Room Beneath the Stairs (24 page)

“How did you—”

“Judy told me. At least
she
has nothing to hide, no reason to be anything but natural and aboveboard.”

“
Damn
that girl!”

“The police are going to be extremely interested in what I have to say to them.”

“You're not going to talk to the police,” he said.

“No?”

Evan moved slowly across the room toward me, his hands still thrust into his pockets. His shoulders were hunched forward, and his eyes were dark and flat. He stopped a few steps from me, close enough to reach out and grab my arms. I met his stare calmly, not at all perturbed by his menacing posture. After what I had gone through, nothing could ever frighten me again, I thought.

“They'll find out I went to the pub yesterday.”

“They already know. I told them it was just a coincidence. You'd been shopping and stepped inside for a soft drink. No connection whatsoever with your discovering her body; just a coincidence.”

“They'll talk to the other people who were at the pub yesterday. There were men playing darts. A stevedore came in for a beer. They'll remember seeing Valerie talking to me, remember she seemed upset, and they'll tell the police.”

Evan smiled a tight smile. “Pub-goers are remarkably unobservant. The police have already talked to everyone who was there yesterday during Valerie's working hours. Nothing was said about her being upset. The police were interested in a stranger, some man who might have made an assignation with her. It so happens some chap from the mainland did go to the pub yesterday afternoon, just after lunch. They're trying to locate him now.”

“And when they find him?”

“It'll take time, a lot of time. No one knew who he was. There were several different descriptions given. I need a day, just one more day, and then.…” He left the sentence dangling, suddenly realizing that he had said too much.

“And then?” I inquired.

Evan didn't reply. He merely stared at me.

“I wonder what you were doing in the woods last night, Evan. I wonder how you happened to find me when you did.”

“I was out looking for you. You weren't in your room. No one could find you. I thought perhaps you were with Carlotta. She said she saw you wandering into the woods.”

“So you came after me.”

“I came after you, yes. I heard you running.”

“Someone was in the woods earlier on. I was sitting in a small clearing. The shrubbery behind me rustled. I had the sensation that someone was watching me. There were footsteps, moving away.”

“And you think it was me?”

“Was it, Evan?”

He looked very, very tired. A dark lock of hair had fallen over his brow like a comma. He brushed it away and glanced around the room as though he had no idea what he was doing there.

“I didn't murder Valerie,” he said wearily.

“But you know who did.”

“Carolyn, please try to understand. In twenty-four hours this will all be over. You'll have all the answers then. I promise that. Until then, I want you to—”

“I want the answers now.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I don't intend to wait—”

Evan suddenly reached out and seized my shoulders, just as he had done to Valerie the morning before when they were standing on the drive. His fingers squeezed tightly. I winced, trying to pull away. His face close to mine, he spoke slowly, harshly, underlining each word.

“
Do not ask any more questions
.”

“You can't intimidate me. I'll go to—”

“You won't go to the police. Because of Grey. He's involved in this—deeply, deeply involved. You'll keep your mouth shut. Do you understand that?”

“I—”

“
Do you understand?
”

“Y—yes,” I whispered.

He released me. He sighed heavily. His expression no longer fierce, he looked at me with something like sympathy, and then he turned and walked out of the room. The night before, in my dream, there had been a hideous picture. I had stared at it with sheer, unadulterated horror. I had screamed, and the picture had dissolved, but not before I had had a look at it. What was it I had seen? I knew. In the back of my mind the memory was there, but it wouldn't materialize. I tried to remember. Desperately, I tried to remember.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I had been standing on the veranda for some time. I had come outside a few minutes after Evan left the sitting room. The dream still evaded me. Further efforts to try to recall it would only make it submerge deeper. I had to keep my mind clear, my composure steady. I stood watching the evergreens swaying violently in the wind. The sky was more purple than gray now. The baskets of greenery hanging from the veranda rafters swung to and fro, chains creaking loudly, and above the roar of the wind I could hear the waves lashing at the rocks below in savage fury.

It was very cold, but I hardly noticed. Strands of hair blew over my face. I thought about my conversation with Evan. He needed one more day, he said, just one more day, and then it would all be over. How did he know? How could he be so certain? He expected me to wait, patient and obedient, until it suited him to answer my questions. He didn't know me very well, I thought. I had no intention of waiting passively for him to provide the answers. I had been through too much. I was too close to discovering the answers on my own.

He was taking Helen away. He was getting her off the island, putting her on a train to London because she was hysterical, because he was afraid she would talk. Calmly, I wondered what he intended to do to ensure my own silence. He couldn't be sure I would keep quiet, even to protect Grey. Did he intend to lock me away? Did he intend to have Burke stand guard over me? Or did he have something more permanent in mind?

There was no melodrama involved in that question, no hysteria. I was assessing the situation with cold logic. Valerie had been murdered, brutally murdered, because she had discovered the family secret. I knew too much already. The possibility of my being murdered was quite real. Carlotta had known that. She had given me a revolver. I wondered why I felt no fear. By all rights I should be cringing with terror, far more upset than Helen, but I had never been calmer in my life. I suppose it was shock. It would wear off eventually. Eventually all the expected reactions would come rushing over me, rendering me helpless, but at present it was as though I were enclosed in an invisible shell that kept all emotions out.

If Evan wouldn't answer my questions, perhaps Grey would. He was upstairs in his room, asleep. I would go to him, wake him up, try to reason with him. I would make him see that it was madness to withhold information from the police. I must tell them all I knew, and so must he. Evan was leaving soon to take Helen to the station. Burke would be driving them down to the ferry. While they were gone, we would phone the police, have them come up to the house. Grey was completely under the thumb of his family, true, but he loved me. Perhaps his love for me was strong enough to make a man of him, make him realize that this was the only possible course of action.

I went back into the main hall, then walked upstairs, turning left at the landing and moving on up to the wing where Grey's room was located. Through the windows at the end of the hall I saw a square of dark purple, the sky. The walls were gray, festooned with shadows. It was four thirty, but it might have been early evening.

“Mrs. Brandon.”

I stopped dead still, startled. Burke materialized out of the shadows. He had been leaning against the wall. His black uniform blended in, making him almost invisible.

“Where are you going?” he asked in a low voice.

“I'm going to my husband's room.” My own voice was like ice.

“I'd rather you didn't,” he said.

“You'd
rather
I didn't?”

“That's right.”

“You can go to hell.”

He stepped in front of me, blocking my way. His large, solid body seemed to fill the hallway. I couldn't possibly get around him. In the dim light his face looked more ravaged than ever, older, deeply lined with fatigue. The purple bruise beneath his right cheekbone was lighter now. His mouth was as hard as ever, but the black eyes looked somehow different. They were, I realized with surprise, filled with sadness. I could hardly believe it. Burke had never been a human being to me. He had been a stereotype, a dark, sinister figure out of the melodrama, his presence in the house inexplicable. He didn't look menacing now. He looked weary, defeated. I wasn't prepared for this. He was a man of flesh and blood, human, with human emotions, not an impassive automaton.

“You can't intimidate me,” I said.

“I have no desire to intimidate you, Mrs. Brandon.” His harsh, raspy voice seemed sad, too.

“Get out of my way, then.”

“Mister Grey is sleeping. He was up all night.”

“I have to speak to him.”

“Later. He needs his rest.”

He might have been speaking of a child, a beloved child. I realized with surprise that Burke loved my husband. I had never thought him capable of love. He had been with the family ever since Grey was a little boy, had helped raise him, watched after him, probably punished him when he misbehaved, taken him out on the boat, bought him ice cream. Grey was a grown man now, married, far removed from those early days, but in Burke's eyes he was still the rowdy little boy who had played tightrope walker on the cliff wall, whose noisy, ebullient activities had jarred his aunt's nerves.

“You love him,” I said.

Burke nodded sternly.

“That's why you resent me.”

“I don't resent you, Mrs. Brandon.”

“I'm going to wake him up.”

“You've been through an ordeal,” Burke said. His voice was emotionless now. “It was an ordeal for him, too. He was half out of his mind with worry. He couldn't sleep, even after the doctor said you'd be all right. He went out to join the search party, wore himself out. Even after we came in he couldn't rest. I finally had to give him one of his aunt's sleeping tablets.”

“Get out of my way, Burke.”

His thin mouth tightened.

“You can't keep me from him.”

“You'd better go back to your room. When he wakes up, I'll send him to you.”

“I'm going to see him now.”

Burke shook his head. The black eyes turned hard and flat. The old Burke returned, cold, solid, sinister. I might have imagined the other. He stared at me. I knew it would be useless to try to defy him. He would use force if necessary, but he didn't intend to let me disturb Grey.

A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. “Very well, Burke,” I said.

He gave me a curt nod. I turned and went back down the hall. When I glanced back, at the head of the stairs, his body, a dark silhouette in the hallway, still hadn't moved. I went on downstairs and into the sitting room. The incident hadn't disturbed me at all. It had merely strengthened my determination. I could wait. Burke couldn't stand guard all afternoon. I wondered if Evan had told him to watch me, keep me away from Grey. Was that why Burke had been lurking there in the shadows? They must know that Grey was the weakest link in their chain, the most likely to break and give everything away. Well, they couldn't keep me from him for long. My chance would come as soon as they left for the ferry.

The sitting room was all gray and white and muted violet, like a black and white film faintly tinted. I heard another rumble of thunder, closer this time. Lightning flashed outside. I thought about the events of yesterday morning, going over each incident carefully in my mind. The room beneath the stairs. Burke's reaction when he discovered me there. The cryptic conversation between Helen and her son. Evan's suspicious look when he saw me standing in the hall. His heated argument with Valerie on the drive. The answer was there in those three incidents, and I should have been able to see it immediately, I felt. It was obvious, glaringly obvious, but still it evaded me. It was as though a heavy veil had dropped over my mind and refused to lift.

I thought about the afternoon. Burke had seen me on the road. He had come to fetch me at the pub. He must have known I had been talking to Valerie. Later, when Judy had been walking the dogs, he had been in the gardens, prowling around behind the shrubbery, and although there had been no sign of him when I started into the woods, I remembered the sensation of hostile eyes watching me. Had he followed me? I had called her name, and anyone who heard would have known I meant to meet her.
Someone
had been there. That someone had heard her call and had reached her before I could.

Was it Burke? Would he murder to protect the family? I remembered the look on his face when he had let me out in front of the house the previous afternoon. He was fiercely loyal. Incongruous as it might seem, Burke loved Grey like a father, and he must be fond of Evan, too. He would do anything to protect them. For no apparent reason, I thought about the bruise he had acquired so mysteriously. No one had mentioned it. How had he acquired it? In a fight? Yes, it was that kind of bruise, but whom had he been fighting, and when? It hadn't been there prior to yesterday morning. I had noticed it for the first time when he found me in the basement, and it wasn't the sort of thing you would miss. I hadn't given it much thought before, but now it seemed important too, terribly important, another clue that should have led me to my answers.

Lights blazed in the hall as someone touched a switch. Hearing footsteps and low voices, I stepped out of the sitting room just in time to see Evan coming back upstairs. Helen was standing near the foot of the stairs, two expensive alligator suitcases beside her.

“Hello, Carolyn,” she said stiffly.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Much better,” she retorted, as though the question had been an insult.

“I'm glad.”

She didn't ask how I was. She obviously didn't give a damn. There were no signs of hysteria or of strain. She wore a dark red suit, extremely chic, and her hair was immaculately arranged. Her face was as smooth and hard as porcelain, her brown eyes stony, and I found it hard to believe this woman had been near the point of collapse earlier in the day. It was only when I stepped nearer, looked closer that I realized she was holding herself together by sheer force. Thick, carefully applied makeup covered all lines and shadows, making her face look like a glazed mask, and her rigid posture betrayed tautness.