Home Before Dark (35 page)

He walked slowly down the central hallway, noting that the
layout was identical to the interior of the virtual mansion.
On either side of him, the rooms he could see into were
empty apart from a few pieces of shrouded furniture. At the
foot of the staircase, he stopped and looked up at the landing
with the four doors.
He climbed a couple of steps, wavered, then decided first
to check out the broom closet under the stairs where the boy
hid that night.
A glory hole now, it contained nothing of any interest. But
it gave Campbell the answer to a question that had puzzled
him. The squeak of hinges when he opened and closed the
closet door suddenly brought Ernie’s dilemma alive. Maybe
the boy couldn’t go back in his old hiding-place because he
knew he’d be heard.
Campbell stood for a moment, as Ernie had done, keeping
his eyes on the landing above – nervously watching the lintel
over the door to the master bedroom. In case the crack should
suddenly widen. Then, retracing Ernie’s footsteps, he crossed
the hall and entered what used to be the TV room, or the
parlour, as Grace had called it.
It felt strange to walk on the blue-green carpet with the
swirling pattern of waves breaking that he’d seen from the
little windows of the Cape Cod playhouse. In the gloom, he
could make out the two bulky armchairs covered in dust
sheets still facing the corner where, he supposed, the console
TV had once stood.
There was no sign of a playhouse either.
The dank cheerless room had a fusty, shut-in smell. He
went over to the window embrasure opposite the door and
pulled open the shutters to let in more light. When he turned
around, he noticed the only other piece of furniture. Against
the inner wall, under a long panelled mirror with glazing bars
that made it look like a second window, stood an upright
piano. Drawn towards the instrument by a powerful, almost
morbid curiosity, Campbell lifted the lid.
The piano reeked of mildew and, judging from its warped
keys speckled with orange mould, hadn’t been played in years;
a few of the white notes had lost their ivory and looked like
missing teeth. The empty music stand made him think of
June Seaton endlessly practising the nerve-racking 'Fur Elise’,
never to improve.
He imagined little Ernie standing beside his beautiful
mother . . . and lowered the lid again, careful not to make a
sound. Then, glancing up at the mirror over the piano, the
detective saw something in its darkly foxed panes that made
him swing around, heart pounding. It wasn’t some ghost from
the past, or a trick of the low light. In the armchair nearest
the window, under the folds of the dust sheet, he could discern
the outline of a human form.
He waited for a moment to be sure the person slouched
in the chair wasn’t moving; then, approaching warily, he
pulled back the cloth.
Campbell recoiled and at the same moment, somewhere
around the back of the house, he heard a screen door bang
shut.

For a long time I stood under a cold shower, letting the icy
needles hammer down on my bowed head until I was numb
all over. When I finally stepped out of the cubicle, I no longer
felt allergic to daylight, but the pounding inside my skull
hadn’t stopped. I went over to the bathroom mirror, cleared
the condensation and, razor in hand, confronted my bedraggled
reflection.
Last night, I’d gone down to the hotel bar for a couple of
drinks and ended up drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Jack
Daniels Green Label at some dive on Second Avenue. The
result was a storm-force hangover, aggravated by the imagined
sound of Will’s laughter as he welcomed me back to the real
world
Well, what did you expect? You didn’t seriously believe that
she’d turn out to be the genuine article, did you? You made
her up, Lister, she was just a fantasy, an invented character,
an exotic figment of your imagination – the person you fell
in love with never even existed. Hate to rub it in, Ed, but
didn’t I tell you?
There was Will Calloway peering over the top of his glasses
and letting fly with the caustic comments. I’d been duped,
taken for a ride, made to look a complete prat. No fool like
an old fool… and on and on. Just count yourself lucky there
was no scam involved and that Island Girl finally did you
the favour of pricking your bubble. I closed my eyes. How
could I have been so stupid?
I thought back to the moment, last night, when I learned
the truth about Jelena. I still couldn’t quite accept it. I tried
to convince myself that she was lying, or in denial – afraid
to meet me because she couldn’t admit that she felt the same
way as I did – or just playing hard to get, saying no when
she meant yes.
In the mirror, while I shaved, one by one my arguments

fell apart.
The only positive outcome I could see was that, since the
girl only existed in my dreams, it seemed reasonable to assume
she was no longer in any danger.

The way she was sitting, it looked as if Grace Wilkes had
been there all night.
She had on the same clothes she’d been wearing when they
met at Annie’s Grill yesterday afternoon. The avocado velour
sweats, the white hospital sneakers with the pom-pom laces – Campbell wondered what had happened to her crutches.
She couldn’t walk without them.
Ernie would have helped her, would have offered her his

arm.
There was no sign of fear or other emotion in her grey
bloated face. He must have struck without warning, hit her
from behind with the foot-long lead sash-weight which lay
now in her meagre lap, its business end encrusted with dried
blood, strands of hair stuck to its surface. She wouldn’t have
known what was coming, he thought, wouldn’t have had any
reason to suspect the child she’d nurtured and loved was
capable of harming her. Her skull had been split open and
the matted wound, showing bone under the scalp, had bled
into the headrest of the chair, leaving a dark stain the shape
and size of an antimacassar.
Campbell had to fight back waves of nausea. He’d never
been close to a dead person before. Grace looked smaller
than he remembered, as if she’d shrunk. His revulsion was
mixed with pity and fear. He felt ashamed of his failure to
see this coming, convinced it was his talking to Grace – the
only person perhaps who knew what really happened here
that night — that got her killed.
After checking the backyard from the window, unable to
see anything moving out there, his first thought had been
to call the police. But then reflecting on how they might
view this situation, he’d felt a cold flush of panic run through
him. He understood now what Ernest Seaton’s intention
had been in using the website to lure him back to his old
home.
He’d been set up. The cops were most likely already on
their way.
Campbell started backing slowly from the room, uncertain
whether he was alone in the house, or whether Ward was still
nearby – he just knew he had to get out fast.
It was something about the way Grace was bent forward
in the chair, the position of the old housekeeper’s hands, that
made him hesitate. In one hand, she was clutching her lighter
and a pack of Newport Lites. The other, empty, was turned
palm-up with the rigid thumb and forefinger raised in a
supplicant gesture. It suggested that at the point of death
she’d been asking for something, begging perhaps. Her last
request, it looked like, to smoke a cigarette.
Every instinct was telling him to leave – leave now – but
a natural stubbornness made Campbell resist the sensible
course of action. What if he was wrong about Grace not
knowing she was about to die? What if her killer had
confronted her?
He came back and stood directly facing the chair, closer

than before.
He’d no idea what he was looking for until he moved his
head a fraction and something caught the light. He looked
again and saw that the glint had come from a pink, metallic
object stuck down the side of the chair. Crouching before
her splayed arthritic knees, trying to avoid touching any part
of her, he slid his hand between the upholstered arm and the
chair cushion and, feeling around, retrieved a cellular phone
identical to the one she’d had with her at the coffee shop.
The sweet whiff of old lady perfume, masking – or so he
imagined – incipient corruption, invaded his nostrils.
Gagging, Campbell rose to his feet, slipped the girl-pink
cell in his pocket and retreated towards the door of the lounge.
He remembered Grace’s story of coming to work that Sunday
morning twenty-seven summers ago and the unfamiliar smell
through the silent house sending her back out onto the porch,
hollering Earl.
She didn’t deserve this.
Her eyes seemed to follow him, then he turned and ran.

I called room service and asked them to send up a jug of
espresso.
In an attempt to get my equilibrium back and regain a
little self-respect, keeping my promise to Laura, I’d arranged
to go out to Gilmans Landing and have lunch with their
grandmother, Alice Fielding. The car was picking me up in
half an hour. I needed to clear my head.
Waiting for the coffee, I booted up my laptop and checked
my mail. No word from 'Jelly’. I’d half-expected an apology
or some kind of explanation. I still felt angry and troubled
by what had happened. But mostly I just wanted to put the
whole humiliating business behind me and concentrate now
on what really mattered. Campbell Armour’s investigation
had reached a critical stage.
Before leaving for the airport, he’d sent me an e-mail
confirming our meeting later that afternoon. In a brief update,
he mentioned having no luck finding a photo of Ernest Seaton – apparently Grace Wilkes was unable to help – but he had
managed to dig up a couple of better-quality snaps of the
boy’s parents at the Norfolk public library, which he wanted
me to take a look at.
I opened the attachments. The photo of the father, posing
in his dentist’s whites with a 70s-style mop of hair and a
wispy Zapata moustache, reminded me a little of the actor
Bruce Dern when younger. Gary Seaton had that weak,
querulous, slightly aggressive stance of the born loser. I’d
never seen him before.
The other image, for some reason, took longer to download.
The doorbell rang. The maid entered, carefully placed a
tray on the table under the window, then turned to me and
said, 'Is there anything else I can get you?’
I didn’t answer, or even look up. 'Enjoy your day, Mr
Lister.’
I was riveted by the likeness that had finally appeared on
my laptop.
The portrait of June Seaton, the dentist’s wife – blonde
China-cut hair and dark eyebrows, very pale, almost translucent
skin, black captivating eyes – brought her back to
life. I got a flash of full nervously kinetic lips breaking over
slightly imperfect teeth and at once recalled their dangerous
allure.
The photograph no longer left any room for doubt. June
Seaton didn’t just look like someone I thought I once knew
… it was her. Our paths had crossed only briefly in what
seemed now like another life. But it had been long enough
to make me wish they hadn’t. A bohemian rich girl, she was
as neurotic and unpredictable as that twitchy little smile promised.
I felt suddenly afraid that everything was going to unravel
now and in ways I couldn’t foresee.
The last time I saw June Seaton she was lying unconscious
in an empty cargo container down on the West Side waterfront.

Without touching the brakes, Campbell swung the silver
Camry out into Deer Flats Road and accelerated downhill
until the needle was nudging sixty, sixty-five. As the first
curve came up, he cut his speed and, glancing in his
rearview, caught a glimpse of a mid-brown police cruiser
a quarter-mile behind. Emerging from a shady hollow, it
appeared to hesitate before turning its nose into the
Skylands driveway.
Campbell felt sweat break out over his forehead. If the
patrol car hadn’t been coming from the other direction, the
Colebrook side, he’d have run straight into the sheriff’s
deputies. He’d got away just in time. Keeping an eye on his
rearview – he couldn’t be sure yet he hadn’t been spotted he
drove on until he reached the junction with Route 44, the
Winsted-Norfolk road, then turned sharp left.
Nine minutes later, neck and shoulders still rigid with
tension, he came back off the highway onto the two-lane
blacktop that would take him all the way out to Bradley
Airport. He had a little over an hour to get there before they
closed the gate for his flight. If he wasn’t stopped first.
Campbell felt certain that Ward had tipped off the police,
which meant that by now there’d be an
APB
or even a full
warrant out for his arrest. Every mobile unit in Litchfield
County would be looking for him. Up here in the boondocks
he was going to be hard to miss. He thought about surrendering
and simply telling the cops the truth. He was an
amateur cyber-sleuth from Tampa, Florida investigating a
string of killings … forget it, there was no way they’d believe
him. Just throw his oriental ass in jail and that would be the
end of any chance of finding Ward and claiming the million
dollar bonus his client had promised him.
He had until tomorrow to deliver the man who murdered
Sophie Lister, or his own life wouldn’t be worth living. He
was due to meet Cholly at the Regency Hyatt in downtown
Tampa at five o’clock, bringing the money – principal and
interest.
The blacktop began to climb into rolling, thickly wooded
hills. Campbell kept on checking his rearview and side mirrors,
but couldn’t tell whether he was being followed. The trees
grew so close to the roadside that their branches met overhead,
forming an unending twisting green tunnel that rarely let him
see more than a few car-lengths back. Then the traffic thinned
out and he started to breathe more easily as the empty road,
after cresting a series of piny ridges, fell in gradual serpentine
sweeps towards the Farmington River.
Coming down into the river gorge, he drove across a rusty
iron-girder bridge and pulled into a viewpoint parking area
used by local fishermen. He waited until he was satisfied that
he didn’t have a tail, then cut the engine. From the car he
could see the anglers in their buff waders spaced out at regular
intervals along the banks.
His hands shook a little, post-adrenal rush, as he took
Grace’s pink cell from his pocket, flipped it open and quickly
ran through the phone’s memory and address book. There
were pathetically few numbers.
Campbell thought about the moment when she must have
realised that Ernie was going to kill her. It would have been
almost a reflex action, but he was convinced she had shoved
her cell phone down the side of the chair on purpose, in the
hope someone would find it and retrieve whatever information
was stored there.
With any luck one of the numbers would be Ernest Seaton’s.
She had wanted to tell him something when they met at
the coffee shop in Torrington, only fear or loyalty had
prevented her. Her Little Ernie clearly didn’t believe in taking
any chances. Campbell wondered again what Grace had
meant by her parting words, 'He doesn’t know.’
He frowned at the readout on the screen. It seemed almost
too simple. There was a number – the last but one she had
called – which looked out of place only because it wasn’t
local. Area code 201 fell within the state of New Jersey. He
hit the redial button and, after what seemed an age, a female
Hispanic voice answered,
'Fielding residence. This is Jesusita speakin’, how may I
help you?’
Campbell hesitated. The name Fielding sounded familiar
to him, but that couldn’t be right, surely? He remembered
Ed mentioning that his wife’s grandmother, Mrs Alice Fielding,
lived in New Jersey, somewhere on the Hudson.
He tried the longshot first. 'Is Ed Lister there?’
'Meesta Leesta.7 Not yet, but we expectin’ him.’
'Okay,’ he said, letting the implications sink in, thinking
this isn’t possible, there has to be some mistake. But the proof
was in his hand.
'You wanna leave a message?’
He thought of telling her he’d arranged to meet his client
at the house, and asking her for directions, but then changed
his mind. He’d get the address later from one of the Web
directories, using Reverse Lookup.
'Thanks, I’ll try his cell,’ he said, and ended the call.
A shout went up from the river below. One of the anglers,
a fat lug in desert camouflage, beer-gut hanging over his
waders, had hooked a fish. There was a flash of silver as the
salmon leapt clear of the water, shaking its head to spit out
the lure before it splashed back into the jade-green torrent, its
dorsal fin briefly visible at the surface as it raced off upstream.
The unlucky angler, reeling in his empty line, yelled something
Campbell didn’t catch and laughter rippled along the bank.
They’d be waiting for him at the airport, he thought. His
best chance was to double back to Winsted, abandon his car
and find other transport.
There was a tap at the window. Startled, he spun around
in his seat.
A bandy-legged kid in a nylon T-shirt and blue-jeans was
standing there with a cheap suitcase, smiling shyly at him
through the glass. Letting out his breath in stages, the detective
lowered the window. The kid asked him in a rough Hunanese
dialect he barely understood if he was going to New York.
'Hey, man,’ Campbell answered irritably in English, 'You
can get yourself killed in this country creeping up on people
like that. Can’t you see I’m busy?’
The boy bowed apologetically, turned and moved away.
Where had he come from? They were in the middle of
the goddamned wilderness. What was he doing here in
Connecticut, in the USA? He looked too poor and too
dumb to be a tourist. Campbell was aware that the prejudice
he’d inherited from his parents against the mainland
Chinese was at least a generation out of date. Kira would
have been appalled.
'Wait a minute,’ he called after him.
'I don’t speak American,’ the kid said, holding out a Bonanza
Bus Line rover pass. 'I’m a stranger here. You can help me.’
'Maybe,’ Campbell said in his rusty Cantonese, as it
occurred to him that this peasant with the bowl-cut hair and
teeth like leaning tombstones could be his ticket out of here,
'we can help each other. Hop in, dude.’