I DRIVE CAREFULLY back toward Coldharbour. I haven’t driven this car very much, and I keep on grinding the gears. I glance at Sylvie in the rearview mirror. She still has her book on her lap, but she’s staring out the window. She’s quiet, but she doesn’t look upset.
I clear my throat.
“Sylvie. I need to tell you something sad,” I say. “You know there were all those garda cars at the quarry? They found two bodies there. The people who they were . . .” I take a deep breath. It’s a struggle to find the right words. “They were called Alice and Jessica—a mother and a little girl. They used to live at Flag Cottage. Somebody killed them a long time ago. A bad person killed them.”
I keep looking back at her, wanting to gauge her reaction. She’s looking at her book now.
“Yes, Grace,” she tells me. “Alice and Jessica died.” Saying the names so precisely. It’s like the way she says Coldharbour—slowly and exactly, as though she wants to hold on to the words.
“Who killed them, sweetheart?”
She presses her fingers through the holes in the page.
“The water was red,” she tells me.
“Sweetheart. Can you remember anything else about it?”
She shakes her head.
“I want my ice cream, Grace.”
“Sure, sweetheart. Maybe we can talk about it later.”
I drive slowly on, past reedy fields where heaps of peat are drying out. We pass a rusted tractor and the black, broken hull of a rowing boat that’s held in place by stones.
I’m thinking over what Deirdre said. I remember her voice—high-pitched, and sharp with panic. You know that the worst can happen. I feel her fear as though it is my own. I wish that I could help her.
We drive down the hill into Coldharbour. The sun is coming out through the mist, shining and veiled, like a pearl. We come to the wall of Kinvara House. Everything has a gray morning shimmer, and the plaited creepers and ivies are drenched and gleaming with dew. Nothing could be easier than to go and knock on the door, to ask if Gemma is there. As soon as I’ve thought this, it seems so right and obvious. Because really this seems the most likely explanation—that she spent the night with Marcus here. And if she isn’t here, at least Marcus might know where she is.
I turn in between the stone falcons.
“Grace. My ice cream,” says Sylvie.
“You’ll have your ice cream soon,” I tell her. “We’ll only be a moment.”
The garden stretches to either side, the white spilt pools of narcissi, the velvet, voluptuous rhododendron flowers. I haven’t been here in daylight before. It’s good to see all the colors of the flower beds, the salmon-pink azaleas, the Gothic reds and purples of the rhododendrons. It’s such a relief to be somewhere so peaceful and tended after the horror of the quarry.
“What are we doing?” says Sylvie.
“I want to ask Marcus something,” I tell her. “It’ll only take a moment.”
I draw up in front of the house. I turn to face her.
“Sweetheart, I want you to wait in the car for a moment. Just while I go to the door.”
She has her book pressed tight against her chest.
“Grace, you can’t leave me here. You can’t.” She’s imperious.
“You’ll be able to see me,” I tell her. “Look, that’s where I’m going—just up those steps to the door. Not any farther than that. You’ll always be able to see me.”
“No. I’m coming with you.”
I get out, open her door. It’s not worth making a fuss about.
We climb the steps. The scents of the garden brush caressingly against us, the languid sweetness of azalea, the subtle sherbet smells of the little spring flowers. I ring. The bell has an old-fashioned jangle—you can hear it echoing through the house. I think of the hall and its elegant stair, of all those imposing, immaculate spaces on the other side of the door. But we can’t see through the frosted glass.
Nobody comes. I ring again. Still nothing, just the hollow sound of the bell. It seems to be as Deirdre said—that nobody is here. Yet this seems surprising. You’d expect there to be somebody—a cleaner, or someone who does the accounts and typing, just like Alice used to. His house seems so perfect, so orderly; he must have people to run it.
We go back down the steps. The blinds are drawn in the ground-floor windows on either side of the door, presumably to protect his expensive fabrics from fading. The house has the look of a blank face with closed eyes.
I feel frustrated. I’m reluctant to give up so quickly—there must be somebody here. Perhaps we could look around the back. There might be someone working in the garden.
I lead Sylvie off to the right of the house. There’s a sprawling herbaceous border and a twisted old magnolia with flowers like cupped, veined hands. A horse chestnut tree is just coming out, the new leaves hanging down like bits of crumpled linen.
“Where are we going?” she says.
“We’re going to walk right round the house. I need to find Marcus. We might find someone to ask. A gardener or someone.”
She clutches at my hand, pushing her fingers between my fingers.
We turn a corner of the house, and the view opens out before us, that whole wide windswept loveliness of the bay. The sea has a pewter glimmer in the faltering sunlight, and its sound is suddenly louder here, its heavy surge on the shore. To our left are the high arched windows of the drawing room where Marcus entertained us. The curtains are drawn back here, and there are paving stones under the windows so you can go right up to the glass.
The light off the water reflects in the window and makes it hard to see through. I press my face to the pane, shielding my eyes with my hands. It takes a while for my sight to adjust.
I’m hoping to see some sign of Gemma or Marcus. But the room is empty, and untidy. Two drawers have been pulled out of the desk, and papers are strewn around carelessly, as though someone was riffling through them and didn’t have time to put them back. One of the whiskey tumblers has broken, and no one has bothered to sweep up the glass. The fragments glitter harshly in the light that falls on the floor. The sight of the broken glass unnerves me.
A sudden cold dread fills me. What if Gemma was here, what if she got caught up in something—a kidnapping, a robbery? Then I tell myself these are wild, crazy thoughts. I’m shocked, upset because of the discovery at the quarry. There must be some simple explanation: it’s probably just that his cleaner hasn’t come in.
“What is it, Grace?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. It just looks rather messy. It’s probably nothing,” I say.
We walk on around the house. There’s a place, a darkened corner, where the building forms an L-shape, and creeper stems the color of rust reach out across the wall. A little chill wind from the sea lisps in the leaves of the creeper. Here, there’s a side door into the house; the paint is peeling from the salt. The door is slightly ajar. I push it, and it opens. Inside I can see the passageway that leads to the entrance hall, past the door of the downstairs cloakroom.
“Marcus?” I say into the dark of the passage. My voice sounds hollow.
There’s no answer.
If only I could find Marcus, I think. He’d know what to do, he’d know what has happened to Gemma. If only I could speak to him.
A sudden impulse seizes me. I bend to Sylvie.
“Sweetheart, listen. There’s something we have to do now. The girl you saw on the beach . . .”
“Lennie,” she says.
“Yes. Lennie.” It feels so strange to call her that. “We don’t know where she’s got to. And so we’re going to look for her. We’re going to slip in here and have a quick look round. We’ll see if we can find her, or if someone can say where she is.”
“Yes, Grace,” she says, accepting this.
I lead Sylvie down the passage past the cloakroom door. We walk silently, like sleepwalkers.
I call out.
“Marcus! Gemma!”
The sound of my own voice unnerves me. It’s too urgent, too loud for this quiet place.
Sylvie must feel this too. She presses a finger to her lips.
There’s a noise behind us. I spin around. But it’s just the door moving against its frame; it makes a sound like knocking, as though someone wants to get in. It makes me nervous. I go back and shut it properly. It shuts off the sound of the sea, it shuts off everything. The silence of the house envelops us.
We walk along the passage, emerge into the airiness and gleaming space of the hall. But here too there’s disorder. An overcoat has been flung down in the middle of the floor. On a side table I notice a shredder that must have been recently used, the bin beneath it overflowing with flimsy ribbons of paper. I look around for a telephone, but there doesn’t seem to be one. We pass the Tang horse and the orchids. I notice with a thrill of fear that the gun has gone from the wall.
Sylvie must hear the catch in my breath.
“What’s wrong, Grace?”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I tell her. “But I think we ought to go now.”
I keep my voice very calm, I’m trying not to frighten her.
“Is Lennie here?” says Sylvie.
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” I tell her. “But it’s really time to leave.”
“We’ve got to find Lennie,” she says.
I reach for her hand. She slips past me. She runs ahead of me, up the pale curving stair.
“No, Sylvie.”
She pays me no attention. I run after her. My chest is tight; it hurts to breathe.
She reaches the top of the stair. On the landing there’s a window that has lavish velvet curtains, and in front of us is a bedroom with a wide-open door. She goes through the door. I follow.
This must be the main bedroom. You can see it’s a beautiful room. The bed has a red satin coverlet, the curtains have an intricate pattern of Chinese flowers and birds. But the wardrobe door is pulled open, and opulent men’s suits and shirts are all tossed on the bed, on the floor.
“It’s untidy, isn’t it, Grace?” says Sylvie rather severely.
I move a jacket with my foot. Underneath, there’s a glint of color, something that doesn’t belong amid all this masculine clothing. I kneel to look. It’s the rainbow scarf that Gemma wore. The silk is crushed and torn.
I think of something Deirdre said: Gemma remembers her mother going to answer the phone . . . She thinks she said, Okay, I’ll be there for seven . . . She says her mother sounded happy . . . I think how she may have told Marcus—will certainly have told Marcus. And where that memory might lead now, all the questions it might answer—with the finding of the bodies, the bullet wound, the stones.
I grab Sylvie’s hand. My palms are suddenly wet, and Sylvie’s skin slides against me.
“We have to go, Sylvie.” My voice is shrill and rapid and doesn’t sound like my voice. “We shouldn’t be here, really. We’ll go and get that ice cream . . .”
There’s the softest footfall behind me.
I turn, my heart in my throat.