Long Time Coming (41 page)

We reached the airport in adequate time for the two o’clock flight. The wait for it to be called gave me a chance to phone international enquiries. By then I’d overcome my reluctance to warn Linley of the threat Rachel might pose to him: it simply had to be done. But it couldn’t be. As Eldritch had already anticipated, the Linleys were ex-directory.

The flight was less than an hour, but sitting in a cramped aeroplane seat with nothing to do but imagine ever more frightening possibilities turned it into an ordeal of tightly stretched anxiety. At last, we landed. We hurried through Customs and made straight for the car-hire desks.

It was the middle of a cool, still, grey afternoon when we reached Hatchwell Hall. I’d supposed Rachel might have used the same means to get there as we had, but there was no hire car parked in front of the house, which looked the very picture of moneyed domestic tranquillity. I began to wonder if we’d overreacted, or misinterpreted her words to Marilyn.

Eldritch voiced another possibility – ‘Maybe he’s not here and she went away disappointed’ – and I prayed he was right.

I pulled at the doorbell and peered in through the glass. Nothing appeared to have changed since my visit with Rachel. Nothing about the place looked as if it ever changed.

‘I might have guessed,’ said Eldritch, gazing about him. ‘This is exactly the kind of house Linley predicted he’d end up living in.’

I was about to ask when exactly Linley had predicted it, but the housekeeper loomed into view at that moment. She opened the door and frowned at me suspiciously.

‘Well, my. First one, then the other.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your girlfriend was here a few hours ago. She never said you’d be following.’

‘Where’s Sir Miles?’ Eldritch cut in.

‘London. Gone for the day.’

‘So, where’s Rachel?’ I asked.

‘That’d be your girlfriend?’

‘Yes,’ I snapped.

She gave me a stern look, then an answer – of a kind. ‘Well, I can’t help you, anyhow. I told her where he was and she drove off.’

‘What
exactly
did you tell her?’ Eldritch asked.

‘What she wanted to know. Sir Miles has gone to London. He often does. He has business to attend to there. He generally drives to Basingstoke and catches the train. So, like I told her, I imagine that’s what he’s done today. I couldn’t say when he’ll be back. He’s taken the Bentley. She wanted to know that and all. And the colour and registration number.’

‘Which are?’

‘It’s maroon, but if you think I have either the time or inclination to memorize registration numbers you’re—’

‘Where’s Lady Linley?’

‘She’s away too.’

‘When are you expecting her back?’

The housekeeper’s mouth tightened. The question seemed to stump her. ‘Well, I … I don’t, er …’

‘
Are
you expecting her back?’

The flustered look in her eyes suggested Eldritch was on to something. ‘I can’t help you any further. And I have work to do. This house doesn’t clean itself, you know. If you have a message for Sir Miles, I’ll see he gets it. Otherwise …’

‘We may have got lucky,’ Eldritch declared as I started the car and drove away. ‘Rachel must have gone to Basingstoke to wait for him. That’s why she wanted to know the make and colour of his car: so she could check it’s parked at the station. If we can get there before his train does, we can stop her doing anything foolish.’

The speed I did on the drive scattered a good deal of gravel on to the recently trimmed lawn. But it was nothing to the speed I planned to do on the road to Basingstoke. We had a chance. But it would diminish with every moment that passed.

‘Judging by the housekeeper’s sudden outbreak of reticence, I’d say Isolde’s left him,’ Eldritch continued as we swerved out through the gates. ‘Thorns have begun to sprout in Sir Miles Linley’s rose garden. You’ll be able to console Rachel with that thought, Stephen.’

‘I hope so. I truly do.’

Basingstoke railway station was crowded with schoolchildren and workers knocking off early for the weekend. We hurried on to the platform for trains from London, where I turned left and Eldritch right.

With every step I wondered if I’d see her, glaring accusingly at me. But she wasn’t among the waiting passengers, sitting on benches or leaning against pillars. It took me no more than a couple of minutes to establish that. As I reached the empty end of the platform beyond the canopy, I stepped to the edge and turned to see where Eldritch might be.

I saw him at once, standing apart and alone in the distance. As soon as he spotted me, he spread his arms wide and shrugged. He’d drawn a blank as well. I signalled for him to stay where he was and went to join him.

An announcement came over the Tannoy as I headed along the platform, prompting movement among the people around me. A London to Bournemouth train was due. The thought struck me then that if Rachel was lying in wait for Linley, she’d have to show herself now in case he was on this one. The same thought seemed to strike Eldritch. He started walking towards me.

We met near the ticket barrier. ‘If she really means to attack Linley,’ said Eldritch breathlessly, ‘she’d have to be prepared every time a train arrives from London.’

‘I know. But prepared how? And where?’

‘We have to think what we’d do in her shoes.’

‘Wait by his car, maybe?’

‘No. He might see you before you saw him.’

‘Wait in the booking hall, then. And follow him to his car.’ He nodded. ‘That’s more likely.’

I heard the rumble then of the approaching train. Glancing past Eldritch, I saw the blurred shape of it, speeding towards us. ‘I’ll check outside,’ I said. ‘You wait here.’

He nodded again in agreement. I turned and made for the barrier.

There were several people standing around in the booking hall and a dozen or so more queuing at the ticket window, but Rachel wasn’t among them. I stepped into the adjoining newsagent’s shop and looked around. She wasn’t there either. The rumble of the train had dissolved by now into a jumble of rattling carriages and squealing brakes as it pulled into the station. I began to hope we were mistaken. Rachel had changed her mind. She’d seen reason. She must have done. I stepped back out into the booking hall.

And there she was, standing a few yards away, her back turned to me, her gaze fixed on the ticket barrier, through which latecomers for the Bournemouth train were hurrying. She was dressed as she’d been that first day I met her at the Royal Academy, in jeans, trainers and short mac, satchel looped over her shoulder. Her left hand was thrust into the pocket of her coat while with her right she grasped the flap of the satchel, as if about to open it.

Doors were slamming out on the platform now. Disembarking passengers began to spill into the hall, hurrying through to their cars and buses and homeward journeys. I watched Rachel scan their faces as they passed, searching and waiting for the one she wanted to see. I began to wonder what she had in the satchel – and what she planned to do if Linley appeared.

But he didn’t appear. The rush of passengers slowed to a trickle. The last of the train doors slammed. A whistle blew. The final stragglers drifted through the barrier. The booking hall emptied. The train began to move.

‘Rachel,’ I said, stepping towards her.

She whirled round. Her face froze. ‘Stephen?’

‘Don’t do it. Please.’

‘Do what?’ But her attempt to brazen it out was stillborn. As we stared at each other, pretence fell away. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said icily.

‘I think I should actually. And—’

Suddenly, a bulky figure bustled through the barrier behind her. It was Sir Miles Linley, suited and overcoated and back from London. Eldritch was following him, glancing anxiously in my direction. Linley looked red-faced and angry, like a man breaking off from a quarrel.

In the same instant that Linley noticed me Rachel turned and saw him. And Linley’s anger curdled into fear. Eldritch had warned him. But until this moment he hadn’t taken the warning seriously.

Rachel flicked up the flap of her satchel and reached inside. As she pulled her hand out I saw the gleam of a blade. She took a stride towards Linley, a knife swinging into view.

She started to say something, but my charge knocked the breath from her mouth and slammed her to the floor. The knife slipped from her fingers and slid several feet away. There were cries of shock and dismay from onlookers. Rachel tried to push herself up, but I used my weight to pin her down.

‘Let me go,’ she gasped.

I saw Eldritch stoop smartly to retrieve the knife. He stepped back as others stepped forward.

‘
Let me go
.’

So I did. I stood up and made a show of helping her up, grasping her arm tightly as I did so.

‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ I said for the benefit of those gathering round us. ‘Sorry, everyone. There’s nothing to worry about. It was an accident.’

‘Didn’t look like an accident,’ someone said.

‘I thought I saw a knife,’ said someone else.

I caught Linley’s eye. He must have realized Eldritch and I had saved his life. But he had no intention of staying to express his gratitude. He turned and hurried out of the station.

Rachel took a step after him, but I yanked her back. ‘Let go of my arm,’ she cried.

‘Yeah, why don’t you do that?’ put in one of the heftier and younger onlookers.

Suddenly, Eldritch was at our side. ‘Listen to me, Rachel,’ he
said, quietly but urgently. ‘If you force us to involve the police, we will. Do you want that? Think about it. You’ve only just been released by the Belgian authorities. Who’s it going to look worse for? You or us?’

‘Why are you trying to protect that man?’ she snapped back at him. ‘He ruined your life.’

‘We’re trying to protect
you
.’

‘You shouldn’t have interfered.’

‘We had to, Rachel,’ I said, pleading with her to understand. ‘Linley isn’t worth it. The Picassos aren’t worth it. You have to give it up.’

‘You two ought to stop hassling the lady,’ said the hefty young man, stepping closer to us.

Rachel took a deep breath. ‘It’s OK,’ she said, smiling stiffly at him. ‘There’s no problem. I’m fine. Everything’s … fine. Honestly.’

The tension around us eased. The onlookers began to disperse, muttering amongst themselves as they went. Even the young man turned away with no more than a mumbled ‘Please yourself.’ They seemed to believe her. But I didn’t. She wasn’t fine at all.

‘If it’s any consolation,’ Eldritch said to her, ‘Linley isn’t going to come out of this unscathed. Isolde’s left him. She’s discovered the sort of man he really is and she can’t stomach it. Maybe their children won’t be able to either, when she tells them, as I’m sure she will, what part he played in their uncle’s death. That big house of his could soon seem very empty.’

Rachel closed her eyes. ‘You think that’s enough?’

‘No. Of course not. But—’

Eldritch’s words were drowned in a deafening roar and a shattering of glass. We all ducked, covering our heads as best we could, unable for the moment to imagine what had happened.

I’m not sure exactly how long it was before we learnt that a car bomb had exploded in front of the station, killing Sir Miles Linley instantly.

On such a warm and windless afternoon, somnolence and quietude might normally be expected to prevail at Haywards Heath railway station. But this is no ordinary afternoon. It is the eve of the new academic year at Ardingly College, which stands in stolidly red-bricked readiness to receive new and returning pupils at its hilltop location a few miles north of the town. A sizeable number of those pupils are currently assembled in a baggage-clogged mass on the platform where the Horsted Keynes train, first stop Ardingly, is shortly expected. And they are neither somnolent nor quiet.

The fourteen-year-old Eldritch Swan has removed himself from the worst of the ruck and is sitting on his large, leather-strapped, steamer-stickered suitcase at the thinly populated far end of the platform. Though happy to give and take in the general spirit of schoolboyish squabbling, he finds most of his peers depressingly immature and prefers his own company during outbreaks of over-excitement such as this.

His aloofness from the fray confers upon him, despite his college uniform of Harris tweed jacket, stud-collared shirt, striped tie, grey trousers and black shoes, a distinct air of the adult in waiting. Yet he is in no sense a model pupil. The masters find him intelligent but lazy, adroit in argument but deficient in application, while his fellow pupils regard him with faint suspicion. He has no close friends. He is in no particular set. He cannot be readily classified as
either a good egg or a bad sort. Even at fourteen, Eldritch Swan is something of an enigma.

A degree of order was brought to the jostling throng by the arrival of a group of prefects, who had just emerged from the station tea-room. A few sharp words and cuffed ears imposed their will to good effect, ensuring no words of complaint would reach the headmaster concerning the boys’ behaviour. Haywards Heath railway station was suddenly a calmer place.

One of the prefects who moved through the chaos of boys and bags like a breeze through a field of wheat was the highly respected senior, Miles Linley. Though shorter than several other prefects, he had a superior bearing and self-assured manner, not to mention a glittering academic record (that had him being groomed for Oxford) and a well-earned place in the cricket first XI and rugby first XV. He was generally expected to be named as head boy for the coming year. Unlike Eldritch Swan, he was the very embodiment of Ardingly’s
esprit de corps
.

Linley acknowledged a few fawning remarks as he strode along the platform, but did not pause for longer exchanges. He appeared to have some pressing purpose in mind, and, oddly, that purpose took him to where Swan was sitting on his suitcase, twiddling his thumbs and staring into space.

‘Swan, isn’t it?’ said Linley.

Swan looked up in some astonishment. He had no idea Linley even knew his name. He had certainly never spoken to him before. ‘Yes,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘That’s me.’