The Vanishment Read online

  Dear Mr. Clare,

  I have asked my daughter to place these in the packet she is going to post to you. I think you will know what to do with them. I do not have the courage to tell Susannah all I know. But after I am gone, the house will be hers. Perhaps you will find some way to warn her. I think it will be for the best to have the place destroyed. Destroyed and, if possible, cleansed in some way. Do as you think best.

  Richard Adderstone

  I took the keys one at a time and laid them on my desk. I recognized them without prompting. They were the keys to Petherick House.

  Chapter 22

  The weather grew steadily worse. There were fierce storms several nights in a row. Snow fell in Scotland and started to come south. In Cornwall, high seas rose over the walls of the harbors and sank fishing boats.

  Rachel's condition grew worse. She was taken on a round of specialists, all of whom professed themselves perplexed. New drugs were tried, none to the least avail. The strain of the fits and loss of sleep was showing on her. She had lost weight, showed a perpetual pallor, and was growing sulky and irritable. Tim and Susan were frightened and desperate. I knew what had to be done, but I could not do it. Not yet, not while they were there. Susan would have stopped me, and that would have been the end for all of us. I bided my time. Every day I wrote three thousand words.

  * * *

  I heard of the accident while having lunch on the tenth of December. The radio was on in the background. It was during the final item on the news bulletin that I heard Tim and Susan's names mentioned.

  "A couple were seriously injured today when their car overturned on the A40 between Oxford and Wheatley. No other vehicles were involved in the accident, which took place shortly after ten o'clock this morning. The car, a Ford Sierra, left the roadway without warning and overturned in a field, trapping the occupants. The names of the driver and passengers have now been released. They are Tim and Susan Wigram and their four-year-old daughter, Rachel, who was traveling in the rear. Mr. and Mrs. Wigram have been taken to the Radcliffe Infirmary, where they are in intensive care. Their daughter, who escaped unhurt, is also at the infirmary."

  I drove straight to Oxford. By the time I got there, Tim had come out of intensive care and was under observation in a separate room. He had been badly smashed up. His bed was surrounded by a battery of machines, and he was hooked up to a battery of drips and feeds. Susan was in a coma. They told me Tim was still too ill to receive visitors, but they let me in to see Rachel.

  She was being looked after by a nurse in a room off the main children's ward. When I came in, she burst into tears and clung to me tightly. When she was able to speak, I asked her what had happened.

  "We were at the hospital," she said. "To see another doctor. I didn't like him. He was rough. And he had cold hands."

  "What hospital was this, Rachel?"

  "I don't know."

  "Was it this one?"

  "Maybe. I don't remember."

  "And then you had a crash?"

  "We were going home. A lady stepped into the road."

  "And your daddy swerved the car?"

  "I think so."

  She fell quiet. Her normally bright expression was clouded and anxious.

  "Will my mummy and daddy be all right?" she asked.

  "Yes, of course they will. The doctors will take care of them."

  "I don't like doctors," she said.

  "These are nice doctors. They're going to help your mummy and daddy get well."

  She looked at me as though she did not believe me.

  "I don't want anything bad to happen."

  "Why should anything bad happen?"

  "Like before," she said. "When I lived in Petherick House."

  I hesitated. Was it fair to press her when she was already under such strain? But I thought it was better to know.

  "Do you know what happened then?" I asked.

  She shook her head.

  "I don't remember. But I know something bad did happen. Sometimes I dream about it. But later I forget again."

  A policeman came soon after that. He had been directed to speak to me. I was able to give him what little information I had about Tim's parents. Susan's family had gone to live in Florida about eight years earlier. The policeman said he would make inquiries.

  "Did you find the woman?" I asked.

  "What woman, sir?"

  "Rachel said that a woman stepped out in front of the car. That's why Tim swerved. It sent him off the road."

  The policeman looked puzzled.

  'I was at the scene of the accident, sir. There was no sign of anyone. But thanks anyway. I'll make inquiries."

  "What about Rachel?" I asked. "What's to be done with her?"

  "The little girl? I couldn't really say, sir. It's up to the social-work team here in the hospital. But I daresay the grandparents will just take her home with them."

  "Christ!" I said. "I completely forgot. Tim's parents won't be at home. They go to Spain every winter. There's some tourist company that gives them pensioner rates. They spend two or three months."

  "I see. Any idea where, sir?"

  "I'm not sure. Tim will know. Torremolinos, Benidorm—one of those ghastly places."

  He looked accusingly at me.

  "Can't think what you mean, sir. That's where I spend my own hols. Benidorm. The wife and I have been going there for years. Lovely place. It shouldn't be too hard to track down the Wigrams there."

  "Would they let me take the child? She knows me. Far better than some social worker."

  "Wouldn't know, sir. If the father's conscious, they might ask him."

  "All right. Thank you."

  "Thank you, sir. We'll be in touch if there's anything more we need."

  They let me in to see Tim an hour later.

  "I can only give you five minutes. He's quite heavily sedated. There's been a lot of internal damage."

  "But he will recover?"

  The doctor was Pakistani. He had a quietly harassed look. The beeper sticking out of his pocket made him temporary to everyone and everything.

  "In time, more or less. He may not be very mobile. It's far too early to tell the real extent of the damage. He still has to face quite a lot of surgery."

  "And Susan?"

  "His wife? I don't know. You'll have to speak to Dr. Shah. But I think he's gone off duty now. Sister will tell you something, I'm sure."

  Tim was groggy, hovering between pain and sedation. He recognized me. I stood, looking down on him. All around us the humming of machinery dimmed the silence.

  "Is . . . Susan all right?" was his first question. His voice was weak and hesitant.

  "Yes," I said. "She's in another ward. She's fine."

  "And Rachel? They . .. told me she wasn't hurt."

  "That's right. She's in the children's ward, but it's only to keep an eye on her. She wasn't even scratched."

  "Thank God."

  He closed his eyes. I thought he might pass out on me.

  "It was her," he whispered. I bent down to hear him better. "Susannah Trevorrow."

  "I don't understand."

  He opened his eyes. Almost the only light came from the machinery.

  "She stepped out . . . in front of the car. A little bit ahead. I . . . thought it was Sarah, then I . . . remembered what you said. About them looking alike. She was just . . . standing there, facing the car. I knew I couldn't stop. So I. . . pulled the wheel. We were . . . going quite fast. Next thing I knew . . . I was in this place."

  "Tim, you must have—'

  "I know what I saw, Peter.'

  I did not answer. A nurse put her head around the door and indicated that my time was up.

  "Tim, something has to be done about Rachel. I'd like to take her home. She can stay with me until you're both out.'

  He blinked and made a slight gesture with his head to signify assent.

  "Yes," he said. "No one else will . . . understand. Jenny next door has the key to the house. You c
an get. . . Rachel's things."

  The nurse came in and I left.

  "He wants me to take care of his daughter," I said. "Can you fix things with the authorities?"

  "I'll have a quick word with him."

  When she came out, she said she thought it would be all right.

  "You'll have to see someone on the social-work team. I'll show you the way to their office—there's usually someone there at this time. I'll ring them myself and tell them the father's given his consent."

  The formalities did not take long to complete. I sensed that the social worker who spoke with me was only too glad I was willing to take Rachel off their hands. I filled in several forms, and when I left the office, Rachel was officially in my custody until Tim's parents could be tracked down.

  I wanted to see Susan before leaving.

  "Wait here," I told Rachel. "I just want to ask the doctor something."

  A nurse directed me to the intensive-care unit where Susan was being kept.

  "Is Dr. Shah still on duty?" I asked the sister.

  "He went off a couple of hours ago. Can I help?"

  "I just wanted to know if I could see Mrs. Wigram.

  She was in an accident this morning. I'm looking after her daughter, and I'd like to be able to tell her I've seen her."

  The sister bit her lip.

  "Didn't they tell you?"

  "Tell me what?'

  "They should have told you. You say you were with her daughter? Are you a relative?"

  "No. Look, what should they have told me? I'm a close friend. I'm taking care of Susan's daughter."

  "Mrs. Wigram died an hour ago."

  She brought a young doctor to speak to me. Her name was Ross. She told me she had been with Susan when she died.

  "Did she come out of the coma?" I asked.

  "Only briefly. A minute or two at the most."

  "Did she say anything?"

  She looked faintly troubled.

  "She was . . . when she came out of the coma, she was shouting. I had to calm her down. Then she turned to me and said, 'It's starting all over again." That's all. She repeated it several times. She died about a minute after that. I'm sorry."

  We drove back to London in the dark. The highway was awash with cars and their lights. I did not tell Rachel of her mother's death; I tried to maintain a semblance of normality. Over and over again I imagined the figure of Susannah Trevorrow stepping in front of Tim's car, the car swerving, skidding, plowing into the empty field, overturning like a turtle, time after time. Why? What had she wanted? I looked at Rachel and wondered if this was what Susannah had wanted to achieve: her daughter returned and sitting here in the car with me. With me at last.

  Chapter 23

  I drove slowly in the inside lane, half expecting to see a woman dash into my path, a white figure in the long beams of my headlights. It terrified me to think that Rachel might go into one of her fits in the car. If that happened, what on earth could I do? If I had enough warning, perhaps I could pull over onto the hard shoulder and sit it out there. But what if that was not all? What if something started happening to the car, just as I had seen happen to Rachel's room? She sat beside me, staring through the windshield. I wondered what she saw out there in the dark.

  That night she slept soundly, and in the morning seemed more rested than she had done the day before. Sleep had restored a little of the color to her cheeks. She ate a large breakfast, and we talked about the things we planned to do that day.

  I rang the Radcliffe, but all they could tell me was that Tim had gone into surgery at nine o'clock and that he was not expected out until midafternoon. It was going to be a long operation. Had he been told of his wife's death? No, that would have to wait until he was much stronger.

  I took Rachel over to her house in order to pick up some clothes and a few treasured possessions. Jenny—Tim and Sue's next-door neighbor—remembered me and came in to talk. She had already heard about the accident. I told her privately that Susan was dead, but that Rachel was not to know. She seemed genuinely grief-stricken and found it hard to control herself when we went to fetch Rachel from the garden.

  “Can you look after her yourself?" she asked. "Wouldn't she be better off with a couple? Phil and I could take care of her for a while."

  "Thanks for offering," I said, "but Tim wanted me to do it. I'd like to give it a try. I had a little girl of my own once. Of course, it would have been easier if. . ." I paused. "Did Susan tell you that my wife died?"

  She nodded.

  "I'm sorry. This is a bad time for you."

  “Yes."

  "Do you know about these attacks Rachel's been having?"

  "Tim's told me all about them. I was there when she had one not long ago. I'll cope."

  "They see Dr. Ronson in the High Street. Let me give you his number."

  'It's okay," I said. "I can get it from the phone book. I'll be in touch if I need anything."

  She had a fit at midnight, and another three hours later. Each time, the bed lifted from the floor. The

  temperature in the room sank below zero in a matter of seconds and stayed there until the fit had passed. This time I could hear voices, indistinct, as though relayed from a great distance.

  Afterward, I went to my desk and took out the bunch of keys Richard Adderstone had sent me. I slipped them into my pocket.

  I had started rereading my early novels.

  The next day Tim was back in the operating room when I rang. Something had gone wrong with the operation the day before, and they had to correct it while there was still time. I hung up.

  A moment later I picked up the receiver and punched in a second number. The phone rang for over a minute, but I hung on. Finally, someone answered.

  "Hello," I said. 'Is that Susannah?"

  "Yes, speaking."

  'Susannah, this is Peter Clare. I'm sorry to disturb you."

  "No, that's all right. How can I help you?"

  "Is your father well enough to speak to me?"

  There was a brief silence.

  "No, I don't think that's a good idea, Mr. Clare."

  "It's important. There's something I need to know."

  "Nevertheless. If you like. I'll ask him for you. Provided it's not something that's likely to distress him further."

  "I just want him to tell me whether there was ever any extensive building work done inside Petherick House since it came into his possession."

  "I don't think it would be a good idea to ask him that. Or anything else connected to that place. He gets very agitated."

  "It is important. A child's life may be at stake."

  She paused.

  "I can ask the solicitors in St. Ives. They would know. They handled all that sort of thing.'

  "Yes, if you would. Thank you.'

  Another silence.

  "Are you writing another novel, Mr. Clare?"

  The question took me by surprise.

  "Yes. Why do you ask?'

  "Just curious," she said. "Is it to be like your previous ones?'

  "Not much," I said.

  "I'll ring the solicitors now. Give me your number and I'll ring you back."

  She rang about an hour later. No major alterations had been done at Petherick House since Agnes Trevor-row's day. There had been some trivial redecoration inside, and regular pointing, reslating, and reguttering on the exterior.

  Rachel was growing fretful.

  "I want to see my mummy," she said. "And my daddy. Why won't you take me to see them?"

  'I will as soon as I can, love. But they're both still in hospital, and we can't visit them until the doctor says so. Your daddy has had an operation, and we have to let him get a bit better before we can see him."

  "Did they open him up?"

  "Only a little."

  "Did it hurt?"

  I shook my head and tried to laugh.

  "Of course not. They put you to sleep."

  "I wouldn't like that."

  "Having an oper
ation?"

  "Being put to sleep. I don't like to be asleep."

  "Why not?"

  But she clammed up and went off in search of Simpson, her favorite teddy bear.

  I brought her bed into my room that night. She was asleep long before I came up. I lay awake for a long time, watching her, then fell asleep myself. Something woke me around three o'clock. The night-light by Rachel's bed was still lit. Standing quietly over her bed was a figure, barely visible. I made a movement, and the figure started, looking around. It was Susannah Trevorrow. I thought for a moment it might be Sarah, but the hair and clothes were different. She looked at me with such pain in her eyes. The next moment she was gone.

  Rachel went on sleeping until dawn. From time to time a dream would send her into starts and twitches, but she never woke.

  I rang the hospital first thing. They told me Tim had died in the night.

  Chapter 24

  The road to Cornwall had never seemed so open or so desolate. Not in all the summers of my childhood had I gone down it with such a heavy heart. The convoys of July and August had long since vanished. On either side the fields were flat and sere; frost covered them with a slick white skin. Here and there sheep stood on the uncovered hillsides with their backs against the wind. Above our heads, the sky floated naked like the belly of a vast shambling beast.

  Rachel sat in the front beside me, watching out for the chimneys of tin mines, which had started to appear above the fields. I had not told her that her parents were dead. I thought that perhaps I might never tell her. We could go on like this indefinitely, Rachel and I. We could travel the world together and never speak once of death.

  I think she guessed where we were headed, though I did not tell her that either. When we set off, I just said we were going for a little holiday. I had no firm idea in my mind, other than that we had to get back to Petherick House. They were waiting for us. We had to go to them.