Page 213 of The Moon Sister
Irritatingly, it was past midnight before I heard Ma’s door close. I waited a good twenty minutes, keeping myself awake by reciting some of the ingredients to Angelina’s remedies and also by reminding myself of the words of the forbidden curse. I had no idea why my brain was determined that I should not forget them, but it prompted me every day to repeat them.
Finally, putting on my old pair of Uggs and a thick woollen jumper, I took the torch that Ma always left on the bedside table. Leaving my bedroom, I tiptoed along the corridor, then switched on the torch to make my way down the stairs to the ground floor. I went to the key box in the kitchen, extracted the one Ma had used to unlock the lift, then located the panel in the corridor. Having managed to unlock and open it, I shone the torch on the lift door. It was a gamble that Ma wouldn’t hear the clanking and whirring from her suite on the top floor, but at least she was at the furthest end of the corridor.
I pressed the call button and the lift arrived. I stepped inside and shone my torch on the brass buttons. Pressing the bottom one, I felt the lift give a slight lurch as it headed downwards, coming to a halt only a few seconds later. I pulled open the door to see nothing but complete blackness. Switching my torch back on, I took a step forward, but as my foot touched the concrete below me, the space was suddenly flooded with light.
I looked around and saw that Ma had been telling the truth about what it contained. The room was more modern basement than damp cellar; low-ceilinged but spacious – perhaps the size of what must be the kitchen above it. The walls were lined with wine racks heaving with bottles and I thought how odd it was that Pa, who only drank wine on high days and holidays, should keep such a vast collection. I wandered round the room, brushing the dust off some of the older bottles and feeling relieved and disappointed at the same time. Whatever it was I’d expected to find, it didn’t seem to be here.
Then my eyes moved to a moth fluttering near one of the spotlights set into the ceiling. As my gaze travelled back down from the ceiling, I noticed a break in one of the walls below it, which disappeared behind a wine rack. I walked towards the rack.
‘There’s no way you can move this, Tiggy,’ I murmured, but I did remove the two middle rows of bottles, then shone my torch through to the wall beyond, illuminating a panel exactly like the one that so successfully hid the lift. I then extracted the row of bottles beneath and saw a small round keyhole set into the wall.
My heart began to beat faster as I took the lift key and reached through the rack to see if it would fit. It did, and I heard it turn with a metallic click. Clasping the latch, I tried to tug it forward and sideways as I’d done with the panel upstairs and it gave immediately. Sadly, the wine rack was wedged too close to allow any further movement.
‘Damn it!’ I exclaimed, and my words echoed around the basement. By now, fatigue was setting in and it took my last shred of energy to lock the panel back into place and put the wine bottles back where I’d found them.
‘Not that I should be worrying about doing what I want in a house I part-own,’ I comforted myself as I panted my way back to the lift. As I reached it, I saw that the door was surrounded by a steel frame and that there was another pair of doors that I hadn’t noticed before, because they were currently concealed within the steel surround. There was a button that I’d bet closed them set into the wall just beyond.
‘Wow, this is like a bank vault or something,’ I muttered, tempted to press the button, but then realising that if the steel doors did close, I might be trapped down here with no way of contacting the outside world.
Ten minutes later, after climbing wearily into bed, I lay there plotting how on earth I could investigate further.
36
Ma came into my room the next morning carrying the breakfast tray.
‘Bon matin, chérie,’ she said as I sat upright and she placed the tray across my knees. ‘How did you sleep?’
Perhaps it was only my imagination, but I was sure I saw a hint of suspicion in her vivid green eyes.
‘I’m feeling very well, thank you. Is it Claudia’s day off today?’
‘In fact, she has taken three days off to visit a relative of hers. So it will be just you and me. As I confessed to CeCe when I was staying with her in London, my cooking is very poor, but Claudia has left your special food in the freezer so all I have to do is defrost it.’
‘No problem, Ma, and if the worst comes to the worst, I can make us both a nut roast,’ I smiled.
‘I hope it won’t come to that,’ said Ma, wrinkling her nose. Like many Parisians, she was a food snob and considered any plate of food without meat to be a travesty. ‘Once you have finished your breakfast, I shall take your blood pressure. You look a little pale today,chérie.’ She studied me and I did my best not to blush under her gaze. ‘Did you not sleep?’
‘I slept fine, Ma, really. Actually, I was wondering if you could contact Dr Gerber and ask him to recommend a cardiologist here in Geneva.’
‘Ah Tiggy, Dr Gerber died a few months ago, but I will contact the practice, yes. Are you sure you do not wish to stay under Charlie’s care?’
‘Yes, I am. I’d like to see whoever the surgery recommends here as soon as possible. I’m going to attend that interview in London and I’d obviously need a clean bill of health if I was offered the job.’
‘You know how I feel about that, Tiggy, but you are a grown woman, not a child. So, yes, I will make enquiries for you. Now, please eat your breakfast and I will be back up later.’
As I ate, I thought about the basement and its impenetrable steel doors and decided I just needed to ask Ma straight out when she returned. Then I heard the landline ring, and a couple of minutes later, Ma appeared again and held out the receiver to me.
‘It’s for you. The caller says she’s a friend of yours.’
‘Thanks.’ I took it and said, ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Tiggy, it’s Zara. How are you?’
‘Hi, Zara, how nice to hear from you,’ I smiled. ‘I’m much better, thanks. Are you okay?’
‘I’m good. I’m at Geneva airport.’
‘What?!’
