What a Carve Up!

CHAPTER ONE Where There’s a Will

THE short January afternoon was fading into premature dusk. Thin, silent rain fell drearily. A dank, clinging fog had risen from the river, and was creeping furtively over the city. Through this grey pall the familiar roar of London’s traffic penetrated, persistent, yet with an eerie, muffled effect.

Michael turned away from the window and sat down in front of the silently flickering television screen. The room was dark, but he didn’t bother to turn on the lights. He picked up the remote control and switched idly from one channel to another, settling finally for a news bulletin which he watched for a few minutes with bored incomprehension, dimly aware that his eyelids were beginning to droop. The radiators were on full, the air was thick and heavy, and before long he had slipped into a light, uneasy doze.

It had already become his habit, in the two weeks since Fiona’s death, to leave the front door of his flat unlocked and slightly ajar. He had taken a resolve to stay on closer terms with the other residents, and this gesture was intended to express the character of a friendly, approachable neighbour. Today, however, it had another effect, for when an elderly stranger, clad from head to foot entirely in black, arrived at Michael’s threshold and received no answer to his inquiring knock, he was able to push the door noiselessly open and make his own way, unseen, into the darkened hallway. Proceeding into the sitting room, the stranger positioned himself next to the television set and stood a little while in impassive contemplation of Michael’s slumped, recumbent figure. When he had seen all that he wanted to see, he coughed, loudly, twice in succession.

Michael awoke with a start and brought his sleepy eyes into focus, whereupon he found himself staring at a face which would have struck terror into the heart of many a stronger man. Gaunt, misshapen and unhealthy, it expressed at once a meanness of spirit, a slowness of intelligence and, perhaps most chillingly of all, an absolute untrustworthiness. It was a face from which all marks of love, compassion, or any of those softer feelings without which no man’s character can be called complete, had been viciously erased. It had, one might have thought, a touch of madness in it. It was a face which gave out a simple, dreadful message: abandon hope, all you who look upon this face. Give up every thought of redemption, every prospect of escape. Expect nothing from me.

Shivering with disgust, Michael turned off the television, and President Bush disappeared from the screen. Then he switched on a nearby tablelamp, and looked for the first time at his visitor.

He was not a man of forbidding aspect: the austerity of his clothing and steadiness of his gaze made him more severe than sinister. He was, Michael surmised, very much on the wrong side of sixty; and he spoke flatly, with a Yorkshire accent, his voice deep, cold and expressionless.

‘You’ll forgive me for intruding, unannounced, upon your personal domesticity,’ he said. ‘But as your door had been left ajar …’

‘That’s quite all right,’ said Michael. ‘How can I help you?’

‘You are Mr Owen, I take it?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘My name is Sloane. Everett Sloane, solicitor, of the firm of Sloane, Sloane, Quigley and Sloane. My card.’

Michael struggled into an upright position and took the proffered instrument, which he examined blinkingly.

‘I’m here under instructions from my client,’ the solicitor continued, ‘the late Mr Mortimer Winshaw, of Winshaw Towers.’

‘Late?’ said Michael. ‘You mean that he’s dead?’

‘That,’ said Mr Sloane, ‘is precisely my meaning. Mr Winshaw passed away yesterday. Quite peacefully, if reports are to be believed.’

Michael received this news in silence.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ he said at last, remembering his visitor.

‘Thank you, but my business can be kept very brief. I have only to inform you that your presence is requested at Winshaw Towers tomorrow evening, for the reading of the will.’

‘My presence …?’ Michael echoed. ‘But why? I only met him once. Surely he wouldn’t have left me anything?’

‘Naturally,’ said Mr Sloane, ‘I am not at liberty to discuss the contents of this document until all the concerned parties are gathered, at the appointed time and place.’

‘Yes,’ said Michael, ‘I can see that.’

‘I can count on your attendance, then?’

‘You can.’

‘Thank you.’ Mr Sloane turned and was about to leave, when he added: ‘You will, of course, be staying the night at Winshaw Towers. I would advise you to bring plenty of warm clothing. It is a cold and desolate spot; and the weather, at this time of year, can be uncommonly fierce.’

‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.’

‘Until tomorrow, then, Mr Owen. And don’t worry: I can see myself out.’

There was a strange sense of expectancy in the air the following day, which had nothing to do with Michael’s impending journey to Yorkshire. It was January 16th, and at five o’clock that morning, the United Nations’ final deadline for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait had expired. The allied attack on Saddam Hussein might be launched at any moment, and every time he turned on the radio or the television, Michael was half-expecting to hear that the war had begun.

Boarding a train at King’s Cross station late in the afternoon, he glimpsed some familiar faces among the other passengers: Henry Winshaw and his brother Thomas were both taking their seats in a first-class carriage, along with their young cousin Roderick Winshaw, the art dealer, and Mr Sloane himself. Michael, needless to say, was travelling second class. But the train was not busy, and he was able to spread his coat and suitcase over a pair of seats with a clear conscience, while he took out an exercise book and attempted to make notes on the most important passages from what was obviously a well-thumbed volume.

I Was ‘Celery’, published by the Peacock Press in late 1990, had turned out to be the memoir of a retired Air Intelligence Officer who had worked as a double agent for MI5 during the Second World War. Although it offered no direct information about Godfrey Winshaw’s disastrous mission, it did at least explain the meaning of Lawrence’s note: BISCUIT, CHEESE and CELERY, it appeared, had all been the codenames of double agents controlled and supervised by something called the Twenty Committee, established as a collaborative venture by the War Office, GHQ Home Forces, MI5, MI6 and others in January 1941. Might Lawrence have been a member of this committee? Very likely. Might he also have been in secret radio communication with the Germans, supplying them not only with the names and identities of these double agents, but with information about British military plans — such as the proposed bombing of munitions factories? This would be difficult to establish, fifty years after the event, but the evidence was beginning to suggest that Tabitha’s worst accusations about her brother and his wartime treachery were very close to the truth.

As the train sped on through the grey, mist-shrouded landscape, Michael found it harder and harder to concentrate on this puzzle. He laid the book down and stared vacantly out of the window. The weather had hardly changed in the last two weeks. It was on just such an afternoon, some ten days ago, that Fiona’s body had been cremated in the drab, cheerless setting of a suburban funeral parlour. The ceremony had been sparsely attended. There had been only Michael, a forgotten aunt and uncle from the South West of England, and a handful of her colleagues from work. The hymn singing was unbearably thin, and the attempt to convene at a pub afterwards had been miscalculated. Michael had only stayed a few minutes. He had gone back to his flat to pick up an overnight bag, then taken a train up to Birmingham.

His reconciliation with his mother, too, was less than he had expected it to be. They spent an awkward evening together at a local restaurant. Michael had presumed, rather naïvely, that his very reappearance would fill her with such delight as to compensate fully for all the pain he had inflicted by breaking off communications for so long. Instead, he found himself called upon to justify his conduct, which he attempted to do in a succession of halting and poorly argued speeches. In effect, he maintained, his father had died twice: the second, and more devastating death being when Michael learned the truth about his parentage. He now believed that his two or three years’ subsequent withdrawal from the world could be seen as a period of sustained mourning — a theory supported, if support were needed, by Freud’s essay on the subject, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’. His mother seemed less than convinced by this appeal to scientific authority, but as the evening wore on, and she saw the sincerity of her son’s contrition, the atmosphere nevertheless began to thaw. After they had arrived home and made two cups of Horlicks, Michael felt emboldened to ask a few questions about his lost parent.

‘And did you never see him again, after that one time — the day it happened?’

‘Michael, I told you. I saw him once again, about ten years later. And so did you. I told you that already.’

‘What do you mean, I saw him? I never saw him.’

His mother took another sip of her drink and embarked upon the story.

‘It was a weekday morning, and I was in town doing some shopping. I felt like a bit of a break, so I went to Rackham’s, to get a cup of tea in the café. It was quite full, I remember, and I stood there for a while with my tray, wondering where I was going to sit. There was this gentleman sitting by himself at a table, looking very gloomy, and I was wondering whether it would be all right to join him. And then suddenly I realized that it was him. He’d grown old, he’d grown dreadfully old, but I was sure that it was him. I would have known him anywhere. So I thought about it for a minute, and then I went over to the table, and I said, “Jim?”, and he looked up, but he didn’t recognize me; and so I said, “It’s Jim, isn’t it?”, but all he said was, “I’m sorry, I think you must be mistaken.” And then I said, “It’s me, Helen,” and I could see it beginning to dawn on him who I was. I said, “You do remember, don’t you?”, and he said yes, he did, and then I sat down and we got talking.

‘He wasn’t much fun to talk to: just a shadow of the man I’d met before. He seemed very angry with himself for never having settled, for not finding someone he could build a home with and start a family. He seemed to think it was too late to do any of that now. So then when I began talking about myself, I just couldn’t help it. I had to tell him about you. I thought perhaps it might mean something to him. And of course he’d no idea. He was completely flabbergasted. He wanted to know all about you, when you were born, what you looked like, how you were doing at school, all that sort of thing. And the more I told him, the more he wanted to know; until in the end, he asked me if he could come and see you. Just the once. So I thought about it and to be honest I didn’t really like the idea, but finally I said all right, but I’ll have to ask my husband, thinking of course that he’d say no, and that would be an end to it. But you know what Ted was like, he could never deny anybody anything, and when he got home that evening I did ask him, and he said yes, he didn’t mind, he thought it was the least the poor man deserved. And so later that night, after you’d gone to bed, he came round to the house and I took him up to your bedroom and he stood and looked at you for about five minutes, until you woke up and caught sight of him and started screaming fit to bring the roof down.’

‘But that was my dream,’ said Michael. ‘That was my nightmare. I dreamed that I was staring into my own face.’

‘Well you weren’t,’ she said. ‘It was your father’s.’

For some time Michael said nothing. He was too astonished to speak — until, brokenly, he managed to ask: ‘Then what?’

‘Then nothing,’ said his mother. ‘He left and none of us ever saw him again. Or heard from him.’ About to take another sip, she hesitated. ‘Except that …’

‘Yes?’

‘He asked if he could have a photograph. I can still remember how he described you—“the only trace of myself I’ve managed to leave behind these last twenty years”—and when I heard that, I didn’t feel I could refuse him, very well. So I gave him the first one I could find. It was the one you always kept out, the one of you and Joan, writing your books together.’

Michael looked up slowly. ‘You gave him that picture? So I never lost it?’

She nodded. ‘I meant to tell you, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t think of any way to tell you.’

His capacity to absorb these revelations almost, but not quite, exhausted, Michael said: ‘When was all this? When did it happen?’

‘Well,’ said his mother, ‘it was in the spring. That I do know. And it was before your birthday, the day we took you down to Weston. You were never the same after that day. So I suppose it must have been … 1961. It must have been spring, 1961.’

It was already dark when Michael disembarked from the train at York. The three Winshaws and Mr Sloane, without noticing him, immediately hailed a taxi and drove off into the city traffic. Having established that the fare would leave him little in the way of change out of seventy pounds, Michael decided that he would have to forego that means of transport, and waited instead for a bus, which was due to depart in forty-five minutes. He passed the time consuming two packets of Revels and a Curly-Wurly in the station waiting-room.

The bus journey lasted for more than an hour, and for almost half of that time, as the tired, spluttering vehicle carried him along ever darker, narrower, wilder and more tortuous roads, Michael was the only passenger. When he left the bus he was still, by his own calculations, some seven or eight miles from his destination. The only sounds, at first, were the forlorn bleating of sheep, the soft moan of a gathering wind, and the falling of a thick rain which looked ready to settle, before too long, into a steady downpour. The only lights came from the windows of a few isolated houses, scattered and remote. Michael buttoned his coat up against the rain and began walking; but after only a few minutes he heard the distant rumble of an engine, and turned to see the twin beams of a car’s headlights, no more than a mile away and advancing in his direction. He put down his suitcase and, as the vehicle approached, stuck out a plaintive thumb. The car braked to a halt.

‘Going anywhere near Winshaw Towers?’ he asked, as the driver’s window was wound down to reveal a dark, clean-shaven man wearing a flat cap and green Barbour.

‘I go within a mile of it: and I’ll go no closer,’ said the man. ‘Get in.’

They drove for several minutes in silence.

‘It’s a poor night,’ said the driver at last, ‘for a stranger to be lost on the moors.’

‘I thought the bus might get me a bit further,’ said Michael. ‘The service up here seems rather erratic.’

‘Deregulation,’ said the driver. ‘It’s a crime.’ He sniffed. ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t vote for the other lot.’

He dropped Michael at a crossroads and drove off, leaving him once again at the mercy of the wind and the rain, which already seemed to have doubled in intensity. Nothing was visible in the surrounding darkness but the rough, stony road ahead, fringed on either side by a narrow strip of moorland, ever alternating between black, naked peat, straggling heather, and piled, weirdly shaped rocks; not, at least, until Michael had been walking ten minutes or more, when he became aware that the road had begun to run alongside some sort of man-made lake, illuminated at one end by parallel rows of lights which called to mind an airport runway. He could even distinguish the outline of a small seaplane parked at the water’s edge. Shortly after that, he came upon a patch of thick woodland, cordoned off by a long brick wall which was interrupted, at last, by a pair of wrought-iron gates. They creaked open at his touch, and Michael guessed that his journey must nearly be at an end.

By the time he emerged from the seemingly endless, mudcaked and densely overgrown tunnel of blackness which constituted the driveway, the golden squares of lamplight shining out from the windows of Winshaw Towers might have seemed almost welcoming. This impression, however, could not survive even a cursory glance over the bulk of the squat, forbidding mansion. A shudder passed through Michael’s body as he approached the front porch and heard the ghastly howling of dogs, protesting at their confinement in some hidden outhouse. To his own surprise he found that he was muttering the words: ‘Not exactly a holiday camp, is it?’

The line should have been Sid’s, of course: but there was no Sid to keep him company now. For the moment, he would have to keep the dialogue going by himself.

CHAPTER TWO Nearly a Nasty Accident

As soon as Michael attempted to lift the immense, rusty knocker, he found that the door promptly swung open of its own accord. He stepped inside and looked around him. He was in a huge, dingy, stone-flagged hall, lit only by four or five lamps set high in the wood-panelled walls, with badly weathered tapestries and oil paintings adding to the crepuscular impression. There were doors leading off on either side, and, directly in front of him, a broad oak staircase. He could see light coming from beneath one of the doors to his left, and from the same direction occasional voices could be heard, raised in desultory conversation. After hesitating briefly, he put his suitcase down near the foot of the stairs, brushed the wet and tangled hair away from his eyes, and advanced boldly forward.

The door led into a large and cheery sitting room, where a log fire burned merrily, throwing antic, dancing shadows over the walls. In an armchair beside the fire sat a tiny, crook-backed woman, wrapped up in a shawl and squinting with intent bird-like eyes at her knitting needles as she worked them dexterously with busy fingers. This, Michael guessed, was Tabitha Winshaw: her resemblance to Aunt Emily, the deranged old spinster played by Esma Cannon in the film What a Carve Up! was unmistakable. Opposite her, on a sofa, staring phlegmatically into space with a whisky glass in his hand, was Thomas Winshaw, the merchant banker, while at a table on the far side of the room, nearest the rain-spattered window, Hilary Winshaw was quietly tapping away at a laptop computer. Reaching the end of a paragraph, and looking around the room in search of further inspiration, she was the first to notice Michael’s appearance.

‘Hello, who’s this?’ she said. ‘A stranger in the night, if ever I saw one.’

‘Not quite a stranger,’ said Michael, and was about to introduce himself when Thomas broke in with, ‘For God’s sake, man, you’re dripping all over the carpet. Call for the butler, someone, and get him to put that coat away.’

Hilary stood up and pulled on a bell-rope, then came to take a closer look at the new arrival.

‘You know, I have seen him somewhere before,’ she said. And then, addressing Michael directly: ‘You don’t ski at Aspen, do you?’

‘My name’s Michael. Michael Owen,’ he answered, ‘and I’m a writer. Among my unfinished works is a history of your family: parts of which you might even have read yourself.’

‘Why, Mr Owen!’ cried Tabitha, putting down her needles and clapping her hands in delight when she heard this news. ‘I was wondering if you’d be able to come. I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you. Of course, I’ve read your book — your publishers have been sending it to me, as you know — and read it, I must say, with the greatest interest. We must sit down together and have a long talk about it. We really must.’

Thomas now rose to his feet and pointed at Michael accusingly.

‘I remember you. You’re that damned impudent writer fellow. Turned up at the bank one day and started asking a lot of fishy questions. I was obliged to throw you out, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Not mistaken at all,’ said Michael, extending his hand, which Thomas declined to take.

‘Well what the deuce do you think you’re doing here, turning up at a private family get-together? This is tantamount to breaking and entering. You could find yourself in very serious trouble.’

‘I’m here for the same reason as yourself,’ said Michael, unruffled. ‘I’m here for the reading of the will: at your late uncle’s invitation.’

‘Poppycock, man, pure poppycock! If you expect us to swallow a story like —’

‘I think you’ll find that Mr Owen is telling the truth,’ said a voice from the doorway.

They all turned to see that Mr Sloane had entered the room. He was still wearing his black, three-piece suit, and he had with him a slim briefcase, gripped firmly in his right hand.

‘It was Mortimer Winshaw’s specific request that he should be present this evening,’ he continued, coming to warm himself at the fire. ‘We shall not know why, until the will itself has been read. Perhaps if Mr Owen were now to go upstairs and refresh himself, that happy event might be expedited.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Michael.

‘And here’s your taxi,’ said Hilary, as the ancient, shambling figure of Pyles, the butler, came unsteadily into view.

He and Michael proceeded slowly up the staircase together. Not having much experience of making small talk with servants, Michael waited some time before venturing his first sally.

‘Well, I can’t say I think much of the climate up here,’ he said, with a nervous chuckle. ‘Next time, I think I’ll bring a sou’wester and wellington boots.’

‘The worst is yet to come,’ said Pyles curtly.

Michael thought about this.

‘You mean the weather, I take it.’

‘There’ll be storms tonight,’ he muttered. ‘Thunder, lightning, and blinding rain enough to soak the dead in their very graves.’ He paused briefly, before adding: ‘But to answer your question, I did not mean the weather, no.’

‘You didn’t?’

Pyles put the suitcase down in the middle of the corridor, and tapped Michael on the chest.

‘It’s nearly thirty years since the family were last met together in this house,’ he said. ‘Tragedy and murder visited us then, and so they will tonight!’

Michael stepped back, reeling slightly from his close contact with the butler’s alcoholic aura.

‘What, erm … what did you have in mind, exactly?’ he asked, picking the suitcase up himself, and continuing down the corridor.

‘All I know,’ said Pyles, limping after him, ‘is that dreadful things will happen here tonight. Terrible things will happen. Let us all count ourselves lucky if we wake tomorrow morning, safe in our beds.’

They stopped outside a door.

‘This is your room,’ he said, pushing it open. ‘I’m afraid the lock has been broken for some time.’

The walls and ceiling of Michael’s bedroom were panelled in dark oak, and there was a small electric fire which had not yet had time to warm the dank air. Despite the light from this and a couple of candles which stood on the dressing table, a sombre gloom shrouded every corner. The air of the room, too, had a strange quality: a suggestion of mouldering decay, a cold damp mustiness such as is found in underground chambers. The one tall, narrow window rattled unceasingly in its frame, shaken by the storm until it seemed that the glass would splinter. As Michael unpacked his suitcase and arranged his comb, razor and sponge-bag on the dressing table, a mounting sense of unease began to steal over him. Preposterous though the butler’s words had been, they had planted in him the seeds of a shapeless, irrational fear, and he started to think wistfully of the downstairs sitting room, with its blazing hearth and promise of human company (if a roomful of Winshaws could be said to offer any such thing). He changed out of his damp clothes as quickly as he could, then closed the door of the bedroom behind him with a quiet sigh of relief, and lost no time in attempting to retrace his steps.

This, however, was easier said than done. The upper floor of the house presented a maze of corridors, and Michael had, he now realized, been so distracted by the butler’s prophecies that he had not taken proper notice of their various twists and turns. After several minutes’ walking up and down the shadowy, thinly carpeted passages, his unease had begun to grow into something approaching panic. He also had the feeling — a ridiculous feeling, he knew — that he was not alone in this part of the house. He could have sworn that he had heard doors being stealthily opened and closed, and even that, once or twice, he had caught a fleeting glimpse of something moving in the darkest corner of one of the landings. This feeling was not completely shaken off even when he arrived (just when he was least expecting it) at the top of the Great Staircase. Here he paused, standing for a moment between two rusting suits of armour, one of them wielding an axe, the other a mace.

Now: was he ready to face the family? He patted his hair into shape, straightened his jacket, and checked that he hadn’t left his flies undone. Finally, noticing that one of his shoelaces had come loose, he knelt down to tie it up.

He had been in this position for only a few seconds when he heard the scream of a woman’s voice behind him.

‘Look out! For God’s sake look out!’

He wheeled around, and saw that the axe-wielding suit of armour was toppling slowly towards him. With a cry of alarm he flung himself forward, just half an instant before the blade of the venerable weapon embedded itself with a thud on the very spot where he had been kneeling.

‘Are you all right?’ said the woman, running to his side.

‘I think so,’ said Michael, who had in fact knocked his head on the banister. He tried to get up and failed. Noticing his difficulty, the woman sat down on the topmost step, and allowed him to lie across her lap.

‘Did you see anyone?’ asked Michael. ‘Somebody must have pushed it.’

Just then, as if on cue, a large black cat crept out from the alcove where the suit of armour had been standing, and ran off down the stairs with a guilty miaow.

‘Torquil!’ said the woman, scoldingly. ‘What were you doing out of the kitchen?’ She smiled. ‘Well, there’s your assassin, I suppose.’

A door had opened downstairs, and several members of the family rushed out from the sitting room to investigate the disturbance.

‘What was that noise?’

‘What’s going on here?’

Two men, whom Michael recognized as Roderick and Mark Winshaw, were heaving the suit of armour back into place, while Tabitha herself bent over him and asked: ‘He isn’t dead, is he?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. He’s had a knock on the head, that’s all.’

Michael was slowly coming back to his senses, and now found himself gazing up at his rescuer, a very attractive and intelligent-looking woman in her early thirties, with long blonde hair and a kind smile; and as soon as he did so, his eyes widened in amazement. He blinked, three or four times. He knew this woman. He had seen her before. At first he thought it was Shirley Eaton. Then he blinked again, and a distant, more elusive memory rose to the surface. Something to do with Joan … With Sheffield. With … yes! It was the painter. The painter from Joan’s house. But it couldn’t be! What on earth would she be doing here?

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ asked Phoebe, seeing the change in his expression. ‘You look a bit odd.’

‘I think I must have gone mad,’ said Michael.

Tabitha laughed hysterically at these words.

‘How amusing!’ she cried. ‘That makes two of us.’

And with this enlightening remark, she led everyone back downstairs.

CHAPTER THREE Don’t Panic, Chaps!

‘MR Mortimer Winshaw’s will,’ said Everett Sloane, looking gravely around the table, ‘takes the form of a short statement, which he composed only a few days ago. If nobody objects, I shall now read it in full.’

Before he was able to proceed, the first crack of thunder sounded outside, causing the windows to vibrate and the candle-sticks on the mantelpiece to rattle loudly. It was followed almost at once by a streak of lightning, which for a brief, hallucinatory moment made the intent and hawkish faces of the expectant family look suddenly pale and wraithlike.

‘ “I, Mortimer Winshaw,” ’ the solicitor began, ‘ “pen these last words to the surviving members of my family, in the sure and certain knowledge that they will be present to hear them. I must therefore begin by extending the warmest of welcomes to my nephews, Thomas and Henry, to my niece, Dorothy, to my younger nephew, Mark (son of dear, departed Godfrey), and last, but by no means least, to Hilary and Roderick, the offspring — though it almost shames me to acknowledge it — of my own loins.

‘ “To the three other guests, of whose attendance I am perhaps not quite so confident, I offer more tentative greetings. I hope and pray that, for one night at least, my dear sister Tabitha will be released from her outrageous confinement in order to be present at what promises to be a unique and, dare I say it, never-to-be-repeated family gathering. I hope, too, that she will be joined by my most loyal and selfless nurse, Miss Phoebe Barton, whose grace, charm and gentleness have been a source of great comfort to me in the last year of my life. And finally, I trust that the family’s luckless biographer, Mr Michael Owen, will be on hand to make a complete record of an evening which will, I believe, provide a most fitting conclusion to his eagerly awaited history.

‘ “The following remarks, however, are addressed not to this trio of interested bystanders, but to the six relatives previously mentioned, whose presence around this table tonight is already a foregone conclusion. And yet how, you might ask, can I possibly make this prediction with such assurance? What force could possibly motivate six people, whose lives keep them so busily and gloriously occupied on the world’s stage, to abandon their commitments at a moment’s notice and to travel to this lonely, godforsaken spot — a spot, I might add, which they found no difficulty in avoiding while its owner was still alive? The answer is simple: they will be propelled by the very same force which has always — and solely — driven them throughout the entire conduct of their professional careers. I refer, of course, to greed: naked, clawing, brutish greed. Never mind that we have, gathered around this table tonight, six of the wealthiest people in the country. Never mind that they all know, for a certain fact, that my personal fortune can only amount to a tiny fraction of their own. Greed is so ingrained in these people, has become such a fixed habit of mind, that I know they will not be able to resist making the journey, merely in order to scrape whatever leavings they can from the rotten barrel which is all that remains of my estate.” ’

‘Poetic old thing, wasn’t he?’ said Dorothy, seemingly not at all discomfited by the tone of the document.

‘If rather prone to mixing his metaphors,’ said Hilary. ‘You scrape the bottom of barrels, don’t you? And aren’t they only meant to be rotten if there’s a rotten apple in them?’

‘If I may continue,’ said Mr Sloane. ‘There is only one more paragraph.’

Silence fell.

‘ “And so it gives me no small pleasure to announce to these parasites — these leeches in human form — that all their hopes are in vain. I die in a condition of poverty such as will be beyond their imaginations to grasp. Throughout the long, happy years of our marriage, Rebecca and I did not live wisely. What money we had, we spent. Doubtless we should have been busy hoarding it, investing it, putting it to work, or devoting all our energies to sniffing it out and laying our hands on even more of it. But that, I’m afraid, was not our philosophy. We chose to enjoy ourselves, and the consequence was that we ran up debts: debts which remain unpaid to this day. Debts so large that even the sale of this accursed residence — always assuming that we could find someone foolish enough to buy it — would not be sufficient to cover them. I therefore bequeath these debts to the six aforementioned members of my family, and instruct that they be shared out among them equally. A full schedule is attached as an appendix to this statement. It only remains for me to wish that you all pass a safe and pleasant evening together under this roof.

‘ “Dated this eleventh day of January, in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-one. Signed, Mortimer Winshaw.” ’

There was another crack of thunder. It was closer, now, and it rumbled on for some time. When it had finally died down, Mark said: ‘Of course, you all realize that legally he can’t get away with that. We’re under no obligation to bail him out with his creditors.’

‘Doubtless you’re right,’ said Thomas, rising to his feet and making for the whisky decanter. ‘But that’s hardly the point. The point, I suppose, was to have a damned good joke at our expense: and in that respect, I’d say he succeeded rather well.’

‘Well, at least it shows the old boy still had a bit of spirit in him,’ said Hilary.

‘How much was he paying you?’ barked Henry, suddenly turning in Phoebe’s direction.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The fellow claims he didn’t have any money — so how come he was employing a private nurse?’

‘Your uncle paid Miss Barton,’ said the solicitor, pouring suave oil on troubled waters, ‘out of a capital sum raised on a mortgage against this property.’ He smiled at the angry faces ranged against him. ‘He really was a very poor man.’

‘Well, I don’t know about anybody else,’ said Hilary, getting up and pulling on the bell-rope, ‘but I could do with some supper after sitting through all that lot. It’s after ten and I’ve had nothing to eat all evening. Let’s see what Pyles can come up with.’

‘Not a bad idea,’ said Roddy, as he too gravitated towards the drinks cabinet. ‘And make sure he goes down to the wine cellar while he’s at it.’

‘Damn this weather,’ said Dorothy. ‘I could normally have driven back to the farm before midnight: but there’s no point in risking the roads tonight.’

‘Yes: looks like we’re here for the duration,’ Thomas agreed.

Tabitha rose stiffly from her chair.

‘I hope no one will mind,’ she said, ‘if I resume my former station. Only, this armchair is so comfortable, and you’ve no idea what a treat it is to sit beside a real fire. My room at the Institute is quite chilly, you know: even in the summer. Won’t you come and join me, Mr Owen? It’s so long since I’ve enjoyed the company of a real man of letters.’

Michael had not yet had a chance to talk to Phoebe, and had been about to reintroduce himself with a view to finding out if she remembered their earlier acquaintance; but he did not see that he could very well refuse his patron’s summons, and now went to join her by the hearth. As he took his seat, he glanced up at the portrait which hung above the fireplace, wondering if there was a pair of watchful eyes looking out from behind it. But this, he had to admit, was unlikely: it was a Picasso, and both eyes had been painted on the same side of the face.

‘Now tell me,’ Tabitha began, laying a thin hand on his knee. ‘Have you published any more of those fascinating novels?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ he answered. ‘Inspiration seems to have deserted me recently.’

‘Oh, what a shame. But never mind: I’m sure it will return. At least you are well established in the literary world, I hope?’

‘Well, it’s been a number of years, you see, since—’

‘You’re well known to the Bloomsbury group, for instance?’

Michael frowned. ‘The … Bloomsbury—?’

‘We haven’t corresponded for some years, to my regret, but Virginia and I were very close, at one time. And dear Winifred, of course. Winifred Holtby. You’re familiar with her work?’

‘Yes, I—’

‘You know, if it would help you at all in your career, I could quite easily supply you with a number of introductions. I have a certain amount of influence with Mr Eliot. In fact the truth of it is, if you can keep a secret’ (and here she lowered her voice to a whisper) ‘I’m told that he has quite a crush on me.’

‘You mean — T.S. Eliot?’ Michael faltered. ‘Author of The Waste Land?’

Tabitha let out a bright, musical laugh.

‘Why, you silly boy!’ she said. ‘Hadn’t you heard: he’s been dead for years!’

He joined in her laughter uncertainly. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘I hope you’re not trying to tease an old lady,’ she said, poking him playfully in the ribs with a knitting needle.

‘Who, me? Of course not.’

‘My reference,’ she explained, her eyes still twinkling at the joke, ‘was to Mr George Eliot. Author of Middlemarch and Mill on the Floss.’

Tabitha took up her ball of wool and began knitting again, smiling benignly all the while. She was only able to bring an end to Michael’s dumbfounded silence by introducing an abrupt change of subject.

‘Ever flown a Tornado?’

Supper at Winshaw Towers that night was not a cheerful meal, consisting as it did of cold meat, pickles, cheese and an indifferent Chablis. They were only eight at table: Henry and Mark chose to remain in an upstairs room, watching the news on television. They both seemed to think that an announcement of American air strikes against Saddam Hussein might be imminent. The others all sat together at one end of the long table in the dining room, which was draughty and inhospitable. The radiators were not working, for some reason, and the electric chandelier was lacking several bulbs. They ate for some minutes in near-silence. Michael did not feel that he could initiate a private conversation with Phoebe in these circumstances, and the Winshaws themselves appeared to have little enough to say to one another. Meanwhile the constant howling of the wind, and the hammering of rain against the windowpanes, did nothing to raise anybody’s spirits.

The monotony was broken, at last, by the sound of heavy knocking upon the front door. Shortly afterwards they could hear the door being opened, and there were voices in the hall. Then Pyles shuffled into the dining room, where he informed the assembly as a whole: ‘There’s a gentleman outside, says he’s a policeman.’

Michael thought this a most dramatic announcement, but the others evinced no particular interest. It was finally Dorothy, seated nearest to the door, who got up and said: ‘Better have a word with him, I suppose.’

Michael followed her into the hall, where they were met by Mark, coming down the Great Staircase.

‘What’s all this about, then?’ he said.

A thickly bearded, beetle-browed figure of indeterminate age, his policeman’s uniform soaked through with the rain, introduced himself as Sergeant Kendall of the village constabulary.

‘By crimes!’ he exclaimed, his local accent almost impenetrable to Michael’s ear. ‘It’s a night when we’d all want to be tucked up safely at home, and no business to take us out of doors.’

‘What can we do for you, Sergeant?’ Dorothy asked.

‘Well, I’ve no wish to alarm you, Madam,’ the policeman said, ‘but I thought it best you were warned.’

‘Warned? About what?’

‘You have a Miss Tabitha Winshaw staying with you tonight, I believe.’

‘We do, yes. Is there any harm in that?’

‘Well you know, I suppose, that at the … hospital where Miss Winshaw usually resides, a number of highly dangerous cases — mental patients, you understand — are also held, under conditions of absolute security.’

‘What of it?’

‘It seems there was a break-out this afternoon, and one of these patients escaped — a murderous cut-throat, no less: a killer without mercy or remorse. By crimes! The life of the man unlucky enough to cross his path on a night like this would not be worth an hour’s purchase!’

‘But surely, Sergeant, the Institute lies more than twenty miles away. This incident, distressing though it may be, can hardly concern us.’

‘I’m very much afraid that it does. You see, the vehicle of his escape, we believe, was the very same car which brought Miss Winshaw here tonight. The cunning fellow must have concealed himself in the boot. Which means, in all probability, that he’s still somewhere hereabouts. He can’t have got far, in this weather.’

‘Let me get this straight, Sergeant,’ said Mark Winshaw. ‘Are you telling us, in effect, that there’s a homicidal maniac at loose in the grounds?’

‘That’s about the size of it, sir.’

‘And how would you advise that we adapt ourselves to this regrettable state of affairs?’

‘Well, there’s no need to panic, sir. That would be my first advice. Don’t panic, whatever you do. Simply take the precaution of locking all the doors to the house — bolt them, too, if you can — set a few dogs out to roam the gardens, fortify yourselves with whatever guns and firearms you happen to have about the place, and make sure there’s a light burning in every room. But whatever you do, don’t panic. These creatures can sense fear, you know. They can smell it.’ Having thus reassured them, he set his cap firmly on his head and made for the door. ‘I’d better be getting along, now, if you don’t mind. My colleague’s waiting for me out in the car; and we’ve several more houses to visit tonight.’

After seeing him out — and letting in a torrent of rain and swirling leaves in the process — Mark, Dorothy and Michael returned to the dining room to inform the others of this extraordinary news.

‘Well, that just about puts the tin lid on a delightful evening,’ said Hilary. ‘Now we get to spend the night here with Norman Bates for company, do we?’

‘There might, even now, be time to leave,’ Mr Sloane murmured, ‘if anyone cares to try it.’

‘I may well take you up on that,’ said Dorothy.

‘I can’t believe that one of my neighbours would ever do such nasty things,’ said Tabitha, half to herself. ‘They all seem such quiet and pleasant people.’

Several of her relatives snorted at this point.

‘Incidentally, you know, you mightn’t be far wrong,’ Michael remarked, turning towards Hilary. ‘I don’t know about Norman Bates, but of course there are films where this sort of thing happens.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, like The Cat and the Canary, for instance. Did anybody see that?’

‘I know it,’ said Thomas. ‘Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.’

‘That’s right. All the members of a family are summoned to an isolated old house for the reading of a will. There’s a terrible storm. And a police officer turns up to warn them that there’s a killer in the area.’

‘And what happens to the members of this family?’ asked Phoebe, looking directly at Michael for the first time.

‘They’re murdered,’ he said calmly. ‘One by one.’

The crash of thunder which followed this statement was louder than ever. It was succeeded by a long pause. Michael’s words seemed to have had a powerful effect: only Hilary remained determinedly unimpressed.

‘Well, to be honest, I don’t see what we’ve got to be worried about,’ she said. ‘After all, you’re the only one who’s been attacked so far.’

‘Oh, come on,’ said Michael. ‘We all know that that was an accident. Surely you’re not suggesting—’

‘Do you mind?’ Roddy now broke in abruptly. ‘I’m beginning to find the tenor of this conversation almost as tasteless as this confounded Stilton.’

He pushed his plate away in disgust.

‘And you know all there is to know about taste, of course,’ said Phoebe.

This remark was accompanied by a very meaningful look, which provoked him to point a finger at her and stammer furiously: ‘You’ve got a damned nerve, you know, being here at all. One weekend, you spent up here, but it was still long enough for you to get your claws into my father. How much money did you squeeze out of him, that’s what I want to know? And more to the point, what’s he supposed to have died of, anyway? Nobody seems to be talking about that.’

‘I don’t know, exactly,’ said Phoebe, on the defensive. ‘I was away when it happened.’

‘Look, we’re wasting time here,’ said Dorothy. ‘Somebody should fetch Henry and let him know what’s going on.’

This struck everyone as a very sensible idea.

‘Where is he, though?’

‘Up in Nurse Gannet’s old room, watching television.’

‘Well where on earth’s that? Does anyone know their way around this blasted house?’

‘I do,’ said Phoebe. ‘I’ll go and get him myself.’

Michael was slow to oppose this course of action, because he had been confused and intrigued by the sudden display of animosity between Roddy and Phoebe, and was beginning to wonder if it had any sort of history behind it. But as soon as he realized that she had departed on what might well be a dangerous errand, he turned to reproach the others.

‘She shouldn’t be wandering around by herself,’ he protested. ‘You heard what the sergeant said. There might be a killer in the house.’

‘What nonsense,’ scoffed Dorothy. ‘We’re not in a film now, you know.’

‘That’s what you think,’ said Michael, and ran off in pursuit.

But once again he had occasion to curse the fiendishly convoluted architecture of the building. Reaching the top of the Great Staircase, he found that he had no idea which direction to take, and wasted several breathless minutes tearing up and down the winding, intersecting corridors until all at once he turned a corner and ran straight into Phoebe herself.

‘What are you doing up here?’ she said.

‘Looking for you, of course. Did you find him?’

‘Henry? No, he’s not there any more. Perhaps he went back downstairs.’

‘Probably. Still, let’s have another look, just in case.’

Phoebe led him around the corner, up a small flight of steps, and then along three or four short, gloomy passages.

‘Ssh! Listen!’ said Michael, laying a hand on her arm. ‘I can hear voices.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s only the television.’

She flung open a door upon an empty room, containing only a sofa, a table, and a portable black and white television which was tuned to Newsnight. Unwatched, Jeremy Paxman was interviewing a harassed-looking junior defence minister.

‘See?’ said Phoebe. ‘Nobody here.’

‘It would be wrong to regard the UN deadline simply as a trigger point,’ the minister was saying. ‘Saddam knows that we now have the right to take military action. When — and indeed whether — we choose to exercise that right, is another thing altogether.’

‘But nearly nineteen hours have elapsed since the deadline expired,’ Paxman insisted. ‘Are you saying that you still have no information as to when—’

‘Oh my God.’

Michael had noticed something: a stream of blood was running down the side of the sofa and dripping on to the floor. He peered gingerly over the back and saw that Henry was lying face down on the sofa, a carving knife sticking out from between his shoulder blades. Phoebe followed him and gasped. They stared speechlessly at the corpse for some time; until they became aware that a third person had entered the room and was standing between them, looking down with blank indifference at the dead man.

‘Stabbed in the back,’ said Hilary drily. ‘How appropriate. Does this mean that Mrs Thatcher is somewhere in the house?’

CHAPTER FOUR Carry On Screaming

MICHAEL, Phoebe, Thomas, Hilary, Roddy, Mark and Dorothy stood in a solemn circle and contemplated the body. They had raised Henry into a sitting position, and he now stared back at them with the same outraged, incredulous expression which had been the hallmark of all his public appearances.

‘When do you think it happened?’ asked Roddy.

Nobody answered.

‘We’d better get back downstairs,’ said Hilary. ‘I suggest we find Tabitha and Mr Sloane and all have a good talk about this.’

‘Are we just going to leave him like that?’ asked Thomas, as the others started to leave.

‘I’ll … clean him up a bit, if you like,’ said Phoebe. ‘I’ve got some things in my bag.’

‘I’ll stay and help you,’ Dorothy volunteered. ‘I’ve had a bit of experience with carcasses.’

The rest of the party proceeded downstairs in a silent cortège, and convened in the dining room, where Tabitha was once again placidly employed with her knitting, and Mr Sloane sat beside her, a look of the utmost horror drawn on his face.

‘Well,’ said Hilary, when nobody else showed signs of beginning the conversation, ‘Norman seems to have claimed his first victim.’

‘So it would appear.’

‘But then, appearances can be deceptive,’ said Michael.

Thomas rounded on him.

‘What on earth are you blathering on about, man? We know there’s a lunatic on the loose. Are you telling me you don’t think he’s responsible for this?’

‘It’s one of the theories available: that’s all.’

‘I see. Well perhaps you’d be so good as to tell us what the others are, in that case.’

‘Yes, come on, out with it,’ said Mark. ‘Who else could have killed him?’

‘Why, any one of us, of course.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Thomas. ‘How could any of us have done it, when we were all down here having supper?’

‘Nobody had seen Henry since the will was read,’ Michael pointed out. ‘Between then and supper, we were all of us alone, at one time or another. I don’t rule anybody out.’

‘You’re talking rubbish,’ said Mark. ‘He can only have been killed a few minutes ago. You forget that I was watching the television with him, for a while, when you were all down here eating.’

‘Well, that’s your story,’ said Michael coolly.

‘Are you calling me a liar? What else do you suppose I was doing?’

‘You could have been doing anything, for all I know. Perhaps you were on the telephone to your friend Saddam, helping him out with a last-minute order.’

‘You impudent swine! Take that back.’

‘I’m afraid that intriguing hypothesis will have to be discounted,’ said Roddy, who had slipped out into the hall, and now returned carrying a telephone. The cord had been roughly snapped in two. ‘As you can see, the service seems to have been temporarily suspended. I found this out because, unlike the rest of you, I had the sense to think of phoning for the police.’

‘Well, it isn’t too late,’ said Hilary. ‘There’s a telephone in my room as well. Come on — if we hurry, we might still get to it before he does.’

Mark smiled a superior smile after them as they hurried out of the room.

‘I’m amazed that people still rely on these primitive methods of communication,’ he said. ‘You brought your cell-phone up here, didn’t you, Thomas?’

The elderly banker blinked in surprise. ‘That’s right: of course I did. Never without it. Can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before.’

‘Where did you leave it, can you remember?’

‘Billiard room, I think. Had a few frames with Roddy before you arrived.’

‘I’ll just go and get it. We should have this business wrapped up in no time at all.’

He sauntered out, leaving Michael and Thomas to glower silently at one another. Meanwhile Mr Sloane began to pace the room, and Tabitha carried on with her knitting as if nothing had happened. Before long she was quietly humming a tune to herself — dimly identifiable, after a few bars, as ‘Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines’.

‘Has anyone seen Pyles lately?’ Thomas asked, when he could stand no more of this.

Mr Sloane shook his head.

‘Well, hadn’t someone better find him? He certainly wasn’t with us in the dining room all the time. What do you say, Owen — shall we try to track him down?’

Michael was lost in thought, and didn’t appear to have heard this question.

‘All right then — I’ll go and find the fellow myself.’

‘And now we are three,’ said Tabitha happily, once Thomas had gone. ‘I’ve never known so much running about. What a to-do! Have we started to play sardines?’

Mr Sloane shot her a withering glance.

‘What a long face you’re wearing, Michael!’ she exclaimed, after a little more humming. ‘Not entering into the party spirit? Or perhaps you’re beginning to get a few thoughts about how your book might end?’

‘There was something strange about those suits of armour at the top of the stairs,’ said Michael, taking no notice, and continuing with his own line of thought. ‘Something about them had changed, when we came past them just now. I can’t put my finger on it.’

Without another word, he got up and made his way to the hall. He was about to climb the staircase when he saw Pyles coming from the kitchen, a silver tray balanced precariously on his arm.

‘Enjoying your visit, Mr Owen?’ he asked.

‘Thomas has been looking for you. Did you see him?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Did they tell you what had happened?’

‘Yes. And it’s only the start. I’ve known it all along, you see: this whole house is doomed, and everyone in it!’

Michael patted him on the back. ‘Keep up the good work.’

When he reached the top of the staircase, he examined both suits of armour in detail. They were still in the same positions, and nothing seemed obviously awry. And yet surely, some subtle alteration had been made … Michael had the sense that he was being very obtuse, that he was missing something important which was staring him in the face. He looked again.

And then he saw it. At once a dreadful suspicion stole over him.

There was a loud crash from the direction of the billiard room. Michael ran down the stairs and almost collided with Mr Sloane in the hall. Together they ran towards the noise and burst in to discover Pyles collapsed in a chair, having dropped his tray to the floor.

‘I came in to collect the empty glasses,’ he said. ‘And then I saw—’

Their eyes followed his trembling finger. Mark Winshaw was slumped against the wall. At first Michael thought that his hands had been tied behind his back: then he realized that the body had been horribly mutilated. The missing axe from the suit of armour, its blade red and sticky, had been left on top of the billiard table; and protruding hideously from the two pockets at the baulk end were Mark’s severed limbs. To complete the macabre joke, a message had been scrawled in blood on the wall.

It said: A FAREWELL TO ARMS!

CHAPTER FIVE A Lady Mislaid

‘Now the important thing,’ said Thomas, ‘is that we all remain calm, and civilized.’

They were gathered in the dining room again, sitting amidst the debris of their supper. Their faces, for the most part, were chalky and haggard. Tabitha alone was blissfully unmindful of the latest shocking turn of events, while Pyles, who had now joined them at the table, wore a crooked, fatalistic smile, having already delivered himself of the helpful opinion that ‘There’ll be more to come, before the night is out! Many more!’ The only (living) member of the family not in attendance was Dorothy, who for the time being was nowhere to be found. Out of doors, there seemed little promise of an end to the storm.

‘I suggest that we proceed on the assumption,’ Thomas continued, ‘that a madman is loose in the house, bent on the random slaughter of anyone with whom he comes into contact.’

Michael sighed. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’

The others looked to him for explication.

‘There’s been nothing random about these killings so far,’ he said.

‘Would you care to explain yourself?’

He turned towards Hilary. ‘All right then: what were your first words when you saw that Henry had been stabbed in the back?’

‘I can’t remember,’ said Hilary, shrugging carelessly.

‘They were “How appropriate”. They struck me as rather curious, even at the time. What did you mean by them, exactly?’

‘Well …’ Hilary gave a guilty laugh. ‘We all know that personal loyalty wasn’t the most obvious distinguishing feature of Henry’s political career. And certainly not towards the end.’

‘Quite. He was a turncoat, and, indeed, a backstabber. Can we all agree on that?’

From the ensuing silence, it appeared that they could.

‘And as for Mark, I don’t think we need have any illusions about what he was up to in the Middle East. Hence, I suppose, the message written on the wall above his body.’

‘Your theory, insofar as I understand it,’ said Roddy, ‘seems to be that each of us is on the point not only of being killed, but of being killed in a manner … appropriate, as it were, to our professional activities.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Well, it’s a ridiculous theory, if you don’t mind my saying so. It smacks of the scenario to a third-rate horror film.’

‘Interesting that you should say that,’ said Michael. ‘Perhaps some of you saw a film called Theatre of Blood, made in 1973?’

Mr Sloane tutted reprovingly. ‘Really, I think we’re getting a long way from the point here.’

‘Not at all. Vincent Price plays a veteran actor who decides to revenge himself on his critics, and murders each of them using methods inspired by some of the grisliest scenes from Shakespearian tragedies.’

Roddy stood up. ‘Boredom, if nothing else, compels me to suggest that we abandon this wearisome line of inquiry and take some practical course of action. I’m worried about Dorothy. I think we should split up and go looking for her.’

‘Just one moment,’ said Thomas. ‘I’d like to play our film expert at his own game, if I may.’ He settled back in his chair and looked at Michael with the light of challenge in his eye. ‘Isn’t there a film where some crackpot — he turns out to be a judge — invites a lot of people to a remote house and does ’em all in: the point being that they all have guilty secrets to hide, and he sees himself as their executioner — a sort of angel of justice?’

‘The plot is from Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Niggers. There are three different film versions. Which did you have in mind?’

‘The one I saw was set in the Austrian Alps. Wilfrid Hyde-White was in it, and Dennis Price.’

‘That’s right. And Shirley Eaton, I seem to remember.’

Michael glanced at Phoebe as he said this; and noticed, in passing, that Roddy was now looking at her too.

‘Well,’ said Thomas, ‘doesn’t that little set-up seem remarkably close to what appears to be going on here tonight?’

‘I suppose that it does, yes.’

‘Fine. Now listen to this: what was the name of the fellow who did the killing? The one who organized the whole shindig? Can’t remember? Well I’ll tell you.’

He leaned forward across the table.

‘He called himself Owen. Mr U. N. Owen.’ Thomas paused triumphantly. ‘Now: what do you say to that?’

Michael was taken aback. ‘Are you accusing me?’

‘Damn right I am. We’ve all seen parts of that nasty little book of yours. We all know exactly what you think of us. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve lured us all here as part of some insane scheme of your own.’

‘Lured you here? How would I have done that? You’re not accusing me of organizing Mortimer’s death as well, surely?’

Thomas narrowed his eyes and turned towards Phoebe. ‘Well, perhaps that’s where Miss Barton comes in.’

Phoebe laughed angrily and said: ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

‘It makes sense to me,’ said Roddy. ‘I know for a fact she has a grudge against the family. And look at it this way: she and Owen go upstairs to look for Henry together — five minutes later, he’s dead. That makes them the prime suspects, in my book. What do you think, Hilary?’

‘I agree entirely. Apart from anything else, have you noticed the way they’ve been looking at each other all evening? Lots of little meaningful glances have been passing back and forth. I don’t think this is the first time they’ve met at all. I think they’ve known each other all along.’

‘Well, is this true?’ said Thomas. ‘Have you two met before?’

Phoebe gazed at Michael helplessly, before admitting: ‘Well, yes … We did meet once. Years and years ago. But that doesn’t mean —’

‘Ha! So now it’s all coming out!’

‘I’ll tell you another thing,’ said Roddy. ‘Owen’s already condemned himself out of his own mouth. Hilary and I were both upstairs when Mark was found: so was Dorothy, and so were you, Thomas — looking for Pyles. Now, Owen says that he was standing at the top of the staircase looking at the suits of armour all this time. So if any of us had tried to leave the billiard room and get past him, he would have seen us, wouldn’t he? But he says that nobody came by!’

Thomas rubbed his hands. ‘All right,’ he said to Michael. ‘Talk your way out of that!’

‘There’s a perfectly simple explanation,’ he answered. ‘The murderer didn’t enter or leave the billiard room by the door. There’s a passage from that room. It leads to one of the bedrooms upstairs.’

‘What the devil are you talking about, man?’ Thomas thundered.

‘It’s true. Ask Tabitha: she knows. She knows because Lawrence used to use it, during the war.’

‘What tommyrot.’ He turned to his aunt, who had been listening to this conversation with every appearance of enjoyment. ‘Did you hear that, Aunt Tabitha?’

‘Oh yes. Yes, I heard it all.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I think it was Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen, with the candlestick.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Hilary. ‘We’re wasting valuable time. Dorothy hasn’t been down for half an hour or more: we must try to find her.’

‘All right,’ said Thomas, getting up. ‘But these two aren’t coming with us.’

The curtains in the dining room could only be opened and closed by means of a thick cotton rope. Thomas cut off two lengths from this and lashed Michael and Phoebe securely to their chairs. Care of the prisoners was left to Mr Sloane (and Tabitha, for what she was worth), while Roddy, Hilary, Thomas and Pyles set off to search the house, agreeing to meet back in the dining room in twenty minutes’ time.

Hilary was the first to return, followed shortly by the butler.

‘Any luck?’ she asked him.

Pyles shook his head. ‘You won’t be seeing her again,’ he said, in his most lugubrious tone. ‘Not on this side of the grave.’

Roddy arrived with more bad news.

‘I went out to look in the garages. I thought she might have driven off without telling us.’

‘And?’

‘Well, her car’s still there, but it wouldn’t be any use to her in any case. One of those huge beech trees has blown right over, and the driveway’s completely blocked. So now we’re all well and truly stuck.’

Michael laughed. ‘What did you expect?’ he said. He was still tied to his chair, and not in the best of tempers. ‘We psychopaths think of everything, you know.’

Roddy ignored him. ‘I’ve had a thought, though, sis: what about your plane? Could we get away in that?’

‘Well, I can’t fly the thing,’ said Hilary. ‘And my pilot’s staying in the village tonight. He won’t be round till the morning.’

‘Do you mean Conrad?’ asked Phoebe mischievously. ‘I should like to meet him again.’

Hilary gave her a furious look, and Roddy couldn’t resist explaining, with a smirk: ‘Conrad got the push a few months ago — on Sir Peter’s orders. His replacement isn’t quite in the same league.’

‘Do you think he could possibly take me for a ride, when he comes round tomorrow?’ cried Tabitha, her eyes alight with anticipation. ‘I love aeroplanes, you know. What sort is it?’

‘A Buccaneer,’ said Hilary.

‘The Lake LA-4-200, I suppose? With the four-cylinder Avco Lycoming engine?’

‘Oh, shut up, you old fool.’

Hilary picked a grape from the fruit bowl and began tossing it nervously between her hands.

‘Now there’s no need to get bad tempered, you naughty girl,’ said Tabitha. ‘A kind word and a happy smile don’t cost much, do they? Always look on the bright side, I say. Things could easily be so much worse.’

‘Aunty,’ said Hilary slowly. ‘We’re trapped in an isolated house, with a homicidal maniac, in the middle of a thunderstorm. All the phone lines have been cut off, we have no means of escape, two of us have been killed and another has gone missing. How could things possibly be worse?’

At that moment, the lights went out and the house was plunged into darkness.

‘Oh God,’ said Roddy. ‘What’s happened?’

The blackness to which they had been consigned was absolute. The heavy dining-room curtains were closed, and it was impossible to see even an inch or two ahead in such thick, impenetrable gloom. To add to the eeriness of the situation, it seemed to all of the company that the sounds of the raging weather outside had increased tenfold as soon as their powers of vision were taken away.

‘It must be a fuse,’ said Pyles. ‘The fuse box is in the cellar. I’ll see to it at once.’

‘Good man,’ said Roddy.

Whether he would succeed on this mission seemed open to doubt, for his progress towards the door was marked by any number of thuds, crashes, smashes and tinkles as he collided heavily with various objects of furniture scattered around the room. But finally he made it: the door creaked open and shut, and they could hear his receding footsteps echoing faintly as he made his halting way across the stone-flagged hall.

Then the clicking of Tabitha’s needles resumed, and she started humming another tune. This time it was ‘The Dambusters’ March’.

‘For God’s sake, Aunty,’ said Roddy. ‘How on earth can you do any knitting in Ulis dark? And would you kindly desist from singing those infuriating songs?’

‘I must say, Mr Owen, your ingenuity compels admiration,’ said Hilary; and her brother could recognize in her voice a forced, brittle cheerfulness — a sure sign that her spirits were violently agitated. ‘I can’t help wondering what sort of fate you had in mind for the rest of us.’

‘I hadn’t really thought, to be honest,’ said Michael. ‘I was more or less improvising the whole thing, you see.’

‘Yes, but surely you must have had a few ideas. Henry’s back; Mark’s arms. What about Thomas? What part of his anatomy were you intending to go for?’

‘Where is Thomas, anyway?’ said Roddy. ‘He should have been here ages ago. The last I saw of him he—’

‘Ssh!’ It was Hilary who cut him short. The atmosphere in the room grew suddenly tense. ‘Who’s that moving about?’

They all strained to listen. Was that a footstep they had just heard? Was there someone (or something), in the room with them, a furtive, watchful presence, creeping through the inky shadows — and now very close at hand? Was that the sound of something on the table itself — where they were all sitting, rigid with expectation — being very quietly, very stealthily moved?

‘Who’s there?’ said Hilary. ‘Come on, speak up.’

Nobody breathed.

‘You were imagining it,’ said Roddy, after about a minute.

‘I don’t imagine things,’ Hilary answered, indignantly. But the tension had gone.

‘Well, fear can play strange tricks,’ said her brother.

‘Look: I am not afraid.’

He laughed scornfully. ‘Afraid? You’re scared witless, old girl.’

‘I don’t know what gives you that idea.’

‘After all these years, darling, I can read you like a book. Anyone can tell when you’re upset. You start messing around with the grapes.’

‘The grapes? What are you on about?’

‘You start playing around with them. Peeling them. Taking the skins off. You’ve done it since you were a kid.’

‘I may have done it since I was a kid but I’m not doing it tonight, I can assure you.’

‘Oh, come off it. I’ve got one of them in my hands right now.’

Roddy stroked the fruit between finger and thumb — it felt smooth and oily without its skin — and then popped it into his mouth. He closed his teeth upon it, but instead of the expected release of fresh, tangy syrup upon his tongue, he felt only a rubbery squelch, and his mouth was filled with an appalling taste, the nameless virulence of which he had never known before.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he shouted, and spat it out. He began to retch violently.

Just then, the lights came back on. Squinting in the sudden brightness, it took him a few seconds to identify the object he had just coughed up, which was now lying on the table in front of him. It was a half-chewed eyeball. Its fellow stared balefully at him from the fruit bowl: the bloodshot eye of Thomas Winshaw, fixed for ever in its last, unblinking, lifeless gaze.

CHAPTER SIX The Crowning Touch

‘HE should sleep now,’ said Phoebe, as Roddy lay back on the pillow, his breathing gradually taking on a slower, more regular rhythm. She gently took the glass from his hand, set it down on the bedside table, and put the bottle of pills away in her bag.

Hilary regarded her brother dispassionately. ‘He always was a squeamish little thing,’ she said. ‘Still, I’ve never seen him perform in quite that way before. Will he be all right, do you think?’

‘I expect he’s just in shock. A few hours’ rest ought to take care of it.’

‘Well, we could all do with that.’ Hilary glanced around the room, and went to check that the window was securely fastened. ‘I suppose he’ll be safe in here, will he? There’s not much point leaving him sleeping like a baby if our resident maniac is just going to sneak in and bump him off the minute our backs are turned.’

They decided that the best thing would be to lock him in. Phoebe didn’t think that he would wake before morning, and even if he did, the temporary inconvenience of being held captive was surely of little importance when set beside his personal safety.

‘I think I’d better keep the key,’ said Phoebe, slipping it into the pocket of her jeans as they set off down the corridor together.

‘Why’s that?’

‘I would have thought it was obvious. Michael and I were tied up when Thomas was killed. That puts us in the clear, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Hilary curtly, after a moment’s thought. ‘In any case, my congratulations go to whoever’s behind this whole set-up. They haven’t missed a trick. Disconnecting all the phones, for instance. I think I could forgive just about everything apart from that.’

‘Preventing us from calling the police, you mean?’

‘Worse than that — I can’t even use my modem. First time in six years I’ve missed a copy deadline. I’d got an absolute corker for them, too. All about the Labour Party peaceniks and how the Iraqis would have run rings around them. Ah well.’ She sighed. ‘It’ll just have to wait.’

They made their way back to the sitting room, where Tabitha was once again installed by the fire, now preoccupied not with her knitting but with the perusal of a bulky paperback which on closer inspection turned out to be Volume Four of The Air Pilot’s Manual. She looked up when Hilary and Phoebe came in, and said: ‘Why, there you are! I was beginning to think you were never coming back.’

‘What about Michael and Mr Sloane?’ Phoebe asked. ‘Are they still outside?’

‘I suppose they must be,’ said Tabitha. ‘Really, you know, I find it hard to keep track of all your comings and goings.’

‘And there’s been no sign of Dorothy, I suppose?’ Hilary ventured.

‘The only person I’ve seen,’ said the old woman, ‘was your father. He stopped by a few minutes ago. We had a lovely little chat.’

Phoebe and Hilary exchanged worried looks. Hilary knelt down beside her aunt and began to speak very slowly and distinctly.

‘Aunty, Mortimer isn’t with us any more. He died, the day before yesterday. That’s why we’re all here, remember? We came for the reading of his will.’

Tabitha frowned. ‘No, I think you must be quite mistaken, dear. I’m certain it was Morty. I must say, I didn’t think he was looking his best — he was very tired and out of breath, and he did have blood all over his clothes, now I come to think of it — but he wasn’t dead. Not a bit of it. Not at all like Henry, or Mark, or Thomas.’ She smiled at the last name, and shook her head fondly. ‘Now that's what I call dead.’

There were footsteps outside the room, and Michael returned, with Pyles and Mr Sloane in tow. Hilary rose from her kneeling position and took Michael aside to acquaint him with the latest turn of events.

‘Loony alert,’ she said, in a loud whisper. ‘The old biddy’s completely lost it this time.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘Says she’s just been talking to my father.’

‘I see.’ Michael paced the room for a few moments, sunk in thought. Then he looked up. ‘Well — who’s to say she’s not telling the truth? I mean, did anyone actually see Mortimer die?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Phoebe. ‘As I said, I wasn’t here when it happened. I’d gone back to Leeds for a couple of days.’

‘And was that your idea?’

‘Not really. He more or less forced it upon me. Told me I was looking under the weather and insisted that I took a break.’

‘And what about you, Pyles — did you ever see Mortimer’s body?’

‘No,’ said the butler, scratching his head. ‘Dr Quince — Dr Quince the younger, that is — simply came down that morning and informed me that the master had passed away. And then he very kindly offered to make all the arrangements with the funeral director himself. I wasn’t involved at all.’

‘But my father couldn’t be running around here killing people,’ Hilary protested. ‘He was confined to a wheelchair, for God’s sake.’

‘That was the impression he liked to give,’ said Phoebe. ‘But I saw him get up and walk once or twice, when he thought nobody was looking. He wasn’t nearly as ill as he liked to make out.’

‘I cannot find it in me to believe,’ the solicitor maintained, ‘that Mr Winshaw himself is still alive, somewhere in this house, and is responsible for all these dreadful murders.’

‘But it’s the only possible solution,’ said Michael. ‘I’ve known it all along.’

Hilary raised her eyebrows.

‘That’s a rather extraordinary statement,’ she said. ‘Since when have you known it, exactly?’

‘Well … since Henry was killed,’ said Michael; and then thought again. ‘No, before then: since I arrived here. No, before that, even: since Mr Sloane turned up at my flat yesterday. Or — oh, I don’t know: since I was first approached by Tabitha and started writing this wretched book about you all. I can’t say. I really can’t say. Perhaps it’s even longer than that. Perhaps it goes all the way back to my birthday.’

‘Your birthday?’ said Hilary. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

Michael sat down and put his head in his hands. He spoke wearily, without emotion.

‘Years ago, on my ninth birthday, I was taken to see a film. It was set in a house rather like this one, and it was about a family, rather like yours. I was an over-sensitive little boy and I should never have been allowed to see it, but because it was supposed to be a comedy my parents thought it would be all right. It wasn’t their fault. They could never have known the effect it was going to have. I know it sounds hard to believe, but it was … well, easily the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I’d never seen anything like it before. And then half-way through — less than half-way through, probably — my mother made us get up and leave. She said we had to go home. And so we left: we left and I never found out what happened in the end. All I could do was wonder about it, for years afterwards.’

‘Enchanting though I find these childhood reminiscences,’ Hilary interrupted, ‘I can’t help thinking you’ve chosen an odd time to share them with us.’

‘I’ve seen the film since then, you understand,’ said Michael, apparently not having heard her. ‘I’ve got it on video. I know how the story works out: that’s how I know that Mortimer’s still alive. But that isn’t the point. It was never enough, being able to see it whenever I wanted: because I wasn’t just watching it, that day. I was living it: that’s the feeling I thought would never come back, the one I’ve been waiting to recapture. And now it’s happening. It’s started. All you people’—he gestured at the circle of attentive faces—‘you’re all characters in my film, you see. Whether you realize it or not, that’s what you are.’

‘Just like Alice, and the Red King’s dream,’ Tabitha chipped in.

‘Exactly.’

‘If I may make a suggestion, Michael,’ said Hilary, in a sweet tone of voice which rapidly turned sour, ‘why don’t you and Aunt Tabitha retire to a quiet corner together, for a private meeting of Nutters Anonymous, while the rest of us apply our minds to the trifling little question of how we’re going to get through the rest of the night without being slashed to ribbons?’

‘Hear hear,’ said Mr Sloane.

‘We all seem to be forgetting, apart from anything else, that according to the local police there’s an escaped killer in the area. Forgive me for being so prosaic, but I can’t help thinking that this has slightly more bearing on our predicament than Mr Owen’s admittedly diverting fairy stories.’

‘That business with the policeman was all a red herring,’ said Michael.

‘What’s this? Another theory? Why, the man’s a perfect magician! What’s it to be this time, Michael — Plan Nine from Outer Space? Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolf Man?’

‘Mr Sloane and I have been out to check the driveway,’ Michael said. ‘It’s covered with mud, so any tyre tracks would show up quite clearly. But you can still see my footprints: they’re the most recent marks on the drive. There’s been no police car here since I arrived.’

Hilary seemed momentarily chastened. ‘Well you saw this policeman, and so did Mark and Dorothy. Are you saying he was an impostor?’

‘I think it was Mortimer himself. I only ever met your father once, so I can’t be sure. They, of course, hadn’t seen him for years. But it’s what happens in the film. The man who’s supposed to be dead turns up and pretends to be a policeman, to throw them off the scent.’

‘I don’t know about anybody else, but my head’s beginning to spin with all this theorizing,’ said Mr Sloane, breaking the uneasy silence which followed this exchange. ‘I propose that we all go to our rooms, lock the doors, and stay put until the storm blows over. Explanations can wait until the morning.’

‘What a splendid idea,’ said Tabitha. ‘I’m quite worn out, I must say. I wonder if someone would be so good as to fill me a hot-water bottle, before they retire? This house seems so frightfully chilly tonight.’

Phoebe said that she would take care of it, while Michael, Pyles and Mr Sloane decided to make one final search of the house, to see if there was any sign of Dorothy.

‘We still haven’t talked about your book, Michael,’ Tabitha reminded him, just as he was about to leave. ‘Now you won’t disappoint me tomorrow, will you? I’ve been looking forward to it for so long. So very, very long. It will be just like talking to your father again.’

Michael stopped in his tracks when she said this. He wasn’t sure that he had heard correctly.

‘You’re very like him, you know. Just as I expected. The same eyes. Exactly the same eyes.’

‘Come on,’ said Mr Sloane, pulling at Michael’s sleeve. He added in a whisper: ‘She’s not all there, poor soul. Take no notice. We don’t want to confuse her even further.’

Hilary was left alone with her aunt. She stood for a while in front of the fire, biting her nail and doing her best to make sense of Michael’s latest baffling suggestion.

‘Aunty,’ she said, after a minute or two. ‘Are you quite sure it was my father you were talking to in here?’

‘Quite sure,’ said Tabitha. She closed her book and put it away in her knitting bag. ‘You know, it’s very confusing, with everyone saying that he’s dead one minute and alive the next. But there is a way you could prove it beyond question, isn’t there?’

‘Really? How would I do that?’

‘Why, you could go down to the crypt, of course, and see if his body’s in the coffin or not.’

Hilary had never wanted for courage, and she thought that this plan was well worth putting into action; but the journey involved was not one to relish. She was determined to complete it as quickly as possible, and so didn’t stop to fetch her raincoat before unbolting the front door and throwing herself into the heart of the howling storm, which had been continuing now for two hours or more. Barely able to see through the thick sheets of rain, almost thrown off her feet by the buffeting wind, she struggled across the forecourt and made for the bulky outline of the family chapel, which stood in a small glade near the head of the densely wooded driveway. All around her the trees groaned, creaked and rustled as the gale came and went in a series of wild and unpredictable gusts. Very much to her surprise, the door to the chapel was open, and there was a light flickering inside. Two candles burned on the altar. They had been recently lit, even though the chapel itself appeared to be deserted. Shivering violently — half with the cold, half with apprehension — she hurried across the aisle and pushed open a small, oak-framed door which gave upon a steep flight of stone steps. These were the steps which led down to the family vaults, where generation after generation of Winshaws had been interred, and where one vacant but elaborately inscribed tomb bore witness to the memory of Godfrey, the wartime hero, whose body they had never been able to recover from enemy soil.

Hilary descended the steps in complete darkness, but on reaching the entrance to the vault itself, she could see a thin band of light coming from beneath the door. Fearfully, hesitantly, she eased it open: and saw—

— and saw an empty coffin raised on a dais in the middle of the chamber, its lid removed, and beside it her father, Mortimer Winshaw, standing at a rakish angle and smiling warmly in her direction.

‘Come in, daughter dearest,’ he said. ‘Come in, and all will be explained.’

As Hilary stepped forward and opened the door to its fullest extent, she heard a sudden whirr above her head. Glancing upwards with a short scream, she had the briefest impression of a bulky parcel falling towards her on the end of a rope: a parcel compounded — although she was never to know it — of all the newspapers for which she had written a column over the last six years. But before she could guess what had hit her, Hilary was dead: crushed by the weight of her own opinion, and knocked to the ground, as senseless as any reader who had ever been numbed into submission by her raging torrent of overpaid words.

CHAPTER SEVEN Five Golden Hours

ALL was quiet at Winshaw Towers. Outside, the wind was beginning to die down, and the rain had dwindled to a soft patter against the windowpanes. Within, there was no sound save the reproachful creaking of the stairs as Michael made his way back to the upper floor, his final inspection of the house completed.

Whether from simple fatigue, or confusion at the dizzying events of the last few hours, Michael once again let the labyrinthine corridors get the better of him, and as he walked into what he had assumed was his bedroom, the first thing he saw was a large and unfamiliar item of furniture: a mahogany wardrobe, with a full-length mirror fixed to its open door. Phoebe had her back to the mirror and was reflected in it, bending over and about to step out of her jeans.

‘What are you doing in my room?’ said Michael, blinking in confusion.

She turned round with a start, and said: ‘This isn’t your room.’ She gestured at the hairbrushes and make-up laid out on the dressing table. ‘I mean, those aren’t your things, are they?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Michael. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t seem to get the hang of this place at all. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘That’s all right.’ Phoebe pulled her trousers back up and sat on the bed. ‘Perhaps it’s about time we had a talk anyway.’

He needed no further invitation to come inside.

‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you properly all evening,’ he said. ‘But the opportunity just never seemed to arise.’

Phoebe appeared to regard this as an understatement.

‘I know,’ she said, with a slightly cutting edge to her voice. ‘There’s something terribly distracting about mass murder, isn’t there?’

There was an awkward pause, before Michael blurted out: ‘Well what are you doing here, for Heaven’s sake? How did you come to be involved in all this?’

‘Through Roddy, of course. I met him just over a year ago: he offered to show some of my work at the gallery, and like a fool I believed him, and then like an even bigger fool I went to bed with him, and then as soon as he’d got what he wanted he dropped me like a stone. But while I was up here I met Mortimer. Don’t ask me why, but he took a liking to me and offered me this job.’

‘And you accepted? Why?’

‘Why do you think? Because I needed the money. And don’t look so disapproving about it: why did you agree to take on this book, for that matter? Artistic integrity?’

It was a fair point.

‘Mind if I sit here?’ said Michael, indicating the space beside her on the bed.

Phoebe shook her head. She looked tired, and ran a hand through her hair.

‘How’ve you been, anyway?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been looking out for your novels.’

‘I never wrote any more. I dried up.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘Still painting?’

‘On and off. I can’t really see much future in it at the moment. Not while the Roddy Winshaws of this world continue to rule the roost.’

‘Well, there’ll be one less of them by tomorrow morning, at this rate.’ Not wanting to dwell on this macabre prospect, Michael added: ‘You mustn’t give up, though. You were good. Anyone could see that.’

‘Anyone?’ Phoebe echoed.

‘Do you remember that time,’ said Michael, not noticing her question, ‘when I came into your room and saw the painting you were working on?’ He began to chuckle. ‘And I thought it was a still life, when it was really a picture of Orpheus in the underworld or something?’

‘Yes,’ said Phoebe, quietly. ‘I remember.’

Michael had a flash of inspiration. ‘Could I buy that painting? It would be so nice to have — just as a sort of … keepsake.’

‘I’m afraid I destroyed it. Soon afterwards.’

Phoebe got up and sat at the dressing table, where she began brushing her hair.

‘You don’t mean — not because of what I said, surely?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I mean, it was just a silly mistake.’

‘Some people bruise easily, Michael.’ She turned around. Her face was flushed. ‘I don’t, any more. But I was young at the time. And not very sure of myself. Anyway, it’s all forgotten now. It was a long time ago.’

‘Yes, but I had no idea. Really I didn’t.’

‘You’re forgiven,’ said Phoebe, and then tried to rescue the mood by asking: ‘Have I changed much since then?’

‘Hardly at all. I would have recognized you anywhere.’

She decided not to point out that he had noticeably failed to recognize her at the Narcissus Gallery’s private view a couple of months ago. ‘Do you ever hear from Joan?’

‘Yes, I saw her. Saw her just recently, as it happens. She married Graham.’

‘That figures.’ Phoebe rejoined him on the bed. ‘And they’re both well, are they?’

‘Fine, yes, fine. I mean, Graham was almost dead when I last saw him, but I should think he’s recovered by now.’

This required a certain amount of explanation, so Michael told her all that he knew about Graham’s documentary and Mark’s abortive assassination attempt.

‘So now he’s fallen foul of the Winshaws, too,’ said Phoebe. ‘They seem to get everywhere, this family, don’t they?’

‘Of course they do. That’s the whole point about them.’

She thought a little more about his story, and asked: ‘What were you doing in this hospital over New Year?’

‘I was visiting someone. A friend. She got taken ill unexpectedly.’

Phoebe detected an abrupt change of tone. ‘You mean — like a girlfriend?’

‘Something like a girlfriend, I suppose.’

He lapsed into silence, and she suddenly felt that her questions had been intrusive and unnecessary.

‘I’m sorry, I — didn’t mean to pry … I mean, it’s none of my business—’

‘No, that’s all right. Really.’

He forced a brief smile.

‘She died, didn’t she?’ said Phoebe.

Michael nodded.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She put her hand on his knee for a few, embarrassed moments; then withdrew it. ‘Do you want — I mean, would it help to talk about it?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Not really.’ He squeezed her hand, to show that her gesture had not gone unnoticed. ‘It’s silly, really, I’d only known her for a few months. We never even slept together. But somehow or other, I managed to … invest in her, quite heavily.’ He rubbed his eyes, adding: ‘Makes her sound like a public company, doesn’t it? I’m starting to talk like Thomas.’

‘What did she die of?’

‘The same thing that gets everybody, in the end: a combination of circumstances. She had a lymphoma, which could have been treated, but certain people chose to arrange things so that it didn’t happen. I’d been meaning to have a word with Henry about it, while I was up here, but … there’s no point, now, is there. Nothing … more to be …’ His words dried up and he stared into space for what seemed a very long time. Finally he said one more word, very softly, but with emphasis: ‘Shit.’ Then he keeled over and lay curled up on the bed in a foetal position, with his back towards Phoebe.

After a while she touched him on the shoulder, and said: ‘Michael, why don’t you stay here tonight? I don’t fancy spending the night alone, and we’d be company for each other.’

Michael said: ‘OK. Thank you.’ He didn’t move.

‘You’d better get undressed.’

Michael undressed down to his underwear, slipped between the sheets of the double bed and fell asleep almost instantly; just finding the time to murmur: ‘Joan asked me to stay in her bedroom once. I ran away. I don’t know why.’

‘She was very fond of you, I think,’ said Phoebe.

‘I’ve been so stupid.’

Phoebe put on her nightshirt and got into bed beside him. She turned off the lamp. They lay back to back, with an inch or two of space between them.

Michael dreamed about Fiona, as he had done every night for the last two weeks. He dreamed that he was still sitting beside her hospital bed, holding her hand and talking. She was listening to him and smiling back. Then he dreamed that he had woken up to the realization that she was dead, and started to dream that he was crying. He dreamed that he was reaching out in the bed and touching a warm female body. He dreamed that Phoebe had turned towards him and put her arms around him and was stroking his hair. He dreamed that he was kissing her on the lips and that she was returning his kiss, her mouth open, her lips soft and warm. He dreamed the warm smell of her hair and the warm smoothness of her skin as his fingers touched the small of her back beneath her nightshirt. He tried to remember when he had last had this dream, this dream of waking up and finding that he was in bed with a beautiful woman, waking up in the joyful awareness that she was touching him, that he was touching her, that they were dovetailed, entangled, coiled like dreamy snakes. This dream where it seemed that every part of his body was being touched by every part of her body, that from now on the entire world was to be apprehended only through touch, so that in the musty warmth of the bed, the curtained darkness of the bedroom, they could not but find themselves starting to writhe gently, every movement, every tiny adjustment creating new waves of pleasure. Michael was dreading the moment when the dream would end: when he would wake up for the last time and find himself alone in bed, or when he would be overtaken by a still deeper sleep and fall into another dream of emptiness and loss. But it didn’t happen. Their love was long, slow and sleepy, and although there were times when they did nothing but lie together, drowsily entwined, these intervals of huddled stillness were all part of a single movement, perpetual and effortless, during which they slid rhythmically in and out of sleep, rocked back and forth between dreaming and waking, and had no knowledge of the passing of time until Michael heard the grandfather clock in the hallway strike five, and turned his head to see Phoebe’s eyes smiling at him in the dark.

‘Kenneth,’ he said, ‘you’ll never know what you missed.’

‘My name isn’t Kenneth,’ said Phoebe. She laughed as she rummaged around in the tousled sheets for her nightshirt, then struggled into it. ‘Don’t tell me you were thinking about someone called Kenneth all that time. Although I suppose it would at least explain why you and Joan never got it together.’

She climbed out of bed and made for the door. Michael sat up, his mind still foggy with sleep, and said in an abstracted way: ‘Where are you going to go now?’

‘To the lavatory, I thought, if I have your permission.’

‘No, I meant — whenever. You know, as soon as all this is over.’

Phoebe shrugged. ‘I don’t know: back to Leeds, maybe. I can hardly stay here, at any rate.’

‘Come and live with me in London.’

She didn’t say anything to this at first, and Michael couldn’t see how she had reacted.

‘I’m serious,’ he added.

‘I know you are.’

‘I mean, I know you must like me. Otherwise—’

‘I don’t really think this is the time. And it certainly isn’t the place.’ She opened the door. He could hear her pause before leaving. ‘Slow down, Michael,’ she said: not unkindly. ‘We’re neither of us ready to make plans.’

A few minutes later she returned and climbed back into bed. They held hands beneath the sheets.

‘I knew you’d ask me to stay the night in here,’ Michael said, surfacing from some private train of thought.

‘Women usually find you irresistible, do they?’

‘No, but it happens in the film, you see. Almost exactly this situation. That was when I had to leave the cinema. And now that it’s actually happened, it’s almost as if … a spell’s been broken.’

‘All sounds very fatalistic to me. I suppose I had no choice in the matter, then?’

‘There is a film, you know,’ Michael insisted. ‘I wasn’t making it up, whatever Hilary may have thought.’

‘I believe you,’ said Phoebe. ‘Anyway, I’d heard about it before.’

‘You had? When?’

‘Joan mentioned it once: don’t you remember? That night when she made us all play Cluedo, and there was a terrible storm.’

All at once the memory came back to Michael in vivid detail. The four of them clustered around the table in Joan’s sitting room … Graham laughing at him because of the misprint in his review … And the feeling he’d had — a premonition, you might call it — when he’d found out that his character, Professor Plum, was the murderer, and it had no longer been possible to think of himself as detached, disinterested … To find yourself suddenly at the centre of things …

Then he remembered Tabitha’s last, enigmatic words, and light dawned.

‘I thought I was supposed to be writing this story,’ he said, ‘but I’m not. At least not any more. I’m part of it.’

Phoebe stared at him. ‘What?’

Michael sprang to his feet, saying: ‘God, I’ve been slow. Of course I’m part of it—that's why Tabitha chose me.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.’

‘She said I had his eyes: my father’s eyes. There’s only one person she could have been talking about. My mother said the same thing. That was what made me so angry in the restaurant. Even Findlay noticed it. He said they were like … blue velvet, or something. And I thought he was just trying to get me into bed.’

‘You’ve lost me, Michael. Completely lost me. Who on earth’s Findlay?’

‘He’s a detective. Tabitha hired him, years ago. Listen.’ He made Phoebe sit up, and explained: ‘Tabitha had a brother called Godfrey, who was killed in the war. Shot down by the Germans.’

‘I know all that. And she also had a brother called Lawrence, who she hated, and when she went mad she started accusing him of murder, or something.’

‘That’s it. Only she was right: he did tip the Germans off about Godfrey’s mission, and that was why he got shot down. I’m almost certain of it. But there was also a co-pilot, who didn’t get killed. He was put in a POW camp and after the war he came back to this country. He drifted around and went to seed a bit, and did all sorts of jobs under different names. John Farringdon was one of them, and Jim Fenchurch was another.’

‘Yes, and what about him?’

‘Well I’m his son.’

Phoebe’s eyes widened in disbelief.

‘You’re what?’

Michael said it again, and she let out a cry of exasperation. ‘Well, don’t you think it might have been a good idea to share this with us earlier?’

‘But I’ve only just realized. In fact, I’m going to have to ask Tabitha about it right now.’ He got up, turned the light on, and began dressing as quickly as he could.

‘Michael, it’s five o’clock in the morning. She’ll be fast asleep.’

‘I don’t care. This is urgent.’ He squeezed himself clumsily into his shoes. ‘You know, I don’t think Tabitha’s mad at all. I think she’s been playing a very clever game.’ Opening the door, he concluded dramatically: ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, she’s as sane as I am.’

‘Saner, perhaps,’ said Phoebe. But not loud enough to hear.

CHAPTER EIGHT Back Room Boy

MICHAEL needn’t have worried about interrupting Tabitha’s sleep. There was a light coming from her room, the door was unlocked, and she was sitting up in bed, knitting and listening to a transistor radio placed on the bedside table.

‘Why, Michael,’ she cried. ‘You’ve come even sooner than I expected! Is it time for our little chat already?’

‘John Farringdon,’ he said, coming straight to the point. ‘He was my father, wasn’t he?’

‘So, you’re there at last, are you? Well done, Michael. Very well done! Although, to be perfectly frank with you, I was expecting you to get there a little earlier. How long has it taken you now? Nearly nine years, I think. And yet, from reading your books, I’d formed the impression that you were quite an intelligent man.’

Michael drew up a chair next to the bed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I know you’re playing with me now. Have you been playing with me all along?’

‘Playing with you, Michael? That’s not a very nice accusation to make. I’ve been helping you. I’ve always wanted to help you. It’s been my only thought.’

‘Look — I’ve had no help from you: none at all. You never even contacted me in all that time.’

‘I’ve given you rather a lot of money, none the less. Hasn’t that been of any use?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Michael blushed, ashamed to be reminded that he hadn’t even thanked her for her generosity in this area. ‘Of course it has. But how was I to — I mean, if it hadn’t been for Findlay, I would never even have got near the truth of this whole business.’

‘Findlay? Surely you don’t mean Mr Onyx? Mr Findlay Onyx, the detective? Is he still alive, Michael?’

‘Certainly he is. Alive and in prison even as we speak.’

‘And I can guess what for!’ said Tabitha, laughing merrily. ‘Oh, he was a naughty little man. Very naughty indeed. But most professional, I have to admit. It was Mr Onyx who managed to locate your father for me, of course. He told you all about that, I take it?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘So you know that your father was killed by Lawrence, in this very house? The night of Morty’s birthday party?’

Michael nodded.

‘I was very disappointed, I must say,’ said Tabitha. ‘I really thought that Mr Farringdon would have had no difficulty finishing my brother off. But clearly one should never take these things for granted. I was in extremely low spirits when Mr Onyx came to see me the next morning.’ She shook her head, smiling. ‘He was a most conscientious man. Most reliable. He came — at some risk to himself, I must say — to deliver an envelope, containing some of Mr Farringdon’s effects. Among which, I found—’

‘—a photograph?’

‘Exactly, Michael! A photograph. Perhaps you’re not quite as slow as I thought. A photograph of you, sitting at your desk and writing. You can only have been about … eight years old, would you say? There was a little girl in the picture as well. Not very pretty, I’m afraid. Rather prominent teeth. Mr Farringdon was very attached to this photograph, anyway. He’d told me all about it, in one of our long conversations at the Institute, where he had been kind enough to come and visit me on a number of occasions. Oh, yes, those were pleasant afternoons. We talked about all sorts of things. One day, I remember, we had a long and most stimulating discussion about the Lockheed Hudson. I’d always been concerned, you see, about the high amount of magnesium alloy used in construction. It seemed to me that it made the aircraft very vulnerable to fire, particularly if the integral fuel tanks were to rupture. Now, of course, Mr Farringdon had never flown one himself, but …’ Her eyes had glazed over, and she now turned to Michael with a look of bewilderment. ‘I’m sorry, dear, what was I saying?’

‘The photograph.’

‘Ah, yes, the photograph. Well, I held on to it, of course, just as he’d asked me to, although I’m afraid it gave me no means of finding you, because he’d neglected to tell me your name. Perhaps he never even knew it himself. And then one day — it would have been, oh, almost twenty years later — a most extraordinary thing happened. One of the doctors came up to my room and brought me a magazine. Wasn’t that thoughtful of him? All of the staff are familiar with my little hobby, you see, and this was a colour magazine with a lovely long article in it, all about the Mark i Hurricane. Well, I have to say that it wasn’t very well researched: I was most disappointed. The autiior missed several important points — never even mentioned, would you believe, its one real advantage over the Spitfire, which, as you know, was the thickness of the section wings. I actually wrote a letter of complaint to the editor, but it was never published. I wonder why …’

There was a dangerously long silence, and Michael realized that she had drifted off again.

‘Anyway, about this magazine.’

‘I’m sorry: I do tend to get distracted sometimes. The magazine. Precisely. Well, after I’d read this article, I started to look at some of the other items, and imagine my surprise, Michael — imagine my delight, and astonishment — when I found, tucked away at the very back, a charming little short story about a castle and a detective, and at the top of it, the very same picture which Mr Farringdon had given me all those years ago. A picture of you, Michael! You as a little boy! Fate had delivered you into my hands, at last, and not only that, but it turned out that you’d become a writer. It was all too, too perfect! I began to think of a little plan, which would enable me to make financial reparation for what my family had done to you — I knew that you would be short of money, it went without saying: all writers are short of money — and which, at the same time, would inevitably lead you to find out the truth about your father and how he died. You would discover the truth about my family, Michael, and reveal it to the world, in the form of a book. And what a book it would be! I envisaged … a tremendous book, an unprecedented book — part personal memoir, part social commentary, all stirred together into one lethal and devastating brew.’

‘Sounds wonderful,’ said Michael. ‘I should have hired you to write the blurb.’

‘I think, in retrospect, that I overestimated you,’ said Tabitha. ‘Much as I enjoyed the extracts which you sent to me, my expectations had been too high. I see now that you weren’t quite equal to the task. You lacked the necessary … dash, the necessary … daring, the necessary … what is the word?’

‘Brio?’

‘Perhaps, Michael. Perhaps that’s what you lacked, in the end.’ She sighed. ‘But then, who could really do justice to my family? Liars, cheats, swindlers and hypocrites, the lot of them. And Lawrence was the worst. By far the worst. To betray your country for money is bad enough, but to send your own brother to his death … Only my family could do such a thing. When it happened, I realized for the first time what they were really like: and after that, what did it matter if they locked me away? I didn’t care what became of me.’ She sighed again, even more heavily. ‘It quite spoiled my war.’

‘You say that almost as if you’d been enjoying it,’ said Michael.

‘But of course I was enjoying it,’ said Tabitha, smiling. ‘We all were. It’s so hard for you young people to understand, I know, but there’s nothing like a good war for pulling a country together. Everyone was so nice to each other, for a while. Everything that had divided us suddenly seemed so petty and inconsequential. Things have changed, since then. Changed terribly. Changed for the worse. We were all so polite, you see. We observed the niceties. Mortimer, for instance … He would never have behaved like this, running around the house and chopping his family up with axes and knives and what have you. It would never have entered his head, in those days.’

‘I imagine not,’ said Michael. ‘Still, it won’t happen again, I don’t suppose.’

‘What won’t happen again, dear?’

‘A war like that.’

‘But we’re at war now,’ said Tabitha. ‘Hadn’t you heard?’

Michael looked up. ‘We are?’

‘Of course. The first bombers were sent out shortly after midnight. I’ve been listening to it on the wireless.’

Michael was stunned. Even after the expiry of the UN deadline, he had somehow never believed that it would happen. ‘But that’s terrible,’ he stammered. ‘It’s a disaster.’

‘Not at all, not at all,’ said Tabitha cheerfully. ‘The allies will have no difficulty establishing air superiority. The F-117A Night-hawk is a most sophisticated craft. The navigation system, you know, features an INAS with both Forward-Looking and Downward-Looking Infra-Red sensors, and it can carry up to four thousand pounds of explosives at speeds of five hundred and fifty miles an hour. The Iraqis have got nothing like it. And then there are the F-111s: well, Colonel Gadaffi already knows what they can do. With EF-111A Ravens blinding the enemy’s acquisition radars, they can fly through an attack corridor at more than fifteen hundred miles an hour. Their weapons bay accommodates up to fourteen tons of ordnance —’

Michael had already lost interest. There were more urgent matters to consider. ‘So you think it is Mortimer?’ he asked.

‘Of course it is,’ said Tabitha. ‘Who else would it be?’

‘It’s just that these killings — they’ve obviously been carried out by someone who knows all about the family. What they’ve been up to, over the years. But Mortimer hasn’t really seen any of them for a long time, has he? How would he know those things?’

‘Why, that’s simple,’ said Tabitha. ‘Mortimer’s read your book, you see. Whenever you sent me part of your manuscript, I would always forward a copy on to him. He found it most interesting. So in a way, Michael, you are responsible for all of this. You should feel very proud of yourself.’

She went back to her knitting, while Michael brooded over the role he could now be seen to have played in this bizarre story. He felt anything but proud.

‘Where is he now?’ he asked.

‘Morty? Well, I’m afraid that’s very difficult to say. He’s hiding somewhere, that’s for sure, but this house is full of secret passages. It’s a veritable warren. I found that out the night I locked Lawrence in his bedroom. A few minutes later, you know, he was downstairs playing billiards, so there must be some hidden link between the two rooms.’

‘That’s right — you’d heard him in his room, hadn’t you, speaking in German?’ It was all starting to become clear. ‘Could he have been talking into a radio set, do you think?’

‘Certainly he could.’

Michael leapt up. ‘Which room was it?’

‘It’s at the far end of the corridor. The one where young Roderick has been staying.’

He ran out into the corridor and went to find Phoebe, knowing that she had the only key. But she was no longer in bed. Gripped by a sickening anxiety, Michael swung around only to find that she was now standing in the doorway behind him, a grim expression on her face.

‘Quick,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get into Roddy’s room.’

‘Too late. I’ve just come from mere.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘Come and have a look.’

It was not a pleasant sight. Roddy was lying on top of the bed, naked and motionless. He had been covered from head to foot in gold paint, and must have been dead for two or three hours.

‘Suffocation, I assume,’ said Phoebe. ‘Painted to death: I suppose we should have guessed it.’ She frowned. ‘Isn’t that from a film as well?’

‘Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger,’ said Michael. ‘Mortimer’s certainly been doing his homework.’

‘I still don’t see how he could have got in. The key’s been in my trouser pocket all night. Unless he’s got another copy, of course.’

‘This used to be Lawrence’s bedroom,’ said Michael. ‘Which means there’s a secret door somewhere, and a passage which leads downstairs. Come on, let’s see if we can find it.’

They circled the room, knocking on each of the panels to see if any of them gave off a hollow sound. When this produced no result, Michael unlocked the double-doored wardrobe which had been built into one of the walls, and peered inside.

‘Hello, what’s this?’ he shouted.

Phoebe ran over. ‘Have you found it?’

‘Well, I’ve found something.’

He reached into the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of garments — a jacket and trousers, in navy blue. On closer inspection they turned out to comprise the uniform of a police sergeant.

‘What did I tell you? That wasn’t a policeman at all. And look, here’s the rest.’

He handed Phoebe a peaked cap, and as he did so, a small glass vial was disclosed on the shelf behind it.

‘Potassium chloride,’ he read slowly, examining the label. ‘Have you ever heard of this?’

‘It’s a poison,’ said Phoebe. ‘Mortimer used to keep it in his medicine chest. Only the last time I saw it, it was full.’

She pointed at the level of the liquid, which now filled only about a quarter of the bottle.

‘Is it deadly?’

Phoebe nodded. ‘I remember now — the day he sent me away, just before I left, he was asking me where the syringes were. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Perhaps this might have something to do with it.’

‘Could be.’

‘Hang on, then — I’ll go and check if they’re still there.’

She hurried off in the direction of her former employer’s sick chamber, where it took very little time to establish that at least one syringe had gone missing from its case. But when she returned to inform Michael of this news, a surprise awaited her. Roddy’s naked corpse was still lying on the bed, but otherwise the room was empty. Michael himself had vanished.

It had been instinct, more than anything else, which had drawn him to the elaborately gilt-framed mirror on the bedroom wall. A mirror was a doorway to the underworld: Michael had learned this by now, and so it was the work of only a few moments to slide his fingers behind the frame and ease it away from the wall. The mirror swung open on a stiff hinge, revealing a black, rectangular cavity; and as soon as he stepped through into the darkness, it closed behind him widiout a sound. When Michael tried to push it open again he could obtain no purchase, and he knew that, for the time being, the only way to go was forward. He could see and hear nothing; but there was a stale, musty smell in the air, and the bare-bricked walls to either side of him were dry and flaking. Very tentatively, he put one foot in front of the other, and immediately realized that he was standing at the top of a staircase; but he had descended only three steps when the floor beneath him levelled out, and he could sense that he had now entered upon a wider space. He took six paces to his right, and found himself touching a wall: this time it was smooth and plastered. He started edging around this wall, and after taking two changes of direction and bumping into something heavy — a table, perhaps — his hands touched upon the very thing that he had been praying for: a light switch. And, miraculously, it worked.

Michael was standing in a very narrow but high-ceilinged chamber, apparently built into the thickness of the wall. Besides the short staircase he had just descended, there was also a tiny doorway leading off to the left. Standing against one of the walls, but large enough to take up most of the available space, was a desk; and placed on top of it, a heavy, unwieldy set of radio apparatus. The desk and the radio were thick with dust, and in the four or five decades (so Michael hazarded) since they had last been touched, whole dynasties of spiders had been busy weaving blanket upon blanket of fine, powdery webs. The room was windowless; but a thin trail of aerial wire could be seen running up the wall and through a hole in the ceiling, presumably to emerge on the roof of the house itself.

‘So this is where you did it, you cunning devil,’ Michael muttered. ‘A regular litde back room boy!’

Impatiently he swept aside most of the dust and the cobwebs. The radio seemed to have been battery operated and, unsurprisingly, it did not respond when he tried flicking the various switches; but a quick search of the desk drawers proved more rewarding. There were maps, almanacs and railway timetables from the 1940s, along with a German — English dictionary and what appeared to be some sort of address book. Leafing through it, Michael came across not only BISCUIT, CHEESE AND CELERY but also the codenames of other double agents — CARROT, SWEETIE, PEPPERMINT, SNOW, DRAGONFLY — all with addresses and telephone numbers written alongside tliem. Personal details of many high-ranking figures from the military, the War Cabinet and the coalition government had also been noted down. A leather-bound accounting book was filled with parallel rows of figures in pounds and Deutschmarks, while a page at the back listed the names and addresses of several British and German bank accounts. And there were, in addition, some loose sheets of paper, one of which in particular caught his eye. It was headed:

This, Michael knew, had been the number of Godfrey’s plane and squadron. Most of the figures which followed were incomprehensible to him, although ‘30/11’ was clearly an indication of the date, and some of the other numbers looked as though they might refer to positions of latitude and longitude. It was certain, in any case, that he had at last stumbled upon the proof of Lawrence’s treachery: his calculated betrayal of Godfrey for financial gain.

Michael was now torn between two conflicting impulses: to return to Phoebe (if he could) and explain his discovery, or to try his luck with the other doorway and continue exploring. For once, his spirit of adventure won the day.

The second exit led directly on to another staircase, this one steeper and more uneven than the last. By leaving the door to the little room wedged open, Michael found that he had just enough light to illuminate his progress, and before long he calculated that he had descended to the level of the ground floor, at which point the steps ended. He was now standing at the entrance to a narrow passage. Darkness began to encroach.

In the wall of the passage, after only a few paces, he came upon a wooden door. It was bolted at the top, but the mechanism was well oiled and seemed to have been in recent use. He opened it without difficulty, and found himself looking out, as he had expected, into the billiard room. Dawn would not come for an hour or two yet, but a certain amount of moonlight was peeping through gaps in the curtains, and in the shadows he could make out Mark’s corpse, which had now been covered with a bloodstained sheet. His severed arms still rose grotesquely, like savage totems, from the pockets of the billiard table. Michael shuddered, and was about to withdraw when he noticed a metallic glint at the table’s edge. It was Mark’s cigarette lighter. This was too useful to pass up, so he stole across the room and grabbed it before beating a grateful retreat into the tunnel, the entrance to which was seamlessly concealed behind a rack of billiard cues clamped to the oak panelling.

Michael had not gone much further along the passage before the roof and walls began to close in, making movement more difficult. For a while he had to crouch almost on his hands and knees, and he could tell that the floor was beginning to slope steeply downwards. Once or twice, twin pinpoints of light in the distance would betoken the presence of a watchful rat, which would then scurry away at his approach. The tunnel remained dry, however, and the mortar would sometimes crumble as he brushed against it, so he was surprised when he began to hear a distinct dripping noise, irregular but insistent.

Plip. Plip. Plip.

At this point, too, a flickering light began to appear, getting stronger all the time, and the space between the walls began to broaden out. Suddenly the passage opened into what was almost a room. The roof, composed of stone flags, was supported by beams, and the four walls formed a square some sixteen feet across.

Plip. Plip.

The source of the dripping was readily apparent. The first that Michael saw of it was a fantastically enlarged shadow, dancing unsteadily in the light from a burning candle set on the floor. It was the shadow of a human body, trussed up neatly and tied by the ankles to a meat hook screwed into one of the beams. A small incision had been made in the neck, from which blood flowed in a steady trickle, across the face, down through the tangle of clotted hair, and into a heavy steel bucket which was now almost full.

Plip. Plip. Plip.

It was the body of Dorothy Winshaw; and beside it, sitting on a little three-legged stool, was her uncle Mortimer. He looked up at Michael as he emerged from the tunnel, but it was impossible to say whose eyes were more tired and expressionless: the eyes of Mortimer, or those of the frozen, slowly rotating cadaver.

Plip.

‘Is she dead?’ said Michael at last.

‘I think so,’ said the old man. ‘But it’s rather hard to say. It’s taken longer than I thought.’

‘What a horrible way to kill someone.’

Mortimer thought about this for a moment.

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

Plip. Plip.

‘Mr Owen,’ Mortimer continued, speaking with great effort. ‘I do hope you aren’t going to expend any pity on members of my family. They don’t deserve it. You should know that better than anybody.’

‘Yes, but all the same …’

‘It’s too late now, in any case. What’s done is done.’

Plip. Plip. Plip.

‘We’re underneath the sitting room, in case you were wondering,’ said Mortimer. ‘If there was anybody up there now, we could hear them. I stood here some hours ago, and listened to all the fuss they made when Sloane read out the will, and they realized they weren’t going to get a penny out of me. A childish contrivance, I suppose.’ He grimaced. ‘Vain. Foolish. Like everything else.’

Plip.

Mortimer closed his eyes, as if in pain.

‘I’ve led an idle life, Mr Owen. Wasted, for the most part. I was born into money and like the rest of my family I was too selfish to want to do any good with it. Unlike them, at least, I never did anyone much harm. But I thought I might redeem myself, slightly, by doing mankind a small favour before I died. Ridding the world of a handful of vermin.’

Plip. Plip.

‘It was you, Mr Owen, who finally persuaded me. That book of yours. It gave me the idea, and suggested one or two possible … approaches. Now that it’s done, however, I must confess to a certain sense of anti-climax.’

As he spoke these words, Mortimer was toying in his right hand with a large syringe filled with clear liquid. He noticed that Michael was watching him apprehensively.

‘Oh, you needn’t worry,’ he said. ‘I don’t intend to kill you. Or Miss Barton.’ His expression seemed to soften for a moment at the mention of this name. ‘You will look after her, won’t you, Michael? She’s been good to me. And I can see that she likes you. It would make me happy, to think …’

‘Of course I will. And Tabitha, too.’

‘Tabitha?’

‘I’ll make sure that she’s not taken back to that place. I don’t know how, but — I won’t let it happen.’

Plip.

‘But you do know, of course,’ said Mortimer, ‘that she’s mad?’

Michael stared at him.

‘Oh, yes.’ He smiled distractedly. ‘Quite, quite mad.’

‘But I’ve just been talking to her. She seemed perfectly—’

‘It runs in the family, you see. Mad as hatters, queer as coots, and nutty as fruitcakes, every one of us. Because there comes a point, you know, Michael’—he leaned forward and pointed at him with the syringe—‘there comes a point, where greed and madness become practically indistinguishable. One and the same thing, you might almost say. And there comes another point, where the willingness to tolerate greed, and to live alongside it, and even to assist it, becomes a sort of madness too. Which means that we’re all stuck with it, in other words. The madness is never going to end. At least not …’ (his voice faded to a ghostly whisper) ‘… not for the living.’

Plip. Plip.

‘Take Miss Barton, for instance.’ Mortimer’s speech was starting to slur. ‘Such a kind girl. So trusting. And yet I was deceiving her all that time. My legs were in reasonable shape. A few ulcers, here and there, but nothing to stop me walking around. I simply liked to be fussed over, you see.’

Plip. Plip. Plip.

‘I’m so tired, Michael. That’s the irony of it, really. There’s only ever been one thing wrong with me, and I haven’t even mentioned it to Miss Barton. She has no idea. Can you guess what it is?’

Michael shook his head.

‘Insomnia. I can’t sleep. Can’t sleep at all. An hour or two, every now and again. Three, at the most. Ever since Rebecca died.’

Plip.

‘And what a night it’s been! It’s all been far, far too much. The exertion. I thought I’d never make it, to be frank with you.’ He slumped forward, his head in his hands. ‘I’d so like to sleep, Michael. You will help me, won’t you?’

Michael took the syringe from his outstretched hand, and watched as Mortimer rolled up his sleeve.

‘I don’t think I have the strength left in my fingers any more, that’s the pity of it. Just put me to sleep, Michael, that’s all that I ask.’

Michael looked at him, undecided.

‘Out of the kindness of your heart. Please.’

Michael took hold of Mortimer’s hand. The skin was hanging off his arms. He had the eyes of an imploring spaniel.

Plip. Plip.

‘They send dogs to sleep, don’t they? When they’re old, and sick?’

And he supposed, put like that, that it didn’t sound so bad.

CHAPTER NINE With Gagarin to the Stars

‘No explanations,’ said Michael. ‘If you sleep, if you dream, you must accept your dreams. It’s the role of the dreamer.’

Phoebe shielded her eyes against the sunlight. ‘Sounds plausible. What does it mean?’

‘I was just thinking: there are three dreams I had when I was a kid which I can still remember clearly. And now two of them have come true: more or less.’

‘Only two? What about the third?’

Michael shrugged. ‘You can’t have everything.’

They were standing on the terrace at Winshaw Towers, looking out over the lawns, the gardens, the tarn, and the magnificent sweep of the moors beyond. Bright sunshine had succeeded the storm, although there were felled trees, fallen tiles and windswept debris everywhere to testify to its effect.

It was almost midday: the end of a long, gruelling morning, during which they seemed to have done nothing but give statements to the policemen who had been swarming all over the house ever since Phoebe had walked to the village and raised the alarm. Shordy after ten o’clock, the first journalists and press photographers had arrived. So far the police had been successful in holding them at bay, but they were even now spread out on the road like an army waiting in ambush, keeping the house covered with a whole arsenal of telephoto lenses, or sitting sulkily in their cars hoping to pounce on anybody who dared venture down the drive.

‘I wonder if things will ever get back to normal,’ said Michael. He turned urgently to Phoebe. ‘You will come and see me in London soon, won’t you?’

‘Of course: as soon as I can. Tomorrow, or the day after.’

‘I don’t know what I’d have done, if you hadn’t been here.’ He smiled. ‘Every Kenneth needs his Sid, after all.’

‘What about “Every Orpheus needs his Eurydice”? Just to clear up any gender confusion.’

But Michael seemed dejected by this analogy. ‘I’ll never forgive myself, you know, for what happened about that painting.’

‘Look, Michael, let me just say something. We’re never going to get anywhere, you and me, by harping on about the past. The past is a mess, in both our cases. We’ve got to put it behind us. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘All right, so repeat after me: Don’t — look — back.’

‘Don’t look back.’

‘Good.’

She was about to reward him with a kiss when they were joined on the terrace by Hilary’s pilot, Tadeusz, who had also arrived that morning. He was, it had to be said, a far cry from Conrad, the previous holder of this desirable position: for he was barely five feet tall, well over sixty years old, and, having only recently settled in this country from his native Poland, could not speak a word of English. He nodded brusquely to Michael and Phoebe and then stood at some distance from them, leaning against the balustrade.

‘I think Hilary’s husband must have put his foot down,’ Phoebe whispered. ‘Her last pilot was this godlike specimen. They came up here once and romped naked on the croquet lawn for most of a weekend. Somehow I can’t see this one entering into quite the same spirit.’

‘Oh well, as long as he knows how to fly a plane,’ said Michael. ‘He’s supposed to be taking me home this afternoon.’

Little more than an hour later, Michael was packed and ready to leave. Phoebe, who was planning to take an afternoon train to Leeds in the company of Mr Sloane, walked with him down to the edge of the tarn. They had been unable to find Tadeusz anywhere in the house, but the agreed take-off time was one o’clock, and Michael was relieved to see the pilot’s diminutive figure already squeezed into the cabin. He was fully dressed for the part, in what seemed to be an authentic World War I flying ace costume, complete with goggles and leather helmet.

‘My God, it’s the Red Baron,’ said Phoebe.

‘I hope this guy knows what he’s doing.’

‘You’ll be fine.’

He put his case down and hugged her.

‘See you soon, then.’

Phoebe nodded, stretched up on her toes, and kissed him on the mouth. He clung on to her tightly. It was a long kiss, which after a fierce start became more leisurely and tender. Michael enjoyed the feel of her hair blowing in his face, the coldness of her cheek.

Reluctantly, he climbed into the cabin.

‘So, this is it, I suppose. I’ll phone you tonight. We’ll make plans.’ He was about to close the door, but hesitated. There seemed to be something on his mind. He looked at her for a moment, and then said, ‘You know, I had an idea about that painting. I can remember it quite clearly: so I was thinking that if we sat down and I described it to you, and you found your old sketches, you could maybe — Well, at least do something similar …’

‘What did I say to you up on the terrace?’ said Phoebe sternly.

Michael nodded. ‘You’re right. Don’t look back.’

Phoebe waved as the plane taxied round into the take-off position, and blew a kiss after it as it gathered speed and cleared the surface of the water, rising smoothly into the air. She watched until it was nothing more than a black speck against the blueness of the sky. Then she turned and walked back up to the house.

Her heart was heavy with foreboding. She was worried about Michael: worried that he already expected too much of her, worried that his preoccupation with the past was somehow obsessive; or adolescent, even. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that he was seven or eight years her senior. She was worried that the relationship might proceed too quickly, taking directions over which she had no control. She was worried that she could actually think of no good reason — if she was honest with herself — for having started it in the first place. It had all happened too quickly, and she had been acting out of the wrong motives: because she had felt sorry for him, and because she too had been scared and in need of comfort. Besides, how could they ever hope to forget the horrific circumstances which had brought them together? How could anything good come from such a beginning?

She went up to her bedroom, packed her suitcase, and then looked around to see if she had forgotten anything. Yes — there were some first-aid things, she now remembered, which would still be in the room where Henry’s body had been found. It would only take a minute to retrieve them, and yet for some reason the prospect filled her with disquiet. She found that she was shivering as she walked along the corridors, and climbing up to the second floor of the house, she had the sudden, ominous sense that she had begun to relive the events of the night before: an impression reinforced as she turned the last corner and heard the sound of the television set, tuned to the one o’clock news.

She opened the door. President Bush was addressing an empty room. It was a re-run of his broadcast to the American people, made shortly after the first bombers had been sent in to Baghdad.

Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak.

Phoebe noticed something: a stream of blood was running down the side of the sofa and dripping on to the floor.

The twenty-eight countries with forces in the Gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution, and have no choice but to drive Saddam from Kuwait by force. We will not fail.

She peered gingerly over the back and saw that a man was lying face down on the sofa, a carving knife sticking out from between his shoulder blades.

Some may ask: Why act now? Why not wait? The answer is clear: the world could wait no longer.

She turned the man over and gasped. It was Tadeusz.

This is an historic moment.

There was a knock on the door, and one of the police officers on duty popped his head round.

‘Has anyone seen Miss Tabitha?’ he said. ‘We can’t seem to find her anywhere.’

Our operations are designed to best protect the lives of all the coalition forces by targeting Saddam’s vast military arsenal. We have no argument with the people of Iraq. Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety.

Would the madness never come to an end?

Michael sits in the cabin of the seaplane, craning forward and watching the South Yorkshire landscape unroll beneath him.

The pilot, sitting up ahead, starts humming a tune: Row, row, row the boat, gently down the stream. The pilot’s voice seems unusually high and musical.

The world could wait no longer.

The plane starts to climb sharply. Michael cannot see the reason for this, and stiffens in his seat. He thinks it will surely level out, in a second or two. But the ascent becomes steeper and steeper, until suddenly they are vertical, and then they are upside down, and then before Michael has even had a chance to scream, they have looped a complete loop and regained their original position.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he shouts, grabbing the pilot by the shoulder. But the pilot is quivering with laughter — hysterical, unstoppable laughter — and crying out for joy. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

‘I said, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Michael repeats.

We have no argument with the people of Iraq.

‘Have you gone raving mad?’

The pilot’s laughter grows even more hysterical when Michael says this, and then the goggles and the leather helmet are torn off, and Tabitha Winshaw turns around to say: ‘You know, Michael, it’s just as I thought — these things are terribly easy, once you get the hang of them.’

Row, row, row the boat, gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, menily

Life is but a dream.

‘Where’s Tadeusz, for God’s sake?’ shouts Michael.

Our goal is not the conquest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait.

‘Do you want me to show you how it’s done?’ says Tabitha.

Michael is shaking her roughly backwards and forwards.

‘Do you know how to land this thing? Just tell me that.’

‘This dial, you see,’ says Tabitha, pointing at one of the flight instruments, ‘is the Air Speed Indicator. Green for normal, yellow for caution. See here, where it says VNO? That means the normal operating limit speed.’

Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety.

Michael watches as the arrow on the dial starts pushing its way out of the green arc and into the yellow arc. The speed of the acceleration is making him feel sick. The arrow is now at the upper end of the yellow arc, at a point marked VNE.

‘What does that mean?’ he says.

‘Never exceed,’ cries Tabitha. She is almost jumping out of her seat with excitement.

‘For God’s sake, Tabitha, slow down. This is dangerous.’

She turns around again and says, reprovingly: ‘Flying, Michael, is never dangerous.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘Not at all. It’s crashing that’s dangerous.’

And then, with a shrill, lunatic howl of laughter, she pushes the joystick forward to its fullest extent, the plane tips forward and now they plunge, hurtling downwards at unthinkable speed, and Michael is hollow, his body is an empty shell, his mouth is open and everything that was inside him has been left way behind, way up in the sky …

I’m going down, I’m going down, I’m going down.

Tonight, as our forces fight, they and their families are in our prayers. Row, row, row the boat, gently down the stream

The noise is deafening, the terrible whine of engine and air-stream, and yet above it all he can still hear Tabitha’s mad laughter: the endless, hideous laughter of the irredeemably insane …

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

No president can easily commit our sons and daughters to war.

I’m going down, I’m going down.

May God bless each and every one of them.

Going down …

This is an historic moment.

Until there comes a point …

Merrily, merrily

Comes a point where greed …

Merrily, merrily

A point where greed and madness …

And then there is the final scream of metal, the piercing laceration as sections of the fuselage start to tear themselves apart, until at once the whole plane breaks up and shoots off in a million different directions, and he is in freefall, diving, unshackled, nothing but blue sky between Michael and the earth which he can see clearly now, rising up to meet him, the coasts of continents, islands, big rivers, big surfaces of water …

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

I am no longer in pain …

Life is but a dream

I am no longer afraid …

Life is but a dream

… because there comes a point where greed and madness can no longer be told apart. This dividing line is very thin, just like a belt of film surrounding the earth’s sphere. It’s a delicate blue, and this transition from the blue to the black is very gradual and lovely.

The world could wait no longer.