Whiteout (32 page)

As he drew level with the dark dining-room windows, he was startled by a soft bark. For a moment his heart seemed to bang against his chest, then he realized it was only Nellie. They must have shut her in there. The dog recognized Craig's silhouette and gave a low let-me-out-of-here whine. “Quiet, Nellie, for God's sake,” he murmured. He doubted whether the dog could hear him, but she fell silent anyway.

He passed the parked cars, Miranda's Toyota Previa and Hugo's Mercedes-Benz station wagon. Their sides as well as their tops were all white, so that they looked as if they might be snow all the way through, snow cars for snowmen. He rounded the corner of the house. There was a light in the window of the boot lobby. Cautiously, he peeped around the edge of the window frame. He could see the big walk-in cupboard where
anoraks and boots were kept. There was a watercolor of Steepfall that must have been painted by Aunt Miranda, a yard brush leaning in a corner—and the steel key box, screwed to the wall.

The door from the lobby to the kitchen was closed. That was lucky.

He listened, but he could not hear anything from inside the house.

What happened when you punched someone? In the cinema they just fell down, but he was pretty sure that would not happen in real life. More important, what happened when someone punched you? How much did it hurt? What if they did it again and again? And what was it like to be shot? He had heard somewhere that the most painful thing in the world was a bullet in the stomach. He was absolutely terrified, but he forced himself to move.

He grasped the handle of the back door, turned it as gently as he could, and pushed. The door swung open and he stepped inside. The lobby was a small room, six feet long, narrowed by the brickwork of the massive old chimney and the deep cupboard beside it. The key box hung on the chimney wall. Craig reached to open it. There were twenty numbered hooks, some with single keys and some with bunches, but he instantly recognized the Ferrari keys. He grasped them and lifted, but the fob snagged on the hook. He jiggled it, fighting down panic. Then someone rattled the handle of the kitchen door.

Craig's heart leaped in his chest. The person was trying to open the door between the kitchen and the lobby. He or she had turned the handle, but was obviously unfamiliar with the house and was pushing instead of pulling. In the moment of delay, Craig stepped into the coat cupboard and closed the door behind him.

He had done it without thought, abandoning the keys. As soon as he was inside, he realized it would have been almost as quick to go out of the back door into the garden. He tried to remember whether he had closed the back door. He thought not. And had fresh snow fallen from his boots onto the floor? That would reveal that someone had been there in the last minute or so, for otherwise it would have melted. And he had left the key box open.

An observant person would see the clues and guess the truth in an instant.

He held his breath and listened.

***

NIGEL rattled the handle until he realized that the door opened inward, not out. He pulled it wide and looked into the boot lobby. “No good,” he said. “Door and a window.” He crossed the kitchen and flung open the door to the pantry. “This will do. No other doors and only one window, overlooking the courtyard. Elton, put them in here.”

“It's cold in there,” Olga protested. There was an air-conditioning unit in the pantry.

“Oh, stop it, you'll make me cry,” Nigel said sarcastically.

“My husband needs a doctor.”

“After punching me, he's lucky he doesn't need a fucking undertaker.” Nigel turned back to Elton. “Stuff something in their mouths so they can't make a noise. Quick, we may not have much time!”

Elton found a drawer full of clean tea towels. He gagged Stanley, Olga, and Hugo, who was now conscious, though dazed. Then he got the bound prisoners to their feet and pushed them into the pantry.

“Listen to me,” Nigel said to Kit. Nigel was superficially calm, planning ahead and giving orders, but he was pale, and the expression on his narrow, cynical face was grim. Beneath the surface, Kit saw, he was wound as tight as a guitar string. “When the police get here, you're going to the door,” Nigel went on. “Speak to them nicely, look relaxed, the law-abiding citizen. Say that nothing's wrong here, and everyone in the house is still asleep except you.”

Kit did not know how he was going to appear relaxed when he felt as if he were facing a firing squad. He gripped the back of a kitchen chair to stop himself shaking. “What if they want to come in?”

“Discourage them. If they insist, bring them into the kitchen. We'll be in that little back room.” He pointed to the boot lobby. “Just get rid of them as fast as you can.”

“Toni Gallo is coming along with the police,” Kit said. “She's head of security at the lab.”

“Well, tell her to go away.”

“She'll want to see my father.”

“Say she can't.”

“She may not take no for an answer—”

Nigel raised his voice. “For crying out loud, what is she going to do—knock you down and walk in over your unconscious body? Just tell her to fuck off.”

“All right,” Kit said. “But we need to keep my sister Miranda quiet. She's hiding in the attic.”

“Attic? Where?”

“Directly above this room. Look inside the first cupboard in the dressing room. Behind the suits is a low door leading into the roof space.”

Nigel did not ask how Kit knew Miranda was there. He looked at Daisy. “Take care of it.”

***

MIRANDA saw her brother speaking to Nigel and heard his words as he betrayed her.

She crossed the attic in a moment and crawled through the door into Daddy's suit cupboard. She was panting hard, her heart was racing, and she felt flushed, but she was not in a panic, not yet. She jumped out of the cupboard into the dressing room.

She had heard Kit say the police were coming and, for a joyful moment, she had thought they were saved. All she had to do was sit tight until men in blue uniforms walked in through the front door and arrested the thieves. Then she had listened with horror as Nigel rapidly devised a way of getting rid of the police. What was she to do if the police seemed about to leave without arresting anyone? She had decided she would open a bedroom window and start screaming.

Now Kit had spoiled that plan.

She was terrified of meeting Daisy again, but she held on to her reason, just.

She could hide in Kit's bedroom, on the other side of the landing, while Daisy searched the attic. That would not fool Daisy for more than a few seconds, but it might give Miranda just long enough to open a window and yell for help.

She ran through the bedroom. As she put her hand on the doorknob, she heard heavy boots on the stairs. She was too late.

The door flew open. Miranda hid behind it. Daisy stormed through the bedroom and into the dressing room without looking back.

Miranda slipped out of the door. She crossed the landing and stepped into Kit's room. She ran to the window and pulled back the curtains, hoping to see police cars with flashing lights.

There was no one outside.

She peered in the direction of the lane. It was getting light, and she could see the trees laden with snow at the edge of the wood, but no cars. She almost despaired. Daisy would take only a few seconds to look around the attic and make sure no one was there. Then she would check the rest of the upstairs rooms. Miranda needed more time. How far away could the police be?

Was there any way she could shut Daisy in the attic?

She did not give herself a second to worry about risks. She ran back to her father's room. She could see the door of the suit cupboard standing open. Daisy must be in the attic right now, staring around with those bruised-looking eyes, wondering if there were any hiding places big enough to conceal a grown woman, somewhat overweight.

Without forethought, Miranda closed the cupboard door.

There was no lock, but it was made of solid wood. If she could jam it shut, Daisy would have trouble busting it open, especially as she would have little room to maneuver inside the cupboard.

There was a narrow gap at the bottom of the door. If she could wedge something into it, the door would stick, at least for a few seconds. What could she use? She needed a piece of wood, or cardboard, or even a
sheaf of paper. She pulled open her father's bedside drawer and found a volume of Proust.

She started ripping pages out.

***

KIT heard the dog bark in the next room.

It was a loud, aggressive bark, the kind she gave when a stranger was at the door. Someone was coming. Kit pushed through the swing door that led to the dining room. The dog was standing with her forepaws on the windowsill.

Kit went to the window. The snow had eased to a light scatter of flakes. He looked toward the woods and saw, emerging from the trees, a big truck with a flashing orange light on top and a snowplow blade in front.

“They're here!” he called out.

Nigel came in. The dog growled, and Kit said, “Shut up.” Nellie retreated to a corner. Nigel flattened himself against the wall beside the window and peered out.

The snowplow cleared a path eight or ten feet wide. It passed the front door and came as close as it could to the parked cars. At the last moment it turned, sweeping away the snow in front of Hugo's Mercedes and Miranda's Previa. Then it reversed to the garage block, turned off the drive, and cleared a swath of the concrete apron in front of the garage doors. As it did so, a light-colored Jaguar S-type came past it, using the track it had made in the snow, and pulled up at the front door.

A figure got out of the car: a tall, slim woman with bobbed hair, wearing a leather flying jacket with a sheepskin lining. In the reflected light from the headlamps, Kit recognized Toni Gallo.

“Get rid of her,” said Nigel.

“What's happened to Daisy? She's taking a long time—”

“She'll deal with your sister.”

“She'd better.”

“I trust Daisy more than I trust you. Now go to the door.” Nigel retreated into the boot lobby with Elton.

Kit went to the front door and opened it.

Toni was helping someone out of the back of the car. Kit frowned. It was an old lady in a long wool coat and a fur hat. He said aloud, “What the hell . . . ?”

Toni took the old lady's arm and they turned around. Toni's face darkened with disappointment when she saw who had come to the door. “Hello, Kit,” she said. She walked the old woman toward the house.

Kit said, “What do you want?”

“I've come to see your father. There's an emergency at the laboratory.”

“Daddy's asleep.”

“He'll want to wake up for this, trust me.”

“Who's the old woman?”

“This
lady
is my mother, Mrs. Kathleen Gallo.”

“And I'm not an old woman,” said the old woman. “I'm seventy-one, and as fit as a butcher's dog, so mind your manners.”

“All right, Mother, he didn't mean to be rude.”

Kit ignored that. “What's she doing here?”

“I'll explain to your father.”

The snowplow had turned around in front of the garage, and now it returned along the track it had cleared, heading back through the woods toward the main road. The Jaguar followed.

Kit felt panicked. What should he do? The cars were leaving, but Toni was still here.

The Jaguar stopped suddenly. Kit hoped the driver had not seen something suspicious. The car reversed back to the house. The driver's door opened, and a small bundle fell out into the snow. It looked, Kit thought, almost like a puppy.

The door slammed, and the car pulled away.

Toni went back and picked up the bundle. It was a puppy, a black-and-white English sheepdog about eight weeks old.

Kit was bewildered, but he decided not to ask questions. “You can't come in,” he said to Toni.

“Don't be stupid,” she replied. “This is not your house, it's your
father's, and he'll want to see me.” She continued walking slowly toward him with her mother on one arm and the puppy cradled in the other.

Kit was stymied. He had expected Toni to be in her own car, and his plan had been to tell her she should come back later. For a moment, he considered running after the Jaguar and telling the driver to come back. But the driver would surely ask why. And the police in the snowplow might ask what the fuss was about. It was too dangerous. Kit did nothing.

Toni stood in front of Kit, who was blocking the doorway. “Is something wrong?” she said.

He was stuck, he realized. If he persisted in trying to obey Nigel's orders, he might bring the police back. Toni on her own was more manageable. “You'd better come in,” he said.

“Thanks. By the way, the puppy's name is Osborne.” Toni and her mother stepped into the hall. “Do you need the bathroom, Mother?” Toni asked. “It's just here.”