The Diary Of Pamela D. (12 page)

‘My thoughts exactly,’ the inspector said and
sat back in his chair, tiredly. ‘My men will escort you to your
home, and we will set a twenty-four-hour watch. I honestly don’t
know what else to do.’

Theo shrugged. ‘Do what you
must. But I tell you this: Albert Askrigg is
not
inhuman. Don’t allow yourself to
be in awe of him, or he really will defeat you. He is a man like
any other. It’s just that he knows the moors,
unlike
any other. He has made them his
home. Have you ever flown over the moors, inspector?’

Caught off-guard, the inspector said, ‘No,
can’t say as I have.’

‘Well I have. They are not
as vast as the Brontë sister’s overactive and inbred imaginations
believed. But they are
just
large enough for one lone man, who knows them like
the back of his hand, to evade a bunch of people who are stumbling
blindly about looking for him.
That
is all there is to Albert Askrigg. So don’t try
frightening me with tales of ghosts and demons and vast expanses of
wild, gorse-strewn moor when we both know the truth to be something
a trifle more mundane.’

All the way back to Dewhurst Mansion, Pamela
sat in the back seat with Theo, while Fred drove. Theo had wrapped
Pamela in his warm overcoat and she now snuggled against him,
half-asleep, head on his chest, he with his arm around her. How she
had longed for such intimate contact with him, and how it was
spoilt by not being real! He was here to comfort her because she
had been traumatized, not because he loved her and wanted to take
her in his strong arms and hold her to him, to protect her from
life’s dangers and unpredictability and uncertainty.

Ah, well, at least she could pretend for the
time being. She could pretend that they were on their way home from
an uneventful trip in the country, with just the two of them. Or-
the thought made her smile- she could pretend that they had a
little girl like Jennie, who was perhaps asleep on the seat beside
them, curled up beneath a coat, features rendered angelic by
slumber. If only she could simply lift her head and see love in
Theo’s eyes; if only he would kiss her now and take her to bed,
where she would surrender to him, and he would promise to love and
protect her, for ever and always.

With such thoughts creating a membrane-like
wall, protecting and insulating her essential being, she found that
she was able to plunge into a deep, untroubled slumber, unsullied
and untouched by any demons.

Pamela awoke to the realization that she was
totally, unreservedly in love with Theo. She had known this before
but her feelings had taken on a more mature timbre. She found that
she was able to read him better, to see past his exterior.

But still his careful neutrality baffled her.
What did it mean? That he didn’t care for her? He had never said
anything to make her believe that he loved her or that he shared
her feelings in any way. And yet from the beginning he had been
there for her, at least physically.

What did this mean? What did this say about
their relationship, if you could call it that? True, he had kissed
her in front of everyone, but he certainly hadn’t declared his love
for her or asked her to marry him. Would he ever ask to her marry
him? Could he?

At one time her reply would have been an
unequivocal “No,” but now she wasn’t quite so sure. He seemed
always to be watching her and waiting for something to happen. But
what? For her to grow up? To become a “real” woman? What did he see
in her? What did he want her to be?

Part of her reasoned that a rich man would
never even think of marrying one of his maids, though he might toy
with the idea from time to time, but something, some instinct, told
her that perhaps this might not be true of Theo.

She went downstairs to find
the house in an uproar. Fred was there with his wife and child, and
there were policemen; what had Theo called them? Oh, yes,
CID
, whatever
that
stood for. Several
pairs of eyes looked at her guardedly, some speculative, some
doubtful, some hopeful, some concealing inner-anxiety and
impatience. Theo, too, watched her, but his look was wholly
different from all the others. On the surface of it there was his
habitual neutrality, but underneath Pamela could tell, could
feel
that he was
somehow
willing
her
to be strong.

As she reached the landing, the Chief
Inspector, a red-haired giant of a man with a walrus moustache
named Chief Inspector Robert Matthews, whom she had spoken to the
previous evening, rose from his chair and approached her.

‘Miss Dee,’ he said deferentially, ‘how are
you feeling this morning?’

Pamela noticed at once that
the man appeared very tired: there were creases around his eyes
that she knew were caused by lack of sleep, that he had been awake
all night. While
she
had slept, long and well. This revelation made her feel as
though she had let him and everyone else down in some way. She
resolved in that moment to meet her fears head-on.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. You’ve
been up all night, haven’t you?’

‘Quite,’ he answered quietly, letting his
fatigue show, and for the first time, smiled at her. ‘Do you feel
up to answering any questions, now?’

Pamela nodded, and she followed him and two
of his officers into the library.

They no sooner sat down than Ellie stuck her
head in the door.

‘Would you like some tea,
Chief Inspector? Pamela hasn’t so much as eaten breakfast yet, so
I’m sure
she’d
love
some.’

‘That’ud be lovely,’ the Chief Inspector
replied with a forgiving smile.

‘Now, young lady,’ he said,
turning his attention to Pamela when Ellie had left, ‘let’s get
down to business. What
exactly
did you see? Tell me everything. And leave nothing
out, no matter how inconsequential or trivial it might
seem.’

The interrogation went on
for almost three hours and in that time Pamela wondered if the
police were learning anything useful or if they were just going to
go on like this forever. They recorded every word she said, went
over and over certain parts of her story, sometimes asking her
things that made little sense, at least to her, but which seemed to
possess a great deal of significance to
them
. In the end, however, they
actually seemed satisfied.

‘Well,’ chief inspector Matthews said,
pushing back his chair, rising to his feet, and taking her hand,
which practically disappeared into his own, ‘I think that should do
it. Thank you, Miss Dee, you’ve been of great service.’

Feeling a bit baffled, she said, ‘I don’t see
how.’

Smiling benevolently, like a
great bear, he said, ‘Let’s just say that you’ve told us a great
deal without meaning to. That there are certain . . .
things
. . . that we’re
looking for; things that you yourself have just verified for
us.’

As she went with them back
to the living room her thoughts were dragged back to a realisation
she had being trying to force from her mind for good, that Albert
Askrigg was still at large, possibly somewhere nearby, and that he
was still intent on killing her. Inextricably bound to this
revelation were her newly awakened feelings towards Theo, her love
for him and the damnable indifference of the man. Accompanying this
was the almost mad wish that Theo would pay her half the attention
that Albert Askrigg did, but in a
good
way. ‘Theo is a good man,’ she
tried telling herself. And in the same breath discovered that she
wasn’t sure of anything.

-6-

Pamela got her wish
in
one
sense: Theo
began spending a good deal of time with her, taking her out
frequently and showing her the incredibly varied countryside of
Yorkshire. But they were never actually alone together: he would
always take her to popular public places and once there he would
say little, leaving her to fend for herself as he sat nearby and
watched over her like a concerned parent. She tried not to think of
the reason for this but the tense set of his shoulders, his
watchfulness, his protective possessiveness, served as constant
reminder of the threat of Albert Askrigg. Sometimes, when they
stopped for a meal at some quiet pub or restaurant she would study
him for there was little else to do. He would say very little, and
though vigilant in an unsettling manner, he seemed always a million
miles away, his thoughts preoccupied with matters he never hinted
at, never shared with her.

She found she liked Theo
best, appearance-wise, when he wore his ivory-coloured cable-knit
sweater. It made his chest appear deeper and broader than it
already was, his arms bigger and stronger. In fact it fit him like
a glove, not at all loosely, attesting to his well-proportioned and
well-defined masculine physique. As well, it made him appear
somehow more
conjugal,
if that was the right word (it was, of course, one she had
borrowed from Mrs. Dewhurst’s vocabulary). It was the kind of thing
she could imagine him wearing if they were married and had
children, or even if they were together as a real couple, spending
a day at the beach or going for a picnic or a walk in the
country.

If he desired any of these things, he never
gave the least sign, never alluded to them, never followed a line
of thought Pamela introduced which might lead to discussing them.
Yet at this same time, he initiated a sort of ritual: late each
evening, after everyone else had gone to bed, he would go to the
study and pour the two of them a small glass of sherry, would lead
her to the upstairs sitting room and throw a few logs on the fire.
He would then sit in one of the big armchairs and draw her onto his
lap.

The first time this happened she was very
tense, wondering where this was going to lead, or what he was going
to do to her. But nothing ever happened. He would gently coax her
into relaxing, to lay against him, her head against his chest like
a little girl. Then they would sit in silence watching the fire, he
smoking a single long cheroot, both of them sipping occasionally at
their sherry. In the end, he would flick the stub of his cheroot
into the fire as signal that it was time to go to bed, and that was
that.

Nothing happened? No, she mused. It wasn’t
quite as simple as that. While sitting on his lap her mind would
become strangely bifurcated: one part of it would be acutely aware
of his physical presence, while another would spend the time
fantasizing, daydreaming, as though by force of his physical
presence alone he seemed able to set her mind free in some
indefinable way.

Nor did she simply lay passively against him
like a rag doll. As she became comfortable with being in such close
physical contact with him she would press her face against his
chest and listen to the reassuring thump of his heart, or put her
arms around his neck and her head on his shoulder.

On infrequent occasions Mrs. Dewhurst or
someone else would get up out of bed for one reason or another and
see the two together. The first time Pamela saw Mrs. Dewhurst pass
by the door the woman had given the two of them a look of such
undisguised relief as left Pamela feeling completely baffled, as
Theo’s behaviour often did.

Each night after going to bed, Pamela would
lay awake and find part of herself wishing that Theo had taken her
to bed with him. Each night it got a little harder to be parted
from him. But never once did he give the slightest indication that
he felt any such inclination himself.

Afraid of jeopardizing their quiet time
together by speaking of it, a time she cherished and looked forward
to, all day and every day, she held her peace. And she waited.

As the day grew closer for
Pamela to go with Ellie and Doris to Hornsea, Pamela felt as though
she were walking on air, despite the pall that seemed to have
fallen over much of the household. The only bright notes in the
whole mansion these days seemed to be little Jennie, Fred and Anne
Pascoe’s little girl, and old Misters Smith and Pritchard, who at
the moment were seated, as was normal for them, at a small table in
front of a window at the back of the kitchen, utterly absorbed in
their game of chess. The two of them were surrounded by a veritable
cloud of smoke from Mr. Pritchard’s pipe and Mr. Smith’s
Player’s
, using an ancient
tobacco-can lid as an ashtray, until Pamela flounced by, opened the
window, and brought them some fresh coffee.

‘Thanks, lass,’ said Mr. Pritchard
appreciatively without looking up.

‘Mm,’ Mr. Smith agreed. ‘Here, no kibitzing,
young lady!’

With a broad smile, Pamela flounced away,
whiling away the lazy afternoon. She set to watering the plants,
passing Mr. Pascoe in the upstairs hallway, heading towards the end
where a pair of ancient asparagus ferns had stood to either side of
the window in their ornately carved wooden stands, literally for
generations.

‘You’re certainly irrepressible,’ Mr. Pascoe
commented with a smile. ‘It’s a good thing too. If it wasn’t for
you and little Jen right now, this place would have all the appeal
of a mausoleum.’

Pamela shrugged, her sunny
mood clouding over for a brief moment. ‘Theo doesn’t seem to like
the way I’m acting these days. He practically bit my head off
yesterday.
And
the
day before.’