Hide My Eyes (24 page)

Chapter 19

PREPARATION FOR AN ACCIDENT

IN THE UPSTAIRS
sitting-room of the house in Garden Green, whose gay colours seemed cold and unnaturally bright in the hard light, there was a period of complete silence after the front door bell had ceased to ring. Polly, who was just inside the door, stood frozen, her chin up and her eyes fixed on the man on the rug.

Annabelle was still holding the tray and the flowered beakers upon it, the light burrowing into the depths of her hair, making the pale brown gold.

Gerry was listening. All the suppressed fire of the morning had gone out of him. His skin was grey and smudged and the hollows round his eyes and beside his temples were black-shadowed.

“Who’s that, Polly?”

He spoke very quietly and the girl, aware that something was amiss but completely underestimating it, set down the tray with a rattle.

“I’ll go.”

“No.” The others spoke together and the man kept his eyes on the old woman.

“Who is it? Have you any idea at all?”

The bell rang again, less aggressively this time, a single long-drawn buzz, and Polly’s face cleared.

“Oh, it’s Miss Rich,” she said. “That’s about it, Miss Rich, my old neighbour from down the road. She’s come for her magazine. She must have seen my light in the office just now.”

“Would she come as late as this?” His question was enquiry, not argument, and unconsciously her voice grew soothing as she reassured him.

“Later, I’m afraid, if she saw I was up. Old people are owls, you know. I get this paper on Wednesdays, you see,
and
by Thursday she expects me to have read it.” Her relief was completely convincing and the other old woman became as real to them as if they could see her standing on the doorstep huddling a coat about her.

Polly was looking for the magazine and found it where she expected, under the sofa cushions. It was a thin but gay little folder with a dog and a baby on the cover, and she took it up and went back across the room with it.

“I remembered it this afternoon when I saw she’d left me a bit of watercress on the kitchen sill,” she said, “but it slipped my mind again. Poor girl, she can’t sleep.”

“Don’t let her in.” He made it a warning and her eyes turned towards him again.

“No, of course not. I’ll say I’m tired. If I shut this door and you keep quiet she won’t know anyone’s here. It’s only if she thinks I have visitors and I’m going to be up anyhow that she insists on coming in for a chat. I’ll just slip this out to her and come straight back.”

She went out and as the door closed behind her, the patent draught-excluder upon it slid into its copper rim and shut the room away, secret and silent at the back of the house.

Polly moved quickly. She was very frightened and the single flight of stairs leading down to the front hall made her breathless, so that her voice sounded unsteady and alarmed as she tugged back the bolts.

“Don’t ring again, Ellie. I’ve got it here, dear.”

She swung the door open at last. “I was just off to bed … Who is it?”

The final phrase was whispered as she caught sight of Richard’s neat round head silhouetted against the street-lit arch of the porch.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but could I possibly see Annabelle?” The demand came out in a shamefaced murmur. He had made the journey in the spirit of mingled anxiety and knight-errantry, but now, at the moment of arrival, he felt suddenly silly and embarrassed.

“Who are you?” She was still whispering and he noticed her glance nervously behind her.

“My name is Waterfield. I …”

“I remember.” She opened the door a little wider to let the light from the hallway fall upon his hair, so that she might see its colour.

He blushed at the recognition and started again.

“I’ve known Annabelle all her life. I wouldn’t have come round so late if the telephone hadn’t suddenly got disconnected. I rang until …”

“Hush.” Polly came out into the porch, pulling the door nearly close behind her. “I’ve got no time,” she said earnestly. “I don’t want to explain but I can’t let you in.”

“I do want to see her,” he said quickly.

“Yes.” She was agreeing with him. “Yes, I was thinking. Could you put Annabelle on a train for me?”

“Tonight?”

“As soon as possible. I want her to be at home by the morning. If I get her out could you do the rest?”

“Of course.” She was aware of him staring at her suspiciously, but her hand was trembling on the latch and her ears were strained to catch the least sound from the sitting-room. “The moment I can get her to go up to bed I’ll send her down by the fire escape.”

As a statement it was idiotic, but he caught the note of urgency.

“Where is that?” He was whispering too.

“Just here.” She indicated the side of the house opposite to the museum. “You’ll have to climb over or go right round to the other street. Wait at the foot of the stairs and I’ll send her down the instant I can. I’m very grateful to you. God knows what I’d have done without you. I daren’t wait now, dear. Hurry. Goodnight.”

The door was closing behind her when she thrust it open again.

“You won’t make a noise, will you? That’s vital.” She paused and he understood that she was struggling with a confidence. Suddenly out it came. “Tell them that whatever they do they’re not to rush the house.”

This time the door shut firmly behind her.

Richard came out of the porch thoroughly alarmed. Whatever he had expected of Annabelle’s aunt it was not this.
Obviously
something was terribly wrong in the house and his suspicion that Gerry might have gone there had deepened into a certainty. However, his only real concern was Annabelle’s safety and it was with relief that he had recognised a fellow feeling in Polly. He turned to the right across the front garden.

The rain was threatening again rather than coming down in earnest and a gusty, fidgety wind had sprung up, plucking the last of the leaves from the plane trees and ruffling the shrubs in front of the house. The street was deserted and the houses opposite dark.

He found the fire escape at once. It was a spiderweb of iron, festooning the blank side of the building nearest its left-hand neighbour. He could not reach it immediately because the entrance, which had evidently been there before the museum lot had been added to the property, was now bricked up, leaving him with a wall to circumnavigate. It was nine or ten feet high, hung with the evergreen variety of honeysuckle, slightly wet and abominably dirty, so he went out into the street and down to the museum door. As he feared, it was bolted and he had to come back to the wall.

As he swarmed up the creeper it occurred to him that the return journey with Annabelle was not going to be easy, but he decided to meet that difficulty when he came to it, and presently swung his legs over into the narrow cul-de-sac to drop quietly to the gravel below.

Meanwhile Polly had her foot on the staircase before she recollected the magazine still in her hand. She hurried into the office with it, thrust it out of sight in a drawer in the desk, and was back in the hall just in time.

The door at the top of the stairs had opened abruptly and the angle of light appearing, gibbet shaped and vivid in the gloom, made her jump.

“Is that you, Aunt Polly?” Her silhouetted form, looking stiff in Jenny’s tailored coat, Annabelle appeared looking down at her. She was clutching her beaker of milk and hesitated uncertainly. “I thought I’d go to bed, if you don’t mind. I’m rather tired.”

She was frightened. Polly was as aware of it as if the child
had
stood there screaming her head off, and she came toiling up the stairs to her.

“A very good idea,” she said as she arrived panting. “Wait a minute. Here’s the note for your sister in case I forget it in the morning. Take great care of it and give it to her with my love.” She noticed with relieved astonishment that her voice was quite normal. It sounded friendly and assured, and the breathlessness of course was due to the exertion. “I’ll just see you up to your room.”

“Oh no, please don’t.” The objection was frankly vigorous. “I know where it is. You showed me this afternoon.”

“But I’d like to.”

“Oh, cut it out, Polly.” Gerry was exasperated. He was out of sight in the bright room, behind the angle of the door, but yet very close to them, only a few feet away. “Come and get me a drink and let the kid go to bed if she wants to.”

“I’m coming, dear. I just want to scribble down an address on this note while I think of it. I shan’t be a minute.” As she was speaking she had taken the envelope for Jenny out of her coat pocket and now produced a stub of pencil from the handbag on her arm. She turned to the ledge which ran across the shallow recess at the foot of the second flight of stairs and began to write on it, while the girl lingered unwillingly beside her.

‘Go out by fire escape. Landing window. Richard is down there. Keep quiet.’

“There,” she said briskly, “can you read my writing?”

“Polly, for God’s sake.” There was an impatient movement in the room and the woman thrust the letter into the girl’s hand and moved, so that she was between her and the door. He did not come out, however, and Annabelle glanced at the message. Polly saw the expression change on her round face and caught her quick upward glance and nod of relieved comprehension; then she turned and went up the staircase like an arrow. Just before she disappeared into the greyness she remembered and looked back.

It was the last Polly saw of her, the pathetically grateful smile and nervous little wave of affection and goodbye.

“Goodnight,” she called after her. “God bless.” She
turned
away and went into the sitting-room. “What was that about?” she demanded.

He wasted no time by pretending not to understand her.

“Stiff-necked little beast,” he said. “I asked her what the hell she was doing here and she took offence. She says she’s one of Freddy’s brother’s family, is that right?”

“Yes. Do you mind?” She was taking off her coat and he came over automatically and received it from her and threw it over a chair in the corner.

“No,” he said mildly. “She took me by surprise, that was all.”

The old woman’s eyes followed her wrap. His own trench coat lay beneath it but there was no sign of his jacket and at the moment, so far as she could see, there was no place on him where a gun could hide.

“It was you I came to see,” he went on. “You’re very late. You went to The Grotto, she told me. How’s the family?”

“Oh, all right, dear. Very well. Just as they always are.”

They were neither of them aware of what was being said. Each was absorbed by tremendous and separate preoccupations.

Polly was listening for any betraying sound from upstairs and in that she was the more fortunate. Gerry had not the advantage of an interest outside himself. There was, so far as he knew, nothing between him and the project he had in mind. No danger. No need to hurry. The whole night was before him. The shadow on his face had deepened. He looked dirty with strain.

“I’ll get us both a drink,” he said suddenly and made a movement.

“No.” Polly stepped between him and the door. “I’m going to have my milk. If you want anything I’ll get it in a minute. How did you get into the house? I never gave you a key.”

The sudden belligerence was unlike her and it astonished him. He took a step backwards and stood looking at her gravely.

“I’ve had one a long time,” he said. “I thought you knew.”

Polly went over to her chair and sat down heavily. “When you had that set cut for me last year you bought another, I suppose?”

“I bought a second front door key, yes. I thought it might be useful some time. And it was. I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour.” He paused. “Wandering about the house, you know.”

She nodded. It was a strange resigned gesture, which again was something he had not envisaged. She was leaning back against the chintz shell as high as her head and he saw her face as if he had never seen it before. It was such a harmless kindly old face. Not at all clever, but mild and peacefully beautiful in repose. He looked away hastily and there was silence between them until he forced his smile back and his eyes looked like a sorry ape’s again. He was strangely loth to hurry and he began to coax her as he had done so often before.

“Sorry, old lady, it never occurred to me that you would mind. You don’t really, do you? It was a damned silly thing to do but I knew you and Freddy so well that I suppose I thought I had some sort of right.”

“Yes,” she said, still in the same flat resigned way which was making him uneasy, “we’ve been very close, we three. We loved you like a son, Gerry, and you loved us.” She folded her hands with a gesture of finality. “And we still do,” she said, “and nothing can be done about that. Well, now then, run along and fetch yourself what you want from the dining-room. Nothing for me. I shall drink that milk.”

The man stood eyeing her. She had frightened him for a moment, but she seemed relaxed and unsuspicious and even, when she glanced at the little china clock among the figures on the chimney-piece, relieved, as if some anxiety had been resolved.

He pushed the unformed question behind him and gave his attention to practical problems. The nightcap waiting already brewed was not in his programme.

“Very well,” he said soothingly, “just as you like. I’ll take this stuff down and bring you some fresh. It’s gone cold and disgusting.”

“Oh no!” She was horrified. “Don’t you go and take my last pint. It’s all I’ve got for the kid’s breakfast in the morning.”

“Then I’ll re-heat this,” he insisted firmly. “Stay where you are and don’t be so ruddy obstinate.”

He went off with the tray, leaving the door swinging. Polly waited until she heard the familiar creak of the dining-room step and then rose quietly to her feet and crept across the room to the chair where the coats lay. Her hands were clumsy in her nervousness as she fumbled with the pockets, and when at last she found and drew out the heavy gun it hung awkwardly from fingers which trembled. The problem of where to hide it seemed to overwhelm her. It was so much bigger than she had expected and infinitely more terrible to look at. She realised that it was most horribly unsafe and every line in her body conveyed her fear and distaste. With deep relief her glance fell on the big Meissen tureen, a mass of gilt and little coloured views, which stood in the china cabinet beside the window. Her own mother had always hidden things there and she remembered it from her childhood secreting a long line of treasures.