Finding Arcadia Page 8

  Haze. And darkness.

  Until another “I” enters the scene. I arrive home late. It has been a long day. I am tired. I call out to my overweight husband, but there is no answer. He is probably asleep. My daughter-who-is-not-my-daughter is out also, doubtless with that disaster of a boyfriend. The dishes from dinner have not been washed. Typical.

  Before cleaning the kitchen I decide to clean myself. And that is when I find what used to be my husband, soaking in a red bath.

  Shock. Then anger. Selfish even in death. Knife in his hand. Why would you do this to yourself?

  Then panic. The insurance agent spoke of suicide. Some kind of joke to make light of it. We all laughed.

  I had nagged him about life insurance for years. What if something happens to you, I said. Finally I had prepared the documents. He signed it but obviously didn’t bother to read it.

  But there are rules. You can’t sign a million dollar policy and then kill yourself. My husband cannot have killed himself. He did not kill himself. So someone else must have killed him.

  Her. The girl we took into our home. The girl with the terrible boyfriend. The girl making insane accusations about my husband. She killed him.

  I reach into the water, which is cold, and take the blade. I wipe the handle and hold it with toilet paper—that’s what they do in the movies, isn’t it? And now to reset this scene.

  But I am hasty. I make it too easy for the police.

  A drop of blood on the handle of the door to lead them to her room. A drop on the carpet to make sure they don’t lose their way. And the blade itself, still red with my former husband’s life, goes in a drawer under some socks.

  She hated him. She had access to the razor. She was here alone with him. Means, motive, opportunity—that’s what the police want, isn’t it?

  The coldness of the water means this happened some time ago. Well before I came home. I am above suspicion. I have an alibi. But I had best call the police now and play the part of the grieving wife.

  In my haste I do not smell the whisky. I do not read the note underneath it. And still I cannot see through the haze.

  She opens her eyes. So clearly not a simple murder, as Inspector Bradstreet seems to believe. Was it suicide made to look like murder by the wife, or murder made to look like suicide by someone else that was in turn disguised as murder by the wife? Could the wife have framed the foster-daughter for a crime she actually committed?

  But the whisky and the note: “Tell Arcadia that I’m sorry.” Coincidence or enemy action? Mr. Pratt had been afraid of her for some reason. She has never met the wife or foster-daughter. A fourth person?

  She sends another note to Lestrange, not for the first time having to fight her way past the automated spellchecker on her phone:

  Case is intriguing. Please check whisky for flunitrazepam?

  She returns to her textbook to complete the assigned homework.

  Homework finished, they are treated to a forgettable movie and then retire. Marwell Hall was believed by some to have been the venue for Henry VIII’s marriage to Jane Seymour. Wife number three, so—divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived—she was the one who died in childbirth. Furnishings were more luxurious then, presumably. Since its conversion to a zoo with an educational focus, the sleeping chambers are now more dormitory than royal suite.

  As there are only two girls in the class, she is sharing a ground-floor room with Harriet Doran, a quiet American girl whose parents shipped her off to England in the hope of a decent education and a posh accent. They are getting half their money’s worth.

  She opens the copy of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment that she packed and tries to ignore the sounds made by Harriet and her phone as the other girl alternates between Snapchat and Candy Crush. The story of the former student—where else but in nineteenth century Russia would someone be described as “formerly a student”—reaches the point at which Raskolnikov procures an axe when a rap on the door from Dr. Starr indicates that it is time for lights out.

  Harriet’s breathing soon enters a regular rhythm, punctuated by a light vibration of her uvula—mildly irritating, but nothing compared to the bed-shaking snores that Magnus somehow maintained through the night when they had adjacent bedrooms.

  She goes through the process of relaxing her own mind, allowing the night to catch up with her. Her breathing slows down, becoming deeper. She sets aside mental tasks to be resumed tomorrow, perhaps with new inspiration gained through the night: Dr. Starr, the drone pilot, Mr. Pratt’s murderer, the professor, the dishes… In the darkened room her eyes close. Her muscles relax, body sinking into the bedcovers. Darkness. Warmth.

  Ding.

  Her eyes resist opening as if she were underwater.

  Ding.

  The chime of her phone.

  Ding.

  A text message. She opens her eyes and swipes her phone and herself awake. In the darkness the screen seems to fill the room with light. Is it Lestrange with a toxicology report? No, a blocked number. Caller ID can be blocked for phone calls, but is more difficult when sending texts.

  A tap to open the message:

  Please meet me outside

  There is no way to reply, or to see who sent the message. Except, of course, to take up the invitation for a midnight rendezvous. Could the drone pilot have returned? Improbable. Had she wanted a confrontation then why run. Might it be a trap? Perhaps, as it would isolate the victim from the group. But at the expense of any element of surprise.

  She swings out of bed and, still in her pyjamas, dons socks and shoes as well as a coat. She puts her phone and, after a moment’s hesitation, the Swiss Army knife in her pocket. The way to the front door of Marwell Hall runs past the bedroom set up for teachers, which Dr. Starr has made into his quarters for the night. She knows how to move quietly, but the house is old and will creak.

  The window. Stepping in time to Harriet’s snoring, she crosses the room and tries the window handle. It is unlocked. The pane swings out far enough to enable her to climb from the room and into a garden bed. Taking care to avoid the roses, she closes the window against the cold air, but leaves it ajar for her return.

  The night is still. In tropical climates, many animals are most active after dark; some zoos in places like Singapore have specific programmes that begin only at sunset. For the mostly temperate animals at Marwell, night-time is a period of quiet. There is no sound of a visitor as she steps onto the path that circles the house and moves towards the fountain at its front.

  A crescent moon pokes out from behind a cloud, but there is barely enough light to see the path. Her senses are sharper than most, however, and as she approaches the fountain she can see from the side a person, a woman waiting in the shadows. In the darkness she notices the shoulders first, a strength in them that matches the woman’s posture—she would recognise it anywhere—someone used to acting, but now putting on a permanent show for the world?

  There is nothing to be gained from surprise, so she coughs to reveal her presence, and to clear a throat that suddenly feels dry. “You said you wanted to see me?”

  If the woman is surprised, she does not show it. The clouds behind which the crescent moon hides part; turning to face Arcadia, her pale skin is illuminated.

  Arcadia looks at the woman’s features to search for some kind of genetic connection, a family resemblance, but comes up short. Ears, shape and colour of the eyes, tilt of the nose, even the hair—styled though it is—all point to distinct gene pools. And yet she knows there is a connection.

  “Arcadia,” the woman says.

  “Miss Alderman,” she replies. “Or would you prefer that I call you something else?”

  Miss Alderman inclines her head as if to apologise. “It’s good to see you, too,” the former teacher says at last.

  A hundred questions. But a late-night meeting suggests a certain limitation in time. Cut to the chase, then. “Why are you here now?”

  Miss Alderman stifles a laugh t
hat nevertheless seems to mask a sadness. “Ever direct and to the point,” she says. Redundantly. “But you’re right that we don’t have much time.”

  “Before you disappear again?”

  “I’m afraid so, Arcadia,” the former substitute teacher says.

  If Magnus cannot find her, it is unlikely that anyone else will. But from whom is she hiding? “Who are you hiding from, apart from me?”

  “I’m hiding from people who would do me harm,” Miss Alderman replies. “And who might do you harm if they knew we met.”

  All conveniently impossible to verify. “So why break cover now? Some greater danger? Or did you just miss me?”

  “Oh Arcadia.” Miss Alderman lifts a hand as if to touch her, though they are standing more than a yard apart. “Yes, I’ve missed you. But I had to warn you: you’re in danger. There’s a young woman, a very dangerous young woman, who has a kind of obsession with you.”

  “An obsession? What kind of obsession?”

  “I don’t know, but I gather she’s been stalking you, watching you. I’m worried that she might do something—irrational if you were to meet up.”

  Irrational is an odd choice of word. “Is she a teenager, about my height?”

  “You’ve seen her?” Miss Alderman looks at her carefully.

  “From a distance,” she replies. “She was here tonight, piloting a drone. Who is she, and why is she so interested in me?”

  “I really don’t know much about her. She’s brilliant but—erratic. I’ve only just found out about her existence myself.”

  Her existence? “She’s part of it, then, part of whatever it was that Milton was doing, together with you and your professor.” She watches Miss Alderman as she says this: in the darkness it is hard to judge, but at the mention of the professor her former teacher pales slightly.

  “I thought it was science,” Miss Alderman says, almost to herself. “We were going to help people, to help humanity. I thought I was a scientist. But as I told you once, I made a choice that changed the course of my life. Only now, I’ve come to realise that I made quite a few mistakes along the way. And that now is the time to start fixing those I can.”

  “Am I one of your mistakes?”

  “No, Arcadia. You’re one of the few things that has turned out better than I could have dreamed.” Again, Miss Alderman raises her hand but this time takes a step closer so that she can brush it against Arcadia’s cheek. She does not turn away.

  “There is one thing about which Milton was right,” Miss Alderman continues softly. “It’s time to bring this entire experiment to an end. I was so naïve; so gullible. You’re going to find out horrible things, Arcadia, but I need you to know that I wasn’t part of it. Or at least, not the worst of it.

  “My path is now set but you’re still at the beginning of your life. I just want to help you live it the way you want. You do have the capacity for greatness, Arcadia, but what you do with that capacity is entirely up to you.”

  Greatness again. A leitmotif with these people. “This other young woman,” she says, “also talked about greatness. She sent me a package with the line: ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.’”

  “Twelfth Night,” Miss Alderman replies. “How apt.”

  “So what am I supposed to do if this other person confronts me? Quote Shakespeare back at her?”

  “No,” Miss Alderman reaches into a small bag slung over her shoulder to produce a cheap mobile phone. “You should run. Then call me using this. Mine is the only number it will dial.”

  A bit melodramatic, surely. Burner phones are the communication device of choice for drug dealers and terrorists. Nonetheless she puts the phone in her pocket. “So how does Dr. Starr—or ‘Professor Starr’—fit into all this. He taught you at Oxford, didn’t he?”

  Miss Alderman’s eyes widen slightly and her face registers—admiration? “He did, briefly. Lysander is a scientist at heart, but I think he’s only come here to ensure that things stay under control. That you stay under control. If all this became public, all of us would go to prison—and you would be a… a curiosity for the rest of your life. I don’t want that to happen, Arcadia.”

  “If all what became public? I know that I’ve been involved in some kind of experiment since I was born. That you, Milton, and your professor have been monitoring me for my entire life. And I know that Mother rebelled against this—and because of that she lost her husband and nearly her life.”

  “I’m sorry, Arcadia,” the woman she knows as Miss Alderman says. “The less you know, the more normal your life will be.”

  They have been talking in low voices under the moonlight. From within the house there is the sound of footsteps approaching the front door.

  “I have to go, Arcadia,” Miss Alderman whispers. “Remember what I said about the other girl. If you see her: run. And please forgive me, Arcadia.”

  For what?

  But Miss Alderman, or whatever her name is, has gone back into the darkness and she, Arcadia, is standing outside in her pyjamas and a coat. She pads silently back around the building to the window of what now serves as the girls’ dormitory. It is no longer ajar. Has Harriet closed it from the inside? She considers knocking to wake the other girl up, but that might well wake others also.

  Noise carries well in the stillness of the night, and from the front of the house she can hear the door open. Then the sound of footsteps coming towards her. The garden bed encircles the house and offers a quieter route than the gravel path. She moves away from the sound of the footsteps—a man, probably Dr. Starr—so as to keep on the other side of Marwell Hall. He continues walking, now probably committed to making a circle of the building. She increases her speed to complete that loop before him.

  She reaches the front door, which is unlocked, and enters the foyer with only the soft protest of century-old hinges. From the foyer, the long hallway leads back to her dormitory but runs past Dr. Starr’s bedroom, where the light is on and the door open. Behind her, footsteps approach the entranceway. To get beyond the light in time she would have to run, giving up any pretence at stealth.

  To her right, the drawing room door is well-oiled, so she slips through that instead and back into the room where they studied moths earlier in the day. The only light is the green glow of an emergency exit sign over the door through which she entered. She takes off her shoes and carries them as she skirts around the table, looking for somewhere to hide.

  The creak of the front door being closed is followed by a click as it is locked. Then footsteps enter the corridor. And pause outside the drawing room. Traces of mud on her shoes may have left a trail.

  Inside the drawing room is a coat closet, large enough to conceal her. She steps inside, pulling the door closed. Only a few students have left their coats here and there is plenty of space. She resists the temptation to open the door a crack to look out into the room.

  Footsteps enter the drawing room and hesitate. She can now hear breathing, but it is hard to confirm that it is Dr. Starr from that alone. The steps move around the drawing room—yes, loafers of the kind that Dr. Starr was wearing—and then stop outside the closet.

  She remains calm and almost silent, but the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears suggests a rise in blood pressure associated with stress. The closet is dark and so she closes her eyes, listening for the breathing outside the closet. Walking about the house at night was something they had been told not to do, but it was hardly a crime. She would prefer not to give Dr. Starr the satisfaction of finding her, but confession was sometimes the path of least resistance. Might she plausibly claim that she had been cold and therefore came to the closet to retrieve her coat? The probability of being believed was low.

  Possibilities are still being weighed when the turn of a key in the closet’s lock renders most of them moot. Outside, there is a grunt of satisfaction and the footsteps move away. The drawing room door opens and closes, and the steps fade down the co
rridor.

  She waits for two minutes before trying the door, but it is now locked from the outside. The wood is sturdy but not airtight. Tough enough to resist breaking her way out, but not likely to suffocate her. She feels around the back of the closet, past the coats, but solid wood meets her hand. No lion or witch in this wardrobe.

  It is getting stuffy and she begins to take off her own coat, contemplating the prospect of a night on the floor of the closet. Perhaps it is worth trying Henry. She takes out her phone and calls him, but his own device is off. Possibly the battery has run down and he forgot to bring a charger. In the hope that he will find a way of checking it before breakfast, she sends a quick text message asking if he would be so kind as to look for her coat in the drawing room closet once he wakes.

  She then folds her coat on the base of the closet and prepares, once more, for sleep. It is cramped but warm; the small gap at the base of the door allows some cool air in. Though she appreciates the irony of the Mistletoe Bride reference, it is unlikely that she will perish here.

  As her respiration slows once more, she once more goes over the last day of the late Mr. Pratt. The timing is all wrong, she knew that from the start. He could not have died at 5pm. An odd time to take a bath or drink whisky, but in any case she had seen him herself at 5pm.

  The dishes. Constable Lestrange said his wife had washed up the dishes. If Mr. Pratt had been killed at 5pm or anytime around then, only a particularly cold-blooded killer would stay to cook and eat a meal.

  Ice could accelerate the cooling process and make the victim appear to have died earlier. But why vary the time? If it was the foster-daughter, it showed a level of planning inconsistent with her subsequent behaviour: texts announcing her intention, staying with the boyfriend where she might be found. Unless it was intended to ensure that suspicion landed on the foster-daughter.

  She takes out her phone once more and sends another message to Lestrange:

  Check CCTV near Pratt house for fourth person, between time foster-daughter left and wife arrived. A