Home through the Dark (7 page)

“I – no, thank you. I was wondering if you could help me.”

She looked up then. “Not if you've come to ask questions, dearie. More than my job's worth.”

“Not really, no, but I'm worried about my friend – a gentleman who was here last week.”

“Oh?” Her little eyes were trying to penetrate my sunglasses.

“I – think he was in Room 127.”

“Not 127 again! You the young lady what was looking for him on Friday? Can't tell you any more than I did then. He went off with his friend and later the other young gentleman came back to pay the bill and collect the cases. I've seen nothing of either of them since.”

“He – didn't leave any forwarding address?” I persisted, and immediately realized the idiocy of the question.

“What? Here?” The woman gave a bray of mirthless laughter. “You must be joking! Look, dear, I'm sorry if he's let you down but I can't help you and that's all there is to it.”

Losing interest, she returned to her paper and after a moment I turned and left her, bumping into another couple in the doorway as I went out.

Back in the car I went on driving for a while in the same direction, trying to itemize what new information I'd gleaned. There was very little of it but suddenly another picture clicked into focus in my mind, one that I had seen without registering as I made my discomfited exit from the hotel. That blue car which had been parked some way behind my own – surely I'd seen it before? And almost simultaneously came the certainty that it belonged to Marcus Sinclair.

I jammed my foot down on the brake, made a wide U-turn and drove swiftly back, but the road alongside the Picardy was now deserted. If I had recognized his car, I could be more or less sure that he had recognized mine, and therefore me, despite my attempt at disguise. But what had brought him to this unlikely neighbourhood I could not imagine, unless his low, cultured voice had been the one I'd first heard over the telephone. I had been too disturbed myself to notice his reaction to the mention of the Picardy that morning, but overall the only logical explanation for his presence there was that he had followed me. I felt a little tremor of alarm. Perhaps Sarah was not so wide of the mark in her assessment of him after all.

For the rest of the drive home I kept a lookout for the blue Triumph but there was no sign of it, nor was Marcus's car parked outside the Beeches when I reached it.

I made myself a cup of tea and sat down with it at the kitchen table to assess the position. No doubt my telephone caller had been the “friend” who had left with Room 127 and later returned for his case. But who was the young lady who was anxiously making enquiries last Friday? Not, presumably, the one who should have received my message, because she would have known what had happened to him. There must therefore be two girls and a man connected with the disappearance – if there really had been a disappearance. It was all so bafflingly vague that I seemed to have come to a dead end in the puzzle I had set myself to solve. There was certainly nothing further to be gained by another visit to the Picardy, and as for the tenuous link with the theatre, it could of course have been sheer coincidence that Stephen had been whistling “Roses of Picardy.” The only other possible line to pursue was to go back to square one, the place where it had all started – the estate agents' office.

I laid my cup carefully down on the saucer, aware of quickening excitement. They were short-staffed, obviously, or the office would not have been deserted when I called. And, as I had told Sarah, I needed to find a job. Teaching was obviously not open to me at the moment, but I had learned shorthand and typing one year when Carl's private secretary went down with glandular fever and was away for several months.

I went quickly into the hall and selected the local Yellow Pages directory from the table under the round window. There were two secretarial bureaus in Westhampton. Surely I could inveigle one of them into offering me a job at Culpepper's.

THE woman across the desk smiled brightly. “And what kind of secretarial work do you feel would interest you, Miss Durrell?”

“Actually,” I said firmly, “I'd rather like to work for an estate agent, if there are any jobs available in that line.”

“Estate agents. I'll just check.” She lifted a small card index file onto the desk and started to flick through it. “Of course all summer we've been desperately short of temps, but now that the holiday season is coming to an end there's not quite such a large choice on offer. However, I believe we have one or two which might interest you. Freeman and Lethbridge on the High Street are looking for – oh no, it's a junior they want. And – yes, Culpepper, Simpson and Clark, just a little bit further up the Parade here, are wanting someone for the next three weeks.”

I let out my held breath. “That sounds ideal.”

“Just a moment and I'll phone them to make sure they're not fixed up. People aren't always very reliable about letting us know when they find someone.” She was dialling with her pencil as she spoke. It was clear almost at once that Culpepper's had not yet filled the vacancy and an appointment was made for me to go round straight away.

“You'll see Miss Davidson and Mr. Holding, Miss Durrell. I do hope the job's to your liking.”

“Thank you.” I stood up and added awkwardly, “Do I owe you anything if I accept?”

“No, no, it's the employer who sees to that. Good luck.” The walnut partitions shone as richly as they had done last Thursday. One telephone was still on the highly polished counter alongside the list of properties for sale. But this time the woman I'd seen through the window before was seated at a desk, and she rose quickly and came towards me.

“Miss Durrell? I'm Isobel Davidson. I wonder if you could give me a few particulars before I take you in to Mr. Holding?”

“Of course.” I sat down opposite her and tried to gloss over the fact that although my shorthand and typing had reached good average speeds, I had never actually worked in an office. She prompted me at intervals, making notes in a small, neat hand, and I studied her while she did so, wondering again if she was the intended recipient for the message. She was about thirty-five or six, I guessed, unmarried, and with fair hair scraped severely back into a French pleat. She was tall, slim, smartly dressed and, to judge by the glasses perched on her nose, rather short-sighted. However hard I tried, I could not imagine her within the dubious confines of the Picardy Hotel.

I glanced across at an empty desk on which stood a covered typewriter. “Is the other girl still on holiday?” I asked casually.

“No, unfortunately she had a slight accident last week and since she had a week's holiday in hand it seemed sensible to take it now. I'm due to go myself on Saturday, but it looks doubtful now whether I shall be able to get away. Obviously you couldn't be left on your own so soon; it all depends on if Miss Derbyshire is well enough to come back on Monday. I'll take you now to see Mr. Holding – Mr. Alan Holding, that is. His son, Mr. Peter, is also a partner.”

“What happened to Messrs. Culpepper, Simpson and Clark?”

She smiled. “Messrs. Culpepper and Clark are long since departed this life. Mr. Ernest Simpson is the senior partner, but he's semi-retired and only comes in occasionally.”

She tapped on the glass door in the left-hand partition and showed me into the office which lay beyond. Mr. Alan Holding rose to his feet, a rather short man in his fifties with a small moustache and boyishly rosy cheeks. “Miss Durrell? I believe you may be able to help us out? Capital, capital!”

Twenty minutes later I was seated at the desk opposite Miss Davidson, typing out property details. So far, so good. However, if I'd expected all to be mysteriously revealed during the first few hours I spent at Culpepper's, I was to be disappointed. A more ordinary firm would have been hard to find. Peter Holding appeared and called me into his office to take down a few letters. He was about my own age, with long hair and a penchant for purple suits.

“Do you drive, Miss Durrell? Fine, then you wouldn't object to showing clients over properties where necessary? Great. You'd better come with me once or twice first though, to learn the ropes.”

The morning passed. At lunchtime, rather than drive back all the way to the Beeches, I merely crossed the Avenue and found a pleasant cake shop with a small restaurant above. I went up, seated myself at a window table, and stared down at the crowds of shoppers milling below. Beyond the pavement was the wide road, the gardens, and, discernible behind the fountain, the glass frontage of Culpepper's itself. And as my eyes located it, the door opened and Marcus Sinclair came quickly out and strode away up the road. Could I go
nowhere
without running across Marcus Sinclair? I wondered a little uneasily what business he had with Culpepper's and whether it could possibly have any bearing on the fact that I had started working there that very morning.

During the afternoon some clients called and later Peter Holding and I went with them to look round an empty house. By the end of that week I seemed to have been at the office for months but there had been no cryptic phone messages for me to intercept and no suspicious characters lurking round corners. Hating every moment of it, I had steeled myself to a quick flick through desks and filing cabinets as chance offered, but nothing untoward came to light, which fact made me feel guiltier than ever. Each lunchtime I returned to the same café and usually to the same table and it was there, on the Friday, that Marcus Sinclair found me.

“Mind if I join you?”

I turned quickly from the window in time to see him pulling out the chair beside me. “I saw you from the street. How are things?”

“All right, thank you.”

“Managing to pass the time?”

“As a matter of fact,” I said, my eyes fixed on him with a hint of challenge, “I've taken a job.”

“Oh?” He was studying the menu.

“With Culpepper's, across the road.”

“Good for you.” If he was already aware of the fact, he was not going to admit it.

“You know the firm?” I prompted.

“Oh yes, they're pretty sound, I imagine. Long-established and all that. Unlikely to fold during your temporary employment, anyway!”

“I didn't mention that it was temporary.”

His eyes met mine with some amusement. “But since you've only taken the flat for six months, it can hardly be permanent, can it?” He turned away to give his order to the waitress and I started to eat my meal. “You know something,
Miss Durrell?
” he went on deliberately, turning back to me, “I have a feeling that you're not quite what you seem to be.”

I stared at him wordlessly while he unhurriedly leaned over and ran one finger over the white band on my ringless hand. I jerked back. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“For instance,” he continued softly, “I would hazard a guess that you are in fact Mrs. Carl Clements.”

I ran my tongue round dry lips and when I spoke at last my voice was shriller than I cared for. “What are you, an enquiry agent or something?”

He smiled. “Nothing so dramatic. Don't look so worried, it's no concern of mine. I won't give you away.”

“But how – ?”

“I recognized you back at the hotel. It was a chance in a thousand, I know, but I'd seen a photograph of you with your husband in an old magazine at the dentist's, only the week before. I am right, aren't I?”

I nodded. There was no point in denying it.

“I presume you've left him?”

Another nod.

“Permanently?”

“I don't know.”

“Does he know where you are?”

“No.” My breathing was rapid and shallow and I kept my eyes on my plate.

After a moment he said gently, “Isn't that rather cruel?” I did not reply. “You see, I know what he's going through. My wife left me, too. We're divorced now.” He answered the unspoken query that must have been in my eyes. “Yes, I suppose I did deserve it, but that didn't make it hurt any the less at the time.”

“Have you any children?”

“No. All nice and tidy.” His voice was bitter. He leaned back while the waitress placed a bowl of soup in front of him and then, with a shrewd glance at my face, he said, “Anyway, enough of that. What really intrigues me is why you so obviously regard me with such dark suspicion. Am I indebted to the imaginative Mrs. Foss again?”

I crumbled the bread on my plate. His interest in me at the hotel was now doubly explained. He had recognized me and he'd heard me say I was going to live at his own address. His being at the window that night had also had a simple enough explanation, as I'd really suspected all along. Which left – “Did you follow me last Sunday afternoon?” I asked abruptly.

He met my eyes. “Yes, but I didn't think you'd noticed. I must be slipping!”

That, at least, was truthful. “May I ask why?”

“Because, though I couldn't imagine why, I was pretty sure you'd make a beeline for that grotty hotel and I didn't feel it was a safe place for you to go.”

“You're trying to say you went along to keep an eye on me?”

“Exactly that.”

“And you'd have stormed the barricades if I hadn't returned in reasonable time? That could have been embarrassing!”

“Don't be ridiculous, Ginnie.” It was the first time he'd used my first name and he spoke impatiently. I flushed, resenting the reprimand although unwillingly aware that my facetiousness had warranted it.

“Are you going to tell me why you went?”

“No. I'm sorry.”

“Something to do with your husband?”

My flush deepened. “Good Lord no!”

“Thank God for that, anyway. It was something those pansies said, wasn't it? You leaped as though you'd been stung when you heard the name of the place, so it must have rung some kind of a bell.”