The Winding Stair

  Contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one

  Acknowledgements

  Even from a distance of many miles, Sandwick Rebel Writers continue to back me up. Special thanks to Liz Dunn for her comments and help, also my friend, Munch.

  Dedication

  This one’s for Lizzie.

  Excerpt from

  ‘The Spider and The Fly’, a poem by Mary Howitt (1799–1888)

  ‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said the Spider to the Fly,

  ‘’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;

  The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,

  And I’ve a many curious things to shew you when you are there.’

  ‘Oh no, no,’ said the little Fly, ‘to ask me is in vain,

  For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.’

  ONE

  ‘Oh, not again,’ groaned Ginny. She picked up the rose that lay on her doorstep and hurled it from her, snatched a bottle of milk that was there too, slammed her door and went through to her kitchen.

  It had been a joke when the first rose had appeared and Nancy, her next door neighbour, had wanted to know who the secret admirer was.

  ‘Come on, spill the beans,’ she said. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I only wish I knew.’

  When Ginny accosted the milkman he declared his innocence. ‘I’ve a wife and family, darlin’,’ he said. ‘That’s enough for me.’

  It was beyond a joke now. Not only were there roses, but phone calls, endearments whispered in a soft voice that felt like fingertips running down her spine. She dreaded picking up the phone, hated to think that the owner of the voice knew and recognized her fear. Why were they doing this?

  It does no good, she thought, when she woke in the morning and an unpleasant reminder of the liquor she had drunk the night before in an effort to forget soured her mouth. I’ve got to get away. She trawled the Net and found the Rushden, a small hotel tucked away in the rolling countryside of Devon. Roses and phone calls would not reach her there.

  With a bag packed, self-timers set to turn lights on and off and telling no one where she was going, Ginny locked her house and walked away.

  It had been a good day when she had decided to rent the cottage next door to Nancy and Bill Graham. Was it really only a few months ago? She smiled when she thought of her neighbours. In their early fifties and childless, they had taken her and her cat under their collective wing. While she was away, Smudge, who claimed the right to both houses, would be fed by Nancy. Nancy had become a valued friend. She and her husband would wonder why she had taken off without telling them, but would understand when she explained.

  Ginny caught the bus from the village of Blackton into Salisbury where she had arranged to pick up a car she had hired. She had left her own on the drive beside her cottage, another ruse to fool people into thinking she was still at home.

  On the road at last, the urge to leave everything behind made her drive fast and it wasn’t until she had passed Blandford and was on her way to Dorchester that she relaxed and eased back on the accelerator.

  Soon she was riding high on a road across the Dorset Downs. She lowered the window of the car and breathed cool air. At a layby she pulled in and stopped. Stepping out, she looked down at the wide sweep of Lyme Bay, shook her head and let the up draught of wind blow through her hair, auburn hair that the sun set alight and turned to red and gold. The wind was southerly and carried the smell of salt, sand and seaweed, the distant sound too of waves rumbling, grumbling against the shore.

  Ginny leaned against the fence that divided the road from the hillside, breathed deep from the clean, unpolluted air. This was peace. This was what she wanted. Hoping that she would also find it where she was going, renewed, comforted, buoyed up, she moved on. She was going to enjoy the ride now so she switched on the radio and sang to the music on Radio Two.

  The Rushden was set in woodlands crisscrossed with paths. Maps were provided for visitors who wished to walk them. Ginny preferred to walk alone rather than with a group. Groups used walking poles and chattered.

  The room at the hotel was quiet and for the first time in a long while, Ginny slept soundly. She woke to bird song and rose refreshed. After breakfast she meandered along the woodland paths, in the afternoon she lazed, alternately reading and dozing. The September day was golden and, with time to spare, she decided to take a last walk in the woods before dinner. As she sauntered she savoured the sweet smell of leaf mould, the green damp of trees, the wood and everything in it. With the approach of evening, birds were coming to their roosts.

  She thought of the man she had met in the bar the previous evening. ‘I’m Paul,’ he had said and offered to buy her a drink. She accepted then wished she hadn’t. He said he was a photographer and begged her to let him capture her on film. ‘I know the camera will love you,’ he’d said. When she refused, for a split second the expression on his face had changed and his eyes turned to ice. She didn’t like his eyes. They were pale blue, almost white; a blue that appeared to have gone through so many washes there was nothing but a hint of the original colour left. A fraction of a second later the ice thawed, the smile was back, the warm voice saying, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve been hassled by a photographer.’ No, it wasn’t, but none had been as persistent. ‘Nobody ever wants their picture taken,’ he went on, ‘at least they say they don’t, but when they relent and then see the result … well, that’s a different matter. Won’t you please change your mind?’ She had refused. Pleading the need for sleep, she had bidden him goodnight.

  But that was last night and now she was on her own.

  At a fork in the path Ginny stopped. At every junction so far there had been a sign post. Here was nothing but a rotten stump. She put a hand in her pocket for the map she had been given. Nothing there but a handkerchief, her room key and an old lip balm. She tried all her pockets. No map.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered. She turned round, tried to get a sense of direction. It was already dusk and the stand of pines she was under made it seem even darker. From somewhere behind her she heard a rustling in the undergrowth, a fox or badger perhaps. Which way do I go, left or right? OK, one way is as good as another. She chose left and set off briskly.

  The wood was quieter now. Pigeons cooed softly as they settled down for the night. Small birds cheeped, while a breeze sighed through the tree tops. And then she heard that rustling noise again. There was definitely something moving through the trees and from the sound of it, something bigger than a fox. Reports of panthers and other large wild cats loomed in her mind. She shivered and upped her pace. When she left the cover of the trees it would be lighter. She walked on then stopped, stood still and waited. There was nothing to hear but the thud of her heart, the wind in the trees and an occasional sleepy chirrup, nothing but normal woodland sounds. Relieved, she let her worries go and resumed her normal pace.

  When she heard the footsteps she thought at first that somehow they were e
choes of her own. They were not, but were on the road behind her, getting louder and catching her up. This was no time to stand and wait so Ginny took to her heels and ran. Whoever was behind her started to run too; someone was chasing her and Ginny ran for her life, ran on a rough woodland road, tripped over the exposed root of a tree, and fell headlong. Stretched at full length, she held her breath as heavy footfalls pounded up to her. Oh God, she prayed, please don’t let me be murdered. Squeezing her eyes tight shut, she cringed in anticipation of the blow that must surely come.

  A hand touched her shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’ said a voice, soothing and somehow familiar. ‘Why did you run?’

  Slowly Ginny moved an arm and turned her head, looked up into the cool blue eyes of Paul.

  ‘You,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘One of the maids found your map on the hall floor. She said you’d told her where you were going and I knew some of the sign posts had been taken down to be repaired, so I said I’d come and make sure you didn’t get lost.’ He helped her up and stood back while she dusted herself off.

  ‘Well, I am,’ said Ginny.

  ‘And now you’re found. We’ll probably miss the start of dinner, but if we get a move on we should be in time for the main course.’

  At the hotel dinner had just started. Ginny ran up to her room, a quick change and freshen up was what she needed. Showered and in clean clothes, she reached for her hairbrush … and froze. On her dressing table lay a rose, identical to the ones left on her doorstep at home, no wrapping, no ribbon, no label. She gasped and held a hand to her chest as if to still her pounding heart. Where had the rose come from? There must be a mistake. It was in the wrong room. It was meant for someone else. She would ask.

  She was coming out of her room when a maid with an armful of fresh linen came along. She asked Ginny if she had enjoyed her walk.

  ‘It would have been better if I hadn’t left my map behind. Was it you who found it and told Paul?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, someone did. He thought I might get lost and came to find me. He must come and stay here often; he knows the woods very well.’

  ‘Stay?’ The maid raised her eyebrows. ‘His parents own the place.’

  ‘Oh!’ So Paul wasn’t the visitor she had thought he was. What, apart from a corny chat up line, was he playing at? ‘Who put the rose on my dressing table?’

  ‘Rose, what rose? I don’t know anything about a rose.’

  ‘Come and look.’ Ginny opened the door to her room and pointed at the offending flower. ‘There it is.’

  ‘I didn’t put it there,’ said the girl. ‘Nobody has access to any of the rooms except me and the housekeeper and she left just after lunch.’

  TWO

  Hazel Thomas loved her job at the library, adored being the custodian of so many books. Middle-aged, divorced, with growing children to support, every minute of her day was spoken for which, to her regret, left her very little time to delve between the covers of those same books. She was at the front desk when Nancy Graham walked in.

  ‘Is Ginny away?’ asked Hazel.

  ‘Yes, she is, though she didn’t tell me she was going and she usually does because I feed her cat.’

  ‘She wanted a book urgently,’ said Hazel. ‘We got it for her. I phoned but got no reply. I sent her a text and I’ve had no answer to that. Where do you think she’s gone?’

  ‘I have no idea. I didn’t realize she was away till her cat came looking for something to eat. I wondered if she wasn’t well so I went round and she just wasn’t there.’

  ‘That’s odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t think what’s got into her, but something must have happened for her to go off like that.’

  ‘Well, when she gets home she’ll get her message and she’ll be here.’

  ‘It’ll be sooner than you think,’ said Curtis Brookes, assistant librarian. ‘Here she comes now.’

  Ginny, auburn hair loose about her shoulders, smiled a greeting as she joined her friends.

  ‘You’ve got some explaining to do, young lady,’ said Nancy. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were going away?’

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ said Ginny.

  ‘Oh, but I do. You can’t run off like that and leave me in the dark.’

  ‘I was afraid you weren’t well,’ said Hazel. ‘I’ve got that book you asked for.’

  ‘It’s good to see you, Miss Harvey,’ said Curtis. ‘We were worried.’

  ‘Thank you, Curtis, but I’m all right.’

  Curtis smiled then moved away from the women.

  ‘How about we have a coffee, Ginny, and you can get me up to speed,’ said Nancy. ‘I want to know why you ran off, where you went and what you did.’

  A corner of the library had been made into a coffee shop and, dumping bags and books, the two women sat at a table, Ginny with a mug of coffee and Nancy with coffee and a sticky bun.

  ‘So, come on then, tell all,’ said Nancy as she ladled sugar into her coffee. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I went to a hotel in Devon. I didn’t want anyone to know, which is why I didn’t even tell you. I thought I’d be safe and there wouldn’t be any roses. But the sick moron who leaves them on my step knew where I was.’

  ‘WHAT!’

  ‘There was a rose on my dressing table last night. And not only that, I was chatted up by a man who said he was a visitor which, though it was only half a lie, still was a lie because his parents own the hotel. I didn’t like him.’

  ‘Sounds like a shady character to me,’ said Nancy.

  ‘The hotel was surrounded by trees. I went for a walk in the woods and I got lost, but that man followed me and chased me and I thought that I was going to be murdered because I thought he might be the stalker. But then, Devon’s a long way from Blackton so how could he leave stuff here? Anyway I panicked, checked out and came home.’

  ‘You’ve got to tell the police.’

  ‘Huh, I can’t see how they’re going to help. They’ll say I’m jumping at shadows, hysterical woman stuff. What can they do?’

  ‘Nothing if you don’t tell them.’

  Ginny stared into her coffee cup, picked up a spoon and began to stir. ‘Perhaps I ought to go to Scotland and stay with my parents.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. You’ve got friends here and it’s easy to get to London when you have to.’

  ‘What have I ever done to anyone for them to do this to me?’ moaned Ginny.

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Drink your coffee.’ Nancy bit into her bun and conversation lagged. After a while she broke the silence. ‘What do you think of Curtis?’

  ‘Curtis!’ Ginny raised her head. ‘What made you say that?’

  ‘He’s an odd sort of bod to work in a library, don’t you think? I mean, when you look at the clothes he wears, it’s obvious he’s not short of money.’

  ‘He’s all right. Actually, he and I have had lunch together a few times. He’s a mine of information where books are concerned, very useful when it comes to research. He’s nice, mmm … but he might be gay.’

  At that Nancy laughed. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, look at him … no, don’t, he’s looking at us.’ Ginny smiled and waved a hand at Curtis then turned to Nancy. ‘Like you say, he’s always well-dressed, never in need of a haircut, he’s clean and he smells nice. Hazel says he’s the most efficient assistant she’s ever had and gay men are renowned for being the best at whatever they choose to do.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘He strikes me as being very kind, you know, the sort who would look after his mother.’

  Nancy was licking icing off her fingers. Ginny tut-tutted. ‘What are you going to do now, Nancy, other than decide to give up sticky buns?’

  ‘Bill’s home so I’ve got to cook lunch. Um, would you like to talk things over with him before you go down to the station? It might give you some idea of what to expect. We could come
round this evening.’ Nancy wiped her fingers on a paper napkin. ‘Are you ready to go?’ She stood up and put on her jacket.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure that I want to report it,’ said Ginny. ‘But it would be nice to hear what Bill thinks about it. Come round about seven.’

  Promptly at seven o’clock, Nancy and Bill walked up the short path to Ginny’s front door.

  ‘Hello,’ said Ginny. ‘Let’s go in the kitchen, shall we?’

  Tea made and a packet of Hobnobs opened and put on a plate, they sat at her kitchen table. Bill, a policeman, was off duty. He was a big man and when in uniform, he presented a burly figure that commanded respect. But now, dressed in slacks and hand-knitted jumper, his hands clasped round a mug of tea, his look was avuncular.

  ‘How long is it now since the first rose was left for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Must be a couple of months at least,’ said Ginny, ‘I can’t really remember.’

  ‘Could you connect it to anything that happened? Had you met anyone who was over friendly?’

  Ginny shook her head. ‘Not that I can think of.’

  ‘Wasn’t it about that time you had that book signing at Waterstone’s?’ said Nancy.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Ginny sat up straight then slumped again. ‘But that was all right, nothing happened there.’

  Bill Graham took another biscuit. He was partial to Hobnobs. ‘You must have signed dozens of books and spoken to lots of people.’

  ‘Yes, but … well. There were a few familiar faces, but there’s never enough time to remember the other customers.’

  ‘What about fan mail? Do you keep what comes?’

  Ginny laughed. ‘Of course, who doesn’t like the flattery of fan mail?’

  ‘Good. There might be a clue there, then again there might not. You’d better go through it all. You say there’s never any card or indication where the rose is from.’

  ‘Not a dicky bird.’

  Ginny stood up and began to walk back and forth. ‘I don’t think talking like this is any good. God only knows who’s doing this or why. I just wish it would stop.’

  ‘I must say it is a bit of a mystery,’ Bill went on as he helped himself to another biscuit. ‘You keep calling your stalker he, but does it have to be, couldn’t it just as well be a she?’