‘Just about, but she must have gone to bed early. I can’t see any lights on, and she normally has them blazing away. I hope she’s not ill.’
‘She’s probably spent the evening with a friend and been stranded by the weather,’ Violet suggested. ‘I’m sure she’s fine.’
Johnny looked doubtful. ‘Perhaps I should have tried harder to get across there tonight,’ he said. ‘Something doesn’t feel right. I’m sure one of the lads with a boat would risk it if the price was right.’
‘You are joking?’ Violet stared at him in astonishment. ‘Try anything like that, and I’ll be going across there tomorrow to tell your mother to get her black out again.’ She took the binoculars out of his hands and pulled him away from the window, then turned back to draw the curtains. ‘There’s nothing we can do until tomorrow,’ she said firmly, ‘and anyway, like I said, I’m sure she’s fine.’
9
Rachel Lancaster hung back as the rest of the women made their way to the drawing room for coffee. Even though she would have welcomed something to counteract the effects of all the wine she had drunk, she couldn’t bear the thought of yet more conversation, their voices drilling into her as she tried to hide in plain sight at the dinner table. With the exception of Angela Hartley, who seemed as vulnerable as Rachel felt, she had nothing to say to any of them.
Suddenly she craved some air. There was a door to the terrace from the Long Passage, and she was relieved to find it unlocked. Her head started to spin as soon as she was outside, but the shock of a cold night was better than coffee, and she breathed the air in gratefully, feeling instantly better. The snow had finally stopped, except for a few flakes drifting down as an afterthought, and the clouds had moved on, leaving the moon in charge of a clear sky. Swathed in winter, this part of the castle was overwhelmingly beautiful – pure and bright, like a world without a past. She envied its unsullied perfection, even if the peculiar stillness which always followed snow was strangely absent: down below, the churning, restless sea sounded angrier than ever, and she wondered if there was a time when the island felt truly at rest.
She was freezing cold, but it was preferable to being inside, and the area of the terrace where she stood was sheltered from the wind by two long stretches of the castle’s walls. The smoking room where the men had lingered after dinner was immediately next to Chevy Chase, and she could see her husband through the leaded windows, drinking his port and trying to fit in. Had she been a stranger, she would still have known that Gerry was uncomfortable in this sort of company. The policeman and the photographer sat together on a wooden bench in the alcove, listening as the vicar talked, apparently at ease with themselves and with each other, although the photographer never quite lost that watchful quality which she supposed was integral to his work, but which made her uneasy nonetheless. Gerry stood at the other end of the room, a child waiting to be invited to the game but unsure of the rules; as she watched, he drained his glass and helped himself to more from a decanter, then went over to study a painting which was out of sight of the rest of the group. Casually, as she had known he would, he took something small from a side table and slipped it quickly into his pocket; she couldn’t see what it was, but she knew what it meant, and the shame made her turn away.
She moved further into the shadows, just in case Gerry glanced out of the window and saw her. On the other side of the terrace, the drawing room curtains were closed, but she could hear laughter and music coming from inside and she half wished that she had joined the other women after all. It was too late now to put in an appearance without an explanation; when she went inside, she would have to go straight to bed and apologise in the morning for her rudeness. She found the cigarettes in her bag and began to smoke one, hoping it would kill the last waves of nausea from the drink. High above her, the tower of the church was silhouetted by the moonlight, and in one corner she could just make out the shape of the chair they had been talking about at dinner, a solid lump of stone on the left-hand side, extending further up than the rest of the wall. She stepped back to get a better look, then jumped when she felt the warmth of another body behind her and heard her husband’s voice, hushed and tight with anger. ‘What the hell are you doing out here?’ He followed her gaze up to the tower, and laughed. ‘Fancy your chances, do you? Well, let’s see how you get on.’
The smile disappeared from his face, and suddenly he was dragging her roughly by the arm across the terrace, kicking snow up as he went. ‘Gerry, stop it! What are you doing?’ She tried to resist, but his fury made him even stronger than usual, and the only thing left to her was an appeal to his pride. ‘They’ll hear us, and then what will they think? They’re only over there in the drawing room.’
He turned and slapped her hard across the face. ‘Then shut the fuck up.’
He pulled her on, past the drawing room windows and round to the door of the church. Rachel hoped desperately that he would find it locked, but it opened easily and he shoved her in ahead of him, then closed the door behind them. The moon was the only light on offer and Gerry paused, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness; once he had got his bearings, he quickly located the tower and she protested in horror as he forced her over to the door. The smell of dust and decay hit her, bringing back the nausea with a renewed intensity. She resisted his efforts to pull her inside and up the steps, clinging to the door frame with every ounce of her strength, but he pulled the door roughly shut, catching her fingers, and she screamed in pain. The sound of her fear echoed back off the stone walls, trapped and magnified by the enclosed space, and she began to sob. ‘We’re supposed to race each other, aren’t we?’ Gerry said. ‘I’ll make it easy for you. You go first.’
Rachel stared up into the black nothingness of the tower. ‘I’m not going up there.’
‘Of course you are. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? The chance to rule the roost. Well, go on, then. Find out how it feels.’ He pushed her again and she fell forward onto her knees, fumbling her way towards the beginnings of a staircase. ‘Go on,’ he repeated. ‘Crawl like the fucking pilgrims.’
It was a kick this time, fuelled by too much alcohol, and she knew that if she didn’t do as he asked, he would beat her to a pulp where they stood. She scrambled up the spiral staircase, scraping her arms on the walls as the steps twisted sharply round to the right, hearing his footsteps behind her, driving her on. The space was impossibly narrow, even for her, and she thought for a moment that he wouldn’t be able to follow, but his rage was relentless, and she felt his hands on her whenever she faltered. There were window slits in the stone at regular intervals, but the brief respites of slivered moonlight only made her ordeal worse, and she would rather not have seen the cobwebs or the rat droppings which hinted at what lurked in the dark. The ascent seemed endless, but eventually she could go no further and her hands pressed against another wooden door. ‘Open it,’ Gerry demanded.
‘It’ll be locked.’
‘Open it!’
She did as she was told, and the rush of cold air brought both relief and a fresh hell to face, even worse than the claustrophobic terror of the climb. The doorway was square-shaped, more like a vertical trapdoor than a proper exit, and she struggled to get through it. Outside, a narrow channel ran between a block of stone holding the flagpole and the outer parapet, which was only waist high – an inadequate barrier between her and oblivion. The wind whipped her face, much stronger at this altitude, and the flag strained at its leash, its metal fastenings rapping rhythmically against the pole. He’s going to kill me, she thought, surprised by how calmly she viewed the idea. That’s what this madness means. After all these years, it’s finally over.