Night Over Water - Ken Follett [186]
Standing there in the dark, blind and disoriented, she realized he had planned this all along: he had found the empty house with its convenient boathouse, lured her here and locked her in so that she would miss the plane and be unable to vote at the board meeting. His regrets, his apology, his talk of giving up business and his painful honesty had all been faked. He had cynically evoked their childhood to soften her. Once again she had trusted him; once again he had betrayed her. It was enough to make her weep.
She bit her lip and considered her situation. When her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she was able to see a line of light under the door. She walked toward it, holding both hands out in front of her. When she reached the door, she felt the wall on both sides of it and found a switch. She flipped it up and the boathouse was flooded with light. She found the handle of the door and tried, without any real hope, to push it open. It did not budge: he had jammed it well. She put her shoulder to the door and heaved with all her might, but it would not move.
Her elbows and knees hurt where she had fallen, and her stockings were torn. “You pig,” she said to the absent Peter.
She put on her shoes, picked up her handbag and looked around. Most of the space was taken up by a big sailing boat on a wheeled dolly. Its mast hung in a cradle from the ceiling, and its sails were folded in neat bundles on the deck. At the front of the boathouse was a wide door. Nancy examined it and found, as she expected, that it was securely locked.
The house was set back from the beach a little, but there was a chance that passengers from the Clipper, or even someone else, might meander past. Nancy took a deep breath and shouted at the top of her voice: “Help! Help! Help!” She decided to yell at one-minute intervals so that she would not get hoarse.
Both the front and side doors were stout and well-fitting, but she might be able to break them open with a crowbar or something. She looked around. The owner was a neat man: he did not keep gardening tools in his boathouse. There were no shovels or rakes.
She shouted for help again, then climbed onto the deck of the boat, still looking for a tool. There were several closets on deck, but all had been locked shut by the tidy owner. She looked around the place again from up on the deck, but she saw nothing new. “Damn, damn, damn!” she said aloud.
She sat on the raised centerboard and brooded despondently. It was quite cold in the boathouse, and she was glad of her cashmere coat. She continued to call for help every minute or so but, as time passed, her hopes diminished. The passengers would be back on board the Clipper by now. Soon it would take off, leaving her behind.
It struck her that losing the company might be the least of her worries. Suppose nobody came by this boathouse for a week? She could die here. Panicking, she began to yell loudly and continuously. She could hear a note of hysteria in her voice, and that scared her even more.
After a while she got tired, and that calmed her. Peter was wicked but he was not a murderer. He would not leave her to die. He probably intended to place an anonymous call to the Shediac police department and tell them to let her out. But not until after the board meeting, of course. She told herself she was safe, but she still felt deeply uneasy. What if Peter was more wicked than she thought? What if he should forget? What if he fell ill, or suffered some sort of accident? Who would save her then?
She heard the roar of the Clipper’s mighty engines sounding out across the bay. From panic her mood switched to total despair. She had been betrayed and defeated, and she had even lost Mervyn, who would be on board the plane by now, waiting to take off. He might wonder idly what had happened to her, but since her last words to him had been “You fool!” he probably figured she was through with him.
It had been arrogant