Gold Digger (31 page)

Gayle was weaving and unravelling, looking at things as she went along. This stairwell was full of paintings. She saw paintings of children on the beach, she saw herself, running free and innocent. She saw beauty. Little paintings on this stairwell, beach scenes with children, small paintings of sky. She saw that she had been lied to all along, that she could have had this, just as she could have had a father who loved her.

Ten minutes gone, and they should have been gone, too. The sound of the music penetrated from beyond the open door. It was always like this, Gayle remembered, full of soft sound, a childish memory of being taken to see Grandad, a terrifying treat becoming a pleasure, because he listened. Had he ever listened, had Father ever listened? Memories blurred into the day when Mummy said, don’t go near them. Not Grandad or Grandma. And then,
Don’t go near Daddy. Daddy’s going to take you away. If you go to Daddy, you’re on your own.

The house was so opulent, in a Spartan way. Hard wood underfoot up the stairs, muffled by a runner of a carpet, the crooked walls full of things she had never dreamed of. And there was Di, so confidently, impudently alone, sitting with
her back to the door. The biggest liar of all, look at her, she had even lied about the fact that she would not be alone. Di, who, in the absence of anyone else, was the root of all evil, the one who had taken away her father and was going to take away her son as well as her birthright. And who looked, now, disgustingly tranquil and self assured, in command of all she surveyed, with her back to the door, gazing at a screen, with a fur stole round her shoulders, dressed like a Duchess. Di, who had everything Gayle had ever wanted. Gayle touched the rope round her waist, could not wait to untie it as she tiptoed across, picked up the nearest thing, that heavy old phone on the desk, and smashed it over Di’s head.

D
i was not asleep. Better to sleep, if only she could, far preferable to wait out the hour in dreaming. They would be gone, soon, surely. No, they wouldn’t. Nothing ever worked like that. She was dreaming, lost in déjà vu, ten years younger. She was writing now, in the same place as Thomas had been, ten years before. That night, long ago, when she had been fed through the steel shutters to find the keys to the old car, with the same music murmuring, the same sense of fate prevailing. Someone had come in and put a silken noose round his neck, bound his hands to the arms of the chair, and that was how she had seen him. A slow flashback running through her brain as to how she had found him then, when she had first entered the room, how she had felt when she had come in that time, how soon she had noticed him sitting with the light on his tears and seen the stillness of his bound hands. How ashamed she had been not to notice it first, transfixed as she was by the vision of Madame de Belleroche in her hat.

That was when I knew it was utterly wrong, Thomas. That stealing is always wrong, unless for the starving. And you were afraid for me. You wanted me to run, whatever happened to you. There was a maniac in the house, and I was just another child.

She was going to burn the house down. You wanted me to run away and leave you.

Di roused herself too late. Rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand.

Felt a blow to the back of her head, a shattering crash and a black vision.

When she came round, there was a noose round her neck and no sign of the old phone. Her hands still covered the keyboard. The screen looked blurred. The instinct was to cover it, but she could not move. The light on the desk was angled towards her, blinding her. There was salt on her face. Gayle was hitting her and hit her again, swinging the knotted rope, catching Di’s cheek and leaving a raw graze. The next blow was better, drew blood from the lips, the third, better still, opening a cut in the eyebrow. Gayle was not about to be moved by the evidence of the tears.

Gayle was looking at a face with smeared eyes and bruised lips, and Di’s slender neck fastened to the chair with rope. The sight of her helpless made Gayle pause, unsatiated. She had made Di ugly and she was breathless: she could wait for a minute.

‘Where are they?’ she kept saying, ‘Where are they, where’s the really best pictures?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘The hell you don’t know. Patrick does.’

Angry again, Gayle yanked on the noose, exposing Di’s neck, wanted to hack at it, felt around for the knife in the back pocket, could not find it. Oh God, she had given
Edward the silly knife. Then, from far below, there was the distant, dull sound of banging, hammering, reverberating through the house. Gayle paused, listening intently.

‘That’s my Edward,’ she said. ‘Thought you’d fooled us, didn’t you? He’s trying to get through that door.’

‘No,’ Di said. Her voice sounded like the mew of a cat in pain.

‘And what’s behind the door?’

‘The sea,’ Di said. Gayle slapped her, withdrew a hand sticky with blood, recoiled. She wiped her hand on her trousers and hid it behind her back.

‘Why did he build that wall? What was he hiding behind?’

‘The sea,’ Di said. ‘Only the sea.’

Gayle leaned into her, breath smelling of hunger.

‘Edward doesn’t think so. I’ll have to go and help him and he pinched the knife. Then I’ll come back and kill you.’

She tweaked the rope she had tied inexpertly to secure Di to the chair by the neck. Tight enough, she wasn’t going anywhere. Gayle was as vicious as a dying wasp in autumn.

‘Your husband is a fool, and you a fool to believe him,’ Di whispered. ‘Take what you came for.’

Gayle hit her again and then stopped. Enough done to vent her fury for a little while and now she wanted an audience. She wanted someone to watch her; she wanted praise for this and someone to say,
Look at what you’ve done, you clever woman.
The feeling of hysteria rose and fell and she was hungrier than ever. Her own house never had enough to eat. There had been good smells downstairs. She was distracted by the noise: she wanted Edward to see what she could do, and she wanted the knife.

‘Go,’ Di said, ‘Please go. Please go before they find you. Go while you can.’

‘You don’t want us to find the best things. What’s behind the door, then?’ Gayle taunted. She ran back downstairs. The camera winked, unnoticed.

Di stared up at the ceiling, blinking. She could move her head downwards and she could write without looking at the keys. Only her fingers moved.

Your mother is behind that door,
she wrote
.

Blood burst from her cut eyebrow and trailed down her face.

She had kept faith. She never said it.
You must never tell them, Di. Better they think badly of me than know that their mother was mad. That she came in that night, bound me and beat me. She was going to set the house on fire – remember the kindling in the basement. The paraffin …

Her hands moved slowly across the keys.

And then you arrived, my dearest dear. And She ran into the cellar to hide. Then the water came in.

Di heard the rain, pattering gently against the windows. No storm tonight, simply rain.

Don’t let them set a fire. There is no paraffin. They won’t be able to do it, but they might try. Don’t, Gayle. Your mother’s body is behind that door. Has been for ten years.

She tugged at the rope round her neck, tried to reach round to the back of her waistband to find her own little knife, could not reach. She stopped, exhausted, blinded, hearing nothing but the sound of her own breath. How long had Gayle been gone? One minute? Two? And she could she could feel a draught of cold air, touching the back of her neck. Her own, cold hands, clawing at the rope, and a murmured voice telling her,
Don’t let that happen to you, girl. Remember how strong you are.

The touch of a ghost and then her own, strong fingers
busily moving, more sensitive because she was half blind. She felt herself begin to black out again, fought it and then found she could move, wriggled like a fish in a net, fell over with the chair. She crawled towards the furthest door. She turned back, and saw her father walking out of the room.

‘I only wanted to help,’ he said, looking at her. ‘I know about bodies. I know where she is. You never did tell on me, Di. I only wanted to help.’ And then he was gone.

H
ot as hell in the cellar. Edward was running out of steam, coming to his senses, sweat pouring into his eyes and making him pause to listen to himself, panting like a dog. STOP this, take what you came for. Remembered what Saul had said, two parcels wrapped in blue plastic canvas.
Blue
canvas. He looked around wildly. Another chest in the corner, another door behind.
Every room in this house has two doors.
There they were. Stop this, now. He looked around for his wife and Oh, God, she was gone.

Not gone. She was standing by the stairs they had been told to avoid and she was giggling and pointing.

‘Come and see what I’ve done,’ she said. ‘It’s quite a pretty picture, and I’m just going to go and finish it off.’

She darted back up the stairs. Edward picked up the two items wrapped in blue, unable to leave them even as real fear was lending wings, what had she done? Killed them all?
Don’t go into the house – take two pictures and go, five minutes max.
They had blown it, mustn’t blow it all. She should have stopped him. He should have stopped her.

S
aul had promised he would not be far away. He was on the pier, increasingly uncomfortable. Jones was going to phone if anything went wrong, but he was also going to phone if
everything went right and Saul’s mobile was completely inert. He could not stay much longer on the pier, where he stuck out like a sore thumb, even in the almost dark. He looked like a thief doing a survey or some kind of official, with his binoculars and dark blue coat, when he should have been wearing the waterproofs in neon colours all the others were wearing. There were too many people fishing on the pier and a stern rain had begun. Saul pushed away an unoccupied chair and leaned over the rail and trained Jones’s binoculars on the house, wishing there had been a vantage point where he could watch the back of the place rather than the front. Seeing lights in the upstairs room told him little, but he focused on the front façade all the same, better than nothing. Felt cold, very cold, looked again.

The redundant front door was open and light streamed from it. That damn door which was never open, was open now, it even had a security light and as he watched, the light seemed to increase. Saul stared in disbelief, frozen to the spot for a minute until someone tapped him on the shoulder and said,
Oi, mate, what are you doing, you’re in the way of my line, do you mind?
and he found himself apologising, moving further down the pier towards the exit gate before finding another spot and bringing the binoculars to his eyes again. In time to see what looked like a figure, standing in front of the front door of the house, simply standing, before walking back down the steps again and moving away into darkness. Framed against a door that should never have been open.

S
aul wanted to run away. He had never wanted to be in on the action, which was all going wrong, not according to plan, but hell, Di was tough, better at fighting than he ever would
be. He tried to kid himself that he could just walk away and wait for the call with the excuse that he was not made for this, but then, he thought of the damn collection, the wonderful paintings and his heart missed several beats. Never mind Di, what about them? Saul left the pier and began to run. Five minutes on his long, grasshopper legs. He thought of the precious paintings in one of the most innovative private collections he had ever seen, ran faster, stopped, winded by coughing. His phone bleeped in his pocket and he was too breathless to answer. He straightened his cravat, like someone about to enter a grand front door.

E
dward shouted after her.
Don’t do it, Gayle, you silly bitch
. He should have gone faster but he could not let go of the paintings until he reached the corridor outside the big, long room he scarcely remembered from the last time. The paintings he carried were light but cumbersome and he was glued to them until he reached the door of the room. Should have listened. Don’t go into the house: don’t let Gayle go, either. You don’t know what Gayle might do. Oh yes he did, he should have known. He found Gayle crouching by the door of the long room, whimpering and it was only then he dropped his burden and stared inside. A screen shone dully from the desk at the other end. The chair facing the desk was upturned. There were spatters of blood on the screen, blood on the floor and fragments of an old phone broken into pieces. The lights lit the paintings which furnished the room, made them look like living things gazing accusingly on to an otherwise empty space. He recoiled from it, wanting to shield his eyes. Gayle was holding the little knife she had grabbed back from him and her hand was trembling.

‘What have you done, Gayle?’ he whispered. ‘What have you done?’

He heard the patter of the rain against the windows. The music stopped and the second, smaller phone on the desk rang, into silence. The answerphone message clicked in. Di’s voice unnervingly loud.
No one’s here at the moment, please leave a message.
Gayle screamed. Edward advanced into the empty room uncertainly.

‘Behind you,’ a voice said. ‘Always look behind you.’

She was there, behind them, standing in the second doorway. She staggered and held onto the doorframe. Her eyes were smeared black, her face lividly bruised and bloodstained. She waved at them with her free hand, her face made infinitely worse by a ghastly smile and the whole presence of her made ever more awesome because of the unnerving calmness of her voice.

‘Point made, hey, Gayle? You’re the dangerous one, not Bea. Hope Patrick doesn’t get the same treatment when he’s naughty. Put the knife down.’

Gayle dropped it, watched Di, mesmerised. Why didn’t they simply push her over, knock her to the ground, trample her into it and run? They didn’t. A man and a woman with a knife against a hurt and skinny girl who looked like death and both of them paralysed. Both of them exhausted; an element of guilt and shame coming from sideways, maybe, and in Edward’s case the dull knowledge that they would never get away with it. They had fucked up and they had smothered the place with traces of themselves. It was then he noticed the camera above the door. Di saw him looking, smiled her awful, sad grimace.