The House on the Strand (23 page)

We plunged into the river to drag the plank ashore, the monks with us, and as we did so the leading horseman shouted, "A birthday package for my wife, Roger Kylmerth. See that she receives it with my compliments, and when she has done with it tell her that I await her at Carminowe." He burst out laughing, and his men with him, and then they turned their horses up the hill and rode away.

Roger and the first monk drew the plank ashore. The others crossed themselves and began to pray, and one of them went down upon his knees at the water's edge. There was no knife wound upon Bodrugan, no sign of violence. The water streamed from his mouth and his eyes were open. They had drowned him before they lashed him to the plank. Roger untied the hawser strands and bore him in his arms, with the water dripping from his hair, towards the mill. "Merciful God, he said, how am I to tell her?"

There was no need. As we turned towards the mill we saw the ponies, Robbie upon his own, Isolda mounted on a second, her hair loose upon her shoulders, wet and lank, her cloak billowing out behind her like a cloud. Robbie at a glance saw what had happened, and put out his hand to seize her bridle and turn her pony back, but in a moment she had dismounted and came running down the hill towards us. "Oh, my love," she said, "oh, no... oh, no... oh, no...", her voice, that had started clear and strong, trailing off into a single cry.

Roger laid his burden on the ground and ran towards her, and so did I. As we took hold of her outstretched hands she slipped out of our grasp and fell, and instead of holding on to her cloak I was scrambling amongst bales of straw piled against a corrugated tin shed across the road from Treesmill farm.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I LAY THERE waiting for the nausea and the vertigo to pass. I knew it had to be endured, and the quieter I remained the quicker it would go. It was already light, and I had sense enough to glance at my watch. It was twenty-past five. If I gave myself a quarter-of-an-hour, without moving, all should be well. Even if the people at Treesmill farm were already astir no one was likely to cross the road and come to the shed, which was hard against the wall of an old valley orchard, the stream a few yards away from where I lay, all that remained of the tidal creek. My heart was thumping, but it gradually eased, and the dreaded vertigo was not as bad as that previous time when I had come to at the Gratten, and had the encounter with the doctor at the lay-by at the top of the hill.

Five minutes, ten, fifteen... then I struggled to my feet, and slipping from the orchard walked very slowly up the hill. So far so good. I climbed into the car and sat another five minutes, then started the engine and drove equally carefully back to Kilmarth. Plenty of time to put away the car and lock up the flask in the lab, then the wisest thing to do would be to go straight to bed and try to get some rest. There was nothing more I could do, I told myself. Roger would take Isolda back to that Tregest place, wherever it was, and poor Bodrugan's body would be safe in the care of those monks. Someone would have to carry the news to Joanna at Bockenod. Roger would take care of that, I felt sure. I now had a regard, even an affection for him, he was so obviously moved by Bodrugan's appalling death, and we had shared the horror of it together. I was right to have had that sense of foreboding on the beach below Chapel Point before sailing back to Fowey with Vita and the boys. Vita and the boys... I drove into the garage just as I remembered them, and with the memory came full understanding. I had driven home in one world with my brain still in the other. I had driven home, part of my brain completely sensible to the fact that I had the wheel in my hands and belonged to the present, while the rest of me was still in the past, believing Roger on the way to Tregest with Isolda.

I began to sweat all over. I sat quite still in the car, my hands trembling. It must not happen again. I must take a grip on myself. It was just on six o'clock in the morning. Vita and the boys, and those damned guests of ours, were all asleep upstairs, and Roger and Isolda and Bodrugan had been dead for more than six centuries. I was in my own time... I let myself in at the back door and put the flask away. It was fully light by now, but the house was silent still. I crept upstairs and into the kitchen, and put on the electric kettle to make myself a cup of tea. Tea was the answer, a steaming cup. The purr of the kettle was oddly comforting, and I sat down at the table, remembering suddenly how much we had all had to drink the night before. The kitchen still smelt of the lobster we had eaten, and I got up and opened the window.

I was in the middle of my second cup when I heard a creak on the stairs, and I was about to streak down to the basement and remain perdu when the door opened and Bill came into the room. He grinned sheepishly.

"Hub," he said. "Two minds with but a single thought. I woke up, thought I heard a car, and suddenly had the most fearful thirst. Is that tea you're drinking?"

"Yes," I said. "Have a cup. Is Diana awake?"

"No," he replied, "and if I know my wife after a binge, not likely to, either. We were all pretty well stoned, weren't we? I say, no hard feelings?"

"No, none," I told him.

I poured him out a cup of tea, and he sat down at the table. He looked a mess, and his pyjamas, a livid pink, did not tone with his grey complexion.

"You're dressed," he said. "Have you been up long?"

"Yes," I said. "I've been out, as a matter of fact—I couldn't sleep."

"Then it was your car I heard coming down the drive?"

"It must have been," I said.

The tea was doing me good, but it was making me sweat as well. I could feel the sweat pouring down my face.

"You look a bit off," he said critically. "Are you all right?"

I took my handkerchief out of my coat pocket and wiped my forehead. My heart had started thumping again. Must be something to do with the tea.

"As a matter of fact," I said slowly, and I could hear myself slurring my words, as if the tea had been a strong dose of alcohol that had temporarily knocked me off balance, "I was an unseen witness to an appalling crime. I just can't forget it."

He put down his cup and stared at me. "What on earth?" he began.

"I felt I needed some air," I said, speaking very fast, "so I took the car down to a place I know, about three miles from here, near the estuary, and a boat went aground. It was blowing damned hard, and the chap aboard with his crew had to take to the dinghy. They made the opposite shore all right and then this appalling thing happened..." I poured myself another cup of tea, despite my trembling hands.

"These thugs," I said, "these bloody thugs on the opposite shore—the chap from the boat didn't have a chance. They didn't knife him or anything, they forced his head under water and let him drown."

"My God!" said Bill. "My God, how terrible. Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said, "I saw it. I saw the poor devil drown—" I got up from the table and began walking up and down the kitchen.

"Well, what are you going to do?" he asked. "Hadn't you better ring the police?"

"Police?" I said. "It's not a job for the police. It's this chap's son I'm thinking of. He's ill, and someone will have to tell him, and the other relatives."

"But, good God, Dick, it's your duty to inform the police! I can see you don't want to be involved, but this is murder, surely? And you say you know the chap who was drowned, and his son?"

I stared at him. Then I pushed aside my cup of tea. It had happened, oh, sweet Christ, it had happened. The confusion. The confusion between worlds... The sweat was running down the whole of my body.

"No," I said, "I don't know him personally. I've seen him about, he keeps a yacht the other side of the bay, I've heard people talk about the family. You're right, I don't want to be involved. And anyway I wasn't the only witness. There was another chap watching, and he saw the whole thing. I'm pretty sure he will report it—in fact, he's probably done so already."

"Did you speak to him?" asked Bill.

"No," I said, "no, he didn't see me."

"Well, I don't know," said Bill. "I still think you ought to telephone the police. Would you like me to do it for you?"

"No, on no account. And, Bill, not a word of this to Diana or Vita. Swear it."

He looked very troubled. "I understand that," he said. "It would upset them terribly. My God, you must have had one hell of a shock."

"I'm all right," I told him, "I'm all right." I sat down again at the kitchen table.

"Here, have some more tea?" he suggested.

"No," I said, "no, I don't want anything."

"It just goes to prove what I'm always saying, Dick. The crime figures are mounting steadily, in every civilised country in the world. The authorities have just got to take things in hand. I mean, who would believe it happening here, off the map, down in Cornwall? A set of thugs, you say? Any idea where they came from? Were they local men?"

I shook my head. "No, I said, I don't think so. I've no idea who they were."

"And you're quite certain this other fellow saw, and was going to report to the police?"

"Yes, I saw him running. He was making straight for the nearest farmhouse. They'll have a telephone there."

"I hope to heaven you're right," he said.

We sat for a while in silence. He kept sighing, and shaking his head. "What an experience for you. What a damned awful experience."

I put my hands in my pockets so that he should not see them shaking. "Look, Bill," I said, "I think I'll go upstairs and lie down. I don't want Vita to know I've even been out. Or Diana either. I want this thing to remain absolutely private between ourselves. There's nothing you or I can do now. I want you to forget it."

"O.K.," he said, "about not saying anything. But I shan't forget what you've told me. And I'll listen for it on the news. By the way, we shall have to leave after breakfast if we're to catch that plane from Exeter. Is that all right by you?"

"Of course," I said. "I'm only sorry to have spoilt your morning."

"My dear Dick, I'm the one to be sorry, and for you. Yes, I should go upstairs, and try to get some sleep. And look here, don't bother to get up and say good-bye. You can always plead a hangover." He smiled, and held out his hand. "We loved yesterday," he said, "and a thousand thanks for everything. I only hope nothing else comes up to spoil your holiday. I'll write you from Ireland."

"Thanks, Bill," I said, "thanks a lot."

I went upstairs, undressed in the dressing-room, then retched violently for about five minutes down the lavatory. The sound must have woken Vita, for I heard her calling from the bedroom.

"Is that you?" she said. "What's the matter?"

"All that muscadet on top of bourbon," I said. "Sorry, I can hardly stand. I'm going to turn in on the divan here. It's still quite early—about half-past six."

I closed the dressing-room door and threw myself on the divan bed. I was back in the world of today, but God alone knew how long it would stay that way. One thing was certain. As soon as Bill and Diana had gone I should have to telephone Magnus.

The unconscious is a curious thing. I was deeply disturbed over this total confusion of thought that might have made me blab the truth to Bill about the experiment itself; but five minutes or so after I had lain down on the divan I was asleep and dreaming, not, strangely enough, about Bodrugan and his appalling fate, but of a cricket match at Stonyhurst when one of the team got hit on the head with a cricket-ball and died of haemorrhage of the brain twenty-four hours later. I had not thought about the incident for at least twenty-five years. When I awoke just after nine I was perfectly lucid and clear in the head, apart from a hell of a genuine hangover, and my right eye was more bloodshot than ever. I bathed and shaved, and could hear sounds of movement from our guests in the room next door. I waited until I heard Bill and Diana go downstairs, then I put a call through to Magnus. No luck. He was not at the fiat. So I left a message with his secretary at the University saying I wanted to speak to him very urgently, but it might be better if I put the call through to him rather than he to me. Then I stuck my head out of the dressing-room window overlooking the patio and shouted to Teddy to bring me up a cup of coffee. I would appear in the hall to bid our guests godspeed five minutes before departure, and not a moment before.

"What's wrong with your eye? You hit the floor or something? " asked my elder stepson as he brought coffee.

"No," I told him. "I think it's a back-lash from the wind on Monday."

"You were up early anyway," he said. "I heard you talking to Bill in the kitchen."

"I was making tea," I said. "We both of us had too much to drink at dinner."

"Guess that's what turned your eye all streaks and not the sea," he said, looking so like his mother in one of her more perceptive moods that I turned away, and then remembered that his room was above the kitchen and he could conceivably have overhead our conversation.

"Anyway," I asked before he left the dressing-room, "what were we talking about?"

"How should I know?" he replied. "Do you think I'd pull up the floorboards to listen?"

No, I reflected, but his mother might, if she heard a discussion going on between her husband and her guest at 6 a.m.

I finished dressing, drank down my coffee, and appeared at the top of the stairs just in time to help Bill down with the suitcases. He greeted me with a conspiratorial glance of enquiry—the girls were below us in the hall—and murmured, "Get any sleep?"

"Yes," I said, "yes, I'm fine." I saw him staring at my eye. "I know," I said, touching it, "no explanation for that. Must have been the bourbon. By the way," I added, "Teddy heard us talking this morning."

"I know," he said, "I heard him tell Vita. Everything's O.K. Don't worry." He patted me on the shoulder, and we clumped downstairs.

"Heavens!" cried Vita. "What have you done to your eye?"

"Bourbon allergy," I said, combined with shellfish. "It happens to some people."

Both girls insisted on examining me, suggesting alternative remedies from penicillin ointment to T.C.P.