Sarah Rayne - House of the Lost

‘But what happened to her? Where is she?’

‘No one really knows what happened to her, and no one knows where she is, either, not now, not for sure. But—’

But people in this village have long memories.

The shrilling of an electric doorbell sliced through the silence, shattering Theo’s concentration and sending the crimson shadows fleeing into the corners of the forest cottage. He swore, blinked at his surroundings, hit the Save key more or less automatically, then went across the hall to the front door.

‘Mr Kendal? I’m Michael Innes – Dr Innes. I hope I’m not interrupting you, but I thought perhaps we should meet…’

The man who had found Charmery’s body. He was recognizable from the TV news bulletins, although he was slightly older than he had seemed then – probably thirty-eight or forty – and he had a careful manner of speech, as if he considered every word before actually saying it. Theo thought he looked clever and slightly intense. He bade a mental farewell to finding out more about Mara and the forest cottage for the next hour, and said, ‘Come into the dining room. I’ve been working there and it’s probably the warmest place in the house at the moment.’

‘I don’t want to disturb you if you’re absorbed in something,’ said Innes, taking in the open laptop and the sheaf of notes on the dining table.

‘You aren’t disturbing me,’ said Theo, not entirely truthfully, but wanting to talk to this man who, according to Sister Catherine, had ‘admired’ Charmery. Had he done more than just admire her? Was he the kind of man Charmery might have found attractive?

‘Apart from anything else,’ Innes said, taking one of the fireside chairs Theo indicated, ‘if you’re here for any length of time you might like to know the whereabouts of the local medic.’

‘I’m probably here for a couple of months,’ said Theo, ‘so it’s nice to know there’s help at hand. I’m fairly healthy at the moment, though.’

‘Good. Actually,’ said Innes, ‘the real reason for coming is in case you want to talk to me about Charmery – I was the one who found her.’

‘I know,’ said Theo gently, as Innes’ face suddenly became haggard and drawn.

‘Mr Kendal—’

‘Theo.’

‘Theo, I’m supposed to be used to dead people and traumas and in the main I am, but when it’s someone you know and when you aren’t expecting…’

Theo said carefully, ‘You’d have been fairly friendly with my cousin, I expect. In a small place like this where everyone knows everyone else…’

Innes appeared grateful for this tact. He said, ‘I met her quite a few years ago – when I first came to Melbray. Only briefly, though. She lived in London most of the time, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, I think so. I think she liked to come to Fenn in the spring, though.’

‘Yes, she once said that,’ said Innes. ‘And spring is lovely here. But this year she stayed much longer and I got to know her properly.’

And you fell for her, thought Theo. ‘If there’s anything you can tell me about her life – about what was going on in her life before she died… It’s a long time since I last saw her, you see. I’d be interested in even the smallest detail.’

‘The police asked me that,’ said Innes. ‘I couldn’t help them much, though.’

‘They asked all of us,’ said Theo. ‘They tried to build up a picture of her life, her friends, what she did for a living.’

‘I remember she talked about some PR work she did last year for a small advertising agency,’ said Innes. ‘She made it sound fun – amusing.’

‘She always made things sound fun and amusing,’ said Theo. ‘I think that’s how she found life.’

‘Yes. But there was nothing unusual about her while she was here,’ said Innes. ‘I’d seen her that weekend – she’d sprained her wrist a couple of days previously. Quite a bad sprain; she’d tripped over some stones in the garden and come in to the surgery. I checked there were no fractures, strapped her wrist up, then gave her a lift home – she couldn’t really drive with the sprain. She asked me in for a drink. Surgery was over, so I accepted.’

And, thought Theo, perhaps the drink became two or three drinks, and perhaps the two of you ended up in bed.

‘I left around half past seven that evening,’ said Innes. ‘She was perfectly all right. And then the next day…’

‘The next day someone killed her,’ said Theo softly, and felt a stab of pain at the thought that Charmery might have spent her last few hours making love to this unknown man. The only way to go, Theo darling, she would have said, with the smile that was half angelic, half mischievous.

‘I phoned her the following evening but there was no reply,’ said Innes. ‘I had surgery the day after that, so it wasn’t until the next day that I called at the house. I was passing on my way back from a clinic day at St Luke’s, so I thought I’d look in to see how she was. There was no response when I knocked on the door, but her car was in the drive so I thought she might be in the garden. She liked the garden in summer, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, very much,’ said Theo. He had no idea what Charmery’s likes and dislikes had been for the last ten years, but he did not want Innes to know that. And Charmery had liked the garden in those long-ago summers.

‘I remember she once showed me a rose bush in the garden here – she said it was called Charmian and that Charmian was her real name,’ said Innes.

‘It was. My Aunt Helen – Charmery’s mother – planted the rose bushes.’

‘She seemed quite proud of them,’ said Innes. ‘And that,’ he said, his face white and pinched, ‘was the last time I saw her alive.’

‘Tell me about finding her,’ said Theo suddenly. ‘I’d feel better if I knew exactly what you found. It can’t be worse than all the things I’ve been visualizing.’

Innes nodded. ‘I went round the side of the house and down through the garden,’ he said. ‘People say, after a tragedy, that they had a feeling something was wrong, don’t they? I’m a man of science, Theo, a doctor, and I don’t have feelings of that kind. But as I walked down to the boathouse that day, I had a very strong feeling of – this will sound impossibly melodramatic – but of something very dark close by.’

‘And that’s when you found her,’ said Theo.

‘Yes. I went into the boathouse – you’ll know it very well, of course. It smelt of the river and it was very dim…’

It always did smell of the river, thought Theo, but the dimness was a good dimness, green and secret, with waterlight from the river rippling on the walls.

‘She was wedged under the landing stage,’ said Innes. ‘Right underneath it, jammed against two of the main timber uprights supporting the platform. She had been there for at least two days and probably three.’ He made a brief gesture with his hands. ‘I saw my fair share of violent deaths – car crashes and accidents – when I was training. But since I came to Melbray – well, a country GP deals more with flu and eczema or chicken pox. There’s my work at St Luke’s clinic as well, but that’s more orthopaedics and osteopathy – it’s a branch of medicine I’m quite interested in. The nuns do a very good job with their patients.’

‘I met one of them this morning,’ said Theo. ‘Sister Catherine. She seemed very dedicated to her work.’

‘Yes, she’s very good indeed,’ said Innes. ‘I don’t think the restrictions of religious life come easily to her, though. I think she might be a bit of a rebel under that cool exterior.’ He broke off, then said, ‘I’m sorry, you want to hear about Charmery. Well, as I said, it looked as if she had been dead for at least two days, so…’ Again the abrupt gesture. ‘There were post mortem changes,’ he said. ‘But she had been in the water all the time and creatures live in rivers – not just fish, but scavengers. Water rats… There was erosion of the flesh, and the face was— It wasn’t pleasant.’