Ghost Song (64 page)

The two men rolled over on the brick floor. Toby, frantically trying to see his chance to dive in and overpower Anton, was wary of the gun, but as he was about to dive forward and trust to luck, it went off, the shot echoing over and over in the enclosed cellar.

Both Anton and Rinaldi seemed to jerk and then lie still, and Toby thought, oh God, oh dear God, which of them is it! Not Rinaldi—please not Rinaldi, dear faithful old boy.

A figure got up from the ground, and he saw with horror it was Anton who had fired the shot and Rinaldi lay on the ground, bleeding from the heart.

Anton turned the gun on Toby—there was now surely no way of escaping. Toby dived back behind the grave trap again, and it was then that there was a movement from overhead, from the opening in the stage where the trap's floor had been. A cool voice said, ‘Don't fire again, Anton. If you do, I will certainly shoot you, and from this range I won't miss.'

It was Alicia Darke.

She was kneeling on the edge of the grave trap's opening, pointing a small pistol down into the cellar. Even from here, Toby could see the cold anger in her eyes.

Anton said sharply, ‘Shooting from there will not kill me, Alicia. Even if you hit me, I can still shoot Toby.'

He began to back to the foot of the steps, keeping the gun levelled at Toby. Toby glanced at Alicia and saw that for all her earlier threat she was uncertain. She's not going to risk it, he thought. Anton's going to get away. He looked across at Rinaldi again. Rinaldi's chest was sticky with dark blood, and his head had fallen back, the eyes open and sightless. Toby knew he was dead, and for a moment the pain of this was so fierce he could not concentrate on what was happening. When he looked back Anton was already at the foot of the steps, still facing the cellar, still levelling the gun at Toby's heart.

‘And now, Alicia, I am out of your range,' he said.

‘Not really,' said Alicia. ‘I can be through the foyer and in the stone passage at the cellar door before you get it unlocked. So if you were still considering shooting Toby, I advise against it, because you would have me to contend with in about three minutes' time.'

‘My dear, you wouldn't really shoot me, would you?'

‘Without a moment's hesitation,' said Alicia, at once.

‘Alicia, let him go,' said Toby urgently. ‘Or he will certainly kill you as well as me.'

‘Certainly I would kill that faithless bitch if I had to.' Anton was out of sight on the curve of the steps, and seconds later came the sound of the door being unlocked and then locked again.

T
OBY WAS STARTING TO
feel as if he had been scooped up out of one nightmare and dropped neck-deep into another. There was a strong feeling of déjà vu as he sat in the green room again with his parents, although Alicia was in Sonja's usual chair, discussing what must be done.

After he had established that Rinaldi was dead, Alicia had winched the grave trap back up to the stage with Toby on the platform. He had scribbled a brief note to his father and, wrapped in one of the long dark cloaks from the wardrobe room, had risked going out into Burbage Street to find a cab driver who would deliver it. Alicia had objected to this in case Anton was still lurking, but Toby argued that if anyone had to face Anton, it had better be him. Just in case, he had borrowed Alicia's pistol.

As he went out, she said, ‘Remember—not the first cab in the rank, nor the second, but the third,' and Toby's sense of unreality increased and he heard himself saying, ‘I didn't know you read Conan Doyle.'

‘My dear boy, he's my constant bedside companion.'

The note merely said there was a development that Sir Hal would wish to know, but all was well with the main parties. Toby did not really think the note would be intercepted, but he had deliberately made it as uninformative as possible.

‘It won't be intercepted,' said Alicia when he came back. ‘I shouldn't think any of Anton's followers are within fifty miles of London. They'll all be too scared to show their faces.'

‘Anton wasn't.'

‘Anton came back to this country for the sole purpose of killing you,' said Alicia. ‘He reached London ten days ago and came to my house. Really, he was so arrogant. He believes all females are wildly in love with him. Unfortunately, most of them are, but this time he misjudged.'

‘Did you take him in?'

‘I did, but only so I'd know what he was doing,' she said. ‘I told him I was going to Canada to escape the war and he assumed he would come with me.'

‘Are you going to Canada to escape the war?'

‘I might,' she said, ‘or I might remain here and become earnest and selfless and help with the war effort. I daresay there would be things I could do, although not anything in uniform, I don't think. Rather unbecoming those uniforms for nurses or canteen workers. I should organize and supervise. I would be rather good at that, and one can wear those rather fetching tailor-mades to supervise.' And then with an abrupt change of mood and with unusual seriousness she said, ‘Toby, there are times in life when you have to make a choice. I made a choice ten days ago when I opened the door and saw Anton. Perhaps I made the choice even before that, when— But we should concentrate on the immediate. Is it very difficult to brew tea? I see there's a gas stove and a kettle…'

She reverted to her normal slightly flippant, slightly bored manner, and while they waited for the kettle to boil, Toby went back to the stage and lowered the grave trap again, staring down at Rinaldi's body. ‘I'm so sorry,' said Toby. ‘You died in my place, and I'm thankful to be alive and I'll never forget you or what you did.'

Hal Chance arrived shortly after one a.m., Flora with him. Toby took them straight to the green room, but before he could make introductions, Alicia said, ‘Lady Chance. I am Alicia Darke. I daresay you might prefer not to know me, since I have a certain reputation in some circles, but this is a situation where the ordinary conventions have to be put aside.'

‘How do you do,' said Flora. ‘I'm very glad to meet you. I've never bothered overmuch about conventions. You know my husband already, I believe.'

‘I do.'

‘Mrs Darke turned king's evidence a few weeks ago,' said Hal, looking at Toby. ‘She came to warn me you were about to go mad-rabbiting across Europe with that blaggardly killer Anton Reznik.'

‘Unfortunately,' said Alicia coolly, ‘I was a little too late to prevent what happened.'

‘You were halfway to Bosnia by then, Toby,' said Hal. ‘Out of reach.' He sat down and accepted the tin mug of tea Alicia handed him. ‘May we know what's happened here tonight?'

‘Anton Petrovnic—whom you know as Reznik—was here and tried to kill Toby,' said Alicia. ‘However he has now scuttled back into hiding and Toby is safe. You do not need the details of the attack.'

‘You do need to know that Rinaldi is dead, though,' said Toby, and saw his mother's eyes darken with pain. ‘He was trying to get me away from Reznik and Reznik shot him,' he said.

‘Oh Toby, no—'

‘And he made an extraordinary statement just before he was shot,' said Toby. ‘I haven't quite made sense of it yet, but Rinaldi went for Anton very violently indeed. As he did so, he shouted something about having meant to kill them thirty years ago—'

‘He did
what
?'

‘He said,' repeated Toby carefully, ‘that Anton would die tonight as he should have died thirty years ago. And that this time, when he turned the key in the cellar door, no one would rescue him.'

Flora and Hal looked at one another. ‘The locked door,' said Flora. ‘Oh God, we thought the latch had dropped of its own accord, but— Hal, could Rinaldi have deliberately locked those two in that night?'

‘I think he could,' said Hal slowly. ‘Yes, I do think it. Rinaldi would have done anything for you. Apparently he would even have committed murder.'

‘So,' said Flora slowly, ‘if we hadn't gone to his house that day, would he have left them to die?'

‘Let's think he wouldn't. Let's think he just meant it as a punishment and that he intended to let them out.'

Flora said suddenly, ‘Do you remember how I saw someone dodging through the mist? We were walking away from the theatre and I looked back and thought I saw a figure going into Platt's Alley. Only everywhere was shrouded in that thick river fog and I was never sure.'

‘We thought it was the local constable doing his rounds,' said Hal, remembering.

‘Yes, but in view of what Toby's told us, isn't it more likely to have been Rinaldi going back to lock the door? And,' said Flora, ‘there had been someone in the theatre earlier. While Anton and Stefan were on the stage with me. Soft footsteps and someone singing very quietly. I told you about that. Could that have been Rinaldi as well?'

Hal said, ‘My dear, if Rinaldi really had been in the theatre that night, and if he had seen those two attacking you, do you honestly think he would have walked round singing? Done nothing to help you? He'd have been on the stage in two seconds, tearing their hearts out. Whatever you heard that night, I don't think it was Rinaldi.'

‘But—it was so clear,' said Flora. ‘The twins heard it as well. They looked up—it startled them. I can remember it so clearly.' She looked first at Hal and then at Toby. ‘If it wasn't Rinaldi, then
who was it
?'

For a moment, no one spoke, then Hal said, ‘Flora, you told me once that the Tarleton has its secrets, and that it likes to keep them.'

Toby looked round. Perhaps there really is a ghost here, he thought, and almost at once came the awareness of a faint creaking somewhere beyond the cosiness of the green room: a measured, almost rhythmic sound, as if someone was walking softly through the theatre. Mingling with it, just for a moment, was a thin, barely audible sound. It might have been the wind stirring in the old timbers—it probably was—but it might also be someone singing very softly.

The Tarleton has its secrets and it likes to keep them…

‘It was dreadful seeing Shona like that,' said Hilary to Robert as she got off the train at Euston. ‘She just sat in a chair and—sort of hugged her secrets the whole time I was there. The pitiful thing is that she doesn't realize her secrets are all pretty much known.'

‘What sort of a place was it?'

‘Something between a prison and a hospital,' said Hilary, as they crossed the small square outside and headed for the car park where Robert had left his car. ‘Perhaps a bit more hospital than prison. Quite well run, as far as I could tell. They think she did kill that woman she talked about—Elspeth. She was some sort of cousin, apparently. One of the doctors told me the local police searched Shona's old childhood home—it's a great gloomy place somewhere in the Yorkshire moors. They found the body of a woman walled up in the cellar, exactly as Shona kept saying that night at Levels House.'

‘How did she react when she saw you?'

‘I don't think she really knew who I was,' said Hilary. ‘She kept talking about Elspeth and Anna—she seemed to think they were in the room with her and to be listening to them.' She shivered. ‘I'm glad I went and I might try to go again, but I can't tell you how good it was to step off the train and see you waiting for me.'

‘I can't tell you how good it was to see you step off the train and come racing down the platform towards me,' he said, putting his arm round her waist and holding her against him for a moment.

‘Where are we going?' said Hilary presently, as they reached the car park.

‘I'll drive you back to your flat. Would you be too tired to have dinner later? We could go out somewhere nearby.'

‘Or,' said Hilary, ‘we could stay in.'

Robert looked down at her. ‘Could we?'

‘Would you like that?'

‘I'd love it.'

‘I can cook a reasonable meal,' began Hilary.

‘I wasn't thinking about the food,' he said.