we entered was small but comfortable. There was tea-making equipment on a stand and its single bed was neatly covered with a green spread.

“Not many places have single rooms now,” Mrs Davies remarked, following the direction of my eyes. “Being an older establishment we still have a few, and I can tell you they're in great demand.” She smiled. “On the debit side, though, I'm afraid there's no
en suite
bathroom, but you'll find a couple at each end of the corridor.”

She gave a quick, professional glance round the room and turned to go. “If there's anything you need, don't hesitate to ask. Dinner is served at seven.”

There was a tap on the open door and the boy Evan came in with my case. He avoided my eye when I tipped him, and I found myself regretting the engaging Gareth and his Bronwen.

Then I was alone. Now what did I do? I wondered, with a feeling almost of panic. Nothing at all, for ten days? I'd be mad with boredom by the end of three!

Dispiritedly I started to unpack. Then I changed out of my creased blouse and skirt into a dressing-gown, settled myself on the wide window-seat, and determinedly opened the new paperback I'd brought with me.

The sun was hot on the back of my neck, and after a few pages I turned and sat gazing out across the little garden and, beyond, the dry grass and rocks and rising hills, to the blue wedge of sea.

Below me, the children were still playing with their ball, but an altercation had broken out. Voices were raised, then a wail of protest.

I only half heard them. My thoughts were slipping away again, the warmth and my physical tiredness relaxing the willpower that, for the last half-hour or so, had kept them away from Philip.

Our engagement had made little difference to our lives. I was in no hurry to marry and Philip didn't press me. The months passed uneventfully, and if I was aware of a small, nagging discontent occasionally, I pushed it to the back of my mind and refused to examine it.

Then, three weeks before my twenty-third birthday, disaster struck: my parents were killed in an air crash returning from holiday. My world teetered, rocked, shattered into fragments, and of course it was Matthew and Philip who picked up the pieces.

“You still have us, Clare,” Matthew kept saying, those first dreadful weeks. I knew his grief almost equalled mine; he and my mother, as twins, had been very close, and it was to him I turned for comfort during the worst times. Once or twice, as his arms folded round me, I caught a glimpse of Philip's white, anguished face and felt a passing guilt.

They were both anxious to bring the wedding forward, to give me extra, much-needed security; but, perversely, it was then that I started to have serious doubts about my feelings for Philip.

After the tragedy I had moved temporarily to Conningley, where I found his constant presence an irritation – a reaction that filled me with panic. If only it could be just Uncle and me, I caught myself thinking more than once, and was appalled.

His unfailing good humour began to grate on raw nerves until I longed for him to disagree with me, to assert his own opinions once in a while. And when, as I came to do, I automatically disagreed with everything he said, he'd merely smile and reply, “No doubt you're right, darling!”

At last I could stand it no longer, and after dinner one evening I braved Matthew in the library. “It's been sweet of you to have me here,” I told him, “but I think it's time I stood on my own feet.”

He looked up in consternation. “You're not going back to that empty house?”

“No, but I've seen a furnished flat advertised which sounds ideal. I—”

“But Clare, why? I hoped you'd be staying on here till the wedding.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “It's just that Philip and I are rather on top of each other,” I said. “I – need a bit of space.”

“But we're out all day,” he protested. “Anyway, I thought two people in love couldn't see enough of each other.”

I bit my lip. “Please try to understand. You know how much you mean to me—”

“And Philip?”

“Of course,” I said quickly, “but he wants me to settle on a wedding date and I'm not ready yet. Honestly, I think I'd be better away for a while.”

“You must do as you think best,” he said heavily, “but I admit I'm disappointed. Still, these things can't be hurried – take as long as you need.”