Original Sin (45 page)

That was before the death of Mr. Gerard. Perhaps they walked now.

And now the fear was becoming real. She looked up at the top balcony and imaged the horror of that fall, the flailing limbs, the single cry—surely she must have cried out—the sickening crunch as the body hit the marble. Suddenly there was a wild scream and she started, but it was only a seagull. The bird swooped above her, perched for a moment on the railings, then winged its way downriver.

She was aware that she was getting chilled. The cold was unnatural, seeping out from the marble as if she stood on ice, and the river breeze was colder now, blowing against her face with the first chill of winter. She was taking a last look at the river, glancing down to where the launch lay silent and empty,
when her eyes caught a flash of something white at the top of the railings, to the right of the stone steps which led down to the Thames. It looked at first as if someone had tied a handkerchief to the rail. Curious, she walked across and saw that it was a sheet of paper rammed down onto one of the narrow spikes. And there was something else, a gleam of golden metal at the bottom of the rail. Squatting down, a little disorientated by self-induced fear, Mandy took some seconds to recognize it. It was the buckle of a narrow leather strap, the strap of a brown shoulder bag. The strap strained down to the puckered surface of the water, and beneath that surface something was just visible, something grotesque and unreal, like the domed head of a gigantic insect, its millions of hairy legs stirring gently in the tide. And then Mandy knew that what she was seeing was the top of a human head. At the end of the strap was a human body. And as she gazed down in horror the body shifted in the tide and a white hand rose slowly from the water, its wrist drooping like the stem of a dying flower.

For a few seconds disbelief fought with realization and then, half fainting with shock and terror, she sank to her knees, clutching at the iron railings. She was aware of the cold metal rasping her hands and then the strength of it pressed against her forehead. She knelt there, powerless to move, terror squeezing at her stomach and turning her limbs to stone. In this cold nothingness only her heart was alive, a heart which had become a great ball of burning iron thudding against her ribs as if it could power her through the railings and into the river. She dared not open her eyes; to open them was to see what she could still only half believe: the double leather of the strap straining down to the abomination below.

She didn’t know how long she knelt there before she was capable of sense and movement, but gradually she became
aware of the strong river smell in her nostrils, the coldness of the marble against her knees, her quietening heart. Her hands were so rigid on the railings that it took painful seconds to prise the fingers away. She drew herself up and then suddenly found strength and purpose.

Running wordlessly across the courtyard, she banged on the first door, Dauntsey’s, and pressed his bell. Above, the windows were dark and she wasted no time in waiting for the answer which she knew wouldn’t come, but ran round the house into Innocent Walk and pressed Frances Peverell’s bell, keeping her right thumb on the button while she hammered on the knocker with her left hand. The response was almost immediate. She couldn’t hear the rush of feet on the stairs but the door was thrown open and she saw James de Witt with Frances Peverell at his shoulder. Incoherently she stammered, pointing towards the river, began running and was aware that they were on her heels. And now they were standing together looking down into the river. Mandy found herself thinking, I’m not mad. It wasn’t a dream. It’s still here.

She heard Miss Peverell say: “Oh no! Oh please God no!” Then she turned half fainting and was caught in James de Witt’s arms, but not before Mandy had seen her make the sign of the cross.

He said: “It’s all right, my darling, it’s all right.”

Her voice was half-muffled in his jacket. “It isn’t all right. How can it be all right?” Then she broke free and said with surprising strength and calmness: “Who is it?”

De Witt didn’t look again at the thing in the river. Instead, carefully, he prised the sheet of paper from the railing and peered at it. He said: “Esmé Carling. This looks like a suicide note.”

Frances said: “Not again! Not another! What does it say?”

“It’s not easy to see.” He turned and held it so that the light from the globe at the end of the railings fell on the paper. There was almost no margin, as if the page had been trimmed to fit the words, and the sharp finial of the railing had pierced and torn the paper. He said: “It looks as if it’s written in her own hand. It’s addressed to all of us.”

He smoothed it out and read aloud: “ ‘To the partners of Peverell Press. God rot you all! For thirty years you’ve exploited my talent, made money out of me, neglected me as a writer and as a woman, treated me as if my books aren’t fit to bear your precious imprint. What do you know about creative writing? Only one of you has written a word and his talent, such as it was, died years ago. It’s me, and writers like me, who have kept your house alive. And now you’ve thrown me over. After thirty years I’m finished, without explanation, without the right of appeal, without a chance to rewrite or revise. Finished. Dismissed, as the Peverells have casually dismissed their unwanted servants for generations. Don’t you realize that this finishes me as a human being as well as a writer? Don’t you know that when a writer can no longer be published she may as well be dead? But at least I can make your name stink throughout London, and believe me I shall. This is only the beginning.’ ”

Frances Peverell said: “Poor woman. Oh, poor woman. James, why didn’t she come and see us?”

“Would that have done any good?”

“It’s the same as Sonia. If it had to be done it could have been done differently, with compassion, with some kindness.”

James de Witt said gently: “Frances, there’s nothing we can do for her now. We’d better call the police.”

“But we can’t leave her like that! It’s too horrible. It’s obscene! We must pull her out—try artificial respiration.”

He said patiently: “Frances, she’s dead.”

“But we can’t leave her. Please, James, we must try.”

It seemed to Mandy that they had forgotten she was there. Now that she was no longer alone the terrible paralysing fear had faded. The world had become, if not ordinary, at least familiar, manageable. She thought: he doesn’t know what to do. He wants to please her but he doesn’t want to touch the body. He can’t pull it out by himself and can’t bear for her to help. She said: “If you were going to try mouth-to-mouth breathing you ought to have pulled her out at once. It’ll be too late now.”

He said, it seemed to Mandy with a great sadness: “It was always too late. Anyway, the police won’t want the body interfered with.”

Interfered with? The words struck Mandy as funny. She fought an impulse to giggle, knowing that if she gave way to giggling she would end by crying. Oh God, she thought, why doesn’t he bloody well do something?

She said: “If you two stay here I could ring the police. Give me the key and tell me where the phone is.”

Frances said dully: “In the hall. And the door’s open—at least I think it’s open.” She turned to de Witt, suddenly frantic: “Oh my God, James, have I locked us out?”

“No,” he said patiently. “I’ve got the key. It was in the front door.”

He was about to hand it to Mandy when their ears caught the sound of feet approaching down Innocent Lane and Gabriel Dauntsey and Sydney Bartrum appeared. They were both wearing raincoats and brought with them a sense of the reassuringly normal. Something about the three still figures, faces turned towards them, alerted them and their footsteps quickened to a run.

Dauntsey said: “We heard voices. Is something wrong?”

Mandy took the key but did not move. There was no hurry anyway; the police couldn’t save Mrs. Carling. No one could help her now. And now two more faces were peering down, two more voices murmuring their horror.

De Witt said: “She’s left a note. Here, on the railings. A fulmination against the whole lot of us.”

Frances said again: “Please get her out.”

And now it was Dauntsey who took control. Looking at him, at the skin which in the light of the globes was as sickly green as river weeds, at the lines scarring the face like black wounds, Mandy thought: he’s an old, old man. This shouldn’t happen to him. What can he do?

He said to de Witt, “You and Sydney could lift her using the steps. I haven’t the strength.”

His words galvanized James who made no further objection but began walking carefully down the slimy steps holding on to the railings. Mandy saw his involuntary shiver at the bite of the cold water on his legs. She thought, the best way would be for Mr. de Witt to support the body from the steps and Mr. Dauntsey and Mr. Bartrum to pull on the strap, but they won’t want to do it that way. And, indeed, the thought of watching the drowned face rise slowly from the water while the men pulled on the strap, as if deliberately hanging her again, was so horrible that she wondered how the thought could have come into her mind. Again it seemed to her that they had forgotten her presence. Frances Peverell had moved a little apart, her hands grasping the railings, her eyes fixed on the river. Mandy guessed a little of what she was feeling. She wanted the body brought out of the water, the dreadful strap removed; she needed to stay until that was done but she couldn’t bear to watch it happening. But, for Mandy, to look away was more horrible than to watch. If she had to stay it was better to know
than to imagine. And of course she had to stay. No one had again taken up her suggestion that she should take the key and ring the police. And there was no hurry. What did it matter if they came later than sooner? Nothing they brought with them, nothing they could do could revive Mrs. Carling.

Now de Witt, descending gingerly, was in the water up to his knees. With his right hand he grasped the bottom of the railings and, with his left, he fumbled for the sodden clothing and began drawing the body towards him. The surface of the river broke into ripples and the strap slackened, then strained tight. He said: “If one of you could undo the buckle I think I could get her onto the steps.”

Dauntsey’s voice was calm. He too was holding on to the railings as if for support. “Don’t let her drift away, James. And keep hold of the railings. We don’t want you in the river.”

It was Bartrum who came down the first two steps and leaned over to undo the buckle. His hands were pale in the light from the globes, his fingers like swollen sausages. He took his time, fumbling, seeming unaware how the buckle worked.

When at last it was released, de Witt said: “I’ll need both hands. Grasp hold of my jacket will you.”

And now Dauntsey joined Bartrum on the second step. Together they steadied and held tightly to de Witt’s jacket while with both hands he drew the body towards him and released the strap from the neck. And now it lay sprawled face-downwards on the steps. De Witt took it by the legs which stuck out from the skirt like thin sticks and Bartrum and Dauntsey each took an arm. The sodden bundle was lifted up the steps and laid prone on the marble. Gently de Witt turned it over. Mandy had only one glimpse of the face, terrible in death, of the open mouth and protruding tongue, the eyes half opened under the crêped lids, the dreadful stigmata of death
round her throat, before Dauntsey, with surprising speed, whipped off his coat and laid it over the body. From beneath the tweed a trickle of water, thin at first then stronger, crept over the marble, as dark as blood.

Frances Peverell walked over to the body and knelt beside it. She said, “Poor woman. Oh, poor woman,” and Mandy saw her lips move silently and wondered if she were praying. They waited in silence, the harsh gasps of their breath sounding unnaturally loud on the quiet air. The effort of raising the body from the water seemed to have drained de Witt and Bartrum of strength and decision, and it was Gabriel Dauntsey who took control.

He said: “Someone had better stay by the body. Sydney and I will wait here. James, you take the women inside and phone the police. And we’ll all need hot coffee, or something stronger, and plenty of it.”

The front door of number 12 opened onto a narrow, rectangular hall and Mandy followed Frances Peverell and James de Witt up a flight of steep stairs carpeted in pale green. The staircase ended in another hall, squarer and larger with a door immediately ahead. Mandy found herself in a sitting room which ran the whole length of the front of the house. The two tall windows leading to the balcony were curtained against the night and the river. There was a pile of smokeless coal in the basket by the grate. Mr. de Witt took away the brass fireguard and settled Mandy in one of the high-backed chairs. Suddenly they were as solicitous of her as if she were a guest, perhaps, she thought, because fussing over her at least gave them something to do.

Looking down at her, Miss Peverell said: “Mandy, I’m so very sorry. Two suicides and you found them both. First Miss Clements and now this. What can we give you? Coffee? Brandy? Or there’s red wine. But I don’t suppose you’ve eaten, have you? Are you hungry?”

“I am rather.”

She was, in fact, suddenly ravenous for food. The warm savoury smell pervading the flat was almost intolerable. Miss Peverell looked at Mr. de Witt. She said: “We were going to have duck à l’orange. What about you, James?”

“I’m not hungry but I’m sure Mandy is.”

Mandy thought, she’s only got enough for two. Probably bought it from M&S. All right for those who can afford it! Miss Peverell had planned a cosy intimate dinner. And trouble, she saw, had been taken. A round table at the far end of the room had been set with white linen, three sparkling glasses at each setting, and a couple of low silver candlesticks with the candles still unlit. Moving closer she saw the salad had already been set out in small wooden bowls, delicate leaves in a variety of green and red, small toasted nuts, slivers of cheese. There was an open bottle of red wine and one of white in a wine cooler. Mandy had no appetite for the salad. What she craved was hot and savoury food.