Dear Deceiver(7)

'Here, take them-if you must. I suppose I'll get used to it.'

He continued to watch as she put them on, the way, no doubt, he gazed at  the poor squirrels he was marking out for destruction. A cool hard look  but apparently satisfying. 'All right. You could have been an impostor,  but you're you.' The eyes narrowed. 'I take it I wasn't to be honoured.  Or Glenglass. Just your mother.'

'I...' This added riddle to the nightmare. How did he know she had planned to see Antonia?

'Well, well, who'd have thought it? Suzanne Brown...' he stressed it nastily. 'Actually at a loss for words.'

The tone and the block-like impassive face was infuriating. Haidee found  her gorge rising. 'I'm glad it amuses you. And yes, I am surprised. Is  that so strange? I can't imagine a bigger coincidence.'

'Coincidence!' In other circumstances the lifted eyebrows would have  been comic. 'There's no coincidence. I came out looking for you. Your  mother has recovered consciousness.'

'How do you know?' Her stomach felt precisely as though she had dropped into an air pocket.

'I called at the hospital. They were on the point of telephoning you. So  for old times' sake,' the mouth took a wry twist, 'I told them I'd do  chauffeur.'                       
       
           



       

The sentence was a nail bomb. 'For old times' sake.' What old times? His  reign at Glenglass was too recent to have concerned Suzanne. 'I called  at the hospital.' Why? Straw after straw piled up into near dementia.

'What did the hospital say?'

Rory Hart had a habit of holding his head slightly to one side of his  broad neck. The inquisitor effect could have been accidental. She felt  sure it was not. 'The facts, of course. What else? That Freeman had  found you and you would come if required. Well, you are required, and  quickly, if you want to see her alive.'

For the second time in minutes the sensation of air pockets returned. The whole implication was so contrary to the truth.

'What's the matter? Should I have broken it gently?' he demanded  unsympathetically. 'I hardly thought it would come as a surprise.' For  all that his face was a shade less dour.

'It doesn't. I've been waiting for it,' Haidee said quietly. She looked  round for Skipper and whistled him to heel. He came in a cartoon rush of  ears and legs which could hardly have been more out of place.

'Personally I'm against this,' Rory Hart observed as they walked back to  the car. 'At this stage it can't do much for your mother and,' he  hesitated, 'what's done is done, No use upsetting yourself fifteen years  late.'

It made more sense than Paul's line of reasoning, but, like the look, it  was hard and cold. Typical of the man who had ravaged Glenglass.

'It's a matter of opinion,' Haidee said sharply. 'Some people might say  it was better late than never.' She had spoken, she realized  disconcertingly, as Haidee Brown who had seen no sacrifice in the  services performed for another and dearly loved invalid. The speech had  been a mistake, for at once the blue eyes gave her a shrewd sideways  glance.

'You've changed,' their owner remarked expressionlessly.

It was like crossing a river on stepping stones that you had to place  yourself, one after the other. What had she to go on? She didn't even  know Suzanne's surname. And so far, nothing had been quite as she'd  visualized it from Paul. Rory Hart, for instance, had been at the  hospital. Why? Surely he did not visit Antonia Whittaker.

'Have you seen her?' she asked jerkily.

'To tell her, you mean? About you?' He was not as tall as Paul, but he  would always have the illusion of height. Or was it just that at that  moment Haidee felt herself shrink almost physically with fear?

Paul, she remembered, had said that Rory Hart was a local. Why had this  danger not occurred to either of them? He could have known Suzanne in  childhood-and kept in touch with her after her flight. What to do?  Assume he did know something? A sixth sense urged her to wait. She did  so silently and with success-success, that is, of a kind.

'Don't worry,' unmistakable contempt laced her companion's voice. 'She's  heard nothing from me, near as I've often come to it. What you tell  her-or don't-is entirely up to you.'

Concession? It seemed so. Dear heaven, what had Suzanne done? And yet at this point in time there was surely only one answer.

'I'll tell her good-bye,' Haidee said shortly. 'That's all.' As a  statement it did not seem to warrant the dryness in Rory Hart's look.  'You find that strange?' she challenged.

'Interesting,' he corrected, opening the door. 'You'll agree that saying good-bye has hardly been your métier.'

Haidee had never thought of herself as pretty, but she did aim  continually at being neat and speckless. It came of being brought up to  wear a pinafore in the house and to keep her shoes on trees.  Surprisingly, Rory Hart seemed to have similar leanings. His hair was  trim and his hands immaculate. The car's interior, which might well have  been grimy, was spotless and positively monastic. Sole evidence of  personal clutter was a pair of sun-glasses in the glove compartment. He  did not drive slowly and James Larkin Road was swallowed while Haidee  was bringing herself to the pitch.

'If you don't mind, I'd like to change. It won't take more than a minute.'                       
       
           



       

'I seem to have heard that before,' he said uncompromisingly.

It was not encouraging. 'I'll tell you where to stop.'

'No need. I know the house.' He snapped out the indicator. 'I was  knocking at it when your neighbour told me Miss Brown had gone out on  the Bull. Brown!' he repeated scathingly. 'Couldn't you have hit on  something less phony?'

Haidee swallowed. 'I didn't think of it that way.'

'Oh well, I suppose it's one cut better than Smith.' He pulled in neatly  at her gate and switched off. 'Mind yourself getting out. Let the  cyclist past.'

It was another awkward moment. Like it or not, he seemed to have been on  familiar terms with Suzanne. Would she have left him sitting 'outside  the house? 'Won't you come in?' Haidee invited formally. She added:  'I'll only be a minute,' in the hope that he would not consider it worth  his while.

The hope was not realized. Another oblique look and the driver's door  opened. 'AH right, then,' Rory Hart said casually, and followed her up  the path.

The situation had its funny side. During the past year almost the only  male visitors to the Brown ménage had been the doctor and the parish  clergy. Now no less than two men, in the space of twenty-four hours, had  stepped across its threshold, a fact which Haidee was certain had not  gone unnoticed by Skipper's mistress. It was certainly not unnoticed by  Brand who pirouetted from the kitchen, his plumy tail a ramrod. He was a  cheery cat and he thought a chap couldn't have too many friends. He  gave in greeting the whole of his half octave range.

Haidee was prone to think dotingly that Brand's cream and amber  thistledown would have given him Best of Breed in any show. 'My cat,'  she said proudly.

'Keep him away from me. I don't like cats,' Rory Hart said dourly. 'As you very well know,' he added.

Haidee felt herself flush. How long would it take to remember that this  was indeed Operation Stepping Stones? She must take nothing for granted.  She must live by feelers.

In the circumstances, even one reminiscence would be valuable. It would  help her to see the young Suzanne and the young Rory together. But fate  was not to be so easily won. Rory Hart did not elaborate, he darted a  question.

'How long have you lived here?'

It could have been shock tactics, but Haidee was improving. 'About two years. I...'

'About two years.' Tone and expression were bland. 'Then I put it to you  that at any moment in that period if you'd felt an urge for the past  you had only to lift the telephone. Your concern now is supposed to be  for the present. Don't let's waste any more time.' He flicked his  fingers and Brand drew back offendedly. 'Don't hang around me, cat. I've  seen too much of what you and your kind can do.'

Haidee had not lied about the length of time she'd lived in the house.  It had been a recent purchase aimed at labour-saving. Much of their old  furniture had been sold in the move and what they'd kept Haidee polished  lovingly. It looked good against the white walls. The piano looked  especially good. They had been a musical family, both her parents had  played on it and she played it too, with feeling if not with genius. She  saw Rory Hart's eye rest on it as she went upstairs.

'The paper's there if you want it,' she said.

'Thanks. I've seen it,' he returned. He let her go halfway up the stairs  and spoke again. 'Don't be all day. I've to get back to Glenglass.'

She was in the bedroom unzipping her anorak when the warning sounded  like a tocsin through her brain. Stop, this has gone far enough. The  idea in the first place had come out of the fog, it had been as crazy as  all the other incidents of that hilarious uncomfortable journey. Irene  had teased, Paul had flirted. How serious had he been about the request?  Now he was not even here to support her. Up until now the most she'd  done had been to inconvenience. Rory Hart would not take that lying  down, she knew, and shuddered as she started to pull off her sweater.  But it was not a crime. The rest could be. Impersonation was a nasty  word.