Chapter Ten #3
Reacher returns the following day, the Singer crawling its way slow as a glacier up the frozen driveway.
Tom’s been shovelling it clear, but the ice left over is vicious as anything; you could break your neck easily if you didn’t watch your step.
Reacher himself almost goes over as he finally climbs out of the car.
Strangely, he isn’t as appreciative of the tidied study as I thought he’d be.
After taking in the results of all our hard work – the orderly shelves, clean windows, new chronological system – he seems at first panicked, as if he’s come home to the scene of a burglary.
Even after Arabella and I explain our plans to him, he only pouts and says he wished we’d warned him first. ‘What if I need something, and it isn’t where I left it?
I don’t see why you had to meddle so. A man’s business is his business, after all.
It isn’t as though I have any other authority in this house I can lay claim to. ’
‘Quite right,’ says Arabella, rather pointedly.
Well, some people just don’t know how to say thank you to a good deed! If Arabella’s right about what Reacher gets up to in London, I’d say he hasn’t had much success this time around, and it’s put him in a temper. This isn’t the demeanour of a man who’s spent a few days in pleasant company.
But then I think a bit more, about all that missing paperwork.
Money that doesn’t total anywhere near what you’d expect.
The blip of alarm on Reacher’s face at the first moment, when he realized we’d been mucking around in his stuff.
What if the messy accounts are intentional?
Could Reacher be skimming Arabella’s finances without her knowing?
Just a theory, with no real evidence to prove it.
Still … maybe I should be keeping a closer eye on him.
In the meantime, there’s still plenty more to do, and I turn my attention to the hazard of the stairs over the next few days.
I’m still not clear why Arabella decided to store her newspapers there – or why she hangs on to them in the first place.
Surely the point of current events is that they’re current.
Who wants to read about what the weather was like in Cumbria six years ago?
But when I ask Arabella to explain the reason for keeping this archive, she just gives me a confused look, as if she can’t see why I expect her to know the answer. ‘You won’t throw them out, will you?’
‘So you are keeping them for a reason?’
She scrunches her nose. ‘I don’t know. Preserving the past, maybe. I hate to imagine all the days just disappearing. What if I want to revisit one?’
‘Right. Well, can I tidy them away? Maybe you have an empty cupboard in the closed wing?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, that won’t do. You could put them in the cellar, if you really want to.’
The main door down to the cellar is in one corner of the kitchen, though there’s another access hatch outdoors, in the vegetable garden. I’ve passed both entrances enough times, but never yet seen inside. Never had a reason.
Thinking I’d better check my route first before trying to transport anything, I light a lantern and enter via the kitchen.
There’s a set of stone steps on the other side of the door, proper old, like something out of a castle.
Some people are scared of cellars – the dark and damp – imagining that the earth will close in on them, or that something’s hiding down there in the roots of the house.
But I don’t mind being underground – it’s where all the good things come from.
At the bottom of the stairs, I set the lantern down on the floor. Sparse daylight shines through from a narrow slot right at the ceiling. A wooden ladder hangs down below it: the outdoor access hatch.
Around me, rows and rows of wine racks, all empty as a beggar’s purse.
I wonder if their contents have been drunk and not replenished, or if they were even sold off in the past, given the state of the Harfold finances.
Assorted foods stored on shelves against one wall: chutneys, fruit jams, pickles, cordials, dried herbs and seeds.
Garden produce from years gone by. Cobwebs hang in ropes from the ceiling.
Underfoot, the evidence of rodents: shrivelled droppings and gnawed-up grain husks.
Examining an empty shelf, I find a desiccated mouse carcass – presumably a victim of the poison that Reacher had me scatter around.
Still, I can’t let myself get upset over it.
I remove its body, then shift the food up higher until I’ve created a fair bit of free space.
The perfect new home for Arabella’s print archive.
Leaving the lantern where it sits to guide my way to and fro, I fetch bundle after bundle of newspapers, depositing them in stacks from the bottom shelf up.
I’m soon warmed through, leg muscles twinging from taking the stairs over and over.
Newsprint smudging my fingertips so I have to be careful where I touch.
Carrying my next armful through the kitchen, I happen to glance down.
Nearly drop the lot. Struck with horror.
There in clear print: 30 October 1923. TWO PLEAD GUILTY OF ATTEMPTED MURDER.
No. This can’t be happening, I think. Not when I’ve worked so hard to leave that day behind me, when I’ve finally found a new place to belong. People who want me here. Arabella.
My heart’s racing like a hare over the fields.
Try to calm myself. Think. This newspaper’s been on that staircase for years, buried and forgotten.
Nobody at Harfold would have a reason to connect the story to me …
Then again, you never know what detail might jog a memory.
Has Reacher read this? I should never have let him see those letters to my parents.
I rip out the top page and fold it, tucking it into my shirt.
Better not leave it lying around, just in case.
After depositing the rest of the stack in the cellar, I head to the morning room, where I know a fire will be burning already.
Luckily, no one’s around when I get there.
I kneel beside the grate and feed the scrap of paper into the blaze.
Watch it lick over the curling lines of print.
I won’t let that day ruin what I’ve found here.
I breathe out slowly, calming myself. I’m safe again. Safe for now. Dusting soot from my overalls, I stand back up and – not looking where I’m going – almost collide in the doorway with Reacher. My heart starts racing again. How long has he been here? How much did he see?
‘I thought Bellsy wanted those newspapers in storage,’ he says. Tilts his head in curiosity.
‘That’s what I did with them.’
‘Then what were you burning just now?’
‘This one had mould on it,’ I say, the excuse coming to me only as I open my mouth. ‘I didn’t want it to contaminate the rest. You know how it spreads.’
Does he believe me? His expression suggests not. But the paper’s already burnt to ashes, and there’s nothing he can do about it now.
I have the sense that I’ve backed myself into a trap of my own making, and I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of it.
When I applied for this job at Harfold, I thought I could escape what I’d done.
Hide in the English countryside. Start fresh.
But what you’re running from always catches up with you.
And Arabella’s not the only one cursed by the past.