The Dark Shore (14 page)

“We arrived back at Clougy at about four o’clock in the afternoon. Everyone was very still. At first we thought everyone must be out, and then we heard the piano.

“ ‘He’s crazy,’ said Sophia indolently. ‘Imagine playing the piano indoors on a beautiful afternoon like this!’ And she walked down the corridor and opened the door of the music room. ‘Jon—’ she began and then stopped. I walked down to see why she had stopped, and then I saw that Jon wasn’t alone in the music room. Marijohn was with him.

“I can’t describe how strange it was. There was no reason why it should be strange at all. Marijohn was sitting on the window-seat, very relaxed and happy, and Jon was on the piano-stool, casual and at ease. They weren’t even within six feet of each other.

“ ‘Hullo,’ said Marijohn to Sophia, and her eyes were very blue and clear and steady. ‘Did you manage to get the shellfish in St. Ives?’ I’ll always remember the way she said that because I saw then for the first time how much she despised Sophia. ‘Did you manage to get the shellfish in St. Ives?’

“And Sophia said, ‘Where’s Michael?’

“Marijohn said she had no idea. And Jon said, ‘Didn’t he go fishing?’ And they laughed together and Jon started to play again.

“We might as well not have existed.

“
I
’m going down
to the
cove wi
th
M
a
x,’ said Sophia suddenly.

“ ‘Oh yes?’ Jon said, turning a page of music with one hand.

“ ‘Don’t get too sunburnt,’ said Marijohn. ‘The sun’s hot today, isn’t it, Jon?’

“ ‘Very,’ said Jon, and went on playing without looking up.

“So we went out. Sophia was furious although she said nothing. And then when we arrived at the beach we found the child was following us, and she vented her temper on him, telling him to go away. Poor little bastard! He looked so lost and worried. He wandered off along the shore and was soon lost from sight amongst the rocks.

“We had a swim and after that Sophia started to talk. She talked about Marijohn, and in the end she started to cry. ‘I hate it when she comes here,’ she said. ‘I hate it. Nothing ever goes right when she comes.’ And when I asked what Marijohn did, she couldn’t explain and only cried all the more. There was nothing, you see, that was what was so baffling. There was nothing there to explain
...

“I was just trying to console her and take her in my arms when the worst thing possible happened—Eve had heard I was back from St. Ives and had come down from her room to look for me. Of course she found me in what I believe is generally termed a ‘compromising’ position, so there was another row and she went back to the house. She didn’t come down to dinner that evening.

“Dinner was very unnerving. Sophia had been supervising the cooking in the kitchen so we didn’t come into the diningroom together, but it was obvious she had decided to act the part of the good hostess and be bright and talkative, pretending nothing had happened at all. I responded as best as I could and Michael joined in from time to time, I remember. But Marijohn and Jon never said a word. Gradually, after a while, their silence became oppressive. It’s very difficult to describe. One was so conscious somehow of their joint silence. If one had been silent and the other talkative it wouldn’t have mattered, but it was their joint silence which was so uncanny. In the end Sophia fell silent too, and I could think of nothing more to say, and Michael was quiet. And it was then, when the whole room was silent, that Marijohn started to speak.

“She talked exclusively to Jon. They discussed music, I remember, a topic which was open to no one but themselves because no one else knew much about it. They talked to one another for ten minutes, and then suddenly they were silent again and I was so taut with uneasiness I could scarcely move my knife and fork. Presently Sophia told the child to go to bed. He made rather a fuss, I remember, and didn’t want to go, but in the end Michael took him upstairs. I remember having the strong impression that Michael wanted to escape
...
We all stood up from the table then and
Jon went ou
t into t
he hall
. He put
on a red sweater and Sophia said: ‘You’re not going out, are you?’ and he said, ‘Marijohn and I are going for a stroll down to the cove.’

“So they went out. They weren’t gone too long, only ten minutes or so and then they came back and went to the music room. Presently Michael came downstairs and went into the music room to join them. I was in the kitchen with Sophia helping her wash up, but when they came back she went to the door to listen. The gramophone was playing. She said, ‘I’m going in to see what’s happening,’ and I said, ‘Leave them alone—come out with me for a while. Michael’s with them anyway. ’ And she said, ‘Yes, I want to hear what he says.’ I told her there was no reason why he should say anything at all, but she said she still wanted to see what was happening.

“We were in the hall by then. She said she would meet me later in the evening—‘somewhere where we can be alone,’ she said, ‘somewhere where we can talk and not be overheard. I’ll meet you down by the Flat Rocks at ten o’clock.’ When I agreed, she went into the music room and I was alone in the hall. I can remember the scene so clearly. The gramophone stopped a moment later. There was no light in the hall, just the dusk from the twilight outside, and Jon’s discarded red sweater lay across the oak chest by the door like a pool of blood.

“I went out soon after that. I walked down to the cove and watched the sea for a while, and then I walked back to the house to get a sweater as it was rather colder than I’d anticipated. After that I went out again, taking the cliff path which led out to the Flat Rocks, and about quarter of an hour later I was waiting by the water’s edge.”

He stopped. The tide roared over the shingle.

“I waited some time,” he said, “but of course Sophia never came. I heard the scream just as I was wondering what could have happened to her, but although I moved as fast as I could she was dead when I reached her.” He stopped again. Presently he took off his sunglasses and she saw the expression in his eyes for the first time.

“Poor Sophia,” he said slowly; “it was a terrible thing to happen. I always felt so sorry for Sophia
...
”

Four

1

Justin was in St. Ives by the time the church clock near the harbor was tolling three that afternoon. Holiday-makers thronged the streets, spilling over the pavements to make driving hazardous. The pedestrians ruled St. Ives, dictating to the cars that crawled through the narrow streets, and Justin was relieved when he reached the freedom of the car park at last and was able to switch off the engine. He got out of the car. The air was salt and fresh, the sun deliciously warm. As he walked up the steps along by the town wall the gulls wheeled around the fishing boats in the harbor and the houses clustered on the rising ground of the peninsula were white-walled and strangely foreign beneath that hot southern sky.

Justin reached the harbor, turned up Fish Street and then turned again. There was an alley consisting of stone steps leading to a higher level, and at the top was another narrow cobbled lane slanting uphill. The door marked Five was pale blue, and a climbing plant trailed from the
corner
of the windows to meet above the porch.

He rang the bell.

A woman answered the door. She had a London accent and London clothes and a paint smear across the back of her left hand.

“Is Eve in?” said Justin hesitantly, suddenly nervous.

“Ah yes, you’re expected, aren’t you? Come on in. She’s upstairs— second door on the right.”

“Thank you.” The hall was a mass of brass and copper ornaments. His hand gripped the hand rail of the stairs tightly and then he was walk
i
ng quietly up the steps, neither pausing nor looking back. The woman was watching him. He could feel her eyes looking him up and down, wondering who he was and what connection he could possibly have with the woman waiting upstairs, but he didn’t stop and the next moment he was on the landing and pausing to regain his breath. It suddenly seemed very hot.

The second door on the right was facing him. Presently he took a pace forward and raised his hand to knock.

“Come in,
”
called
the
woman’s voice from beyond as his knuckles touched the wood, and suddenly he was back in the past again, a little boy catching sight of the untasted supper tray outside the closed door and knocking on the panels to inquire if he could eat the food which she had ignored.

He stood rigid, not moving, the memories taut in his mind.

“Come in!” called the woman again, and even as he moved to turn the handle on the door she was opening the door for him so that a second later they were facing each other across the threshold.

No hint of recognition showed in her face. He caught a glimpse of disappointment, then of irritation, and he felt his ears burn scarlet in a sudden rush of
embarrassment.

“You must want one of the other lodgers,” he heard her say shortly. “Who are you looking for?”

He swallowed, all his careful words of introduction forgotten, and wondered vaguely in the midst of all his panic how on Earth he had had the nerve to come. He stared down at her toes. She wore white sandals, cool and elegant, and in spite of his confusion he was aware of thinking that her smart, casual clothes were much too chic and well-tailored for that little holiday resort far from London.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “I know you.”

He cleared his throat. Presently he had enough confidence to glance up into her eyes. She looked bewildered but not hostile, and he began to feel better.

“You’re Justin,” she said suddenly.

He nodded.

For a moment she made no move, and then she was opening the door wider and turning back into the room.

“You’d better come in,” she said over her shoulder.

He followed her. The room beyond was small with a view from the window of rooftops and a distant glimpse of the sun sparkling on blue sea.

“You’re not much like either of your parents, are you?” she said absently, sitting down on the stool of the crowded dressing-table and flicking ash into a souvenir ashtray. “I hardly recognized you. You’ve lost such a lot of weight.”

He smiled warily, easing himself on to the edge of the bed.

“Well,” she said at last when the silence threatened to become prolonged. “Why have you come? Have you got a message from your father?”

“No,” he said, “he doesn’t know you’re here. Your note reached me by mistake and I didn’t show it to him. I didn’t see why you should bother my father when he’s still more or less on his honeymoon.”

She was annoyed. As she swiveled round to lace him, he could see
th
e anger in her eyes. “Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at?” she demanded coldly.

He had forgotten his panic and shyness now. He stared back at her defiantly. “You wanted to talk about what happened at Clougy ten years ago,” he said. “You wanted to talk about Max.”

“To your father. Not to you.”

“I know more than you think I do.”

She smiled, looking skeptical. “How can you?” she said. “You were just a child at the time. You couldn’t have understood what was happening so how can you know anything about it?”

“Because I saw my mother’s death,” he said, and even as he spoke he saw her eyes widen and her expression change. “I saw it all, don’t you see? I followed the murderer up on the cliffs that night and saw him push my mother down the cliff-path to her death
...
”

2

Sarah left the beach soon after five and walked up to the house to see if Jon had returned from his visit to Penzance. Alexander stayed behind in the cove. When she reached the drive she saw that a blue Hillman was parked behind Max’s silver-gray Rolls Royce and she wondered who the visitors were and whether they had been there long.

The hall was cool and shadowed after the shimmering brilliance of the early evening, and she paused for a moment before the mirror to adjust her hair before crossing the hall and opening the drawing-room door.

Marijohn was sitting at the desk by the window. There was a pen in her hand. Behind her, slightly to her left so that he could look over her shoulder was a tall man, unobtrusively good-looking, with quiet eyes and a strong mouth. Both he and Marijohn looked up with a start as Sarah came into the room.

“Oh, it’s only you.” Marijohn put down the pen for a moment. “Michael dear, this is Sarah
...
Sarah—Michael Rivers.”

“How do you do,” said Rivers, giving her a pleasant smile while looking at her with lawyer’s eyes. And then as she echoed the greeting, the lawyer’s cautious scrutiny faded into a more formal appraisal and there was warmth in his eyes and kindness in the set of his mouth. “May I offer my congratulations on your marriage? I expect belated congratulations are better than none at all.”

“Thank you,” she said shyly. “Thank you very much.”

There was a pause. She
s
miled awkwardly, as if to explain her presence, “I—I just wondered if Jon was back yet? He didn’t say what time he would be returning from Penzance, but I thought perhaps—”

“No,” said Marijohn, “he’s not here yet.” She turned to Michael. “Darling, how many more of these do I have to sign?”

“Just the transfer here
...
” He bent over her again and something in the way he moved made Sarah stop to watch them. Phrases of Justin’s sprang back to her mind. “It was obvious he loved her. He kissed her in public and gave her special smiles—oh God, you know! The sort of thing you notice and squirm at when you’re a small boy
...
”

I
t seemed strange to know they were divorced.

“Fine,” said Rivers, gathering up the papers as Marijohn put down her pen. “I’ll take these back with me to London tomorrow.”

“Are you staying near here?”

“With the Hawkins over at Mullion.”

“The Hawkins! Of course! Do they still live in that funny little cottage by the harbor?”

“No, they—” He stopped, listening.

Marijohn was listening, too.

Sarah felt her heart begin to thump faster as she too turned to face the door.

From far away came the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel of the drive.

“That’ll be Jon,” said Rivers. “Well, I must be going. I’ll phone you about the outcome of those transfers and contact Mathieson in the city about the gilt-edged question.”

But Marijohn was still listening. The footsteps echoed in the porch and then moved through the open front door into the hall.

There was an inexplicable pause—the footsteps halted.

“Jon!” called Marijohn suddenly.

The latch clicked; the door swung wide.

“Hullo,” said Jon, unsurprised and unperturbed. “How are you, Michael? Hullo, Sarah darling—feeling better now?” And as the others watched he stooped to give her a kiss.

“Much better,” she said, clasping his hand tightly as he kissed her and releasing it only when he moved away towards the desk.

Jon turned to Rivers. “Why didn’t you ring up to tell us you were coming, Michael? Are you staying to dinner?”