Take My Life (17 page)

‘Penmair. That's the name of the village too. It's in Scotland.'

‘About thirty miles from Edinburgh,' supplied Mr Baker.

‘Did you use this tune for anything particular?' Philippa asked the boy.

‘Yes, it was our breaking-up song. Every school has one, you know.'

‘I haven't heard this one before. Is it a special one for your school?'

‘Oh, yes, it's quite new,' said Bungey. ‘I think someone wrote it at the school.'

Philippa's heart began to thump.

‘Had you any mistresses at the school, Bungey?'

‘Oh, yes … there were two. An arts mistress and a music mistress.'

‘What was the music mistress like to look at?'

This was rather too much for Bungey. He pushed up his lop-sided spectacles. ‘What, Miss Wharton? Oh, she was all right.'

‘What age would she be?'

‘Oh … pretty old.'

‘About thirty?' suggested Philippa.

‘Yes, I should think about that.'

‘Was she very dark with a good skin and large brown eyes, and played the violin?'

Bungey was thoughtful. ‘Yes, that'd be her. She was bad-tempered sometimes.'

Philippa stood up.

‘Thank you, Bungey. You've been most helpful.'

‘Has he really?' said Mrs Baker, gratified. ‘You're Miss Shelley, the opera singer, aren't you? I recognized you from your photos in the paper. We do hope what Benjamin has told you will be of real value to you …'

So do I, thought Philippa, as she stuffed a few things into her bag at the flat. So do I. And I really believe he has. This time I'm really off. A music teacher at a school. Why didn't any of us think of that before? Don't get too excited yet, it may still come to nothing.

John, at the telephone and watching her hasty packing, decided to make one last attempt.

‘Look, my dear, why not let the police break their hearts over this? It's been pretty clever of you ferreting out the thing; but with the suspicion now thrown on Mike Grieve it won't help the defence all that much to fill in the missing years. Nobody's suggesting Mike Grieve knew her before, and it's not necessary to suggest it. The best thing would be to see Archer and tell him what you think. Then instead of your having to go racing off to Scotland he would put through a telephone-call and the local police would check up in a few hours.'

Curiously, John could not have chosen his phrases better to strengthen her intent. There rose to her mind the picture of a policeman with bicycle clips making slow clumsy inquiries at the school. A distorted picture of course. But …

John said: ‘It may mean your missing the last day of the trial and perhaps will cause you endless trouble only to meet another dead end. With time so short it should be out of our hands now.'

‘I can be back on tomorrow night's train,' she said, staring into her bag. This was a completely blind move and she could not tell whether there might be something she would specially want. She would take night things in case something delayed her and she did not catch tomorrow night's train. But she must or she would miss the trial. Nick would wonder …

John was speaking on the telephone now. After a few moments he hung up.

‘The night express leaves at ten-fifteen. They've no sleepers left, but there may be a seat.'

She glanced at her watch. It was going to be a close call. She ran to a side table and scribbled a note.

‘If I shouldn't be back early on Monday, John, will you see Nick gets this. I want him to know why I'm away.'

‘Right.'

Twenty-five minutes before the train went. She glanced round the flat. When she saw this again …

They went out, and the car slipped along towards King's Cross.

There was a queue at the booking office and only three minutes remained to go as she hurried up the platform. Doors were already banging.

‘Here we are,' said John, opening a carriage in which there was a seat.

She got in breathlessly as a whistle sounded and was echoed down the farther length of the train.

He looked at her. He was a Philistine where opera was concerned and at one time had been inclined to look with comical dismay on having an opera singer as a sister-in-law. But six weeks of fairly close acquaintance had converted him so far as this one was concerned.

‘Good luck, Philippa,' he said, taking off his hat as the train began to move. ‘You deserve it.'

Hours of sitting upright, wanting to stretch and hardly able to, or dozing in half-cold half-humid stuffy darkness while the great train drew away through the swirling smoky glooms of the night. Then hours more it seemed while the darkness became grey and faded into a tattered dawn like an unwashed shirt, and nondescript hills creeping past. She had never felt train-sick in her life, but there was the beginning of a sick headache somewhere before Edinburgh was reached.

It was raining in Edinburgh when she got out, but for a moment this was unimportant beside the need for hot tea. She drank two cups at a refreshment-room, nearly scalding her mouth. At one time she would have been careful for her throat, but now that didn't seem to matter.

Presently she went out into the station again and stopped a porter.

She said: ‘Can you tell me, please, when I can get a train to Penmair?'

The porter looked at her. ‘Do you mean Penmair by the sea or Loch Penmair, leddy?'

‘I think it's by the sea.'

‘Oh, then you do mean Penmair. You'll no get a connection for Penmair the day. They have no trains there on a Sunday. Nor have they trains for Loch Penmair either,' he added as a helpful afterthought.

‘Do you know where I can hire a car?'

‘You could try on the rank outside, leddy. You might find one who could take you that far.'

She thanked him and went into the rain. John had been able to lend her the contents of his pocket-book, so she had plenty of available money.

She walked past the ordinary town taxis and went up to a grey-haired man who looked as if he owned his own cab. The man was agreeable, stating his price beforehand, and they set off. The sky was lighter now and after a while the rain stopped.

Although they had said it was only thirty miles, the morning was well on before she glimpsed the sea.

‘Where in Penmair did you want to go?' he asked.

‘Is there a hotel where I could put up?'

‘Yes, yes. Where the parents stay when they come to visit their boys.'

‘Can we see the school yet?'

‘In a moment. Now, over there, beyond the village, on the headland. D'you see?'

Philippa stared. ‘Yes, I see … I suppose it's all closed up now?'

‘That I don't know, ma'am. I've no idea whether the boys are back yet.'

After a few minutes they bumped over a stone bridge spanning a stream and purred in a dignified fashion down the main street of Penmair.

It was a straggling village, with grey stone cottages, a gaping garage, four or five shops and the hotel. Farther along were a few houses and beyond them a dozen modern bungalows. The road climbed through a copse of firs to the school buildings on the hill. What have I come here for? she thought, and what can I do now I'm here? Wasn't John perhaps right? There's so little time.

She got off at the hotel and paid the driver, watched the car begin its journey back to Edinburgh. Then she went in and booked a room. It would give her a foothold in the place even though she did not intend to stay the night. When it came to signing her name she hesitated briefly and wrote ‘
Joan Newcombe
'. She regretted now having brought no old clothes which might help to hide her rather obvious identity. The only thing she had with her was a pair of plain glass spectacles, worn once in a light opera. She put them on.

At the reception-desk she said: ‘Is the school open yet?'

‘No. The new term begins next Friday.'

‘Well, will there be someone in charge? I came about sending my son.'

‘I b'lieve Mr Fleming's at home. And of course there's the porter.'

‘Mr Fleming?'

‘Yes. The headmaster. Ye havena an appointment?'

‘No. I came unexpectedly. Er – do you know if the violin is taught? My son is very musical.'

‘Oh, aye; everything is taught, you may be sure.' The manageress was not interested. ‘But Mr Fleming will tell you all that.'

‘As a matter of fact,' Philippa said, ‘ I did know one of the women teachers at the school. I dont know if she is still there. A Miss Wharton.'

‘Oh … Miss Wharton,' said the manageress, adding up her books. ‘ Yes, that's the dominie's daughter. Yes. I b'lieve she does teach music there.'

‘Is she still at the school?' Philippa asked quickly. This was the first real stroke of luck she had met with in all her searches.

‘Pardon? … Oh, no. She won't be there now.'

‘Why? … What happened to her?'

The manageress looked up. ‘Happened to her? Why, nothing, except that she is still on holiday. If you want to see her the best thing is to call in at her father's house. It's down the village. The house past the council school.'

Philippa was out in the street again. The puddles were smaller and the slates drying. A very cold, very fresh wind blew.

She didn't know where she was now. All her bright ideas had come toppling down. A school and a hymn tune and a music mistress about thirty with dark hair and brown eyes. It all seemed so very obviously linked up. Where had her mind imagined a link which was hot there? She began to walk down the street.

She passed the squat little council school with its railings and its flagged playground, and turned up towards the next house which had a greenhouse and lace curtains. She rang the bell and a tall bony young woman came to the door. Philippa's heart sank, for she saw the mistake now. She answered the description given to Bungey Baker, but anyone less like Elizabeth Rusman would have been hard to find.

‘Miss Warton?'

‘Yes.'

Philippa did her best to smile.

‘I'm sorry; I've made a mistake, but I was calling at the school and someone said a Miss Wharton taught music there, and I wondered if it was the Mary Wharton I went to school with in Edinburgh.'

Miss Wharton said: ‘My name's Harriet Wharton. Sorry.'

‘You do teach the violin at Penmair, don't you?'

‘I teach music generally but chiefly the piano.'

‘Is there anyone else there who teaches the violin? I'm most anxious that my son should learn.'

‘No, but I can start boys off in the right way. In the early stages, you know, it's very much a question of learning how to hold the fiddle properly and build up the notes. I've done all that side of it, even though I don't play much myself.'

They talked for some minutes and then Philippa withdrew. The dead end that John had feared? Not yet. Not quite yet. Feeling miserably tired and despondent, she closed the iron gate and began to walk up towards Penmair.

There were four buildings altogether: the big central one with what looked like a chapel attached, two smaller houses and a kind of converted porter's lodge beside open gates.

She went in and saw a man coming slowly towards her. He was distinctive in grey and red, with grey hair and a shiny magenta face to match.

She said: ‘Good morning. I'd like to see the headmaster, please.'

The old man said: ‘ I doubt he's in, ma'am. It's his custom to attend divine sar-vice of a Sunday morning and when the school chapel's no in use he goes down to the village.' Slowly, as if the movement were an effort, he turned his head. ‘I havena seen him go today, but …'

‘I wanted to see him about sending my son as a pupil to the school.'

‘Well, that's where he lives, ma'am.' The Scotsman pointed to the smallest of the three buildings. ‘If ye've the mind to go up and knock. I havena seen him leave, though I expect he'll have gone.'

‘Thank you,' said Philippa, and walked on.

She reached the house. These three buildings really made up three sides of a square, the open side facing the village. She lifted the brass knocker on the green wooden door, noticing that the metal was considerably tarnished. No doubt the sea air.

She waited. A seagull flickered over the roof tops and cried. She knocked again.

She tried to picture these buildings as they would be in term-time, buzzing with life. Ninety or a hundred Bungey Bakers … ‘Someone wrote it at the school …' Would all his information prove as delusive as that about the music mistress?

She knocked a third time and then on a sudden impulse tried the handle. The door opened and she stepped inside. It was really the silence that had done it. One got the feeling that there could be nobody for miles and miles. Mr Fleming would be at divine sar-vice. But what of a wife or housekeeper?

She stared at the grandfather's clock in the hall. Courting trouble of the worst kind. ‘ Well, of course, I knocked three times and thought you hadn't heard.' ‘My dear, she
said
she'd come about her son, but really I believe she was after the silver.' Get out, Philippa, before you make a fool of yourself.

Stairs and a door. She tried the door. It wasn't recklessness that sent her on but sheer desperation. So much to do, so little time to do it. Who'd said that?

A room like any other room. Stained floor, rugs, leather chairs, a grand piano – ah! –, framed Botticelli prints, a few photos, another door. She took a step forward.

A shadow moved ahead of her, and she realized the sun had come out. Pleasant room facing south. Had Elizabeth Rusman ever been in here? Looking out on a green quadrangle as she did now. A seagull cried:
ya-ya-ya
. Boys' feet on the turf …

She went across and stared at the photo on the piano. Two young men in flannels. On the mantelpiece was a cricketing eleven.