Питер Робинсон - Seven Years

I thought of Alice Langham and my vain hopes that we would somehow become friends, perhaps even more. I had led a lonely existence for some years, and it now looked very much as if I was going to die a lonely death, too. I had lied to Miss Scott about nobody else knowing what I was up to. Alice knew where I was going, and she thought the inscription as disturbing as I did, so perhaps when she didn’t hear from me in a few days, she would call the police. Even if they came here, it would no doubt be too late by then. I hoped she didn’t decide to come here by herself. I couldn’t bear the thought of her getting killed, too, just because of my stupid curiosity. Not that I would be around to feel sad or guilty.

Perhaps, if I got the chance, I could let Miss Scott know that I wasn’t the only one interested in her. In which case she would probably kill me quickly, withdraw all her money from the bank and take the next flight to some tax-free island paradise with no extradition treaty, if such a place existed. Otherwise, she could probably just lie her way out of it all. After all, she had succeeded in murder before.

Whichever way I looked at things, there didn’t seem much hope for me.

Then I heard the doorbell ring upstairs.

All I could hear was a distant rumble of voices. I couldn’t distinguish a word that was being said, nor who was saying it. Footsteps passed overhead and disappeared into one of the rooms above me. I could still hear the voices, but less distinctly now. I assumed that Miss Scott was one of them, and I had a terrible feeling that Barnes was the other. She must have phoned him while I was out cold and asked him to come and help her get rid of me. I knew they had an unusual relationship from what she had told me before I passed out, but I also got the impression that despite Barnes’s taunts and threats, she could manipulate him. And even if it cost her a fraction of her fortune, getting me properly disposed of was probably worth it.

Don’t let me give you the impression that these thoughts passing through my foggy brain left me feeling calm and unruffled. They didn’t. I was terrified, and I never stopped struggling against my bonds, only succeeding in drawing them tighter around my wrists and ankles. Just in case the visitor wasn’t Barnes, I even tried to yell out, but nothing got through the gag stuffed in my mouth and held there with my own tie. I tried banging my feet against the floor, but it made no noise and only hurt my damaged ankle. I could find no other way to attract attention, so in the end I simply lay there limp and defeated. There was nothing to do but await my inevitable fate.

After a while, things went quiet and I couldn’t really tell whether the visitor had left. I was drifting in and out of consciousness. Then I heard another noise from upstairs. This time it sounded like a table or a lamp being knocked over. There was a rumbling sound, then the noise of glass or pottery breaking, someone jumping up and down on the floor above. Then I thought I heard a scream. Were Barnes and Miss Scott fighting?

Whatever was happening, it seemed to go on for a long time, then there was silence again. I heard footsteps above me, almost certainly just one pair, and I couldn’t tell whether it was Miss Scott or Barnes who had survived the fight. I wasn’t even sure which of them I hoped had won. I didn’t think it mattered. Either or both would probably want to kill me.

The footsteps receded — upstairs, I thought — and then everything went silent again. Was nobody coming for me? Was I just going to be abandoned to die here of starvation? Left to rot? What if he’d killed her and was just going to leave? Would her weekly cleaning lady find me before I expired? I had no idea.

More footsteps, back on the main floor again. I tried to shout again, but I don’t think I produced much noise. All I knew was that I would rather Barnes or Miss Scott kill me here and now than starve to death.

Then the cellar door opened and someone turned on the light.

My breath caught in my throat as I turned slowly and painfully to get a view of who was coming down the stairs. Whether it was Miss Scott or Barnes, I knew I was doomed either way.

But it wasn’t either of them; it was Alice Langham stumbling down towards me, holding on to the railing to stop herself from falling. Her blouse and jacket were torn, her hair disheveled, and there was blood smeared on her face and all down her front. Her tights were ripped, too, and she had scratches, cuts and blood on her legs. One shoe was missing.

When she reached the ground, Alice staggered towards me. I couldn’t read the expression on her face because of all the blood and her wide eyes, but for one terrifying moment I thought I had misjudged everything, everyone, and had the irrational idea that Alice was party to whatever evil had been going on here.

But she fell to her knees beside me and started fumbling with the ropes at my ankles and wrists. I noticed that some of her fingernails were bloody and torn and realized how hard and painful it must be for her to unfasten the tight ropes. But she managed it. Then she removed my tie from my mouth and pulled out the wadded rag Miss Scott had used as a gag.

When Alice had finally finished and I could sit up and rub the circulation back into my hands, I reached up and touched her cheek and she fell forward into my arms. We stayed like that for some time, a tender tableau, Alice sobbing gently against my chest as I stroked the back of her head and muttered reassuring nonsense in her ear. I don’t know which one of us moved first, but it was Alice who said, “We should get out of here. I don’t know how long she’ll be out. And who knows whether Barnes will turn up?”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I hit her with the poker.”

I was still dizzy, and it took me a little time to regain my sense of balance, but we hobbled and limped our way back upstairs and found Miss Scott still unconscious beside the fireplace in the sitting room, blood matting the side of her head. I found a slow, steady pulse, so she was still alive, but I guessed she would be out for a long time. The place was a wreck, furniture knocked over, the teapot broken in the hearth, a canteen of cutlery scattered about the place, some of the knives red with blood, stained on the carpet and sheepskin rug, a few paintings hanging loose at strange angles on the wall.

“It must have been a hell of a fight,” I said to Alice.

She just nodded and winced as she did so.

Then I picked up the telephone to call the police and an ambulance.

We waited outside for the police, sitting on the top step. It was a mild evening, the sky a burnt orange streaked with long grey wisps of cloud. The rain had stopped and the drying brown and lemon leaves rustled in the breeze. I was grateful to be out in the fresh air again. We both sat silently and breathed in deep for a while. I held Alice’s hand, which was shaking as much as mine. Then I asked her why she had come to Miss Scott’s house and what had happened upstairs.

“I asked to see you,” she said. “I’d noticed your car when I arrived. The same one I saw parked outside school earlier today. She tried to tell me you weren’t here, that she had two cars. We talked, argued. Then she admitted you’d been here but said you’d started feeling ill and had to lie down.”

“That bit’s partly true,” I said, remembering the sweet strong tea, no doubt masking the taste of whatever drugs she had added. Benzodiazepine, she had said.

“I was more than suspicious by then, so told her I wanted to go up and see you. She asked me if I fancied a drink first. I said no. Things were pretty tense between us, but I didn’t expect what happened next. I stood up and said I wanted to go upstairs and see if you were all right now. She came at me with the poker. Luckily I managed to dodge the blow and it smashed a lamp or a vase or something. We struggled, she dropped the poker. I used my knee on her. I don’t really remember what happened after that except I’ve never been in such a fight before. It seemed to go on forever.” She shook her head. “I think I got to the point where I didn’t care how much I hurt her as long as she stopped trying to hurt me.”