Shoebridge, his right hand holding one of his wife’s, said, “For myself I don’t care, but is there nothing you can do for—”

  “No.” His wife interrupted him sharply.

  Grandison said, “There is nothing. When you started all this you must have accepted that. Luck, the gods, were against you. They were against you from the moment of your birth. You made no mistake. It was made for you before you were born. All our mistakes spring from the infinity of time past.” He raised the leather bag in his left hand. “What were you going to do with all these?”

  Shoebridge shrugged his shoulders. “Buy ourselves a place to be and time to be in it.”

  Grandison nodded. “Every man has that dream in some shape or other. Few do more than dream about it. All right— you have ten seconds.”

  Shoebridge released his wife’s hand and put his arm around her shoulders. His cheek just touched hers but they did not look at one another. Shoebridge’s eyes went from Grandison to Bush and then back to Grandison.

  “Be quick,” Shoebridge said and he held his wife closer to him.

  Grandison nodded and his right hand came up. He and Bush fired together. There was no need for them to fire more. Bush walked to the bed and pulled the loose cover clumsily up over them.

  Grandison said, “I’ll look after it up here. You do it from the kitchen.”

  Bush went downstairs, leaving Grandison in the bedroom. In the kitchen he found the electric toaster and switched it on. He picked up a Saturday newspaper from the table and laid it across the top of the toaster. When it began to scorch he struck a match and dropped it on the brown, curling paper and it burst into flames. He fed the flame with another paper and trailed it to the kitchen curtain above the sink. The flame fought for a hold on the material, gathered strength, and began to lick upwards. Bush stepped back. There was a plywood breakfast tray with a small wickerwork border by the sink. He edged it into the mass of burning paper and the thin, dry wickerwork flared into instant flame. He worked quickly, efficiently, laying the groundwork for a Sunday morning tragedy; the clumsy husband getting breakfast for his wife, tossing a paper down by the toaster while he went back to his wife to ask her something, the kitchen door left open, causing a draught to turn a page of the paper and lift it onto the toaster.

  He backed out of the kitchen, leaving the door open. A slow pall of smoke followed him, obscuring the doorway. From beyond it came the sharp noise of burning wood and the deep sighing sounds of flames gathering power.

  He stood at the end of the hall and watched the fire move out of the kitchen, long tongues of flame curling and licking around the door framework and reaching up and racing in a flat, rippling flood across the ceiling.

  Grandison came down the stairs. At the landing top a small eddy of smoke, thin and spiralling, whirled around like a ghostly dancer.

  Without speaking the two men stood by the front door, watching and listening to the holocaust take possession. When it was no longer safe for them to stay they went out and closed the door.

  Bush said, “There’s a dog somewhere and his birds.”

  Grandison said, “Leave them. That’s how it would have been.” He got into the car on the far side. Bush took the wheel and they drove to the bottom of the drive, and turned up the narrow lane that led to the side road. It was all over. The bodies would be hardly recognisable as human. The questions if they came officially would be answered officially . . . causing no embarrassment.

  On the side road they stopped and looked back. The house was out of sight now behind the elms. There was the faintest trace of smoke above the trees. The house inside by now would be an all-consuming furnace.

  * * * *

  Miss Rainbird arrived at the top of the narrow lane at one o’clock. The road was blocked with a police notice and a police car was drawn up on the verge. Two fire engines were at the house, but there had been trouble with the water supply and they had been able to do little. A thick, slow, black spiral of smoke rose lazily above the elms.

  The police patrol man was polite. He explained what had happened and said that he could not let Miss Rainbird through. Miss Rainbird, containing her shock, heard herself say, “I think you must let me through. Edward Shoebridge was my nephew.”

  The policeman said, “If you’ll wait for a moment, madam, I’ll have a word with the Super.” He went back to the car and began to speak on the radio. A few minutes later Miss Rainbird’s car drove down the lane towards the house. Sitting in the back Miss Rainbird was now completely composed. For Edward Shoebridge, and his wife, she could have little feeling. But she knew what she had to do if only for Harriet’s sake.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FOR THREE YEARS Miss Rainbird had been happier than she had ever been in her life before. After the Shoebridges’ shocking deaths there had been no hesitation in her about where her duty rested. She had taken Martin Shoebridge into her house and made him her own. He was her great-nephew, and all that remained of the male line of the Rainbirds.

  At first he had been withdrawn and shy, and even a little difficult at times. But slowly she had won him over and in doing so had become fond of him, even doted on him and—to her joy—he had slowly responded until now there was a smooth, sweet relationship between them which was making the last years of her life full of happiness. She had long ago forgotten that she had taken him in out of duty. He was now part of her life, and his future was all of her concern. The companionship between them was something, she realised, which she had longed for all her life. If he had faults, and what boy hadn’t?— though he was boy no longer but a young man of eighteen— then she could forgive and tolerate them. She had had to send one or two maids packing, because she was sure that they were primarily responsible for the small lapses in which he had indulged. Anyway, it was natural for a young man of his age to be interested in young women. He was very popular in the district and always in demand. One day, and she prayed that she would be alive to see it, he would marry some well-connected girl and bring her to Reed Court as his wife. If God were good to her she might live to see his children. After all she was not eighty yet and still in good health, although she had to admit that there were long periods when she did not sleep well at night, teased and disturbed by dreams that fled from her memory on waking. And sometimes she did have bad bouts of migraine.

  She stood at her bedroom window now and looked out over the garden. It was a beautiful June evening, the tree shadows lengthening, a movement of wildfowl on the small lake, and the far meadow speckled with the gold of great kingcups. Her own happiness and the beauty of the evening was a slow, deep richness in her. She put out her hand for the sherry decanter and refilled her glass. She kept a decanter always in her bedroom now. Sometimes on a bad night a couple of glasses would help her to oblivious sleep. She drank now from the need to mark the joy in her. They were times when she had to be, or tried to be, strict with herself about the sherry. Martin, it was true, showed no interest in drink, but there was always Sholto’s example at the back of her mind. Thank goodness, however, when she had had four or five glasses, she remained exactly the same. No one could possibly tell. And, anyway, at her age, one needed some small stimulant.

  From the far side of the lake she saw Martin come out of the trees. The sun glinted on his fair hair. He was carrying one of his hawks on his wrist. She smiled at the sight. Hawks, fishing, shooting . . . he was mad about all country things. She had let him turn one of the stables into a mews for his birds. If she had been married and had had a son she would have wished for someone exactly like him. He came up the side of the lake with a dog at his heels and disappeared into the walled garden.

  Miss Rainbird turned from the window. It was seven o’clock and she knew that he was coming in to change for dinner. She finished her sherry and then, on a whim, decided to change her dress, and had another glass of sherry while she did so, humming gently to herself and looking forward to dinner with Martin and hearing about his day. Some time soon they would have to have a serious talk about his future. He was eighteen now and had attained his majority a few months previously. She had given a dinner and dance for him. It had been a wonderful evening and at the end of it she had told him that she had changed her will in his favour. Reed Court and everything she owned would become his one day. He had been suitably impressed and grateful.

  She went out of the room and down the stairs to the lower landing. The sun struck a great beam of light across it and suddenly she remembered the dream she had had of Madame Blanche standing with her here . . . the both of them laughing and talking like old friends. Madame Blanche . . . she hadn’t thought about her for a long time, or that vulgar man . . . Lumley? . . . yes, Lumley, that was it. What an age away all that seemed. She turned from the window to the stairs and saw Martin come across the hall. The hawk and dog had gone. He looked up at her, grinned, and waved a hand and then began to come up towards her, moving easily, a compact, healthy, wiry young man.

  He put an arm around her and kissed her.

  She said, “Have you had a good day, darling?”

  “Splendid. Am I going to be late for dinner?”

  “No, there’s plenty of time. I’m just going down to have a drink. Hurry up and join me.”

  She put up a hand and touched his cheek, brown and warm. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

  Miss Rainbird put out a hand to steady herself on the balustrade and looked down the stairs. Martin Shoebridge stood behind her, looking at the small, frail figure, the smell of the sherry she had drunk sour in his nostrils. Miss Rainbird of Reed Court, he thought, his great-aunt, doting and half-tipsy as usual. His face tightened with disgust and cold hate. He thrust out his right hand and pushed her violently.

  He stood at the top of the stairs and watched her fall down the steep flight. Her body hit the balustrade, slewed sideways, crashed against the wall and then somersaulted twice before hitting the floor below, her head smashing against the polished boards. He watched her as she lay there, sprawled out like a broken doll. If there had been any sign of life from her he would have gone down and finished her off. But she lay still with her head and neck twisted unnaturally to one side. He waited a few moments to make sure that she did not move or cry out.

  In those few moments Miss Rainbird, before she died, saw him, saw the sun catching his fair hair from the window behind. But he meant nothing to her, even though vaguely she realised with her fading senses that he had pushed her. Yes, he had pushed her. Just as years and years ago she had deliberately, out of cold hate, pushed a drunken Sholto down the same stairs . . . pushed him out of her life so that she could live in peace. She died . . . hearing Madame Blanche’s voice saying, ‘Something terrible happened here.’

  Martin Shoebridge went up the stairs to his room. Syton and the cook were in the kitchen. Syton might find her. If he didn’t then she would be there when he came down. She was dead, and everyone knew she drank too much in her bedroom. There would be no trouble. A tipsy tumble. And now he really had freed himself. . . freed himself to do what his father and mother had died trying to do. He knew to a penny what his great-aunt was worth. He knew everything, because with sherry in her she was a great talker . . . knew about the Harriet dreams, about Madame Blanche and her suicide . . . just as he had known all his father’s plans and about the kidnappings of Archer, Pakefield and the Archbishop, because his father had kept nothing from him. . . . And he knew, too, that there had been no accidental fire at Highlands House. Something had gone wrong because Madame Blanche and the Lumley man had traced his father for Miss Rainbird. Because of them his father and step-mother had died. His dog and his hawks had been trapped and burnt alive. . . . And now he was free, but before he could move off to find what his father had always sought there were others to be dealt with. It was a debt he owed his father. There was this man Lumley . . . a prospering garden contractor. He would go next, and then there would be the two men his mother and father had told him about . . . the two who were always there when the diamonds had been collected. Finding them and dealing with them would be harder, more dangerous. But it would be done. He was young, he had time, he had money, and he liked hunting.

  He went up the stairs, whistling gently to himself, seeing the pattern of revenge in his mind, knowing he must and would complete it before he was absolutely free to turn his back on the world and live as his father had dreamt of living.

 

 

  Victor Canning, The Rainbird Pattern

 

 

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