The piano lid was up. On top lay sheets of music, lit by an old-fashioned candelabra.
‘We couldn’t see this window from the front,’ hissed Libby. Fran put her finger to her lips and began to slide cautiously along the wall again. At the corner of the passage she made for the cellar door, now unblocked and surrounded by a certain amount of rubble.
‘There’s obviously somebody here,’ she whispered.
‘Well, dur,’ said Libby.
‘Yes, yes, but I think Rosie’s here
‘That’s what I’ve been worrying about,’ whispered back Libby.
‘Shall we try down here?’ Fran began to ease the cellar door open.
‘No!’ Libby tried to stop her, but Fran continued to pull, and the door came back suddenly, nearly knocking them both flying. They both froze.
No sound was heard, so Fran, producing a pencil torch from a pocket, shone it on the stairs. She beckoned and pointed.
At the bottom of the steep stairs, another door. Closed, and blocked by what was obviously wood and brick from the now unblocked door at the top.
‘Deliberate, do you think?’ said Fran, close to Libby’s ear. Libby nodded and hit Fran’s nose with her forehead.
Fran followed the thin beam of light down the stairs, Libby clinging like a toddler to the back of her coat. Then they heard the footsteps.
Libby thought she was going to faint, but Fran pulled her the rest of the way down the steps and pushed her into the recess behind them. The footsteps came to the head of the stairs and stopped.
‘Shit,’ said a voice.
Fran and Libby clutched each other as Hugh Weston began to descend the stairs. He was so close when he reached the bottom, Libby could have touched his waxed coat sleeve almost without raising her hand. She didn’t.
He began to move the bricks and wood away from the closed door, then dragged it open.
‘Who’s here with you?’ he said into the darkness.
‘No one,’ came Rosie’s voice, cold as the stone around them.
‘The door at the top of the steps was open.’
‘I can’t help that.’ Rosie cleared her throat. I’ve been shut in down here for the last twenty-four hours, just the same as I was all those years ago. As you know.’
‘It was nothing to do with me.’
‘It was your father. Your father killed my uncle.’
‘He pushed him down the steps. It was an accident.’
‘In that case,’ said Rosie, and now Libby could hear a tremble in her voice, ‘just let me out. Nothing more need be said.’
‘I told you it’s not as simple as that.’
‘So what do you intend to do with me? Wait until you’re told what to do by that Vindari man?’
Fran nudged Libby violently.
‘I don’t have a choice.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t have to understand. Just keep quiet.’ Hugh Weston came out of the room, shut the door and began piling the rubble in front of it. Finished, he stood up straight, brushed his hands together and climbed the stairs. Libby waited in agony to hear if he would shut and lock the door at the top, but apparently he was no longer worried and left it wide open. They heard his footsteps retreating.
‘Quick!’ whispered Fran, and began pulling at the rubble. It took them much longer than it had taken Weston but at last they had the door open.
‘Sssh!’ were Fran’s and Libby’s first words, as Rosie came to her feet. Fran flashed her torch quickly to see where they were. Rosie was still in the clothes she had been wearing when they left her at Weston’s house.
‘Come on,’ whispered Fran, ‘we’re getting out.’
‘He’s still in the house,’ said Rosie. ‘How will we get past him? And that bloody Vindari man – she took a deep breath ‘- Weston must have called him. He followed me here and shut me in, and then -’ another shuddering breath ‘- he said Vindari would decide what to with me. And now he’s here too -’ she began to sob.
Fran looked helplessly at Libby.
‘Come on,’ said Libby. ‘He’ll find it much harder with three of us, and we got here without him seeing us, didn’t we? We’ll make it.’
They supported Rosie up the stairs and up to the corner of the passage, where they waited and listened, Rosie sagging between them.
Then – more footsteps. Slower, this time, and softer. Coming down the stairs. Libby looked round wildly for cover and saw another door. She pointed, and they all but dragged Rosie into the room, where she sank to the floor and Libby and Fran stood listening by the door.
‘We should have piled the rubble back,’ breathed Libby.
‘No time.’ Fran looked over her shoulder. ‘There’s a long window over there. I’m going to see if it will open. You stay here and listen.’
Libby glued her ear to the crack. Now she could hear two male voices. Luckily, they didn’t appear to be coming any closer, but they were getting louder.
Fran came back, nodding. ‘It’s moved a bit. We might be able to shove it a bit further together.’
‘OK,’ whispered Libby, ‘but just listen.’
‘It isn’t,’ Aakarsh Vindari was saying, ‘as if you haven’t done it before.’
‘It was fucking different and you know it.’ Weston’s voice was harsh.
‘How? Just because she’s not black?’ Libby could almost hear Vindari shrugging. ‘So, she’s a white woman.’
‘There’ll be a hell of a police investigation about her. She hasn’t got a family who’ll cover things up.’
‘So what do you propose to do? And no one’s come here looking for her so far, have they?’
‘Oh, yes they have. Yesterday. There were two police cars.’ They heard Weston move. ‘They didn’t go down to the cellar.’
‘And yet you risked playing the piano?’
Weston mumbled something the listeners couldn’t hear.
‘If the police are interested you don’t start drawing attention to the house.’
‘We’ve been playing the recordings for over a year. What difference would it make?’ shouted Weston, and Libby clutched Fran’s arm. ‘He taught me to play.’
‘The pianist? Sentimentality. He’s dead. Your father killed him.’
‘Shut the fuck up.’
There was a short silence, then Vindari began again.
‘So. You have to get rid of her. Take her away from here. And kill her.’
Fran glanced down at Rosie, but she didn’t appear to have heard.
‘Those women will be looking for her,’ said Weston.
‘Tell me, my dear Weston,’ Vindari’s voice was like treacle, ‘how many women have you killed so far?’
‘You know how many. I don’t,’ said Weston gruffly. Libby felt sick.
‘And it’s worked well. I kept quiet about your father’s silly little mistakes, and yours, we protect the barn between us and we get paid by the families. Don’t tell me you’re going to let three more women get in our way now?’
Libby and Fran looked at each other in horror.
‘The window!’ mouthed Fran.
Trying to push the casement window out while listening for the terrible voices coming nearer and nearer was one of the most terrifying things Libby had ever experienced, but at last it gave under their combined weight. Libby went back and dragged Rosie to her feet, and together they got her over the sill.
In the fresh rain-washed air outside they stood listening for signs that their escape had been noticed, while Fran keyed in a 999 call and then called Guy. Libby was unable to press the buttons on her own phone until her
