House of the Lost

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Mara knew that Mikhail had always tried to protect her and that he had very particularly tried to protect her from her own past. He had brought her to England, out of reach of Zoia and the Securitate, out of reach of the men in Jilava Gaol who had finally made her see – and admit – she was a murderess. After she entered St Luke’s, she had tried to atone for the murder of Annaleise, but she had never been sure she had done enough. Even so, after a while she had felt safe in the convent until Theo Kendal came to Fenn House.

At first Mara had not seen Theo as a threat to her safety. She had assumed he had come to Fenn to arrange for its sale, but Sister Catherine, visiting him that day, had reported he was here for some time. This was deeply disturbing to Mara, because whatever else Theo Kendal might do in Melbray, he was bound to ask questions about Charmery’s murder – questions the police had not asked, but questions that might lead to Mikhail and from Mikhail to Mara herself.

So she had watched Theo as much as she could, going stealthily down the lanes at night and stealing through the gardens of Fenn House. One night, when he was in bed, she had let herself into the house with the key she had taken four months earlier, and had switched on the laptop and read what was typed there. No one knew the quiet Sister Miriam understood computers. She had watched Sister Catherine use the convent’s machine several times. There had been some library records to be transferred and she had sat next to Catherine while it was done. It did not appear difficult. Catherine had explained quite a lot of it as she went, and had later left some of her notes lying around from the computer course. Mara made her own notes from them which she studied in the privacy of her room. It was probably knowledge she would never need, but all knowledge was good, and she was even able to test it on the computer when Reverend Mother was away. No one had known about that. She had struggled a bit at first, but then realized that once you understood the basic principles, it was not so very difficult to open and type a simple document.

The laptop at Fenn House was not difficult, either, but when Mara read Theo’s current work, she was appalled. He knew so much! He knew about Matthew and about Zoia and Annaleise and Elisabeth – and about Mara herself. How could he know those things? The facts were not all absolutely accurate and clearly he had made some things up, but the whole thing was so near the truth that Mara was engulfed in panic and terror. Theo Kendal was a professional writer – what he wrote was published. But if this were to be published… Letting herself quietly out of the house and going back to St Luke’s, she knew it must never be published. A way must be found to prevent it.

Gradually, a plan formed – a plan that was initially intended merely to scare him away. His vulnerable point would be his dead cousin, Charmery. Could he be persuaded that the memories of Charmery were too vivid, too painful? Could he even be brought to believe that Charmery haunted Fenn House? Men did not, in general, believe in ghosts, but it was worth trying. Mara tried it. Once when Theo was absorbed in working at the computer, once when she had lured him outside by shining a torch in the boathouse. She used two different ghost scenarios: the ticking clock, so stealthily set working while he was preparing his supper, and the dried rose left by the portrait while he investigated the light in the boathouse – the light Mara herself had created.

But either Theo did not believe in ghosts or was not easily scared, because he had remained in Melbray. Mara had suddenly seen that scaring him away was not the answer: he would write the book no matter where he was. Then the only thing to stop him writing was for him to die.

For him to die… A second murder, so soon after Charmery’s could not be risked, but how about suicide? The suicide of a man grieving so deeply for his lost love, he could not face life without her? Mara thought it was plausible. How could it be done?

In the bathroom cabinet at Fenn House had been a pack of a mild sedative: diazepam, in a 5mg strength. Mara had noted it during one of her stealthy explorations, and mentally stored it away as something that might be made use of.

The convent had a small drugs cupboard, mostly painkillers for patients recovering from major bone traumas, but there was also a supply of sedatives to help relax any patient undergoing a minor procedure. Diazepam was one of these. Mara read the dosage instructions carefully, then took four 10mg tablets. She would have preferred to use the liquid form which came in dropper bottles, but a strict check was kept on the drugs cupboard and even one missing bottle would be noticed. But tablets could be replaced by plain paracetamol which were roughly the same size and should stand up to an inspection. She effected the substitution, and back in her own room crushed the four tablets and sealed the powder in an envelope in readiness. Now it was a question of watching and being ready to act swiftly, and of making sure to always have the Fenn House key with her. It might be a long wait, of course.

But it was not. Walking in the convent grounds two days later, ostensibly absorbed in her own thoughts, she saw Theo going past St Luke’s gates and into the lanes beyond. An afternoon walk, probably. Mara took a deep breath, and went quickly down the drive, praying not to meet anyone in the lane, but not really expecting to do so on such a cold afternoon. Out of sight of the convent she put on the thin surgical gloves taken from the dispensary. Even in a convent you were aware of such things as fingerprints.

Once inside Fenn House she had planned to stir the crushed pills into something he would eat or drink that same evening – beer or wine, perhaps – but a chicken casserole had been left on the kitchen table, clearly intended for that evening’s meal. Absolutely ideal. Mara tipped in the contents of the envelope, waited for the powder to absorb into the liquid, then went back out. Returning to Fenn later was a bit more difficult because the convent supper was served at half past six, but she managed to slip out shortly after seven thirty, trusting he would have eaten his evening meal by then.

And so he had. He was slumped in a chair in the big sitting room. When Mara bent over him to lift one eyelid, the pupils were pinpoints. It was all right. With her heart racing, she went into the dining room, and with every nerve ending sensitive to any movement from the other room, she typed onto his computer the false confession to Charmery’s murder: the confession she had so carefully composed and written out the night before.

It took barely ten minutes, and Mara stood up and pocketed the handwritten pages. On the way back to St Luke’s she would tear them into tiny pieces and scatter them across the fields. But first she would take the sharpest kitchen knife she could find, and bring the blade down on each of his wrists, straight onto the veins so near the surface. She was fairly sure that if she stood behind his chair and reached down to his hands, no blood would get onto her. He would hardly know what had happened because he would be unconscious from the diazepam. And although the sedative would be found at a post mortem, it would be explained by the reference to it in the fake suicide letter.

There were several knives in the kitchen, and she chose the one that looked sharpest. Then she went back to the sitting room. But as she stood looking down at the figure in the chair, he moved, and Mara’s heart lurched with panic. Had she misjudged the dose? Was he coming round? She stayed where she was, and to her horror, he half opened his eyes. One hand came up as if in defence or protest, and Mara stepped back at once, praying he had not seen her. She stood in the doorway, watching him, seeing with horror that he was definitely coming round. His eyes were partly open, although even from here they looked unfocused. He turned his head as if trying to see where he was. Could she still go through with it?

She knew she could not. Killing an unconscious man was one thing; killing a man who was in possession of his senses was vastly different and, in any case, even in this drugged state, he would easily overcome her. She went quickly across the hall, replaced the knife, and went out through the main door, closing it with the smallest whisper of sound.

Behind her, she left Theo Kendal’s suicide letter on the computer.

Later, listening to him give the talk to St Luke’s patients about writing books, Mara wondered what he had made of the typed confession. He seemed to have recovered from the diazepam and he appeared perfectly calm and seemed to enjoy his afternoon. But what was he really thinking? When, a few days later, he brought a cousin to see the convent’s paintings, she watched him closely and even managed to talk to the cousin, but if Lesley Kendal knew what had been going on, she did not say.

Over the next twenty-four hours, Mara had the curious feeling that the threads spun all those years ago in Romania – spun by Zoia and Annaleise – were twisting together, ready to close about her. She felt oddly light-headed, as if she had fasted. As the day wore on, the light-headedness vanished. But in its place an old fear began to surface once again – the fear that the years in the convent, the long hours of prayer and study, were not enough to atone for what she had done. God required something more of her if those mortal sins were to be forgiven.

After supper and prayers, she shut herself away in the library – the safe quiet room that was her own domain – and tried to work on the notes she was compiling for a study on the influence of religion on medicine. It was a project she had embarked on with Mikhail in mind. He would find it interesting, he might even make suggestions as to how it could unfold. So much of what she did was with him in mind. But tonight the words would not come and the library felt hostile. The shadows seemed to crawl nearer, exactly as the shadows in the Black House and later in Jilava had. They were watching her, those shadows and waiting to see what she did.

At half past nine – the time when the non-clinic sisters were expected to be in their own rooms – Mara went up to her bedroom. From the window she could see across to Fenn House. She could see lights in several of the windows. Was Lesley Kendal still there? She stayed at the window for a long time, staring into the darkness, hearing the ticking of her little bedside clock, like a tiny beating heart.

When ten o’clock chimed the sound startled her, and then she understood that the chimes were reminding her what she must do. She went out into the passageway, listened intently in case anyone was around, then went swiftly down the side stair to the garden door. If she was careful she might be able to get out into the lane and from there she would go into the gardens of Fenn House. Just as she had done on that afternoon four months earlier when she murdered Charmery Kendal.

It had been a long drowsy day, the kind of day when the air was scented with lilac for miles around. Mara had gone to Fenn House to find out exactly how involved Charmery Kendal was with Mikhail.

It was very quiet as she went along the drive which was overgrown and untidy. No one was around, but a car was parked near the house and windows were open, so she went round the side of the house and down the mossy steps to the main gardens. She knew that in summer, if there was no reply to a ring at the doorbell, it was acceptable to walk down to the gardens. The English liked gardens; they liked spending time in them. They were lucky to be able to do that. People in Mara’s village had not had gardens and if they had, they used them to grow vegetables or even keep chickens.

Charmery Kendal was very lucky indeed. Fenn House, this nice old English home, belonged to her, and if Mikhail married her, it would belong to him as well. He deserved a nice house like this, but not if it meant Mara lost him to this pampered creature. She would consume him; she would make him her puppet. Mara could not bear to think of her beautiful sensitive brother ruined and quenched by this vain selfish girl.

She stood on the terrace, seeing the big expanse of lawn where the Kendals used to play their English games of cricket and rounders. Mara and the other sisters used to see them sometimes. There was the rose garden that had been a blaze of colour in the summer, but was now neglected and overgrown, although one or two hopeful splashes of colour still thrust through the tangles.

Charmery was stretched out on the lawn, an opened bottle of wine near her hand, and a book, lying face down by her side. She was wearing a bikini that hardly covered her body. Although Mara had thought she did not mind about Mikhail going to bed with her, seeing her like this brought a lump of angry bile into her throat.

Charmery looked slightly surprised to see Sister Miriam from St Luke’s, but not unduly so. In the past, when the family were here all summer, the nuns had occasionally called, usually if there was some charity event they wanted supporting. She waved Mara to a deckchair, and offered her a glass of iced lemonade, apologizing for her awkwardness in pouring it – there was some tale about a sprained wrist.

‘But Michael has strapped it up for me,’ she said, holding out the slender wrist with its pink-tipped nails and crêpe bandage. ‘He’s so deft, isn’t he? His hands have an amazing power. But they can be so gentle, as well.’ She smiled slyly when she said this. Mara understood Charmery was telling her she and Mikhail had shared intimacies, and that Mikhail’s hands had done a lot more than strap up her sprained wrist. Scalding jealousy flooded her body once again.

‘Are you here for any special reason, Sister? A donation or something? Or were you just passing?’

The patronizing, lady-of-the-manor tone, annoyed Mara. ‘There is a special reason, as it happens, Miss Kendal.’

‘Charmery.’

‘Charmery. It’s about my brother. You do know Dr Innes is my brother?’

‘Michael,’ she said, as if the saying of his name claimed him as her property, the possessive bitch. ‘Yes, he told me about you. We’ve got rather close this summer.’

‘That’s what I wanted to talk about. It’s interesting you use the word close – there are all kinds of closeness, aren’t there? All kinds of levels and depths of closeness.’

‘If you’re asking if we’ve been to bed, the answer’s yes, we have,’ said Charmery, ‘and very pleasurably, too. I don’t see what it’s got to do with you.’

‘I assumed you would have been to bed with him.’

‘Did you? Well, you’re very astute,’ said Charmery. ‘Michael’s told me how astute you are. He admires you. He looks up to you because of what happened in Romania. How you tried to protect him.’

The silence came down again. Mara had the disturbing impression that the stone statues on the lawn’s edge tilted their lichen-crusted faces very slightly, so as not to miss anything.

‘I always tried to keep Mikhail safe. For a lot of the time it was an unhappy, dangerous childhood. We lived under the hand of a greedy dictator.’

‘I know,’ said Charmery, refilling her glass from the half-empty bottle. Even from where she sat, Mara could smell the sharp fruitiness of it. ‘You were in prison as well,’ she said. ‘That must have been a dreadful ordeal.’

So Mikhail had told her about Jilava. Again there was the sensation of something stabbing deep into Mara’s vitals. No one in England knew about Jilava or Annaleise, except for Mikhail. It had been their secret, their shared past, one of the things that bound them together. But now this greedy, lacquer-nailed creature knew.

After a moment, Mara was able to say, ‘Yes, it was a great ordeal. Especially since it was for something I hadn’t done.’

Charmery said, ‘Hadn’t you? I wouldn’t blame you if you had – that cruel old bitch – the Politburo woman or whatever she was – she sounds such a hag. I’d have done her in without a second thought. No, Michael didn’t tell me you killed her. He said you were set up. Framed.’ She drank her wine, studying Mara over the rim. ‘But I have to tell you I was intrigued by the thought that you might have done it. A saintly and scholarly nun, who’s really a murderess.’

‘I’m not a murderess,’ said Mara, forcing herself to remain calm. Charmery was not very sober by this time, Mara could see that. Probably she had not drunk an excessive amount by her own standards, but she had drunk it quickly and it was a hot afternoon.

Charmery was saying something about Fenn House, about how it was a liability. ‘But my cousin Theo always loved it,’ she said. ‘It’ll go to him if ever I die. Because of the child. It’s still here, you see, that lost little thing.’

‘Child?’ This was something new and Mara looked at her with more attention.

‘Theo’s son and mine,’ said Charmery, turning to look towards the faint glimmer of the river beyond the boathouse.

‘You had a son with your cousin?’

‘Yes, but it died,’ she said, dismissively. ‘Hardly anyone knew about it. It’s still here, poor little thing, somewhere in the Chet. It was years ago. But d’you know, Mara, the odd thing is that since I’ve been here by myself, I’ve sometimes thought I heard it crying. Like those things from the old stories – rusalkas.’

‘The souls of drowned infants,’ said Mara, softly.

‘Yes. My son became a rusalka,’ she said. ‘And he’s still here. His body was never found, so I can’t possibly let Fenn House go to strangers, can I? Not ever. So when I die Theo will have it. Years and years in the future, of course, but still…’

When I die… Mara felt the world snap back into focus at the words. A tremendous weight descended on her and she saw what she had to do to keep Mikhail safe for ever – and to keep him her own for ever. ‘You’re a bit young to be thinking of dying,’ she said lightly.

‘Oh, things happen to people,’ said Charmery. ‘Road accidents and so on. Perhaps I’ll die young and it’ll all be deeply tragic, but everyone will remember me as young and beautiful. And Theo will have this house.’

‘It’s a lovely house,’ said Mara conventionally.

‘It’s full of memories,’ said Charmery. ‘All the things we used to do here as children. The little rituals and traditions. The rocking chair my cousin Lesley said was a magic one – a gateway to the fantasy lands of the stories. And the old grandfather clock we used to wind up because I said it was Fenn’s heart beating. We used to do that on the first night of every holiday. We said it woke up the house and the holiday couldn’t begin until the clock was ticking.’ She blinked and sat up straighter. ‘I’m a bit drunk.’

‘I think you are, a bit,’ said Mara. ‘Why don’t we walk round the garden together – see if that clears your head.’

‘All right. A walk through an English garden with a murderess,’ said Charmery, getting clumsily to her feet. ‘Where shall we go? Would you like to see the rose garden? My mother planted Charmian roses for my tenth birthday – she was a bit of a sentimentalist. Theo used to pick a single rose and leave it on my pillow for me to find when I went to bed. Come to think of it, he was always a bit of a sentimentalist as well. In fact he was an outright romantic. I don’t know what he is now. And the rose bushes are nearly all dead. Things die, Sister Miriam. My son died – Theo’s son.’

Mara took a deep breath, and forcing a casualness she was not feeling, said, ‘Why don’t we walk down to the old boathouse?’

Afterwards it was easy to go back up the steps – pausing to snap off a couple of the Charmian roses planted all those years ago. The French windows were propped open by a large stone. She glanced back down the garden, then stepped inside the house. This was the place of all those memories. She began to walk through the rooms, touching the fold of a curtain or the back of a chair, seeing the film of dust on the tables.

The stairs were wide and uncarpeted and it was clear no one had taken polish or duster to them for a very long time. It looked as if Charmery Kendal had been a bit of a slattern. Even if Mara had allowed Mikhail to marry, she would not have let him marry such a sloven. As it was, he would remain hers, entirely and absolutely, just as he had been all their lives, until he was caught in the sticky web of this twenty-first century Messalina.

Here was the rocking chair those long-ago children had pretended would fly them to magical lands, and in the big bedroom at the front of the house was the grandfather clock they used to wind up to set Fenn’s heart beating for the holidays. Mara touched the pendulum experimentally, and instantly the mechanism sprang to life and a measured ticking filled the room. It startled her because it really did sound and feel as if something had woken. She stopped the pendulum and the ticking faded.

As she went back downstairs she noticed a bunch of keys lying on a small hall table, and she paused, then picked them up. Would one of these keys fit the main door of this house? She tried one at random. It did not fit, nor did the next one, but the third one slid home and the lock turned easily. Mara checked to see if there was an identical key on the ring – surely no house of this size would have only one key – and when she found the duplicate, she removed it and pocketed it.

She went inside St Luke’s, unnoticed, meeting no one. Once in her room, she wedged a chair against the door, then washed away the splashes of mud and river weed that had caught her hands and the edges of her cuffs when she held Charmery down in the river. The cuffs were carefully rinsed clean and put to dry on the windowsill, and new cuffs donned. The key to Fenn House was tucked at the back of a drawer. That left the roses. Mara considered, then laid them between the leaves of a book, and placed two heavier books on top. Later, she would press them properly, using layers of tissue paper. A reminder of what she had done.

The supper bell sounded, and, obedient to the convent’s day, she went downstairs to the refectory. No one would notice anything different about her, no one would suspect anything.

No one had noticed or suspected.

Charmery’s murder wiped a smeary bloodied print across the uneventful life of Melbray for a time, but little by little life settled back into its uneventful pattern. The police were not seen as frequently at Fenn House. They no longer tramped around Fenn’s gardens or crawled over the old boathouse with their cameras and forensic tests. If they found what Mara thought were called DNA samples that matched any of the nuns they would not think twice about it. The sisters did call at Fenn House occasionally – there was no reason to be secretive about it.

But they did not find anything that brought them to St Luke’s, and after a while journalists and photographers stopped haunting Melbray in the hope of finding new angles on the story.

Mara did not often see Mikhail, but when she did he seemed quieter and thinner. He would get over it, though; he would not really have loved a woman like that – a Jezebel who had conceived a child without being married, and had let it die. It had become a rusalka, Charmery had said. The odd thing was that Mara kept remembering those words. The souls of drowned infants. It was unexpected that Charmery had known the legend, but it was fitting that she had died in the river where her son had been drowned.

Later, the news filtered through that Theo Kendal had inherited Fenn House from his cousin. So she did leave it to him, thought Mara. She had some feelings after all – feelings for the cousin she must once have loved. And feelings for the child whose body lay deep within the Chet’s green mistiness.

The image of the child drowned in the Chet had remained with Mara all these months. It was with her now, as she put on her woollen cape and prepared to get out of St Luke’s without being seen. At last she knew what she must do.

She silently left her room. Sister Catherine’s room was nearby and twice she had heard Catherine come out and go down to the clinic wing. So it was important to be very quiet. She went down the back stair to the garden door, but before unbolting it peered through the little side window. No one was around. She had not expected anyone would be, not at this hour. She unbolted the door and stepped outside. Then, keeping well away from the main drive, she went towards the gates, and along the lane that led to Fenn House.