The Silence (31 page)

The job for Mr West in Derby was a good one. A whole new wing to be added to his increasingly prosperous manufactory. He haggled a bit over the price, but most people do that and in the end we reached an amicable compromise.

I asked him if he would be so kind as to tell me why he had approached me; Caudle Moor is some considerable way from Derby after all.

‘A colleague recommended you,’ West said. ‘Along with one or two other names. But when I saw where you lived – well, my wife has a slight connection with the place. Some of her family lived there many years ago. It seemed a happy augury.’

‘Family?’ I said. ‘May I ask the name? Would I know them?’

‘My wife was a Miss Susskind before we married,’ he said. ‘And a generation or so back, a Susskind married a man called Acton. My wife didn’t know them, but she knew they lived in Caudle Moor.’

It was as if one of those skyrockets had exploded inside my head. Bright, hurting lights showered over my mind, lighting the dark shameful memories to dreadful brilliance. But I managed to think: he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know about Isobel or what she did, or anything that happened at Acton House. It’s just far enough back for him not to know, and it sounds as if the family link is thin enough for him not to have heard the stories.

As if in reply, Ralph West said, ‘I’ve recently been told there’s a piece of land in Caudle Moor that the Acton family owned. It’s sentimental nonsense, of course, but I have it mind to see about buying that piece of land some day. Of building a house on it, so my wife can live in the place where one of her ancestors lived. Her health is poor, you see, and I think it might do her good.’

I murmured something suitable, but I scarcely heard him. The images of Isobel had reared up out of the darkness to taunt me again, and as I prepared for the journey to Derby the knowledge that I was going to meet Ralph West’s wife, this lady who was related to Isobel, set my mind and my body on fire.

And so now I come, finally and at last, to Julia West.

Julia.

She was not Isobel, of course, but there was a strong family resemblance. The first time I saw her – she came to Mr West’s office for some reason – the years looped back and I was twelve years old again, staring at the lady whose name blurred into Jezebel and whose voice was like velvet or moonlight or rose petals at midnight.

Julia West was a semi-invalid, seemingly. People said it was a shame for Mr West to have such a frail wife, and what a pity for their son that his mamma must needs spend most of her days lying on a sofa.

But for all her languid ways and her fragility, Julia West was as much a temptress as Isobel had been. And not all her days were spent on a sofa. She drove out to the works twice while I was there, inspecting the progress, nodding and smiling as if she were Royalty.

I knew at once that she was trying her lures on me. How interesting to see what I was doing, she would say . . . How wonderful the new extension would make her husband’s factory and how clever of me to know how to build it . . . Oh, I knew she was spinning her silken spider’s web, but I was no longer twelve years old, and this time I would respond, I would let myself be snared . . .

I waited until an hour of the afternoon when Ralph West was likely to be out and the child at his lessons. I went to my digs first and washed thoroughly and put on clean clothes. I combed my hair neatly and trimmed my fingernails. Every nerve in my body was strung out with anticipation, for I knew – I
knew
– that Julia West would welcome me with that intimate smile and that purring-voiced seduction. It would be smooth and sensuous and there would be a soft bed and silken sheets . . . If not this afternoon, then on some future afternoon. I had been married for fifteen years and my wife was – is – a good and worthy woman. But she was never a provider of the kind of bliss I knew I would experience with Isobel — Isobel? Why did I write that? I mean, of course, with Julia.

I went to the house – a fine house on the outskirts of Derby, but then women like Julia and Isobel always find wealthy men to marry, men who can keep them in pampered comfort.

I was announced by a maid – I had forgotten there would be servants – and taken to a long room at the back of the house. There were double French windows opening onto a flower garden, and a piano, and embroidered screens standing around. Useless things but you often see them in a lady’s room. Isobel had had them all those years ago.

Julia lay on a velvet sofa. She wore a pale green gown, and in her hands was a piece of embroidery – what they call crochet, I believe. Soft, light cloth and thin fluffy wool, and long pointed needles for the crafting.

She did not get up. She looked at me with a tiny frown, and said, ‘Mr – Mr Burlap? Forgive me, I don’t think . . .’

Her words – her tone – struck against my mind like bruises and white hurting lights jabbed at my brain. I thought: she doesn’t remember who I am. She’s forgotten that she ever even met me.

But I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I sat opposite to her, but I leaned forward and took her hand in mine. Soft, silken little paws she had. But she pulled them free, and sat up a little straighter.

‘Mr Burlap, I think you had better leave.’

I snatched her hand again, but perhaps I was clumsy, for she said, with real anger, ‘Mr Burlap, this is intolerable. Please leave at once. If you had any thought of—’

I said, ‘But didn’t you have some thought of . . . Weren’t you suggesting this all those times you came to watch my work?’

‘How can you think that!’ she said, and her voice was no longer the die-away tone of an invalid. Colour flooded her cheeks. ‘How can you think I would be interested . . . in that way . . . in a . . . a
workman!
A country bumpkin – a yokel.’

She stared at me, her eyes furious. And the lights stopped being pinpricks and became huge ballooning globules, monsters that exploded in my mind, each one sending exquisite agony reverberating through my entire body. My heart pounded with a painful insistent rhythm . . . Just like the other one, said the rhythm. Just like that other slut, that Jezebel . . .

I snatched at the stupid handiwork she had been holding. I think I said, ‘I’ll show you,’ and I grabbed the steel hook so that the threads unravelled. She made an ineffectual attempt to retrieve them, and somehow that fired my hatred even more. She was faced with violence – someone who might rape her for all she knew – but she had more thought for saving her frivolous crochet.

The door opened slightly and a small voice said, ‘Mamma? How are you today?’

I moved almost without thinking, darting into the concealment of the screen behind Julia West’s sofa. I almost knocked it over in my haste, but I managed to right it, and in doing so realized I could see through it into the room. There were two small tears in the screen – a prudent housewife would have mended them long since, but of course the likes of Julia West would not bother with such matters. The slits were at eye-level and through them I was able to see the boy sit on the edge of a chair, looking uncomfortable but clearly going through a ritual. How was mamma today? he asked. How were the pains? He had worked hard at his lessons, and practised his music.

I heard this, and I thought: it’s going to be all right. He doesn’t know I’m here. He’ll go away in a few moments.

But then Julia leaned forward and grasped the boy’s hand.

‘Esmond,’ she said urgently. ‘Esmond, find papa. Tell him . . .’

I thought: she’s going to tell them. She’s going to tell them I’m here – what I did and what I said. That was when I realized I was still clutching the steel needle, and that the screen was within inches of the sofa – within inches of the back of her neck.

The feeling when the steel needle went through the tapestry screen and dug into the base of Julia West’s neck was the most extraordinary sensation I have ever known, or will ever know. I was twenty feet high, invincible, I held the power of the world in my hands, I held the strength to mete out death to the living . . . I watched her sag, and I felt – I actually
felt
– the life drain away from her.

The boy was puzzled. He backed away from the sofa, clearly unsure what to do. And then he saw me. I don’t mean he saw me completely, but his eyes met mine as I stared out from behind the screen. His expression changed, I saw sheer terror in his eyes, and I knew I had to silence him – I
had
to . . .

God knows who or what he thought I was, but I said, quietly, ‘Esmond.’ And then, just to be sure, I said, ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’

He knew, all right. He had come to the site with his father once, and he knew me. He nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

‘Esmond, you must never speak of what you have seen in this room. You must make a solemn promise. Never speak.’ I paused, then, because I had to be sure, I said, ‘If you do, something terrible will happen to you. You understand me, Esmond?
Never speak or something terrible will happen.
’

He said, in a frightened whisper, ‘Yes. Yes, I promise.’ And ran out of the room.

I was out from behind that screen at once, and darting through the French windows. Esmond would have gone for help, and I had to be away from the house. If I ran around the side I could get to the carriageway and be hidden from view by the shrubs.

That was what I did. I went all the way around without anyone seeing me, but there was one bad moment, and that was when I went alongside the other window of Julia West’s room.

Esmond saw me. Ralph West was in the room by then, and he was bending over his wife’s prone body, but Esmond looked up and our eyes met. I hesitated, then laid my finger over my lips.
Never speak of it . . .
He nodded, and I ran the rest of the way, and keeping to the cover of the trees, went down the carriageway and out onto the road.

Safe. Once again I could feel myself safe.

Except I was not safe at all. Because at the end of that year, with some stupid sentimental idea of being nearer to his dead wife’s family, Ralph West bought the Acton land. And since he had been pleased with my work on his factory, and since I was there in Caudle Moor, he commissioned me to build a house.

Which meant Esmond would see me again. And would recognize me as the man who murdered his mother.

I’m not proud of what I did to Esmond West. But I had to be sure he would never tell anyone he had seen me kill his mother, you see. His father sometimes talked about how Esmond never spoke, but I later heard that doctors were consulted about the affliction. Not just our own Dr Brodworthy, but clever doctors from cities. What they call specialists. It seemed to me it was only a matter of time before Esmond would break that silence and tell how he had seen me that afternoon in Julia’s sitting room. Even if he could not speak, he might write it down.

While we worked on Stilter House Esmond sometimes came to the site with his father. I’d see the boy looking at me and I’d know he was remembering.

And then my own father – stupid, stubborn old fool – got to know Esmond. He actually invited him to the almshouse and took him to the forge. He talked to Esmond and encouraged the boy to write his thoughts and draw his pictures. And I knew – I
knew
– it was only a matter of time before Esmond would open up to this kind old Mr Burlap who took him to interesting places in the village. Esmond would write about his mother – about her death. My father had let that business with Isobel go – I had not, after all, actually killed Isobel, and I had been led along by Anne-Marie. But the death of Julia was a different matter entirely. My father would never let that go.

One night, when Ralph West and the servants were occupied, I got into the house through the garden door – I knew every twist and corner of that house, of course. I took Esmond from his own bed and I carried him out to the old game larder. He did not struggle; I think he was surprised more than anything. Perhaps he saw it as an adventure – there were several children’s storybooks in his room, and I think he may have thought he was being taken into one of the books’ exciting journeys.

I cannot write of how I killed him – I
cannot
. I can only say I took one of my mallets, and that a child’s skull is vulnerable, and that it was quick, truly it was quick. He dropped at once and he wouldn’t have known what hit him; he would have tumbled from full awareness into the deep darkness of unconsciousness and death. I have to remember that. I still remind myself of it in the night, when I feel my mind spiral down into that black chasm, and when the doubts come to taunt me and the dead stand at the end of my bed and hold out their imploring hands . . . Julia West – yes, she’s there, the false double-faced creature. And Esmond, who posed such a terrible threat to me . . . And Isobel, my Jezebel with her painted porcelain skin and her voice like warm honey.

But I must keep to the facts, so I’ll write that after I dealt with Esmond, (‘dealt with’ – oh God, I still feel that crunching blow in my own head at times) it was easy to call openly at Stilter House as if by arrangement, with estimates for Ralph West. To appear suitably horrified at the news of Esmond’s disappearance, and to join in the search. Kind, anxious Mr Burlap, wanting to help. Taking over part of the gardens on his own account, concerned that the two servants did not stray into the old outbuildings and trip on unsafe bricks or masonry . . . ‘I’ll search that part – you stay safely on this side of the grounds.’ I made very sure that I was the only one who went into those outbuildings that night, and all the nights ahead.

When the search had died down, I crept through the gardens at midnight and removed the body. It was a harrowing task, but what I had done before I could do again.

Isobel walked with me as I carried the small heap that had been Esmond West to the same spot in the grounds, and dug the small grave, and covered the body over with earth and leaves. She was wreathed in darkness and wrapped about in shadows, but I know she was there.

That night when I buried Esmond next to Isobel must have stripped something from me – some armour – for when I talked later to my father about the West family, I knew he saw through all the pretences and the deceits I had spun over the years. He was remembering what I had done to Isobel, and perhaps he was suspecting I had been part of Esmond’s disappearance. There was a good deal of talk about that in the village – local people searched the lanes and the meadows for days on end.