*
Darkness had fallen by the time Maggie finished clearing the dinner plates and the house was bathed in gentle lamplight, which she much preferred to the brash sunlight that showed up every line and wrinkle in the old mercury-coated mirrors dotted around the house. Every time she stopped to polish them, she came face to face with the effects of time and gravity and, though she told herself it was the natural course of things, she remembered when she’d seen a very different reflection staring back at her. She let out a little sigh and leaned against the big old ceramic Butler sink so she could slip her foot out of its comfortable rubber-soled shoe and roll her ankle around. Joint pain was just another thing to get used to, she supposed, and she slipped her foot back into the shoe to give her other foot the same treatment.
Maggie checked the time on the wall, which told her it was a few minutes before nine, and she wondered whether it would be another long night. The Gilberts were entertaining again and, though she shouldn’t grumble, it would have been nice to have an evening off duty considering all the recent drama. It set her nerves on edge.
She wondered where the catering staff had gone, then clucked her tongue and began to rummage around for a tea towel, humming an old northern folk song beneath her breath.
On the stroke of nine, the room fell into darkness.
*
Maggie let out a yelp and spun around, clutching the tea towel to her chest. The kitchen was completely dark but for the glow of a solar-powered light from the courtyard outside.
“Hello! Is anybody there?”
She waited to hear the patter of footsteps against the stone corridor but there was nothing to be heard except the drip of the tap. Drawing a shaky breath, she told herself not to panic. She could sort this out, if need be.
She began to make her way toward the light switch on the wall beside the basement stairs, careful not to step too far. Her hand crept up the wall and she flicked the little switch, to no avail.
“Hello?”
Her voice echoed around the empty room.
Everyone had retired to one of the smaller reception rooms upstairs and probably couldn’t hear her. In another moment, somebody would come along, she thought.
But the darkness was intense and she felt her chest constricting with anxiety.
She couldn’t wait for somebody to come.
Maggie began to lower herself downstairs into the basement, feeling her way from memory rather than anything else. She was grateful for the thick-soled shoes which gripped the uneven stone and let out a breath of relief when she regained firm ground.
The basement was black as night and she prayed she wouldn’t trip over an errant box or piece of debris left over by the CSI team earlier in the day. She moved across the room with careful steps until her bad hip caught painfully against the edge of something large and metal.
Maggie let out a sharp sound of pain and clutched a hand to her side, thinking there would be an almighty bruise tomorrow. She crouched down and began to feel along the wall, then she heard a movement behind her.
Her heart leapt into her throat as a blinding torchlight shone into her eyes.
“Hello, Maggie.”
She raised a shaking hand to her eyes, trying to see who it was.
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
“Don’t you recognise me?”
Her eyes were frantic, searching the darkness for a means to escape. The back door leading to the courtyard wasn’t far. If she could push past them and run…
“It’s over, Maggie.”
She recognised the voice and knew then that it was over.
CHAPTER 35
“Ryan.”
The housekeeper said his name and he lowered the spotlight to her hand, which still rested on the little timer device plugged in to the power socket of the washing machine in the very depths of the basement.
“What have you got in your hand, Maggie?”
Her fist clutched the clever little piece of plastic and she thought of coming up with some excuse, some reason why she’d known to come here when the lights went out, but there was none.
She was the only person who had known it was there.
“How did you know?” she asked as she stood up slowly, the timer still clutched in her hand.
“Your name,” he said simply. “It’s Ramshaw.”
Ryan saw her nod in the light of his torch.
“Joe’s name.”
“You set the timer on the plug beside the washing machine so it would turn on for a few minutes at eleven o’clock last Saturday night, then you set it again for nine o’clock last night. You knew the surge of power would be too much for the circuit to handle. It was so easy.”
She didn’t bother to deny it and looked down at the timer in her hand.
“I was sure I had put the timer on the single setting but it’s set for a daily repeat at nine o’clock. I thought I had better come down and get rid of it. I must be getting old…” she trailed off, understanding spreading across her face. “You set this up, didn’t you?”
Ryan shrugged his shoulders, his half-smile not quite reaching his eyes.
“What are you going to do now, lad?” she said the last word as a kind of endearment, as if she were speaking to her own child. “What do you think is the right thing to do?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” he said flatly.
“Is it really that simple?” she demanded. “Think of all the lives lost aboard that ship, all the children who grew up without fathers because of that snivelling little bastard!”
Gone was the softly-spoken grandmother now, he thought. Her tone was hard and filled with hatred.
“You blame him for The Valiant?”
“Yes, I blame him,” she snarled. “Who else was responsible? I searched for answers for years afterwards because I believed those poor men who checked the oxygen valves. I spoke to them and I believed them, so there had to be another cause.”
“The inquest ruled it accidental.”
“The inquest was a cover up,” she spat, her eyes flashing at him in the darkness. “They didn’t know then what I only found out years later. Martin Jennings, as he was, had been siphoning oxygen from the tanks to re-sell, so he could make himself some pocket money. It was a commodity and, as we all know, Martin loved nothing more than buying and selling. His single, self-centred action cost a hundred and eight lives but he never lost a moment’s sleep.”
“You told Victor this?”
Maggie gave a short nod.
“That was a mistake,” she admitted. “I trusted him and I needed somebody else to know. Still, I was sorry he died.”