I stood there for a very long time simply concentrating on breathing. I must have set the telephone down because I found that my hands were empty but I don’t remember actually doing it and it is quite possible that I didn’t even say goodbye. Random thoughts were flitting through my mind, all disjointed because I couldn’t finish the last one before another thought burst in. Nothing was making any sense, but then, horribly, painfully, it did. It made a lot of sense.
I suppose if I had been a true friend I would have naturally assumed that the Colonel was the man, but as it was I didn’t even waste a moment in denials or forming useless explanations. There was no point, not when I remembered that the Colonel had been in London with his other son on that fateful day.
John must have moved or said something because suddenly the room came sharply back into focus.
“Ellie? I said, are you all right?” His voice came from what felt like a very long way away.
I blinked and forced my shaken brain to concentrate. Whatever happened I knew I mustn’t let him find out what I had heard, mustn’t let him guess what I knew. All I had to do was be polite, make my excuses and leave. Surely nothing could happen while the housekeeper was nearby.
I took a deep breath, fixed a smile upon my face and slowly turned to face a murderer.
He was still standing by the drinks stand, with a bottle of something in his hand ready to pour. I put my hand out behind me and it met the reassuringly warm wood of the big oak desk, giving me strength and support.
“Fine, thank you,” I said and I was amazed to find that my voice showed not even the faintest tremor. “That was just Lisa, she’s been trying to get hold of me for days.”
“Oh?” he asked pleasantly. Looking at him now as he stood there with the same brilliant smile that he always wore, it didn’t seem possible to believe he had ever killed someone. But I had Simon Turford’s words as a dismal echo in my memory. The boss had caused all this by losing his head. “Anything important?”
“No. Not really.” My voice squeaked a little, but only so that I would notice.
He had straightened up and was walking slowly towards me. He still had the bottle in his hand and I wondered if he was drunk again; what it might mean if he was, and whether he would be easier to get away from, or worse…
Sharply I dragged my thoughts back to safer footing and forced my mind to focus. I said, “She just needed to talk, you know how it is.”
“No, I don’t know,” he replied patiently. His eyes were that brilliant blue that mesmerised. “Why don’t you tell me.”
I slid casually along the desk away from him, wondering if I could back all the way to the door without him noticing. “Oh, she likes to catch up occasionally; we were at school together.” I was chattering gaily as my mind feebly did its best to keep up this façade.
“Were you?”
The bottle glinted in his hand as he tilted it and suddenly I realised, with a horrible tightening of my throat, that he wasn’t pouring the contents into a glass.
“Yes!” I said. It came out as a strangled croak. “Anyway, I’m sure this isn’t remotely interesting, and you must have a lot you need to be getting on with.”
“Not particularly.” He was closer now and I cast a quick anxious glance about in case there was anything I could pick up as a weapon. There was nothing. “Tell me more. I’m still curious as to why she bothered to call you here.”
“Oh, er…” I gabbled frantically. I was closer to the door, with less than half the room to go before I would be out of there. Perhaps he only means to scare me, I told myself optimistically as I edged along the length of a chaise-longue. The light from the tall Georgian bay window was picking up the dust on the floor beneath it and I wondered if he knew that his servants were being so lax. Concentrate, I snapped at my wavering mind.
“She … er …”
He carefully set the bottle down on a table and took another step nearer. “Why did she call you, Ellie?” Suddenly his voice wasn’t so mild, although his manner was still convincingly friendly. “What did she have to tell you that she needed to call you here?”
“Nothing!” I squeaked the word far too eagerly. A chair brushed the back of my legs, but I managed to avoid falling onto it. “Nothing at all! Anyway, is that the time? I really must be going. Goodbye!”
I turned and ran then, all pretence abandoned.
There was a crash behind which must have been from the chair being thrown over, then, before I had even cleared the next obstacle, his hand landed heavy on my shoulder, dragging me back. I gave a short breathless scream, half falling, half twisting away in a desperate move that had nothing to do with sensible thought. There was a great tearing as my coat tore at the collar and using my momentum to drag my arms free, I slipped out of the sleeves and then I was up and onto my feet again, and running.
A loud thump followed behind as he tangled with the ruins of my coat. I heard a curse and a mutter of pain and another sound of tearing but I didn’t bother to check where he was. The door loomed white from the wall ahead of me and I lunged madly for the handle.
Magically, before I had even laid a finger on it, the tall wooden frame began to open. It yawned wide and for a moment I enjoyed the wild belief that someone had heard, had come to save me, but the chest I ran into and the hands that caught and held me were not those of a tiny aging housekeeper but those of a great brute of a man. My enemy.
“Well, hello, lass,” said Simon Turford thickly and a nasty sneer spread across his face, widening into a grimace that passed for a smile as I tried uselessly to free myself. Then he must have lost patience with my feeble wriggling because he tightened his grip upon my arms and suddenly gave me a vicious shake that made my head reel.
“No!” I begged, shrinking back from his leering, brutal satisfaction. The room span nauseatingly as he shook me again and his unforgiving eyes rested on my face in unashamed scrutiny for a moment before coolly flicking up over my head to look behind me.
“In your own time, sir,” he said calmly.
In the blinding chaos of panic, the thought finally crossed my mind that I should scream but even as I drew breath, I felt John’s arms come around me. His cheek touched to mine and then, with deliberate precision, he covered my mouth and nose with the cloth in his hand. I thought for a moment that he intended to suffocate me and very nearly took the frantic gasp that would have ended it, but the odour on the rag made my eyes water and then, with a final crushing rush of horror, I remembered the bottle.
Fighting every impulse, I held my breath and tried to wrench my head away, and might have managed it but that he shifted his hand and I was held still in a cruel grip that hurt.
“Go on. Breathe in, Ellie, my dear. Get it over with.” John’s voice was soft in my ear. “There’s no use fighting.”
I kicked hard, my foot swinging back with all my might, and it connected.
John gave a sharp hiss of pain and his hand tightened horribly over my nose. “Bitch,” he said calmly.
I held on for what seemed like an eternity. My lungs ached to be allowed to breathe but still I refused to give in, jerking uselessly and painfully in their vicelike grasp, and never even gaining a millimetre. Then my ears began to ring and I knew I was beaten. I tried so hard to fight the defeat back, but then finally, agonisingly, I lost control and at last my desperate lungs drew in a great breath of air. And with the air came the sickly sweet smell of chloroform.
It was only a matter of moments then. With a terrifying succession of shuddering breaths, I plunged recklessly down into the clinging, clawing blackness of oblivion, and as I fell, numb now to the pain of Simon’s grip on my arms, I heard a murderer’s voice in my ear.
“Good girl, breathe deeply. Goodnight, my dear … and sweet dreams …”