Chapter Fifty-one

THE SMALL ELEVATOR car rose up the shaft fast and silent. I was on edge – I had no idea where inside the house it would stop and if anyone would be at home.

It jerked to a halt and I heard the sound of an electric motor. When the door finally opened I saw what it operated; the sheet-rock wall of a large linen closet concealing the elevator had slid aside. I stepped into the gloom, moved fast between shelves of neatly pressed sheets and quietly cracked open a door.

I looked out into a corridor. I was on the second floor, a part of the house I had never seen before. I could have left then – I had found the secret way into the mansion – but I heard a voice, muffled and unrecognizable because of the distance, and slipped into the long hallway.

The sound stopped, but I kept creeping forward until I found myself facing the grand staircase. On the far side, a door into the master bedroom suite was partly open.

From inside, I heard the voice again: it was Cameron, and it occurred to me that she might be talking quietly to herself, spending time in the bedroom with the memory of her husband. I remembered how she had said that if she laid on the bed she could smell him and imagine that he would still be there. Then I heard a second voice.

It was a woman’s – a young American from the Midwest by the sound of it. She was saying something about a restaurant when she stopped abruptly.

‘What’s that? ’ she asked.

‘I didn’t hear anything, ’ Cameron replied.

‘No, not a sound – there’s a draught. ’

She was right – the wind was coming along the tunnel, up the elevator shaft and seeping out of the linen closet.

‘Did you leave the door in the boat shed open? ’ Cameron asked.

‘Of course not, ’ the other woman said.

They both knew about the tunnel – so much for Cameron’s Oscar-winning performance about loving her husband.

‘Maybe the wind’s blown open one of the doors downstairs, ’ Cameron said. ‘There’s a storm coming in. ’

‘I don’t know, I’m just gonna have a look around. ’

‘I thought we were going to go to bed, ’ Cameron replied.

‘We are – it’ll only take a minute. ’

I heard a drawer being opened then a metallic click. From long and unhappy experience, I knew the sound of a pistol being cocked when I heard it, and I turned and headed fast towards the linen closet.

The corridor was too long and I realized immediately that, when the unknown woman stepped out of the bedroom, she would see me. I pivoted left, opened a door and stepped inside a guest bedroom. I closed the door silently and, with my heart racing, stood in the unlit space, hoping that she would go down the grand staircase.

She didn’t. I heard footsteps approaching, and I prepared myself to take her down and disarm her the moment the door opened. She passed by – heading for the back stairs, I figured – and I gave her a minute before I slid back into the corridor.

It was empty, and I moved fast to the linen closet, watched the secret wall slide shut behind me and waited for the elevator to descend towards the tunnel. Only then did I lean against the wall and concentrate, trying to imprint the exact sound and tone of the woman’s voice on my memory.

In reality, I needn’t have bothered – strangely, it was the smell of gardenias that turned out to be significant.