Fiona gave a shrill laugh. 'Good heavens, constable! You surely don't
think my husband burned down his own business?'
The room was spinning now, faster and faster, out of control. When
the devil drives, thought Joanna, and fainted.
THERE was darkness all around Joanna. Her eyelids felt weighted and
she struggled feebly to open them.
'Take it easy,' a voice said. 'Relax. It's all right.'
There were fingers clasping hers, holding them tightly, pulling her
back from the all-pervading blackness. She looked up into Cal's face.
He looked weary and grimy, and the smell of smoke hung around
him.
She said absurdly, 'It's you.' Then, 'I feel sick.'
'Lie still,' he told her. 'It will pass.'
She was lying on the drawing-room sofa, she discovered. Over his
shoulder she could see Philip looking equally dishevelled, and Fiona,
wide-eyed and twittering.
'What happened?' she asked dazedly.
'You passed out. Driscoll and I walked in, and found you stretched on
the carpet, with Mrs Chalfont having hysterics over you, and a young
bobby trying to bring you round.'
'I remember,' she said slowly. She was beginning to remember
altogether too much. Why the policeman had been there, and what
Fiona had said, just before the darkness closed in. Simon, she
thought, desperately. Oh, Simon. 'The policeman—where is he?' She
tried to sit up, but Cal pushed her quietly but firmly back against the
cushions.
'He's just gone. He'll come back later.'
'Will he?' Her eyes searched his face, looking for a comfort she didn't
find. 'Is—is the fire bad?'
'About as bad as it could be. The smoke detectors couldn't have been
working as well as they should be.'
Or they'd been tampered with. The unspoken comment seemed to
hover in the room.
After a pause, Cal went on, 'It will all have to be gone into, naturally.'
'All that stuff,' Philip muttered. 'All those completed orders. God, this
is a disaster!'
'But we're insured,' Fiona insisted. 'Heavily insured. Simon told me
we were. The insurance will pay.'
Joanna moved restively, and Cal looked down at her.
He said, 'It's time we all tried to get some sleep. Can you walk to your
room?'
She swung her legs to the floor, and stood. The room swam. Cal's arm
was there, suddenly, like an iron bar supporting her.
'Obviously not.' He picked her up in his arms as if she were a child,
and started for the door.
'Now just a minute,' Philip began hectoringly. 'I don't know what
gives you of all people the right to march in here and take over --'
'We'll discuss that in daylight. In the meantime, look after your sister.
This must have been a shock for her.' Cal eyed him coldly, and Philip
subsided, reddening.
Cal carried Joanna out into the hall, and towards the stairs. Under her
cheek, the thud of his heart was firm and steady. Her own pulses were
going haywire, and she was trembling deep inside. How could he not
know? she thought. How could he not care?
'You'll have to direct me,' he said as they went up the stairs.
'It's to the left. The second door along.' Her voice sounded small and
shaky.
He shouldered his way in with her, and put her down on the bed, with
an impersonal efficiency that chilled her. He'd carried her before, she
thought, but that had been in some other age, some other existence.
'Try and rest,' he directed brusquely. As he straightened, she put a
hand on his arm, gripping his sleeve.
Don't leave me. The words rose to her lips and had to be bitten back.
Instead she said, 'What's going to happen?'
'There'll be an investigation—a full inquiry. The insurance company
will insist.' His expression was unreadable.
Joanna bit her lip. 'There's no way it can be avoided?'
'None. It's out of our hands.' He looked at her, his mouth tightening.
'Are you going to be all right? Shall I ask someone to come and be
with you?'
'I'm fine,' she lied. She gave a small, strained laugh. 'I've never fainted
in my life before. That's usually Fiona's prerogative.'
He didn't smile back at her. 'Try not to worry too much. There's
nothing you can do. It's just one of those things.' He detached her
fingers from his sleeve, gently but very definitely. 'I must go. I'll—see
you around.'
She nodded, suppressing the sob rising in her throat, as he walked
away from her to the door. His whole attitude was making it clear she
had nothing to hope for from him. He'd meant every word he'd said at
their last meeting.
Cal went out and didn't look back.
Joanna lifted her clenched fist and pressed it against her lips.
So—that was it. It was all over. He was distancing himself while they
drowned in a new sea of troubles. But what else did she expect? she
asked herself wearily. He was hardly likely to leap to Simon's aid
again—not after last time.
But I can't let him go—just like that, she argued with herself. There's
so much I haven't told him—so much I need to say. He doesn't know,
for instance, that I've found out the truth about our grandparents. I
must tell him that, at least. He has a right to know.
She got off the bed and went to the door, stumbling a little over the
hem of her dressing-gown. As she made her way along the gallery to
the head of the stairs, she heard his voice in the hall below.
'No,' he was saying, 'there's no doubt at all—the fire was started quite
deliberately. All the evidence is there.'
'Have they any idea who's responsible?' Philip's voice was strained
and worried.
Joanna felt the breath catch in her throat as she listened..
'I think they're almost certain,' Cal said grimly. 'It's just a question of
finding him, and getting the truth out of him.' He paused. 'If Simon
should happen to show up here, tell him to get in touch with me
immediately. It's most urgent.'
'Yes,' Philip said heavily. 'Yes, I understand.'
A moment later the front door banged, and she heard Philip go back
into the drawing-room, talking too loudly and cheerfully to Fiona.
Joanna shrank back against the wall. All her worst fears were being
confirmed. It was like a bad dream come true.
Arson, she thought. And Simon had done it.
Simon.
He'd burned
down the Craft Company for the insurance. What was more, his guilt
was known. When he returned, he would be interviewed and arrested.
And if he was convicted, he would probably be sent to prison.
She felt sick again. The fool, she thought, hugging her arms across
her body. The idiot! How on earth could he have imagined he'd get
away with it? But of course, she reminded herself grittily, Simon
didn't think things through. That was why he was in his present
financial mess.
She went slowly back to her room and got under the covers of the
bed, still in her dressing-gown, shivering as if she would never be
warm again.
What was going to happen to them all? she wondered wretchedly.
They would lose the house, of course. That went without saying. Cal
would take it to recoup his losses. Her father would be robbed of his
only sanctuary. Simon's life would be wrecked and his marriage, such
as it was, ruined.
If only he'd given her some idea—some hint of what he was planning.
Maybe she could have talked him out of it. I should have guessed
from the way he spoke that he had something totally crazy in mind,
she castigated herself.
Oh, Si, I won't be able to rescue you this time.
Two lonely people had found love and a brief happiness together, and
from this two generations of disaster had sprung. Where would it all
end? she asked herself desolately.
But she could find no answer as she lay tossing and turning through
what remained of the night.
'I wish old Si would come back,' Philip grumbled. It was the
umpteenth time he'd said it, and Joanna felt her teeth gritting
automatically.
This had been one of the longest days of her life, she thought. The
phone had never stopped ringing. Mostly it was friends and
acquaintances calling to exclaim and condole, but sometimes it was
the Press who'd got wind of the arson rumour, and were much trickier
to fob off with 'No comment'. And twice it had been the police asking
politely if Mr Chalfont had yet returned, or if there had been any word
from him. Again the reply to both questions was in the negative. But
for how long would they continue to take 'no' for an answer?
At least Fiona was out of the way, she thought. Mrs Driscoll had
borne her off to Harrogate, baby-shopping, 'to take her mind off
things'. Not that Fiona seemed unduly troubled. Simon's continuing
absence made her fretful rather than genuinely anxious. Clearly the
deeper implications of the situation were lost on her.
Lucky Fiona, Joanna thought wryly.
Cal had not phoned. There had not been a sign or a message from him
all day. But then, what had she really expected?
'See you around.' That surely had to be the most laconic of dismissals.
Needless to say, her father had been disturbed by the comings and
goings in the night.
'You'd best tell him the truth, Miss Jo,' Nanny had advised. 'It'll only
fret him otherwise.'
I'll tell him part of it, Joanna thought wearily. The whole truth would
fret him far more.
Aloud, she said, 'Do you think he can take it?'
'For all he hasn't slept, he's grand this morning,' Nanny told her.
'Right as a bobbin.'
To her amazement, Anthony Chalfont had accepted the news that the
Craft Company was now a blackened ruin quite calmly. The
bewildered child remembering his mother and an old tragedy might
never have existed. He seemed his old self again. Joanna found
herself wondering if allowing himself to remember the truth, voicing
those early fears and traumas about his mother, had proved some kind
of catharsis for him.
'This fire is only' a temporary setback.' He sat straight-backed in his
chair, his hands folded tranquilly in his lap. 'Simon will have to deal
with it as such—find alternative premises while we rebuild. Has he
done so yet?'
Joanna hesitated. 'Simon's away on business at the moment. We
haven't been able to contact him yet.'
'Simon will look after things.' Her father looked over the sunlit
gardens. 'There was a time, Joanna, when I thought you should have
been born the boy. But Simon's doing well now. I have great faith in
him.' He nodded, smilingly. 'Great faith.'
'That's good,' she said, biting her lip. 'That's fine.'Or it would be until
Simon came out of hiding and gave himself up, she'd thought grimly.
What would the shock of that do to her father? Send him back into
some vague and clouded past again? She couldn't bear that.
Now she looked at Philip. 'There's really no need for you to wait here,'
she said. 'I'm sure you must have a million things to do.'
Philip pursed his lips. 'Can't really make many decisions without old
Si.' He shook his head. 'Should have told us where he was going.
Makes things very difficult when we don't know.'
Joanna looked down at the floor. 'How do you think the fire started,
Philip? What have the police told you?'
'Damned little.' Philip looked vaguely sullen. 'It's Blackstone they
confide in, not me. He seems to have taken over completely. Quite
extraordinary.' He gave a slight cough. 'I knew that he and Simon had
done business in some marginal way, but I didn't realise he was now a
regular visitor here.'
'He isn't,' Joanna said briefly.
'Oh?' Philip raised his eyebrows. 'Well, he seemed perfectly at home
last night, Joanna. There's been a few rumours around, I don't mind
telling you. I've always' dismissed them as rubbish, but the way he
came marching in here as if he owned the place made me think a bit.
Not to mention his arrival at the Craft Company yesterday.'
Joanna gave him a constrained smile. 'He doesn't own this house, I
can assure you.' Not yet, anyway.
Philip looked faintly sceptical. 'There was a time when a Blackstone
wouldn't have been allowed across the doorstep.'
'Perhaps,' Joanna said evenly. 'But feuds are such a waste of time, and
like most quarrels no one can ever really remember how they began.'
'I see,' said Philip, as if he did. 'Well, I felt I had to ask. After all, if
we're going to be seeing something of each other...'
Joanna stared at him. 'I agreed to have dinner with you,' she said,
'nothing more.'
'Oh, naturally,' Philip said hastily. 'But all the same, you can't deny it
would be altogether a bad thing if we decided in due course...' He
stumbled to a halt. 'I mean, Si and Fiona would be delighted.'