Distant Voices Page 5

  The air was strong: a combination of salt and honeyed ripeness from the heavy hedgerows and the evening breeze off the cool of the sea. She sniffed loudly and allowed herself to grin happily at the scarlet and golden remnants of the shrouded sun as it sank into heavy bruised cloud on the inland hills.

  Then she turned her attention to the bungalow before them.

  ‘I can’t think why they were allowed to build such an ugly house,’ she commented tartly. She pulled her tweed jacket down neatly over well-padded hips. Her right eyebrow had risen an indignant half-way to her hairline.

  Cathie, knowing the signs, licked her lips quickly.

  ‘It does seem out of place,’ she ventured.

  Already Harriet had opened the gate and was making her way up the concrete path. Half-way to the door she stopped.

  ‘Look at this garden,’ she appealed, not so much to Cathie as to the limpid blue of the evening air. ‘Geometric! Could have been designed by a town clerk with a ruler.’

  Town clerks were for some reason one of Harriet’s pet hates. She blamed them for most of the twentieth century’s more uncomfortable problems.

  She waved her hands at the neat beds of salvia and the short-haired grass. ‘You know,’ she confided over her shoulder in an echoing stage whisper, ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised if they have flying ducks over the fireplace.’

  ‘Ssssh!’ Cathie glanced in agonised embarrassment at the heavy lace curtains, and then permitted herself the luxury of wondering quickly why they bothered with net curtains with such a large front garden and such a deserted lane which was in any case firmly hidden behind the high hedge.

  Harriet rang the bell and smothered a giggle as the pretentious chime rang out in the silence. ‘I wonder if we could transfer to one of the cottages,’ she hissed, as somewhere in the distance a dog began to bark. Cathie smiled nervously. Someone was coming. She patted her fair hair into place.

  The lady of the house, Mrs Cosby, was large and red-cheeked and determinedly jolly. She beamed benevolently at her guests as she led them across the house to show them their rooms. ‘I’ve no one here now, but a gentleman come for the birds and yourselves,’ she explained cheerfully. ‘The season’s more or less over, you know, once the kiddies are back at school.’

  She threw open a door. Inside was a small room with a single bed, a blue straw-plaited chair and a dressing table.

  Harriet glanced at the window. The lace net curtain reached only half-way up the window here, a gesture showing that this was the side of the house with, some fifteen feet away, a thick holly hedge blanketing the view. She did a lightning toss-up in her mind. ‘You’d better have this one,’ she murmured to Cathie over her shoulder.

  Cathie nodded gratefully.

  Harriet’s own room was on the opposite side of the corridor. She breathed a sigh of relief as the door was flung open. Her gamble had paid off. The half span of intricate net showed a view over miles of mudflats, and at the end of the promontory, the castle reflected stilly in the low of the tide.

  She carefully regulated the broadness of her smile.

  ‘The gentleman is next door to you here,’ Mrs Cosby was saying. ‘And the you-know-what is opposite, there.’ She coyly indicated a door on which was a small enamelled label bearing the inscription, This is IT!

  Cathie saw her friend’s mouth twitching and prayed she would be able to suppress whatever remark was about to burst forth.

  ‘I’m afraid –’ Harriet began, and then continued to Cathie’s extreme relief, ‘that we’ve left our cases in the car. I hoped perhaps your husband … when you get to our age, it’s hard to carry things.’ She eyed Mrs Cosby closely. The woman was probably Cathie’s age – perhaps a year or two younger.

  ‘Oh, I’m a widow. I thought I told you in my letter.’ Mrs Cosby fell into the trap at once. ‘But never mind, I dare say I can carry them for you. If there’s anything too heavy I’m sure that Mr Danway will fetch them up later when he comes in.’

  ‘Mr Danway?’ Harriet had thrown her jacket on the bed – a gesture of possessiveness.

  ‘My other guest. A strange one, he is, but very quiet. No trouble at all. Now, my dears, tea is at six as a rule, but as you were late arriving I’ve put it back today. Just this once.’ Her expression was suddenly threatening. ‘It’ll be ready in about ten minutes, if that suits?’

  She did not wait to hear them agree.

  Harriet watched the door close. At once came the expected outburst. ‘This is IT indeed! Do you think she knows there’s such a word as lavatory?’ She sat on the bed and gave a gentle experimental bounce.

  ‘Hush dear. As a matter of fact it’s a bathroom. I looked.’ Cathie walked to the window and raised the net to look a little wistfully at the view.

  ‘Have you got a screwdriver?’

  Cathie jumped and looked round apprehensively. ‘What for?’

  ‘To unscrew the notice of course. No? I’m sure there’ll be one in the car. Come on. At least help me get that net curtain down.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Who is going to stop me?’ Harriet stood and gave orders as Cathie struggled to pull the hook of the curtain wire over the screw which held it. At last she managed it, panting. The wire dropped to hang down the side of the window, the net a heavy bridal train, trailing to the floor. ‘I hope Mrs Cosby’s not offended.’

  ‘Why should she be?’ Harriet sat down heavily at the dressing table and began to rub her face with the licked corner of her handkerchief. ‘Ought to be glad I’ve let some light in!’

  Five minutes later they were summoned by gong to the guests’ sitting room. Four tables stood regimented on the carpet, two by two. Only two were laid; one for one and one for two.

  Cautiously they sat down. Harriet peered into the teapot and sniffed. ‘I knew it. We should have brought our own tea. I wonder what she’s going to give us?’ She peered at the other table. ‘She’s made him wait to have it with us, old devil. I bet he’s usually in the pub by now.’

  Cathie had already helped herself from the loaded toast-rack. She was buttering enthusiastically as their hostess came in with a heavy tray. She was hungry and not even Harriet’s scornful remarks about her weight – Cathie was the lighter by a good ten pounds – were going to put her off her food this evening.

  ‘Is your other guest going to eat with us?’ Harriet asked pointedly as Mrs Cosby began to unload her tray onto their table.

  ‘Oh yes, I daresay,’ she answered comfortably. ‘I just heard him come in.’ They waited in silence till she’d gone back to her kitchen, then Cathie leaned over the table. ‘Do you think he’s a boyfriend?’ she simpered a little.

  Harriet’s eyebrows shot up. ‘That woman must be your age if she’s a day!’

  Cathie looked taken aback. ‘Well, even at my age, Hattie …’ She broke off as the door opened.

  A man came in. He was tall and sturdy, with rugged features and ruffled wiry hair – a man perhaps in his late forties. He stopped abruptly when he saw them, then he strode across to his own table in silence.

  ‘Good evening Mr Danway.’ Harriet’s voice rang across the room.

  He stiffened, then half turning he nodded in their direction. He chose a chair with its back to them, and sitting down leisurely moved his place setting round the table until it was in front of him.

  ‘Well!’ Harriet made no attempt to lower her voice.

  Cathie frowned at her, embarrassed equally by the behaviour of both. She was relieved when Mrs Cosby appeared with a new tray. Obviously familiar with Mr Danway’s taciturn nature their hostess made no attempt to talk to him as she put the plates on his table. It was to the ladies she turned at last.

  ‘Got everything, have we? Is there anything else I can fetch you, my dears?’

  A dog had bounded into the room after her and it ran to Cathie, its tail wriggling obsequiously. She patted it, flattered that it should have singled her out.

  ‘That’s Rudie,’ Mrs Cosby volunteered. ‘I
hope you don’t mind. Soppy case he is.’ She stood for a moment surveying him fondly.

  ‘I think,’ Harriet’s voice was frosty, ‘we’d rather he were kept out of the dining room. Wouldn’t we, dear?’ She shot a look at Cathie who guiltily snatched her hand away from the soft slobbering head which was lovingly pushing against her knee.

  Dog and landlady vanished and the meal continued in silence. From time to time Harriet threw dark, meaningful glances at the man’s back. She seemed preoccupied and Cathie, snatching at the opportunity, helped herself to more sausages from the serving dish. The room was quite silent save for the sound of knives and forks on china; the large clock on the mantelpiece had stopped at ten past eleven.

  When Mr Danway pushed back his chair and threw down the newspaper he had been reading, both ladies jumped nervously. Cathie focused all her attention on the bowl of sugar from which she had been about to help herself.

  He stopped beside their table for a moment, looking down at them in silence, then abruptly he strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Cathie found that her knees were shaking a little. ‘What a peculiar man,’ she commented and reached for her teacup.

  ‘Did you see his eyes?’ Harriet’s voice was almost awed. ‘The were yellow, like topaz. Weird.’

  ‘Do you think he’s …’ Cathie hesitated a moment, hardly daring to voice her question,’ … well, normal?’

  ‘He certainly didn’t look it to me. Remember to lock your door tonight, dear. I certainly shall.’ The shudder which shook Harriet’s sturdy frame was not entirely faked.

  Cathie laid down her knife and fork. Her appetite had vanished of its own accord. Regretfully she eyed the sausage left on her plate and comforted herself with the thought that probably the dog would get it.

  The two ladies made their way back to Harriet’s room. By unspoken consent it had become their headquarters and neither woman had felt like sitting in the two formal armchairs before the defunct clock – no flying ducks, Harriet had noted with something akin to disappointment.

  The door of the room next door was ajar.

  ‘I must go to the loo!’ Harriet announced loudly, intending to be heard well beyond the confines of her room. She advanced sideways across the hall, towards the bathroom door, her eyes glued to that of the opposite bedroom.

  Abruptly she stopped. Cathie saw her expression change to one of horror before, after the briefest hesitation, she groped for the handle of the door marked This is IT and dived out of sight.

  It was a nerve-racking five minutes. Cathie waited, not liking to close the bedroom door in case a rescue was needed, not liking to walk away from it, in case – well, in case. But supposing he came and saw her standing there? She trembled at the thought.

  Then came the welcome noise of a cistern flushing and Harriet emerged. She closed the bedroom door behind her and leaned against it, breathing heavily.

  ‘He’s got a gun.’

  ‘What?’ Cathie’s voice rose up in a squeak.

  ‘He’s got a gun. It’s lying on the bed. I saw it.’

  They looked at each other in silence for a moment. There was a strange suppressed excitement in Harriet’s eyes.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Cathie breathed the words tremulously and Harriet, probably for the first time in her life, shrugged, at a loss.

  ‘Do you think she knows? Do you think he’s got some kind of a hold over her?’ Harriet carefully left the door and went to sit on her bed. Her legs were trembling a little and she raised her chin defiantly to hide the fact from Cathie.

  Cathie’s eyes widened as she considered the possibility. ‘He had an unpleasant face; thoroughly unpleasant.’ It was as near as she ever got to being critical of someone’s appearance.

  ‘Capable of anything, I’d say.’ Harriet forgot herself so far as to lick her lips. ‘I wonder if he’s escaped from somewhere?’

  ‘We’d have seen it in the paper.’

  ‘Not necessarily. They might not have wanted to spread panic.’

  Somewhere close by there was the sound of a door slamming and both ladies jumped violently. Cathie ran to the window. The garden was dark and deserted. Beyond the low wind-flattened hedge at the end of it, the salt marsh and fields spread out towards the luminous sea. Dusk had closed in now and the wind was gathering strength. One or two leaves whipped from a stunted apple tree at the corner of the garden and flicked against the glass near her face and she flinched. She drew the curtains, making sure there was no crack between them, and returned to her seat on the bed.

  It was then that they heard the heavy footsteps outside in the corridor. There was a loud knock on the door.

  They clutched each other in fright. Harriet rose to her feet. With considerable dignity she went to the door.

  ‘Who is it?’ There was only the slightest quaver in her voice.

  ‘Danway.’

  She closed her eyes and swallowed. ‘What do you want, Mr Danway?’

  ‘I’ve brought your cases. You and the other lady. Leave them out here, shall I?’

  There was an instant surge of relief on Harriet’s face. ‘If you please, Mr Danway. That is kind of you.’

  They listened to the double crash of the heavy cases being dropped on the floor, the tramp of his footsteps and the bang of his door. Harriet cautiously opened hers a crack.

  She hauled in the two cases and then shut it again. ‘Now what?’

  ‘I need my case in my room, dear,’ Cathie commented. ‘Surely he didn’t think we were sharing?’

  ‘I doubt if it crossed his mind.’ Harriet was tart. ‘Go on. Take it and run over. I’ll cover you.’ She wasn’t too sure what the last phrase entailed, but it certainly seemed appropriate.

  ‘I can’t run. It’s heavy.’

  ‘Well, drag it then.’

  ‘Should we go to bed, do you think?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to sit up all night. Lock your door.’ Harriet was beginning to feel alarmingly tired. She had driven nearly two hundred miles that day and now, to find her room was next to that of a gunman – actual or potential – it would be surprising if she had not found the situation exhausting. She watched Cathie drag her case across the hall and disappear into her room, then with a sigh she closed her own door and locked it.

  The rest of the evening was uneventful. She managed to reach the bathroom safely, then she regained her bedroom where she climbed into bed with a book and her little transistor radio to listen to the news. The news, when it came, was disappointingly lax in reporting any escapes from any prisons anywhere and she turned it off, half relieved, half disappointed, and opened her book. Hercule Poirot was hot on the trail; she began to gnaw her thumbnail avidly, her pages turning more and more quickly as the book neared its climax.

  And then she heard it. In the silence of the room she could just make out the sound of a movement next door. She dropped her book on the counterpane and listened intently. Yes, there it was. A scraping and tapping. And then footsteps. A drawer being dragged open – quite distinct, that sound – and a low cough.

  She pulled the bedclothes up to her chin and listened as hard as she could. The wind was blowing more strongly now. She could hear the hedgerows rustle and squeak, and the tapping, somewhere, of a twig against the window.

  Suddenly she could not bear not to know what was happening. She slipped out of bed, turned off her side-light and tiptoed, shivering in the dark, to the window. She flung back the curtains and peered through. It was pitch black out there, save where the light from a neighbouring window, his window, streamed out across the pale grass.

  She waited, hoping to see his shadow, but there was no sign of movement, only the methodical noises from next door. Then the light went out and there was silence. She held her breath.

  Distantly she could hear the strange echoing, churring noise of a nightjar somewhere on the marshes. It was a very lonely sound above the endless sighing of the sea. She strained her ears again. There was no sound of bedspring
s from next door. Had he gone to bed, or was he still up waiting, and listening, just as she was? Leaving the curtains open she turned towards her own old-fashioned iron-frame and climbed wearily in. She was still very tense and she found herself longing to be able to go and fetch some hot milk. That alas was not possible in someone else’s house, even had she plucked up the courage to leave her room again.

  Eventually she dozed.

  The dog awoke her, barking furiously somewhere the other side of the house. She lay rigidly clutching the bedclothes, her heart pounding uncomfortably as she gazed up at the ceiling. Then, cautiously, she moved her eyes. A large round moon had risen. The pale colourless light flooded through the window illuminating her door and the far wall. Her eyes went without volition to the door-handle. Had it moved? Her hands flew to her mouth as she stared fascinated, hardly daring to breathe.

  Then she heard it again. A stealthy movement from next door. He was stirring. She raised herself cautiously on her elbow and groped for her little clock. Half past three. Footsteps trod softly across the floor in the next room and she heard a creak and then a low clatter. He was up. He was walking about.

  She put the clock down and lay back on her pillow, tensely listening to every sound. A bar of cloud drifted over the face of the moon and for a moment her eyes closed.

  He had picked up the gun and was standing carefully behind his door listening. The dog was silent now and nothing in the house seemed to be awake. He checked that the gun was loaded and then, shouldering his haversack, he opened the door softly and listened again.

  The old woman was standing in the hall in a patch of moonlight, waiting for him. It was the blonde, nervous one; the younger of the two. She stood there in her pink flannel nightdress, her hands stretched out as if to bar his way.

  Harriet had opened her door a fraction. She put her eye to the crack and with a gasp saw Cathie standing there blandly smiling in her nightdress, her bare feet white in the moonlight. What was she doing? Why didn’t she move? Was the silly woman sleepwalking?