The Vanishing (17 page)

But she hadn’t gone quickly enough. So then his uncle had told him to put the chemical into her drip. It was his idea, his fault. Bernard Hulpe. Everything was his fault. He hated his uncle, hated the way he spoke to him like he was a retarded six-year-old. He bent his head and started to cry about it, uncontrollably. This woman – Alison Spencer – had done nothing. Absolutely nothing. He’d given her the drug because his uncle had told him to. Because once you started you couldn’t stop, you had to follow through. They’d got rid of Liz then found out this woman had the letter, that she knew something. So that had to be dealt with. His uncle had stood over him, shouting at him, blaming him because she’d got the letter out.

But Alison Spencer had let him in today like he was an old friend – so whatever it was she knew his uncle must have lied to him, because she hadn’t looked at him like he was a killer. What was it she knew? He had to search this place, find everything Liz had sent her recently. There wasn’t time to cry over her. If this all went wrong then the police would come for him. Who then would care for Lancelot and Guinevere? He was the only person who loved them. The dogs were his life. His real life. They would be taken away, destroyed. He couldn’t stand that. He would not be able to live with himself if that happened.

And Liz Wellbeck had only herself to blame. That bitch. He had been making her food, changing her bed, fetching and carrying for her for over a year. Servicing her insane ideas about infection and sterilisation. She had been a lunatic long before she was dying of the cancer – everything had to be spotless, sanitised, disinfected. She had money enough to employ a whole army of nurses and cleaners, but during the last six months had in fact sacked everyone else. She wanted just Stefan. She wanted him to do everything, night and day. Foolishly, he had imagined this implied some kind of trust. Now, he knew, it was just control. The fewer servants she had, the more effectively she could control them.

He had spent his entire day cleaning. The whole floor she lived on had stunk of disinfectant. It was the only smell she could bear. She had to have different shoes for each different part of the place, special baths of disinfectant to wash her hands and feet. She couldn’t touch anything without washing her hands or wearing rubber gloves. They had got through three thousand rubber gloves and disposable slippers a month. He’d had no life away from her. Nine hours a day he had put up with it, living that life, cleaning and scrubbing and sterilising her world. In the last months he had even wiped her arse, bathed her, cleaned the spittle off her chin, spoonfed her. She would have died anyway. Anyone could see that. You didn’t need to be a doctor. At the end she couldn’t even walk. The treatment halted, she had slipped into decay suddenly, over a space of no more than two weeks. Her brain was scrambled. There was cancer all over her, his uncle said, she was riddled with it.

But ten days ago she had stared at him as he changed her pillows and started to cackle like a witch. ‘You’ll get nothing,’ she’d shouted suddenly in that coarse American accent. ‘Nothing. You and that quack. You’ll be out on the fucking street.’

He had tried to soothe her, thinking it was the illness, but she had pushed him away, lashed out at him. She had never been like that before. ‘Your dogs will die,’ she’d said. ‘They’ll shoot them. They’ll hang you and shoot your fucking dogs.’ He had stood gasping, stunned, not sure how to deal with it. She had sunk back into herself then, and he had waited until he thought she was asleep then tried to arrange the pillows, but as soon as he stepped near her hand had caught his arm and held on to it with a grip like a claw. ‘You think I like you?’ she hissed. ‘You think I don’t know what you two are doing? I fucking hate you. I hate you both. You’ll get nothing off me, nothing.’

He had reported it all to his uncle, who had made some enquiries, probably with her husband. Her husband – Sir Frederick Eaton – was an English gentleman, always polite, always supportive. Though never there. A very busy man. That was when they had discovered it was true. Everything she had told him was true. She had made a will and left them nothing. Every promise she had made them she had broken.

That hadn’t bothered him as it had his uncle. His uncle had been screaming and shouting about it. Stefan hadn’t been able to get over her ingratitude. He had cared for this odd woman like she was his own dying mother, but she hated him. How could that be? He didn’t understand, but it had made it easier to give her the drug. That and the idea she was going to die anyway.

But this woman – Alison Spencer – was different. She hadn’t hated him, she’d done nothing against him. He would rot in hell for this, for what he had done to her. He started to feel sick all over again, his head spinning.
Don’t think about it
, his uncle had said.
Just do it.
But he couldn’t keep his thoughts off her. He had slipped it into her drink and sat there with her, trying to seem normal, chatting, waiting for it to work. He was worse than the Nazi doctors they showed those documentaries about on Télé Deux.

He pulled his mobile phone from his trouser pocket and realised it had been ringing for some time. He could see from the number it was his uncle. He switched it off. He was meant to have come here and done this abominable thing several days ago, but hadn’t had the courage. He didn’t dare tell his uncle that. He wished now he had stayed at home today. This was all a mistake.

He started to tidy the blood, quickly. Then thought better of it. Time was against him. Two people – a couple – lived and worked here, besides the dead woman, though they occupied the smaller building at the gates that he hadn’t even been in. Her housekeepers. Right now they were enjoying a vacation somewhere that his uncle had somehow arranged. So there was little chance of interruption from them. But there was always a chance that Alison Spencer had other staff that they didn’t know about. He couldn’t hang around. And he had to get back to the dogs, give them their lunch. They would be going crazy, barking and scratching. He couldn’t leave them too long. They would need a walk as well. They depended on him. They were like his children. His beautiful little dogs.

He stood at the sink and itemised again what he needed to do. The priority was to find the letter from Liz Wellbeck. That was all that really mattered.

He started to open the drawers in front of him, pulling them right out and tipping the contents on to the floor. He would have to do this with the whole house. Turn it upside down, search everywhere. It would take hours.

Sixteen minutes later, Tom was standing on the pavement right outside Alison Spencer’s house, Sara beside him.

In a street full of spacious properties, each set back from the road in its own grounds, screened by mature trees, this particular one looked significant. Tom put it at roughly ten bedrooms. Certainly big enough to be a small hotel. There were eight-foot wrought-iron gates with security cameras, and then a double-winged building, about twice the size of the semi Tom had grown up in, but that appeared to be only a gatehouse. About one hundred feet behind it was the main event, a squat, three-storey, French-style miniature chateau, complete with towers and decorated archways, three sides partially enclosing a courtyard. Past it Tom could see the beginnings of neat, ornamental hedges and closely cut lawns, stretching back to a wooded area about two hundred yards past the main building. ‘This belongs to your mother’s PA?’ he asked, slightly incredulous.

‘No. She just lives here,’ Sara said. ‘This belongs to the family. She’s looking after it, I suppose.’

‘So this will be yours one day?’

She looked at him and he turned red. ‘Sorry,’ he said. Her mother was dead, the will was being read on Friday. It was possible this would belong to her before the end of the week.

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘I have no idea. I don’t care.’

‘No. Of course not. I’m sorry. That was insensitive.’

But she wasn’t listening. ‘The gates are open,’ she said. ‘I wonder if that means anything?’ She stepped up to the intercom panel set in one of the big granite pillars, pressed the button to speak and waited. Nothing happened. She pressed again. No one answered.

‘She’s not in,’ Tom said. ‘Shall we try your father now?’

‘Alison. It’s me – Sara,’ she said, speaking with her mouth close to the microphone. ‘Are you there? I need to speak to you. It’s urgent. Please answer if you’re there.’

Silence. She had Alison Spencer’s phone numbers, and had tried them all in the taxi over, to no avail. She tried the intercom again. ‘Alison. I need to talk to you about my mother. Please, Alison …’ She stopped suddenly and wiped a sleeve across her eyes. ‘Please, Alison. I need your help. Please.’

‘She’s not there,’ Tom said gently. ‘I think we should make contact with your father now.’

‘I think we should go in,’ she said, already stepping through the gap between the two gates. ‘I don’t know why she’s left the gates open.’

They walked in silence past the gatehouse on a light gravel surface. There was no sign of life in the windows ahead. He asked her if she knew the place. She’d been a lot, she said, a few years back, before Alison Spencer had the place. The skies were heavy above them, the air close. As they reached the house a few drops of rain picked at his skin.

There was another intercom by a door round the side of the place. She said it was the service entrance, but it had been the one they usually used. She spoke again into the microphone, again got no response. She pushed the door tentatively and it opened immediately. That stopped her. ‘This door is open as well,’ she said. She looked around her suspiciously.

‘Maybe she’s in the garden,’ Tom said. ‘Or gone to get a packet of cigarettes from the corner shop …’

‘She has people to do that for her.’

‘Of course. Maybe
they
left it open?’

She pushed it fully open, standing warily at the threshold, peering inside. There was a corridor, leading to steps and other doorways, an interior that looked spotless, painted in clean colours, mainly white. She shouted feebly. ‘Alison! Are you in?’

It was too big a place for that to be effective, he thought. She turned back to him and looked frightened.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘It’s all wide open. No security. It’s the same thing everywhere. All the security has been removed. Will you come in with me? I don’t want to go in alone.’

He shrugged, then stepped past her and shouted, very loud: ‘Alison Spencer! Are you here?’

He thought he heard some movement somewhere. But there was no reply. The noise was too far away to be distinct. He turned back to her. ‘I really don’t think she’s in.’

‘Let’s check. Please.’ She edged past him.

‘I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of,’ he said. Then started to think about it. It didn’t take him long to come up with a couple of improbable, but frightening, scenarios. ‘Do you know where we go?’ he asked, dropping his voice.

‘Straight through,’ she whispered. ‘Up those stairs, then down the next set. That brings us to the reception hall …’ She stopped, listening to some sound. He too had heard a banging noise. ‘Did you hear that?’ she hissed. He nodded, then tried to smile at her. ‘Maybe she
is
in,’ he said.

‘She would have answered the intercom if she was here.’

‘Well, I think
someone’s
in. You want to go and speak to them, or not?’

‘You don’t think it’s dangerous?’

He frowned at her. ‘Why should it be? Someone tried to kidnap you, but that was several thousand miles away. No one could know you were coming here.’

‘They could have followed us from my mother’s.’

‘That didn’t happen. If they’d followed us they’d be behind us, not in front.’

‘You think I’m being silly?’

‘It’s understandable, but I don’t think what has happened half a world away should make you feel cautious
here
.’

‘But they’re trying to convince me my mother is dead. What about that?’

He didn’t know how to reply to that. Not by insisting her mother
was
dead. He spoke very gently to her. ‘OK. Let’s go in and look,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right with you. OK?’

She wanted to creep down the corridor, so he held her hand, then started walking at a normal pace. He tried to speak to her in a normal voice, at normal volume, asking about the paintings on the walls, the age of the building, but she wouldn’t reply. She was too focused on listening.

They came down a flight of steps, turned a corner and were in the reception room. A big set of double doors gave directly on to the courtyard. They were wide open. Outside he could see big drops of rain starting to fall, bouncing off the flagstones. The room was big, with a high ceiling decorated with a massive abstract pattern. There were gilt mirrors down the walls. ‘Nice place,’ he said.

‘Ssh,’ she said. ‘I don’t like this. All the doors are open. Anyone could walk in.’

‘Like we just have. Where do we go now?’

She pointed to a door, slightly ajar. ‘That’s the main ground-floor room.’

He walked over with her hanging on to his arm again, pushed the door open and stopped dead. ‘Christ. Oh, Christ,’ she said, beside him, her voice full of panic. The place had been turned over. There were bookcases pulled down, drawers yanked out, tables on their side, papers and objects all over the floor.

‘She’s been burgled,’ he said, feeling his heart picking up, but right then Sara let out a stifled scream, one hand over her mouth, the other pointing frantically to a corner of the room. There was a body on the floor, stretched out towards the wall next to an overturned table. ‘Not again … not again … this can’t be happening …’ she sobbed, shaking her head and struggling to get the words out. ‘It’s Alison … they’ve killed Alison …’

‘Wait there,’ he said, loud enough to get through to her. ‘Wait there.’ He walked over to the body on autopilot, without thinking it through, stooped quickly and felt for a pulse at the neck. Behind him Sara was making a faint, terrified wailing noise.

‘She’s still alive,’ he said. It was a woman, lying on her stomach, head turned sideways. She had brown hair in a bun, ashen skin. Her eyes were closed and she was covered in sweat. There was a small pool of vomit around her mouth. Her breathing was so shallow you could hardly see her chest moving, but the pulse was there. She looked like she might be about fifty years old. ‘Is this her?’ he asked. Sara was right at his side now, crouching with him.