Ghost Song (56 page)

The thing Hilary was to remember afterwards was the way that Shona, confronted with Robert, stopped in mid-flight and suddenly regained something of her former poise. To see the tousled figure stop dead in the middle of the road and struggle for a semblance of sanity, then greet Robert as coolly as if this was no more than a chance encounter, was grotesque, but also pitiful. She appeared to find nothing odd in encountering him in the middle of a rain-sodden lane at midnight; she merely said, ‘How nice to see you, Mr Fallon. I think you've met my assistant, Hilary Bryant, haven't you?'

‘I have,' said Robert. ‘Hello, Hilary. You're drenched. You'd better have my jacket.' He had put it round her shoulders before she realized what he was doing, and although his abrupt appearance was wildly puzzling Hilary thought explanations about that could come later. Trying not to sound too panic-stricken, she said, ‘Robert—uh—there's been a development—rather—alarming—' Was he sharp enough to pick up that she was trying to warn him against Shona? She was immeasurably grateful when he said, in a completely ordinary voice, ‘I realize that but we can have the explanations later. Miss Seymour, would you like to get into the car? It's raining quite hard, isn't it?'

Shona did not move. She said, ‘We've been chasing an intruder. Hilary got it into her head that someone had broken into the house where we're staying. Absurd, of course, there was no intruder, it was all Hilary's imagination.' She smiled at him. She was still standing in the road and Hilary willed her to get into the car but she did not.

Robert said, in the same mild, unthreatening voice, ‘That must have been quite an upset. Why don't we go back to the house anyway? Is it far?'

He looked at Hilary, who said, ‘It's just along there on the right.'

‘Good. Miss Seymour while you get into the car, Hilary can go into the house to let your friends know what's happening.'

He's keeping us apart, though Hilary. He's seen that dreadful mad look in Shona's eyes.

‘Do be careful of my jacket, Hilary,' said Robert. ‘There's a mobile phone in the left-hand pocket—I think it might be switched on.'

His meaning could not be much clearer. Hilary, seeing Shona was at last getting into the passenger seat, began to walk back to Levels House as quickly as possible, feeling in the pocket for Robert's mobile as she did so. It was still raining and she was icy cold and shaking so violently she thought she might not be able to tap out 999. She managed it at the second attempt, hesitated between asking for police or ambulance, but thought the police would be better at this juncture. ‘Ten minutes,' said the impersonal voice at the other end. ‘They'll be coming from Upper Leigh, see. Will that be all right?'

‘Yes, thank you,' said Hilary gratefully and, as she turned into the drive, saw with relief that there were lights in one of the upstairs windows, and that the curtains moved slightly as if Madeleine was looking out. She remembered she had unbolted the kitchen door earlier, and used it now to get back inside. She sped upstairs to call out to Madeleine that everything was being dealt with, the police were on their way, but it might be as well if Madeleine stayed where she was until they actually arrived.

‘I understand, Hilary. Are you all right?'

‘Yes, I think so. Are you?'

‘Quite all right,' said Madeleine in so firm a voice, that Hilary was reassured. She went back downstairs to unbolt the front door for Robert, and found that in his company it was quite easy to behave almost normally; to watch Shona resume her chair by the fire and to suggest to her that they have a cup of tea.

‘I'd like some tea,' said Shona, sounding so entirely sane that Hilary wondered if she had dreamed the events of the last hour. She switched on the electric kettle, then went up to her own bedroom and pulled on the clothes she had worn for the journey, towelling her damp hair.

The police arrived as she was going back downstairs. A stolid-looking constable sat rather awkwardly in the sitting room, but the young alert-looking sergeant followed Hilary into the kitchen and listened carefully as she gave him a hasty version of the night's events.

‘I don't know how much of what Shona said is fact and how much is fantasy,' said Hilary. ‘And I don't know quite what you do in this kind of situation—whether it's medical or criminal or what it is. But you'll have to do something because I think she's dangerous.'

‘And she talked about having killed someone called Elspeth?' said the sergeant.

‘Yes. She said it took all night to wall Elspeth up after she killed her and it was very hard work. She said if anyone knocked down the wall they'd find the body.'

‘Well, that'd be easy enough to check, I daresay.'

‘She said she'd drugged my coffee as well—sleeping pills. Then she tried to attack me—only I managed to get outside.'

‘What I think we'd best do,' said the sergeant, ‘is ask Miss Seymour to come with us to the police station. It's the next village—only a matter of eight miles. We'll say we want a statement from her about what's been going on—about the intruder she mentioned to Mr Fallon. We'll get the on-call doctor and we'll make a decision from there as to what happens next.'

‘That sounds fine,' said Hilary thankfully.

Shona looked surprised at the request to accompany the sergeant and his sidekick to a police station, and for a moment Hilary thought she would argue.

‘All just routine, miss,' said the sergeant off-handedly, but Hilary noticed his barely perceptible nod to the constable who at once moved to Shona's side. She had no idea what would happen if the dreadful madness flared in Shona's eyes again, but Shona merely shrugged and asked Hilary to fetch her coat and handbag from her bedroom.

‘And now,' said Robert at last, when Shona had been ushered into the waiting police car and Madeleine had come downstairs and been introduced, ‘would you please explain to me what on earth's been going on?'

He was polite and quiet with Madeleine, and was efficient and courteous about pouring brandy for Hilary and also Madeleine, and switching up the heating. He used his mobile to contact the telephone fault service, explaining that there had been a serious case of vandalism at the house and there was an elderly lady here in frail health.

‘So if her phone could be repaired as quickly as possible, I would be extremely grateful,' said Robert. ‘First thing tomorrow morning? Yes, that would be very acceptable. In the meantime, is there any way you can switch any incoming calls to a mobile? That's excellent. Here's the number… And thank you very much for your help.'

He set his mobile on a table where it would be easily accessible, and Hilary, watching and listening from the reassuring warmth of an armchair, thought there was probably no situation in which he would not remember to be polite. She curled her hands round the brandy glass, and saw how he occasionally looked across at her and how his eyes narrowed when he smiled. But when he sat down and looked first at Madeleine and then at Hilary, and asked for an explanation, she thought she would not be able to give one.

Then Robert said, ‘Would I be right in thinking it began with the bricked-up cellar wall in the Tarleton?' and Hilary said, gratefully, ‘Oh yes, it would.'

She embarked on the tale of everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

Shona knew she was being extremely clever with these oafish policemen. She had gone along to their absurd police station because she had been brought up not to make a scene, to behave with dignity and restraint. She also knew they did not really believe she had done anything wrong, but she supposed they had to investigate the story she had given to Robert Fallon about an intruder.

She could deal with policemen: the only slight concern was what she might have said to Hilary earlier on. She could not remember much of that and groped in the unreachable part of her mind for the knowledge. Could she possibly have mentioned Anna or Elspeth? Surely she would not have done that; she had become so used to guarding her words that it was by now second nature. But there was always the small possibility that it had come out of that other unpredictable half of her mind, and that this half had gained the ascendancy for a short while. So just in case that had happened she would be very careful.

The police station was at a place called Upper Leigh and it was a poky little building with a couple of plodding constables, one of whom looked about fifteen. They locked her in a dreadful room, explaining they would like a doctor to see her. Shona looked at them in surprise because she was here to make a statement about an intruder and could not imagine why she would need a doctor. Unless that sly bitch Hilary had made up some distorted story about her? This suddenly seemed entirely possible. Shona would not have thought Hilary would behave so spitefully; it went to show you could not trust anyone.

To shut them up she said she would see their doctor if they insisted. But she knew her rights, she said: they were not dealing with a run-of-the-mill petty thief or teenage lout and if they were locking her up, she wanted her solicitor here. She was perfectly polite, and they were perfectly polite back. They said they would arrange for her solicitor to come in, although they were afraid it might not be until the morning. In the meantime, she might as well try to get some sleep. There was a bed in the room—yes, they understood it was not the kind of thing she was used to, but until all this was sorted out…

Shona took off her shoes and lay down on the narrow bed, making herself as comfortable as she could. It was not entirely dark; a faint glow came from a low light in the corridor outside. It showed up the ugly bleakness of the room and the squalid half screen with the lavatory and washbasin behind it. It showed up the grubby paintwork and floor.

She did not sleep, and the hands of her watch had moved round to three o'clock when she gradually became aware that the faint light was showing up other things in the room: people standing in the corners—three people in particular. Anna, with the flesh rotted away from her bones, dried and shrivelled, and weary from standing behind the wall in the cellar all those years; Cousin Elspeth, stupid, sheep-faced Elspeth, her head still tied up in the tea towel that Shona had wrapped round it, but able to see Shona all the same, able to shake her horrid raw head in disapproval of everything Shona had done. Mother was there too; Shona supposed she should have expected that. Mother, her mouth awry from the vodka, her hair messy and uncombed.

They were here to gloat over her downfall—Anna was very gloating indeed—and to disapprove. ‘Oh my goodness me,' said the thing that was Cousin Elspeth. ‘My word, what bad behaviour. Well, madam, you deserve everything you get.'

Shona scrambled back to the corner of the bed, and huddled there, wrapping the blanket round her, not daring to take her eyes off these dreadful things who had somehow found her and got into this sleazy room. It did not much matter how they had done so; what was clear was that despite all she had done, Elspeth had somehow got out from behind the cellar wall.

Presently she realized there was a fourth person with them. She had not seen him at first, but now she saw him very clearly. He was not gloating or disapproving. He was standing next to her mother, holding her tightly as if he owned her, as if he had rights over her, and her mother was hating it, Shona could see she was absolutely hating being so close to this man.

He had frightening eyes—
knowing
eyes—and terrifying hands. Shona had never seen him in her life before, but he smiled at her and said wasn't this nice, a real family reunion, and very soon now Shona might be living in the place where he had lived himself. Iain Seymour. The man who had raped and strangled girls, the Tantallon Killer, Shona's own father.