The Diary Of Pamela D. Read online

  ‘You’ll what?’ he said belligerently, feeling bolstered by the presence of the others. ‘What’ll you do? Fire me?’

  ‘She won’t, but I will.’ It was a quiet voice that made everyone turn around in surprise. It was Theo, who was standing at the back door, his features unreadable, but there was something unmistakably dangerous about the way he was standing. ‘Ellie, would you be so kind as to take Pamela to her room? And as for you, Albert, I think that you and I had better have a little man-to-man . . . discussion.’

  White-faced, Pamela stood as though dazed. Didn’t she have a pitchfork in her hand a moment ago? Albert turned to look at her once, giving her a look of pure, murderous hate.

  ‘I’ll be back for you,’ he said, pointing at her as though he were a demon invoking a curse upon her life. ‘You won’t get off so easy next time.’

  At once Pamela felt physically ill. She fled upstairs to the bathroom and heaved the contents of her stomach. It took a long while for the aftereffects of Albert’s intended abuse to surface, and she was sick to her stomach and weeping for some time before she heard running water. At last, Ellie or Doris, or perhaps Mrs. Pascoe, had come to comfort her. She heard the sound of water being wrung from a cloth and felt its damp warmth pressed to her lip- and a searing stab of pain!

  At her sudden reaction, Ellie said, ‘I’m sorry . . . , did that hurt? What am I saying? Of course it does. Here, come lie on the bed and I’ll take your shoes off. Mrs. Pascoe is coming up in a few minutes to sit with you. Dr. Morris is on his way.’

  Pamela lay in a daze as Ellie tended to her lip, wiped the perspiration from the girl’s brow. Why was she feeling so strange, as though she was watching and listening to everything from the bottom of a well? And- ‘Ellie, what happened to my lip? Why do I hurt so much? Wh-?’

  ‘Shush, now. Don’t try to talk. You’re in shock. He beat you up pretty badly- that . . . that animal!’

  ‘Wha- ow! What are you talking about? He just pulled me into the barn, and I . . . I-’

  ‘Oh, my dear! If that’s how you remember things,’ Ellie said very quietly, as though on the verge of weeping, ‘then perhaps that’s how you should remember them. Now lay quiet. Don’t try to talk. Just lie still and we’ll take care of you.’

  Pamela began feeling very strange: things and people moved about her, but she couldn’t make sense of them. She could only stare stupidly at the front of Ellie’s new uniform and wonder what had happened. Who were these people who kept intruding on her thoughts like phantom visitations, to stand or sit by her bed, who ignored her feeble protestations and took off her clothes and began prying and touching her in places they had no business to, inspecting her as though her body was no longer her own? One was a doctor- he told her so several times, as though that mere fact was supposed to be meaningful to her, but the rest looked like police men and women. She was sure she was dreaming, even when she slipped altogether from wakeful somnolence into an even deeper state of unreality. But still she heard voices, that of Theo and someone she didn’t know.

  THEO-- ‘Have your people from CID tracked down Albert yet?’

  ?-- ‘No. He escaped into the moor. We’ve got trackers out looking for him.’

  THEO-- ‘Damn it to hell! I should have got the others to help me restrain him.’

  ?-- ‘Don’t be a fool! The man’s a ruthless killer- one or more of you might have got seriously hurt or worse. You heard what my detectives said.’

  THEO-- (sighs) ‘I can’t believe it. He had all of us completely fooled.’

  ?-- ‘Yes, well, he’s very good at that. The last girl he murdered was in Sheffield, two

  years ago. They were living together for almost a year before he killed her-’

  THEO-- ‘Good God, that was him? How many others has he-’

  ?-- ‘We’re not sure. There’s the six that we know of, but we suspect there are more. As

  to the other matter: are you sure keeping her here is wise? He may try again-’

  THEO-- ‘I’m sure. He’s slipped through CID’s fingers once too often for my comfort. Not that

  I’m blaming CID, mind you. It’s just that . . . ’

  ?-- (kindly) ‘There’s no need to explain. Well, with any luck the moor will take care of

  Mr. Albert Askrigg, and that will be the end of it. Pity, though. I’d rather we had him. I’d think nothing of roasting him alive over hot coals just to find out what he knows, so that the families of those poor girls he killed can get some sense of closure.’

  Pamela woke to a sunny day, and Mrs. Dewhurst, who was sitting in a chair by the window. Hearing the girl stir, she left her chair, came and sat on the edge of the bed, felt the girl’s forehead with her wrist, then took her hands. Her manner was grave, concern erasing all the habitual humour from her mien.

  ‘That’s quite a shiner you’ve got. Does your lip still hurt? Doctor Morris put a stitch in it last night. Do you remember?’

  Pamela shook her head, reluctant to speak for fear of tearing her lip, but grateful for Mrs. Dewhurst’s presence.

  Looking at once more serious than Pamela could ever remember seeing her, Mrs. Dewhurst said gently, ‘Do you remember anything beyond getting away from that animal?’

  At once there was a small flood of memory, of new uniforms and broken eggs, of herself laying on the bed being tended by Ellie, but no more. She shook her head.

  ‘Well,’ Mrs. Dewhurst said quietly, ‘it’s just as well, I guess.’ At last she smiled, though it did nothing to conceal her sadness. ‘Your timing’s not as good as it used to be. Look, your breakfast is still sitting here, and . . . what do you know! It’s still warm. D’you think you could manage a bite? It’s poached eggs on toast- the perfect food for an invalid.’

  Pamela smiled, and winced at the pain in her lip. And then-

  Her own eyes wet, Mrs. Dewhurst said, ‘Oh, my dear . . . isn’t there anything that doesn’t make you cry?’ She caressed the girl’s face fondly, and for a long moment the two shared a look as intimate as that of mother and daughter, saying nothing: no words were needed. ‘All right, now,’ Mrs. Dewhurst said at last, ‘sit up and eat your breakfast before it gets any colder.’

  As soon as Pamela had eaten as much as her stomach would allow, Mrs. Dewhurst said firmly, ‘Here, you lay back down on your tummy and let me rub your back for a bit. You look like you’re ready to drop off again.’

  As Pamela drifted downwards into slumber once more, her guts began churning with anxiety, her thoughts tormented by half-remembered memories or impressions of violence and pain, and incongruously- water. But Mrs. Dewhurst’s quiet voice and gentle touch smoothed out her pain until at last it became transformed from red agony and the terror of nightmares to the warm, calming, irrhythmic sparkles of tropical sunlight on a languid sea.

  As she slept, a new dream came unbidden: she was walking on a beach, wearing a pale yellow summer dress, feeling the warm wind blowing, driving white breakers upon the beach. She was laughing, holding the hand of a little girl who was tugging at her to move faster, to catch up with . . .

  Ahead of them, dressed in khaki-coloured shorts and faded blue T-shirt was Theo. He was deeply tanned and smiling, half-turned towards them with his hand open, waiting for Pamela and the little girl to catch up.

  The child broke away from her, caught up with Theo and took his hand. The two then stood, watching her, waiting expectantly. But for some reason she couldn’t move, as though she were rooted to the spot.

  Theo and the little girl began moving away, slowly, giving her plenty of time to catch up. But still she couldn’t move, and every instant they were farther and farther away. She tried her voice, but nothing would come. If she didn’t move soon, they would be out of sight altogether. Though they moved slowly, somehow, inexplicably, they were already nearing the horizon. She knew that if they passed beyond that point, both of them would be lost to her forever.

  In desperation, she tried to force her unwilling feet to move, but it was as tho
ugh she were mired in quicksand. Theo and the little girl were now little more than two indistinct specks shimmering in the heat haze, a mirage that was beginning to flicker and break up.

  ‘No . . . Theo . . . please, wait for me . . . don’t go. Theo!’

  Somehow, impossibly, he was right there beside her. He had taken her hand. She looked around but couldn’t see him anywhere.

  ‘I can’t . . . where are you?’

  She felt his other hand on her brow, large, warm, calming. ‘Shush now. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.’

  Strange . . . he was here, right beside her, where he had been all along. But the little girl was off in the distance yet-

  ‘I’ll come one day,’ the little girl said. ‘But not yet. You will wait for me?’

  Pamela stood watching her and wondered if the waiting would never end.

  -5-

  ‘Come along, Pamela, you can ill-afford to be late. The concert can’t begin without its star soloist.’

  Pamela smiled at Mrs. Pascoe’s exaggeration as she tied back her hair, which though still a mass of dark curls was much easier to manage since she’d let it grow out. After her recovery she’d had to make up for lost time as Easter and the concert approached. The choir-director, Mr. Howard, had intensified her vocal training as soon as she was well enough, on the pretense that Pamela and her voice were somehow an indispensable part of this year’s performance. Pamela, however, wasn’t fooled for a moment. There were four other sopranos with much more training, experience and natural ability than she could ever hope to have. She well knew the true reason to be that everyone seemed bent on finding some small way to make her forget her experience at the hands of Albert Askrigg. Yet despite their efforts not a moment went by that she wasn’t aware that Albert Askrigg still roamed free, a monster in man’s form prowling the moors of Yorkshire, dangerous, pitiless, lethal, utterly without remorse. With a little shiver she remembered that he had vowed to return one day to Dewhurst mansion and finish what he’d begun. No, it was not yet over: the demon still lived. But then, demons were supernatural beings, and therefore were unkillable: and so Albert Askrigg was free to try again, and possibly succeed where before he had failed.

  She took a deep breath . . . let it out slowly . . . did her best to push such thoughts aside as being so much melodramatic nonsense, and hurried to join Mrs. Pascoe. When she got downstairs, her unpleasant musings were dispelled altogether when Pamela saw that she was indeed holding things up, that their little motorcade was lined up in the drive and ready to go.

  The concert went off very well, so well in fact that she was able to sing her solo, ‘Let the Bright Seraphim,’ with something approaching confidence, though in truth she had been scared witless at having to stand up in front of everyone. But standing with her was an older gentleman, a semi-retired musician who had played all his life in the London Symphony named Benjamin Whitely who played the trumpet with sublime virtuosity, while Mrs. Dalziel, an unflappable, matronly woman accompanied them on the ancient and illustrious pipe-organ.

  When the concert was over with and the crowd dispersing, Mr. Howard took Pamela by the arm and led her to a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman who was standing talking with a number of men Pamela had never met before. She noted at once that their suits were different in some manner- it was the shoulders; they had raglan sleeves and looked very expensive, and somehow foreign.

  ‘My dear, I want you to meet an admirer of yours. This is Mr. Carl Ruher and these people are his associates. Mr. Ruher is the former musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic, and now works for the prestigious recording company Deutsche Gramophone.’

  ‘Please, call me Carl, Miss Dee,’ he said in near-flawless English. ‘I was just asking my old friend Herr Howard here if you were currently under contract to do any recording. He has said “No,” so I am asking, before someone else discovers you.’

  Pamela could only stare, feeling blank. ‘Recording? Recording what? I’m not sure what you’re telling me.’

  To her bafflement, the men before her smiled.

  ‘Pamela Dee,’ Mr. Howard told her, ‘you are sometimes too unworldly and innocent to be believed! Have you never heard of Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff? I thought not. Well, my dear, you had better locate a recording and listen to it soon, because in two months’ time, you will be singing in it.’

  Pamela wanted to protest that they were making a serious mistake while wondering vaguely if they were having it on at her expense, but these men were very no-nonsense, professional types and made her feel as though any protest or objection she might make would make her appear childish and frivolous. Feeling trapped, Pamela sensed a presence at her elbow, turned around and caught her breath. It was Theo.

  ‘When will you be wanting her for rehearsals?’

  ‘A week before the recording date will suffice,’ Carl Ruher said with a smile. ‘I’ll be in touch with you through Mr. Howard to arrange flights and accommodation. Good day to you. Come, Howie, where’s this village of Haworth with its famous Black Bull? I believe you owe my colleagues and I a pint or two.’

  ‘Flights?’ Pamela asked Theo as the others wandered off, ‘Where is this recording supposed to be done?’

  ‘Why, Berlin, of course,’ Theo replied as though stating something obvious.

  ‘What? But what about . . . Theo . . . Mr. Dewhurst, I have work to do! The paperwork for that contract in Bradford comes up in the beginning of May.’ She didn’t mean to sound desperate, but the prospect of having to do something she knew absolutely nothing about made her experience the same sort of panic as though someone had casually asked her to walk a high-wire strung between two tall buildings.

  ‘Not to worry,’ he said with maddening calm. ‘That’s what laptop computers are for. You’ll have plenty of time left over to get your work for me out of the way.’

  ‘But I need you to help me get set up,’ she said, which wasn’t true. What was true was that she didn’t want to leave her comfortable new home and be so far away from him.

  ‘Relax,’ he said with an unreadable smile. ‘I’ll be coming with you.’

  The recording got done, but it was very nearly a complete disaster. Pamela found that she was simply not equipped to handle the pressure and demands of performing with a full choir and orchestra. The sectional singing was not a problem but a bad case of nerves early on very nearly finished her big solo. The director, a kind, patient, worldly old gentleman, who had seen and dealt with all manner of temperaments and mishaps, was able to coax her through it, but in the end she knew with certainty that her short career as a professional soloist was finished.

  During the return flight she felt absolutely mortified, having let Theo down after all the trouble he had gone to. She spent the time pretending to look out the window. In truth she averted her gaze because she didn’t dare face him. And how was she going to be able to face everyone at home? She had let them down too. At the moment, all she wanted was to cry and die at the same time, which she knew sounded silly, but it was exactly how she felt.

  She rode the rest of the way home with Theo in miserable silence.

  That evening, sharing a late supper in the staff dining-room with Mrs. Pascoe, who had waited up for her, Pamela was thoughtful for a long time, her thoughts mainly concerned with Theo. He had shown no disappointment over her poor performance but he had offered her no encouragement either. That was so like his treatment of her, if you could call it that. He was always there, solid, strong, reliable, daunting and unshakable, but it seemed also that he was never there, at least for her. It often made her wonder, as it did now, why he bothered to be there at all. And he was always watching her, somewhat speculatively, with a half-amused quirk to his lips. When he did that, she found herself writhing, yet part of her wanted to fling herself at him in the vain hope that he would take her in his arms. That he would hold her, that he would do something to remove the niggling worm of doubt and angst that ate at her, that he would kiss her, that he woul
d-

  ‘A penny. Pamela Dee, you’re blushing like a schoolgirl!’

  ‘What? Oh . . .’

  ‘Come now, you’ve hardly said two words since you got home. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sent your body home and left your mind in Berlin by mistake. How was Berlin, by the way?’

  ‘I don’t know. We didn’t see much of anything except a bunch of ugly, depressing-looking old buildings. The hotel was nice enough I suppose but I was too busy to pay any attention to what was going on around me to absorb any real details.’

  ‘Theo said he thought you did very well.’

  ‘He would! It was a complete mess. I was so scared at first that all I could get out was this shaky sort of squawk. Mr. Müller was absolutely incredible, though, and so were the people in the choir and the orchestra. I can’t believe how patient they were- did Theo tell you I threw up? Well I did. It was so humiliating! I ran to the back stage and barfed. Theo and Mr. Müller had to come get me because I was afraid to go back out and face all those people. Mr. Müller told me that he’d seen it all before, that some of the world’s greatest performers went through what I was going through every time they had to go out on stage. He said not to worry, that Deutsche Gramophone had done its fair share of recordings that were an absolute disaster. He played one for me later- it was a trumpet player named Hans . . . something like Schermer; he’s one of those who play really high all the time; they play these cute little trumpets that look more like toys than the real thing. Well, this recording was done ‘way back in the 1970's and it really was awful. The poor man! But he was already legendary and did lots of other recordings that were absolutely incredible, so I guess that kind of made up for it. The long and short of it is, he was able to take it all in stride because it happened late in his career. In my case, however, I’m afraid I’m done because it happened to me right at the beginning, and I don’t have any sort of reputation to fall back on.’ She sighed, toying idly with her food. ‘Several people there told me that quite a number of the first chair musicians are people who had the same sort of experience I did, who gave up their dream of becoming a world-class soloist and settled for security instead. They said that a lot of people were left traumatised for life by the experience, and spent the rest of their lives wishing that they could somehow find it in themselves to “overcome their personal failure.”’