Island-in-Waiting (19 page)

Instinctively I started to edge away but the clumsy movement wound the folds of my long skirt about my legs and I tugged at it to free myself. Where was Ray? What had happened? And what was there about this moment in time that it should have transported itself to me in advance by way of warning? Was I about to die?

Inches away a twig snapped and with it the last of my self-control. With only the vaguest sense of direction I flung myself forward, sobbing and choking with terror, wrenching my ankle on the uneven stony path, slipping and sliding in a frenzy of escape. Down, down to the blessed sunshine – nothing else mattered. Once out in the clear air the danger would miraculously melt away. If I could see, I should no longer be afraid. And it was then, with safety almost reached, that I saw him through the thinning strands of mist, the man from my dream turning slowly to face me, blocking off my descent.

The scream tore itself from my throat before I was aware of its conception and high above me in the invisible sky the gulls echoed it mockingly. It was still ringing in my head as I felt my arms seized and shaken and a voice, hoarse with shock, demanded urgently, “Chloe! Chloe for God's sake what's the matter?”

It was Neil.

My knees gave way and as I sagged he caught me up, holding me against his body for support. “What happened?” he repeated. “Are you hurt?”

Wordlessly I shook my head, the abrupt cessation of fear too swift for me.

“Is Ray with you?”

“I can't find him,” I said, and burst into tears.

“Then I'd better take you home. What frightened you so much?”

“Someone was up there.”

“Apart from Ray, you mean? Stop crying now and tell me what happened.”

Incoherently I explained about leaving Ray painting and the mist coming down while I slept.

“And he wasn't there when you got back?”

“No, that's what I can't understand. But someone was.”

“You saw him?”

“No. He stepped on a twig and I panicked and ran.”

“Your imagination was probably playing tricks by that time,” Neil said gently, “and I'm not surprised. I must say it was very irresponsible of Ray to go off like that. I hope for his sake he has a plausible explanation.”

My breath was steadying now, the tears drying on my cheeks, and it was beginning to dawn on me that this solicitous questioning was a distinct improvement on the cool rebuff of last night.

A very few steps brought us to the final outposts of the mist and incredibly, as I'd almost stopped believing, the sun still shone. Neil's car was parked at the foot of the hill, next to Ray's. I came to a halt.

“You see! He can't have gone!”

“I spotted his car from the main road. That's why I stopped.”

“But if he hasn't gone and he isn't up there, where is he?” My voice was beginning to rise again. Briskly Neil opened his car door and gave me a little push. “In!”

“But I can't just go off and leave him!”

“It seems he went off and left you. We could leave a note if you've any paper with you.”

I opened my bag, which surprisingly I hadn't dropped in my headlong flight, and tore a page from the diary. On it I scribbled, ‘Lost you in the mist so am going home. Chloe.' I handed it to Neil, who wedged it behind the windscreen wipers of the blue Renault. A moment later he was beside me and we were bumping over the rough ground to the main road.

“What were you doing here anyway?” I asked curiously.

After a moment's silence he said levelly, “I had you on my conscience. I didn't behave too well last night, did I?”

I bit my lip. “I'm afraid I made rather a fool of myself.”

“No, it was I who did that and as you guessed it was because of that phone call. It was the timing of it that was so fatal. I'd been thinking about you continuously since I'd left you the previous evening, and all at once it seemed that I may have been getting things out of proportion.” I felt him glance sideways at me but I was incapable of saying anything. “So I decided to keep my distance for a while. Then last night, when you explained what had happened, you disappeared before I'd had a chance to take it all in. Ironically enough, it was Ray who got through to me. I saw red at the time, but he was quite right.”

“He told me you almost came to blows.”

He smiled fleetingly. “If it's any consolation I had a pretty bad night and I called round at lunch time to apologize. Martha told me you were having a sitting and roughly where, so I drove in this direction on the off-chance that you might have finished, and happened to catch sight of Ray's car. Then I noticed that the hilltop was covered in mist and remembered the dream you'd told me about, so I came up to look for you. About Ray, though; is that sinister bond between you finished now that his uncle's dead?”

“I don't think so. I heard him calling just now. That's what woke me.”

“Heard him?”

“In my head, I mean.” I shuddered. “Up there in the mist it was exactly as I'd dreamt it, even to you appearing suddenly in front of me.” I paused. “In the dream, you were part of the danger.”

But Neil was not to be distracted by discussing my dreams. “You know, I think Ray's really fond of you, in which case letting fly at me on your behalf was decidedly out of character.” Again the quick, interrogative glance. “I know I keep coming back to this, but you are quite sure your feelings for him haven't changed?”

“I'm sorry for him,” I said quietly, “but that's all.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Quite, quite sure.”

He drew a deep breath. “And you'll forgive me for being such an idiot last night?”

I could only nod in reply but it seemed to satisfy him.

Hugo was in the garden when we stopped at the gate. His first glance must have taken in my tear-stained face, because he came quickly and opened the car door.

“You found her, then.”

“Yes. Ray'd gone off somewhere and the mist came down, so I thought I'd better bring her back.”

“Thanks very much. All right, honey?”

“More or less. I'll feel better when I know where Ray got to.”

“He'll probably phone when he gets back. Come in, Neil. You're welcome to stay for supper if you'll take pot luck.”

Looking back on that evening it stands out like a small oasis of happiness between my previous misery and the grief and suspicions that were to follow. The warmth of the room and my happiness in being with Neil combined to create in me an almost drugged state of euphoria, so that although I was expecting a phone call from Ray, I was not unduly worried when it didn't come.

When it was time for Neil to go and I went with him to the front door he held me for a moment and kissed me gently. “I won't press my luck any further at the moment, but I'll be back. All forgiven now?”

“All forgiven,” I replied, and there was a deep well of thankfulness inside me as I closed the door behind him.

Since there was no morning chapel at college that Sunday, Martha and Hugo and I again attended St Stephen's. By now I recognized several people in the congregation and the vicar had a word with me after the service. My roots on the island were already beginning to go down.

It was as I was straining the vegetables for lunch that the telephone rang and a few minutes later Hugo came into the kitchen. “That was Len Bennett from Staff House,” he told me. “Apparently Ray hasn't turned up yet.”

I dropped the wooden spoon and turned to face him. “You mean he's been missing all night?”

“It seems so. He wasn't in for an evening meal but no-one thought anything of that. Saturday evenings are a bit haphazard anyway. Neil was the only one who'd have placed any importance on his absence, and of course he was here. When Ray didn't appear at breakfast someone went to his room and found the bed hadn't been slept in. No-one seems to have seen him since he left to come here yesterday morning. So Neil drove Len to the painting site – they're just back now. The car's still there and all the painting equipment, but no sign of Ray.”

“We must go back at once.” I started fumbling with the strings of my apron. “Perhaps he went looking for me and slipped over the cliff. He could have concussion or a broken leg or something.” Further than that I dared not think.

“There's no point in rushing there straight away. Neil and Len had a pretty thorough search round all the most likely places.”

“But Hugo, I must go! If I hadn't left him when I did

“We'll have lunch first,” my brother said firmly. “Then if you insist I'll drive you over so you can satisfy yourself that he isn't lying injured somewhere.”

“I always knew something would happen to him. How could I have fallen asleep like that? If only I'd stayed with him nothing would have happened.”

“You might have disappeared, too,” Hugo retorted grimly.

“What do you mean?”

“Only that I'm increasingly thankful that Neil arrived when he did and brought you home. Now, are you going to serve lunch or must I do it myself?”

In view of Hugo's insistence I served the meal and even managed a few mouthfuls of the lamb I'd put in the oven so light-heartedly before we went to church. Neither Hugo nor Martha ate any more than I did. At one stage I said aloud, “He can't just have disappeared!” No-one contradicted me.

By unspoken assent we piled the dishes in the sink and left them. It was a grey day, without either yesterday's sunshine or its treacherous mists. Ray's car already had a deserted air about it. My note, sodden with the overnight rain, was still on the windscreen. Followed by Hugo and Martha I set off up the hill at a run.

The picture was ruined. The colours had run together so that blue tears seemed to course down my painted cheeks in uncanny prophecy. What sudden emergency could have forced Ray to abandon his precious painting – and me?

Still shadowed by Hugo and Martha I made a quick detour of the hill-top, peering fearfully over the steeper faces to the ground far beneath. Then disconsolately I turned back to the sad wreck of the painting, feeling that it was up to me to salvage what I could of Ray's scattered belongings. But before I could touch anything a voice behind me said sharply, “Just leave everything as it is, if you don't mind, miss.”

I turned to see the blue uniform of Ramsey police force coming up over the brow of the hill.

“My sister was here yesterday, with Mr Kittering,” Hugo explained to the man in charge.

“Ah, so you're the young lady, Miss. Perhaps I could have your name and address.”

Hugo gave me a small nod of encouragement and the policeman wrote it down. “Now, can you tell me in your own words the circumstances leading up to the disappearance?”

“Nothing led up to it!” I said a little wildly. “I just left Ray painting the background and went for a walk. He said he'd call when he was ready for me. I sat on a ledge for a while and fell asleep in the sunshine. When I woke the mist was covering the top of the hill and – and Ray'd gone.”

“And roughly how long was it from the time you left Mr Kittering until you came back here?”

“I don't know. Twenty minutes, perhaps.”

“You arrived here in Mr Kittering's car?”

“Yes.”

“And how did you get home?”

“Neil Sheppard came. He took me back.” Neil's name and address were noted in turn.

“At what stage did this Mr Sheppard arrive?”

“I met him when I was running back down the hill.”

“Running? In the mist?”

I moistened my lips. “I was frightened. I thought someone was up here but I couldn't see anything.”

“The mist can play strange tricks at times. We'll be taking a statement from Mr Sheppard, of course. Perhaps he –”

“How will that help? He wasn't even up here.” I became aware that as we were talking a group of men had spread out over the hilltop and begun a systematic search, beating at the gorse bushes and clumps of bracken. The idea that Ray might be beneath one of them brought nausea to my throat. Hugo took my arm.

“My sister is naturally very upset by all this, Sergeant. Would it be all right if I took her home?”

“Of course, sir. We'll send a woman police officer round this evening to take her statement more formally. When we've finished here we'll be cordoning off the area.”

“Can't I take the portrait with me?” I asked wistfully.

“I'm afraid not, Miss. It will have to be tested for fingerprints, though I doubt if there's much hope of finding any after all the rain last night.”

“Fingerprints? But why –?”

“We've been asked to search for a missing person,” the police sergeant replied stolidly. “You yourself thought someone was up here. If we can find out who that was, it might make a few things clearer.”

“Yes. Yes, I see.”

“Come along, Chloe,” Hugo said gently. “There's nothing we can do here.”

Neil was waiting at the gate when we reached the cottage. He caught and held me as I stumbled from the car. “You've been to the hill?”

“Chloe insisted. The police arrived while we were there.”

“Yes, I heard Len phoning them. It's incredible, isn't it? I can't seem to take it in.”

“People do disappear, though. You read of loving husbands slipping out to the corner shop for a packet of fags and never being seen again.”

“But not here!” Neil insisted. “It's not easy to disappear on an island.”

We went into the house together and the four of us washed the lunch dishes, falling over each other in the small kitchen but thankful to have something to occupy us. We didn't talk much. I was remembering my first sight of Ray from the kitchen window and the impression I'd received of a shadow hovering over him. Sickly I knew that shadow had caught up with him.