Silent as the Grave (2 page)

In short, unless compelling evidence to the contrary comes to light, I believe that the disappearance of Lady Amelia and Mr Aston to be no more sinister than the flight of illicit lovers.

Conclusion.

I have, at your Lordship's behest, spent much time investigating this disappearance, as well as those previously of Sir Richard and Lady Elizabeth. Whilst I consider it to be a singular coincidence that all three events took place between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and equally remarkable that the events are separated by exactly one hundred-years,
I have found no evidence of a connecting factor, apart from the superstitious tales of family curses and similarnonsense peddled by the locals. Superstition is a part of country life; indeed it seems to me to be fostered in part to enrich an otherwise dull existence. However much these tales might enliven a quiet evening at local hostelries I fear that without any basis in fact they must remain purely speculation, entertaining though they might be.

Lacking any contrary evidence I regret that these mysteries, if indeed they are mysterious, must remain so, for I can find no justification to recommend commitment of further resources to this matter until and unless further evidence emerges that would shed further light on them.

I remain, my Lord, your most Humble and Obedient Servant,

Albert Arthur Cummins, Inspector of Police, North Riding Of Yorkshire Constabulary.

This 24
^th
Day of September in the year of our Lord, 1880.'

I put the document aside and thought about the contents. Somewhere within the house or grounds of Mulgrave Castle I was convinced there was evidence of anything up to five murders. That night I had a strange dream. I dreamed I was in some part of the castle. I knew there were others there with me. I could neither hear them nor see them but I sensed their presence.

It was cold; but they had long since ceased to feel either heat or cold.

It was dark; but they had long since lost the power to see.

It was silent – as silent as the grave.

Chapter Two

December 1979

I've never considered myself lucky with women. Mind you, I'm not that good at cards either. Even when I was a minor ‘celebrity' – dreadful word – I couldn't claim women were actually falling over themselves to get to me. Not that I'd have been interested anyway; for by then I was married, some would have said securely married, but such are the stresses and strains placed on a marriage by both Georgina's profession and my own that security is a lot to hope for.

I had started out in the way many journalists do, as a junior reporter on a local newspaper. In my case this was in Yorkshire. At that time local radio stations were a novelty that had not reached as far north as the River Trent, let alone the Swale, but by the time they did someone must have seen something promising about my style of news presentation because I was invited to become a ‘stringer' for our local, fledgling broadcaster.

As the network was in its infancy there was little sign that it would survive to adulthood, but it did, and as it grew I found my services more and more in demand. Eventually, I was offered a staff position, and from radio I transferred seamlessly to regional television almost before I had chance to realize where my career was heading. Local had become national and I was heading for London.

It was only after that; when one or two people began glancing at me in the street with an ‘I know your face' expression that I began to understand how far I had come. Once again I was lucky; I was in the right place at the right time and was offered a post as a foreign correspondent. I had little hesitation in accepting, for I knew it was a golden opportunity to broaden my experience and knowledge, to travel; to reach a more senior position in the news business. All in all there was so much to recommend it; little in the way of disadvantages. I was twenty-seven years old, single, an only child, and both my parents were dead. There was nothing to keep me in England.

Of course any thoughts that I would become a star overnight were soon banished. This was achieved courtesy of the city of Lisbon. Don't get me wrong; Lisbon is a beautiful city, full of friendly, charming, and courteous people. From a news reporter's view, though, none of those facts is a recommendation. During my time there little happened. So little that I was reminded of my early days on the staff of the local paper; covering weddings, cricket matches, and village fetes. Lisbon is just like that, only on a bigger scale – and without the cricket.

From there I was moved to Paris and saw a bit more action; then I was recalled to London and told of my new posting. A week later I boarded a jet at Heathrow. I was about to begin one of a foreign correspondent's dream jobs. I was heading for New York.

Two minutes after I had taken my seat, I started fiddling with my safety belt, and my action caused me to inadvertently grope a young woman who was bending to take the seat alongside mine. Scarlet with embarrassment, I apologized for what was a pure accident.

She turned and gave me an icy stare that melted rapidly into a warm smile. ‘I've heard of some different ways of introducing oneself, but that's a new one,' she laughed.

She sat down and held a hand out. ‘Hi, I'm Georgina Dale,' she told me but of course by then I had already recognized her.

‘I know that,' I smiled as I shook hands. ‘I'd have to be a hermit not to.'

‘You're not a hermit, then?'

‘No, I'm certainly not a hermit, and your face is everywhere – films, TV, cosmetics commercials.'

‘I was just thinking your face is familiar too.'

‘Sorry, I should have introduced myself properly; I'm Adam Bailey.'

‘That's it! I thought I recognized your voice,' she told me.

‘I'm surprised you have time to watch news bulletins; and recognizing my voice, that's something else again.'

‘What you must remember is that I'm an actress. In our business the voice is much more important than the face.'

I smiled at a stray, private thought.

‘What is it?' Georgina challenged me.

‘Nothing much. I was just thinking about the way I introduced myself; I'd say the bottom was quite important too.'

She laughed. ‘Was it deliberate?'

‘I wish I could say it was. It would have been if I'd thought of it in time!'

Six months later we were married. We bought an apartment and settled down and for the first couple of years things were great. It was only after we'd been in New York eighteen months or so that gradually; imperceptibly, Georgina's work began to get less and less frequent. At first she had been flooded with offers; then the flood became a trickle; eventually, it dried up completely. It was at that moment, with the most inopportune piece of timing imaginable, that my employers decided I was the man to be sent to cover the war in Ethiopia.

I have no way of judging if matters would have turned out differently had I stayed in New York. In my job you didn't have a choice. Actually, I suppose that's incorrect; you do have a choice – accept the posting, or join the dole queue.

I had been in Ethiopia six months covering the war from the insurgent's point of view; which for the most part meant hiding out in mountain passes. There I would be subjected to strafing missions from fighters on an almost daily basis. During the evenings, I would be subjected to lectures about the deeds of glorious but long dead warriors and boasts about what the current generation were about to do to their enemies. I'm still not sure whether I preferred the bombing.

Then I got wounded; by pure chance. The injury came courtesy of a ricochet from a rifle. By the time I was able to reach neutral territory and get decent hospital treatment I was in pretty bad shape. After I'd recovered slightly, to the extent that the nursing staff had stopped trying to guess when I was going to peg out, I received a visitor.

He was a young, inexperienced, and highly nervous official from the British Embassy. It was, in all probability, the first time he'd been charged with delivering bad news. That didn't matter; because the sort of news he brought couldn't be told well no matter who did the telling. It was from his stumbling, embarrassed delivery that I learned that Georgina had committed suicide.

In some people it is loneliness that breeds depression. In others the depressive state is brought about by rejection; the feeling of failure. Georgina had been beset by both. My regret at leaving her, at not being there when she needed me, brought about a burden of guilt that added to my grief. It was a black and dreadful emotion I felt then, one that I have felt in a greater or lesser degree ever since; that I will probably continue to feel for the rest of my life.

As soon as I was well enough to travel, I returned to New York. A sympathetic NYPD sergeant told me all he knew; much more than I wanted to know. Georgina had taken a cocktail of drugs washed down by a bottle of vodka, walked out of the apartment on to the balcony, and kept on going until she hit the sidewalk fifteen storeys below.

Once I had straightened up my affairs and sold the apartment, I returned to England. I refused any further assignments and resigned rather than embarrass my employers. After a few weeks in London I decided cities were no longer for me. I caught a train north and finished up in my native Yorkshire. A week later I bought a tiny cottage, moved in, and settled down to my new career as a writer.

I published one factual account of my experiences in Ethiopia under the title
War in the Hills
. This was the only volume to appear in my own name. For the thrillers that followed I chose a pen name, much to the despair of my agent who bemoaned the loss of marketing opportunities. By then I was uninterested in celebrity status. I just wanted to be left alone to write. I suppose it was as much a form of escapism for me to write the books, as for other people to read them. Gradually, my face, my voice, and my name became less and less well known; which suited me perfectly.

I settled into my semi-reclusive bachelor existence. Nothing I did constituted a commitment, either to me, or from me; and that also suited me just fine. The occasional insidious notion that I was merely existing rather than living was one I was easily able to dismiss.

As I said earlier, I've never thought of myself as a ladies' man. Although prior to my marriage there had been one or two youthful flings, I had only become involved in one serious romantic relationship. Harriet Samuels had been introduced to me during my first year at university. She had recently arrived, as had I, and was looking for somewhere to live. She explained at our first meeting that the bed-sitter she was in was located over the noisiest nightclub in the northern hemisphere, and that as the racket was keeping her awake until the small hours of the morning she was constantly falling asleep during lectures.

I pointed out the advantages of this, as the majority of the lectures I attended seemed to be designed as a cure for insomnia. Harriet acknowledged my point but clinched the debate by telling me how she had missed a full lecture dealing with social unrest in Lower Saxony during the Middle Ages. Convinced by the power of this reasoning and her distress at missing out on so pivotal a discourse, I allowed her to share my flat, share the rent payments, share the cooking, share the cleaning and washing; and, for a glorious period of over two years up to and during our Finals, to share my bed. She did point out that this was having a similar effect on her sleep pattern as the nightclub had, but I was well aware by then that she could have slept through all the lectures in her final year and still walked away with a good degree. She accepted my argument, and later accepted the degree.

Our separation was as inevitable as our affair had been improbable. Harriet and I belonged in different worlds, socially speaking at least. Harriet's parents were wealthy. Her father was a very successful businessman, her mother a GP at a private clinic. My father was a clergyman, my mother a primary school teacher. The difference between us was best illustrated by our modes of transport. Harriet arrived for lectures in a Porsche, while I arrived on a bicycle – if I could borrow one, that is.

It was a long time before I worked out that if Harriet's parents could afford to buy her a Porsche they could afford far more than the rent she was contributing to our flat. I challenged Harriet about this one night. She grinned and agreed. ‘Daddy wanted to rent a flat for me in a really nice area, but I refused.' She snuggled down alongside me and began caressing me.

My last question before desire overcame me was, ‘Why did you refuse?'

Harriet smiled. ‘Because I'd already met you, silly.'

Like I said, I'm no ladies' man. Sometimes I need to have things spelt out for me.

After we left university it was inevitable we should drift apart. There was no great parting scene, no high emotion and drama, just a slow, gradual process of increasing neglect. A couple of years later, I read of Harriet's wedding to a prominent member of an old aristocratic family. I looked at the pictures without a trace of regret. Sir Anthony Rowe, the lucky groom, looked to be a pleasant type, and Harriet was obviously in love with him. I wished her all the luck in her marriage as I turned the pages of the magazine. I thought when I closed it I was closing a chapter of my life for ever.

That was pretty much the way of things until a few weeks before Christmas. It was the greyest of grey days. One of those December days when the mist and low cloud prevent the light from penetrating the house. No rain as such, but dampness in every particle of air, every fibre of being. The year was winding down to its weary conclusion, not with a bang, not even with a whimper, but with a sullen and gloomy silence.

Christmas, formerly just a speck on the horizon, was galloping ever nearer, like a rider whose horse has bolted and is in headlong, uncontrollable flight. I had given no thought to the festive season. Not that I had any particular reason for disliking it; likewise, though, I had little cause to celebrate it. The mail was one of the reasons I found Christmas distasteful. As the celebration drew nearer the postman's arrival got later and later as he struggled to deliver an ever increasing quantity of cards, advertisements, and junk mail. That particular day there were five cards, a bill, and a letter. Three of the cards were from people in the village. Obviously, posting the cards they could have delivered by hand was their way of doing their bit to keep the village post office from going out of business. It'd need more than their efforts if that was the extent of their support.

The other two cards weren't for me but for the cottage's previous owners. I'd no idea where they'd moved to, so there was no chance of me forwarding them on. I'd been in the cottage two years so the senders had obviously taken the address from an old list. That led me to speculate how long people kept sending cards to dead acquaintances. What happened to the cards? Did the Royal Mail know more than the rest of us? Had they a forwarding address for dead people? I dismissed the idea as ludicrous; if that were the case the junk mail wouldn't keep arriving. I turned my attention to the letter. The postmark was York, which meant it could have been from a host of places nowhere near the city itself; the handwriting vaguely familiar.

I stared at the envelope, teasing myself by trying to guess who the sender was. I'd have been there well past Easter before I got it right. In the end curiosity got the better of me and I opened it up. I turned to the signature and gasped in surprise. I know Christmas is a time for remembering old friends but it was over fifteen years since I had seen Harriet Samuels. Correction: Lady Harriet Rowe, as she now was. I groped my way to a seat in the lounge and began to read the letter.

Dear Adam,

I wonder, will it seem as strange to you getting this letter as it does for me to write it? After all these years of being out of touch I wouldn't be surprised if you tossed it in the bin.

In case you haven't, I'll continue. The thing is, Tony and I would like your help. I don't know if you have plans for Christmas but in case you don't, we'd like you to come and spend it at Mulgrave Castle with us. It will be quite a party; all our family will be here and some friends as well so it should be quite a shindig. Please ring me to let me know if you would like to join us. The house party will go through until the New Year.