Diana Glass
The Help
I sit for a time in the great hall after Miss Marple and Mrs Bantry have gone upstairs to bed, nursing a small digestif of Génépi while the fire burns late in the grate.
Dinner was a subdued affair tonight: palpably less laughter and chatter among the guests, and it seems to me that most have retired earlier than usual.
I gaze into the dark beyond the windows. I’m on the valley side of the hotel and I think somewhere down there I can make out the faintest glimmer of the lights from the town at the very bottom.
‘It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it?’ says an English voice nearby.
‘The world feels … so far away, all of a sudden.’ I look up and see a young couple sitting there.
‘We’re here for our honeymoon,’ the woman says.
She runs a hand nervously through her brown bobbed hair.
‘It all sounded so magical in the brochure! Staying right up in the mountains, away from it all. But I have to say it isn’t feeling very festive.
Not with poor Anthony Narracott dying this morning – imagine, being a war hero and then perishing here …
it seems such a waste, doesn’t it? And then knowing that we’re presumably stuck up here now … ’ Her voice breaks.
‘Darling,’ her husband says, soothingly, reaching out a hand to rub her back.
‘Sorry. You’d think I’d have more backbone after the war, after what we have all experienced. But this … oh, it’s spooky. People have been saying he might have been murdered.’ She whispers this last word.
A little while later I manage to make my excuses and make my way up to my room.
It’s late – past midnight, the clock on the wall says – but the idea of lying down on the beautifully made bed with its plump pillows, shutting my eyes and expecting to fall asleep seems absurd.
I am contemplating the cocktail cabinet in the corner and the sedative effects of a stiff drink when I hear a soft knock on the door.
Could Mrs Bantry need something? But hers would be a more imperious rat-a-tat-tat, no subtlety in it. I must have imagined it.
No … there it is again.
I make sure the chain is attached; then think of Bruno Crane crashing into Catherine Narracott’s room and how much use it would have been then. As a precaution I take hold of the heavy paperweight on the desk and grip it in one hand as I open the door a crack with the other.
Inspector Moreau stands there, in the corridor.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘What are you doing here? It’s past midnight.’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he says. ‘I thought I would see if you were still awake. I wanted to talk to you.’
‘It can’t wait until the morning?’
He gives that small Gallic shrug of his. ‘Partly I wanted to check that you were feeling all right, after the train crash.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say.
‘It’s important to keep an eye on these things.
A head injury can be worse than it seems. And I wanted to ask you a question …
without your companions.’ The most subtle of glances over his shoulder and I know straight away that he is referring to two elderly Englishwomen with surprisingly sensitive hearing.
I’m suddenly filled with horror at the idea of either Miss Marple or Mrs Bantry opening their door and discovering us standing in the corridor like this.
I can’t put my finger on exactly what feels improper about this situation – the lateness of the hour perhaps.
I could refuse to let him in and answer his questions, of course.
But would that seem in some way suspicious to him?
‘Come in,’ I whisper, looking up and down the corridor to make sure we aren’t being observed, before hurrying him into the room.
The door closes behind him. We seem to be standing rather close to one another. For a few moments I dare myself not to move, and then – like someone who has held her palm to the flame for as long as possible – I take a step backwards.
‘Would you like a drink?’ I ask him. ‘I was just going to make myself one.’
A short hesitation. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I would like that, thank you. A Ricard – if you have it. With a little water.’
I go to the cocktail cabinet, surreptitiously replacing the paperweight on the desk as I pass it, and make up the drinks.
‘So,’ he says, ‘you cannot sleep either?’
‘I haven’t tried,’ I say. ‘But I don’t feel tired, yet.’
‘It was very impressive: what you did today, on the train. You were very brave.’
‘Funny,’ I say, carefully, ‘because I felt rather foolish, dashing off after Mr Crane like that. I can’t think what possessed me.’
He frowns a little. ‘But you do not seem like a woman who does anything unintentionally.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘I suppose I’m generally quite good at keeping a cool head in a crisis.’
‘Have you had many such crises?’
‘Haven’t all of us? The war, I mean.’
I am unnerved by him. I can feel my heart rate increase as though I were stepping closer to danger: a snarling lion, a cliff edge. It seems impossible that he shouldn’t be able to hear it, even from several yards away. I keep my back to him as I concentrate on pouring the gin.
‘You said there was something you wanted to ask me,’ I say.
‘Yes. You knew him, I think. Mr Narracott?’
‘No …’ I say, my hand pausing in stirring the drink. ‘I think you must be mistaken. What gave you that impression?’
‘I heard you in the Reception when you arrived,’ he says. ‘You said you worked at the War Office with him.’
‘Oh,’ I say, wondering where on earth he was in Reception to hear that on the first day. ‘No, we didn’t work together. It’s a very big place and I was just a secretary there. He wouldn’t have had the first idea who I was!’
‘But you knew who he was?’
‘Everyone knew – Mr Narracott was a big figure, a respected politician, a war hero.’
‘Ah,’ he says, apparently satisfied by this. Then he changes the subject: ‘Tell me, your Madame Marple. Do you think she is the real thing? You have spent some time with her, I think, and you strike me as a very intelligent person.’
‘I have only known her for the length of this trip,’ I say. ‘Definitely not long enough to call her “mine”. But having spent a few days in her company I think I would not underestimate her.’
I walk to him and hand him the drink. As he reaches for it our fingers brush. An electric moment. The rush of adrenaline I experience now is like the good twin of what I felt on the train.
This man represents a possible danger to me. And yet … there is a part of me that is rather fond of danger. A more reckless, impulsive part that I have spent the last few years keeping subdued.
‘Well,’ he says. ‘I will be going now, Madame Glass.’ He checks his watch. ‘It’s late.’ He sets his drink down, untouched.