Thorn (31 page)

But if I don't open it I shall keep wondering.

The freezer was innocent of anything except the packs of food Dan had seen last time. He propped up the lid and stood looking into it for a moment. Did I imagine it then? Was it Margot clawing her way out of fantasy into reality again? Because if I really did imagine it, then I'm committing the most appalling intrusion here. But then he remembered that macabre scene at the funeral in Hampstead, and he knew it had not been imagination. And there was a rounded depression at the freezer's centre, the ghost of something that had lain there for a time and left its imprint. Something that was roughly the size and shape of a large melon.

Dan closed the freezer and went back into the sitting room. He had to force himself to open the desk and rifle through the small drawers. Pillaging, hadn't this once been called? It conjured up mad visions of marauding Vikings bouncing lustily across the North Sea.

There was not very much to pillage. A copy of the lease of this flat – the ground rent was astronomical. A neat list of plumbers and electricians and a number to ring for exterior maintenance. The name of somebody who apparently came in to clean, and a couple of phone numbers of fast-food delivery services. Dan tried to imagine his villainess eating pizza out of a cardboard delivery box and failed entirely.

At the bottom of the drawer was a large manila envelope, postmarked Berwick-on-Tweed. Berwick-on-Tweed. Northumberland. Dan's heart began to beat faster. She's there, he thought. I was right, and she's there; she's going to enter Rosamund's castle and she's going to kill her . . . No, you fool, this is Thalia, this is real.

He slid the envelope's contents out. There were four or five sets of property details sent by an estate agent from Berwick, and there was a brief letter attached, referring to Mrs Caudle's request for properties on long-term lets in the area. Her requirements had apparently been a little difficult to meet, but the agent hoped one of the enclosed would be suitable. All were available immediately for periods of between six months and a year.

Dan scanned the details quickly. They were all for rather up-market houses, and they all looked as if they were in isolated areas, although that might merely have been the agent's photographic skill. Cooking and cleaning services were available for most of the properties. The location of each property was carefully described, and all of them were within five – at the most seven – miles of Thornacre.

The ogress was at the gates of Rosamund's enchanted castle after all.

Safely back in his own flat, Dan sat down at his desk to consider this new twist.

He was still no nearer to finding out Thalia's real motives. Margot had followed Rosamund to her east-coast asylum in order to kill her but Margot's motives would not be Thalia's. At least Dan hoped they would not, because that would mean he really was tapping into some strange, invisible world, brimful of portents and harbingers, and he refused flatly and absolutely to believe in such things. He refused flatly and absolutely to become any more involved than he already was. He would get on with what he was doing, which was writing a book.

But the plot was stuck fast and Dan could not unstick it. Adam Cadence was due to travel north to rescue the imprisoned Rosamund, and Dan wanted him to go helter-skelter through the night, hurling his sleek, showy Jaguar XJ effortlessly across the country, sizzling with acceleration (the car) and testosterone (Adam). Rosamund was going to get quite an awakening when Adam finally reached her scented bower.

But Adam could not summon up enough energy to set off tonight and Dan could not summon it up for him either. He moved on to the calculation of how long Adam and Rosamund could be given before they were finally allowed to go to bed. Rosamund would presumably have to recover from the lingering effects of Bentinck's drugging, and it would not do for Adam to pounce on her the minute she opened her eyes. Apart from it being inconsiderate on Adam's part (and therefore alienating to a good many female readers), it would not make very good dramatic sense. Dan did not in the least mind Rosamund losing her virginity, in fact she was going to lose it very thoroughly indeed before the finale, but she was not going to lose it in a hospital bed, hooked up to a battery of intravenous drips and gastro-feeds. He would defy even Shakespeare to squeeze romance out of such a setting.

His mind returned yet again to the house details he had found in Thalia's flat, and he tried to think what he ought to do about them, and whether he ought to do anything.

It was then that there was a soft footfall on the stair outside, and a light tap on the door. Dan got up to answer it, and there on the doorstep was the villainess herself. Thalia Caudle.

She was at her most charming and her most hesitant. If she was not disturbing him, she said, she would like to talk to him if he could spare the time. A little proposition, she said, indicating the large briefcase she carried. She had taken the chance of finding him in, and also of finding him alone.

‘Come inside,' said Dan, with the feeling that he was saying someone else's lines. To dispel this, he said, ‘Do sit down.'

Whatever else Thalia was, she was not obvious. She did not gush over his flat, and say, oh, what a very nice room, or even, so this is where you work. She sat on the deep sofa that needed re-covering, looked about her and gave a little satisfied nod, as if she liked what she saw. In a minute common courtesy would force Dan to offer her a drink, or at the very least a cup of tea or coffee. The thought of her hands curled round one of his wine glasses or cups, after they had been curled round the obscene thing he had seen in the freezer, sent prickles of revulsion scudding across his skin. He said, ‘You mentioned a proposition,' and hoped he was giving the impression of someone who was very busy but politely snatching ten minutes' break. She looked so utterly normal, and so attractive in a scarlet wool jacket with a calf-length black skirt and black leather boots, that he began to wonder if he had dreamed all those bizarre events in her flat. He offered her wine, and uncorked it while he listened to her talking.

Thalia seemed perfectly at home and entirely relaxed. She said that what she was about to propose might be asking too much. Also, of course, she might have misread his feelings towards her. ‘I don't mean that in any committed sense, Dan; I'm just referring to friendship and companionship. I did think we had shared that.'

This was where older women scored over younger ones, of course. A 22-year-old would have found it difficult or embarrassing to refer to the couple of nights they had spent together; Thalia appeared to think it perfectly acceptable to do so, and to use it as a springboard for claiming friendship. Dan could not decide if this was extremely clever or unusually honest.

She accepted the wine, which fortunately was the claret Oliver had brought, and explained that what she wanted was to offer him a commission for the work she was doing for Ingram's. He would remember perhaps. They had discussed it when they first met.

Dan said warily, ‘I do remember. A new imprint focusing on folklore and ballads and legends, wasn't it?' Something prompted him to add, ‘It sounded interesting.'

Thalia said, ‘I'm so glad you thought that, because frankly, Dan, I need your help. I can do many things but I can't write acceptable prose.'

Dan drank his wine and waited.

‘I would,' said Thalia, ‘pay whatever you thought a suitable fee. Of course I would. I expect you're quite expensive, aren't you?'

The faint, self-deprecatory irony that Dan had once found so attractive was there, and he heard himself say, ‘I expect you could afford me.'

‘The thing is that it would mean you coming to Northumberland with me. Just for a short while.'

‘Northumberland?' Dan felt as if he was treading on brittle ice. At any minute it would crack and drop him neck deep into black freezing water.

‘Yes, a place called Blackmere. I'm using it as my base. Would that be a problem?'

‘Not necessarily.'

‘A few days only, of course. We could say a week.'

‘Fair enough.'

‘You could stay with me,' she said. ‘I've taken a house up there. Quite large. You could have your own study.'

There was silence. I will not, said Dan silently, I absolutely will
not
ask if I can have my own bedroom.

‘I see you're working on something at the moment,' said Thalia, her eyes going to the cluttered desk. ‘You could bring that with you, of course. I wouldn't want you to break off anything that was current.'

‘No,' said Dan, almost too quickly. ‘No, I can leave that to one side for a few days.' The thought of his characters coming into Thalia's sphere of influence, of Thalia even reading parts of the manuscript, was deeply distasteful. The manuscript could stay here for a week. He said, ‘Why Northumberland?'

Thalia looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Why not Northumberland?' she said. ‘It's very rich indeed in border legends and ballads and folk stories. Let me show you what I've done so far.' She reached into the briefcase and handed him a thick folder.

Dan got up to refill the wine glasses before sitting down to study Thalia's notes. It was possible that she was using this as a ploy to get near to Imogen, or even as a ploy to lure Dan himself into her clutches once more, but it had to be admitted that she was providing herself with a very comprehensive alibi. The folder was marked ‘Northumberland and the Border Counties', and there was a file reference number on the front, suggesting that it was one of a series. It was filled with cuttings about folklore and photographs of old castles, and there were several pages of notes, some handwritten, some typed.

Dan saw almost straight away that Thalia – or whoever had compiled the file – had only skimmed the surface. The obvious legends and characters were faithfully listed: the Hermit of Warkworth and Grace Darling, and the better-known folk songs were noted as well. Dan's interest was caught, and he found himself itching to dig deeper: to Harry Hotspur hunting in the Cheviots and falling into the famous Hell Hole; to the sources of Walter Scott and Robert Surtees; to the Lambton Worm and the Jarrow Marches. The old Northumberland fortresses would yield a wealth of material as well: Bamburgh, reputed to be the Arthurian Joyous Gard, and Lindisfarne and Alnwick. Whatever the motive and whatever the outcome, this would be a very interesting commission.

‘I don't want you to actually write the book,' said Thalia, and Dan looked up to find her eyes on him with what he could have sworn was nothing more than interested friendship. ‘We'd use specialist freelances for that. It's more a question of arranging the material. Deciding what could be used and perhaps delving a bit deeper into sources in the different areas. Simplifying some of the old newspaper archive stuff and translating all that florid Victorian prose from privately printed diaries and memoirs into twentieth-century language.'

‘Yes, I understand that.' Dan turned over several more pages, frowning. ‘If I agree,' he said, slowly, ‘I couldn't give you more than five days or so. A week at the outside. I've got commitments here – deadlines.'

He was not sure whether he was giving himself a safety net by saying this, but Thalia said at once, ‘Yes, of course. Five days should be more than sufficient.'

There was a silence. Then Dan said, carefully, ‘When would you want to leave?'

‘You'll do it?'

‘Yes,' said Dan slowly. ‘Yes, I'll do it. We'll talk about the fee when I see how much work's involved.'

‘Ought I to contact your agent?'

Their eyes met. Dan said, ‘I think we'll keep this one just between the two of us, shall we, Thalia?' and was rewarded by the sudden satisfaction in her eyes.

She said, ‘Do you think you can work with me, Dan?'

Dan smiled at her. ‘Oh, Thalia,' he said, and forced his voice to take on a note of intimacy, ‘we'll work together and we'll keep together as two yoke-devils sworn to each other's purpose.'

She smiled the satisfied smile again, and Dan saw she did not know that the yoke-devils Shakespeare had been referring to when he wrote that speech had been treason and murder.

The villainess had presented him with the perfect vehicle for keeping a watch on her and for finding out about Imogen and Thornacre. Because if he could not find out her intentions by breaking into her flat, then he would do so by living in her house and, if necessary, sleeping in her bed.

Dan Tudor's interference had nearly thrown things out of kilter, but as Thalia drove away, she thought she had dealt with it very well indeed. She had meant to contact the family on this brief visit to London, but now she would not. The fewer people who knew she had been in London the better. It might be necessary for Dan to discreetly vanish quite soon, and the fewer trace lines there were from him back to her, the better.

The thought of having him with her in October House was exciting. The arrangement was that they would set off tomorrow, and they would use Thalia's car. There was no point in taking two cars, she had said, and they could share the driving. When the work was completed, she would drive him to the nearest railway station for the return.

Thalia was not absolutely sure that it had been Dan who had broken into the Great Portland Street flat, but she was nearly sure. She had considered turning him over to the police but, after thought, had decided against it because she had no idea how much he knew.

Today's visit had not been the impulse she had pretended, of course, but it had worked brilliantly. She had set herself out to be her most charmingly helpless, and she had succeeded. He had been dazzled, just as all the young men were dazzled. He had seen it as another episode in their affair – just the two of them in a secret hideaway, remote and romantic. And, of course, he was a very good writer; he would be of considerable use in this tiresome smokescreen she had put up of the folk legends for Ingram's. Thalia had seen at once that his interest had been fired by the preliminary notes, and she was pleased. The new eager young editor at Ingram's who had been so delighted to take on the research for Mrs Caudle's pet project had done an excellent job.