Nine

Police were crawling over the large, many-levelled building, and alerts had been put out at the train station, on all the main roads leaving Rye, and at the out-of-town harbour, with descriptions of Rufus being handed out left, right and centre.

It would be difficult to find him though, everyone conceded, as it was almost completely dark now.

‘But how was it possible?’ whispered Posie. She stood a little aside, letting the general melee around her go on.

Richard was on the telephone, muttering darkly. Fox had tucked Rosa Rossoli’s travel trunk in tight behind the reception desk which was unmanned.

‘What is it I’m not seeing here?’ Posie spoke aloud. ‘Or what is it that I’ve seen , but not understood?’

She looked down into her hand, where the key to apartment 32 was still pressed, and where the photograph she had stolen was slightly crunched up.

She placed both of these on the glass counter.

Fox was studying the pencilled map of the building again, and Evans, the receptionist, suddenly appeared, red-faced and sweating.

‘Oh, thank heavens! I’ve been searching all over for that wretched map! You’ve got it, Sergeant! The police have been asking me about all the hidey-holes. I couldn’t help them, and Mrs Joab has vanished! Can you give that map to the Chief Commissioner? He wanted it urgently. Oh, here he is; he’s off the telephone!’

Richard was in an uncharacteristically foul temper.

‘The deuce! Where is Mrs Joab? She knew we had a crucial operation going on here! Hardly the time to go off shopping, or whatever it is she’s up to!’ growled Lovelace uncharitably, and he snatched the map from Fox and pored over it.

‘See here, sir,’ said Fox, jabbing his finger at a section marked ‘GIANT’S FIRESIDE BAR’.

‘There’s a Priest’s Hole marked here, isn’t there? Built into the chimney place, right by the fire?’

‘Yes, Evans here mentioned it already. It’s well-known but it’s a waste of time.’

‘I agree it doesn’t look hopeful, sir: there’s no mention of any connecting passageways on the map, are there? So it could well be simply somewhere to stand and wait for danger to pass. Which may be how someone was able to wait, and then get out and grab the Earl at an opportune moment, when you left him alone, sir? But how would this mysterious person spirit the Earl away? Perhaps we should check it out, sir: the Earl could be in there, as we speak, with our mysterious “Thomas Kingsmill”.’

Lovelace was shaking his head. ‘It’s not possible, lad. The Earl and I were in that Bar for almost two hours, and the fire was roaring in the grate all the time. Anyone waiting in the chimney for an opportune moment to grab the Earl would have been fried alive.’

Fox was insistent. ‘We should look, sir. These routes and hiding-spots were invented by the Hawkhurst Gang, weren’t they? And they were ingenious, resourceful fellas by the sound of it. They had to be. We should at least check it out, sir.’

Posie was staring at the map, too.

But as if for the very first time, with fresh eyes.

Because she suddenly realised she recognised the writing on the map.

She looked quickly over at the key to room 32, at the purple ink, with its message in the same hand as the letters written over twenty-two years, kept in the immaculate trunk.

‘CHECK THE PAIRS.’

Posie saw Richard and Sergeant Fox hurrying off to the Giant’s Fireside Bar, followed closely by Evans.

Thoughts were cramming into her mind, running fast, overflowing, her head clearer than it had been in months.

She felt as if she had been swimming, drowning, and she was coming up at last for a gasp of pure, blissful air.

Images skittered through her mind, clear as day.

She recalled Fox’s description of the man who had sent Rufus telegrams at the Post Office, the mysterious ‘Thomas Kingsmill’; he’d been wearing a three-piece suit in a brown, fancy, patterned material. He’d had black hair and a fashionable moustache; been slim and short. Had a slight accent.

That description could have fitted the man in the photograph she’d left on the reception desk. Benito Rossoli .

Rosa’s husband.

Could it be possible?

Of course not, because the Italian, Benito Rossoli, had been dead these last two years, but what if…?

And then other thoughts, unconnected but important, flooded Posie’s mind: a buckle, shaped like a butterfly; sets of handwriting she knew; a key with an instruction on it; a map of a place filled with ghosts, hoaxes, and too much history, where people were likely to get scared, and believe in the unlikely.

The impossible.

But Posie didn’t believe in ghosts.

And in her mind, absolutely everything was possible.

She remembered Richard’s words earlier. ‘It seems as if the game has changed .’

Well, yes: it had.

And she was slowly realising what was happening here. But there were gaps, things she still didn’t understand.

She marched around the empty desk, and was about to pick up the telephone and speak to the Operator, when Inspector Vallance came chugging in, still wearing his black sou’wester, excitement all over his face.

‘They’ve opened up the Priest’s Hole, Mrs Lovelace. And it seems it was a clever little bit of Hawkhurst gang engineering, all sealed up against the heat! Unbelievable. And they’ve found the Earl’s hip-flask in there, together with a lot of spilled whisky and a smashed glass. Seems he was forced in there against his will!’

Posie nodded slowly.

Yes, that made sense .

‘But they haven’t actually found Rufus?’

Vallance looked suddenly resigned, less elated. ‘No, Mrs Lovelace. There are about six tunnels all leading off from there,’ he said. ‘And they all look dangerous; haven’t been used in years. Your husband is waiting for Mrs Joab to return, to tell him which route leads where, and if any of the tunnels are safe.’

She isn’t going to return .

Posie was about to voice this unwelcome thought when she saw Inspector Vallance holding up the photograph she’d taken from Rosa’s apartment.

He looked over at Posie, frowning. ‘This yours, Madam? That’s Mrs Rossoli there, isn’t it? With her family? Oh, jeepers, that’s a bit odd.’

‘What’s odd, Inspector?’

Vallance stabbed a thick, stubby finger at something in the background of the snapshot. ‘See this place, Ludlam’s? The café here?’

‘Yes. What of it?’

‘It’s in Hastings. In exactly the spot where our Hastings colleagues are busy working tonight. Well, they are working below it, to be accurate. It’s a popular tourist spot, high on the cliffs. Although Ludlam’s is closed up, of course, in the wintertime. It’s where that priceless Lagonda of Earl Cardigeon’s flew over the cliff yesterday into the sea.’

Valance sighed heavily. ‘And we’ve had problems at Ludlam’s itself this past week, too; reports of some sort of vermin or foxes there, in the bins at the back, although no-one has investigated it so far; what with all the snow. And it’s not a priority, either. The place is all bolted shut.’

He handed the photograph to Posie with a smile.

‘Some interest you’ve got there, Mrs Lovelace, for a cousin-once-removed, eh?’

Posie ignored him. ‘When did these disturbances at the café start up?’

The Inspector shrugged, losing interest. ‘Oh, I dunno. Saturday, just gone? Sunday, maybe? Around the same time we had reports of a woman in purple clothes hanging around the place. This foreign lass. I hear she’s been seen there again, yesterday and today. Probably some busybody…’

This was the woman Richard had thought might be Violette, the French woman involved in Dolly’s disappearance.

Funny clothes.

Purple .

This detail, calling to mind so instantly her mother in her final incarnation as a dancing teacher in Rye, was painful for Posie.

The purple clothes hadn’t been mentioned before. Neither had the fact that the woman had been seen before yesterday.

Lovelace and Fox were back, speaking in low, wretched, animated whispers.

Evans lurked about, looking like he might cry.

‘Could I ask for your help, Mr Evans?’ Posie asked, falsely cheery. ‘Do you keep a log of staff telephone calls? I’m wondering if Mrs Rossoli made a call from here last week, perhaps on Wednesday or Thursday? Could you find out for me? And where exactly she called?’

‘Of course, Madam.’

Evans started to flick through a neat green leather ledger behind the desk, happy to be able to do something constructive.

Richard came over, brows furrowed. ‘Mrs Rossoli? What the deuce, Posie love? What’s she got to do with this mess?’

It’s complicated. Just like my mother was in real life .

But Evans had found what he needed. He stabbed at an entry jubilantly.

‘It was Wednesday night, last week, Madam. Wednesday 25th November. Mrs Rossoli made a call, two minutes in length. Same number Rosa always called; every week. Although Wednesday wasn’t her usual day. She normally called once a week, on a Sunday evening.’

He said a name, a place, and the policemen in the room stared, mystified.

But this all made sense to Posie.

Finally, the gaps were closing .

‘I wonder, Mr Evans, can you help again? Can you call the same number, now? Can you ask them if a man who lives there is currently missing?’

Evans gulped. ‘What name shall I give, Madam? For this missing man?’

Posie felt like laughing suddenly, hysterically. She passed the photograph of the cliff at Hastings to Evans, who recoiled slightly.

‘Describe the man in that photograph to them,’ she said lightly, tapping the image of her mother’s Italian lover.

‘But he’s dead, Madam!’ wailed the receptionist. ‘I used to know him; he lived here. That was Benito Rossoli!’

‘Well, that remains to be seen,’ said Posie crisply. ‘Now, please hurry.’

And then she turned to Sergeant Fox, who looked at her full on, excitement dancing in his light eyes. He knows the game is on now , thought Posie.

He’ll help me .

She grabbed the key to room 32 again, with the note: ‘CHECK THE PAIRS.’

It seemed her mother was being practical, useful, helpful to her at the last.

She shoved the key into Sergeant Fox’s hands. ‘I can’t face going back to those rooms again, Sergeant. But you will, won’t you?’

‘Of course, Miss, what am I looking for?’

‘In the bedroom, in one of the cupboards, is some women’s clothing. At the bottom of the cupboard is a box of purple dancing shoes. Grab the whole box, bring it down here. And while you’re there, check the sink, will you?’

‘What for?’

‘Anything. Anything at all.’

She turned to Inspector Vallance. ‘Sir, could you get one of your constables to go to your police station, to the exhibits section. I need all of the effects from the drowning of Rosa Rossoli.’

The Inspector raised his shaggy eyebrows in surprise, almost indignation, but Richard, angrily uptight at not having a clue what was unravelling before him, chivvied the man on: ‘Go on, Inspector. Do as my wife says: it could be life or death for the Earl.’

And suddenly Posie and Richard were alone at last, with just Evans telephoning in the corner.

Richard cupped Posie’s face in his huge right hand, stroked her cheek gently with his thumb.

‘What the blazes is all this about, darling? Rossoli ? Are you sure? And what about Rufus? Do you know where he is, to boot?’

‘I think so, yes. Yes: I do.’

‘By Gad, you’ve done well here. Better than all of us. Is he out on the marshes, on his way to France already?’

‘I think not, darling. He’s somewhere far colder. A dreadful place, in fact.’

****