Home through the Dark (3 page)

“Yes, please.”

Even if we had come to it first, I should have fallen for the Beeches, but after the disappointment of the other flats it was doubly attractive. As we walked over the crunching gravel I looked with approval at the gaily coloured window boxes, the four gleaming front doors close together in the angle of house and wing, which corresponded to those at the far end of the building. There were small wrought-iron balconies outside the long Georgian windows.

The door opened into a small hall and as Mr. Henry closed it behind us, the only light came from a round window in the wall opposite. Thick, emerald green carpet contrasted superbly with the white walls and woodwork. There were two doors on our left and two on the right.

“See what you think of this!” Mr. Henry flung open the nearer right-hand door with a flourish and my gasp of delight plainly satisfied him. It revealed a beautifully proportioned room with long windows giving onto the park, furnished elegantly in Regency style with brown and gold brocaded chairs and curtains and gleaming, slender-legged tables.

“It's – magnificent!” I said.

“The bedroom is the same length with the same outlook, but it's considerably narrower. It has an extra window at the side of the house, but as you'll have noticed in the hall, not a lot of light comes in, as the beech trees grow rather near to the house. Let me show you.”

Willingly I followed him, equally delighted with the long narrow bedroom and its elegant furniture.

“The bathroom and kitchen look over the gardens at the back.” They were both small, compact and completely up-to-date. It was, of course, useless even to look at anywhere else, and now that his plan had succeeded, the avuncular Mr. Henry belatedly grew cautious on my behalf.

“I don't want to pressure you into anything that's beyond your means –”

“I can manage. In any case I must find a job. I just can't hang round here all day, and that will help. How soon can I move in?”

“Let me see. It won't take long. I'll have the agreement drawn up and then it will be necessary to go through the inventory with you. How would Saturday do?”

“Beautifully,” I said happily.

“That's fine, then. I hope you'll be very happy here. We rather pride ourselves on Westhampton's peaceful, old-world atmosphere.”

Mrs. Baillie had said much the same thing, but I'd had a narrow escape in the car and been on the receiving end of a rather sinister phone call, and I hadn't been here twenty-four hours yet. Pushing my mental reservations about Westhampton's peacefulness out of my mind, I followed Mr. Henry back to the car.

I returned to the George for lunch pleasantly elated at my good fortune, and remarked gaily to the receptionist, “I can fill in my address for you now – Flat 7, The Beeches, Park View, Westhampton!”

A man who had been standing at the noticeboard turned sharply and stared at me intently for a moment before moving away, and at once the uneasiness I had felt after the phone call returned in full measure. It had not been very wise to blurt out my new address so blithely. Suppose after all he had seen me leave the first estate agent's and been following me ever since? But that was surely ridiculous.

I decided that a drink before lunch might steady my jumping nerves and turned into the cocktail lounge. The man from the hall was seated at the bar and I felt his eyes watching me in the mirror as I made my way over to one of the tables against the wall. I gave my order to the hovering waiter and then looked defiantly across to meet the mirrored eyes. After a moment he looked away. He didn't seem unduly sinister after all, I reflected. He was immaculately dressed, with dark sleek hair and a thin clever face. Fleetingly I wondered if he could have been the driver of the Fiat. If so and it was outside in the car-park, I could rely on Jack to take action on my behalf, but it would hardly explain his apparent interest, since he would be as unlikely to recognize me from our last brief encounter as I would him.

My drink came and as I signed for it, my attention was caught by the somewhat precipitate arrival of a small, shabby man who paused just inside the doorway looking nervous and completely out of place in the comfortable opulence of the room. A moment later, to my intense surprise, he hurried over to the man at the bar and began to talk earnestly to him. Two less likely companions would have been hard to find, the one so smooth and polished, the other so frayed and down at heel. Curiouser and curiouser.

My imagination was probably getting out of hand. I finished my drink and went through for lunch, illogically relieved when they did not appear and when I glanced into the bar on leaving the dining room, it was empty except for the waiter wiping over the tables.

The afternoon stretched blankly ahead. I moved over to the noticeboard hoping it might give times of local cinema performances, but my attention was caught instead by a small notice which read:

Westhampton Little Theatre presents
An Inspector Calls
by J. B. Priestley. Thurs., 6th Sept. – Sat., 15th Sept. Doors open 7
P.M.
Curtain rises 7.30. Matinee performances on Saturdays at 2.30.

“Where is the Little Theatre?” I asked the girl at the desk.

“Phoenix Street, Miss Durrell, the other side of town.”

“How do I get there? I think I'll go and see if they've any seats left for this evening.”

“I could phone through for you, but I doubt if they'll be –”

“No, thank you, I'd rather go myself. I've nothing to do this afternoon.” And I didn't want to stay in the hotel in case I encountered the dark-eyed man again.

Armed with her directions, I set out, glad to have a destination in mind but cynically amused at the irresistible lure that the theatre – any theatre – still had for me. After Carl, it should have been the last place I'd make for, but my love for it went back further than my love for him. Even as a small child the cadence and rhythm of words had held me spellbound and after reading English with drama at university I had gone on to teach it at the exclusive Langland School for Girls. And there I might still happily have been had I not by chance met one of my fellow students who had opted for the stage and landed a small part in a West End production. She pressed a ticket on me and invited me backstage afterwards, and it was there, at an informal dressing-room party, that I had met Carl.

Carl had always resented what he referred to as my “scholastic background” and even in the early days there had been a note in his voice that wasn't wholly teasing when he referred, as he frequently did, to his “clever wife.” Naturally, there had never been any question of my continuing to teach. “My God!” he'd protested in simulated horror. “Do you think I'd let it be known that I'm married to a schoolmarm?” In the total commitment of overwhelming love I had given it up without question, but now, for the first time, I was aware of buried resentment. It seemed unlikely that I could find a teaching job here in Westhampton without the rigmarole of writing to Langland for references, and in any case the autumn term had already begun.

By this time I had reached Phoenix Street, but a quick look up and down revealed no theatre that I could see. A woman was coming along trundling a basket on wheels and I stopped her to check my directions.

“Yes, that's right, it's down that little alley over there. See the notice?” And now that it was pointed out to me, I did in fact see the notice with the red arrow. Ruefully I thanked her and crossed the road. The word “theatre” was so firmly bound up in my mind with Carl and his lordly surroundings that it had not occurred to me that the one I was now seeking might be an inconspicuous little building “down the alley.”

Even as I made my way over the uneven cobbles, I could see no sign of anything remotely resembling a theatre as I knew it. The approach was more that of some kind of warehouse – which, as it later turned out, was what the Little Theatre had once been. I turned into a mews-type courtyard surrounded on three sides by buildings, and on my immediate left a notice, once more repeating “Westhampton Little Theatre” to reassure its persevering clients, pointed directly up a steep flight of stairs.

Since the door at the bottom stood open, I went hesitantly up them. The walls on either side were hung with photographs of the company in previous productions: Joanna Lacy as Hedda Gabler, Laurence Grey and Leonard Beaufoy in a scene from
Julius Caesar.
A corridor ran across the top of the stairs, turning a corner almost immediately on the right and to the left widening into a foyer. But although there was a small bar at the far end, now firmly shuttered, and a box-office window alongside it, the place seemed deserted. I should, of course, have realized that the box office was unlikely to be open at three o'clock in the afternoon and let the hotel receptionist phone through for me later as she had no doubt been about to suggest.

I had actually turned to go when the sound of whistling reached me from behind the closed doors leading to the auditorium. Instinctively I moved towards them, and was stretching out a hand to push them open when they swung suddenly towards me and a man in jeans and T-shirt, still whistling, came quickly through them, halting abruptly at the sight of me.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” There was a note in his voice suggestive of alarm, which my presence hardly seemed to warrant.

“I'm sorry. I came to book a seat for this evening –”

“To book a seat?” He stood staring at me frowningly, drumming his fingers against the side of the mug he was holding.

“Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't realize the box office wouldn't be open. I'll come back later.”

I turned away but he said more levelly, “Perhaps I can help. You must forgive me for being a bit abrupt; I thought I was alone in the building and you frightened the life out of me.”

“I'm sorry,” I said lamely, for the third time.

“I can see to it, anyway.” He brushed past me and pushed open the door of the minute office. A seating plan of the theatre was spread out on the shelf beside the window.

“The seats are all one price. Where would you like to be?”

“About – the third row?” I said tentatively. Something about his manner made me slightly nervous.

“Row C, number nine. Just the one?”

“Just the one,” I answered steadily.

“That'll be fifty pence.”

I slid the coin across the shelf towards him and took the ticket in exchange. “Thank you. The door
was
open,” I added, in a belated attempt at self-justification.

“Okay.” He nodded briskly and slipped the money into the cash box, but for the second time within a few hours, I was acutely conscious of a pair of assessing eyes following me as I made my way back the length of the foyer until, thankfully, I turned down the stairs.

I emerged into Phoenix Street still somewhat nettled by my reception. Even accepting his explanation that my presence had startled him, I hadn't cared for his manner and I stupidly found myself wishing that I'd left the theatre before the sound of his whistling had made me aware of him.

I stopped abruptly and a wave of heat washed scaldingly over me as the piercing notes of that whistling echoed in my head. “Roses of Picardy.” He had been whistling “Roses of Picardy.” For a split second I couldn't pinpoint the reason for my panic reaction. Then I remembered: Picardy 127 – wait till you hear the tune. This, surely, must be the tune the voice on the phone had been referring to. The possibility was a firm conviction to me. It was not as though the song were one of today's favourites; you could go for months without hearing it and then, twice in one day. Could it really be coincidence?

“Peaceful, olde-worlde Westhampton!” I thought with a bitter twist of humour. Was there, then, a connection between the phone call and the man at the theatre? And what possible link could there be anyway with a presumably respectable firm of estate agents? Was it all some elaborate sort of joke? I wished uselessly that I had never seen the name of Culpepper whatever it was, that I'd crossed the Avenue higher up and come first to kindly, concerned Mr. Henry. And suddenly a new dimension came into my loss of Carl – the simple lack of someone with whom I could talk things over, whose advice I could ask. Yet, despairingly, I knew exactly what his reaction would be. “Forget it. The message wasn't meant for you in the first place, so what the hell!”

Easier said than done. On my way back to the hotel I passed a newsstand and on impulse bought a copy of the local evening paper. Once in my room, I spread it over the table and searched diligently for any report of a missing person, a kidnapping, anything that might tie in with what I had overheard. There was nothing. It might, of course, be too soon; the note, whatever it was, was only being delivered today. I resolved to listen to the news summary before going down for my early dinner, and in the meantime searched out the garage attendant to enquire about the progress on my car.

“There you are, miss,” he said proudly. “Good as new! I was able to match it up a treat!”

“That's marvellous,” I said gratefully, running my hand affectionately along the bodywork. I would not have fancied having to find my way home in the dark after the evening performance. My present state of wary apprehension would have detected an assailant in every shadowed doorway.

“Jack,” I said impulsively, “I wonder if you can help me – you must know Westhampton pretty well.”

“Like the back of me hand, miss.”

“Do you happen to know where – where Picardy Street is?” I held my breath, my hand pressed down on the metal of the car absorbing its coldness.

“Picardy Street?” he repeated. “No, I can't say I've heard of that one. Hereabouts, is it?”

“I think so. Could it be Picardy Road, or Lane, or anything? A friend of mine was staying there but I can't remember the exact address.”