She slapped on the panel of the door with the flat of her hand and then she knocked gently. “Hello?” she said. Her voice was cracked and thin. She thought for a sudden foolish moment of terror that the whole household had moved away. They had stolen Christopher and hidden him, and now they had locked her in her room and cleared out. She would starve up there. She would thirst and then die, and no-one would ever search for Christopher. No-one would ever find him.
Lily banged on the door more loudly. “Let me out!” she said. Her voice was stronger with use. This time she made a noise that people in the house could hear.
On the other side of the door she heard footsteps and then the noise of a key in the lock. “Step back from the door, Mrs. Winters,” a cool authoritative voice said. “Step back and sit on the bed, please.”
Lily, like a little mechanical doll, obeyed; and was sitting on the bed when the door opened and the strange woman in grey came into the room and shut the door firmly behind her.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
She seemed to think it quite normal that she should walk uninvited into Lily’s bedroom and inquire after her health.
“Who are you?” Lily demanded. “I want to see my husband.”
The woman smiled slightly. “I asked you how you are,” she repeated.
Lily felt her grip on reality shifting and eroding. “I’m all right,” she said uneasily.
“I expect you’d like a drink and something to eat. Throat dry?”
Lily nodded.
“D’you need the bathroom?”
Lily nodded again.
“I shall take you to the bathroom,” the woman said firmly. “But don’t try to go downstairs. We don’t want to go downstairs this evening. Just to the bathroom and back again. All right?”
Lily found herself nodding, too puzzled and frightened to argue. “I want to see my husband,” she said quietly.
“All in good time,” the woman said. “Bathroom first, yes?”
Lily got up and the woman took her by the right arm and helped her walk across the room. She opened the door and guided Lily to the bathroom. At the threshold she stepped back and closed the door on Lily. The key was missing from the lock. Stephen’s shaving things and razor blades had gone from their usual place.
Lily sat on the toilet and then washed her face and hands. Her skin felt tired and dry. She felt as if she were eighty or ninety years old. She wanted a bath but she could not face the effort of running it. She was aware of smelling of sweat and a strange dank smell of fear. She took a flannel and wiped her throat and her breasts, but she had no energy to wash properly. She cleaned her teeth and rinsed the stale drugged taste from her mouth. She felt deeply weary.
When she opened the door the woman was waiting for her on the landing.
“That’s better,” she said encouragingly. “Now back to your room and I’ll bring you up some supper, and then an early night.”
“What time is it?” Lily asked.
“Nearly bedtime,” the woman replied. She guided Lily through the door and sat her in the little bedroom armchair.
“I asked what time is it?” Lily repeated.
The woman smiled at her. “It’s been a very long and difficult day,” she said. “You stop worrying, I’ll bring you up a nice tray of something, and then you can have a good sleep.”
“Have they found Christopher?” Lily asked dully. She knew they would not find him until they asked Stephen or Coventry where the baby was hidden. And no-one but her would ever ask Stephen or Coventry.
“They’ll find him soon,” the woman said. “Now, will you sit there like a good girl while I fetch some supper?”
Lily nodded, feeling her will slip away under the woman’s determination.
The nurse went out of the room. Lily heard the key turn in the lock without surprise or even resentment. She was apparently imprisoned, and this woman was her jailer. She thought fleetingly of Charlie, who was the only person who would rescue her from this, and then realized that he too was locked up. Slowly, through her exhausted mind she traced the path that had led her to being imprisoned in her own room. Charlie was arrested, she was captive. The inspector had not believed that the car used in the kidnap was Stephen’s car. No-one was going to rescue Christopher.
Lily forced herself up from the chair and went to the door and listened. The house was silent. She tried the door handle. It turned but the door did not open. She was indeed locked in. She went to the window, moving slowly as if she were wading through deep water. It was a sash window with a bolt in the middle of the frame, locking the top window to the bottom. Lily stood on the window seat and tugged at the lower window until it shifted. She pushed it up. It made a sharp grating sound. She froze, expecting to hear the woman’s return, fearful of her. But the house was as quiet as if they were all asleep. Or as if they had all, indeed, gone away.
Lily leaned out of the window. She was three storeys up. Below her was the perilous drop to the well-cut front lawn and the basement wall. She would break her neck if she fell. To the left of the window was a solid ornate drainpipe, and below her window was Rory’s bedroom. Below that was the drawing room. Rory’s window spilled yellow light through a gap in the curtains. Lily glanced behind her once more, as if the bedroom door might have magically opened and spared her this ordeal. She was still hazy from the drug, neither miracle nor nightmare would have surprised her. She said quietly, “Christopher,” as if his name were a prayer, and slung one leg over the window ledge, and then the other.
She perched on the ledge, feeling unsteady and fearful. The drainpipe was just out of reach, she would have to push off and stretch out for it. Only a sudden fear that the woman in grey would come back and push her, push her out of the window, off the ledge into nothingness, forced Lily forwards. She thrust out with one foot against the wall and reached with her arms for the drainpipe. She made it. She clung to the drainpipe like a monkey, but her grip was not strong enough, her muscles were still slack from the drug. She could feel herself, remorselessly, unstoppably sliding downwards. Her hands, her arms, the skin of her thighs burned as she slid, but then her scrabbling stockinged feet found a bracket bolting the drainpipe to the wall and she stood on tiptoes on the little metal bars and looked sideways.
She was just a few feet above the level of Rory’s window. With a soft sob she slid a little further and gripped tight. Again, the window sill was beyond her reach. She would have to stretch out to it, but this time there was nothing to grab. Lily looked upwards. She could not climb back up. She looked down and knew that she could not hold on for the long slide to the ground.
She stretched out, feeling her fear precipitate her into a sense of floating irresponsibility. She almost laughed from sheer terror. Then she launched herself from the drainpipe towards the window sill and felt the bricks and mortar suddenly scratch her palms as she grabbed the side of the window and lurched inwards, to the pane of glass.
She perched precariously on the narrow ledge and peered through the gap of the curtain. Nurse Bells was just settling Rory to sleep, Lily recognized the routine. The glass of water put within his reach, the electric bell pinned to the bedcover, the final “good night” and then the switching off of all the lights except the little one by his bed. Lily made herself count from one to thirty, slowly, and then she tapped on the window, sidled into the gap of the curtains, and waved.
Rory was sitting up cushioned by pillows. At the noise of her tapping he stared towards the window and his face grew suddenly alert as he saw her, and then recognized her.
Lily mouthed, “Help me!” through the glass.
Rory pulled himself upright in the bed and looked towards his wheelchair. He reached as far as he could, but his hands could not grip it. His legs, still paralysed, stayed immobile in the bed. Lily could do nothing but watch him, and feel her own muscles tremble with the strain and with the cold. In a little while the strange woman in grey would be back in Lily’s bedroom and then she would k
now that Lily was trying to escape.
Rory made a final heave and got one hand on the arm of the wheelchair, and drew it towards the bed. He got it as close as he could, and then clicked on the brake. Using both arms he heaved himself towards it and then lurched towards the seat. The chair rocked back as he fell into it, but did not tip over. He twisted himself around into the ordinary sitting position, released the brake, and wheeled it towards the window.
Lily found she was biting her lips with anxiety. Every moment that went by increased the chances that the strange woman would come for her. Lily had an irrational fear that the woman would come after her, down the drainpipe, and push her off the window ledge. She moaned very quietly and then fixed her sharp teeth into her lower lip to silence herself.
Rory was heaving himself from the wheelchair to the window seat. He moved like a merman, with useless fins for legs. He pulled himself along the window seat and then reared up to reach the lock. His anguished face and Lily’s were very close, on either side of the glass.
His long weak fingers struggled with the lock. Lily could see the start of despair in his face, so close to her own. She nodded frantically, urging him to keep trying. She could see the muscles on his neck straighten and knot as he struggled with the latch. At last it moved and Lily saw the delight and relief on his face. He dropped back down to the window seat and she could see him shudder at relief from the strain. He rested for only a second and then thrust his fingers through the metal loops for raising the window.
Lily nearly forgot her peril and stepped back off the ledge. She wavered slightly and then the cool updraught of sea air prompted her to cling to the side of the window as Rory raised the bottom half. Lily dropped her head and shoulders and rolled in.
“What . . . ?” Rory demanded.
“I’ve got to go,” Lily said. “I know where Christopher is. Give me ten minutes and then ring for someone to get you back into bed. I’ll see you when I get back.” She was halfway across the room before she glanced back at him. “Thank you,” she said. “I love you, Rory.”
She opened the door and listened intently. She could hear the murmur of talk from the drawing room, but the hall and landing were empty. Nurse Bells had left for the night; the staff would be in the kitchen. Lily, soundless in her stockinged feet, crept down the carpeted stairs.
The clock in the hall showed that it was twenty past ten but Lily had no sense of time. She watched the crack of light under the drawing room door as if she could forbid the door to open. As if she could keep Stephen safely in the room by sheer will power.
She slid past the drawing room door as quiet as a ghost, and opened the dining room door and stepped in. It was so like her dream of the night before that for a moment Lily thought she was dreaming again. Perhaps the woman in grey, and the trenches, and the fear of falling and now the dining room were all part of the same terrifying dream.
The French windows opened easily and Lily crept down the steps to the garden. The moon was hidden by cloud, the garden was filled with shadows. Lily paused, wondering if now she would find the pram and Christopher sleeping easily inside it. She glanced towards the stone garden seat. It was pale and cold and empty. She ran past it to the garden gate. It opened without a sound and Lily slipped through and over the cobbled yard to the garages.
The Argyll was there.
Lily checked for a moment, shocked out of her certainty. She had been sure that Coventry would have taken the car over to Hayling Island. She had been sure that he had taken Christopher on that very first morning to the little houseboat at the water’s edge. She had been sure that he would be there with her baby now. But if Coventry was in his room over the garage and the Argyll was parked in its usual place then she had no idea where her baby might be. For the first time since Christopher had gone missing, it occurred to Lily that he might be dead.
Lily opened the door of her own little car. Whatever had happened to her baby she had to get away from the woman in grey, and from the doctors who would drug her, and the police who would arrest her. She would never know what had happened to her son unless she could escape from the house now.
Coventry kept the petrol level topped up, the car was ready for her to drive. She pushed the lever to retard the spark into the start position and turned the switch. The engine started at once. She pressed the accelerator and put the car in gear. It moved forward, and she drove out of the garage yard and northwards, away from the house, away from the staring windows.
She drove as fast as she dared along the streets which were sometimes lit with bright electric lights and sometimes shadowy blue from gas lighting. The roads were empty. When the town was left behind her and Lily was on the main coast road going east, she put her foot down hard on the accelerator and watched the speed of the car creep upwards. On the top of the bonnet was the little glass temperature gauge. As Lily drove faster than she had ever gone before she saw the needle turn around from cold to warm and then slowly towards hot.
She dared not go any slower. She knew that the woman in grey would have raised the alarm by now, Stephen had the Argyll in the garage and Coventry might be in his room or in the kitchen. Stephen might call the police, or he might hunt for her himself. Her worst fear was that he would know, intuitively, where she was going. He would take his bigger, faster car, and follow her. All the way along the coast road with the sound of the waves sighing as the tide came in over the mudflats and the fog rolled in on their grey crested backs, Lily watched her wing mirror for the telltale lights of a pursuing car.
She turned over the little bridge to Hayling Island and gasped in fear as the steering wheel bucked in her hands as she took the right angle turn to the south too fast. The little car held the road and she forced it across the narrow bridge. The timbers boomed as she accelerated, and then she was on the other side and the marshes, ghostly with mist, were behind her. The road running south was twisty and Lily did not know it. She was forced to go slower and slower after she had nearly brushed a corner taking a turn too fast. She had an increasing sense of panic at the thought that the turns of the road which were slowing her down would not delay Stephen, who knew this road well, but they would hide his headlights so that she would not know he was behind her until she heard the rush of his car and suddenly saw the blaze of the full beam of his headlights.
Lily gave a little gasp of fear and pressed her foot down on the accelerator as far as she dared. The road was nearing the sea again, she could see the strips of mist flickering in her headlights and hear the ominous bellow of the lightships out in the harbour. She came to a T junction, half obscured by blown sand at the southernmost point of the island, and turned right. The road was little more than a bumpy track. Lily threw the little car at drifts of sand and ditches, and clung to the steering wheel as they rocketed along. There were no lights behind her, the road was dark, lit only by starlight and by deceptive veils of white sea mist. The foghorns grew louder, the sand on the road deeper and more dangerous. Lily was forced to slow down and then she saw the little inn and the pier for the ferry passengers and she swung the car to the right and parked it.
Ahead of her were the three houseboats. There was a light shining through a little tear in a blackout blind of the furthest boat. It was painted with black waterproof varnish, unlike the other white-washed pair. A curl of smoke was coming from the chimney, matched by a sea of mist washing and moving around the stern and the prow as if the houseboat were afloat and about to set sail. Someone was at home.
Lily, still barefoot, crept across the shingle, wincing in discomfort from the sharp stones. She stepped on to the ladder which led to the little door and crept upwards. The door was not locked. She put her hand on the latch and it yielded easily and swung open.
In the lamplit room before her she could see Coventry hunched in the fireside chair. At the back of the room was the big blue pram. It was quite empty.
Lily stumbled into the room, her legs buckling beneath her.
“My baby,” she sa
id simply. She was beyond fear. The sight of the empty pram had told her that her search was over and her life was now worthless. She was too late. She had thought her way through the maze of madness too late. All she had found was an empty blue coach-built pram and the hand-embroidered white sheets. Her baby had been dead for days.
“My baby,” she said again. Her voice was devoid of any feeling.
Coventry stood up and came towards her, his face warm with tenderness.
“Here he is,” he said. His voice was croaky and harsh. But the words were clear. He held out the little bundle he had been nursing. As Lily, disbelieving, received him, Christopher stirred in his sleep and then nestled into his mother’s arms.
Lily held him and felt the warmth of his little body, the firm lightness of him. She bent her face to him and inhaled the sweet inimitable smell of her baby, she caressed his small clenched fist. She buried her face in his neck and felt her whole body melt with tenderness and with a sense of restoration so powerful that she was suddenly young and strong again.
“Christopher,” she said.
“He wanted him dead,” Coventry said quietly. “He told me to take him and drown him. So I took him and hid him here instead. I didn’t know what to do for the best. I didn’t know what was the best.”
Lily raised her head from Christopher’s warm sleeping form and was about to question him when she heard, at some distance, the quiet well-tuned noise of the Argyll’s engine. It came closer, drew up behind Lily’s car and the engine was switched off. Lily and Coventry froze, their eyes locked, as they heard the car door slam and Stephen’s confident steps across the gravel and up the steps, one—two—three—four. He pushed the door open and came into the room.
Lily would not have recognized him. His face was bright and alive as she had never seen it before. In his hand was an officer’s revolver, held casually with an experienced grace. He looked like the man who had led his men for vengeance, on a forlorn hope. He looked like the man who had learned to look death in the face and laugh at it as an empty threat. He looked like a man superbly adapted to fight a man’s war. He looked like a man who could never live at peace.