The Unseen (48 page)

An odd silence falls over Hester. The house itself is filled with noise – with footfalls as the policeman walks Sophie Bell back to the kitchens and tries to get a statement from her, and the woman’s loud and ugly sobbing all the while.
And she barely seemed to tolerate Cat
, Hester thinks, distantly. She picks up the envelope, which has her name on it, and carefully opens it. Cat’s handwriting, which she has never seen before, is elegant and sloping. Far more elegant than a maid’s should be. Far more elegant than her own. The words scroll with a gentle rhythm across the paper, and Hester casts her eyes over each of them before realising that she has not made sense of a single one. She slips the letter into her pocket and goes back downstairs on wooden legs, so stiff and unwieldy that she stumbles more than once.

The library door is still shut. If Albert is inside, he has not roused himself to see what is causing all the commotion. From outside comes the sound of a small wagon and pair, driving along the lane and stopping opposite The Rectory. More footsteps, more knocking at the front door. Hester ignores it. She stands in front
of the library door, close to it; the grain of the wood in every corner of her vision. Her breathing is quick and shallow, and she can’t seem to get enough oxygen. She raises her hand to knock, but stops, cannot bring herself to. Somehow, she knows there is no point. Whether Albert is inside or not, there is no point in knocking. Shivering uncontrollably in the warm air, she turns the handle and steps inside.

The room is in darkness, the heavy velvet curtains pulled close together. She waits just over the threshold for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the shadows. As footsteps sound in the hallway behind her, she quickly steps forwards and pushes the door gently closed, so as to go unnoticed. The atmosphere inside is heavy and thick, as though many weeks have passed since it was aired. There is a dark shape at the desk, and Hester’s heart lurches before she realises it is only Albert’s coat, thrown over the back of his chair.
I am afraid of my own husband, now?
she wonders. Her spirit shrinks like a candle caught in a cold draught. On the desk is the Frena camera she had so admired when Robin first arrived, and Albert’s journal, not closed and tied as he usually leaves it, but with his pen wedged between pages, as if he had been in the middle of writing when he’d risen and walked away. The room is empty, and Hester’s nerves ease a little. She walks forwards, thinking to throw open the curtains and the window, to banish the stifling air, prickly with dust and tainted with secrecy, with Albert’s dark fascinations. She hasn’t gone three steps when her foot catches on something heavy and she trips, turning her ankle as she fights for balance. She reaches down for the object. Robin Durrant’s leather bag. Frowning, Hester picks it up, and the leather strap feels soiled somehow, sticky and damp. She has never seen Robin go out without this bag of his. Hester takes it to the window to cast some light on it, but as she twitches back the curtains, squinting, she drops it in shock. Red smears daub her
hands where she has touched it. Smears with the unmistakable, iron scent of blood. Hester gags, her stomach clenching in horror. For a long moment she stands frozen, barely breathing, as icicles of utter dread assail her.

13

2011

Leah waited impatiently while the phone rang, fidgeting with nerves. She was sitting in pale vanilla sunshine outside the library, while Mark read through the newspaper reports about the murder of Catherine Morley. The wooden bench was chilly and damp through her jeans, but the sky overhead had turned a gorgeous china blue. There was a lull in the traffic now that rush hour had passed, and the park across the canal from the library looked a brighter green than it had even two days before. At last there was a crackle and pop at the end of the line, and the receiver was lifted.

‘Chris Ward Limited,’ croaked a man’s voice.

‘Oh, hello,’ Leah said, taken aback. The voice sounded like raw meat. ‘I’m sorry to bother you. I got your name from Kevin Knoll – the caretaker at The Bluecoat School in Thatcham? I understand that you did some restoration work there last year?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ the man said, then broke off to cough. Leah winced, holding the phone a little further from her ear until the fit passed. She could hear him wheezing, catching his breath. ‘I’m afraid I can’t come out and give quotes this week at all, love. I’m off sick,’ he said.

‘I can hear that – you sound awful.’ The man chuckled roughly. ‘Actually, I don’t need a quote. I’m writing an article about The Bluecoat School, and I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of quick questions about the restoration work you did?’

‘What kind of questions?’ Did she imagine it, or had a hint of defensiveness crept into his voice?

‘Well, about what condition the building was in before work
started, and how much of the original fabric you were forced to replace—’

‘Well, the caretaker and the committee is who you want to ask about that, really. They have all the survey reports and the like,’ Chris Ward interrupted her.

‘And whether you found anything while you were doing the work? Say, behind the plaster … or underneath the floorboards?’ Leah pressed.

There was a startled pause at the end of the phone line. A pause loaded with shock and – unmistakably – unease.

‘Found anything? No, no. We didn’t find anything other than a few dead rats and a whole lot of dust. Sorry not to be more help …’ he said, with a note of finality in his tone. She pictured him edging the receiver back towards its cradle.

‘Hold on – are you sure? Nothing at all? Sometimes the original builders of these ancient buildings left little tokens, or dropped coins find their way through the cracks in the boards … you didn’t find anything at all?’

‘Nothing at all. I’ll have to go – this throat of mine. Sorry not to be more help. Bye, now.’ He rang off, and Leah smiled slightly into the silent phone. She went back inside to find Mark, who was still staring at the microfiche, fascinated.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked quietly.

‘I had an idea – I got the builder’s number from Kevin Knoll and gave him a ring.’

‘What builder? Oh – the Bluecoat builder? Did you speak to him?’

‘Yes. He says he didn’t find anything.’ She smiled a tight, excited smile.

‘So why do you look so pleased?’ he asked, glancing up at her.

‘Because he’s lying,’ Leah told him.

Chris Ward’s business address was, as Leah had expected, a residential house; situated between Newbury and Thatcham. A
modern brick building, large and solidly built, with a huge and garish array of children’s plastic toys in the front garden. The lawn, in spite of the early season, was immaculate.

‘He’s not likely to be home on a work day, though, is he?’ Mark pointed out, as Leah parked the car in the street and they climbed out.

‘He’s home. Sick as a dog by the sounds of him.’

‘Oh, good. In a weakened state then,’ Mark said, wryly. Leah glanced at him and he made a calming gesture with his hands. ‘Just … go easy. You’ve got the air of a battleship about you this morning.’

‘I will! I mean, I will. I’ll be nice.’ Leah slowed her striding walk and took a deep breath. ‘This from the man who told me to bugger off the first time we met,’ she added. Mark smiled amiably, and shrugged.

When Chris Ward opened the door it was only a crack, and his face peered out around it, lined and squinting beneath a thatch of steel-grey hair.

‘Don’t come too close, I’m infectious. What can I do for you?’ he rasped.

‘Mr Ward? I’m Leah Hickson – we spoke on the phone a little while ago? About The Bluecoat School,’ she introduced herself. ‘This is my colleague, Mark Canning.’

‘
Canning?
’ the builder echoed sharply, before he could stop himself.

‘You know the name?’ Leah raised her eyebrows. The door wavered, and Chris Ward seemed to think about shutting it. Leah put her hand out to stop him. ‘Please! Mr Ward, we’ve no desire to cause trouble for you or anybody. We won’t name you as our source, or anything like that … but if we could just see what you found under the floor—’

‘I didn’t find anything under the bloody floor!’

‘I think you did. Please. We just want to see it. We’re not trying to take it from you, I swear …’ The man stared at them for a
moment, chewing his lip in consternation. ‘It’s very, very important,’ Leah added. The man nodded, opened the door a little wider and stepped outside.

‘I keep it all in the garage,’ he muttered.

‘It all?’ said Mark.

‘My collection,’ the builder said, uneasily.

The metal garage door opened with an ear-piercing screech, and in the gloom within Leah could make out deep shelves lining the wall all along one side. The shelves were covered in objects, and as Chris Ward flicked on the light switch she saw the oddest collection of things, from muddy boots and glass bottles to rusty shell casings; a Second World War tin helmet to a china doll with one cheek smashed in. Some items were in small sealed fish tanks – improvised glass cases. All were labelled with typed script on neat white cards. The air smelt of old spilled oil, and earth.

‘What is all this stuff?’ Mark asked, walking slowly along the shelves.

‘My collection. I’m … something of an amateur archaeologist, I suppose. I do a lot of metal detecting as well – that’s how I found all these. Medieval and Roman coins,’ Chris Ward said proudly, indicating one of the fish tanks where seven or eight small coins were lovingly arranged on a piece of white cloth. ‘And of course, specialising in restoration work, I come across a lot of artefacts in the buildings I work on,’ he added, slightly more stiffly.

‘And do you tell the owners when you find something?’ Leah asked, sternly. Chris Ward pressed his lips together, looked away.

‘I used to, back in the beginning. But when I did, they never let me …’

‘They never let you keep them? You know, that could be construed as theft, Mr Ward.’

Mark shot her a censorious look. ‘Thank you so much for showing us all this, though,’ he said, pointedly.

Leah peered into a fish tank at a selection of tiny children’s
shoes; most of them very basic, little more than a curve of leather with a short length of twine to fasten them. ‘I bet these came out of thatched roofs? Didn’t they?’ she asked. The builder nodded reluctantly. ‘It’s meant to be very bad luck to remove them, you know.’

The man fidgeted awkwardly for a moment. ‘Here’s the stuff you’re after. It was under the east end of the floor. The boards were so loose anybody could have lifted them up – they wouldn’t have needed tools or anything. But nobody had, it seems. Not in all that time.’

‘Unless whoever did just didn’t take what they found,’ Leah pointed out.

‘Look, young lady – there’s a thousand builders who’d have just scraped it up with the rest of the rubbish and carted it off with the spoil, without giving it a second thought, all right? I preserve these old things! I keep them safe!’

‘Leah, just button it and come and look at what he found, would you?’ Mark suggested.

It was a large leather bag with a long shoulder strap. About eighteen inches by twelve, like an over-sized school satchel, dark with age and as stiff as board. The metal buckles were rusty and pitted with corrosion. Leah ran her fingers along it, frowning. Her hands were where Hester Canning’s hands had been. She thought hard, tried to picture her. Hiding this bag in fear, in desperation. Hiding it and never returning to it; but never forgetting it either.

‘I left the things inside it, just as I found them. I always try to keep things just as I find them. Open it up. Go on,’ Chris Ward urged, clearly still excited by his find.

Leah carefully lifted the flap of the bag, and found herself holding her breath, expectantly, reverently. She gently removed four objects from inside it, and finally a sheaf of papers so stained and ruined that there was no hope of ever reading what had been written upon them. Leah stared at the objects, and felt a sudden pang of recognition. The three of them stood in silence for a minute, and Leah’s mind whirled with questions and answers.

‘I’ve … read the journal,’ Chris Ward admitted, somewhat hesitantly. ‘That’s how I knew the name Canning. But it doesn’t tell you what the other things are. Or what they mean.’

‘I know exactly what they are. I know exactly what they mean,’ Leah said quietly.

1911

Hester clenches her hands into fists to hide the bloodstains on them. She can’t bear to look at them, can’t bear having the stuff on her skin, but there is nothing in the room she can clean them on, not without leaving telltale marks for all to see. She stands stock still and tries to think, struggles to breathe. She thinks and she thinks, but can’t find any answers. Nothing that makes sense. A policeman is in the hallway outside. A different one, older. He calls her name repeatedly in a deep and gravelly voice. Feeling like she might be sick, Hester swallows convulsively and goes out into the hall. She shuts the library door behind her.

‘Ah, Mrs Canning, please forgive me for intruding into your home. The door was open, and I couldn’t rouse a servant to answer it …’ he says, then seems to realise the implication of his words and colours slightly. Hester feels tears, hot and savage, building up behind her eyes. ‘Forgive me,’ the man mutters again.

‘The vicar isn’t at home, I’m afraid.’ Hester’s voice is tiny and thin. ‘And neither is Mr Robin Durrant, our house guest. At this time of day they are often to be found in the water meadows between here and Thatcham, going about their—’

‘Oh, we know where Robin Durrant is, don’t you worry. He’s safely in custody, and guarded by three men.’

‘What do you mean? Why is he guarded?’

‘Perhaps you’d like to sit down, Mrs Canning? I can see this is all coming as a terrible shock, to the whole household …’ From downstairs, a fresh storm of pitiful crying erupts from Sophie Bell.

‘I do not want to sit down! Why is Robin Durrant guarded by three men?’

‘Well, Mrs Canning, it was Robin Durrant that committed the murder. He was seen by two men just after he did it, trying to dispose of the girl’s body in the canal. He didn’t even try to run away, and he was most dreadfully stained with her blood. Now he’s sitting in silence and won’t say a word to anybody, not even to deny it. Never a surer sign of guilt, in my experience. It’s a terrible business, truly terrible.’ The policeman shakes his head. Hester’s head fills with a muffled, uneven thumping. Grey shadows swell at the edges of her vision.