The Chandelier Ballroom (36 page)

‘She told me her husband was a bit of a crook in the old days but that wasn’t part of the story. What she said was that he became fascinated by what the antique dealer told him about the chandelier. She told me that her husband became almost obsessed by it, whatever that meant.’

Repeating the rest of what the woman had told him, it was almost as if he himself was coming to believe the story that had been wound around it.

‘It’s not a comfortable story,’ he said finally, ‘and I suppose it does make one wonder. So you see, darling, if only for our peace of mind it might be as well to get rid of it. I’m not being gullible,’ he added a little too quickly, as though needing to negate the effect the tale had indeed had on him. ‘Just that we could do with modernising the place, don’t you agree?’

Eileen’s reluctant nod was interrupted by the telephone in the hall, he hurrying out to answer it, already confident that she’d agreed with him.

Eileen herself wandered into the big room and gazed up at the chandelier. Maybe he was right, the room needed modernising and, beautiful though the thing was, it did look rather out of date. Yet without it the room wouldn’t be the same, would somehow feel wrong. She now wished she hadn’t agreed to get rid of it. She would come to terms with the strange presence she’d seen, or thought she’d seen. But there was David. He’d seen it too and maybe reasoned that with the chandelier gone there’d be no more odd disturbances.

What was really disturbing was that all-consuming rage that for a moment had taken total control of her, nothing to do with what she’d seen or heard, but some other evil lurking deep inside her. Would she really have taken a knife and plunged it into him in a blind fury? She would never know, even though she told herself she’d never in her life succumbed to mindless rage; it wasn’t in her nature.

Yet the thought had been there, more an omen than a thought. What if it still lurked, hidden here inside her? Maybe it lay hidden inside everyone, they not even aware of it until suddenly … Is that what had happened to those others who’d killed the ones they’d loved? Until then they had probably been the nicest of people.

What if on some other occasion, outraged beyond endurance, she did give way to the ferocity that had reared up inside her? The thought made her feel suddenly sick and with an effort she cast it from mind. She mustn’t allow herself to think of it ever again.

Making an effort to put it from mind, she made to follow David back into the lounge, where he’d gone after his telephone call, but again the chandelier caught her eye and she hesitated. Gazing up at it, it felt she was being gently mesmerised.

It was a wonderful sensation and, without taking her eyes from it, she backed slowly towards the main switch, pressing it. The delicate festoons of crystals glittering in the instant brilliance of light suddenly took her breath away and she caught her lip between her teeth, the movement distorting her features as she continued to gaze.

Could she really allow such a lovely thing to go, to be lost forever? A slow, determined smile began to spread across Eileen Burnley’s face as she walked from the big room back to find her husband.