10

Holly felt her face grow hot. Sheena grinned.

‘Don’t fret,’ she said, as if Holly had apologised for trying to deceive her. ‘You’ve got your job to do. But you’d better think of another cover story. As if Una would let an estate agent in here! She’s mad about this house—not that she isn’t mad full stop. Anyway, Eric told me he was being sent to get you. He wasn’t best pleased, but as I told him, Una’s like a dog with a bone about this thing, and if she wants to spend her money on a wild goose chase, that’s her business.’

She tilted her head and regarded Holly quizzically.

‘You don’t look like a detective,’ she said. ‘Not that I ever met one before. Have you been at it for long?’

‘Not really,’ Holly said, with perfect truth.

Recovering her poise a little, she decided to make the best of a bad job. At least she could stop attempting to be subtle. She crossed the corridor and tried the door of the room marked ‘1’. Sure enough, it was locked. Very aware of Sheena’s amused gaze, she slid the key from her jacket pocket.

‘So I gather you don’t think there’s anything suspicious about Andrew McNish’s disappearance?’ she asked in a businesslike manner, as she stuck the key into the keyhole.

Sheena snorted. ‘’Course not. Done a flit, hasn’t he?’

She wandered across the corridor and watched with lively interest as Holly attempted to make the key turn.

‘It was only a matter of time,’ she said. ‘Andrew’s a charmer, and I won’t say it wasn’t fun having him around the place, but he didn’t take me in. I knew he was a con artist the minute I laid eyes on him.’

She returned Holly’s startled glance complacently. ‘Take my word for it. He was no more Una’s little brother than I am, and he knew it. But Una had convinced herself, so he played along. Who wouldn’t? She’s rolling in it. Then things got too hot for him, so he took off. The police could see how the land lay. Everyone could, but Una. Here, let me do that.’

She plumped the vaguely camphor-smelling sheets into Holly’s arms and casually elbowed her aside. Then she pulled the key back out of the keyhole, replaced it, and began jiggling it gently.

‘This is the bathroom key, really,’ she said. ‘It does work in this lock, but only just. See if you can get her to give it back, after this, will you? It’s a bugger sitting on the jacks waiting for Dulcie’s creepy son to walk in on you. I’m as sure as I can be that he does it on purpose.’

Holly laughed.

‘No, I’m telling you!’ Sheena insisted, scowling at the key. ‘He’s a real piece of work, Sebastian. Mind you, you’re pretty safe till mid-afternoon because he stays up all night with his computer, downloading the Lord knows what off the internet. He couldn’t be more than sixteen, either.’

‘Is Dulcie the woman in room 5? I saw her earlier—I think she heard me coming up the stairs. Who is she?’

Sheena’s expression became disdainful. ‘Oh, some relation of Roly’s—fourth cousin twice removed, or something. Lives in Queensland. Except for Una, she and Sebastian are the last of the Maggotts, or so she says. So in her opinion that means they’re rightfully in for the dosh—and this house, of course—when Una pops off.’

‘Really!’ breathed Holly, immediately considering the pug woman in a new light.

‘She’s been here since Tuesday, looking down her nose at me and Eric, smarming up to Una. She’s a pain in the whats–it. Roly couldn’t stand her, wouldn’t have her in the house. And Una only invited her out of spite.’

‘Why spite?’

‘Well, Andrew had moved in, hadn’t he?’ said Sheena, manipulating the key with the concentration of a safecracker. ‘Una couldn’t resist the chance to rub Dulcie’s nose in it that a long-lost brother had turned up, and Dulcie could forget about ever getting her claws on the money.’

She chuckled, her natural good humour fully restored. ‘The old girl did it in style, too. Threw a dinner here on Tuesday night with caterers and a waiter and all that. Very formal, and in the library, too, with the big long table, instead of the breakfast room where we usually eat. She invited her solicitor, and all the people in the house—Eric and me included, and even Lily, who must have thought it meant she was back in the good books, because she was purring like the cat who’d swallowed the cream.’

Clearly taking malicious pleasure at this memory in particular, Sheena chuckled again before swearing at the key, withdrawing it, and easing it back into the lock for another try.

‘So we all chat like ladies and gents through four courses,’ she went on. ‘Then over the port and cheese Una makes the big announcement that Andrew is changing his name to Maggott, and she’s going to make a will leaving him the lot.’

‘That must have been a fun evening,’ Holly murmured. She smiled inwardly at the thought of Andrew weighing up whether being heir to a fortune was worth being a Maggott, and deciding it was.

‘It was a circus—a real circus!’ Sheena agreed. ‘Dulcie nearly fainted. Then she and Stiff Cliff—that’s the lawyer—’

‘Cliff? Oh, I think she was talking to him on the phone just now,’ Holly broke in.

Sheena nodded. ‘The two of them are thick as thieves,’ she said. ‘Well, they started carrying on like chooks with their heads cut off. Running round, whispering in corners, trying to get Una alone . . . And Lily, of course, was looking daggers, muttering to herself like . . . Ah, there we go!’

The key had finally turned and the lock had released its hold with a sulky clunk. Sheena opened the door, pushed it wide and stood back.

‘The police opened the curtains,’ she said. ‘Otherwise nothing’s been touched. Help yourself.’ With a mocking flourish, she gestured for Holly to enter.

Feeling very self-conscious, Holly handed back the pile of sheets and went into the room. It was very large. She registered barred windows, a stunning view of green hills and grey sky, a double brass bed, neatly made, a worn but beautiful Chinese rug in cream and pale blue, and a massive mahogany wardrobe with matching dressing table, chest of drawers and marble-topped washstand. Dust motes drifted in the stuffy air, which still bore the faint, lingering scent of Andrew’s cologne. Holly shivered.

‘Best room in the house, this one,’ said Sheena from the door. ‘Lovely and big, isn’t it? It was Una’s when she was a kid.’

The room was empty of life, empty of any signs of life. All the surfaces were bare, and very lightly filmed with dust. Holly repressed a sigh. For once, Andrew had cleaned up after himself.

‘Roly had number 2, across the hall, before his knees went and we had to move him downstairs,’ Sheena went on chattily. ‘It’s not so big, because the linen room takes up part of it, and it hasn’t got the view, but Roly liked to keep an eye on the road. He always slept with the remote for the front gates under his pillow. He had a thing about burglars. Una’s got it too now. She didn’t when she first came, but it’s grown on her.’

Holly went to the wardrobe and opened the three doors one by one. There was nothing to see but a brass rail and some wooden coat hangers.

‘You won’t find anything,’ Sheena said. ‘He’s taken all his things. Plus two hundred dollars out of Dulcie’s handbag— she’d been fool enough to leave it downstairs—twelve silver teaspoons, and who knows what else we haven’t found out about yet.’ She chuckled.

‘I’ve still got to look,’ Holly snapped. She was reflecting sourly that Una Maggott hadn’t said a word about any stolen money. It looked as if Una, like old Roly, had a selective memory.

‘Sure,’ Sheena said kindly. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it. Do you want this door shut in case Dulcie—?’

‘Thanks,’ said Holly, turning round and smiling stiffly to make up for snapping. Not that she really wanted to be closed in with the smell of Andrew’s after-shave. But she had promised Una Maggott that she’d search the room, so she felt compelled to do it. And if she were going to make a fool of herself she’d rather do it in private.

‘If you need anything, give me a hoy,’ Sheena said. ‘I’ll be in me room across the way—number 4, beside the stairs.’

As the door closed behind her, it occurred to Holly that the key was still on the outside. If Dulcie crept out of her room to find out what was happening, she might snaffle it. And if Una Maggott didn’t get the key back, there would be a scene.

She hurried to the door, wrenched it open, and jumped as she saw Sheena still standing almost directly outside. Sheena gaped at her, blinked twice, and whipped an aerosol can from the waistband of her tracksuit pants, her finger on the trigger.

Mace! Holly thought wildly, and jumped backwards.

There was a hiss, and the air filled with the smell of synthetic lavender.

‘Rats,’ Sheena said, spraying vigorously around. ‘Una got a fellow in to lay baits a month ago. They’re supposed to go outside to die, but that was a joke. The smell’s shocking.’

She sniffed, nodded as if satisfied, and took off towards her room, charging the air with puffs of spray as she went.

Heart still pounding uncomfortably, Holly watched as the lime green figure disappeared through the door marked 4 without looking back. How could she have thought Sheena was attacking her? She was getting as paranoid as Una Maggott.

It’s this house, she told herself. It would make anyone jumpy. Taking herself firmly in hand, she pulled the key from the door and put it back into her jacket pocket, her fingers trembling only slightly. Still, it had been an odd incident. Her thoughts ran on as she shut herself into Andrew’s room again. Why had Sheena been hanging around like that? It had nothing to do with air-freshener, for sure. Had she been listening at the door, curious about what Holly was doing? Maybe she’d been planning to steal the bathroom key herself.

Feeling much freer now she had no audience, Holly checked the chest of drawers, the dressing table, and the drawers of the washstand. She conscientiously searched the rug. She peered under the bed, felt under the mattress, and finally, embarrassed by her own zeal, stripped off the cream brocade bedspread, and the pillows, blankets and sheets. As Sheena had predicted, she didn’t find so much as a used tissue. And by now she’d started thinking this was odd. Why would someone planning to make off with his hostess’s teaspoons bother to leave his bedroom so pristine? It didn’t sound like something Andrew would do. He hadn’t left the Springwood house pristine—far from it.

Frowning over the problem, she remade the bed. She could have left it, she supposed, but it went against all her instincts not to restore it to its original, impeccable state. As she smoothed the bedspread, something else occurred to her. Surely Andrew would have at least sat on the bed, after he had packed and while he was waiting for the house to settle down. There was nowhere else to sit. Yet the bedspread hadn’t been even slightly disarranged.

She sat down on the bed herself, stood up, and noted the definite rumples she’d left behind her. Perplexed, she sat down again and gazed around the room. And it was then that she saw the small, dark object lying against the skirting board to the right of the door. Her stomach turned over.

She got up and walked slowly to the door, telling herself that she was imagining things. It was insane to think that this could happen to her twice in one day. But it had. The object was a sleek little mobile phone—not plugged into its charger this time, but lying all by itself.

It was Andrew’s phone, she was positive. She picked it up. It showed no signs of life. Either the battery was flat, or it had been turned off. She stared at it, and then at the place where she’d found it. How on earth had it got into that spot? How had Andrew, whose phone was like part of his body, left the room without it? And why had no one noticed it before?

The answer to the last question was obvious as soon as she thought about it. No one had noticed the phone for the same reason she hadn’t noticed it when she first came into the room. Because when the door was open, the phone was concealed behind it. Because Una Maggott had been right—the police had only given the bedroom the briefest of surveys, to humour her. They had seen that the bed hadn’t been slept in and that Andrew’s belongings were gone, and left it at that. But how had the phone magicked itself out of Andrew’s right hip pocket, where he invariably kept it, and hidden itself behind the door in the first place? It must have happened moments before Andrew left the room, otherwise he would have noticed it was missing.

Holly looked at the dark crack under the door. She remembered the rubber flap of the draught excluder grazing the floor as the door opened. If the phone had been lying directly in front of the door, it would have been swept back against the wall as the door opened, and ended up just where she’d found it.

A nasty, creeping feeling squirmed up Holly’s spine. A vivid image sprang into her mind: Andrew’s limp body being dragged to the door, the phone slipping from his pocket, unnoticed in the dark. The door being stealthily opened, the phone being brushed aside as its dead owner’s body was . . .

No! Holly shook her head violently. She was stressed and overtired—who wouldn’t be, after the day she’d had? But that was no reason to let herself get sucked into the twilight zone of Una Maggott’s paranoid fantasies. Firmly she considered the situation. Andrew McNish, faithless lover, con-man and spoon thief, had left this room on his own two feet. That was a given. So how had he lost his phone—and lost it right in front of the door?

Holly had known the phone to slip from Andrew’s pocket when he was sitting down. It had happened in a taxi once, and a couple of times the phone had made a brief escape into the cushions of the sofa he sat on to watch TV. But she couldn’t imagine Andrew sitting on the floor, especially moments before doing a midnight flit.

It happened somehow. Reconstruct the scene . . . It was as if the ghost of O’Brien had whispered in her ear.

Holly went to the windows and closed the curtains. The room dimmed dramatically. At night, it would have been completely dark.

Right, Holly thought. I am Andrew, packed and ready to leave. I’ve got a dozen stolen antique teaspoons in my bag and two hundred stolen dollars in my wallet. My phone is in my right hip pocket, switched off or at least turned to ‘silent’. It’s very late. The house is quiet. Okay, time to go . . .

She pressed the phone to her right hip, picked up an imaginary bag and crept to the door. By the time she got there, she was right in character. The door rose in front of her, dark except for the faint light from the corridor glimmering through the keyhole. She stretched out her hand to the doorknob and found she was holding her breath. If anyone saw her sneaking out of the room with a bag, the jig would be well and truly up. She hesitated, then impulsively crouched, leaned forward, and pressed her eye to the keyhole.

She saw a slab of empty corridor, the door of the linen store and the door of room number 2 beside it. She relaxed her fingers and let the phone drop. It landed on the rug with only the tiniest of sounds, well within the arc of the opening door.

Holly collected it and stood up, marvelling at how perfectly the reconstruction had worked. The horrible mental picture of a limp, dead Andrew being dragged away had vanished as if it had never been. In its place was the tacky but far more believable image of a furtive Andrew with his eye pressed to a keyhole, checking out his escape route. She could almost feel the ghost of O’Brien patting her on the back.

Briskly deciding that enough was enough, she left the room. Her feeling of being in control seemed to communicate itself to the key, which inexplicably turned at the first twist of her wrist.

On impulse she knocked softly on the door of room 3, next door, as she passed it. Receiving no answer, she quietly twisted the doorknob and looked in. The room was empty except for several strategically placed plastic buckets on the dusty floor. The ceiling was sagging and heavily water-stained. So Andrew had had no next-door neighbour on Tuesday night. That would have made him feel safer. Quietly Holly closed the door again.

The sound of rubber soles squeaking on polished boards and an exuberant female voice belting out ‘Mamma Mia’ were drifting through the half-open door of room 4, but Holly wasn’t tempted to pop her head in to say goodbye as she passed. Since the incident of the air-freshener, she’d rather gone off Sheena.

She reached the head of the stairs and hesitated. There was grim silence behind the door marked 5. Room 7, where Dulcie’s son apparently lurked, and rooms 6 and 8 on the other side of the corridor—Eric’s and Lily’s rooms, presumably— were just as quiet. At the very end of the corridor, beside room 7, a narrow staircase led up to the attic.

Holly told herself firmly that there was no need to investigate further. She had done what she had wanted to do, and what she had promised. That was enough. She ran down the stairs, ignoring their wooden shrieks, and was not surprised to see Una Maggott’s door snap open as she reached the entrance hall. The woman had obviously been listening out for her return.

‘Well?’ Una whispered avidly as Holly entered her room, closing the door behind her. ‘You found something, didn’t you? I can see it in your face. Was it—blood?’

She had the folder from the desk on her lap. She was patting and stroking it unconsciously, as if it were a religious relic.

Holly shook her head, very glad that she had done the search properly and had no need to prevaricate. ‘There were no bloodstains, Ms Maggott. No signs of violence at all.’

The older woman’s face convulsed. She spun her chair around and sped away from Holly, stopping a hair’s breadth from the python’s cage. She sat there panting, her shoulders heaving.

Holly felt a stab of pity. Then the chair spun round again and her heart sank. Una’s trembling lips had firmed and the fanatical gleam had returned to her small grey eyes.

‘Then they didn’t use a knife,’ she said. ‘Andrew was strangled. Or poisoned. Poisoned, yes! That would fit! Did you find the red mug? The mug with Andrew written on it?’

‘No,’ Holly said. ‘There was no mug.’

Una gripped the arms of her chair. ‘You mean you found nothing in that room?’ she asked dangerously. ‘No clues at all ?’

Reluctantly, keeping her eyes fixed on the woman’s face so as to screen out the python coiling in the background, Holly held out the mobile phone.

Una’s eyes widened. She zoomed forward and snatched the phone. ‘It’s his!’ she hissed. ‘Andrew’s! That proves it— proves he never left!’

‘Well, no, not really,’ Holly said. ‘It was behind the door. He could have dropped it, you see, when he—’

‘And the mug! You saw with your own eyes that it wasn’t there! But it should have been, you see? I gave Andrew that mug as a welcome gift, when he first came here. He always used it. He took it upstairs with him on Tuesday night. I saw him do it! But now the mug’s gone. It’s disappeared!’

‘Maybe he took it with him,’ Holly said lamely, though she couldn’t imagine Andrew McNish wanting a red pottery mug—even one with his name on it.

‘His tea was drugged,’ Una Maggott announced, her voice ringing with conviction. ‘They drugged him and strangled or smothered him. Then they took the mug away—hid it—in case the dregs were analysed—’

‘Ms Maggott, I have to go now,’ Holly broke in. Suddenly she couldn’t deal with this. She had to get away. The woman was irrational—completely obsessed.

Maggott’s tirade stopped abruptly. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

‘Oh, of course you do, of course you do,’ she mumbled. ‘Yes. It’s getting late. Eric will be getting edgy. Presumably you’ll be able to find your own way here tomorrow?’

Without waiting for an answer, she took the folder from her lap and thrust it into Holly’s unwilling hands. ‘I wrote a statement for the police,’ she said. ‘It was wasted on them— they barely looked at it—but everything’s in there. What time will I expect you in the morning?’

‘Ah, well, I’m not completely sure,’ Holly temporised, feeling terrible. She had no idea what she’d be doing tomorrow, but one thing she did know. She was never, ever going to set foot in this house again.

‘Be as early as you can,’ said Una Maggott. ‘I’m depending on you.’