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Authors: Ellis Peters
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the key turned hastily, clumsily in the lock. For a long minute she caught the deep, harsh, strained accent of his breathing, close there against the door, so that almost she could see his damp forehead pressed against the cold white panelling, and the veined eyelids heavy as marble over the burned-out grey eyes. Only slowly and with infinite effort did he drag himself away; she heard his steps slur along the carpeted landing, and stumble down the stairs.
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CHAPTER IV
« ^ »
The first thing she did was to cross to the window and hoist the sash, to have a second look at the lie of the land seawards. The bedroom looked out, like the bathroom, to the rear of the house, but not directly towards the water. To the left lay the outline of the coast above the cliffs, undulating between tree-lined hollows and blanched grassy brows, but beneath the walls of the cottage the land crumbled away towards the sea. By craning out to extend her view to the right she could see the cliffs broken by a small, tight inlet, where the tide came in to a tiny jetty and a boat-house. Many a small house like this must have been snapped up by boating enthusiasts as desirable weekend accommodation, all round the Scottish coast. Did it belong to this man’s family? Surely to someone who knew him well, or he wouldn’t have been admitted to all its secrets. There seemed to be a rocky path leading down from the house to the inlet, but only here and there could she glimpse a level, slated spot that formed a part of it.
The drop from the window she abandoned as impossible. Even if she had had sheets enough to knot into a rope, and confidence enough in the finished article to trust herself to it—after all, what had she to lose?—she didn’t believe she could climb round the corner of the house to level ground. Forget that, and consider the contents of the room.
She was closing the window again when she heard the car below start up, and gently roll the few yards into the garage, and in a moment the double doors closed hollowly over it. Naturally he wouldn’t risk leaving that where it could be seen, and draw attention to itself and him.
Well, if she couldn’t get out of here, could she keep him from getting in? The trouble with modernised holiday cottages is that everything tends to be either light-weight or built-in. Wardrobe and dressing-table here were neatly contrived with white-wood shelving built on to the wall, there was nothing of any solidity that was movable, not even the bed. A child could have shoved that across the floor on its admirable and infuriating ball castors. There were no bolts inside the door to supplement the lock, and she couldn’t barricade herself in.
There remained only the lock itself, new and presumably efficient, but surely also a light-weight, a token seal on privacy. She emptied the contents of her handbag on the bed, and fingered them over for anything that might provide a tool or a weapon. The obvious lock-picker was her nail-file, a giant from the lavish manicure case George had once given her, long and strong and with a formidable point. She had another use for that, however. It was the only thing she had that even suggested a weapon, all it lacked was a comfortable handle that would give her more control and force in using it, and she supplied that by embedding the unpointed end firmly in the cake of soap she had stolen from the bathroom. It wasn’t much as defence against a gun, but if she got a chance she intended to forestall that direct confrontation. If she had had this in her hand half an hour ago, when he had sat there in broken exhaustion on the stairs, with his back turned to her…
So this, she thought, pushing back the tangled hair from her forehead, this is how killers are made. No, I can’t! Not unless… not until… All the same, she fingered the point of the file, and remembering that there were bricks outside the window, went and flung up the sash again, and began carefully whetting the
----
CHAPTER IV
« ^ »
The first thing she did was to cross to the window and hoist the sash, to have a second look at the lie of the land seawards. The bedroom looked out, like the bathroom, to the rear of the house, but not directly towards the water. To the left lay the outline of the coast above the cliffs, undulating between tree-lined hollows and blanched grassy brows, but beneath the walls of the cottage the land crumbled away towards the sea. By craning out to extend her view to the right she could see the cliffs broken by a small, tight inlet, where the tide came in to a tiny jetty and a boat-house. Many a small house like this must have been snapped up by boating enthusiasts as desirable weekend accommodation, all round the Scottish coast. Did it belong to this man’s family? Surely to someone who knew him well, or he wouldn’t have been admitted to all its secrets. There seemed to be a rocky path leading down from the house to the inlet, but only here and there could she glimpse a level, slated spot that formed a part of it.
The drop from the window she abandoned as impossible. Even if she had had sheets enough to knot into a rope, and confidence enough in the finished article to trust herself to it—after all, what had she to lose?—she didn’t believe she could climb round the corner of the house to level ground. Forget that, and consider the contents of the room.
She was closing the window again when she heard the car below start up, and gently roll the few yards into the garage, and in a moment the double doors closed hollowly over it. Naturally he wouldn’t risk leaving that where it could be seen, and draw attention to itself and him.
Well, if she couldn’t get out of here, could she keep him from getting in? The trouble with modernised holiday cottages is that everything tends to be either light-weight or built-in. Wardrobe and dressing-table here were neatly contrived with white-wood shelving built on to the wall, there was nothing of any solidity that was movable, not even the bed. A child could have shoved that across the floor on its admirable and infuriating ball castors. There were no bolts inside the door to supplement the lock, and she couldn’t barricade herself in.
There remained only the lock itself, new and presumably efficient, but surely also a light-weight, a token seal on privacy. She emptied the contents of her handbag on the bed, and fingered them over for anything that might provide a tool or a weapon. The obvious lock-picker was her nail-file, a giant from the lavish manicure case George had once given her, long and strong and with a formidable point. She had another use for that, however. It was the only thing she had that even suggested a weapon, all it lacked was a comfortable handle that would give her more control and force in using it, and she supplied that by embedding the unpointed end firmly in the cake of soap she had stolen from the bathroom. It wasn’t much as defence against a gun, but if she got a chance she intended to forestall that direct confrontation. If she had had this in her hand half an hour ago, when he had sat there in broken exhaustion on the stairs, with his back turned to her…
So this, she thought, pushing back the tangled hair from her forehead, this is how killers are made. No, I can’t! Not unless… not until… All the same, she fingered the point of the file, and remembering that there were bricks outside the window, went and flung up the sash again, and began carefully whetting the
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