Take My Life (19 page)

She walked slowly down the chancel steps. She could not see his face very well, but he stood aside to let her lead the way towards the door.

I can't again, not turn my back on him again …

His shadow flicked along the bench ends beside her.

He said: ‘You play the organ very well, Mrs Newcombe.'

She had reached the door and waited for him to open it. As he opened it she saw his face a little more clearly. It was completely expressionless. Not a muscle moved. But there was a faint dampness of the skin.

Back along that covered way. On one side were school photographs, groups, year by year. Hundreds of little white dots, row on row, entities, held for a moment, gone now, records for the school.

Half-way along Fleming said.

‘Where did you hear that song?'

Somehow even to talk of it was better than the silence.

‘The little Baker boy was humming it all through the Christmas holidays when he came to stay with us. I hope his memory was good.'

‘Quite good.'

‘It's your school song, isnt it?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's original, isn't it? I wonder who wrote it.'

‘I'm afraid I don't know. Now, is there anything more I can tell you, Mrs Newcombe?'

Would they never get out in the open? She felt she could walk no farther.

‘I don't think so. Thank you for giving me so much of your time.'

‘Not at all.'

The door. He was opening the last of them. Outside the watery sun was still shining across the grass.

‘I'll write to you when I get back to London,' she said.

‘Please do.'

He was coming out with her.

‘Don't bother to come to the gate,' she said. ‘I'm afraid I've given you a lot of trouble already.'

‘No, it's been a pleasure.'

Put out your hand. Out. With a smile.

He took it.

‘Goodbye, Mrs Newcombe.'

‘Goodbye. And thank you.'

She went off.

Why has there to be this grass, she thought, not gravel so that I could hear footsteps?

The drive at last. No pink friendly face at the lodge. By the gate she turned as if to get a final view of the school. The door was shut and he was gone. But gone where? She only knew that no power on earth – not even the hope of saving Nick – would have induced her to go back and enter that empty building again.

She turned and went down the road. With relief came sanity and self-criticism. What had she done? Nothing but walk over a school. What had been said? Nothing but what might have been expected. Had she then somehow imagined the whole of the undercurrent of tension which had seemed to exist?

Police officers were not concerned with feminine intuition. What had she to tell them? Enough to cause an inquiry to be made? If Elizabeth Rusman had married and lived here, then Fleming would be in a tight position; he would have to explain why he had not come forward, why he had lied about her being abroad. Was there a loophole? What sort of an alibi had he for the time of the murder?

But had she any proof yet that Elizabeth had been his wife? Anything to take back with her as tangible evidence to stop the case against Nick?

She found herself back in the village and went straight to the hotel. There was still an hour before the car was due to call.

And when he shut the door again he went back to the chapel.

He sat in the front pew and looked up at the stained-glass window from which nearly all the colour had now faded. He did not try to pray, but his thoughts went round and round in his head like robots at a fair. The dragons, the gargoyles, the angels, the leaping horses and the winged devils. Which one should he ride?

In this crisis his reason had been uppermost all the time; there had only been one moment of slipping, but he had quickly controlled it.

He was not sure yet if he had acted for the best, sometimes the impulse of the moment is the clearer guide. He did not know. She was catching the night train, she said. That would mean Murray's car. What time did it go dark? This damned daylight saving. The sun would set in about an hour, then the long twilight. But it was a heavy evening. The light would be failing by the time the car left.

It was not a pretty problem. One weighed the risks, the advantages, the possible flaws, in any action or inaction. Reason it out. Consider it carefully.

After twenty minutes he left the chapel and went out to his own car.

She had left the hotel again, restless and unable to wait. Once she thought of calling on Harriet Wharton and telling her everything. She had looked a hard-headed, sensible woman. Even one friend in this village might make all the difference. But she shrank away from the awful difficulty of explaining, of trying to convince her that she was not a lunatic. Harriet Wharton would say what everyone would say: go to the local police. And if she did, the incredible explaining to them, their looks of astonishment, their side glances, their telephone calls. In all probability one of the first people they would ring up would be Sidney Fleming.

She walked down the street and tried to think over all they had said together in the school. Had he betrayed himself in any way? Put herself in his place. If the song meant to him all that she thought it meant, then he surely must know that she knew. Might she not leave the next move to him?

The thought gave her an unexpected twist of alarm and she glanced quickly up and down the street. There was hardly anyone about. She looked in the shop windows, most of which reflected her own image in their blinds. ‘
Macpherson and Son, Grocers and Provision Merchants
.' That was the one she had looked in this morning. ‘
Angus Baird, Newsagent and Stationer. Hardware. Photographic Supplies
.'

She moved on and then stopped, turned back. Angus Baird was a Jack-of-all-trades. In the list of his accomplishments were the words ‘
School Photographer
'.

There flashed back into her mind the school groups on the walls of the covered way. Rows of anonymous faces. But as she recalled them she remembered also the little humps in the middle of each photograph where the rows curved upwards into the adults. Were there not women among them? Surely. And would not one be the headmaster's wife? …

She pressed her face against the glass of the shop and could just see behind the blind. There were photographs in the window, but none which looked like a school group. But the man would surely have some in stock. There would be a fairly steady sale for them.

She stepped back and looked at the closed shop. There were two windows overhead and at the side a little wicket gate. She tried the gate and went in.

Round the side was a vegetable patch, a chicken run, a few discouraged tulips.

There was no knocker to the door, so she used her knuckles. She waited impatiently, then knocked again. Pray they were not all out for the evening, like the Bakers.

The door opened eight inches and a small grey man peered out. He looked like a grey elderly ferret, disturbed and suspicious.

‘Aye?'

‘Please forgive me for troubling you,' she said. ‘You are Mr Baird, the school photographer, aren't you?'

‘Aye.'

‘I saw the notice,' she said apologetically. ‘I specially wanted a photograph of my nephew who was in last year's group. I should be so very much obliged if you could sell me one.'

The small elderly face regarded her without change of expression.

‘Aye … If ye come round in the morning the shop will be open and ye can see them in a proper manner.' The door closed an inch.

Philippa said anxiously: ‘I'm leaving Penmair in a few minutes to catch the London express from Edinburgh. Otherwise I shouldn't have troubled you tonight. It's really most important that I should take a photograph back with me. Really important. Perhaps you'll let me explain …'

The door closed another inch, defensively against her move. ‘The shop will be open at nine o'clock in the morning, but not until then.'

‘Mr Baird, it's not just an ordinary purpose I want it for. Perhaps you'd stretch a point and sell me one tonight. I should be so deeply grateful –'

‘I neither buy nor sell on the Sabbath day.'

‘I don't mind what I pay,' said Philippa. ‘ I'll give you whatever you ask –'

‘I have no interest in money,' said Mr Baird, ‘until the morning.' And he shut the door.

‘Listen, please! It's vitally important!' Almost in tears she used her fist on the panel. ‘Open this door!'

There was no reply. For a few seconds she stared at it, anger and frustration choking her. She would cheerfully have picked up a brick and thrown it through the window. She could have kicked the toe off her shoe and the paint off the door. But the look in his eye discouraged her. He was the stuff of which inconvenient martyrs are made. There was no hope here.

At ten the manageress of the hotel was coming out of the bar when a man walked into the hall of the hotel and looked about him.

‘Oh, good evening, Mr Fleming,' she said. ‘Cold this evening, isn't it?'

He agreed. ‘Er – Mrs Drummond, have you a Mrs Newcombe staying here?'

‘Why, yes, we have. Did you want to see her? I b'lieve she's just gone to bed.'

‘It doesn't matter. But I understood she was leaving tonight.'

‘Well, so did we, sir. She paid her bill and ordered a car. But at the last minute she cancelled it and was minded to stay on.'

‘Till the morning?'

‘That's so. Till the morning. She's ordered the car now for a quarter to nine.'

‘Did she give any reason for changing her plans?'

‘No, sir. I think perhaps it was the journey she didn't fancy.'

‘Thank you.' Fleming was turning to go.

‘Can I give her some message, sir?'

‘Er – no. It doesn't matter. But perhaps you'd give her this. It's a prospectus of the school. She forgot to take it earlier this evening.'

‘Oh, all right, Mr Fleming. Thank you. Good night.'
‘Good night, Mrs Drummond,' he said.

She dreamed strange things in the night: that she was on trial for her life and Fleming was the prosecuting counsel, that the trial was being held in the empty school and that no one was there besides themselves. He stormed and shouted, but all his shouts were soundless and the only thing that came to her ears was the steady striking of the school clock.

The sound was so mournful echoing through the hollow shell of the school that she realized the trial was really over and that this was the tolling of the bell for the execution. She knew that the hanging was to take place in the chapel under the organ and that Fleming was to be the executioner. He was coming down from his rostrum now and holding out his hand …

She woke cold and shivering to find that the eiderdown had slipped to the floor. Dawn was just breaking and there was no more sleep for her. She lay for a time wondering if she had been unwise in not telephoning home last night. If was really that she disliked having nothing tangible to tell them. The trial could not be over today unless it went on very late, and her train was due in at six. As soon as she had the proof she would phone or wire them.

At seven she got up, and she was dressed and ready to go before the maid brought in her early morning tea. She had breakfast and was waiting on the step when Murray drove up in his Austin 14.

She said: ‘I want you to go to Baird's first, please. I've something I want to buy there.'

They drove to Baird's. It was still only twelve minutes to nine. They waited.

Murray said: ‘I hope you'll not be long in buying what you want. It's a tidy way and not a road you can hasten over, and the Scotsman goes at ten.'

At five past nine Philippa got out of the car and tried the shop door. It was still locked, so she rattled it. She waited and then heard movements in the shop. Presently one of the blinds went up and she caught sight of a small grey wispy woman retreating into the interior of the shop like a mouse surprised by a light. Then the other blind went up, and a few moments later the bolt was drawn back from the door.

She went in.

The were both in there, one at each counter, but as she came in Baird himself went off out of the shop.

‘May I see the school photographs, please,' she said to Mrs Baird. ‘I want to see last year's specially.'

The little woman blinked at her.

‘Aye. The school photographs. Aye … Angus!'

‘Aye?' said a voice.

‘Where would the school photographs be now?'

‘Under the magazines. Behind the sweet bottles.'

‘Aye.' The little woman shifted herself to the other end of the counter and began to fumble there. ‘ The new magazines, Angus?'

‘No, the used ones.'

She shifted back again.

‘Please hurry,' said Philippa. ‘I have a train to catch.'

‘Would these be they, Angus, in the grey album?'

‘Aye.'

Mrs Baird slowly pulled out a thin album and spread it on the counter.

‘Angus generally likes to sairve these himself,' she said Philippa pulled open the album and turned to the last filled page.

Her eyes flew to the middle of the group and to Fleming sitting very recognizable as the head. The woman beside him …

The woman beside him …

‘I want to buy this,' said Philippa with a dry throat. ‘How much is it?'

‘Angus, how much would the photo be?'

‘Two and sixpence.'

‘Two and sixpence.'

Philippa brought out her money and watched in a sort of daze the new search for a print that could be sold. But for a few seconds the impatience had gone from her. All this time. All through the inquiries and troubles of yesterday the little devils of doubt had never been quite silenced. She had met so many, so very many dead ends, that all the time the thin thread of scepticism had lived in her most passionate convictions. This morning, with nothing to show for her adventure at the school yesterday, she had begun to wonder again if it was all a self-delusion.