Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

Tonight, however, he went straight down to the cellars, switching on the lights and descending the stone steps with care. He did not much like cellars, which were usually cold and damp, but he did like the feeling that cellars had a life of their own. They housed secrets and memories, and romantically minded people said if you stood very still and concentrated very hard you could sometimes actually smell the stored-away memories and tragedies and comedies, and the lost loves and forgotten hopes. Clem tried to do this now in case he could write a little article about it, but his recent cold had affected his sense of smell, and all he got was mildew and the disinfectant the cleaners had sloshed around on their last spring-cleaning session. It was a sad day when history and cobwebby romance were smothered by Jeyes’ fluid and Dettol.

The newspaper archives were on the far shelf in thick leather binders, one for each year, neatly labelled and stacked in date order, all the way back to 1908, when the paper had started. It did not look as if the police had disturbed them. But if newspaper accounts alone were what they wanted, they could use the newspaper office’s microfiche.

The boxes were all labelled as well, mostly with the year their contents related to, or with a general heading, such as ‘School Registers’ or ‘Town Hall Re-modelling’ or the recent twinning of Upper Bramley with some unpronounceable Polish town. It was a bit of a miscellany, and it looked as if the police had searched some of these boxes, although they had been quite tidy about it. The only box they had left out of place was the one labelled ‘Cadence Manor’. A note was taped to it saying, ‘Contents checked by DS Barlow, nothing taken away,’ and the date was scribbled at the bottom.

Clem thought it would not hurt just to peep inside the box. It was so packed with photographs and newspaper cuttings the cardboard was starting to split, which was a pretty good excuse to check it. He lifted out a bundle of photographs, wondering if he would suddenly come across the face of the man they had sent to his death that day. It was fifty years ago but Clem thought he would recognize him. There had been an odd, deformed look to his features.

But the photographs here were mostly stilted family groups, and the only person he vaguely recognized was old Lady Cadence, Serena, who had died when Clem was a child. He studied the photos of her: she had been quite nice-looking, although a bit severe. He remembered going to her memorial service at St Michael’s.

There were a few letters tucked into large manila envelopes alongside the photos. Clem opened these because you never knew what might be grist to the writer’s mill. There was a batch of general reports about Cadence Manor from someone who had lived there and seemed to think it necessary to make some kind of regular accounting. Across the corner of one of these was an impatient scrawl that read, ‘Do wish C would stop this irritating habit of thinking he must account to me for every last farthing!’

It was interesting to speculate who ‘C’ could have been, but it was not what Clem was looking for. He opened a few more envelopes, most of which contained household accounts, and finally, finding nothing pertinent, switched off the light and went back upstairs. He might go through the Cadence Manor material properly sometime, but not now because tonight was earmarked for his recipe rehearsal. People thought he fussed and finnicked about his menus, but Clem did not mind that because the proof of the pudding would be in the eating, or, in this case, not so much the pudding as the Breton fish dish, which was a kind of bouillabaisse. Clem was going to serve it on the gold-edged plates that had belonged to his great-grandmother, and accompany it with what the recipe book called ‘a medley of spring vegetables’. He’d provide crusty bread to mop up the sauce, as the French did.

He called in at the supermarket, filling his wire basket with the ingredients he needed, exchanging a few words with the check-out girls. They were always interested in his little evenings.

‘My word, Mr Poulter,’ they said tonight, ‘that’s an unusual lot of things you’ve got. One of your dinner parties, is it?’

Clem, pleased to think they had noticed, told them all about the new recipe he was trying. It made for a pleasant little exchange and the supermarket was not very busy at this hour, although two shoppers in the queue behind him tapped the counter and said very loudly that some people wanted to get home, if he didn’t mind.

In the end, he did not reach his house until almost seven o’clock. He distributed his shopping in the fridge and larder, and made a cup of tea, which he drank while listening to the evening news on the kitchen radio. After this he assembled his ingredients for his fish dish, using scaled-down portions. It would take an hour to simmer, then he would eat it himself, making notes about seasoning and thickness of the sauce. It would make his meal very late and he was already quite hungry, but it could not be helped.

He bustled happily round the kitchen, chopping parsley and tarragon, pleased he had remembered the bay leaves. You could hardly ever buy fresh bay leaves but there was a house on the way back from the library that had a very lush garden; the owners were, in fact, cronies of Ella’s, all of them belonging to one of those arcane gardening societies. In their garden was a bay tree, which very obligingly grew at the edge, near the footpath. More than once, on his way home, Clem had discreetly reached over the hedge to pluck two or three of the leaves from the flourishing bay tree. He always made sure no one was watching, of course; it would never do for anyone to see nice Mr Poulter from the library pilfering something, even if it was only a couple of bay leaves.

Amy left to go to the Red Lion shortly after seven, calling cheerfully that she would phone if there was a problem about getting home, and no she would not walk along the streets by herself late at night, Jan would probably drive her home anyway, and would Gran for goodness’ sake, please stop fussing .

Derek left soon afterwards, phoning somebody he referred to as Pish-Tush to say he would pick him up as arranged. He told Ella he would not be very late getting home, and went off singing about being a wand’ring minstrel he, a thing of shreds and patches. Ella would be glad when this stupid Mikado was over and done with.

She gave them both a quarter of an hour, then put on her coat and went out.

Clem stirred everything into his dish, squeezed in a few more drops of lemon juice, tasted it, and nodded approvingly. The dish could now safely be left to simmer for forty-five minutes. It tasted very good and the lemon juice would give it that extra zing.

It was nearly eight o’clock by this time and he was ravenous, but he was not going to spoil his first taste of the fish by scoffing bread and cheese. He would wash up the utensils he had used, which would pass some of the waiting time.

He remembered Amy had returned that unusual recording that morning, and that he had then booked it out to himself, thinking he might play it as background to his little party. The Deserted Village , it was called, and Amy had said it was really creepy the way it made you think about Priors Bramley and see it as it must have been all those years ago. Dr Malik had put her on to it, she said.

It would look well if Clem could talk about the music at the party. Jan Malik had not, at first, seemed inclined to accept the invitation; he had started to frame a sentence about being busy, but Clem very artfully mentioned that Amy would be there. Malik had paused, then said, ‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to allow myself a night off,’ and Clem had thought, aha! Remembering this, he fetched his current journal from his bedroom and, seated at the kitchen table, made a neat little entry. ‘Dear Diary, yesterday noticed definite frisson between our visiting Oxford don and a certain young lady who helps out in the library… May well try to promote good relations and more closeness between them – if only to annoy E. H.’