Barry Maitland - The Malcontenta

Beamish-Newell’s mouth dropped. ‘Oh my God,’ he groaned.

‘Where is your wife, Stephen?’ Brock asked.

His head rocked slightly. ‘Don’t know … I thought you had seen her. We’re avoiding each other. She’s in the cottage, probably.’

‘I’ll go,’ Kathy said quietly to Brock. ‘You’d better stay with him.’

He nodded agreement. ‘Be careful, Kathy. Shall I get help?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re not there yet.’

Kathy began by going down to the basement to check Laura’s office and the other therapy rooms along the central corridor. All were locked. She finally came to the external door at the end of the west wing and stepped out into the night. She paused and looked around. There were few lights remaining in the windows of the house, and no signs of light ahead through the trees towards the staff cottages. She was struck by how different the night always smelled compared to the day — cool, remote, secretive. An owl hooted from the area of densest darkness, the temple mound, and she turned her eyes towards it and saw a glimmer.

She started to walk without seeming to make a decision, as if her feet had received some external instruction. The sight of the looming grey skeleton of the temple front caused her heart to start thumping. A couple of times she stopped and blinked, trying to decide if the source of the faint glow was really there and not just a reflection of lights from the house in the glass doors of the temple. But when she mounted the steps and came right up to the doors, she saw there was no mistake: through the glass she could make out the far end of the nave and the dim light from the organ recess.

One of the doors was open a couple of inches, but not enough to squeeze through. Remembering the noise it made as it scraped the ground, she gripped the handle and took the weight, trying to ease it silently open. She was almost successful, but she couldn’t prevent the sudden sharp squeak of the old hinges as she released the weight. She froze and held her breath, but could see and hear nothing. Perhaps after all the place was empty, the light and open door overlooked in Geoffrey Parsons’ absence.

She walked silently down the nave, moving cautiously as she approached the brass rail overlooking the lower chamber. At first there was no sign of anyone, and then her attention was caught by the sight of a small bunch of spring flowers lying down below her at the foot of the side wall, on the unmarked marble panel set into the floor. She glanced down through the swastika grille, but not closely enough to see the face staring up at her from the shadows beneath.

She went to the spiral staircase and carefully descended to the foot. The lower chamber appeared deserted too, and it was only when she took a pace forward towards the flowers on the opposite side that her heart jolted. A figure stepped out from the dark recess beside the organ and she recognized Laura, her face haggard and pale.

Something metallic glittered in each hand. At first Kathy thought of a knife, but then she made out the hypodermic needle in one hand and its metal case in the other. It was a powerful-looking instrument, not a disposable plastic type but stainless steel and glass, and Laura was holding it as if she were ready to use it.

‘What do you want?’ she said, her voice barely carrying across the ten feet that separated them.

‘I came to talk to you, Laura.’

‘It’s too late for that. You shouldn’t have come here.’

Her voice was a monotone of despair and exhaustion. Kathy guessed from her red-rimmed eyes that she had had very little sleep since Rose died.

‘I’ve been talking to Stephen. He’s very worried about you.’

Laura sighed. ‘I can’t do anything. I just can’t do any more.’

‘I know. Please talk to me anyway. Just for a little while. Is that where your child is?’ Kathy pointed to the flowers and the little slab of marble.

Laura nodded, not taking her eyes from Kathy.

‘Stephen told us that Alex Petrou taunted you about that. It was unforgivable.’

‘Please don’t come any closer.’ Laura raised the needle. ‘There’s more than enough in this for both of us.’

‘As you wish. I was just trying to understand how the mind of somebody like that works.’

Laura’s mouth turned down in disgust. ‘Don’t try. It poisoned you to go near him. He had an appetite for people’s weaknesses. He was filth.’

‘You want to help your brother, don’t you, Laura?’

Her eyelids fluttered closed in pain. ‘Of course. He only tried to help me. I’ve written a note taking responsibility for everything.’

‘Really? You didn’t try to make him appear guilty, did you? Put the rope in his toolbox?’

Laura looked at her uncomprehendingly.

‘Please,’ Kathy said. ‘Tell me what happened the afternoon that Petrou died.’

Laura shook her head. ‘I just want to sleep,’ she whispered. ‘You shouldn’t have come. I’ve made up my mind what to do.’

‘You saw him that afternoon,’ Kathy insisted. ‘Was it in the gym?’

She nodded indifferently.

‘Did you deliberately seek him out? Please take your mind back to that afternoon.’

‘Stephen had told me that lunch-time that Petrou was going to make trouble for us,’ she said wearily. ‘I could see he was very worried about it, although he wouldn’t give me details. After he left the cottage to go over to his office, I decided to speak to Petrou myself. I came down the corridor to the gym. The handle was locked, but I could hear sounds from inside.’

‘What sort of sounds?’

‘I don’t know. Like someone grunting. I thought it must be Petrou working out on the equipment, so I decided to go to my office and wait. After a while I noticed someone through the rippled glass of my office door walk quickly past, and I thought they might have come from the gym.’

‘You didn’t see who it was?’

She shook her head. ‘By the time I got to the door they had gone. I thought at first it was Petrou going upstairs to his room, but I decided to check the gym anyway. This time the handle turned. I went in and found Petrou there, alone. He was lying on the couch of this body-building apparatus he had us buy — Stephen didn’t want it, but Petrou got Ben Bromley to persuade him, as usual. He said some of the patients had asked for it.

‘Petrou was almost naked. What little he was wearing was so obscene that I turned to leave, but he sat up, as calm as anything, and said he had been expecting me. I was angry and told him to put his tracksuit on and come to my office at once.’

Kathy felt the cold seeping into her as she stood motionless listening to Laura. Her voice was becoming firmer and louder as she relived her anger.

‘I was fuming as I waited for him. He sauntered in, so insolent. He just laughed when I asked what he had been doing earlier. He said he had been with a friend, a man, and he told me what they had been doing. He was very graphic. It made me feel sick. I didn’t know how to respond at first. He seemed amused by this and made an obscene suggestion to me. I hit his face, but he only laughed more — it wasn’t a laugh, really, more a sort of snigger. He held my wrists and said that what I needed was to have some babies. I was struggling and would have screamed for help except that then he said — ’ Laura’s voice dropped to a whisper again ‘- he said he knew that I gave birth to dead babies.’

Laura came to a stop. The hand holding the syringe, which had dropped to her side, rose to her face and she pressed it to her cheek. ‘I didn’t understand how he could know about that. And then I realized that only Stephen could have told him. I found the idea quite shattering that my husband had discussed me with this man, told him intimate things. Petrou made me sit down, and he sat on the edge of my desk, leaning over me, and I could smell him. He stank like an animal. He warned me that he knew a great deal. He said he had a bond with my husband because Stephen admired him and wanted to help him — he implied that it was more than that. He said I should be careful I didn’t lose Stephen the way his first wife had.’ She shook her head. ‘He was repulsive. I felt violated by the way he had insinuated himself into our lives without my even knowing it.’