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  On her way out of the room, she surreptitiously unplugged the telephone. If there were any incoming calls, the phone must ring upstairs, not down. She could not risk her daughter’s call being answered by a stranger. By the time she and Matthew were settled in their own room, it was already five past three.

  ‘I won’t sleep,’ said Alison. ‘She could ring any time.’

  She did not know, of course, about the call they had already missed.

  CHAPTER 37

  * * *

  News and Intrigue

  The phone rang in the Gwynn house for the second time that night.

  This time the call was successful. Matthew picked up the receiver. Alison was in the bathroom, running a bath. The policeman was downstairs dozing.

  ‘Nesta?’ said Matthew eagerly. The one thing that could ease the pain of losing Ormingat would be to hear his daughter speaking to him and assuring him that she was safe.

  ‘Is that Mr Gwynn?’ said the voice at the other end.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Yes, and who are you?’

  His eyes began to gather human tears and his very human heart felt near breaking. All of his emotions were suddenly in conflict. Ormingat, oh Ormingat!

  ‘Are you alone?’ said the voice, a woman’s voice, sounding cautious rather than threatening. ‘No policemen there?’

  ‘Not here in this room,’ said Matthew. Now Alison was at his shoulder, waiting anxiously to know who was speaking. ‘There’s only myself and my wife.’

  ‘So no one else can hear me?’ the voice insisted.

  ‘What is it, Mattie?’ said Alison impatiently. ‘Who are you talking to?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ said Matthew. ‘She hasn’t said. She just wants to know that no one else can hear us.’

  Alison put out her hand for the phone and Matthew allowed her to take it.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said firmly. ‘And what do you want?’

  ‘Mrs Gwynn?’ said the voice.

  ‘Yes,’ said Alison. ‘Now please tell me who you are and why you are ringing here at this time in the morning.’

  ‘I am sorry, Mrs Gwynn,’ said Stella, ‘but for all our sakes I have to be careful. The first thing I want you to know is that Nesta is safe and sound and will be travelling home at first light. I shall bring her myself. You will know my name. I am Stella Dalrymple.’

  ‘From the newspaper?’ said Alison, not quite able to focus on Stella’s words.

  Matthew gave his wife a look of panic and put a finger to his lips. What could ‘from the newspaper’ mean if not reporters looking for a story?

  ‘It’s Stella Dalrymple,’ said his wife. ‘You remember. She was in that newspaper story, the woman who lived next door to the Derwents and who seemed to know something she wasn’t telling. She says she’s got Nesta and will be bring her home in the morning.’

  Matthew took the receiver and said, ‘Is this the truth? Are you really Mrs Dalrymple?’

  ‘I am,’ said Stella. ‘And Nesta is asleep in my spare bedroom. She arrived here last night, totally worn out and anxious to come home to you.’

  ‘Let me speak to her,’ said her father.

  ‘I’ll waken her shortly,’ said Stella. ‘She really is fast asleep. She was exhausted. I promised her I’d contact you after two o’clock. I tried. I let the phone ring for ten minutes but there was no answer. I didn’t know what to think. It seemed impossible that you wouldn’t be there.’

  ‘What has my daughter been telling you?’ said Matthew. Why had she waited to ring them till after two o’clock? What reason could Nesta have given to extract this promise from her?

  ‘She told me everything, Mr Gwynn,’ said Stella. ‘She trusts me. She knows that I have known secrets and kept them, secrets almost too fantastic to believe.’

  ‘But you believed?’ said Matthew.

  ‘What did she believe?’ said Alison, taking the receiver again. ‘Where is my daughter? Is she in Belthorp? That’s where you live, isn’t it? But that’s miles from here.’

  ‘She came by train,’ said Stella. ‘We’ll come back by train. I’ll have her home in York by two in the afternoon. We might have been earlier if it hadn’t been Sunday.’

  ‘We’ll drive up for her,’ said Alison. ‘That will be quicker. We’ll come straight away now.’

  ‘No,’ said Stella. ‘Don’t do that. I have had much more time to think about this than you have. No one must ever know where Nesta has been. No one must ever connect you with me.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ said Alison, still not understanding.

  ‘You life could be a misery,’ said Stella. ‘A man from some ministry or other, some sort of secret service, has already questioned me about Thomas Derwent and his father. If they know that you know me, you will have no peace.’

  Alison blanched as she thought of the frog that had been slung over their roof with such force. A man ‘from some ministry’ would have a field day!

  ‘It is their job to investigate possible extraterrestrial visitors,’ said Stella, using the word for the very first time. The cards were all on the table. Nothing was hidden now.

  ‘You will bring her home?’ said Alison, skipping any further questions.

  ‘She will be on the platform at York Station when the twelve-fifteen arrives from Casselton. I shall escort her all the way, but I shan’t leave the train with her. I can’t stress how important it is not to tell anyone exactly where she has been.’

  ‘The police will ask her questions,’ said Alison. ‘They’re bound to.’

  ‘Parry them,’ said Stella. ‘Do whatever you can to fend off the questions and to insist on a return to normal life.’

  ‘Can you wake up my daughter now?’ said Alison. ‘I need to hear her voice.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Stella gently. ‘I’ll fetch her.’

  ‘Mom, oh Mom,’ Nesta sobbed into the phone. ‘I do love you and I am very, very sorry. Stella will bring me home. Let me speak to Dad.’

  Alison handed the receiver to Matthew.

  ‘Nesta, sweetheart,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks for not going,’ said Nesta. ‘Thanks for staying here on Earth for me, Dad. I love you very much.’

  She sounded very tired.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said her father. ‘In a few hours we’ll all be together again. Go back to bed, honey. Have a good sleep.’

  ‘We’ll have to tell that policeman downstairs that Nesta has been found,’ said Alison anxiously. ‘It’s hard to know what to say.’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ said Matthew. ‘I’ll say she has rung us and that she is on her way home. They need know nothing more.’

  ‘On her way home?’ said Detective Inspector Stirling grumpily when he was woken up to be told the latest development. ‘Where from?’

  ‘They don’t know,’ said the constable awkwardly. Alison and Matthew were standing beside him. He was using the phone in the sitting room, which Alison had discreetly re-plugged.

  ‘When do they expect her to arrive?’

  ‘They say they are going to meet her at the railway station at two o’clock in the afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, oh, oh,’ said the inspector, fully awake now. ‘We can’t have that. They could be going anywhere. The girl might not even have rung them. She might not be in any state to ring them. Did you hear the phone?’

  ‘No,’ said the constable, ‘they were speaking on the line upstairs.’

  ‘Let me speak to Mr Gwynn,’ said the inspector.

  The constable handed the receiver to Matthew.

  ‘Yes?’ said Matthew.

  ‘I’ll be at your house by eleven in the morning, Mr Gwynn,’ said the inspector. ‘In the meantime, don’t go out at all, not even into the garden – forensic will be working there. Make no phone calls. And allow Constable Bainbridge to answer any incoming calls. We must be very cautious. You do understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Matthew wearily, ‘you have made yourself perfectly clear.’ He would have said more but now
was not the time for indignation. Nesta was coming home.

  ‘Now I need to talk to my constable,’ said the inspector.

  When Constable Bainbridge put the receiver down, he faced Matthew awkwardly. ‘I’ll have to remove the telephone from your bedroom, sir,’ he said.

  Matthew gave a smile that was half-grimace. In a quiet, caustic voice he said, ‘We haven’t murdered our daughter. They won’t find her remains buried in the garden.’

  The constable blushed. But he had his duty to do.

  ‘So can I have the telephone from the bedroom, sir?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll fetch it down for you,’ said Matthew.

  Constable Bainbridge swallowed audibly.

  ‘I think I am meant to come up and get it, sir. He’s bound to ask if I did.’

  ‘All right,’ said Matthew, reluctantly sympathizing with the young man’s difficulties. ‘My daughter is safe and she’s coming home. Set beside that, your inspector is a minor irritation.’

  CHAPTER 38

  * * *

  Sunday Morning

  Mickey knocked at the door of Number 12 Merrivale and rehearsed what he was about to say. It seemed necessary to say it quickly.

  ‘Hello,’ said Stella, ‘I was hoping you would call.’

  ‘That girl,’ said Mickey, without a good morning, ‘she’s run away from home and she was on the telly last night – her photo – and her name’s Nesta and the police are looking for her.’

  Stella smiled.

  ‘Come in, Mickey,’ she said. ‘Keep calm!’

  Mickey said no more but followed her into the house.

  The girl was sitting at the dining table. She was just finishing her breakfast. She gave Mickey a shy smile and then looked at Stella as if expecting a cue. The scene was set but she didn’t quite know her lines. What was she going to tell Thomas’s friend?

  ‘Nesta is going home this morning,’ said Stella. ‘We’re going for the train in an hour’s time. So there’s no need to worry, Mickey. I am going with her all the way to York. I’d ask you to come, but I doubt if your mam would let you.’

  This was part of a standing joke: Mrs Trent had reluctantly allowed her son to accompany Mrs Dalrymple to Casselton when Thomas was in hospital there. It was an occasion he would never be allowed to forget! Mrs Trent, as they say nowadays, could worry for England! Her son was developing some of the same qualities.

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Mickey. ‘Your mam will be happy to have you home again.’

  It was not quite the right thing to say. Nesta’s eyes filled with tears. She took a wedge of toast from the rack and concentrated upon eating it.

  ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea, Mickey,’ said Stella, ‘or you can have chocolate if you’d rather.’

  Mickey sat opposite Nesta and said, ‘I’ll have tea, please.’

  ‘Do you really know Thomas?’ he said, looking directly at Nesta as Stella poured the tea.

  ‘No,’ said Nesta. ‘I’ve never met him. I just know something about him.’

  It was perhaps less than good mannered, but there was a question he just had to ask. He had found this girl on the bench by the Green, not knowing where to go or what to do. She had come looking for Mrs Dalrymple and she claimed to know something about Thomas. That was his excuse and his reason.

  ‘Why did you come all this way to see Mrs Dalrymple? What do you know about Thomas?’

  Nesta looked at Stella, appealing to her to provide the answers.

  Stella handed Mickey his tea and offered him toast and jam.

  ‘Nesta had a sort of bad dream,’ she said in a measured way. ‘She thought her parents were going to take her in a spaceship no bigger than a golf ball and fly off with her to a distant planet. It was so real she believed it and she thought it was somehow related to the disappearance of Thomas. It was something she had read about in the newspaper. Stories like that can produce very vivid dreams.’

  This was a sort of code they had developed to talk in whenever they spoke of anything to do with the Derwents. It seemed wise not to openly admit what they believed, but each knew what the other meant. Mickey nodded.

  ‘It was just a bad nightmare,’ said Stella.

  ‘A terrible nightmare,’ said Nesta, shuddering.

  Mickey was satisfied now that he knew all that he would ever know about Nesta, and that included the conviction that she too was connected in some way with Ormingat. He felt a sneeze coming on and he hastily took out his handkerchief.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got cold. It is just some sort of allergy. My mam took me to the doctor’s about it. He says I’ll grow out of it.’

  Stella smiled.

  ‘I’d better be going now,’ said Mickey. ‘I just thought I’d call to see you were all right after yesterday. I’m going across to Swanson’s now for me mam’s Sunday paper.’

  He got up to go.

  Nesta said, ‘Bye, I don’t suppose we’ll ever see each other again, but thank you for looking after me last night. I felt really lost. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t stopped to help me.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ said Mickey with a self-conscious shrug. ‘And it turned out all right, didn’t it?’

  At the front door, Stella took Mickey’s arm and made him turn to look at her.

  ‘There is one thing you must remember, Mickey,’ she said. ‘Don’t mention Nesta to anybody, not even your mam. It is best if we forget that she ever came here. Most people wouldn’t believe anything about her nightmare; but there are some who might. There are some who would want to prod and probe. The last thing we want is for that poor girl to be questioned by Rupert Shawcross or any of his sort.’

  At nine-thirty, Stella and Nesta went to the bus stop just outside the post office. The local bus arrived spot on time, a good thing on a cold morning. There were only the two short stops from there to the station and then it would hopefully be goodbye Belthorp.

  Nesta enjoyed the ride this time, looking out of the bus window through the trees that lined the road, across to sloping fields and distant farmhouses. The bus soon reached the station. Stella and Nesta were the only passengers who got off there. The bus was always quiet on a Sunday morning.

  Stella purchased tickets for Casselton from the machine on the platform. The station was empty except for one woman who was about to cross the bridge to take the train going west when she saw Stella and Nesta. She knew Mrs Dalrymple and stopped to pass the time of day with her.

  ‘Relation?’ she said, nodding towards Nesta.

  ‘Distant,’ said Stella. ‘She’s on her way home to Casselton now.’

  It was not the truth, but as near as Mary Budd was going to get, and as near as she wanted. It was, after all, just passing the time of day.

  ‘Trains’ll be running late today, like as not,’ said Mary. ‘I’m off to see me brother. I hope I don’t meet meself coming back!’

  Stella just stopped herself from saying, ‘I hope we don’t miss our connection.’ That was the worst of being a less than skilful liar! No one from the village must know where they were going. She really would have to be very, very careful. The thought of Rupert Shawcross so haunted her that she found herself looking along the empty platform and hoping that he would not suddenly stroll towards them.

  The station had a sad, winter look about it. The metal bridge that spanned the line was in need of a coat of paint. The sun was at the wrong angle to give any cheer. The waiting room was scruffy and neglected; its little fireplace with the marble mantelpiece was boarded up and painted all over a dull shade of turquoise.

  ‘We’ll just wait out here,’ said Stella, glancing briefly through the waiting room window. ‘I can remember a time when there would have been a fire in that grate and a stationmaster to attend it. Now it could be part of a ghost town.’

  But there was someone in the waiting room and it wasn’t a ghost. A man was sitting there unnoticed, in one corner, arms folded across his chest to keep warm. Suddenly he glanced do
wn at his watch. The train was about due. He stood up, grasped the case he was carrying and hurried out on to the platform.

  Stella was startled as she heard him come up behind her. She turned round abruptly, ready to face the enemy. If it was Rupert Shawcross, she would have to tell whatever lies were needed.

  Nesta also turned and, seeing the man, she gasped.

  He stood there looking quizzically at the two of them. He had on a long overcoat. Round his neck was a white silk scarf, fringed with tassels. His face was dark, his eyes deep brown and twinkling. His smile showed a row of very white teeth. He was the man who had so frightened Nesta the night before.

  ‘Oh, Mr Montori!’ said Stella. ‘How you startled me!’

  ‘I seem to have developed the habit of startling people!’ he said with a laugh, and he stretched out one hand and ruffled Nesta’s hair. ‘Nice to see you though. Now I must get across the bridge before my train comes in.’

  Stella and Nesta watched him walk away. He flung one end of the scarf across his shoulder and went off whistling. He was carrying a cello case.

  ‘Nice man,’ said Stella. ‘Very gifted. The whole family is.’

  Nesta blushed and said nothing. That moment of fear was the one thing she had not told Stella. It had seemed too foolish.

  The train on the other side of the platform came in first. Stella and Nesta had to wait another ten minutes for theirs. By the time it came, they were shivering with cold and very grateful to get aboard and find a seat.

  As the train rolled out of the station, Stella grasped Nesta’s hand and said, ‘Well, we’re on the move now. It won’t be long before you’re home.’

  CHAPTER 39

  * * *

  Detective Inspector Stirling Returns

  The people of Linden Drive had returned to privacy after the rumpus of the night before. Some still peeped from behind leaded lights and vertical blinds to watch the comings and goings around Number 8. The day was as cold as ever but the sun was shining brightly.