Kingdom of Shadows (68 page)

Jack glanced at him from under raised eyebrows. ‘So, she took you in, did she?’

‘Didn’t she you?’

‘Aye, I suppose so.’ Jack nodded. He sighed. ‘Pity. I always liked the lassie. And she seemed so genuine.’

In their room Kathleen was sitting in front of the mirror brushing her hair. ‘She had you properly fooled, didn’t she?’ She glanced at Neil in the mirror. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, frowning.

‘I just can’t believe she’d go with him. Not after all she said.’

‘Perhaps she didn’t know what she was saying. He did say she was mad.’ She stood up and slipped out of her dress.

‘Did she look mad to you?’ Neil scowled. He hadn’t even glanced at the black lace teddy and suspenders.

She gave him a sharp look. Something about the way he said it puzzled her. ‘Why? Did she to you?’ she asked. She went over and sat on the bed beside him. ‘What is it?’

Neil shrugged. ‘She was behaving oddly. Each time I spoke to her she seemed to be somewhere else; watching something that wasn’t there.’

Kathleen felt the skin on the nape of her neck quiver. Three times now the nine of swords had appeared in the spread. Pain and suffering. Imprisonment and despair. Nightmares and premonitions. But for whom?

‘Perhaps her husband is right, then,’ she whispered. Gently she put her hand inside his shirt. ‘Perhaps she is mad. Anyway, we’re well shot of her. If I’m to be stuck in a storm on the edge of nowhere with the man I love, I’d much rather not have Lady Macbeth in the room next door.’

Emma was at the rectory at eight the next morning. She had dropped Julia off at Tamsin’s on the way.

‘We’ve got to talk, Chloe. Is Geoff here?’ Emma shed her wet coat in the hall.

‘On a Sunday?’ Leading the way down to the kitchen Chloe gave a hollow laugh. ‘Hardly. He’s taking Holy Communion at St Thomas’s. Then he’ll rush back for a bite of breakfast before Sung Eucharist at ten at St Peter’s. It’s Remembrance Day today, or had you forgotten?’ She smiled wryly. ‘That means I have to go as well. Did you want to see him urgently?’

Emma frowned. ‘Paul’s followed Clare up to Scotland.’

‘So?’ Chloe picked up the coffee pot. ‘Look, love, the young won’t get out of bed for hours yet. Not on a Sunday. So we won’t be interrupted. You’d better tell me what is happening.’

‘Paul is in trouble over money.’ Emma hesitated. ‘Chloe, I think it is a case of sell Duncairn, or he will go to prison!’

Chloe frowned. She sat down abruptly across the scrubbed pine table. ‘Prison?’ she echoed.

Emma nodded.

‘Does Clare realise it is that bad?’

‘I don’t know.’ Emma shrugged helplessly. ‘We’ve got to make her understand; we’ve got to make her sell, Chloe.’

She was still questioning her own motives in deciding that the only solution to the problem was for Clare to sell Duncairn to Rex. ‘Paul is my least favourite person. In fact I detest him most of the time. But prison …’

‘What about the family shares?’ Chloe was suddenly practical. ‘Surely he’s got some, like you and Geoff and David? Why doesn’t he sell those? They’re worth a bomb.’

Emma shrugged. ‘Perhaps they’ve already gone.’

They were silent for a moment. ‘Paul came to see Geoff last week,’ Chloe said at last. ‘Geoff was very worried afterwards.’

They both looked up as the door banged. There were heavy footsteps in the hall above, and then the sound of someone running down stairs. Geoffrey greeted his sister with a kiss. ‘Only five people in church this morning. I should like to think it is because they will all be going to services later, but somehow I doubt it. Remembrance Day means so little to the modern generation.’ He sat down with a sigh. ‘Can I have some coffee, dear, please? I’m starving.’

‘I’ll make you some toast.’ Chloe stood up. ‘Emma is here about Paul and Clare, Geoff.’

Geoffrey frowned. ‘Poor, poor Clare. I have to help her. Paul is genuinely very, very worried you know.’ He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘I know you have both talked to her, and I know neither of you is inclined to take what she’s doing seriously, but things appear to have deteriorated badly. Paul has actually watched her at these practices of hers – invoking spirits.’

His wife and sister both stared at him, stunned. Behind them the toast under the grill turned black. ‘She began innocently enough, experimenting with the trance state,’ he went on. ‘I understand that, just as I understand the unhappiness which led her to experiment in the first place, but she wasn’t told how to protect herself. She opened her mind and allowed something evil to possess her.’ He was watching absently as his wife threw the burned pieces of toast into the bin and put two fresh slices of wholemeal bread on the grill pan. The room was full of blue smoke.

Emma stood up and going over to the window, threw it open. ‘Doesn’t it occur to you, Geoff, that Paul could be lying about all this?’ she said slowly. ‘Clare isn’t raising the dead! For God’s sake, you don’t believe him?’

‘I did wonder at first, I must admit.’ Geoffrey rubbed his hand across his face. ‘It is something of which one has comparatively little experience, at least in my parish, but things he told me, things she told me herself –’

‘I thought she was having you on, Geoff. I told you that before!’ Chloe retrieved the second batch of toast in time and set it in the rack in front of her husband. ‘I think she was making it up!’

‘No.’ Geoffrey pushed his elbows forwards amongst the plates and steepled his fingertips. ‘No. She enjoyed telling me about it, yes, and there was bravado there too, but intrinsically she told me the truth. Whether to test me or to taunt me, I don’t know, but she was afraid, Emma, really afraid.’ He sighed. ‘I have prayed again and again for help. I don’t know what to do.’ He stood up, rubbing his hands together helplessly. ‘I have decided to go to see the bishop and talk to him about her. I need to discuss it with someone, and he is a good man – he will have the experience of these things which I lack. There are special teams of people within the diocese who know how to deal with things like this. Specially trained people. Exorcists –’

‘You are not serious!’ Emma interrupted. She stood up so violently that her chair tipped backwards on the red floor tiles.

‘I have never been more so.’

‘You can’t! You can’t exorcise her! That is grotesque! Bell, book and candle – all that, because a woman has a few vivid daydreams? Tell him, Chloe! Tell him he can’t!’

‘Emma, I don’t know.’ Chloe looked unhappy. ‘Geoff does know what he is doing.’

‘No he doesn’t! He’s being made to look a complete idiot by Paul. Paul is a cynical, lying bastard. You should know that as well as I do, damn it! He wants Clare broken so that he can sell Duncairn over her head! Oh God, can’t you see?’

‘No, Emma. You’re wrong. You are not being fair to Paul,’ Geoffrey put in wearily. ‘He is thinking of Clare. He wants what is best for her, believe me.’

‘He wants what is best for himself, Geoff. Money to stop him going to prison.’

Geoffrey sat down heavily, staring from his wife to his sister and back. ‘Prison!’ he repeated at last.

‘Yes.’ Briefly Emma related what Rex had told her. She refused to meet Chloe’s eye as she mentioned her lunch with him.

Geoffrey tightened his lips, ignoring for the time being the implications of Emma’s meeting with this other man. He couldn’t cope with that. ‘I’ll talk to David. If it’s true that Paul has already sold the family shares, then he’s in breach of the trust and we can’t help him. If he hasn’t then maybe we can do something. But this has nothing to do with Clare’s state of mind, Emma, believe me. Her danger is very real.’ He stood up. ‘I want to talk to her doctor; perhaps get a psychiatrist to see her. I won’t just act on Paul’s story. I shall investigate every possible explanation for what is happening to her, I promise. Look, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later. Come to the Remembrance service with Chloe, Emma, and then come back to lunch afterwards –’

Emma shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t, Geoff, I’m sorry.’ She caught her brother’s hands. ‘Promise you won’t go to the bishop. Not yet. Please.’

Geoffrey kissed her on the cheek. ‘The bishop is a wise man, Em. He will advise me. I don’t know what to do for the best, and I have to do something. Believe me.’

‘If you do, you are falling for Paul’s trick. He wants Clare so confused that she doesn’t know what’s happening to Duncairn.’

‘That’s an appalling accusation to make!’

‘Yes.’ Emma stared at him, her eyes blazing suddenly. ‘It is, isn’t it? I think he is prepared to buy himself out of trouble with Clare’s sanity. That is the kind of man our brother is!’

It had been nearly three in the morning when the green Jaguar nosed its way up the drive towards Airdlie. It drew up on the gravelled area in front of the steps and Paul switched off the engine. A light was on in the hall. He could see it through the coloured glass above the front door.

Beside him Clare sat hunched in the passenger seat, her eyes closed.

‘I don’t suppose your parents are still awake, but no doubt the door is open.’ Paul climbed out of the car.

The sleet had stopped and the wind was less strong inland; the temperature had dropped several degrees and a sheen of ice was forming over the puddles on the drive.

Followed by Casta, Clare climbed stiffly out of the car and walked towards the front door. She was shivering. Paul pulled her case out of the car. He was immediately behind her as she pushed open the front door.

The hall as usual smelt faintly of lavender furniture wax and dogs.

‘I suggest you go straight to bed.’ Paul closed the door behind him.

‘What, no great showdown in the early hours?’ Clare turned on him bitterly. ‘I’m not going to sign my land over to you, you know. Bringing me here isn’t going to make any difference.’ Her shoulder which had been jarred again when Paul pushed her across the room at Duncairn was hurting badly now, and her head was throbbing with exhaustion and tension.

‘We’ll see.’ Grimly Paul picked up her case. ‘I’ll take this upstairs for you.’

Somewhere at the rear of the house they could hear Archie’s dogs barking. Slowly Clare began to climb the stairs. She was suddenly so weary that she could hardly walk. Paul followed her to her bedroom – her own, not the spare room she shared with Paul on the few occasions they had stayed at the house together – and he opened the door for her, turned on the light and dropped her case just inside. Then he stood back. ‘Sleep well, my dear. We’ll talk in the morning.’

In the drawing room he poured himself a large double whisky, then he picked up the phone.

Sir David Royland took several minutes to answer it. ‘For the love of Mike, Paul, do you know what time it is?’

‘Of course I do. I haven’t been to bed yet. I’ve been driving halfway round Scotland.’ Testily Paul took a sip of whisky. ‘Listen, David, there’s trouble coming. Neil Forbes of Earthwatch is up at Duncairn and he’s well stuck in there. I know him of old. He has a reputation second to none for stirring up trouble and he’s already on to the press about Sigma’s interest. You’ve got to knock the story on the head before it gets off the ground.’

In Suffolk David sat up in bed and leaned over to turn on the light on the side table. Beside him Gillian groaned.

‘What do you mean, knock the story on the head? Why? What on earth has it got to do with me?’

‘Oh for God’s sake, David!’ Paul was impatient. ‘My name is Royland, and as far as Forbes is concerned, I’m the bad guy in this story. He’s going to milk it for all it’s worth. You think the press are going to overlook the small matter of my being your brother – you – an MP?’

‘Development in the area will mean jobs,’ David said calmly. ‘That’s my interest, Paul. Jobs.’

‘Jobs for whom?’ Paul stood up and reached towards the sofa table for the whisky bottle. ‘Not for locals, David, and not for long. All that will happen is that the fishermen will have yet more to complain of. Believe me, you’ve got to keep Forbes away from the press.’

‘I can’t do that, Paul. It’s hardly D notice stuff.’ David sighed. ‘Unfortunately it is the kind of story that Fleet Street loves, and there is sod all we can do about it, old boy. I suggest you grin and bear it. No doubt counting the money you get for the land will compensate you for the aggravation. I take it you have persuaded Clare to sell?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Paul nodded grimly. ‘I’ve persuaded her to sell.’ He put down the phone and flinging himself into the chair he drained the whisky glass.

Christ! What if the campaign succeeded? What if Cummin withdrew his offer? He could feel the sweat standing out between his shoulder-blades. He had thirteen days to close the deal.

Gillian pulled herself up in the bed with another groan, and put her hand to her back with a sudden frown. ‘What did he want?’

‘He thought I could stop the Earthwatch man going to press with a story about Duncairn.’

‘What story?’

‘Paul thinks he is going to be the villain of the piece. At a guess Forbes has got hold of the fact that Paul is selling against Clare’s wishes.’

‘Poor Clare. All this on top of her …’ she hesitated over the word. ‘Her illness. He is selling then?’

‘Sounds like it.’

‘I should think it will break her, the way she loves that place. Damn Paul! It won’t do you any good either, you know.’

‘That’s what he said.’

‘Well, he’s right. It’s obvious.’ She winced suddenly. ‘David, darling, I think you’d better ring the hospital and tell them to expect us fairly soon!’

David stared at her. He sat bolt upright in the bed. ‘Not the baby?’

‘Of course the baby! I’ve had enough experience at this.’ With another groan she reached for her dressing gown. Already she was practising her breathing exercises.

Neil and Kathleen were back in Edinburgh by 10.30 next morning. The Grassmarket office was cold and damp. Lighting the gas fire Neil glanced out of the back window across the small yard towards the black granite cliff. High above them the castle was a dark silhouette against the blue, blustery sky. On the esplanade the crowds were gathering for the Remembrance Day march down to the City Chambers.