The Moon Tunnel(34)

Dryden gave in, dutifully involved in the tiny but time-consuming rituals of ferrying mugs and sugar from the kitchenette to the living-room table.

She drank from a large mug with a picture of Tony Benn on the front. Dryden noticed that despite her confidence her hands shook slightly. Her eyes were green, like his, but one – the left – was sightless. The pupil had glazed over with a milk-white swirl which made it look like a tiny moon, rising between the eyelids.

‘They’re going to evict me,’ she said, slurping the tea.

‘Sorry?’

‘I thought that was why you’d come. I can’t pay the rent any more. They say it’s too big and there’s some one-room places – warden controlled. I’d rather die. I’ve told them they’ll have to carry me out. They don’t care. I’m just waiting for them to turn up. Today, perhaps tomorrow. I told that policeman, he didn’t care…’

The word ‘either’ hung in the air unspoken. Dryden looked out of the window in embarrassment, conscious that the lonely landscape that was his personal space had just been violated.

‘Do you remember the Hall?’ he asked again, ignoring the diversion.

‘Yes. Oh, yes. Very much so, Mr…?’

‘Dryden. Philip Dryden.’

‘I was fifteen when we left. I loved the place, naturally, any child would. I was just lucky it was me. I spent my life exploring it, really. There were a hundred rooms – did you know that?’

Dryden shook his head.

‘That’s what the National Trust says, anyway – they must be counting some cupboards,’ she said, laughing.

‘Anyway, I left in 1949. My father died and left debts – and then there were death duties. My mother and I moved out to an estate cottage; she had some money which was not entailed with the house.’

She dried up, wistfully eyeing the pile of unaddressed envelopes.

‘And what did you do?’

‘I lived off her money when she died. I went to university – very daring, the first woman in the family to break that taboo. Birmingham – another taboo!’

They both laughed. ‘Then I worked for various charities – Shelter, mainly. Then I got old and everyone thinks you’re useless when you’re old. So I’m here, waiting for a bailiff to call.’

She laughed, a real slap-in-the-face-of-life laugh.

‘At the Hall – you were an only child?’

‘Yes. Very much the only child. Horribly precocious, I suspect.’

Dryden shook his head, sipping the tea.

‘Well. I was seen and never heard, never spoken to, in fact. But I had friends. There was Georgie for one. That’s why I remember the robbery. They let me see the body, which was extraordinary, wasn’t it? I suppose they thought differently then – about servants. It was just… laid there. I think they thought I’d lost a pet or something; dreadful, really. They kept saying there’d be another underbutler. They were like buses to them, you see – one along every few minutes.’

Dryden laughed but Miss Hilgay didn’t. ‘They laid him out in the kitchens, on one of the scullery tables. Georgie was fun, so I couldn’t understand why they’d done that to him – the burglars. His face was lopsided, stove in I suppose. There was a lot of whispering, about the blood.’

Dryden heard the key turn in the front door. Someone pushed it open with practised confidence and went straight to the kitchen. ‘Tea, Vee?’ There was a laugh in the voice, not quite a cruel one, but almost.

‘We’re in here. Bring a cup.’

Russell Flynn stood at the doorway, his tattooed dragon livid on the white flesh of his neck. Russell affected a nonchalant smile as he nodded at Dryden, but as he set the tea cup down it rattled in its saucer.

‘Russ,’ said Dryden, bringing out his notebook.

‘Russell is doing community service,’ said Miss Hilgay, pouring the tea. ‘He helps out – household tasks. We’re friends.’

‘So are we,’ said Dryden, beaming at Russell with 100-megawatt insincerity.

‘Miss Hilgay,’ said Dryden. ‘The police, did they tell you what they found with the body in the tunnel? A candlestick, some pearls…’

She shook her head. ‘Yes. But I already knew. Russell told me. He’s very good on local crime.’

‘Really?’ said Dryden, taking a biscuit.

‘He showed me the story in The Crow – so I rang the police.’ Dryden nodded, comforted that his own detective work had not been bettered after all.

‘The pearls and the candlestick were taken in the robbery. The police said they took the candlestick because it was the murder weapon. It had a black ebony ring. Worthless almost. As were the pearls, I’m afraid.’