Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

He took off the jacket. Standing in the rain, bare-chested, he wrapped the jacket around his fist and with as little noise as possible broke a side window, unlocked it, and climbed inside. He put the jacket on again and walked softly across the floor to look for her.

He searched from top to bottom. There was no one there. He had not expected a maid. Talulla would have given her the day off so she could not witness anything to do with Cormac’s murder, not hear any shots, any barking dog.

He let himself out of the back door and ran swiftly to Cormac’s house. Time was getting short. The police could not be far behind him. Hurry! Hurry!

He wasted no time knocking on the door. She would almost certainly not answer. And he had no time to wait.

He took off the jacket again, shivering with cold now, and perhaps also with fear. He smashed another window and within seconds was inside. At once the dog started barking furiously.

He looked around him. He went into some kind of pantry. He must get as far as the kitchen before she found him. If she let the dog attack him he had to be ready. And why would she not? He had broken into the house. He was already accused of Cormac’s murder. She would have every possible justification.

He opened the door quickly and found himself in the scullery, the kitchen beyond. He darted forward and grabbed at a small, hard-backed wooden chair just as Talulla opened the door from the farther side and the dog leapt forward, still barking hysterically.

She stopped, stunned to see him.

He lifted the chair, its thin, sharp legs pointed toward the dog.

“I don’t want to hurt the animal,” he said, having to raise his voice to be heard above it. “Call it off.”

“So you can kill me too?” she shouted back at him.

“Don’t be so damn stupid!” He heard the rage trembling in his own voice, abrasive, almost out of control. “You killed him yourself, to get your revenge at last.”

She smiled, a hard, glittering expression, vibrant with hate. “Well, I have, haven’t I? They’ll hang you, Victor Narraway. And the ghost of my father will laugh. I’ll be there to watch you—that I swear.” She turned to the dog. “Quiet, girl,” she ordered. “Don’t attack him. I want him alive to suffer trial and disgrace. Ripping his throat out would be too quick, too easy.” She looked back at him.

But the dog was distracted by something else now. It swung its head around and stared toward the front door, hackles raised, a low growl in its throat.

“Too easy?” Narraway heard his voice rising, the desperation in it palpable. She must hear it too.

She did, and her smile widened. “I want to see you hang, see your terror when they put the noose around your neck, see you struggle for breath, gasping, your tongue purple, filling your mouth and poking out. You won’t charm the women then, will you? Do you soil yourself when you hang? Do you lose all control, all dignity?” She was screeching now, her face twisted with the pain of her own imagination.

“Actually the function of the noose and the drop of the trapdoor is to break your neck,” he replied. “You are supposed to die instantly. Does that take the pleasure away for you?”

She stared at him, breathing heavily. The dog now was fully concentrated on the front door, the growl low in its throat, lips curled back off the teeth.

If she realized there was someone at the front, please God in heaven, the police, then she would stop, perhaps even claim he had attacked her. But this was the moment of her private triumph, when she could tell him exactly how she had brought about his ruin.

He made a sudden movement toward her.

The dog swung around, barking again.

He raised the chair, legs toward it, just in case it leapt.

“Frightened, Victor?” she said with relish.

“Why now?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level. He nearly succeeded, but she must have seen the sheen of sweat on his face. “It was McDaid, wasn’t it? He told you something? What? Why does he want all this? He used to be my friend.”

“You’re pathetic!” she said, all but choking over her words. “He hates you as much as we all do!”

“What did he tell you?” he persisted.

“How you seduced my whore of a mother and then betrayed her. You killed her, and let my father hang for it!” She was sobbing now.

“Then why kill poor Cormac?” he asked. “Was he expendable, simply to create a murder for which you could blame me? It had to be you who killed him, you’re the only one the dog wouldn’t bark at, because you feed her when Cormac’s away. She’s used to you in the house. She’d have raised the roof if it had been me.”

“Very clever,” she agreed. “But by the time you come to trial, no one else will know that. And no one will believe your sister, if that’s who she is, because they’ll all know she would lie for you.”

“Did you kill Cormac just to get me?” he asked again.

“No! I killed him because he didn’t raise a hand to save my father! He did nothing! Absolutely nothing!”

“You were only a child, not even eight years old,” he pointed out.

“McDaid told me!” she sobbed.