Roots of Evil(118)

Probably most women just took dinner dates on the wing, saying, Oh, this is the first thing that fell out of the wardrobe, and it’ll do for a plate of spaghetti and a glass of red plonk.



Francesca had changed her mind about what to wear tonight three times already. She had finally decided to play safe with a black silk sweater (it was fairly low-cut, but not tartily so), a chunky gold necklace, and some rather jazzy silk palazzo trousers that Marcus had once sneeringly said made her look like a refugee from a circus.

It felt peculiar but exciting to be preparing to go out to dinner with a man after so long. Fran thought she would have been nervous if it had not been Michael, which struck her as a peculiar way to think. She had set the bottle of brandy and glasses on the low table, and had laid the fire so that she need only put a match to it when they got in. Would Michael see through the small scene-setting ploy, and would he smile the three-cornered smile that made his eyes slant upwards at the corners?

Just on six. Fran experienced a small lurch of pleasure, because there were only a couple of hours left until he arrived. She would take a long hot bath, with an extravagant allowance of scented bath oil, and after she was dressed she would go back downstairs and wait in the armchair in the bay window. From there she would be able to see him drive up to the house.



Michael had decided to make for the White Hart in his car. He acknowledged that he could not have managed the journey to London, but surely to God he could drive the short distance to the village. Quite apart from contacting Francesca, he needed to arrange a taxi to the railway station for the train journey home tomorrow.

He was glad he had only taken one of the hospital’s pills and he thought he could keep the worst of the drowsy light-headedness at bay. Remembering he had had no lunch, he had eaten a clumsily made chicken sandwich and an apple, after which the world seemed slightly less unreal. But it was strange how the house had passed from being a welcoming place – a place that a few hours ago he had been regretting not having known in his childhood – to something quite different. Watchful. Menacing. The kind of feeling you got if you knew you weren’t alone…The kind of feeling he had had all those years ago, crammed into a dank, bad-smelling cupboard under some stairs…Praying that a man whose eyes had been gouged out would not find him…

Oh, for goodness’ sake stop it! You’ve had a bash on the hand and it was hard enough to crack a bone and damage a tendon, and your mind’s playing tricks from the pain and the pill, that’s all!

He turned off the radio and the light and he was about to switch off the little electric fire when he caught a sound from outside. He went out into the hall and listened carefully. Nothing there. Imagination. He was about to go back into the study when the sound came again. And this time it was not imagination. This time it was the soft but unmistakable crunch of footsteps on the gravel path outside.

Michael stayed where he was. Someone was definitely out there. Someone was walking around the side of the house, and whoever it was was moving very stealthily indeed.

Might it be an ordinary, innocent caller? It was only six o’clock in the evening, after all. But local people must surely know that Deborah Fane had died and that the house was empty. A salesman, then? Somebody flogging encyclopedias or religion or canvassing for votes? But the house was a quarter of a mile from the road, and unless you knew it was there you would go straight past the turning.

That left the very sinister possibility that it was a burglar. Someone local who knew the house was empty and was going to take a chance on getting in and grabbing anything valuable or saleable. This was such a strong possibility that Michael felt a chill of fear for his own vulnerable condition. He glanced about him for something to use as a weapon. Or would discretion be the better part of valour, and would it be better to simply beat the hell out of it? His jacket, with the car keys in the pocket, was still in the hall; he could grab it and be through the main front door inside ten seconds. He tried to remember what kind of lock the front door had. An ordinary Yale, wasn’t it? Then all he had to do was flip it back and turn the latch. A dozen paces to his car and he could be away.

The footsteps had stopped, but the feeling of an unseen presence was still frighteningly strong. He’s still out there, thought Michael, and with the thought came a movement beyond the uncurtained kitchen window that sent his heart hammering against his ribs. A figure, unrecognizable from here, pressed up against the pane, and a hand came up and tapped lightly on the glass – so lightly that only someone near to the window could have heard it.

As an antidote to a damaged hand and a hefty dose of painkiller, the sight of that indistinct figure and the soft, fingernail tapping was electric. Michael forgot about feeling light-headed, and he forgot about the pain in his hand. His mind went into overdrive, because he had been right – there was a prowler out there, and he was looking in and making sure the place really was empty before breaking in. In another minute he would lever open the back door, or smash the window and climb through. Michael was no coward, but in his current state he was not sure if he would be able to deal with some desperate house-breaker, who might be high on drink or drugs.

Was it possible to sprint down the hall and be out through the front door without being seen or heard? He was just considering this when the most chilling sound yet reached him. A key was being turned very slowly and very carefully in the lock of the garden door. As Michael stared in horrified disbelief, the door began to inch open.