Читать книгу The Evil at Monteine - Brian Ball - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

Someone with discrimination and great wealth had once owned Monteine Castle. The walls were smooth, probably not the original facing stone; but it was the local white-grey limestone of the cliffs, and beautifully finished. Two huge, brilliant tapestries showing eighteenth-century pastoral scenes hung on the long wall to the left of the porch. There were rows of prints and a couple of excellent oils that might have been Flemish—both were portraits of men in the style of Rubens.

The main staircase was a gorgeous early nineteenth-century ironwork masterpiece recently painted in a stark white, which set it off admirably against the exquisite tapestries. It wasn’t a particularly large hall, but the proportions were excellent. Stone pillars flanked the interior of the doorway. There were several doorways at the back of the hall, and an open door to the right.

Richard let me look around. He was smiling smugly as I tried not to show how impressed I was by the lavish International setup. For everything spoke of the lavish use of money. I know about furnishings, and these looked like genuine Tudor pieces, heavy chests, high-back chairs, carved sideboards and cupboards; there was some nineteenth-century brass too. The best pieces were two huge, highly ornate pitchers, one on each side of the fireplace.

There was even a fire, and I was glad of it since the day had begun to be chill. My respect for Richard’s prospective employers grew as he dumped my overnight case and led me across the hall to the open door at the right of the splendid staircase.

“In here, my love,” he said.

I wanted to start asking Richard how he’d heard about the job. Then there were things like when would the offer be formal, how long would it take to complete his initial training, if any, what was expected of oil-company executives’ wives, and how Tony was going to be explained away.

But when I saw the small but well-stocked bar and the elegant little lounge, all I could think of saying was, “If I’m staying over, I’ll have to cancel my morning appointments, Richard.”

“Good evening, Madam—Sir,” a deferential and deep voice said behind me.

I started, for I hadn’t noticed anyone. I saw a dark-haired, heavily-built, middle-aged man in the uniform of the posher kind of cocktail lounge.

“Max,” said Richard. “Max is the steward,” he told me. “This is Miss Blackwell. We’ll have Campari sodas, easy on the ice, a twist of lemon in each, and some black olives. We’ll be having dinner. Anything special on the menu tonight?”

“The pheasant would be your best choice, Sir,” said Max.

He wasn’t English-born. There was no recognizable accent. Slav, I thought, with that heavy face and square build. His eyes were brilliant—black and shiny as chunks of pitch.

“The pheasant, then,” said Richard. “And, by the way, I’d like to make a call or two. What time was the appointment for, Anne?”

He was arranging things for me, and I was glad of it. I’d been driving for quite a time, and I was tired.

“Perhaps I could make any necessary arrangements?” suggested Max.

I began to realize how important Richard must be to International. The whole establishment seemed to revolve around the man in my life.

“I can make the call,” I said. “If you’ll pass me the phone?”

“Of course, Madam.”

With a little gesture of his hands and a small bow, Max indicated that he approved of my show of independence. He was so deferential it annoyed me.

I delayed my appointment with some brusqueness, and finished two more drinks in rapid order. I began to feel uneasy. There had been too many surprises in too short a time. Richard saw that I was thoroughly upset.

“Dinner’s in about half-an-hour,” he said. “Monica, what room have you put Anne in?”

I hadn’t noticed the big blonde woman entering.

“Do let me show you, dear,” she said at once. “Or would you take Anne to her room, Richard? It’s on the same floor as yours. The Yellow Room,” To me she said: “The Chairman likes to keep to the old traditions, and that’s what the room has always been called, the Yellow Room. Absolutely no ghosts or nastiness, I assure you, dear. And every comfort. We’re modelled on Hilton standards here at Monteine. International are absolutely filthy with money, and why not, the prices they charge for petrol! But don’t let me keep you—Richard will show you how everything works.”

“Then that’s all settled,” he said. “Thanks, Monica. The Yellow Room it is. No, I’ll take the case, Max,” he said to the bar-steward.

Max bowed. The Camparis went to my head about then, and I felt the delicious lightness that comes when someone else is taking charge and you have no more need to make decisions.

The Castle was a strange old place. Rooms led to more corridors, sometimes up a flight of stairs, sometimes down a couple of flights. I thought it was marvellous. We passed up the splendid staircase, through a sort of smallish lounge littered with papers and magazines; then up a narrow, winding passage to another room, with a blazing log fire in a brick fireplace.

I liked the room immediately. It looked incredibly old; the brick was toned by age to a mellow red-gold almost the colour of the flames from the hawthorn logs. I asked Richard to stop whilst I looked around it, then I pulled him over to a wide, mullioned window from which I could see clear across the sweep of the cliffs and, beyond, to the sea six hundred feet below.

The room was a sort of workplace with a couple of writing desks and rows of leather-bound books along one wall, and lots of pictures, pictures on all the other walls. There were rows of prints all of one family. I glanced at one Italian face. The man was a Venetian called Enrico Capelli. He had died in 1462. I reflected that he looked like the younger Nixon, stubbly-dark and amiable, but with a hint of the cunning to come.

“Up here,” said Richard, pointing out another opening through gorgeous red velvet curtains.

Again we were in a corridor, much narrower, which led upwards to one wing of the castle. There was a rounded roof that looked as if it might be the original stonework.

Eventually we reached a fairly short corridor. There were two doors.

“Yours,” said Richard, stopping at a smallish, heavy oak door. “Mind your head.”

They must have been shorter in the Middle Ages, for I had to stoop to get into the room.

“And the step,” said Richard.

I stepped down onto thick carpet and saw one of the most attractive rooms I’ve ever been in. It was small, with stone walls and a fairly low ceiling; yet though it should have seemed cold and even damp, that wasn’t the feeling I had. The carpet was thick Wilton, a dusky sort of gold, and the furniture mid-Victorian, all delicate mahogany with gold-patterned inlays. A small window gave enough light; I looked out and again I could see the long, slow, grey waves of the North Sea.

Richard put the case down and pointed out the television set, the tiny bathroom, and the telephone for room service.

“It’s so pretty!” I said. “I hate antiquey rooms stuffed with bits of junk, but this seems so right.”

Richard murmured agreement and ran his hand along my back.

“Whoever fitted this place out was an artist,” I said. “And stop that, or I can’t talk. You haven’t started to tell me anything about International. How did you hear about the job?”

Richard sighed. “It was all so easy, really. It was a couple of weeks back. I met a fellow I know vaguely and we said how are things, then the talk got around to jobs—then I saw the advertisement, and we talked about it. After a few drinks it seemed a good idea if I rang through.”

“Just like that?”

“That’s how International work, apparently. You call them, and if they like you they send for you to be evaluated.”

“To Monteine Castle? Just like that?”

“Oh no. Interviews in London first, then a meeting with the British directors. After that they said I’d need to be vetted by their tame headshrinkers.”

“So you rang them?” I prompted.

“They said I probably fitted the bill at the interview.”

“And they told you to come here? It’s more like a hotel than a set of offices.”

“That’s where they’re so subtle, Anne,” yawned Richard. “They watch you. You’ll see, love. When we go down to dinner, you’ll meet the rest of the team—the headshrinkers. Don’t you know how they operate?”

I’d heard something of selection procedures, but I’d never had occasion to be involved at this level before.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Falco Jensen, Eric Fitch, and Monica,” he said. “They’ve so much brain between them they’re top-heavy. And they watch, Anne, by God, they watch!”

I looked around as he said it, and for a moment I had a return of that unpleasant, bewildering sensation I had experienced when I first caught sight of Monteine Castle.

I had to examine the room to see if anyone was watching. It sounds crazy, but I was sure that there was another presence in the room.

“Now what?” asked Richard, as I padded about the clinging carpet.

“You know how I am about strange rooms.”

I opened the wardrobe and looked under the bed. I pushed aside a sliding door in a cabinet, and saw a smooth blank screen.

“Every comfort,” said Richard. He showed me the recess behind the bed-head board. “Any strange men?”

“All right, I’m a fool,” I apologized. I didn’t want to spoil his pleasure, for he was pleased about the job.

“It can be a bit creepy in the dark,” he said. “And along the cliffs at night you sometimes get the feeling that you’re at the end of the world. It’s as lonely out here as anything I’ve known at sea. There’s something about the cliffs at night that’s positively eerie.”

I shivered and went to the window again. I didn’t want to know about the cliffs at night. In the gathering gloom of evening, the sea had a slow and surging emptiness that was disturbing. I turned back to Richard.

“Who’s Monica Sievel?”

“Monica’s an expert on psychotic traumas, so Falco tells me. I can’t tell you much about him, but I’ve heard of this character Fitch before, and I know for a fact that he’s an expert in his field. But you’ll see them soon—and be seen, Anne,” he warned. “Oh, there’s no secret about it, old girl,” he said, laughing. He had noticed that I didn’t like the idea at all.

“Look, stop being so serious about it all! They have to compare notes about my reactions to everyday events—they showed me the charts they make up. Everything goes down: the way I walk, the things I say when they ask me questions, the way I begin a conversation, what I eat, how I dress, everything. I bet they’re talking over your arrival right now, Anne. It’s the way they work,” he insisted as I began to say how much I disliked the idea of being on trial. “Look, it’s a joke, Anne. It really is funny!”

“All right, it’s funny—so long as you get the job.”

“It’s in the bag!”

“Well, that’s all right.”

It wasn’t, of course.

“A couple of gins will put you right, love. Let the shrinks look into our souls—they’ve nothing better to do, so we might as well let them have their fun.”

“You go down,” I said. “I know the way.”

It sounded absurd, but I didn’t want to appear before the staff at Monteine Castle arm in arm with Richard, as if we were a married couple.

Richard waited a moment.

“I’m getting a shower—I’ll be half an hour. Don’t drink too much.”

After Richard left I took time over my toilet. Then I made my way downstairs.

I had no trouble in finding my way through the corridors and passages until I came to the working-lounge which served as a sitting room and library, and then I must have taken a wrong turning, for instead of passing through the arched passageway which led to the imposing iron-work stairway, somehow I found myself in a dark, narrow, brick-lined tunnel, which wound downwards very steeply.

I had to be very careful, since I was wearing a pair of high diamanté-starred sandals without backs. I knew I’d gone wrong after I’d descended about the height of two storeys, which put me somewhere near ground level. However, there was no sign that the passageway gave on to the ground floor, so I thought I’d better turn back.

There were small, narrow windows. I could see recessed lights, but I hadn’t found a switch and the windows were too high for me to see out of them. But the slits let in a little light, quite enough to see by, and if it hadn’t been for the wretched sandals I would have been fine. As it was, I missed a rather worn step on a sharp turn and twisted sideways, banging my arm sharply on the brickwork. I clutched at the wall, and twisted on the high heels.

The air whooshed out of my lungs, I teetered crazily for a moment or two and then somehow recovered my balance, but my right ankle had been badly wrenched. I had to sit down after that to get my breath back and to clear the tears from my eyes.

I wanted to yell out for help, and I suppose if I’d been in any other situation I would have done just that, but it seemed so ludicrous that a grown woman should first have missed her way and then her footing. I felt I should make a complete fool of myself in front of prying strangers who would be only too happy to score a few points in their notebooks.

My head cleared after a minute or two, and the pain became tolerable. When I tried to put the foot to the floor I knew the damage wasn’t serious. So I got to my feet and I turned back.

I had gone up two steps before it occurred to me that I was a diamanté sandal short. I went down again and, now that my sight was accustomed to the semi-darkness, I saw what I had missed before, a doorway.

It was around the next bend, and my sandal gleamed as a few rays of light came through the warped panels of a wooden door. I stepped down with great care onto the wrenched foot and at once heard the sound of voices.

“She could be a thorough nuisance, I’m sorry,” someone was saying over a murmur of protest. I knew the voice. It was the woman who had invited me to stay at Monteine Castle, Monica Sievel. One of the other voices had me puzzled, for I had heard it before, and recently at that; instinctively I stopped. “I know about the degree of control the woman exerts,” the man’s voice went on. “She’s an aggressive and assertive personality, but that isn’t necessarily an adverse factor. Now that the New York operation is complete, we move on to the critical stage. Ulrome may well need her support. Why not involve her at the beginning. It can’t be kept from her—and we can’t arrange another major settlement. I think we have to keep this in perspective. She could even prove a catalyst in this situation. Fitch, what’s your reading of her state of mind?”

I was listening to a conversation about myself and Richard. I felt cold at the thought. I had no qualms at all about eavesdropping. If others talk about me, then I have the right to listen in. The thought that was uppermost in my mind was the damage I might do to Richard’s new career if they found me listening. Had they heard me? Or had they heard the tumble down the stairs?

“Aggressive. Assertive. Yet herself an unrealized psyche,” said another man. I almost decided to retreat silently, but I stayed to hear more. An effeminate man’s voice was answering, talking about me. I strained to hear his voice, but he was talking so quietly that I missed whole sequences. I caught the words: “She had for some time a considerable drug dependency. She won’t revert. I’d estimate that right up to the final stage she’d hold up. Why not use her?”

I could have screamed with anger. They knew about the trips I’d been on when I was with Tony’s father. There wasn’t much else, no hard drugs, no real addiction, and I was seventeen at the time. I tried to remember what ‘catalyst’ meant. Catalyst? I was that? And I was to be used?

“Strategy, Jensen?” said the calm authoritative voice I had almost placed.

“My report, page seven,” said another man, a deep bass. “I see no reason to change it in any way. I had anticipated the possibility of the woman’s presence.”

I heard the murmur of voices and the sound of papers rustling. I shuddered. I knew now what I had only suspected when I saw the Sievel woman regarding me with that curious stare. She was inimical to me. And so were her colleagues. They were setting me up for something, and it involved Richard’s welfare; in my innocence I thought they were engaged in some scheme to separate me from him because they thought I wasn’t a suitable International Marine Oil Company wife. I told myself to keep it cool. No confrontations, no anger. I wouldn’t let Richard down. I retrieved my sandal stealthily and made my way back.

I plastered my arm, rubbed some of my most expensive perfume on the ankle, and took out my third-best dress, a long-sleeved, two-year-old cotton thing, mostly red, but shot through with Chinese silks. Then I went downstairs again.

“You took your time, Anne,” Richard remarked.

He must have been drinking steadily, for he was flushed. Monica Sievel smiled at me, and I thought, You deceitful cow. Two other men were there: one was a short, slight, nearly bald middle-aged man; the other was rather older, maybe in his late fifties, and massively built with a huge paunch and great red jowls. He was Jensen, as I expected. His deep, plummy voice matched his bulk. Fitch was the possessor of the effeminate voice I had heard describe me as aggressive and assertive. Richard introduced me to them. I felt myself flushing. They must know that I had been listening to them, surely? But they gave no sign of it,

They asked me about my journey, how did I like the Castle, did I know North Yorkshire—all the usual things. Jensen suggested a drink for me.

“What will you have, Miss Blackwell?” the bar-steward asked me.

I staggered, literally. I put the hurt foot down and had to grab at Richard’s arm for support. Pain lanced through my leg, and a sudden chill struck back through the whole of my body.

It was the way he said my name that brought back the memory of that decisive, so-calm voice that I had overheard; whilst I was eavesdropping I couldn’t give any credence to the possibility. A bar-steward giving orders? Impossible. The impossible had happened, but why—why was an intelligent man like him masquerading as a servant?

“Here, Anne, what’s the matter?” Richard asked.

Concern registered also on the woman’s face. I thought I could conceal my feelings. I couldn’t. She held my gaze and then came forward in a motherly way.

“Is it your foot? See—it’s swelling!”

Richard inspected my ankle and the barman made sympathetic noises. I tried to avoid looking behind the bar in case they knew I would be looking for the folder they had been reading. I had an absurd impulse to say “It’s all on page seven,” but I kept it back.

“I slipped in the shower,” I told them. “On a piece of soap.”

Fitch smiled and then looked away. Jensen put his fingers on my shoulder and I managed to restrain the shudder I felt beginning in my spine.

“A drink might help,” suggested Max.

I couldn’t answer him for a moment. He knew so much about me. And then it struck me why he should choose to work as a bar-steward; he was in the ideal position to watch. Almost unnoticed, he could spy on International guests and record their unguarded words. It was clever. I resolved to be very careful.

“Maybe you feel sick,” said Richard. “Here, shall we give dinner a miss? Have a sandwich and a glass of wine upstairs?”

I smiled at them all. I slid onto a barstool and called on my store of confidence, though I felt like a sixteen-year-old bride. I looked at the man with the calm, authoritative voice.

“A very large gin,” I told him.

Had I known of the seismic changes that were soon to undermine our lives, I would have taken more than the one large measure of spirits.