Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

He added a couple of brief paragraphs describing how he had gone down to the library’s cellars and found the old photographs and papers. You had to get all these things down before you forgot them.

It was by now a quarter past eight and Clem was so hungry he was starting to feel slightly sick. He would have a glass of wine and listen to the CD. He put it on the stereo, propping open the sitting-room door so he could hear it while he got on with his cooking. He was enjoying the opening sequences – all rustic gambolling and May Day frolics but with the hint of something nasty lurking in the wings – when the doorbell rang. This was unexpected and vaguely annoying, but when Clem tiptoed into the hall to peer through the side window it was even more unexpected and annoying to see Ella outside. He hesitated, wondering if he could keep quiet until she went away, then realized she would have seen the light on and might even have heard his music. He would have to ask her in. But first he darted back to the kitchen and closed the journal, pushing it behind the plate rack, then scurried back to open the door.

It was probably a bit mischievous to take her into the kitchen, but Clem wanted to keep an eye on his casserole. Most people liked kitchens – they said it was friendly to sit at somebody’s kitchen table or perch on a breakfast bar and talk while cooking was going on – but Ella always let it be known she thought it very common to sit in a kitchen. But since she had called on Clem out of the blue, tonight she would have to put up with it.

Clem indicated the cooker with its bubbling dish. ‘My recipe rehearsal.’

‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’ She looked towards the sitting room where the CD was still playing and the composer had just started to infuse his Merrie England imagery with subtle menace. Clem switched the stereo off, and came back to explain that the fish was not quite ready but he would be eating it for his evening meal in about half an hour. In the meantime, would Ella like a drink? A glass of wine? He had opened a bottle for himself and one glass would not hurt if she was driving. Or she could have sherry, if she preferred, said Clem. He believed he had some Harveys Bristol Cream somewhere.

Ella had driven here, but did not think one small drink would matter. ‘I’d like sherry, if it’s no trouble.’

‘None in the world,’ said Clem, trying to quell the thought that, given two options, Ella would always choose the slightly more troublesome one. But he went into the dining room to find the bottle and hunted out a couple of glasses from the chiffonier. Serve Ella Haywood sherry in cheap glasses and you got the entire saga of how she had bought a complete set of Waterford Crystal for her and Derek’s wedding anniversary.

‘I hope you’re coming on Friday evening,’ he said, returning to the kitchen.

‘Yes,’ said Ella. ‘We find we can both make it.’

‘Good. And my recipe is working out a treat. I dare say you can smell it, well, you can’t avoid it, can you? That’s the trouble with fish.’ He poured sherry for himself as well. On an empty stomach and mixed with the glass of wine he’d had earlier it made him feel vaguely light-headed.

‘Actually,’ said Ella, ‘I came round to see if you were serious about telling the police what happened that day in Priors Bramley.’

‘Yes, I was. I honestly think,’ said Clem, ‘that we’ve got to do it.’ He felt very noble saying this and also it would make a good entry in his journal. ‘Today I made a decision to perform an honourable and selfless act,’ he would write.

‘Yes,’ said Ella slowly. ‘Yes, I do see it that it had better be done.’

‘We wouldn’t go in unprepared. We’d work out what to say beforehand; stress that we were very young and frightened that morning – that the man threatened us.’

‘He did threaten us, didn’t he?’

‘God, yes.’ Clem shuddered and swigged down more of the sherry.

‘I suppose,’ said Ella, ‘it ought to be all three of us telling the story.’

‘You mean Veronica, too?’ Clem had not thought about this. ‘Would she agree?’

‘I think I could talk her into it,’ said Ella. ‘You’d better leave her to me, though. I’ve got to phone her this evening, as a matter of fact, so I’ll ask.’

Clem was very happy to leave Veronica to Ella on this occasion. Veronica, once she got going on the phone, was apt to talk for anything up to an hour, and although Clem enjoyed a gossipy conversation as much as anyone, tonight he wanted to concentrate on his menu.

After Ella had gone, he returned to stirring his fish. He added salt, spooned out a bay leaf that had floated to the surface, and thought how unlike Ella it was to turn up unannounced. It was even more unlike her to change her mind. People were odd; you thought you knew them and then they did something that surprised you.

He had expected a real tussle over telling the police what had happened, but Ella had capitulated without any fuss. Or had she? The more Clem thought about it, the more he remembered all the times he had discovered that Ella had her own agenda, even over the smallest things. He would not put it past her to have some plan to turn this situation to her own advantage, although he could not think how. Still, he was not going to be fooled by Ella Haywood’s little plottings, not he! He smiled to himself. Over the years Ella often thought she had fooled him, but she never had.

Ella had often fooled Clem Poulter over the years, and she knew she had done so tonight. She smiled to herself as she drove home.

She had gone to his house prepared to give him a second chance, but as soon as she went into his kitchen, she had known that the time for second chances was past. He was playing that music, the music Ella had heard so many years ago in the over-scented room of Cadence Manor with Serena Cadence, dead-eyed and terrible, seated bolt upright in her chair. And he was doing so deliberately and maliciously. When Ella rang the doorbell she had seen him peep through the hall window, then dart back into the house before letting her in. He had seen who was on his doorstep and seized the chance to administer one of his vindictive little jabs, switching on the stereo so the music would greet her when she walked in. In some way he knew what the music meant to her. Ella could not think how, but clearly she had been right to suspect him of giving Amy the CD. It was sad because it meant the plan Ella had worked out – the plan she had hoped would not be needed – was now imperative.

It was a quarter to nine when she reached her own house. As she got out of the car she waved a friendly greeting to some neighbours across the street, out walking their dog. If asked, they would be able to confirm the time she had arrived home.

She went into the house, satisfied that the plan was already under way. She dialled Veronica’s number. It was slightly irritating of Veronica to take so long about answering, and even more irritating that the silly creature was breathless and giggly when she did answer.

‘I spent the evening with my new friend,’ she began coyly. ‘And he’s only just left, actually, so when the phone rang I was—’

‘I won’t keep you a minute,’ said Ella, quickly. ‘But I’ve just got back from Clem’s house, and he’s in one of his flaps about the pudding for Friday evening.’

‘Pudding?’ Veronica sounded bewildered. Ella supposed if she had been cavorting around the bedroom with her current man it would be difficult for her to switch her mind onto puddings.

She said, ‘Clem wanted my advice about what to serve. We’ve been looking through his cookbooks, but we haven’t found anything. Then I remembered that lovely meringue dish you did once and I told Clem I’d get the recipe from you. He thought it would be just the thing.’