The Sin Eater (10 page)

‘Who's Declan?' asked the paramedic.

‘Didn't he let you in?' said Nell, glancing up at him.

‘No one let us in. The front door was open – we just came straight up.'

‘I don't know who he is,' said Nell, ‘but he was here when I arrived. I think he must be a relative. He has the same vivid blue eyes as Benedict.'

The older paramedic looked at her in astonishment. ‘This man has brown eyes,' he said. ‘Look.'

With a stir of fear, Nell saw that he was right. Benedict Doyle's eyes were brown.

After they had gone, Nell sat for a while in the dining room.

Her mind was in turmoil. How could someone's eye colour change like that? She was sure she had not been mistaken. Benedict's eyes had been vivid clear blue when she first knelt by him: the colour had made her think of things like gentian and lapis lazuli, or the vibrant Prussian blue beloved of painters. Could it conceivably have been tinted contact lenses, which had later dropped out? But the other man's eyes had been the same.

The other man. Benedict had called him Declan. Nell had lost track of him and he had not seemed to be around when Benedict, still confused and disoriented, was carried down the stairs. He had not got into the ambulance, but he might have had his own car and followed, although there had not been a car parked on the drive when she arrived. The possibility that he really had been a housebreaker flickered on Nell's mind again, but she dismissed it. In any case, Benedict had seemed to know him – he had referred to him as Declan. So Declan might simply have gone unobtrusively away, not wanting to be involved. If so, it was not very polite, but some people were fazed by illness. Perhaps Benedict really did have epilepsy, which not everyone could deal with. But whatever he had done and whoever he was, Nell had better let Nina know what had happened to Benedict.

‘Oh Lord, that's dreadful,' said Nina, answering her phone with the usual breathless air that implied she had been in the middle of something fiercely important and was racing to meet half a dozen unspecified deadlines. ‘Oh, the poor lamb. I expect they took him to the Whittington or the Royal Free, didn't they, so I'll check which one and dash out to see him at once – well, almost at once, because I'm just putting together a wedding buffet for a hundred people – it's her third wedding, you'd think she'd settle for smoked salmon sandwiches and a slice of cake, wouldn't you, but no, it's got to be ice sculptures and the most elaborate buffet you ever heard of and . . . Did they say what might be wrong with Benedict?'

‘No, but they said his vital signs all checked out all right,' said Nell who had been waiting for Nina to pause for breath. ‘They did ask about epilepsy or diabetes.'

‘Well, if he's got either of those things it's the first I've heard,' said Nina. ‘And I should think I'd know, wouldn't you, on account of being a kind of elder sister and the poor love's next of kin—'

‘It looked more to me as if he'd simply missed his footing on those second-floor stairs and knocked himself out when he fell,' said Nell, hoping she was not giving false reassurance or painting an inaccurate picture. ‘They're very narrow, aren't they?'

‘Are they? I've only ever been to that house once and I don't remember going upstairs at all. But it sounds as if it's a good thing you turned up, or Benedict might have been lying there for hours.'

‘Well, there was the other—'

‘Nell, darling, I'll have to go, because if I'm to get to the hospital to see what's going on and then get back for this frightful over-the-top wedding food. Honestly, why I ever started a catering business, I can't imagine. But I'll call you later and let you know about Benedict. I should think you're right about him falling downstairs and knocking himself out.'

It was too late to start on the inventory now; Nell would have to arrange a return visit. But she had better make sure everywhere was secure before leaving – that windows were all closed and latched, and, if the electricity was on, that no heaters had been left on. She could bolt the French window, then go out by the front door which had a Yale lock and could be slammed. Walking through the dark house, she was glad to think that in about ten minutes she would be among people and shoppers and crowded trains.

The electricity was on, but most of the bulbs seemed to have blown. But the hall light worked and provided enough light for her to glance into all the downstairs rooms and then ascend the main staircase to the first floor. Luckily the landing light worked as well. Nell checked the bedrooms, then looked at the small stairs leading to the second floor. She did not need to go up there. Or did she? It was more likely that Benedict had been coming down from that floor when he fell or passed out and that meant Nell had better check up there as well in case he had left something behind. Wallet or keys or something.

She went up to the half-landing where he had been lying. It did look as if he had dropped something which the ambulance men had not noticed – near the skirting board was something small and dark. Keys? No, too big for keys. A mobile phone?

It was not a phone. It was a black carved chess piece, about ten inches high, either the King or the Queen. Looked at more closely it was the King: there was a definite masculine look to the features. ‘And there's a rather unpleasant snarl about your mouth and slant to your eyes,' said Nell to the graven face. ‘I hope you weren't modelled on a living person, but if you were, I wouldn't want to meet the original.'

She bent down to pick it up, and as her fingers closed around it a small tremor seemed to go through the house. Nell glanced through the small window of the half landing, because it sounded as if a huge pantechnicon had driven past. Or perhaps a plane had flown overhead, a bit low.

She took the chess piece to the window and sat down on the window seat to examine it. It was beautifully fashioned. There was a satiny sheen to the black surface and it felt heavy enough to be ebony. Were the tiny glinting chips scattered over the king's robes jet? Could they even be black diamonds?

But despite the sheen, the figure felt dry and rough against her skin and Nell found it rather repulsive. Still, a complete, undamaged chess set in ebony and jet would fetch a terrific figure. Ebony and black diamonds would send it into a much more rarefied category. And what would the white pieces be made from? A longing to know if the rest of the set was here seized her and she glanced at her watch. It was already after five. It would be mad to go up to the top floor – she would almost certainly have to grope around in the dark – but she looked back at the carved figure and thought: What if the whole set is up there? It would not take more than a few moments to go up these stairs and if none of the lights worked she really would call it a day. She dropped the figure into her shoulder bag. She would tell Nina what she had found and say she would like to get the piece examined by a specialist.

She went back up the stairs. As she reached the fourth stair the floorboards above her creaked loudly and Nell's heart jumped, then she reminded herself that old stairs often had the way of creaking erratically.

The second-floor landing was bigger than she had expected, and although the bulb had blown here as well, a narrow window overlooked the side of the house and slivers of light came in from a street lamp. There were four more rooms; Nell, who was starting to feel distinctly uneasy, thought she would just glance into each one. She was annoyed to realize she was glancing over her shoulder every few minutes, but she was starting to have the feeling that someone had crept up the stairs after her, and was standing just out of sight.

The light switch did not work in the first room she opened, but it was possible to see several large packing cases stacked against the wall. She eyed them longingly, then put her bag down on the floor. If the lids came off she would take the briefest of looks at the contents, then she really would leave.

It was disappointing to discover the tops of all the cases were firmly nailed down although it was not really surprising. Next time she would bring pliers to prise out the nails. She was about to go back out to the landing when there was a movement at the other end of the room – blurred and indistinct but unmistakably a movement. It was almost as if something that had been standing in the shadows had stepped forward.

Nell stood very still and turned her head slowly. Standing at the far end of the room, half-hidden by the packing cases, was the outline of a dark figure. She gasped, one hand going to her mouth in the classic fear gesture, then saw with a rush of relief that the movement came from within a big oval mirror over a dressing table. All she had seen was her own reflection in the dusty glass. Stupid.

She bent down to pick up her bag, expecting to see the reflected figure move with her. But it did not. It remained motionless. Nell straightened up slowly, her eyes on the indistinct outline, her skin starting to prickle with fear. Most likely she had simply missed seeing the reflection move with her, but—

Slowly and deliberately, facing the mirror head-on, she lifted her right hand above her head. Please move with me, she said silently. Please be an ordinary reflection.

But the figure did not move. It's not my reflection, thought Nell, her heart racing. But I won't panic: perhaps there's a long coat hanging from a hook somewhere, and that's what I'm seeing. She looked about her, but the room was bare, save for the packing cases and the old dressing table. Was someone standing in direct line with the mirror? Where, though? Still moving slowly, she turned her head until she was looking at the half-open door. Through the narrow space she saw with cold terror a dark-clad man standing on the landing.

He's been watching me, she thought. He doesn't realize the mirror's picking up his reflection – he doesn't realize I know he's there. And I'm on my own, and there's no one within screaming distance . . . What do I do? Can I summon help? Police? What if there's an innocent explanation, though? But surely an innocent person would have called out to make his presence known. Nell slid a hand into her bag, and her fingers closed reassuringly around the phone in its side pocket. As she did so, there was a soft creak from the landing and the door swung slowly inwards. Nell gasped and backed away to the wall, feeling for the nine on the phone's keypad, but her hand was shaking so much it slipped from her grasp and when she groped in the bag, her fingers only encountered the chess piece.

The door opened all the way, and the figure stood on the threshold, the light from the lower landing and the street lamp behind it. Even so Nell recognized him. It was the man she had seen earlier – the man who had been bending over Benedict Doyle. The man with the vivid blue eyes.

He did not come into the room: he remained on the landing, three-quarters in the shadows. Nell tried to calculate whether she could get past him and down the stairs without getting too close. No. Then the best thing to do was act as if there was nothing wrong.

She said, ‘Thank goodness it's you. You're Declan, aren't you? Benedict said so. I'm Nell West. I didn't realize you were still here – I thought you had gone with Benedict in the ambulance.' She thought she would have to get downstairs, even if she had to push him down two flights.

‘I'm about to leave,' she said. ‘I haven't managed to make any notes for the inventory, but I can come back another day. After New Year.'

‘When?' His voice was soft and muffled.

‘Probably the week after. Say the eighteenth,' said Nell, more or less at random, but thinking that Hilary Term would have started at Oxford, and life would be more or less back to normal.

‘Yes. Come on the eighteenth.' The words were as insubstantial as if someone had breathed the letters on to a misted glass, but as they died away, Nell stopped feeling frightened. There was nothing alarming or threatening about the man after all. If he would step a little more into the light he would probably turn out to be rather nice-looking, in fact.

She said, ‘The eighteenth. Yes, all right.'

His face was still partly in the shadows, but Nell could see the glint of blue from his eyes. She thought he smiled briefly, then he was gone.

Nell thought she would not tell Michael about the man or the meeting on January 18th, although she would tell him about Holly Lodge and Benedict. He would want to hear what the house was like and whether the contents had been interesting or valuable. Beth was spending the night with a school friend who was having a Christmas party, so Michael had offered to cook supper for himself and Nell. She was pleased about this; she liked Michael's rooms at Oriel College – she liked the untidiness of the books he always had strewn around and the way the window of his study overlooked a tiny quadrangle which was sun-drenched in summer and crusted with icing-sugar frost in winter.

She suspected, though, that they might end up ordering pizzas for their meal, because the last time Michael had tried to cook he had ended in blowing all the fuses on the entire floor, and Wilberforce the cat had decamped in disgust to the buttery where he had disgraced Michael yet again by eating an entire turbot, intended for an Oxford Gaudy lunch.

‘I
t was a trick of the light,' said Michael Flint, seated opposite Nell in his rooms in Oriel College. ‘People's eyes don't change from blue to brown in the . . . well, in the blink of an eyelid.'

‘It wasn't a trick of the light. When I first found him, Benedict Doyle had the most vivid blue eyes I've ever seen.'

Nell was curled up in her favourite chair, sipping wine with apparent composure. But there was still a faintly scared look around her own eyes and, seeing this, Michael was glad he had suggested cooking supper. He had laid the small drop-leaf table and had opened a bottle of sharp white wine which they were sharing. The meal would be ready in about half an hour; he thought it was as foolproof as it could be. He had bought salmon steaks, which he had wrapped in foil with a sliver of butter and lemon juice, and had bought salad ingredients to go with them. This surely could not go wrong, although it was remarkable how often cooking did. If things did not burn they came out nearly raw, or something fused or blew up within the cooker itself.