Chapter Eight #2
Left alone, the first thing Thelma did was pull the curtains and open the windows, breathing in relief as the musty air began to dispel in the warm draught.
She crossed again to look at the wall and its line.
Looking closely, she could see it had been painted with uneven, hasty-looking brushstrokes, with patchy smeared edges.
She had hoped that seeing this line close to, it would remind her of something, make sense in some sort of way – but it didn’t.
Still, seeing it in the context of the room, she supposed she could understand why both the police and Ffion had dismissed it; it didn’t look particularly sinister – just odd.
As if someone had started to decorate but thought better of it.
Taking out her phone she took some photographs, thinking furiously.
Chelsey had been adamant it hadn’t been there the Saturday before, so it must have been painted at some point in the week leading up to Neville’s death.
Who had been staying in the holiday let then?
Of course, the line could have been painted in the short interval after they’d left, but before Neville arrived home. But why?
She stood back facing the wall, with a strong feeling there was something else she needed to see but wasn’t. She shut her eyes. Father, open my eyes, she prayed. Open my eyes to see – if there is anything TO see …
She suddenly became aware of some evenly spaced holes, each about a foot apart, running along the top of the wall.
Had they held pictures at some point? Surely, they were a bit high up for that?
Standing on a footstool she could see they’d been drilled fairly recently – before or after the line had been painted.
She stepped back again, until she felt the backs of her calves brush the sofa.
She started. There was something about sitting in that cushionless white gap she found highly distasteful.
She took half a step forwards and caught her leg on the coffee table, which wobbled …
The can of Mr Sheen fell with a startlingly loud clang and rolled away across the floor.
Heart pounding Thelma stopped to pick it up – and caught sight of the scrap of paper.
It was a fragment, one straight edge, which looked as if it had been torn off a larger sheet. On it was a symbol of some kind … a five-pointed shape, a sort of hybrid between an asterisk and a stick figure.
What was it? Even though she couldn’t place it, it was familiar. She knew she’d seen it before somewhere … But where?
The elusive thought reminded her of another elusive thought she’d had earlier in the kitchen. Slipping the paper in her pinny pocket, she retraced her steps to the gleaming room. She looked again at the magnetised knife block with its four knives. Four knives. Where was number five?
It didn’t take long to track it down; it lay glinting and sinister in the top of the dishwasher. The machine hadn’t been emptied and the contents sparkled clean – three dinner plates, a tureen, and three teacups. Three plates? Had the occupant of the Snuggery been entertaining friends?
The noise of scrunching wheels broke chillingly into her ruminations. Looking out of the kitchen window she could see a black, tank-like four-by-four pulling up next to the cherry-red hatchback. With its battered fenders and spatters of mud it looked as grim and business-like as its driver.
Panicked, Thelma flattened herself against the kitchen wall, out of sight.
What to do? She didn’t for one minute share Jax’s airy assertions that they had a perfect right to be here.
She half thought of hiding. But where? The wardrobe was nowhere near big enough and she certainly wasn’t crawling under the bed, not with her sciatica.
Besides, she wasn’t the one sneaking in – indeed, she’d been virtually corralled into coming here.
Plus – well, Ffion would see the cherry-red hatchback, would know Jax was in the building … Thelma frowned. Where was she?
‘Jax,’ she hissed. ‘Jax, Ffion’s here.’ There was no reply. Thelma crept out of the kitchen. She must be in the bathroom, or bedroom – but no. She was on her own in the Snuggery.
She became aware of voices outside.
‘I’m doing the clean.’ Jax’s voice sounded high, almost fluttery with nerves.
‘I never said I wanted no cleaning done.’ By contrast Ffion’s voice was as harsh as the morning sunlight.
‘I thought it’d need it.’ Jax was sounding shriller now, almost panicky. ‘With it not being done.’
‘Well, you thought wrong. I’m not letting it out anymore and no one has any right to be here. The very last thing I need is people gawping and sticking their noses in.’
‘Honest, Ffion, I’ve just been in the flat cleaning, that’s all. I swear on my mother’s life.’
Thelma was aware of brisk footsteps receding across the gravel, and then Jax’s nervous hiss: ‘Thelma, we need to go – NOW.’
* * *
It was only later that it came to her. She was sitting in the relative cool of her living room, in her favourite wing-back chair, thinking about the afternoon’s events.
Teddy was having a lie-down before supper, recovering from a day’s hot driving.
Snaffles the cat was lying drowsily on the arm of the sofa, semi-alert to the smells and sounds of the deepening evening.
In Thelma’s hand was the unopened letter now retrieved from her desk drawer.
Father, give me courage, she said. She sighed, set the letter down unopened, and instead took out the scrap of paper she’d found at the Snuggery from where she’d safely stashed it in her purse. She looked at that curious symbol again. What on earth was it? Why that feeling of familiarity?
Her phone rang. It was Jax. Again. This was the fourth time she’d rung since that awkward, tense drive back from Hollinby Quernhow. For the fourth time, Thelma rejected the call. For the moment she had too much on her mind to speak to the woman, not after all the embarrassment of the afternoon.
She suddenly frowned. Jax.
Thelma sat upright in her chair. She’d heard Jax tell Ffion she’d been in the flat the whole time – but she hadn’t. When Ffion had appeared, Thelma had been alone in the Snuggery.
So where had Jax been?