Home through the Dark (11 page)

“What made you decide to take that particular job?”

“My goodness, Steve!” I said lightly. “What an inquisition!”

His eyes fell. “I'm sorry, but you're full of surprises, Ginnie. You can't blame me for wondering how many others you might spring.”

“My life,” I said flippantly, getting to my feet, “is an open book! I took the job simply because they had a vacancy, it was something I could do, and I needed some cash. Okay?” Carl would have been proud of me, I thought sourly. “If that's all I can do, Joanna, I'll go now. There's a program I want to see on television.”

“Thanks so much for coming. See you tomorrow?”

“I shouldn't think so.”

“Try to drop in sometime, it's exciting when the play begins to fall into shape.” She gave a self-conscious little laugh. “But of course, I don't have to tell you that!”

“I doubt if there's anything any of us can tell Mrs. Clements,” said Stephen.

I met his eye. “I'll try not to put you in your place too often,” I said sweetly, and heard Joanna's amused laugh. None of which, I reflected wryly on my way down the stairs, had endeared me any more to Stephen Darby. However, there was a limit to the amount I would take lying down, and he and his poisonous sister might as well realize that.

Since it was still early enough to be available for dinner with Marcus, I stopped at a steak house further along Phoenix Street and the blueness of evening was in the air by the time I emerged and drove home.

Two girls I hadn't seen before were coming out of the garage next to mine as I swung the door shut. The taller one came over. “Hello, you must be our new neighbour from Number Seven. I'm Stephanie Brigg.”

“Ginnie Durrell. Did you have a good holiday?”

“Fabulous, thanks. This is my cousin, Pamela. I hear we missed one of Sarah's parties.”

“Yes, it was very enjoyable.”

“What did you think of our pretty boys?” Pamela asked with a twinkle.

“The photographers? Too gorgeous for words! I loved their pastel suits.”

“Not to mention, of course, the carefully casual lock of hair!”

“Oh, Pam,” Stephanie protested with a laugh.

“Well, you passed the acid test yourself, anyway,” Pamela went on. “We met old Miss Cavendish this morning and she informed us you seemed a ‘pleasant gel'!”

“That's reassuring!”

We had reached our front doors by this time and I left them to go up the stairs to their flat above mine. I was glad to have met them, unaccountably relieved that I wasn't alone stuck out in my little wing any longer. Sarah's words about the ground floor had stayed with me and to my suddenly apprehensive eyes everywhere looked very accessible.

I switched on the drawing-room lights and immediately the world outside deepened from blue to black. I went across to draw the curtains. It was still damp and raw after yesterday's rain and the man on the seat in the park opposite could not have been very comfortable, though he obviously had excellent eyesight to be able to read his paper in that difficult light.

The television program I had given as my excuse to leave Joanna, scheduled for rather later than I had implied, was about to start. I made a quick round of the flat checking doors and windows, then I settled down for a pleasant hour or two of relaxation. From time to time I could hear the girls moving about in the flat above, and this added to my sense of well-being. I was tired, probably reaction from the emotional upheaval of the previous day, and I was in bed and asleep by soon after ten-thirty.

At first, I wasn't sure what had awakened me. I lay still, wrapped in the coils of the dream from which I had been roused, and then the sound came again. It was the doorbell. I sat up slowly, looking at the luminous face of the clock on the bedside table. It was one o'clock. What emergency could have made someone call at this hour? Panic explanations juggled for position in my mind. Tremblingly I slipped on my dressing gown and padded out into the hall. All was quiet.

I put my mouth against the solid wood of the door. “Who is it?”

There was no reply. I waited, a fluttering sensation at the base of my throat. There was no window in the flat that gave onto the stretch of gravel by the front door, and I had not the slightest intention of opening it until I knew who was there. For timeless minutes, measured only by my rapid heartbeats, I waited shiveringly in the hall. There was complete silence, not even the sound of retreating footsteps. At last, chilled and thoroughly frightened, I crept back to bed. Only when daylight began to seep into the room was I at last able to snatch a couple of hours' unbroken sleep before the alarm clock jangled me into full consciousness again.

It was with a slight sense of shock, when I drew back the curtains, that I noticed the man still seated on the park bench. For a moment I wondered if he were ill, even dead, before reason came to my aid. It was not the same man; this one was older and differently dressed. It seemed an odd whim that should have taken him to the park at eight o'clock on a late September morning, but he was breaking no law that I could see. It occurred to me for the first time that my own movements would be almost totally visible to anyone seated in that vantage point, since both drawing room and bedroom gave onto the park. It was not a pleasant thought, particularly in view of the night's adventure. I stood for a moment longer staring across, but the man was apparently deep in his paper and I eventually abandoned him and went through to the kitchen to make breakfast.

When I saw Stephanie and Pamela again at the garages, I asked casually, “Is the park opposite locked at night?”

“I couldn't say. I've never really thought about it. I dare say it should be, but the railings are so low that anyone who wanted to could easily climb over them. Why?”

“I just wondered,” I answered vaguely.

The week wore on. I did not go to the theatre again and at the office Rachel was as unforthcoming as ever. I reflected that I only had one more week at Culpepper's, and was thankful. Rachel was on her guard with me now and there was nothing else to be learned there.

On the Friday evening Carl phoned. “Ginnie, I'm coming down to Westhampton for the first night on Thursday; they've sent me tickets. I shan't be able to get there much before the performance, but I'd be glad if you would arrange to meet me at the theatre and have dinner with me afterwards.” His businesslike tone managed to convey that he expected my instant compliance.

“I'm not sure that I'll be free,” I said on principle.

“Please arrange to be. There's no need to panic. It will be strictly business.” And he rang off, leaving me seething at his high-handedness. This was a side of Carl that consistently irritated his associates but he had never shown it to me before. Obviously I had forfeited my right to any special privileges.

The next phone call was from Kitty. “Ginnie, you won't feel, will you, that we don't want you any more now that Rachel's back? I'd hate you to think we'd just been making use of you.”

“And,” I interrupted with a smile, “she can't do much anyway at the moment, with her wrist still bandaged.”

“It's not that at all,” Kitty said indignantly. She added with a giggle, “But I do have to confess I'd much rather have you with me. Will you be coming over the weekend?”

I hesitated. The long hours of Saturday and Sunday stretched barrenly ahead of me and I found I was not looking forward to spending them alone at the flat, with the possibility of unexplained doorbells and a motionless figure in the park across the way.

“Yes, Kitty, of course I'll come. Lunch again? I'll see you about eleven-thirty then.”

The following morning I went out early to do the weekend shopping before going on to the theatre. As I swung the car out of the driveway and turned left to drive past the house, I was vaguely conscious of a flicker of movement at Marcus's window, but when I turned my head fully, no one was in sight. No doubt he was closing or opening the window again, I thought with a touch of self-mockery. I was becoming altogether too jumpy these days.

If the others were glad to see me at the theatre, very obviously Stephen and his sister were not. Stephen gave me a curt nod, Rachel not even that. Outwardly unperturbed, I joined Kitty in the kitchen and set to work on preparing chili con carne. As before, we ate it companionably grouped round the foyer. There was a noticeable change in the cast's attitude to me compared with last weekend. The glamour of Carl had rubbed off a little onto me. They brought me more often into the conversation and listened respectfully to my most banal replies. And all the time Stephen Darby sat with a mirthless twist to his mouth and his half-closed eyes on my face.

I watched the rehearsal after lunch and, as Joanna had predicted, felt the usual thrill of accomplishment as all the different passages began to fall neatly into place. I did notice, however, that the innovation which I had reluctantly discussed with Joanna on Tuesday had not after all been incorporated. However much he admired Carl, Laurence Grey was obviously not going to stand for interference with his own direction. I didn't blame him.

It was almost seven o'clock before he called a halt to the rehearsal and I was stiff with sitting so long in the seat at the back of the stalls. I stood up and stretched. Marion Dobie called, “ 'Bye, Ginnie; thanks for the lunch. See you tomorrow?”

“Probably,” I said. I was glad to have the theatre to come to, despite Stephen and his sister, and the slight uneasiness I felt there. It was, after all, a second home to me. The lights in the foyer were out but the one at the stairhead gave enough reflected light to make it unnecessary to switch on the kitchen light as I went to collect my basket. The chili had made me thirsty, despite subsequent cups of tea, and I stopped to fill a cup with water at the sink and drank it slowly. I had rinsed and dried it and was almost back at the door when Stephen's voice just outside made me instinctively dart back out of sight. He was speaking quickly in a low voice, and from my position immediately behind the open door, I could hear quite clearly.

“I tell you I don't like it, Laurence. That girl's his wife and he's pally with the old dame. For all we know they've got a lead on us and he sent her ahead to spy out the land.”

Rigid and unbreathing, I waited for Laurence's reply.

“Oh, I don't think so. He didn't know she was here. I'd stake my life on that. You should have seen his face when she walked in.”

Stephen snorted. “He's an actor, isn't he? And added to that, she turns up at Culpepper's.”

“What the hell has that got to do with it?”

There was a brief pause. So Stephen had not told Laurence of the phone call that went astray. “Well, she might be keeping an eye on Rachel,” he said at last.

“Perhaps.” Laurence Grey's voice was jerky with strain.

I heard the whir of his cigarette lighter and a spurt of flame through the door hinge enabled me to see his face for a moment, red-shadowed like a demon's. “I just wish to God we'd never started it. If I'd had any idea it would drag on this long –”

He broke off as a crowd of actors came together through the foyer and he and Stephen moved away with them. How to get out of the theatre without being seen? I dare not wait, in case the door was about to be locked for the night. Praying no one would see me emerge from the dark kitchen, I slipped out and joined the end of the group. To my intense relief there was no sign of either Stephen or Laurence, and after a breathless “Good night” to the others, I hurried through the shadowed alleyway to the car. Perhaps they had reason to be suspicious of Carl. “I know more than you think,” he had told me. Presumably the “old dame” referred to Madame Lefevre, but I couldn't begin to imagine how she fitted into the puzzle.

My hands were icy on the steering wheel. If only there was someone I could confide in, someone I could trust completely. I garaged the car and steeled myself for the walk in the darkness round to the front of the house. One of these days I might remember to bring a torch with me. The wind was getting up again, sighing through the branches overhead and sending little eddies of dried leaves swirling round my feet. My footsteps quickened until I was almost running and just as I reached the corner of the west wing someone came quickly round it and cannoned straight into me. I gave a gasp which was more like a strangled scream and struggled furiously to free myself from the grip in which I was held.

“Ginnie! Ginnie, is it you? For pity's sake!” The voice penetrated my understanding and in the darkness I could just make out Marcus's face peering down at me.

“Good grief, girl! You told me you were nervous of the dark, but I didn't realize it turned you into a gibbering idiot! Who did you think I was, for Pete's sake? King Kong?”

Shakily I gathered together the shreds of my dignity.

“Sorry, Marcus, you startled me, that's all.”

“
Startled
you! I shouldn't like to see you really frightened! Come on, I'll walk back to the door with you.”

He waited while my rubber fingers struggled to fit the key in the lock. “Any further word from your lord and master?”

“He's coming down for the first night on Thursday. He wants me to go with him.”

“You're not going? Good God, Ginnie, you let him walk all over you. Come with me instead, and tell him to go to hell!”

“He says he has some business to discuss. I'd better see him.”

“Divorce proceedings?”

My heart lurched. That was one interpretation I had completely overlooked. I said with difficulty, “Perhaps. Thanks for walking back with me, Marcus. Good night.” And before he could say anything else, I shut the door. Divorce? A wave of despair welled up and broke over me, buffeting me mercilessly. I had refused all Carl's tentative overtures. Perhaps he was not prepared to try again. And even if he did, how could I go back to that unbalanced life with its continual insecurities and the suspicion which, however hard I combated it, would almost certainly never again leave me in peace while there were women like Leonie Pratt fawning round my husband?