Kingdom of Shadows (59 page)

‘Trouble, old girl,’ he said slowly. And he told her exactly what Paul had said.

Antonia had not said a word until he stopped speaking, then there was a long silence. She was staring out of the half-drawn curtains at the black reflecting glass of the windows. Outside it was pitch dark and very quiet.

‘What do you think?’ Archie asked tentatively at last.

‘I think, as you do, that Paul has gone completely mad.’

Archie was gnawing his thumb nail. ‘They must have had a row, do you think?’

‘They are always rowing.’ For a moment Antonia frowned. ‘Clare has rung me twice lately. She did sound unhappy.’

‘You don’t think this business of not being able to have a baby could possibly have unhinged her?’ He stared hard at his feet, waiting for the explosion he knew would follow.

Antonia swung her legs purposefully to the floor. ‘You are not telling me you believe what he told you?’ She took a deep breath which enlarged her already ample rose-bud covered bosom by several inches.

‘No, dear, of course not, but Clare has always been a little fey.’ He looked up cautiously. To his surprise he saw a small doubtful frown between his wife’s eyes.

They had a cup of cocoa together an hour later, and then retired to their separate rooms without further comment. Both lay awake a long time.

The following morning before Clare set out from her motel in Northumberland Archie had left the house. He drove the Volvo to Edinburgh where he visited his solicitor before going on to the manse of a suburban kirk where he spent an hour closeted with the minister, an old schoolfriend from Fettes. Finally before he set off back to Dunkeld he called at a shop on the Mound and bought a six-inch-high ivory crucifix. Holding it cautiously in its paper bag between finger and thumb as though afraid it might bite, and feeling just a little foolish, he went back to the car and locked the paper bag in solitary splendour in the back. When he got home he told Antonia he had spent the morning in Perth.

Now he sat in uneasy silence clutching his own glass of neat whisky whilst his wife and step-daughter exchanged uncomfortable small talk. He was watching Clare surreptitiously. She had lost a lot of weight since he had seen her last; she was as thin as a rake with dark circles under her eyes. She was a looker, Clare, like her mother used to be, but there was definitely something wild about her – the part of her that he had always resented, the part she had from her father. Cautiously he watched her eyes as she continued to fondle the dogs. They were sensitive, expressive eyes, reflecting her every mood, shadowed by long lashes as her concentration was for the moment fixed on the animals. They were all three round her now, vying for the touch of her hands, pushing against her knees, grinning stupidly at her. He had always trusted the dogs’ judgment. They knew. He took a deep sip of whisky, reassured. Then he nearly choked. He had just remembered about witches and their familiars.

They ate together in the high-ceilinged cold dining room and Clare, making her long drive the excuse, went to her room directly afterwards. The atmosphere in the dining room had chilled her. Her parents were more than usually edgy and ill at ease and she was too uncomfortable to go with them back into the drawing room for coffee.

Her bedroom was exactly as she had left it last time; exactly as it had been when she was fifteen. A huge room on the west side of the house looking out over the river, it was full of treasures. She closed the door behind her and looked round fondly. So many treasures and memories; her teddy bears, four of them in varying degrees of tattiness lined up on the bed, her pictures, her dressing table with the silver-backed hair-brushes Aunt Margaret had given her on her sixteenth birthday. There were faded photographs under the glass of the table, mostly of James and her father and various generations of dogs. There were still two torn posters on the wall – the Royal House of Scotland, and the clans and their tartans – and between them the Landseer oil sketch of the ruins of Duncairn Castle with a stag in the foreground.

Slowly she knelt in front of the hearth and put a match to the fire that was laid there. The house had had central heating for ten years now, but it didn’t seem to make much difference to the huge chilly rooms. She loved having a fire in her bedroom; it seemed so right and comfortable. Undressing slowly she climbed into bed and lay staring at the merrily crackling flames. Outside she could hear two owls calling to one another sharply in a tall Scots pine.

She awoke screaming as the bars closed around her. The eyes were closer tonight, the faces uglier, the terror more real than ever before.

She lay for a long time, too afraid to open her eyes, clutching at the sheets. The room was ice cold, the fire long ago dead. There was a sheen of damp on the top of the bedclothes. For a moment she didn’t know where she was and she was terrified that when she opened her eyes it would be real. She whispered Casta’s name in the dark, but Casta didn’t come: she was downstairs with the other dogs. Reaching out in the darkness Clare’s hand closed round a cold soft fabric paw. It was one of her teddy bears. She sat up in the freezing room and stared round, dazed, then slowly she lay back again against the pillows. Somewhere far away one of the owls hooted.

When she woke again it was daylight. She climbed, aching, out of bed and went to stare out of the window at the gardens. The blustery winds of the day before had torn most of the last of the leaves from the trees on the far side of the river; they lay on the ground, a crisp blanket of colour. There was a suspiciously frosty sheen on the grass below the pines, but the sun was out and the sky was an intense steady blue. She shivered violently, putting her hand tentatively on the radiator. She had already guessed that it would be stone cold. Putting on her cords, a silk shirt and two sweaters she made her way downstairs.

Her mother was in the kitchen. She looked as though she hadn’t slept a wink. ‘Good morning, darling. Would you like some coffee?’ She didn’t ask if Clare had slept well, and Clare wondered briefly if she had heard her screams. When she was a child her mother had stopped coming to comfort her after her nightmares soon after she had married Archie, leaving Clare to cry herself to sleep. Archie had forbidden her to go to her daughter and Antonia had not dared then, at the start of their marriage, to disobey him. It was one of the first ways Archie had shown his resentment of his step-children.

Antonia gestured towards the Aga where a coffee jug was warming. ‘Archie has taken the dogs for a walk.’

Clare helped herself to coffee and sat down at the long pine table. The kitchen was the only warm place in the house.

‘Is something wrong, Mummy?’ She poured some cream from the heavy earthenware jug.

‘No, darling, of course not.’ Antonia turned away sharply.

‘There is.’ Clare looked up. ‘I know you told me not to come till Archie was away, but I had nowhere else to go. I’ve left Paul.’

For a moment there was silence then slowly Antonia turned. ‘Left him?’ she echoed. ‘For good?’

Clare shrugged. ‘Well, for the time being, anyway.’ She sipped her coffee gratefully, feeling its warmth slowly flowing through her chilled body. ‘I won’t go into it now, but things have been pretty bloody lately.’

‘Oh, Clare!’ Her mother sat down opposite her. ‘Paul is such a nice man. What has gone wrong?’

Clare smiled sadly. ‘Perhaps he isn’t such a nice man as we thought. Anyway, I’d like to stay if you’d let me. Until I sort something out.’

‘Of course. You can stay as long as you like.’ Impulsively Antonia put her hand on Clare’s.

‘Will Archie be furious?’ Clare met her mother’s eyes steadily.

‘Probably.’ Antonia shrugged. ‘I’ll deal with him. Have you told James all this?’

‘I haven’t seen James for ages.’ Clare drank some more coffee. ‘You know him. He thinks Paul is the cat’s whiskers, so I would hardly confide in him.’

‘I suppose not.’ Her mother grimaced. ‘Poor Clare, has it been awful?’

Clare nodded. She stood up abruptly. ‘Damn Archie. I need my dog to go out with. Where has he taken them?’

Antonia shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. I should avoid him if I were you, darling. If you want a walk go towards the village. He never takes them near the road.’

Clare didn’t see her step-father again until that evening. It was as they were sitting again in the formal dining room, the three dogs lying under the long D-end table, that he cleared his throat. He put down his knife and fork, his salmon almost untouched. ‘Clare, I think you should know that your husband rang us.’

Clare looked up. ‘I thought he must have,’ she said guardedly. She looked from one to the other.

Her mother was clutching her fork as though her life depended on it, stabbing randomly at a piece of crumbling fish. ‘Clare, I don’t believe a word of what he said,’ she burst out defiantly.

‘No more do I, I think.’ Archie reached for his glass of wine. ‘But he did say some strange things, Clare, and your mother and I have the right to know whether there is any truth in them.’

Clare took a deep breath. She put her hands in her lap nervously pleating the stiff linen napkin between her fingers. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said you hadn’t been well, darling,’ Antonia said firmly. ‘That’s all. He says you’ve been under a lot of strain.’

‘He said,’ Archie went on, frowning, ‘that you have become involved in some kind of black magic cult.’

‘Black magic?’ Clare echoed. She felt a sudden shiver run down her spine. So, the stupid story had come full circle. ‘What rubbish! I have taken some yoga lessons from a man I met in Cambridge, that’s all.’

‘He said you were involved with some strange people,’ Archie continued as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Strange, evil people who consort with the devil.’ He swallowed, his eyes shifting in spite of himself to the sideboard where he had left the cross, wrapped in an old spotted cravat.

‘That’s not true,’ Clare cried. ‘For God’s sake! You don’t believe him?’ Silently she cursed herself for leading Geoffrey and Chloe on. She had played into Paul’s hands. ‘Mummy! You don’t believe this do you? There is nothing strange or evil about Zak! Paul is angry because I’ve left him. We’ve had some dreadful quarrels and he is feeling very spiteful, that is why he is making all this up. He is trying to get even with me; to discredit me. Surely you can see that?’ So that they wouldn’t believe her if she told them what had happened in the lift. It was so obvious what he was doing. She took a deep breath. He needn’t have worried, she would never tell anyone about it.

Casta, hearing her mistress’s agitated voice, got up and came and put her head on Clare’s knee. She whined quietly.

‘Tell me you don’t believe him!’ Clare looked at them both in turn.

‘Well, I don’t.’ Antonia took a defiant mouthful of food. ‘Come on Archie, neither do you. And your supper is getting cold.’

Archie glared from one woman to the other. He was not sure what to do next. On the one hand he was extremely relieved that he had brought it all out into the open. They had discussed it calmly and Clare had not turned on him with sulphur and brimstone. The cross had not been needed. On the other hand he kept hearing again Paul’s words:
She is clever
at hiding the truth … Don’t trust her … She will deny it …
He had never liked Clare, and he did not trust her. Neither she nor his wife would ever guess that, of course, but there was something strange about her …

He shrugged. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear there’s nothing in it,’ he said at last. He gave an embarrassed smile.

‘Does Paul know I’m here?’ Clare was looking straight at him.

‘No, dear, he rang before you arrived,’ Antonia answered.

‘Does he?’ Clare’s eyes were fixed on her step-father’s face.

He nodded defensively. ‘I rang him today. He has a right to know where you are, Clare. He is your husband.’

‘Is he coming up here?’ Clare clenched her fists.

‘He said he would fly up tomorrow.’ Archie didn’t dare look at his wife.

‘You know why he’s doing all this, don’t you?’ Clare flung her napkin aside and stood up. ‘This is all because of Duncairn. He wants the estate transferred to his name because there is oil there and I’ve been offered a lot of money for it. I refused to sell, and he is furious.’

‘Oil? At Duncairn?’ Her mother’s mouth had fallen open in astonishment. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Oh, it’s true, and Paul needs the money. He needs a lot of money.’ Clare’s voice had risen in desperation. ‘He could sell his shares in the family firm, but he won’t. He wants my money to pay his debts and I refused.’ Her anger had brought a touch of colour to her face. ‘I will never sell Duncairn!’

There was an astonished silence. ‘Paul can’t have any debts!’ her mother said at last. Her glance at Archie was full of doubt. ‘Paul is a very rich man, darling.’

‘I should know, I am his wife.’ Clare walked across to the fireplace. She put her hand up to the high mantelpiece and rested her head on it. ‘What is he going to do when he gets here? Try and persuade me to sell again? Twist my arm? Try and make you change my mind?’

There was an awkward silence. ‘I think he wants you to go back to London with him,’ Archie said at last.

‘No. I’ve told you. I’ve left him, and I’m not waiting here to have yet another argument with him! I’m leaving. Now.’

‘No! No, Clare, you can’t!’ Both her parents were appalled.

‘Darling, you mustn’t drive anywhere tonight,’ Antonia said pleadingly. ‘At least wait and go in the morning.’

‘And risk Paul turning up? No thank you.’ Clare turned to face them. ‘Please understand. I don’t want to see him again. Not now. I’ve come up here to Scotland to think. If I can’t avoid him here at Airdlie then I must go somewhere else.’

Archie had risen to his feet, agitated. Paul had told him to keep her there at all costs. ‘Clare, your mother is right. Wait till morning.’ He eyed her, wondering for a brief moment whether he should try to lock her up somewhere as Paul had suggested. One glance at his wife made up his mind that he couldn’t. He sat down again, defeated.

Clare ran up to her room. She threw her clothes back into her case, grabbed her fur coat from the cupboard and put on her Burberry. The undrawn curtains showed a crescent moon low in the sky above the river between the trees. She could feel the chill off the glass. It was a very cold night. With one longing look around the room she walked out, snapping off the light, and lugged her case down the broad flight of stairs.