‘Enchanting though I find these childhood reminiscences,’ Hilary interrupted, ‘I can’t help thinking you’ve chosen an odd time to share them with us.’
‘I’ve seen the film since then, you understand,’ said Michael, apparently not having heard her. ‘I’ve got it on video. I know how the story works out: that’s how I know that Mortimer’s still alive. But that isn’t the point. It was never enough, being able to see it whenever I wanted: because I wasn’t just watching it, that day. I was living it: that’s the feeling I thought would never come back, the one I’ve been waiting to recapture. And now it’s happening. It’s started. All you people’ – he gestured at the circle of attentive faces – ‘you’re all characters in my film, you see. Whether you realize it or not, that’s what you are.’
‘Just like Alice, and the Red King’s dream,’ Tabitha chipped in.
‘Exactly.’
‘If I may make a suggestion, Michael,’ said Hilary, in a sweet tone of voice which rapidly turned sour, ‘why don’t you and Aunt Tabitha retire to a quiet corner together, for a private meeting of Nutters Anonymous, while the rest of us apply our minds to the trifling little question of how we’re going to get through the rest of the night without being slashed to ribbons?’
‘Hear hear,’ said Mr Sloane.
‘We all seem to be forgetting, apart from anything else, that according to the local police there’s an escaped killer in the area. Forgive me for being so prosaic, but I can’t help thinking that this has slightly more bearing on our predicament than Mr Owen’s admittedly diverting fairy stories.’
‘That business with the policeman was all a red herring,’ said Michael.
‘What’s this? Another theory? Why, the man’s a perfect magician! What’s it to be this time, Michael – Plan Nine from Outer Space? Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolf Man?’
‘Mr Sloane and I have been out to check the driveway,’ Michael said. ‘It’s covered with mud, so any tyre tracks would show up quite clearly. But you can still see my footprints: they’re the most recent marks on the drive. There’s been no police car here since I arrived.’
Hilary seemed momentarily chastened. ‘Well you saw this policeman, and so did Mark and Dorothy. Are you saying he was an impostor?’
‘I think it was Mortimer himself. I only ever met your father once, so I can’t be sure. They, of course, hadn’t seen him for years. But it’s what happens in the film. The man who’s supposed to be dead turns up and pretends to be a policeman, to throw them off the scent.’
‘I don’t know about anybody else, but my head’s beginning to spin with all this theorizing,’ said Mr Sloane, breaking the uneasy silence which followed this exchange. ‘I propose that we all go to our rooms, lock the doors, and stay put until the storm blows over. Explanations can wait until the morning.’
‘What a splendid idea,’ said Tabitha. ‘I’m quite worn out, I must say. I wonder if someone would be so good as to fill me a hot-water bottle, before they retire? This house seems so frightfully chilly tonight.’
Phoebe said that she would take care of it, while Michael, Pyles and Mr Sloane decided to make one final search of the house, to see if there was any sign of Dorothy.
‘We still haven’t talked about your book, Michael,’ Tabitha reminded him, just as he was about to leave. ‘Now you won’t disappoint me tomorrow, will you? I’ve been looking forward to it for so long. So very, very long. It will be just like talking to your father again.’
Michael stopped in his tracks when she said this. He wasn’t sure that he had heard correctly.
‘You’re very like him, you know. Just as I expected. The same eyes. Exactly the same eyes.’
‘Come on,’ said Mr Sloane, pulling at Michael’s sleeve. He added in a whisper: ‘She’s not all there, poor soul. Take no notice. We don’t want to confuse her even further.’
Hilary was left alone with her aunt. She stood for a while in front of the fire, biting her nail and doing her best to make sense of Michael’s latest baffling suggestion.
‘Aunty,’ she said, after a minute or two. ‘Are you quite sure it was my father you were talking to in here?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Tabitha. She closed her book and put it away in her knitting bag. ‘You know, it’s very confusing, with everyone saying that he’s dead one minute and alive the next. But there is a way you could prove it beyond question, isn’t there?’
‘Really? How would I do that?’
‘Why, you could go down to the crypt, of course, and see if his body’s in the coffin or not.’
Hilary had never wanted for courage, and she thought that this plan was well worth putting into action; but the journey involved was not one to relish. She was determined to complete it as quickly as possible, and so didn’t stop to fetch her raincoat before unbolting the front door and throwing herself into the heart of the howling storm, which had been continuing now for two hours or more. Barely able to see through the thick sheets of rain, almost thrown off her feet by the buffeting wind, she struggled across the forecourt and made for the bulky outline of the family chapel, which stood in a small glade near the head of the densely wooded driveway. All around her the trees groaned, creaked and rustled as the gale came and went in a series of wild and unpredictable gusts. Very much to her surprise, the door to the chapel was open, and there was a light flickering inside. Two candles burned on the altar. They had been recently lit, even though the chapel itself appeared to be deserted. Shivering violently – half with the cold, half with apprehension – she hurried across the aisle and pushed open a small, oak-framed door which gave upon a steep flight of stone steps. These were the steps which led down to the family vaults, where generation after generation of Winshaws had been interred, and where one vacant but elaborately inscribed tomb bore witness to the memory of Godfrey, the wartime hero, whose body they had never been able to recover from enemy soil.
Hilary descended the steps in complete darkness, but on reaching the entrance to the vault itself, she could see a thin band of light coming from beneath the door. Fearfully, hesitantly, she eased it open: and saw –
– and saw an empty coffin raised on a dais in the middle of the chamber, its lid removed, and beside it her father, Mortimer Winshaw, standing at a rakish angle and smiling warmly in her direction.
‘Come in, daughter dearest,’ he said. ‘Come in, and all will be explained.’
As Hilary stepped forward and opened the door to its fullest extent, she heard a sudden whirr above her head. Glancing upwards with a short scream, she had the briefest impression of a bulky parcel falling towards her on the end of a rope: a parcel compounded – although she was never to know it – of all the newspapers for which she had written a column over the last six years. But before she could guess what had hit her, Hilary was dead: crushed by the weight of her own opinion, and knocked to the ground, as senseless as any reader who had ever been numbed into submission by her raging torrent of overpaid words.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Five Golden Hours
ALL was quiet at Winshaw Towers. Outside, the wind was beginning to die down, and the rain had dwindled to a soft patter against the windowpanes. Within, there was no sound save the reproachful creaking of the stairs as Michael made his way back to the upper floor, his final inspection of the house completed.
Whether from simple fatigue, or confusion at the dizzying events of the last few hours, Michael once again let the labyrinthine corridors get the better of him, and as he walked into what he had assumed was his bedroom, the first thing he saw was a large and unfamiliar item of furniture: a mahogany wardrobe, with a full-length mirror fixed to its open door. Phoebe had her back to the mirror and was reflected in it, bending over and about to step out of her jeans.