Forget Her Name(48)

So who did? Could it really have been Kasia?

By the time Dominic and I got back to the house last night, my parents were in bed and all the lights were off. We crept up to our bedroom, hand in hand, trying not to make too much noise. The wall above the bed was still damp, but clean of any lipstick. There was a faint reddish smear where the hangman’s noose had been.

I know somebody went up to our bedroom yesterday and left that drawing on the wall for me to find. And maybe it wasn’t Kasia. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know who did it. She could have let someone else into the house. Or failed to shut the front door, as she apparently did today, so that anyone could just walk in off the street.

As Dominic said, whoever did it wanted to frighten me.

But who? And why?

Unable to answer that, I head for my father’s study instead. The door is often locked because his work at the Foreign Office sometimes involves keeping sensitive documents on the premises.

To my relief though, like the front door, his study isn’t locked today.

I don’t want to hand the letter over in person, that would be too embarrassing. But I’d dreaded having to leave the letter somewhere more public like the kitchen, for instance. Even if I know Kasia would never dare to open and read it, the very fact that I’m writing to my parents when we live under the same roof must seem strange. Especially after my accusation just now.

I hate people knowing my business. My dad calls it being ‘secretive’. But if so, I got it from him. As a diplomat, he often has to be secretive. I’ve never understood why being secretive is a strength for him, but a weakness for me.

Double standards.

In my dad’s study, the full-length curtains are still closed, the lights off. I guess he didn’t come in here before leaving for the office today, or not for long. I love this room, always have. It feels so snug. The walls are insulated with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, several shelves of rare calf-bound volumes from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries housed in a glass-fronted cabinet. A few early editions of Milton’s Paradise Lost are among his collection.

I don’t bother putting on the lights. There’s enough daylight creeping in around the curtain edges to navigate my way across the room to his large, leather-topped desk.

I pull the letter out of my handbag, and smooth it out. I’ve sealed it inside a plain white envelope, and written Mum and Dad on the front.

It seems ridiculously formal.

But Dominic’s right; this is the least painful way to get answers. Assuming they reply and don’t just ignore my letter.

There’s a photo frame on his desk. It’s a photograph I don’t remember seeing before. A holiday snap of Mum on some windswept beach when she was much younger. A baby in a swimsuit is squirming on her hip. Is it me or Rachel? It’s hard to tell, the baby’s face is hidden under a pink sun hat and those chubby legs could belong to either of us.

I lean the envelope upright against the photo frame where Dad can’t fail to see it. There’s a creaking noise in the hallway and I turn my head.

The study door is ajar.

‘Hello?’ I say.

There’s someone outside the door, I’m sure of it. No sound, but I can feel a change in atmosphere. A sense of someone standing there and listening. Breathing quietly.

I frown, straightening. ‘Kasia? Is that you?’

No answer. But the light levels in the room flicker, then steady again, as if someone has just slipped soundlessly past the door, blocking out the light for a second.

I stiffen and stare at the partly open door, holding my breath.

Is someone else in the house?





Chapter Twenty-Nine I go to the door and open it, jerking it back. ‘Who’s there?’

The passageway is empty.

I stare up and down it, then lean forward to peer up the staircase.

Nothing.

‘Bloody hell.’ I start to turn away, then realise I’ve missed something.

The cellar door.

It’s usually shut, but today it’s open. Not fully open, but a crack . . . Like someone went down there to retrieve something – a bottle of wine, some china or linen – and forgot to shut it afterwards.

Hesitantly, I go to shut it, and hear something from below. Just the faintest echo of a cry from the dark pit of the cellar. Like a hungry baby, starting to whine.

I listen and it comes again. No, not a baby’s cry. A mewing sound.

A cat?

I stand there motionless, stunned.

We don’t have a cat.

Reluctantly, I open the cellar door and look down the steps to the cellar. ‘Kasia?’

There’s no reply. It’s pitch-black down there.

I leave the door ajar and head for the kitchen. I want to find Kasia. But the kitchen is empty, and she isn’t in the breakfast room either. I check the two dim and chilly pantries. No sign of her anywhere.

The side door to the back garden is locked and bolted from the inside. So Kasia does know how to use a key, I think wryly, rattling the door as I try it. But at least that means she’s unlikely to be outside.

So where is she?

I didn’t hear her go upstairs while I was in the study. But there was that fleeting shadow across the door . . . going in the wrong direction, I thought at the time, back towards the kitchen. But perhaps I made a mistake and it was Kasia heading upstairs with the vacuum or a basket of clean laundry. She usually checks the bedrooms are tidy, of course. Makes the beds, does a quick vacuum round, and brings down any cups or glasses left upstairs. But normally that gets done first thing, shortly after she arrives.