The Evil at Monteine. Brian Ball

of us with any particular acquaintance with the North Yorkshire coast? But of course if you’d rather talk about—”

      “Anne’s tired,” Richard said again.

      He tried to pat my hand, but I blazed out:

      “Don’t fuss, Richard!”

      “Go for a walk if you need a breath of fresh air,” said Fitch. “Look at the waves and the sea.”

      My head was swimming.

      The Sievel woman smiled at Richard. “Yes, go for a walk to the old chapel.”

      Richard seemed in the grip of some curiously deadening emotion. I felt he was becoming remote from me as he looked at the Sievel woman.

      “What chapel?” he asked quietly.

      “Why, it’s only half a mile along the headland.” Jensen put in. “Surely you saw the track down the valley? Didn’t we tell you about the old chapel? Of course, it’s all bricked up now. Weird old place. Odd tales about it too.” He rolled liqueur around his glass. “That is, if you’re prepared to believe the stories of the local half-wits.”

      “No, you didn’t tell me anything about it. Not the chapel. Nor any tales,” said Richard.

      I began to feel affected by the drink I’d had. It was beginning to drape a blanket on the unpleasant memories and converting my gaffes into triumphs.

      “Tell me,” I said. “I like weird places and stories.”

      “Certainly not!” Monica Sievel said, smiling confidentially at me. “Why, you have to experience it for yourself—go and catch the mood. There’s moonlight and the cliffs and the darkness below—and the ruined chapel! Go and catch your own ghosts, Anne.”

      “A walk would do you both good,” Jensen assured us.

      “You can’t miss the track,” Fitch smiled. His wet eyes hypnotized me. “Go right up to the chapel, Anne. Take Richard.”

      I looked at Richard. He swayed slightly in his tall-backed chair. I didn’t know what I wanted.

      “Superb meal,” he said. “Like to walk in the moonlight, love?”

      “If you like.”

      “Excuse me,” Richard said, dropping his cigar into a bowl of trifle. He didn’t notice the way it hissed out, but I giggled as I saw the expression on the faces of Jensen, the Sievel woman and Fitch.

      I basked in their approval.

      “Wait until we’re out of the room before you talk about us,” I said. What an exit line. I felt like a Bogart heroine.

      I could hear them chuckling and murmuring appreciatively at my parting joke as we walked through the small bar and out into the entrance hall of Monteine Castle.

      With a drunken clarity, I knew the evening was a disaster, but what pained in a dull and bitter way was that I did not know why; I knew, however, with an iron certainty, that whatever the evening brought would affect me immediately and dreadfully, and would go on winding its way into the fabric of my life with Richard, always threatening to destroy us.