Midnight Is a Lonely Place Read online

  ‘And let you have the cottage back?’ Alison surveyed him shrewdly, her green eyes serious.

  ‘And let me have my cottage back.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Don’t say anything to Ma, Allie, but I think between us you and I can find a way to chase Lady Muck away from Redall Cottage, don’t you?’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps we can give the weather a helping hand. Scare her off somehow.’

  ‘You bet.’ She laughed. Then she frowned. ‘But don’t we need the money?’

  ‘Money!’ Greg snorted. ‘Doesn’t anyone think of anything else around here? For the love of Mike, there are other things in the world. We’re not going to starve. Dad’s pay-off and his pension are more than enough to last us for years. We can afford petrol and electricity and food. They can afford to buy booze. My dole money buys my paint and canvas. What does every one want all this money for?’

  Alison shrugged dutifully. She knew better than to argue with her elder brother. Besides he was probably right. She sternly pushed down a sneaking suspicion that his views were simplistic and wildly immature – he was, after all, twelve years older than she – and, pushing her wispy hair out of her eyes for the thousandth time as they reached the Land Rover, she pulled open the door and hauled herself into the front seat beside her mother.

  In the farmhouse the third Lindsey offspring, Patrick, had been laying the table for lunch, walking silently around the kitchen in his socks as his father dozed in the cane chair before the Aga, two cats asleep in his lap. The silence of the room was broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner and by the gentle bubbling from the heavy pan on the stove. The air was rich and heavy with the fragrance of the cooking chicken in its thick herb-flavoured gravy. Two years older than Alison, Patrick was the studious member of the family. Upstairs in his bedroom – the north-facing end room above the kitchen, according to Alison the best room in the house because of its size – computer, printer, calculating machines and hundreds of books vied with one another for space, overflowing from tables and chairs on to the floor and even from time to time out into the corridor outside his sister’s room. At the moment Patrick was lost in thought, his mind still fully occupied with his school project. He noticed neither the noise of the engine as his brother drove up outside and parked the Land Rover around the side of the house, nor the speed with which Number Two cat, Marmalade Jones, jumped off his master’s lap and onto the worktop where he proceeded to lick the pat of butter which Patrick had incautiously withdrawn from the fridge.

  The opening door woke Roger, startled Patrick and gave the cat an unwonted and sudden attack of conscience.

  ‘My goodness it’s cold out there.’ Diana went straight to the heavy iron pan simmering quietly on the Aga and peered inside it before she took off her coat.

  ‘Bill rang.’ Roger stretched and reached for the newspaper which had slid from his inert fingers as he slept. Indignant at the move, Number One cat, Serendipity Smith, slipped from his knees and diving through the open studwork which separated the kitchen from the living room, went to sit on the rug in front of the fire, staring enigmatically into the embers. ‘They should be here by about three. Apparently she’s an absolute cracker!’ He grinned at his eldest son and gave a suggestive wink. ‘You might try charming her, Greg, just this once. I can’t believe as your mother’s son you are completely devoid of the art.’

  ‘Oh you.’ Diana gave her husband a playful tap on the head.

  Greg ignored them both. Sealed in an intense inner world of frustrated imagination he frequently missed his parents’ affectionate banter. Walking through to the fire he stooped and threw on a log. ‘Half the old dune behind the cottage has gone,’ he called through to them. ‘You know the one which shelters it from the north-easterlies. A few more tides like that one last week and we’ll need to worry about the cottage being washed away.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Diana, having hung up her coat was now tying a huge apron over her trousers. The apron sported a giant red London bus which appeared to be driving across the rotund acres of her stomach. She shook her head. ‘No way. That cottage has been there hundreds of years.’

  ‘And once upon a time it was miles from the sea, my darling.’ Roger stood up. Painfully thin, his face was haggard with tiredness, a symptom of the illness which had forced him to take early retirement. ‘Come on. Why don’t I open a bottle of wine. That stew of yours smells so good I could eat it.’ He smiled and his wife, on her way back to the Aga with her wooden spoon, paused to give him a quick hug.

  ‘Show Dad the piece of china you found in the dune, Allie,’ Greg called from the next room. His sister, still wearing her anorak, had seated herself at the table, her elbows planted amongst the knives and forks which Patrick had aligned with geometric neatness. She fished in her pocket and produced it.

  Roger took it from her and turned it over with interest. ‘Its unusual. Old I should say. Look at the colour of that glaze, Greg.’ He held it out towards his eldest son. Reluctantly, Greg left the fire. Taking the fragment he turned it over in his hands. ‘You could take it into the museum some time, kiddo,’ he said to Alison. ‘See what they say.’

  ‘I might.’ Alison stood up and they were all surprised to see her eyes alight with excitement. Her usual carefully-studied air of ennui had for a moment slipped. ‘Do you know what I think? I think it’s Roman. There’s stuff just like it in the castle museum.’

  ‘Oh, Allie love, it couldn’t be. Not out here.’ Diana had produced four glasses from the cupboard. She handed her husband the corkscrew. ‘The Romans never came this far out of Colchester.’

  ‘They did, actually. They’ve found a lot of Roman stuff at Kindling’s farm,’ Roger put in. He tore the foil from the top of the wine bottle. ‘Do you remember? They found the remains of a villa there. Some rich Roman chap from Colchester retired here. They found an inscription.’

  Alison nodded. ‘Marcus Severus Secundus,’ she said, intoning the words softly.

  ‘That’s right.’ Roger nodded. ‘There was an article about him in the local paper. And they found even older stuff too. Iron Age, I think it was, or Bronze Age or something. Are you still thinking of doing something archaeological for your project, Allie?’ He smiled at his daughter.

  ‘Might.’ Her sudden burst of enthusiasm had apparently run its course. She sat down again and spread her elbows, scattering knives and forks. Patrick frowned, but he said nothing. He had learned a long time ago that a comment from him would produce a tirade of abuse from his sister which would upset everyone and end up with the whole meal being spoiled. It had happened before too often.

  ‘I’m going to excavate the dune.’ Alison’s sudden announcement stopped Roger’s hand in mid air as he poured the wine.

  ‘That sounds a bit ambitious, old girl,’ he said cautiously. ‘There would be a lot of hard digging and you might not find anything.’

  ‘I found something before.’

  ‘In the same place?’ Greg looked across at her, disbelieving. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘None of your business.’ Alison reached for a glass of wine which left Patrick without one.

  ‘Hey, that’s mine – ’

  ‘Pour yourself one.’ When neither parent said anything she raised the glass defiantly to her lips and took a sip.

  ‘What did you find, Allie?’ Roger’s voice took on the conciliatory tone he often used with his daughter – soft, persuasive, almost pleading.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ She rose to her feet, and, her glass still in her hand, trailed towards the staircase which led from the living room behind the door in the corner by the inglenook.

  ‘There’s loads of books on archaeology in her room,’ Patrick put in in an undertone when she was out of earshot.

  ‘You haven’t been in there again.’ Diana was exasperated. ‘You know she doesn’t like it – ’

  ‘She nicked my Aran sweater. I needed it.’ Patrick’s mouth settled in a hard line, exactly like his sister’s as Alison reappeared with
a shoe box in her hand.

  ‘Look. I found all these on the beach there, or in the cliff or in the saltings, and these two I dug up from the dune.’ She tipped the contents of the box onto the table amongst the knives and forks. For once there was no comment about the shower of dirty sand which descended over the cutlery on Diana’s scrubbed table top: several shards, a few pieces of carved bone and one or two unrecognisable fragments of twisted, corroded metal. ‘I think it’s a grave. A Roman grave,’ she said solemnly.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  Slowly Greg shook his head. ‘No chance. If it’s anything at all, it’s one of those red hill things – to do with ancient salt workings. Not that that isn’t extremely interesting,’ he went on hastily after a glance at the rebellious set of his sister’s face. ‘Perhaps we should get someone over here who knows about these things.’

  ‘No!’ Alison rounded on him furiously. ‘I don’t want anyone knowing about it. No one at all. It’s mine. My grave. I found it. You’re not to tell anyone it’s there, do you understand. Not anyone at all. I am going to dig there. Anything I find is mine. If you tell anyone it will ruin everything. Everything!’

  Sweeping her treasures back into the box, she clamped the lid on it and flung out of the room.

  ‘Let her be.’ Diana turned comfortably to the stove. ‘She’ll grow bored with it when she realises how much hard work is involved. And I’m sure there is nothing there. Nothing at all that would interest anyone sane, anyway.’ She smiled tolerantly. ‘Clear up that mess would you, Patrick darling and then let’s eat, otherwise our guests will be here before we’ve finished.’

  V

  His nails had cut deep welts into the palms of his hand; the veins stood out, corded, pulsating on his forehead and neck, but his silence was the silence of a stalking cat. Not a leaf crisped beneath his soft-soled sandals, not a twig cracked. Soundlessly, he parted the leaves and peered into the clearing. His wife’s long tunic and cloak lay amongst the bluebells, a splash of blue upon the blue. The man’s weapons, and his clothing, lay beside them. He could see the sword unsheathed, the blade gleaming palely in the leaf-dappled sunlight. He could hear her moans of pleasure, see the reddened marks of her nails on his shoulders. She had never writhed like that beneath him, never uttered a sound, never raked his skin in her ecstasy. Beneath him the woman he adored and worshipped would lie still; compliant, dutiful, her eyes open, staring up at the ceiling, on her lips the smallest hint of a sneer.

  He swallowed his bile, schooling himself to silence, watching, waiting for the climax of their passion. His sword was at his waist, but he did not reach for it. Death at the moment of fulfilment would send them to the gods together. It would be too easy, too quick. Even as he watched them he felt the last remnants of his love curdle and settle into thick hatred. The punishment he would inflict upon his wife would last for the rest of her days; for her lover he would plan a death which would satisfy even his fury. But until the right moment came, he would wait. He would welcome her back to his hearth and to his bed with a smile. His hatred would remain, like his anger, hidden.

  Watery sunlight filled Roger’s study, reflecting in from the bleak garden, throwing pale shifting lights across the low ceiling with its heavy oak beams. Greg flung himself down in his father’s chair and stared round morosely. He would never be able to paint here. Somehow he had to get Lady Muck out of the cottage – his cottage – so he could go back. She must not be allowed to stay.

  The small room was stacked with canvasses and sketch pads. His easel filled the space between the desk and the window; the table was laden with boxes of paints and pencils and the general debris he had fetched down from the cottage; a new smell of linseed oil and white spirit overlaid the room’s natural aroma of old books, Diana’s rich crumbling pot pourri and lavender furniture polish. Thoughtfully he stood up. He leafed through a stack of canvasses and lifted one onto the easel, then he sat down again, staring at it.

  The portrait bothered him. It was one of a series he had done over the past two or three years. All of the same woman, they were sad, mysterious; evocations of mood rather than of feature; of beauty by implication rather than definition. This was the largest canvas – three feet by four – that he had tackled for a long time and it had given him the most trouble.

  He sat gnawing at the knuckle of his left thumb for several minutes before he glanced round for brush and palette. It was the colours that were wrong. She was too hazy; too indistinct. Her colouring needed to be more definite, her vivacity more pronounced. He stood close to the canvas, leaning forward intently, and stabbed at it with the brush. He had made her too beautiful, the bitch, too seductive. He ought to paint her as she was – a whore; a traitor; a cat on heat.

  His tongue protruding a little from the corner of his mouth, he worked furiously at the painting, blocking in the face, shading the planes of the cheeks, sketching lips and eyes, touching in the line of the hair, his anger growing with every brushstroke.

  It was a long time before he threw down the brush, wiping his hands carelessly on the front of his old, ragged sweater. He stood back and stared at his handiwork through narrowed eyes, aware that as the sun moved lower in the sky, slanting first across the estuary and then across the bleak winter woods, the light was changing once again and with it her face. He glared down at the palette he had slid onto his father’s desk, aware that the anger was leaving him as swiftly as it had come and wondering, not for the first time, where it came from.

  VI

  Turning the car off the road Kate found they were bumping along an unmade track through a wood. Before them the sky, laced with shredded, blowing cloud had that peculiar intensity of light which denotes the close proximity of the sea.

  ‘I hope we don’t have to go far down here,’ she commented, slowing to walking pace as the small vehicle grounded for the second time on the deep ruts. Winding down the window she took a deep appreciative breath of the ice-cold air. It carried the sharp, resinous tang of pine and earth and rotting leaves.

  ‘I’m afraid it gets worse.’ Bill grimaced. ‘And you’ll have to leave your car at the farmhouse. Roger or Greg will run all your stuff up to the cottage in their Land Rover.’

  The track forked. In front of them a rough wooden gibbet held two or three fire brooms – threadbare, broken. She brought the car to a standstill. ‘Which way?’

  ‘Right. My place is up there to the left – about half a mile. The farmhouse is down here.’ He gestured through the windscreen and cautiously she let in the clutch once more. The track began to descend sharply. They bounced again into the ruts as the wood grew more dense. Pine was interspersed with old stumpy oaks, hazel breaks strung with ivy and dried traveller’s joy and thickets of black impenetrable thorn.

  The farmhouse itself stood at the edge of the woods, facing east across the saltings. Behind it a thin strip of field and orchard allowed the fitful sunshine to brighten the landscape before another wood separated the farmhouse gardens from the sea. There was no sign of any cottage.

  She halted the car beside a black-boarded barn and sat for a moment staring out. The farmhouse was pink washed, a long, low building, covered in leafless creepers which in the summer were probably clematis and roses. Even in the depths of winter the place looked extraordinarily pretty.

  ‘What a lovely setting.’

  ‘Not too wild for you?’ Bill glanced beyond the farmhouse to the mudflats. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but mud and water and grey-green stretches of salting. A stray low shaft of sunlight shone from behind them throwing a sunpath over the mud towards the water. The rich colour lasted a moment and then it had gone.

  Bill opened the car door allowing biting, pure air into the warm fug. ‘Come on. It will start getting dark soon. I think we should get you settled in.’

  Kate surveyed her hosts as she shook hands with them. Roger and Diana Lindsey were both in their fifties, she guessed. Comfortable, quiet, welcoming. She found herself respondi
ng immediately to their warmth.

  ‘I thought you would like some tea here before you go up to the cottage,’ Diana said at once, ushering her towards the sofa. ‘Make yourself comfy – move those cats – and then I’ll give my son a call. He is going to take your stuff up there for you. It’s a long walk carrying luggage.’

  ‘And she’s got a heap of it,’ Bill put in. He was standing with his back to the fire, his palms held out behind him towards the smouldering logs. ‘Computers and stuff.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness.’ Diana frowned. ‘In which case you’ll certainly need help.’

  ‘Where is the cottage?’ Kate, while enjoying the soporific comfort of the tea and the warmth of the fire, was eager to see it. Over the last couple of days her excitement, though partly dampened by the thought of how much she was missing Jon – a thought she had deliberately tried to erase – had been intense.

  ‘It’s about half a mile from here. Through the wood. You’re right on the edge of the sea out there, my dear. I hope you’ve brought lots of warm clothes.’ Solicitously Diana refilled Kate’s cup, inserting herself between Kate and the staircase door where she had spotted a movement. The kids were spying. No doubt any moment now they would appear. She sighed. Kids indeed. She meant Alison and Greg. Patrick would no doubt be upstairs by now with his computers and would not reappear until called for supper. It was her elder son – a grown man, old enough to know better – and her daughter, who were, if she were any judge of character, going to cause trouble.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Roger. ‘Give Greg a call. I want him to help Miss Kennedy – ’

  ‘Kate, please.’

  ‘Kate.’ She flashed Kate a quick smile. ‘He could start loading her stuff into the Land Rover.’