Sands of Time (40 page)

She looked suddenly defeated and unhappy again. Her expressive large eyes were blank. For a moment she didn’t react to his question; when she did it was to shrug helplessly. ‘I think on average I like Serena’s idea. I think it should go back to Egypt, if she is willing to take it.’

No!

The voice in Toby’s head exploded with rage once more.

Stupid, foolish women
.

They don’t understand. They will never understand!

Don’t let them touch it!

Take it! Take it back to Scotland! We can use it there!

Pick it up!

I will tell you what to do with it!

‘I must take it back to Scotland.’

Toby heard himself repeat the words, zombie-like.

‘That is what I’ll do. Take it to Scotland.’

‘Scotland?’ Anna seemed puzzled. ‘Why Scotland?’

‘Toby –’ Serena reached out towards him and touched his hand. ‘Are you all right?’ She turned to Anna. ‘Listen, he’s exhausted. Why don’t you go and put on some coffee.’

Anna hesitated. Then she nodded. Standing up she moved towards the kitchen. ‘I don’t see why it would help to take it to Scotland.’

In Scotland I can use it. Pick it up, man. Waste no more
time with these women!

‘Toby!’ Serena’s voice was filtering through into his consciousness. ‘Toby, listen to me. Don’t let him use you. Think about something else!’ She had pushed back her chair and reaching out she took Toby’s hands as they lay on the table. She grasped them tightly. ‘Repeat after me. Come on! Repeat after me: Mary had a little lamb! Its fleece was white as snow!’ Her voice was insistent, cutting through the other, drowning it out.

The temperature in the room had plummeted.

‘Mary had a little lamb –’ Somehow he managed to frame the words.

‘Good. Again!’

‘Mary had a little lamb – ’

He was forcing the phrase out, his lips stiff, his mouth dry.

Anna had stopped in the kitchen doorway. She had turned and was watching, white faced. ‘What is happening? What is the matter with him?’ It was scarcely a whisper.

‘He’s being used, Anna. Someone is speaking through him.’ Serena was still holding Toby’s wrists, pinning them to the table.

‘Who?’ Her mouth had gone dry.

‘I think it is Lord Carstairs.’ Serena glanced up at her. ‘Who else would be interested in what happened to the bottle?’

Anna gasped. ‘No, that can’t be true. It can’t be. Why? How?’

The man her great-great grandmother’s diaries had described as a nightmare, a visitor from hell, a tormented and tormenting soul, was speaking through the man whom she thought she loved. The man she had come to trust; the man who had saved her from her own personal demons, was now fighting some terrifying battle of his own.

Running to his side she put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Toby? Speak to me! Please –’ Her voice slid up in panic. ‘Speak to me.’

He turned towards her and it was then she saw it. The face that was not his, the eyes that for a fraction of a second were not his eyes. ‘Toby!’ Her cry cut through his anguished struggle. The nursery rhyme stuttered into silence as he saw her expression. He read it all in her eyes. Wrenching his hands away from Serena’s firm grip he stood up and, pushing Anna aside, he turned to look into the mirror which hung over the fireplace. The face he saw looking back at him was not his own. It was that of a stranger! A handsome, arrogant, dominating stranger! The stranger whose portrait he had painted with such skill and care in his conservatory in Scotland. With a cry of horror he stepped back, his hands tearing at his features, desperate for reassurance that they still belonged to him, then he turned blindly and made for the door, racing up the staircase. He headed for the bathroom. His reaction in a crisis had always been to stick his head under a cold tap.

There was a mirror over the basin. For a moment he stood in front of it with his eyes shut, then, finally plucking up the courage, he opened them and leaned forward, scrutinising his face with care, searching fearfully for some sign of the intruder. The face of his ancestor. What he saw was reassuringly familiar again. Turning on the tap he scooped a handful of cold water over his face, then he studied his image carefully once more, noting the drops of water clinging to his sandy eyebrows, dripping from his nose, running down the planes of his cheeks. Same old face. Fortyish, handsome-ish, rugged-ish. Sandy hair. Nice smile. Or so he thought. Hoped. Up to now. With a sigh he reached for the towel. He was tired and he was stressed. He probably needed a caffeine fix, that was all. The illusion that there had been another man inside his head, the illusion that the eyes that had stared back at him from the mirror downstairs only moments before had not been his, had lasted only a few terrifying seconds, but that moment of vivid imagination had shaken him badly. He groaned.

‘Toby?’ A face appeared over his shoulder in the glass and he grimaced. The suddenness of its arrival had made his heart thud uncomfortably.

‘Serena?’ He turned towards the woman standing in the bathroom doorway.

‘Are you all right?’

He nodded. ‘I felt a bit odd, that’s all. Is Anna OK?’

Serena shook her head. ‘She’s gone, Toby.’

‘Gone?’

Looking down at the towel in his hands as though he didn’t know it was there, he rammed it back onto the rail and took a step towards her. ‘What do you mean gone?’

‘After you ran out of the room she stood up, grabbed the bottle and fled out of the front door. She couldn’t cope with Carstairs. I don’t know where she is.’

Fool!

Find her!

Don’t let her dispose of the bottle!

‘Fight it, Toby!’ Serena reached out to him.

He couldn’t.

He laughed.

The stupid woman was standing in his way.

With a violent push he shoved past her and ran for the stairs. In seconds he was out in the street, looking for Anna.

7

Anna had grabbed her coat and shoulder bag. She was shaking with fear and horror when she stuffed the bottle, still in its bubble wrap, into the bottom of the bag.

‘Anna!’ Serena had followed her into the hallway. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I don’t know. I just have to get away. You saw what happened! Why did I ask him to come? I should have known it would be a mistake. I’m such a fool.’

‘Let me have it. I’ll take it back to Egypt. Today. I’ll go straight to the airport.’

‘No.’ Anna shook her head. ‘No, Serena, I have to deal with this myself.’

She was gone, running down the steps and ducking across the street before Serena had time to move. At the end of the road she paused and looked back. Serena hadn’t waited. She had stepped back inside and the door was closed.

Suddenly Toby had become the enemy; whatever happened, whatever she did, for Louisa’s sake, she would not let him get his hands on the bottle.

The cab dropped her off in Great Russell Street. She stood for several minutes in the forecourt of the British Museum staring up at the huge pillared façade. She wasn’t entirely sure why she had come. It was just one idea; one thing that she could do with the bottle. If she walked around the galleries, looked for other glass artefacts from Egypt, perhaps a solution would present itself. She had not reached any definite decision. She did not necessarily intend to show it to anyone. She didn’t actually have to do anything at all. Slowly she walked towards the main entrance and began to climb the steps.

The Egyptian galleries were teeming with visitors; children; school parties. She stood, looking round. If someone came up to her. If someone said, can I see your Egyptian bottle, if someone said, may we have it, maybe she would have agreed. Handed it over. Sighed with relief that here it would be safe from Lord Carstairs. But no one knew. There were no Egyptologists patrolling the galleries. They were somewhere behind closed doors, out of sight, poring over ancient artefacts with scalpels and microscopes and computers or whatever it was they used. The attendants were not interested in her. She stopped in front of a mummy case and looked down at it. Somewhere at the end of the gallery a boy let out a shout and small feet pattered as a group of children out of control and bored ducked in and out of the exhibits. She didn’t notice. She was gazing down at the painted wooden face with its wide staring eyes. All she had to do was speak to someone. Ask to see an expert. Hand it over. Get rid of it. Leave the decision to someone else.

Turning her back on the glass case she looked round wildly. There must be someone she could speak to.

And there was. She was walking towards Anna down the centre of the gallery. A woman in her fifties, her greying hair neatly styled, spectacles swinging from a chain around her neck, her matching blue skirt and sweater contrasting with the scarlet plastic clipboard file she was clasping to her chest. An identity tag and set of keys confirmed her as member of staff. An Egyptologist. An expert. She would know what to do.

Clutching her shoulder bag tightly, Anna stepped forward and stood facing her, waiting as the woman moved towards her, her eyes fixed on the floor as she walked, her expression distant, preoccupied, her thoughts clearly far away. As she approached Anna, who was standing squarely in her path, she diverted slightly to miss her. Anna stepped sideways in step with her and at last the woman looked up.

‘I’m sorry.’ Anna smiled uncertainly.

The woman gave an apologetic shrug and attempted to walk on. Only Anna’s hand on her arm stayed her. She frowned.

‘Please.’ Anna’s hand closed on her sleeve. ‘Please. I must talk to you.’

The woman stepped back. She was clearly only dragging herself away from her own preoccupations with difficulty. She scanned Anna with pale blue intelligent eyes, obviously trying to place her, to put a name to the face.

‘It’s about a bottle. A small Egyptian bottle. I need help. It contains the tears of Isis. It’s haunted. It’s dangerous –’ Anna was grappling with the flap of her bag.

The woman took another step away. She frowned warily. ‘Egyptian you say?’ She was clearly under the impression that Anna was slightly unhinged. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not the person you should be talking to.’

‘No! You will know about it. You will know what to do.’ Anna’s certainty that this woman would take charge, would remove all the responsibility from her, was absolute. ‘Please, let me show you quickly. It will only take a minute. It’s so important.’

‘I’m sorry.’ The woman was beginning to look agitated. ‘I am truly sorry. I don’t work in this department.’ She was glancing round for an attendant.

Anna stopped dead, staring at her. ‘But you must. I was so sure.’

Her stark shock and misery were so obvious that the woman almost felt sorry for her.

‘You’re not an Egyptologist?’ Anna was incredulous.

‘No.’

‘But I was certain.’

The woman shrugged again. She was edging away steadily. ‘Abyssinian bas-relief,’ she said apologetically. ‘I was just socialising in Ancient Egypt. May I suggest you go back to the central enquiry desk?’ And turning away, she was gone.

Anna swallowed hard. The crowds seemed thicker than ever. More children streamed past her to surround the mummy cases, each with his or her small clipboard; more noise echoed beneath the high ceilings. She was beginning to feel disorientated and dizzy.

‘Are you all right?’ The man beside her had been watching her for several minutes.

She focused on him with difficulty. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’ He frowned at her through the top of his bifocals. ‘Shall I call the attendant?’

‘No!’ Suddenly she was hugging her bag more closely to her. ‘No, I’m all right. I’m leaving.’ Had his hand been hovering? Had he been after her purse? He might have stolen the bottle! Suddenly almost overwhelmed with a hysterical desire to laugh she dodged away, leaving him standing watching her in puzzled confusion as she pushed her way back towards the exit.

Outside the ice cold wind brought her to her senses. The wet London street, the hot-chestnut man selling his wares by the museum gates, the suitcases of tacky souvenirs, so many of them new-minted ancient Egyptian – it was all too much. Stepping out into the road she raised her hand to hail a black cab, climbed in and settled back into the seat with a sigh of relief.

It had just turned the corner into Bloomsbury Street taking her safely out of sight when Toby appeared, walking fast, heading across the forecourt and up the steps into the museum.

8

Toby was standing almost where Anna had encountered her Abyssinian specialist when Carstairs abandoned him with a curse. Sweating with fear Toby stared round. He had no idea how he had got to the museum. He remembered nothing of the journey; he had no idea how he had found his way to the ancient Egyptian galleries. All he knew was that he was shaking violently and he wanted to be out of there as soon as possible. Obviously Anna was not there, otherwise Carstairs would have stayed with him. Why else had Carstairs brought him here? He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands, trying to get a grip on himself. What was happening to him? What was he to do? Where should he go?