Devil in Disguise Read online

  The Devil in Disguise

  CHAPTER ONE

  CLARE heard the phone in the hall start to ring while she was upstairs making the beds. It wouldn't be for her, she knew, but she had better go and answer it in case Bruce, one of her two brothers, was outside and hadn't heard it.

  She was at the top of the landing when the phone stopped ringing, and bending to pick up a duster dropped from her pocket, not meaning to eavesdrop, she heard Bruce say, `Hey, that's a great idea!' his voice all excited. `Ten days, you said? Of course I'll come.'

  She smiled. She loved her parents, Kit and Bruce, very much, anything that made them happy made her happy. About to return to her bedmaking, she stopped dead on hearing the excitement go out of Bruce's voice.

  'Oh, I've just remembered,' he said, 'I can't.' She waited and then heard him say, 'My parents are away on holiday and—er—I've promised Dad I'll have a job done for him when he comes back.'

  What job? True, their parents were on holiday. After ouch `Shall we—shan't we' they had gone off yesterday on a motoring holiday touring France. But Clare was sure there wasn't a thing Dad had asked Bruce to do in his absence.

  'Thanks all the same, Rob,' she heard him say. `I'll he glad if you'll think of me another time, though.'

  She heard the ping as the phone went down and stood for a moment in silent contemplation. Rob Edmonds was a friend of her brother's, as keen a potholer as Bruce was. Had he been asking Bruce to go potholing with him?, Bruce would love that. He was on holiday too, all three of the Harper men were. There was n

  earthly reason why he should not go, no reason at all—except her.

  Her brow puckered as she thought, not for the first time, that the reason for her father closing the family architect offices down for two weeks was solely so that she would have one or other of her brothers near at hand if she needed them while her parents were away.

  Feelings that had started to grow in her lately of being just slightly stifled by her family's over-protective attitude began to stir in her again, and with those stifled feelings came a mixture of guilt. Her family were the most wonderful in the world and, true enough, she had needed their support. But now, now she was for the most part over the shock of that dreadful day five years ago that had robbed her of her power of speech for a time, it just wasn't fair that they should go on making sacrifices for her.

  Bruce was twenty-six now, Kit twenty-four, and though they both had friends and went out a good deal, should the event occur that meant her parents had to go out unexpectedly, as had happened when Granddad had been so ill before he died, then either one of her brothers would drop everything so Clare should not be left on her own at night. For the first time ever, her parents had gone on holiday without her. And now, by the sound of it, Bruce was giving up a chance of a holiday with Rob Edmonds so that he could take turns with Kit in being with her when dark descended.

  The bedmaking forgotten, Clare left her position on the landing and went downstairs. She found Bruce in the kitchen, the kettle on the boil, and knew if she asked what his call had been about he would hedge and fob her off.

  `I was just going to make some coffee,' Bruce said, seeing her there. `Want some?'

  `Please,' she said, gathering her courage to tackle her tall lean brother whom no amount of home cooking would fatten up.

  She felt quite shaky inside at what she had to do, for she had never consciously made a decision in her life; her decisions had always been made for her. She sat at the kitchen table and waited while he filled two mugs and came to join her.

  `Did Rob Edmonds ask you to go potholing with him?' she asked, barely before he had the chair beneath him, and while Bruce looked at her startled, his face giving away that that was what his phone call had been about, Clare went on—boldly for her. `You know, Bruce, there isn't a thing you have to do for Dad. I heard him say to both you and Kit yesterday that you can forget the office for two weeks, that there's nothing there that can't wait until you all go back.'

  `Hey, what is this?' Bruce exclaimed, slowly recovering from his surprise in seeing the first signs of aggression in his sister.

  'Oh, Bruce,' sighed Clare, her aggression vanishing, 'I'm spoiling everything for you—for all of you, aren't I? It's because of me you won't go, isn't it?'

  Straightaway he denied it, but she wasn't fooled. `Don't be daft, Clare,' he said, his voice full of derision as he leaned forward to playfully tug a lock of her silver-fair hair. 'You're spoiling nothing. I made up that excuse about having to do something for Dad because I couldn't think of anything else on the spur of the moment.'

  Had she not heard the excitement in his voice at the start of that conversation, Clare realised she might have been fooled, and she had cause to wonder then how many other pleasures had had to be forgone because of her.

  Sadly she shook her head. 'It won't wash, Bruce,' she said. `You want to go, I know you do.' Then with a resolve about her that surprised her as much as her brother, `When is he going? Today?'

  'About twelve, he said,' Bruce told her before he had time to think.

  'In that case you're going with him,' said Clare, feeling determined. And before he could protest, she looked at the kitchen clock. 'It's five past ten now, it won't take half an hour to get your gear together. You can go and ring Rob while I start packing for you.'

  'Not so fast!' Bruce halted her as she got to her feet.

  'Oh, Bruce, please go,' Clare pleaded, seeing he hadn't moved and didn't look to have any intention of moving. 'I'm better now, you know I am. And anyway, since Kit will be here you have no need to worry about me.'

  'Yes, but Kit might want to go out,' Bruce pointed out, then sucked in his breath, aware he had inadvertently let out that they took good care to see she was never on her own in the evenings.

  'If he does he can drop me off at Aunty Katy's on the way and pick me up on the way back,' she argued, realising that now wasn't the time to go into the subject of her always having someone with her when darkness fell. 'And anyway, he plans to spend his holiday taking his car to pieces. He's in town now getting some parts for it, so I doubt he'll be going far with his finger nails grimed with sump oil.'

  With a determination about her that was alien to the girl she had been, it took Clare another fifteen minutes to badger her point of view home. But it wasn't until Bruce saw that it was something she really wanted, that it got through to him how dreadful she would feel if he didn't go, that he went to make the telephone call she was so insistent on.

  At a quarter to twelve he had been ready for some time, but was staring out of the sitting-room window looking down the drive for some signs of their brother Kit.

  'He's probably had trouble tracking down a control box in Guildford,' said Clare. 'Look, you're going to be late if you don't get a move on. Rob won't want to hang about if he's ready too.'

  Bruce took his eyes from the window to look into her earnest brown eyes. 'I'd have liked a word with Kit first. I've no idea where in North Yorkshire we'll be staying or when I'll be able to get to a phone.'

  'Bruce Harper,' said Clare, trying to look cross, 'we had all this to-do with Mum and Dad, insisting they forgot about us and the village of Halesbridge for the two weeks they'll be away. You were as firm as Kit about their not phoning us.' She smiled, a thing she rarely did, unaware of how beautiful she became when her solemn features lit up. 'Don't let me have the same hassle with you!'

  'You're getting assertive in your old age,' Bruce teased his nineteen-year-old sister. But after a bit more badgering he said if it would please her he would keep away from any telephone he happened to come across.

  'Kit will probably turn up the minute you're gone,'

  she told him, knowing he was still worrying about not seeing hi
m. `Please go, Bruce.'

  She went out into the August sunshine to see him off, feeling quite a sense of achievement as she went back indoors. Kit would be back any time now, and she hoped he would feel as glad as her that Bruce had been persuaded to do something with his holiday.

  There was always washing to do with three men around, so while she was waiting for Kit she set the machine going, glad to have the company of its noise in the quiet house as she pottered around doing various jobs. She had helped her mother in the house ever since she had left school. It was a fairly large house and though with the business doing so well they could easily have afforded to employ domestic help, Ruth Harper had declared she would rather do her own housework, and with Clare to help her they soon got through it.

  There had been talk of her being trained for something, Clare mused as she went to empty the waste bin at the dustbin, but nothing had come of it. Though recently she had begun to think that the decision to keep her at home had been more because they were afraid for her if she went out into the outside world, and she thought again what a lot she had to thank them for.

  And yet something she couldn't define was stirring in her. What it was she couldn't have said. Guilt that she was always their first thought? Guilt that each in turn felt responsible for her? Even her brothers, she thought, had this strong sense of responsibility for her. She didn't have to look further than the tussle she'd had with Bruce before he'd gone on his way.

  Two o'clock! Kit was late. She went to the sitting room window to look down the drive, and was just intime to see Kit turning in, a cloud of exhaust smoke trailing behind his Spitfire sports car. He was in a hurry about something, she thought, pangs of alarm clutching at her. He usually had much more respect for his vehicle than to take the corner like that.

  She hurried outside to meet him. He was lanky like Bruce, though where Bruce had a thatch of unruly dark hair, Kit was blond.

  'Something wrong?' Clare asked urgently when he cut the engine.

  `How would you ...' he asked, pausing deliberately, she thought, `like to spend two beautiful, glorious, chance of a lifetime weeks, in superb, magnificent—Athens?'

  `Athens? Greece?' she exclaimed.

  Kit's excitement overrode his pretence at being casual as, unable to hold back any longer, he enthusiastically told her that while waiting to be served with his car parts, Peter Nolan, a friend of his, had joined him in the queue and, looking as sick as a pig, had told him that he was on holiday too. That he and his fiancée Lynn had planned to fly to Athens early that same evening for a two-week holiday, only that morning Lynn had come out in spots that had been diagnosed by the doctor her mother had summoned as measles.

  'Bearing in mind I'd waived my fee because of our friendship when I did the plans for the house he's having built, and so enabled him to afford this holiday, he offered me his flight tickets and said I could take over the flat he's rented for the fortnight. So,' he asked, his blue eyes alight at the idea, `what do you think, Clare? Shall we go?'

  Excitement fluttered in Clare too. She had read a

  good many travel books, and Greece had tremendous appeal. She would love to see Athens.

  `You've got your passport from that trip you took with Mum and Dad last year, haven't you?' Kit went on. 'And since I've already got mine, we haven't got any problems.'

  She had forgotten until Kit had reminded her. Of course he had been all fired up to go to Greece last year, only he had gone down with 'flu the week before and hadn't been able to afford to go since because he had given himself a get-well present of the Spitfire that had cleaned him out.

  Stepping over the door of the car, Kit draped a careless arm across her shoulders and walked with her into the house, talking excitedly of what they would do once they were in Athens, unaware that she hadn't yet said she would go.

  `Where's Bruce?' he asked as they entered the kitchen, going on to say that if Bruce could get a flight out he could join them in Athens the next day or sooner if it could be arranged.

  The thrill Clare had felt at the thought of actually seeing Athens for herself left her. Suddenly she was realising that in all fairness she couldn't go—not when she had already got Bruce to take a holiday on his own. It seemed only fair to her then that Kit should have the chance of having a holiday on his own too. Her mind became too busy in working out how this was going to be achieved for there to be room for her to wonder how she was going to feel at being left in the house on her own.

  `Do you mind if I don't come with you?' she asked an astounded Kit. 'The thing is I—er—thought I'd like to have some new curtains up in the sitting room when

  Mum and Dad return. Mum and I saw the material she liked when we were in Guildford one day last week.' They had too, so that part wasn't a lie.

  'You mean you'd rather stay at home making curtains than come to Greece with me!' exclaimed Kit in astonishment.

  'I promised myself I'd have this surprise ready for Mum,' Clare told him, knowing she'd have to try and make him believe it. Knowing too that he mustn't know Bruce had gone away because there was no way she was going to get him to leave her once he knew that, and not a chance in a million that he would take notice of her saying, as she had to Bruce, that she would feel awful about it if he didn't go on his own.

  'You can make curtains any old time,' Kit pressed, not seeing anything wrong with the curtains presently adorning the windows.

  `You go on your own—why don't you?' said Clare, her mind looking for ways to excuse Bruce's absence. 'You were ready to last year, and I'll be all right with Bruce if that's what's worrying you.'

  He neither confirmed or denied that it did worry him, but asked again, 'Where is Bruce?'

  'He went to see Angela Micklewright in Guildford—he's only just gone. Didn't you pass him?'

  'Must have gone the other way,' said Kit absently.

  'I don't think Bruce will want to go away,' said Clare, her mind busy, glad to remember that Angela wasn't on the phone. `He's been seeing a lot of Angela just lately.'

  `Has he?' Kit asked as though he hadn't noticed. Clare hoped Bruce would forgive her lie. 'What time did he say he would be back?'

  'About six, I think,' she answered, and seeing a frown on Kit's face, risked, 'Definitely no later.' `That'll be too late. I have to be at the airport by then.'

  That he had said 'I' and not 'We' gave Clare hope that things were going her way. But as with Bruce she found she had quite a tussle on her hands before Kit finally agreed to go.

  One of the shirts he wanted to take was part of the wet washing, but after Clare had overcome all his arguments against going, it was a small matter to find him another one that would do as well. 'You can always buy one in Athens if you run short,' she told him, and knew she had been right to make him go on his own when his eyes lit up at the word 'Athens'.

  It wasn't too bad in the house after Kit had gone, but as dark descended and she drew the curtains and doubly checked the safety chains were on both outside doors, Clare began to have doubts about the wisdom of what she had done. The house was so quiet, every sound magnified. Telling herself she was lily-livered was no help at all, and made not a scrap of difference to the way she was feeling. She turned on the television, and found some comfort to have sound in the room for all she had no particular interest in the programme.

  But it was when she went to bed that her real nerves beset her—so much so that she was in two minds whether or not to make up a bed for herself on the downstairs settee, as being upstairs gave her a feeling of even more total isolation. If only she had some sleeping tablets. But she had been off those for ages now. Oh, what if that dreadful nightmare returned! She hadn't given a thought to that when sending her brothers off.

  She lay down, but left the light on, trying to remindherself that that terrifying nightmare was an infrequent visitor these days. It must be all of six weeks now since she had woken up in the middle of the night to find the light on, her mother and father with her, Bruce

 
Id Kit hovering anxiously in the background, her screaming having got everyone out of bed.

  She tried to read for a while, but the house creaking had her eyes going to the 'door in alarm time and time again. She always slept with her door open, but tonight, feeling the need for a different sort of security, she had ' )sed it. Angry with herself for being such a poor-

  arted creature, she tossed her book down and buried her head under the clothes, giving serious thought to getting into the Mini she shared with her mother tomorrow and going to ask her Aunty Katy if she could give her a bed until Bruce came back.

  After a terrible night when every hour had her sneaking a look at the clock, Clare finally went into a deeper sleep as a comforting daylight crept into the room. At eight o'clock she got up, and once washed and dressed felt on top of the world that she had done it. She had actually gone through one night on her own ! She felt so proud of herself, all thought of going to Aunty Katy's was forgotten.

  But Sunday night, once darkness descended, followed the same pattern as the previous night, and- she was overwhelmingly relieved to see dawn break.

  When it came to bedtime on Monday night, if it hadn't been for the fact that she had left it too late to go to Aunty Katy's and that it was dark outside, she was sure she would have got out the Mini and raced round there hammering to be let in.