‘And went to wait in George Ferris’s car?’
‘Oh, you are clever,’ said Marla mockingly. ‘Well done.’
‘Just a minute, though. The rain. I’ve never seen it raining like it was that night. And when I saw you earlier, you didn’t have a raincoat. You never went out of Graham’s cottage and risked your precious hair in weather like that.’
‘I did too. I borrowed a coat. There was a great bunch of them hanging up in the hallway.’
‘Was it a blue coat with a hood and some logo on the front?’
‘Sure. Why, it wasn’t yours, was it? You’re not accusing me of stealing your damn coat?’
Carole Seddon shook her head, hardly hearing Marla’s question. Her mind was too full of the new possibilities that had just been opened up. Everything suddenly slotted into place.
Two tall female figures in identical hooded waterproofs. Carole and Jude had been wrong all along. They shouldn’t have been trying to work out who killed Sheila Cartwright. The murderer’s intended victim had been Marla Teischbaum.
This thought only just had time to register, when the women’s attention was attracted by a creaking noise from above.
Both looked up in horror. Carole leapt forward, as if she could do something to change their fate.
But she couldn’t. Colour drained from both their faces, as they saw the seesaw floorboards slowly arc back into place.
They were trapped.
Chapter Forty
It was late afternoon before Jude was told that Laurence had recovered consciousness. He was deathly pale and wired up to various machines like an undernourished early experiment of Dr Frankenstein.
‘Jude, my dear,’ he croaked incorrigibly. ‘I suppose a cigarette’s out of the question . . .?’
The nursing staff said he was stable, and Jude could detect an undercurrent of annoyance that they should have to deal with someone whose illness was so patently self-inflicted. They said Mr Hawker’s condition was unlikely to change much overnight. She could stay if she wanted to, but it’d probably make more sense if she went home.
As she left the hospital, she tried Carole on the mobile. Answering machine. Back at Woodside Cottage, she went round next door. But there was no reply.
Jude felt restless. The hospital had her mobile number; they’d call if there was any change in Laurence’s condition. She had a nasty feeling that if they did call, it would not be with news of a change for the better.
She looked around her cluttered sitting room, amazed at how much Laurence Hawker had imposed his identity during the short time he had been with her. He was a man of few possessions, and yet he left a trail wherever he went of open newspapers, literary journals, books, and cigarette ends. Every fabric in the house was impregnated with the tang of his tobacco.
And she knew, in a way, that it hadn’t worked, the idea of their cohabiting for the last stage of his life. The cohabitation wasn’t the problem, it was the illusion that they could achieve it while maintaining the same bantering affectionate disengagement with which they entered the agreement. She wasn’t sure whether Laurence felt the same, but Jude had realized that she couldn’t live with someone and not love them. However light and semi-detached they kept their relationship, the latest haemorrhage had brought home to her how much she loved Laurence. It wasn’t the kind of love that would worry about him being with other women; but it was a love that would miss him terribly when, inevitably, he was no longer there.
With an effort, Jude stopped her emotions from going too far down that road. She decided that, if Carole didn’t come back, she’d treat herself to supper down at the Crown and Anchor. Ted Crisp was a restful companion, surprisingly sensitive when things were going badly. And that evening Jude didn’t want to be alone.
They still had light, but that was all they had. They certainly didn’t have hope.
‘God, I was so stupid!’ Carole fumed. ‘To give away my car keys. Everyone’ll think I drove myself away. Then, when they find the car abandoned miles from anywhere, that’s where they’ll start looking for me. Not here.’
‘But surely lots of people know about this Priest’s Hole?’ Tension made Marla’s voice sound even more nasal and whiny. God, thought Carole, if I am going to die here, I’d have chosen another companion to die with.
The thought of never getting out of her prison brought to her the image of Gulliver. Poor, stupid, big, endearing dog, standing by the Aga, waiting for the mistress who was never going to come home. The thought physically hurt her.
‘Lots of people must know about it,’ Marla Teischbaum whinged on.
‘Lots of people know about the Priest’s Hole. Very few, so far as I can gather, know about this hidden bit beneath it.’
‘But people will be in and out of the house. They’ll hear us if we holler.’
‘I’m not so sure they will. The walls of this place are pretty thick. Anyway, Bracketts is closed for the winter. Cleaners do their stuff about once a week, I think. Apart from that, nobody comes in here.’
‘Except for the people who locked us in?’
‘And who do you think they are?’
‘Well, I don’t know. I’d kind of assumed it was Graham. He’s never made much secret of the fact that he despises me. And now his aunt’s given me access to the archive, he might want to get some kind of revenge. He’s a funny guy.’
‘Yes. Or it could be the aunt herself. Maybe her agreeing to opening the archive for you was just a ploy to get you down here, so that she could lock you in.’
‘Why would she do that?’ Marla Teischbaum had that unawareness shared by many insufferable people of just how insufferable she was.
‘Or it could be both of them together. Then there’s Gina,’ Carole continued thoughtfully. ‘She certainly facilitated my visit here today, and you say she set everything up for you . . .’
‘Couldn’t have been more helpful.’
Carole tapped her teeth. ‘And it was Gina who asked for my car to be moved, which was why I handed over my keys . . .’
Marla wasn’t listening; she was riffling through her mind for some shreds of hope. ‘Maybe this is just someone’s idea of a joke. Your famous English sense of humour. Someone gives us a fright for an hour or so, and then . . .’
‘Maybe,’ said Carole grimly.
But Marla didn’t even believe her own fantasy. Slowly, pathetically, she started to cry.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Carole snapped. ‘That’s not helping anything.’
‘It’s helping me,’ the great Professor wailed like a two-year-old.
‘You should be ecstatic.’ Carole gestured ironically to the shelves of dusty boxes. ‘You’ve spent so much of your adult life wanting access to Esmond Chadleigh’s private archive, and look – you’re in it!’
‘Yes, I want to be in it,’ Marla Teischbaum howled, ‘but I don’t want to die in it!’
‘I don’t suppose,’ asked Carole coolly, ‘that you by any chance have a mobile phone . . .?’
The tears vanished instantly. The confidence and the smile returned to Marla Teischbaum as she reached down to her bag and crowed, ‘I do too!’
‘Your bloke gone back then, has he?’ asked Ted Crisp.
‘He’s in hospital.’
‘Ah. Didn’t think he looked too clever last time he come in.’