The Diary Of Pamela D. Page 8

  ‘Why is it that I’m left with the impression that you’re relieved by this experience?’ Mrs. Pascoe asked shrewdly as she put the kettle on the stove, cleared the plates, and served the two of them dessert. ‘It wouldn’t be because you’re afraid to try your wings, would it? Or is there another reason? One I’m sure I could put a name to, without having to think too long and hard about it.’

  ‘Well,’ Pamela said reluctantly, ‘it’s true that I was terrified just going to Berlin. I’m glad Theo was there . . . but-’

  ‘But,’ said Mrs. Pascoe, sitting down once more and pouring the tea, ‘you were afraid to fail because Theo was there, and you were afraid to succeed because you thought that you’d be in danger of losing him altogether.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’ Pamela told her. ‘To tell the truth, my heart just wasn’t in it. I enjoy singing in the church choir, but I like it because it feels like . . . like family to me; it feels as though I’m singing in the living-room. But being in a strange city in a huge auditorium, surrounded by all these professional people who have built their lives around something that I just stumbled into by accident . . . I just don’t feel that it’s the right sort of life for me. I wish-’ she reddened at making this admission, and said in a lower voice, ‘I wish I’d done better, of course, not for myself but to please Theo, to make him . . . like me.’

  Mrs. Pascoe gave her a wry smile that was all-too-knowing. ‘Like, eh?’ She wisely left it at that.

  By late Spring the weather was absolutely glorious, the flowers and flowering trees and shrubs on the estate in full-bloom, the air filled with the smell of rebirth and new life. The entire household made the trip to Haworth to spend a day enjoying a family picnic and the sight of the newly-transformed moor, which had gone from a dead dull brown to every hue of purple: mauve, lilac, maroon, magenta, and myriad other hues and colours that may have had no name. They studiously avoided the town proper, which, now that the weather had warmed up was inundated with tourists, but the surrounding countryside at this time of year was truly glorious.

  Some younger relatives of the household staff had come as well: there were several children between the ages of twelve down to an adorable little sweetmeat named Jennie who stole everyone’s heart. To Pamela’s lasting delight, the child caught her eye, and after a shy moment filled with curious peeks and smiles with one finger in her mouth, came up to Pamela, extended her arms and queried, ‘Upeego?’ Pamela looked to the child’s mother, Anne, a young woman married to a nephew of the Pascoes, who shrugged and said with a smile, ‘It’s your funeral.’

  Pamela was a little awkward at first, but only at first. Guided by an inner-something that could only have been instinct, she was soon making silly noises and coaxing delighted squeals from the little tyrant. Abruptly, her own laughter froze when she chanced to look up and catch Theo watching her. He was smiling! The instant he registered her gaze, however, it was as though a blind had been pulled down over his feelings. He turned away and was himself again, speaking with the other men.

  At that moment, the little girl, as though guided by fate, struggled down from Pamela’s lap and stumped over to Theo, who smiled wryly at her entreaty. Pamela couldn’t hear a word he said, but the child acted completely differently with him, sitting quietly in his lap and staring up at him, her angelic features utterly rapt. He glanced in Pamela’s direction a couple of times, not to look right at her, but she felt that he was surreptitiously ascertaining whether or not she was watching him. He couldn’t disguise his very real affection for the child, however, and Pamela found herself wishing that she was sitting next to him, that-

  Oh, no! He had got to his feet and was walking straight towards her!

  ‘I see you’ve met little Jennie,’ he said, passing her the child and sitting down, speaking with the familiar ironic drawl in his voice that so intimidated and intrigued her. ‘I didn’t realise you liked children so much.’

  For some reason, Pamela practically choked on a sudden, inexplicable attack of nerves and shyness. ‘I’m not- I mean, I’ve never even h- held one before- I mmp . . . ’

  Without warning, he reached across, put his arm around her, leaned over her so that she had no choice but to cling to him, and kissed her. She didn’t dare pull away, or do anything that might endanger the safety of the child. After a moment she discovered that she didn’t want to pull away, and couldn’t have cared less that everyone was probably watching. And yet . . . and yet . . .

  They parted, and he watched her, frowning. ‘What’s wrong? What is it you’re so afraid of?’

  She took a shuddering breath. ‘I’m afraid of you. I’m sorry, Theo, but you scare me.’ She got up and took the child back to its mother, who watched her speculatively. Her ears burning, feeling utterly conspicuous now, as though anybody and everybody was staring at her, Pamela began walking away from the gathering in search of a little privacy. At the same time some inner little voice began shouting at her.

  You idiot, what are you doing? Go back right now and pick up where you left off, or he’s going to get the wrong idea!

  ‘Shut up!’ she muttered to herself, putting her hands over her ears, ‘Shut up! Shut . . . oh God! Theo! THEO!!’ In an instant he was at her side, as were several of the other picnic-goers.

  ‘What is it? What happened? Are you all right?’

  ‘I saw- Oh, God! Oh my God! . . .’

  ‘What did you see? There’s nothing out there but open moor.’

  ‘It was Albert! He was- I saw him- what he did! He was standing there, looking right at me.’

  Theo’s look was unreadable, but he said to the other women, ‘Stay with her, please. The rest of you stay right here. I’m going to go have a look.’

  ‘I’d better come with.’ It was Fred Pascoe, the father of little Jennie. He was a strapping fellow of even temperament but not one to be mucked about or argued with once his mind was set on something. ‘I know these moors. If he’s anywhere about I’ll know it.’

  Theo nodded curtly and they moved off.

  The two were gone for so long that, though still in full view and looking at the ground, Pamela began to wonder it she’d have to suffer the humilation of discovering that she’d imagined it all, that what she’d seen was no more than a figment of her own overactive imagination. But the two returned, brusquely, something chilling and curt about their movements. Going straight to his wife, Fred said, ‘Give us the mobile, luv, and go sit in the car and lock the doors.’ Raising his voice so that all could hear, he said, ‘I suggest the rest of you do the same, whilst Theo and I wait for the police and get things sorted out here.’

  As dusk settled on the moor, the tranquil evening was shattered by a chaos of sirens and flashing lights. The commotion grew to a crescendo as a coroner’s van parted the knot of parked vehicles and a body was carried towards it on a folded gurney, revealed in a stroboscopic nightmare sequence of flashing cameras.

  After an interminable time Theo came to Pamela’s window and gestured. ‘Come, CID wants to speak with you.’ Through the open window, he said, ‘Lock the doors and roll up the windows, please, Mr. Pascoe. You may as well head on home with the others. We may be here a while, so don’t wait up for us. In fact, would you mind taking Mrs. Dewhurst with you, and Anne and little Jennie? Fred and Pamela and I are going to have to answer a lot of questions, and there’s no telling how long this is going to take.’

  ‘Is that wise, Theo?’ Mrs. Pascoe said. ‘You know how good your mother is with Pamela.’

  Leaning on the edge of the open window, speaking quietly to the Pascoes, he said, ‘Look, there’s just been another murder of a young woman. Fred hasn’t said anything, but he’s sick with worry over his wife and little girl because of . . . something that we just saw, that Pamela may have been a witness to as it occurred. Your nephew and his wife and child will be staying with us until this matter is resolved, for reasons I won’t go into right now. As for Mrs. Dewhurst, I don’t want her so much as hearing about what happe
ned here. It’s bad enough that Pamela saw what she did, but- let’s face facts, my mother isn’t a young woman, and what happened here is the sort of thing that even strong men have trouble dealing with. So, please, do as I ask, and I’ll look after Pamela as best I can.’

  Pamela felt that she was caught in a netherworld between that of waking dreams and the murky depths of a subconscious that she was aware of, like an unwilling spectator, but which was not entirely her own. Albert had risen up out of the moor like a demon apparition with something in his arms, something that she couldn’t quite make out. It had a pale oval face, wide, white staring eyes and dark hair, she knew that much, and its supplicating look was one of pure abject terror. Then, it had fallen like a puppet with its strings cut. All the while, Albert had fixed her with his gaze, with eyes that nailed her to his will, a will that took away her voice, her volition, her sense of herself. When she began calling out for help, it seemed as though it were someone else who began screaming, that she still stood rooted to that spot, mesmerized, waiting for Albert to come for her . . .

  ‘That’s enough, gentlemen.’ Theo’s voice was at once hard and uncompromising. ‘I’ll be taking Pamela home now.’

  ‘We’re not done yet,’ the inspector from CID said impatiently.

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Theo told him. ‘She’s in shock. She needs to be away from here. You’re not blind; you can see what this is doing to her.’

  The inspector sighed, pushed his glasses up on his forehead and massaged his tired eyes a moment. ‘We’ve been after Mr. Askrigg for six years now. Six. The man is like a ghost or a demon, manifesting itself long enough to do something horrific and then it’s gone again. But he’s never gone this far. Now, he’s taunting us- or rather, he’s taunting Miss Dee, here, supposedly because she’s the only one of his victims who has escaped from him with her life.’ Changing the subject, he said, ‘So, tell me, Mr. Dewhurst, how did Albert Askrigg happen to know where you were going and when?’

  Theo was silent a long moment.‘I’ve been asking myself that same question. The only answer I can come up with is one I don’t even want to contemplate: that he has always been close at hand, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike; that he has been near enough to overhear conversation. Devil take the man! He may very well have been in the house!’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ the inspector said and sat back in his chair, tiredly. ‘My men will escort you to your home, and we will set a twenty-four-hour watch. I honestly don’t know what else to do.’

  Theo shrugged. ‘Do what you must. But I tell you this: Albert Askrigg is not inhuman. Don’t allow yourself to be in awe of him, or he really will defeat you. He is a man like any other. It’s just that he knows the moors, unlike any other. He has made them his home. Have you ever flown over the moors, inspector?’

  Caught off-guard, the inspector said, ‘No, can’t say as I have.’

  ‘Well I have. They are not as vast as the Brontë sister’s overactive and inbred imaginations believed. But they are just large enough for one lone man, who knows them like the back of his hand, to evade a bunch of people who are stumbling blindly about looking for him. That is all there is to Albert Askrigg. So don’t try frightening me with tales of ghosts and demons and vast expanses of wild, gorse-strewn moor when we both know the truth to be something a trifle more mundane.’

  All the way back to Dewhurst Mansion, Pamela sat in the back seat with Theo, while Fred drove. Theo had wrapped Pamela in his warm overcoat and she now snuggled against him, half-asleep, head on his chest, he with his arm around her. How she had longed for such intimate contact with him, and how it was spoilt by not being real! He was here to comfort her because she had been traumatized, not because he loved her and wanted to take her in his strong arms and hold her to him, to protect her from life’s dangers and unpredictability and uncertainty.

  Ah, well, at least she could pretend for the time being. She could pretend that they were on their way home from an uneventful trip in the country, with just the two of them. Or- the thought made her smile- she could pretend that they had a little girl like Jennie, who was perhaps asleep on the seat beside them, curled up beneath a coat, features rendered angelic by slumber. If only she could simply lift her head and see love in Theo’s eyes; if only he would kiss her now and take her to bed, where she would surrender to him, and he would promise to love and protect her, for ever and always.

  With such thoughts creating a membrane-like wall, protecting and insulating her essential being, she found that she was able to plunge into a deep, untroubled slumber, unsullied and untouched by any demons.

  Pamela awoke to the realization that she was totally, unreservedly in love with Theo. She had known this before but her feelings had taken on a more mature timbre. She found that she was able to read him better, to see past his exterior.

  But still his careful neutrality baffled her. What did it mean? That he didn’t care for her? He had never said anything to make her believe that he loved her or that he shared her feelings in any way. And yet from the beginning he had been there for her, at least physically.

  What did this mean? What did this say about their relationship, if you could call it that? True, he had kissed her in front of everyone, but he certainly hadn’t declared his love for her or asked her to marry him. Would he ever ask to her marry him? Could he?

  At one time her reply would have been an unequivocal “No,” but now she wasn’t quite so sure. He seemed always to be watching her and waiting for something to happen. But what? For her to grow up? To become a “real” woman? What did he see in her? What did he want her to be?

  Part of her reasoned that a rich man would never even think of marrying one of his maids, though he might toy with the idea from time to time, but something, some instinct, told her that perhaps this might not be true of Theo.

  She went downstairs to find the house in an uproar. Fred was there with his wife and child, and there were policemen; what had Theo called them? Oh, yes, CID, whatever that stood for. Several pairs of eyes looked at her guardedly, some speculative, some doubtful, some hopeful, some concealing inner-anxiety and impatience. Theo, too, watched her, but his look was wholly different from all the others. On the surface of it there was his habitual neutrality, but underneath Pamela could tell, could feel that he was somehow willing her to be strong.

  As she reached the landing, the Chief Inspector, a red-haired giant of a man with a walrus moustache named Chief Inspector Robert Matthews, whom she had spoken to the previous evening, rose from his chair and approached her.

  ‘Miss Dee,’ he said deferentially, ‘how are you feeling this morning?’

  Pamela noticed at once that the man appeared very tired: there were creases around his eyes that she knew were caused by lack of sleep, that he had been awake all night. While she had slept, long and well. This revelation made her feel as though she had let him and everyone else down in some way. She resolved in that moment to meet her fears head-on.

  ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. You’ve been up all night, haven’t you?’

  ‘Quite,’ he answered quietly, letting his fatigue show, and for the first time, smiled at her. ‘Do you feel up to answering any questions, now?’

  Pamela nodded, and she followed him and two of his officers into the library.

  They no sooner sat down than Ellie stuck her head in the door.

  ‘Would you like some tea, Chief Inspector? Pamela hasn’t so much as eaten breakfast yet, so I’m sure she’d love some.’

  ‘That’ud be lovely,’ the Chief Inspector replied with a forgiving smile.

  ‘Now, young lady,’ he said, turning his attention to Pamela when Ellie had left, ‘let’s get down to business. What exactly did you see? Tell me everything. And leave nothing out, no matter how inconsequential or trivial it might seem.’

  The interrogation went on for almost three hours and in that time Pamela wondered if the police were learning anything useful or if they were j
ust going to go on like this forever. They recorded every word she said, went over and over certain parts of her story, sometimes asking her things that made little sense, at least to her, but which seemed to possess a great deal of significance to them. In the end, however, they actually seemed satisfied.

  ‘Well,’ chief inspector Matthews said, pushing back his chair, rising to his feet, and taking her hand, which practically disappeared into his own, ‘I think that should do it. Thank you, Miss Dee, you’ve been of great service.’

  Feeling a bit baffled, she said, ‘I don’t see how.’

  Smiling benevolently, like a great bear, he said, ‘Let’s just say that you’ve told us a great deal without meaning to. That there are certain . . . things . . . that we’re looking for; things that you yourself have just verified for us.’