Robert Goddard - Name To a Face

“That’s not true. Francis Gashry reported that Jacob Tozer was definitely born here, even though he couldn’t prove it because the parish registers for the period had been conveniently destroyed by fire.”

“Exactly. Everything’s very convenient. Maybe those registers would show Metherell’s ancestors were Scillonian as well. He’s been deflecting me and leading me on by turns. He pointed me straight to the Josie connection when I contacted him yesterday. He must have reckoned I’d find out about it sooner or later, so decided to short-circuit the process. Then he could guarantee being on hand to stage-manage my meeting with the Martyns. The plan was obviously to bluff it out and convince me you hadn’t been near them. But Josie was wearing Kerry’s fox-cub brooch, so that didn’t work.”

“She liked it as soon as she saw it. Fred took it from me. But how did you know about it?”

“Gary Lawton described it to me. If he hadn’t… they might have been able to fob me off.”

“It would’ve been better for you if they had.”

“Don’t say that, Hayley” He squeezed her hand and she responded, clutching him tightly. “I don’t regret coming after you. Not in any way.”

“I’m sorry for all the lies I told you.” There was a catch in her throat. “Can you really forgive me?”

“I already have.”

“I felt so sure I’d worked it out. I convinced myself I’d proved Barney Tozer was Kerry’s murderer. I was determined to make him pay for what I believed he’d done. And I thought you were just a means to an end. Instead…” Her voice sank to a whisper. “I’ve never been in love before, you see. Never… known what it meant.”

They kissed then, in the closeting darkness. And he gazed into her eyes, or felt he did. Nothing was visible. But everything seemed suddenly clear between them. Clear and simple. And true. “When we get out of here,” he began, “we’ll-”

She pressed her finger to his lips, silencing him. “We’re not getting out of here, Tim. You know that. There’s no need to pretend you don’t for my sake.”

“They can’t keep us here forever.”

“Oh but they can. It’s what they intend to do. They wouldn’t have put us down here, with the ossuary chest, unless they were certain we’d never be able to tell anyone it’s here. Time’s on their side. They’ll have destroyed the Gashry report by now. As for us, they can wait. As long as they need to. Until the world out there has forgotten us. And there’s no more left of us than there is of the Grey Man of Ennor.”

It was true. Every word she had spoken made perfect sense. She and Harding knew too much. They could not be allowed to live. The cellar was their tomb. The damp chill certainty of that closed itself around Harding as he cradled Hayley in the enveloping darkness.

“This is the end for you and me, Tim. I’m sorry. But there it is.”

Time became elastic in the sensory vacuum of the cellar. The slow fading of the thin square of light round the trapdoor signalled the coming of night. Hours drifted like a wide, slow-moving river, imperceptibly but inexorably. Harding and Hayley talked, sharing every secret, till there was nothing left for them to guess about each other. Then Hayley fell asleep, wrapped in the blanket, exhausted by the effort of saying so much, her energy sapped by four days of starvation. And Harding lay with her, listening to her breathing, reasoning his way towards an escape from their prison-but finding none.

His renewed efforts to shift the trapdoor had failed. No sound reached him through it and he suspected no noise he made would carry far. Not that the Martyns would respond even if they heard him. They were playing a long game, as was their nature. The cellar would remain sealed for as long as it needed to be. Then…

He could not think about that. The grisly realities would unfold in due time. No doubt Hayley would die first, leaving Harding alone with her decomposing body. No doubt the end would be as slow and terrible as he imagined.

He tried to think about other things instead, such as who had been behind Tozer’s murder. Only one candidate presented himself, though tantalizingly lacking a motive. It had to be Whybrow, exploiting an opportunity Hayley had created for him. She had never phoned Nathan Gashry. Nathan had been paid-or otherwise obliged-to say she had. And then, perhaps because he had become greedy or had threatened to change his story after discovering he had contributed to a murder plot, he had been eliminated. By the same cool, calm, efficient organization that had supplied a Hayley lookalike to do the deed. Just the sort of organization, in fact, that Whybrow would naturally do business with.

It must have been about money, of course. Everything in Whybrow’s world was about money. But that was a commodity so far removed from Harding’s present predicament that it seemed colossally absurd for Barney Tozer to have been murdered in pursuit of it. Similarly, Hayley had actually been moved to laughter by Harding’s revelation that she was Gabriel Tozer’s heir. “It won’t do me much good now, will it?” she had responded. And Harding had laughed with her at the irony of it all.

But their laughter had not lasted long. If Hayley was right, as Harding knew she was, the Martyns meant to starve them to death. There was no need to harm them directly. That, the brothers must have reasoned, had been their mistake in dealing with Kerry. This time, they would let nature take its slow but certain course. This time, they would ensure their secret could never be uncovered.

Only when Harding woke did he realize he had been asleep, the whirlings of his thoughts having finally worn themselves out. The square of light was back, pale and tantalizing. Morning had come. His head ached less, but the pressure in his bowel and bladder reminded him, though he needed no reminding, that his confinement with Hayley would force them to share every intimacy, until-and including-the end. She stirred beside him. He moved, easing the pain in his back and shoulders. The chill of the cellar had settled on him like a dew. In the fetid, earthy air, there was a primal reek. The past had drawn closer in the night, preparing to claim them. Everything he had ever known felt like a dream he was rapidly forgetting. In its place there was nothing. Except Hayley And the rest of their time together.

“You’re really here,” she said in a gravelly murmur, touching his cheek with her icily cold fingers. “I thought for a moment… I’d made you up.”

“No. I’m really here.”

“Don’t leave me.” She was not yet fully awake. But the fuddled sentiment sounded to Harding like a plea he had to answer.

“I won’t,” he said, kissing her softly. “I won’t ever leave you now.”

More time passed, invisibly and unmeasurably. Hayley was quieter and weaker than the day before, her voice a whisper, her movements slight. Harding’s efforts to sustain a conversation of any length were in vain. Her powers of concentration were sapped, her thoughts unfocused. She did not tell him he was wasting his time, as she previously had, when he heaved at the trapdoor. She did not tell him much at all. Apart from how happy she was that he was there with her. “Nothing’s better alone,” she said to him at one point. “I know that now.”

She was asleep when it happened. At first, Harding thought the sound had been made by a mouse or some other tiny creature. Then he realized it was coming from above: a scraping, grinding rumble. It stopped and started again several times, ending in a heavy thud and a patter of dust from the trapdoor, the square of light suddenly brighter.

Harding made a lunge for the door, sensing a chance of escape. Before he even reached the steps, however, his prayers were answered. The door creaked open. Light flooded in, dazzling him. He had to shade his eyes to look up. And there he saw Metherell, gazing down at him.