Midnight is a Lonely Place

XLVII

Kate awoke suddenly with a start and lay staring up at the ceiling wondering where she was. Her head was spinning. Nothing about the room was familiar; she could not place it at all. A dull light was filtering through the closed orange curtains. She stared round at the overflowing shelves, the untidy desk with its computer, the posters on every inch of available wall space and then she closed her eyes again, defeated. She hadn’t the energy to sit up, but she knew she must. She lifted her wrist towards her face and squinted at her watch. A quarter past nine. She realised suddenly that under the duvet she was fully dressed. Cautiously she moved on the bed, easing herself nearer the edge, with a view to swinging her legs over the side, but every part of her body ached and for a moment she lay still, trying instead to force her brain into gear. What had happened last night? Why couldn’t she remember?

She turned her face towards the door as a faint knock sounded. It was Patrick. He grinned. ‘Sorry it’s such a mess in here. I’ve brought you some tea.’

Of course. Suddenly it was all flooding back. The horror and the fear; the cold and exhaustion. She levered herself up onto her elbow, and pushing the hair out of her eyes reached for the cup. ‘You’re a saint. I didn’t realise how thirsty I was. How is everybody?’

‘Alive, I guess.’ Patrick pulled the chair out from his desk and swivelling it round sat astride it, facing her. ‘What’s happening to us? What are we going to do?’

She sipped at the scalding tea and thought for a moment.

‘We’re going to have to get up to the main road. We need help. A doctor; the police.’ She paused, frowning. ‘How is Greg?’

‘His foot is all inflamed. Mum says he ought to be in hospital.’

The wave of anguish which swept over her surprised her. Greg was the only strong one amongst them; the only one who could protect them if… If what? If they were attacked?

Almost as though he had read her thoughts Patrick shook his head. ‘Whoever murdered Bill must be long gone by now. In our car. It was stolen yesterday. I’m going up to the Farnboroughs’ on foot. It won’t take me more than an hour.’

She drank some more tea, feeling it flowing through her veins like some kind of elixir of life. ‘You can’t go on your own. I’ll go with you. A quick wash and something to eat -’ she was surprised suddenly to realise just how hungry she was, ‘- and I’ll be ready for anything. What’s the weather like?’

Patrick stood up. He leaned across his desk and pulled back the curtains, letting in a dim brownish light. ‘Not very nice. It’s still windy and there’s been quite a bit of snow. They are forecasting blizzards -’ He broke off suddenly.

‘What is it?’ The lurch of panic in Kate’s stomach told her she was not nearly as calm as she had thought. All her fear was still there, under the surface, waiting to flood back through her.

‘The car!’ Patrick’s voice was strangled. Putting down the cup Kate lurched out of bed and went to stand beside him. ‘Where? Damn it, my specs are in my jacket.’ She screwed up her eyes as she looked out across the snow-covered grass towards the edge of the saltings.

‘Out there, on the marsh.’ Patrick’s voice was awed.

The Volvo was standing some hundred yards from the grass and sand at the edge of the salting, balanced on high sections of grass-topped mud. Beneath its wheels, the tide was rippling merrily out of the creek leaving a curtain of weed draped on the car’s bumper.

‘Is there anyone in it?’ Kate could only make out the outline from this distance.

‘I don’t think so.’ Patrick sounded distracted. ‘How could it have got there? No one could have driven it.’

‘Not even at low tide?’

‘Kate, look at the height of the ground it’s standing on! Those are like little islands. At high tide those grass patches are above sea level. They must be four feet off the ground. There is no way that car could have got there, no way.’

‘The tide must have carried it. There was a terrific wind last night – ’

‘Blowing this way. Off the sea. That’s a car, Kate. A bloody great Volvo. It’s not a Dinky toy. If it got in the sea it would sink.’

‘Yes. Of course.’ She pushed her hands deep into her pockets, aware that she was shivering. ‘Can we walk out there? When the tide’s gone out a bit?’

He nodded absently. ‘I’ll have to tell Dad.’

‘I’ll come downstairs.’

She stood back and watched as he headed for the door. He was in a daze. She glanced back at the window. The car was still there, the windscreen glittering in a stray, watery ray of sunshine.

On her way downstairs she glanced into Alison’s room through the open door. The girl lay unmoving, her hair spread across the pillow. The teddy lay on the floor, a hot water bottle near it. Kate stood for a moment watching her. She had a feeling Alison was not asleep.

‘Allie?’ she whispered. ‘Allie are you awake?’

There was no reply.

Roger was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him, which judging by the skin on the top was cold and unappetising. Diana was standing near him watching the toaster.

‘Did you manage to sleep?’ She smiled at Kate and indicated the coffee pot on the hob.

Kate made for it gratefully. ‘A bit.’

‘Pour Greg one too, will you Kate, and take it through to him. I think he’d be glad to see you,’ Roger said. He mustered a valiant smile. ‘Then you and I and Paddy will grab a bit of breakfast. By then the tide will be low enough to make our way out to the family barouche. Those bastards. I can’t think how the hell they got it there, but it won’t be worth a tinker’s ha’penny after the tide has been in it.’

‘The insurance will pay, Dad.’ Patrick had emerged from the study.

‘Let’s hope so.’ Roger’s face was grim as he watched Kate make her way across the room with the two mugs of coffee.

Greg was propped up against a pile of pillows and cushions on the camp bed in the study. Someone had made a makeshift cage across his foot to keep the weight of the bed-clothes off it, and though Kate could see the pain in his face as he grinned at her, he looked immeasurably better than he had the night before.

‘How are you?’ She knelt to hand him the coffee, and then sat down on the floor beside him. ‘I hear the foot is not too good.’

‘I’ll live.’ He reached out a hand to her. ‘And that fact I owe to you. It hasn’t escaped me that you saved my life about five times last night. That’s some debt I owe you.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Embarrassed she looked down into her coffee. It was thick and black and rich.

‘I know. Anyone would have done it.’ He was laughing.

‘Probably. Yes.’

‘Well, thanks anyway. If I had been you I would probably have left me there to rot and thought it served me right after the way I’ve buggered you about.’

She smiled. ‘Poetically put.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then Greg reached out to her again. ‘Kate, I had the most peculiar dream while I was asleep. I think we are all still in terrible danger. I’ve told Paddy and now I’m telling you. You’ll think I’m hallucinating; you probably think I was hallucinating last night – ’

‘If you were, then we both were,’ she put in softly. ‘We both saw that figure.’

‘Was it because we were expecting to?’ He shook his head and releasing her hand, reached for his coffee cup again. ‘When you came here I decided to scare you away. You know that. The joke, if it was a joke, got rapidly out of hand. We all began to imagine things…’ He paused, his attention riveted to the depths of his cup. ‘In that state, maybe, what I saw was dictated by my own mind…’ He paused again. ‘Thomas De Quincey puts it rather neatly, if I remember it right. “If a man who only talks about oxen becomes an opium eater, then he will dream about oxen” – is that right?’ He cast her a quick glance under his eyelashes, and did not miss the look of astonishment in her face. “‘And if a man who is a philosopher has an opium dream then it will be… humani nihil – ”’

“‘Humani nihil a se alienum putat.”’ Kate finished for him. ‘Well, well, I would never have suspected that you had read The Confessions.’

He smiled, the look of mischief cutting across the greyness of pain. ‘Well, I used to be quite literate, you know. I even know what it means. “He believes nothing human strange” – yes?’ He waited for her comment. When she said nothing he went on, ‘I even read up my Byron when I heard what Lady Muck was up to in my cottage.’

‘Lady Muck?’ She was even more astonished.

‘If you’d known I called you that you would have left me to the sharks.’

‘Indeed I would.’ Thoughtfully she took a sip of coffee. ‘You haven’t told me yet what you dreamed of. What phantasmagoria haunted you?’

‘Marcus.’

She bit her lip. ‘Who else.’

‘He tried to get me, you know, on the beach. He tried to take me over. I fought him…’ He paused. ‘In my dream he was trying to get inside my head again.’ He shifted his weight uncomfortably in the bed. ‘It was the most awful dream I have ever had in my life, and yet I can’t remember more than a few bits.’

‘You were awoken perhaps by a stranger from Porlock.’ Kate smiled at him, trying to tease him out of his bleak mood.

‘All right, all right. Believe it or not, I know that one too. All I remember is that he was trying to get inside my head, and that if I had let him he would have got into this house. And that was what he wanted. To get to us. Because we know his secret.’

She was watching him. ‘And what is his secret?’

He glanced at her looking for signs of disbelief or scorn. ‘That he killed Claudia. But there’s more to it than that. Much more. Otherwise why would he be so angry? And so desperate?’

The silence in the room grew uncomfortable. There had been no humour in his eyes; no relieving lightness. What she had seen there, behind the narrowed grey-green irises, was fear. She swallowed, plaiting her fingers together nervously.

‘Who do you think killed Bill?’ she asked at last. Her voice was husky.

Greg heaved a sigh. ‘I don’t know what to think. Has Allie said anything, do you know?’

‘Patrick told me she said it was Marcus.’

‘Did you tell them what Bill said?’

‘No.’

Greg eased himself higher against the pillows. His foot was throbbing painfully, stabs of hot pain shooting up as far as his knee. He had not needed to see the inflamed, discoloured flesh to know it was infected. ‘Has she woken up?’

‘I don’t think so. She was fast asleep when I came down. Greg, I think the important thing is to get a doctor here for you – and for her. Patrick and I are going to walk up to the main road.’ She glanced at the window. ‘It doesn’t seem quite so frightening in daylight.’

He reached out and touched her hand again. ‘I’m so sorry this has all happened, Kate. Poor old Byron.’

She gave a rueful smile. ‘He’ll wait.’

‘You know,’ he hesitated. ‘I think I’m quite glad you came after all.’ Leaning towards her he kissed her forehead gently. He ran a finger down the line of her cheek. ‘You’ve got good bones. When all this is over I’ll paint your portrait.’

She smiled, surprised at the shiver of excitement which had whispered across her flesh in spite of her exhaustion. ‘Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?’

‘Oh, yes. People who know me well would kill for such a compliment.’ The humour in his eyes was hidden very deep – a mere quirk of the eye muscle.

She studied his face for a moment, then half reluctantly she stood up. ‘We know where the car is.’

‘Oh?’

She laughed. A tight little laugh which hovered for a moment on the edge of hysteria. ‘It’s out on the saltings; in the middle of the water. No one could have driven it there.’

He said nothing, his gaze holding hers, then he too gave an uncomfortable laugh. ‘Well, well. Perhaps he was only used to driving chariots; a Volvo must be a bit different.’

‘You don’t seriously think – ’

‘I don’t know what I think.’ His patience snapped. ‘For Christ’s sake, what can I do from here? Just be careful. Make Paddy take the gun and watch every step of the way. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. There is someone out there who is out to kill. It seems to me it doesn’t matter much if he’s a real flesh-and-blood homicidal maniac or a ghostly one, the effect seems to be the same.’

‘So you don’t think it was Alison.’ She had turned towards the door.

‘Of course it wasn’t Alison. She wouldn’t have the strength even if she wanted to kill someone. And she had nothing to do with the car.’ He slumped back, overwhelmed by helplessness and frustration and pain. She looked down at him, hesitating for a moment longer, then silently she opened the door and slipped away.

Roger pushed a fresh cup of coffee at her across the table as she walked back into the kitchen. ‘Allie is awake. Diana and Paddy are with her.’ He gestured her towards a chair. He looked only slightly more rested than the night before; there was still an alarmingly blue tinge about his lips as Kate sat down opposite him.

‘How is she?’

He shook his head. ‘I thought I’d wait till they came down. She doesn’t want us all up there crowding into her room.’ Besides, I can’t face climbing the stairs again, not yet. The thought, though unspoken, showed clearly in his eyes.

Kate looked away, painfully aware how sick he was. ‘As soon as Paddy comes down I think we should go for a doctor.’

‘And the police have to be informed.’ He looked down into his coffee mug, stirring thoughtfully, watching the movement of the liquid, with its miniaturised reflection of the overhead lamp. ‘I know you all have some crazy idea that there is a ghost out there, Kate. Get real, as Allie would say. Ghosts do not beat large, strong men to death.’ He looked up at her at last. ‘Be careful. Please be careful -’ He broke off, and she saw his face light with a smile which hovered around his mouth for a few seconds and then died. Following his gaze, she swivelled round on her chair. Alison was standing by the staircase door. Wearing her nightshirt, her hair tumbled on her shoulders, she was staring round the room as though she had never seen it before.

‘Allie?’ Roger stood up, pushing his chair back over the floor tiles with a scraping sound which tore at the nerves. ‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’

She moved her head slightly, as though she were having difficulty focussing, and looked towards them vaguely, her body swaying from side to side. Behind her, Patrick appeared in the doorway. His face was white. ‘Allie?’ He dodged round her. ‘Allie, sit down. Sit down and I’ll get you something nice to drink.’ He gestured at Roger and Kate frantically behind his back.

They glanced at each other. The atmosphere in the room was suddenly electric. Alison took another step forward, placing one foot in front of the other with enormous care as though the floor were swaying like the deck of a ship. As she moved towards them the two cats, who had been asleep near the fire, leaped off the chair where they had been entwined and streaked across the floor. Within seconds they had both disappeared through the cat flap. Kate stared after them, puzzled. Their eyes had been wild; their hackles and tails fluffed up in terror. Frowning, she glanced back at Alison who had stopped again and it struck her suddenly that the girl looked as though she was drunk.

Roger had the same thought. ‘Alison?’ His voice was sharp. ‘What is the matter?’

‘She attacked Mum.’ Patrick murmured, his voice husky. He reached the table and slid behind it, putting it between him and his sister. ‘She’s gone mad. Oh, Dad, what’s happening?’ His face was white and strained. He looked frightened.

Roger flicked a glance at him and then looked back at his daughter. Her face was completely blank. She took another step forward, her hands out in front of her as though she were groping in the darkness.

‘Alison!’ Roger’s voice rang out loudly. ‘Answer me! What’s wrong?’ He shot a look at his son. ‘Where is Di? Is she hurt?’

Patrick shook his head. ‘Shocked. She’s coming – ’

He was interrupted by a sudden, slow laugh. The sound, he realised with a sudden shiver, came from Alison, but it was not her voice. Kate felt the hairs on the back of her neck stir as she stared at the girl.

‘No one,’ Alison spoke slowly, her voice husky. ‘No one is going to leave this house. No one is ever going to find out what happened.’ Behind her Diana appeared in the doorway. Kate heard Roger’s sharp intake of breath as he glanced at his wife. Her face was discoloured with a massive purple bruise. She slid into the room, and stayed where she was, her back to the wall, her hurt and bewilderment and fear obvious in every angle of her body.

Roger swallowed. ‘Allie, darling. I think we should have a talk. Why don’t you sit down. We’ll all have a hot drink – ’

She did not appear to have heard him. Slowly and painfully she took another step. Kate was watching her eyes. They were blank; totally blank.

‘Roger.’ She stepped closer to him, her voice barely a whisper. ‘I think she’s asleep.’

Roger glanced at her sharply then he looked back at his daughter, narrowing his eyes. ‘Dear God, I think you’re right! What do we do?’

‘Isn’t it supposed to be dangerous to wake them?’ Kate threw a pleading look towards Diana.

It was Patrick who acted. ‘If she’s asleep she can’t see us,’ he said quietly. He took a cautious step towards his sister, and then, as she failed to react he took another. Slipping round behind her, he put his hands lightly on her shoulders. ‘Come on, Allie, back to bed.’ She ignored him. ‘Allie. Come on. You must lie down – ’ He increased the pressure slightly, trying to turn her round. She tensed, then suddenly she swung round out of his grip, letting fly with a massive punch which grazed Patrick’s shoulder as he leaped out of the way.

‘All right, Alison, that is enough.’ Roger moved with surprising speed. He caught her wrists, and pulled her towards a chair. ‘Awake or asleep you are not behaving like that in this house.’ Taken by surprise she took two steps with him then she stopped and shook him off. He reeled back. Though weak with illness he was a tall man, and still fairly heavy and his daughter had flicked him away as though he were half her size. Her face was still blank; all expression completely wiped from her features.

‘She’s like a robot,’ Patrick whispered. He slipped across to his father’s side. ‘Are you OK, Dad? She hasn’t hurt you?’

Roger shook his head. They all had their eyes fixed on Alison’s face which remained impassive. Kate frowned. Was she asleep? Or was it something else? The girl stood immobile for several minutes; no one moved or spoke, then out of the corner of her eye Kate saw Diana slip from the room. Moments later she reappeared, a canvas belt in her hand. As they watched she tiptoed up behind Alison and gently she began to slide the belt around her, over her arms, obviously intending to pinion them at her sides. Alison did not react. Gently, Diana pulled the belt tighter, just above the girl’s elbows. ‘Fetch a blanket, Roger. Wrap her up tightly,’ she commanded. ‘Quickly. Before she wakes up.’

Alison stepped forward at the sound of her voice as if becoming aware of the restriction for the first time. She tried to move her arms and a look of frightened puzzlement flashed across her face to be followed immediately by a roar of rage. She turned round, lashing out with her hands and almost without effort, snapped the belt. The expression on her face was one of pure anger. She turned towards the table and reached out. Too late Kate saw the bread knife lying beside the loaf; she jumped to move it but Alison was there first and her hand was on the knife handle before Kate’s. Kate grabbed her wrist, and for a moment their eyes met across the table. Kate felt a shaft of terror stab through her; the eyes which bore into hers were not Alison’s; they were no longer expressionless; no longer asleep; they were cold, calculating and very angry.

‘Allie -’ She gasped. ‘Please.’

Alison laughed. A deep throaty laugh. Twisting her arm effortlessly beneath Kate’s grasping fingers she snatched the knife up and turning, lunged at her mother. She missed and for a moment she was off balance. Seizing his chance Patrick threw himself at her and they fell to the floor, wrestling.

‘Paddy -’ Diana’s scream rang across the room as the blade caught his forearm and a splash of blood flew across the rush matting, but he did not let go. They fought on furiously, Patrick kicking and struggling as Alison began surely and steadily to overpower him. ‘Roger, do something!’ Forgetting her husband’s weakness Diana screamed again but it was Kate who snatched up the folded tablecloth from the dresser and flung it over Alison’s head. At the same moment Patrick wriggled free of his sister’s arm lock and put his foot on her wrist, pinning it to the floor while he snatched the knife from her. It was only then that they realised that Greg was in the room, hobbling on a walking stick, his face white with pain.

‘Here.’ He handed something to his mother. ‘Quickly. It’s Dad’s sedative.’ Her hands shaking visibly, Diana opened the box he had given her and took out a syringe. She glanced at Roger, then filling it she approached her writhing daughter and, pulling the night shirt up, planted the needle in the girl’s buttock. Alison let out a scream of rage, only half muffled by the tablecloth Kate was holding round her head. It was followed by a stream of abuse which only very slowly subsided into silence. It was several minutes before her clenched fists relaxed and she slumped to the floor. Cautiously Kate removed the tablecloth and looked down. Alison’s face, flushed from the struggle was relaxed at last; she was breathing quickly and lightly, her hair spread across the floor. Slowly Patrick stooped and pulled his sister’s nightshirt down to cover her bottom, then he turned and picking up a drying up cloth from the draining board he staunched the blood flowing from his arm.

‘Don’t, Patrick. That’s germy,’ Diana’s comment was automatic; her eyes had not left Alison’s face.

‘Did you hear what she was screaming?’ Greg lowered himself into a chair, his head swimming from the effort of dragging himself from the study.

‘It was some foreign language,’ Roger said after a moment’s hesitation.

‘Not just any foreign language.’ Greg looked at Kate. ‘Go on. Tell them. What was it?’

Kate shook her head. ‘I’m not sure – ’

‘Of course you’re sure. You heard what she said. It was some sort of Latin. Go on admit it. You heard her.’ He stared round at them all. ‘You all heard her. It was Latin!’

Patrick bent down to pick up the knife. He stared at it for a moment as though he couldn’t believe he held it in his hands. ‘Allie would never have done that; she couldn’t have done that. No girl could be that strong.’

Diana picked up the broken belt. It had snapped in two places. They all stared at it. ‘How long will that injection last?’ Roger asked softly. He glanced up at his wife. The sedative had been left by the doctor for him.

‘Not long. I didn’t expect it to work so quickly. She was looking down at Alison’s slumped body. ‘I only used a tiny dose. Oh, Roger, what are we going to do with her?’ Her voice shook with tears.

Roger moved to put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I don’t know.’ His whole body was slumped with defeat.

‘There is something you should know.’ Greg looked from one to the other and then at Kate. His face was full of compassion. ‘Before he died Bill told us that it was Alison who had attacked him.’

‘No!’ Diana’s protest was half a scream, half a moan.

‘I’m afraid that is what he said,’ Kate added. ‘But it wasn’t Alison, was it? We all know that. Those eyes weren’t Alison’s.’

‘What are you saying?’ Diana rounded on her.

‘You know what she’s saying,’ Greg said. He stared down at his sister’s recumbent form. ‘She’s possessed.’

‘No.’

‘What do you call it then?’ He reached across towards her but she drew back. He shrugged. ‘That was not Alison speaking; they are not Alison’s actions. Kate’s right. They are not even her eyes.’

Diana burst into tears. ‘What are we going to do?’

Greg looked at Kate and then at his father, who had sunk into the chair at the head of the table, his face grey with fatigue. ‘We have to find a doctor.’

‘No!’ Diana turned on him. ‘We are not getting a doctor, or the police. I am not having Allie taken away from here – ’

‘What about my foot?’ Greg’s voice was mild. ‘And Dad. I think the doc should look at him.’ He paused. ‘Allie needs help. Badly. You know she does.’

‘No.’ Diana shook her head. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. ‘No, we’ll sort this all out ourselves. It will be all right. Allie will be fine when she’s had a sleep. Your foot will be all right, Greg. It’s better already, you said so yourself and your father only needs to rest – ’

‘Di.’ Roger looked up. He rubbed his hands wearily across his cheeks and they all heard the rasping sound of his palms on the twenty-four-hour beard. ‘We can’t handle this ourselves. You know that better than I do. There is a dead man out there in the cottage. A dead man, Di. He’s not imaginary. He’s not going to sort himself out.’

‘Allie didn’t move the car, Ma,’ Patrick put in suddenly. ‘There must be someone else out there.’

‘Patrick and I will go and phone from the Farnboroughs’.’ Kate stood up. ‘I think we should go now.’

‘Take the gun, Paddy.’ Roger nodded. ‘Greg and I can take care of things here.’

Patrick looked from one parent’s face to the other, uncertainly, then he turned to Kate. ‘OK?’ he whispered.