backs. I knew I’d gone wrong after I’d descended about the height of two storeys, which put me somewhere near ground level. However, there was no sign that the passageway gave on to the ground floor, so I thought I’d better turn back.
There were small, narrow windows. I could see recessed lights, but I hadn’t found a switch and the windows were too high for me to see out of them. But the slits let in a little light, quite enough to see by, and if it hadn’t been for the wretched sandals I would have been fine. As it was, I missed a rather worn step on a sharp turn and twisted sideways, banging my arm sharply on the brickwork. I clutched at the wall, and twisted on the high heels.
The air whooshed out of my lungs, I teetered crazily for a moment or two and then somehow recovered my balance, but my right ankle had been badly wrenched. I had to sit down after that to get my breath back and to clear the tears from my eyes.
I wanted to yell out for help, and I suppose if I’d been in any other situation I would have done just that, but it seemed so ludicrous that a grown woman should first have missed her way and then her footing. I felt I should make a complete fool of myself in front of prying strangers who would be only too happy to score a few points in their notebooks.
My head cleared after a minute or two, and the pain became tolerable. When I tried to put the foot to the floor I knew the damage wasn’t serious. So I got to my feet and I turned back.
I had gone up two steps before it occurred to me that I was a diamanté sandal short. I went down again and, now that my sight was accustomed to the semi-darkness, I saw what I had missed before, a doorway.
It was around the next bend, and my sandal gleamed as a few rays of light came through the warped panels of a wooden door. I stepped down with great care onto the wrenched foot and at once heard the sound of voices.
“She could be a thorough nuisance, I’m sorry,” someone was saying over a murmur of protest. I knew the voice. It was the woman who had invited me to stay at Monteine Castle, Monica Sievel. One of the other voices had me puzzled, for I had heard it before, and recently at that; instinctively I stopped. “I know about the degree of control the woman exerts,” the man’s voice went on. “She’s an aggressive and assertive personality, but that isn’t necessarily an adverse factor. Now that the New York operation is complete, we move on to the critical stage. Ulrome may well need her support. Why not involve her at the beginning. It can’t be kept from her—and we can’t arrange another major settlement. I think we have to keep this in perspective. She could even prove a catalyst in this situation. Fitch, what’s your reading of her state of mind?”
I was listening to a conversation about myself and Richard. I felt cold at the thought. I had no qualms at all about eavesdropping. If others talk about me, then I have the right to listen in. The thought that was uppermost in my mind was the damage I might do to Richard’s new career if they found me listening. Had they heard me? Or had they heard the tumble down the stairs?
“Aggressive. Assertive. Yet herself an unrealized psyche,” said another man. I almost decided to retreat silently, but I stayed to hear more. An effeminate man’s voice was answering, talking about me. I strained to hear his voice, but he was talking so quietly that I missed whole sequences. I caught the words: “She had for some time a considerable drug dependency. She won’t revert. I’d estimate that right up to the final stage she’d hold up. Why not use her?”
I could have screamed with anger. They knew about the trips I’d been on when I was with Tony’s father. There wasn’t much else, no hard drugs, no real addiction, and I was seventeen at the time. I tried to remember what ‘catalyst’ meant. Catalyst? I was that? And I was to be used?
“Strategy, Jensen?” said the calm authoritative voice I had almost placed.
“My report, page seven,” said another man, a deep bass. “I see no reason to change it in any way. I had anticipated the possibility of the woman’s presence.”
I heard the murmur of voices and the sound of papers rustling. I shuddered. I knew now what I had only suspected when I saw the Sievel woman regarding me with that curious stare. She was inimical to me. And so were her colleagues. They were setting me up for something, and it involved Richard’s welfare; in my innocence I thought they were engaged in some scheme to separate me from him because they thought I wasn’t a suitable International Marine Oil Company wife. I told myself to keep it cool. No confrontations, no anger. I wouldn’t let Richard down. I retrieved my sandal stealthily and made my way back.
I plastered my arm, rubbed some of my most expensive perfume on the ankle, and took out my third-best dress, a long-sleeved, two-year-old cotton thing, mostly red, but shot through with Chinese silks. Then I went downstairs again.
“You took your time, Anne,” Richard remarked.
He must have been drinking steadily, for he was flushed. Monica Sievel smiled at me, and I thought, You deceitful cow. Two other men were there: one was a short, slight, nearly bald middle-aged man; the other was rather older, maybe in his late fifties, and massively built with a huge paunch and great red jowls. He was Jensen, as I expected. His deep, plummy voice matched his bulk. Fitch was the possessor of the effeminate voice I had heard describe me as aggressive and assertive. Richard introduced me to them. I felt myself flushing. They must know that I had been listening to them, surely? But they gave no sign of it,
They asked me about my journey, how did I like the Castle, did I know North Yorkshire—all the usual things. Jensen suggested a drink for me.
“What will you have, Miss Blackwell?” the bar-steward asked me.
I staggered, literally. I put the hurt foot down and had to grab at Richard’s arm for support. Pain lanced through my leg, and a sudden chill struck back through the whole of my body.
It was the way he said my name that brought back the memory of that decisive, so-calm voice that I had overheard; whilst I was eavesdropping I couldn’t give any credence to the possibility. A bar-steward giving orders? Impossible. The impossible had happened, but why—why was an intelligent man like him masquerading as a servant?
“Here, Anne, what’s the matter?” Richard asked.
Concern registered also on the woman’s face. I thought I could conceal my feelings. I couldn’t. She held my gaze and then came forward in a motherly way.
“Is it your foot? See—it’s swelling!”
Richard inspected my ankle and the barman made sympathetic noises. I tried to avoid looking behind the bar in case they knew I would be looking for the folder they had been reading. I had an absurd impulse to say “It’s all on page seven,” but I kept it back.
“I slipped in the shower,” I told them. “On a piece of soap.”
Fitch smiled and then looked away. Jensen put his fingers on my shoulder and I managed to restrain the shudder I felt beginning in my spine.
“A drink might help,” suggested Max.
I couldn’t answer him for a moment. He knew so much about me. And then it struck me why he should choose to work as a bar-steward; he was in the ideal position to watch. Almost unnoticed, he could spy on International guests and record their unguarded words. It was clever. I resolved to be very careful.
“Maybe you feel sick,” said Richard. “Here, shall we give dinner a miss? Have a sandwich and a glass of wine upstairs?”
I smiled at them all. I slid onto a barstool and called on
