Читать книгу Barbara Erskine 3-Book Collection: Lady of Hay, Time’s Legacy, Sands of Time - Barbara Erskine - Страница 27

The morning before Jo and Sam had lunch together, the dining room at the hotel in the rue Saint-Honoré had been very full. Judy stared across the table at Nick as he tore his croissant in half. ‘Won’t there be any more time for us to be together? Please?’ she coaxed again.

He had been furious when she arrived five days before; refusing to believe it was Sam’s idea. ‘Why should he, of all people, tell you to come here?’ he had said angrily. ‘He knew how tight my schedule was. It’s not as though I’m here for a holiday, for God’s sake. Oh Judy!’ He had sighed heavily, catching her hands as he saw the tears in her eyes. ‘I am sorry. It isn’t that I’m not glad to see you. It’s just, well –’ He put some papers into his black case.

‘It’s just that you’re beginning to feel a little bit hounded.’ She had picked up her bag again. ‘Don’t worry, Nick. I’m as capable of getting on a plane going in the opposite direction as I was of coming in this.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ He pushed the door closed and took the bag out of her hand. ‘Listen. I’m free about eight o’clock tonight. We’ll go and have a meal, right?’

She grinned weakly. ‘Right.’

‘And tomorrow is Saturday. I’m going to spend the day with one of my clients in Passy. I’ll ring him and ask if I can bring you.’

She reached up and kissed him on the cheek, jubilant. ‘Thank you, Nick.’

‘But next week I’m tied up most of the time.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she had said meekly. ‘I shall paint.’

And now it was Tuesday. The dining room was beginning to empty, Nick was immersed in some sketches and Judy was bored. Petulantly she got up and helped herself to some English newspapers discarded on the next table, then pouring herself more coffee she began to leaf through them.

‘God! They’re not even today’s,’ she exclaimed in disgust after a moment.

Nick glanced up. ‘They get the new ones in the foyer. Here.’ He tossed some francs on the table. ‘Get me a Times while you’re at it, will you?’

But Judy was staring down at the paper on the table in front of her, open-mouthed.

‘So, he went ahead and did it,’ she said softly. She chuckled. ‘He actually did it.’

There was something in her voice which made Nick look up. Even upside-down he recognised Jo’s photo.

‘What the hell is that?’ he said sharply. He snatched the paper from her.

‘It’s nothing, Nick. Nothing, don’t bother to read it –’

She was suddenly afraid. After a week without a mention of her name Jo’s shadow had risen between them again. She stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll get today’s,’ she said, but he never heard her. He was staring down at yesterday’s copy of the Daily Mail.

He read the article twice, then, glancing at his watch, he stood up, folded the paper under his arm and strode towards the iron-gated lift. He passed Judy in the foyer and never saw her.

Impatiently he allowed the lift to carry him slowly up to his floor and wrenching the doors open he strode to their room. It was several minutes before the number in London was ringing. He sat impatiently on the bed, spreading the paper out beside him with his free hand, as he waited for someone to answer.

The tone rang on monotonously in Jo’s empty flat. Upstairs, Henry Chandler looked at his wife in exasperation. ‘Why doesn’t she get an answering machine if she’s a journalist? If that phone doesn’t stop ringing it’ll wake that damn baby again.’

‘She’s gone shopping,’ Sheila Chandler said slowly. ‘I saw her leave earlier.’

‘Did you see the kid?’

‘No, she was alone.’

They looked at each other significantly.

Downstairs the faint sound of the phone stopped. Seconds later they both heard the thin protesting wail.

‘Who are you ringing?’ Judy threw back the bedroom door and stood in the doorway, staring at Nick.

‘Jo.’

‘Why?’

Nick put the receiver down with a sigh. ‘I want to know why she did such an idiotic thing as to give that story to Pete Leveson.’ He slapped the newspaper with his open palm. ‘She’ll lose every bit of credibility she has as a serious journalist if she allows crap like this to be published. Look at this. “I was married to a violent, vicious man, but my heart belonged to the handsome earl who had escorted me through the mountains, protecting me from the wolves with his drawn sword.” Dear God!’

He picked up the phone and rattled it again. ‘Mademoiselle? Essayes le numéro à Londres encore une fois, s’il vous plait.’

‘It is nothing to do with you, Nick,’ Judy said softly. ‘Jo has done it, for whatever reason, and it can’t be undone now. She and Pete used to be lovers, didn’t they? What more natural than that she should tell him the story?’

She saw his knuckles whiten on the phone. ‘Eh bien, merci. Essayes un autre numèro, je vous en prie, mademoiselle.’

‘You’re making a fool of yourself, Nick.’

‘Very probably.’ He tightened his mouth grimly as he slammed the phone down at last. ‘Sam’s not there either. Look, look at this last bit. “‘I shall not rest,’ Jo told me, ‘until I have learned the whole story’ …” Even you, Judy, know enough now to have guessed that that is dangerous for her.’

Judy turned away quickly to hide her smile. ‘I don’t expect she meant it.’

Nick stood up slowly and walked across to her, spinning her round by the shoulders. ‘You knew about this article, didn’t you? Down there, in the dining room, you weren’t surprised. You were triumphant.’ His eyes narrowed as he held her facing him. ‘So, what do you know about all this?’

Judy stood quite still, staring up at his face. ‘You tell me something first, Nick Franklyn!’ She was quite suddenly boiling with rage. ‘Are you still in love with Jo? In spite of all her lovers in this century and the twelfth, are you still in love with her? Because if you are I shall bow out of your life now. Perhaps I could write an article or two myself. “How my lover challenged a man eight hundred years old to a duel over another woman.” That’s it, isn’t it? You can’t bear to think of her in his arms, this Richard de Clare. You can’t bear to think of those creepy dead hands picking over her flesh, refusing to let go of her after all those centuries. You may not want her for yourself, but you sure as hell don’t want him to have her, do you?’ She wrenched herself free of him. ‘You watched her, didn’t you? Last week when you rushed off and left me, you went to Dr Bennet’s and watched her dreaming about making love to another man. You had to see it! There are words to describe people like you, Nick Franklyn –’

She broke off with a little cry as Nick raised his hand and gave her a stinging slap across the face. The impact of it threw her against the wall and she stood there, her hand pressed to her cheek, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘You bastard –’

‘That’s right.’ His face was hard and very white. ‘And there will be more like that if you’re not very careful. I’ve warned you before, Judy. Leave Jo alone.’ He turned to the bed and picked up his portfolio. ‘I have a meeting to go to now. I suggest it might be better for both of us if you pack your stuff and clear out before I get back.’

‘Nick!’ She threw herself at him and clung to his arm. ‘Nick, please, I’m sorry. I really am. I won’t mention her again.’

‘I am going back to London tomorrow anyway, Judy. To Jo.’ Nick’s face softened slightly as he saw her stricken expression.

‘But she doesn’t want you. She keeps telling you she doesn’t want you.’

‘Whether she wants me or not, I want her.’ He spoke with enormous force, his eyes hardening.

Judy felt a sudden shiver. He was looking not at her, but through her. She backed away from him. ‘I believe you’re as crazy as she is,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t force a woman to love you.’

He stared at her, his attention fully on her again now. ‘Force her? he echoed. ‘I won’t have to force her.’ He laughed grimly. ‘I must go. Don’t worry about your bill, I’ll settle it. I’ll see you soon, Judy.’ Gently he touched her cheek – still reddened from his slap – then he turned and left her alone.

Judy did not move. She stared round the room. The crumpled copy of the Daily Mail was still lying on the pillow where Nick had left it. She sat down, smoothing the page, and began to read slowly and carefully, taking in every word. When she had finished she tore out the page and, folding it up very small, she slipped it into the pocket of her skirt. When she left the room there was a bitter smile on her face.

Sam was standing with his back to the window, his arms folded, listening as, hesitantly, Jo began to talk. Matilda had regained her strength slowly after the birth, but the day came at last when, accompanied by Sir Robert and four armed horsemen, she mounted for the first time the little bay mare William had given her. They rode out of the castle and turned north east, following the rocky bed of the Honddu through a field silver and green with ripening oats, and plunging almost at once into the woods.

‘Llanddeu is up there, my lady.’ Sir Robert pointed up a hill to their left. ‘About three miles, I reckon. We’ll go there when you’re stronger if you like.’ But Matilda shook her head. Gerald had gone to St David’s now, confident he was to be its new bishop, and Llanddeu had lost its interest.

She was amazed to find how stiff she had become, but she gritted her teeth and pushed the bay into a gallop behind Robert as they followed a well-worn track through the heavy, dusty woods. They had slowed again to a trot when suddenly Robert pulled to a rearing halt in front of her and drew his sword. ‘Stop,’ he shouted. The four men with them closed round Matilda protectively at once, their swords raised and ready. She could feel herself shaking with fear and the mare plunged nervously away from the horse next to her, sensing the danger. But straining her eyes she could see nothing in the heavy greenery all round them. She could hear nothing but the thudding of her own heart.

‘What? What is it?’ She looked round wildly.

‘See, a rope.’ Sir Robert had dismounted. With one slash of his sword he severed a rope which had been tied across the track at the height of a man’s neck as he rode on a horse. It fell, green-stained and invisible, into the grass at their feet.

‘If we’d been going any faster, or if I’d been distracted, it would have had us all off our horses.’ Sir Robert hit the undergrowth with the flat of his sword. ‘See, here. The rogues have gone. They were hiding behind these bushes. They must have fled before we arrived. They could be anywhere in the woods by now.’ A broken area of trampled greenery showed where several people had been crouching behind the thick holly.

‘Were they robbers?’ Matilda was still trying to soothe her horse, stroking the sweating neck, wishing she herself wasn’t shaking quite so violently. She knew it was as much exhaustion as fear, but nevertheless she felt weak and frightened.

Sir Robert nodded silently. He had stopped to pick up the rope and was coiling it over his arm. ‘Outlaws of some kind, I’ll be bound. I’ll have a word with Sir William. I doubt if the Welsh would set up a trick like that if they were after reprisals. No one knew which way we were coming.’ He swung the rope over his saddle and remounted.

Matilda noticed he didn’t sheathe his sword.

‘Reprisals?’ Her heart began to hammer again at the word.

‘That’s right. They’re bound to come some time.’ He turned his horse. ‘We’ll go straight back, my lady, with your permission. I was a fool to come out with so few men. In future when you ride, I will see to it that you have a full escort.’

She followed, relieved to be cutting short the ride. The thought of Welsh reprisals had become remote in the months at Brecknock, distracted as she had been by the baby and by William’s arrival with all his men. The Welsh she had met in the county of Brycheiniog were friendly towards her. None had seemed to bear any grudge. She shivered. Outlaws. They must have been outlaws of some kind, bent on robbery. She refused to let herself believe that they were men from Gwent.

Nevertheless it was a relief to be back inside the castle, but although William sent search parties out to hunt for the men who had set up the rope, no trace of them was ever found. They had melted into the forest as silently and efficiently as if they had never been.

‘That was foolish, to ride so far the first time out after the baby,’ Sam said softly. He had seated himself next to Jo again. ‘But if you are well enough to ride, you are well enough to resume your wifely duties.’

Jo drew in her breath sharply. ‘It is too soon,’ she whispered.

‘No,’ Sam said, ‘it is the right time. Look at me, my lady. Open your eyes and look at me.’

Jo had been staring towards the far corner of the room. Now, slowly, she turned to him and her eyes focused on his face. He held her gaze unwaveringly. ‘I am your husband,’ he said. ‘You do recognise me, don’t you, Matilde’ – he pronounced her name lightly, in the French manner – ‘I am your husband. Come to claim you.’

‘Please. No!’ Jo edged away from him. ‘My lord, I told you, it is too soon.’

Sam smiled. He put his hand out and caught her chin, forcing her face round to his. Then he bent over her and kissed her on the lips. She went completely rigid, but she did not struggle. Sitting up he looked down at her and saw her eyes were closed. ‘Look at me,’ he said threateningly. ‘Look at me!’

Her eyes flew open. They were scornful and cold.

Sam felt a sudden surge of anger flow through him. Oh yes, that had been the way she always looked at William. So superior, so dismissive, so beautiful and remote that her disdain had unmanned him, but not this time. This time he had absolute control of her body and her mind.

He levered himself off the sofa and stood looking down at her, forcing himself to be calm. She was watching him docilely enough, her eyes still mocking, but he thought he could see fear as well, hidden, but there, as she stared at her husband and waited.

He smiled grimly. ‘Stand up, Matilde,’ he said slowly.

Hesitantly she obeyed him and stood quite still. He looked at her for a moment, then he turned to the tape deck in the corner. From his pocket he produced a cassette which he slotted into the machine. He switched it on and listened as the first strains of an unaccompanied flute began to play in the room, then he sat down on the chair facing Jo. She had not moved. Her head was held at a defiant angle, her eyes watching him with cool disdain as he sat back and folded his arms.

‘Now, my lady,’ he said softly. ‘I want you to show me some wifely obedience.’

Matilda stared at her husband in horror. Behind him the blind flute player was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the window embrasure. She could hear the everyday noises of the castle all around them; any second someone would walk into the solar. She heard feet pattering down the spiral stair in the corner and the swish of skirts on the stone. They hesitated then ran on down towards the lower floors, the sound dying away into the distance.

‘Take off your mantle and gown, wife,’ he repeated his order.

She glanced at the musician, who played on as if he had heard nothing.

‘My lord, I can’t – I need my maid. Please, this can wait until nightfall –’

‘It cannot wait until nightfall.’ His eyes narrowed and she could see the vein beginning to throb in his neck. He drew the ornately decorated dagger from his girdle and tested the blade gently against his thumb. ‘If the fastenings of your gown defeat you, I shall cut them for you.’

She swallowed. She had only to call for a servant, to scream, to turn and run. He could not force her, not here. Not now. Yet something held her. She could not tear her eyes from his. Obediently she felt herself unfasten her jewelled girdle and let it fall to the floor. Her scarlet surcoat followed it. She paused nervously. ‘My lord, not here, I beg you –’

‘Here, Matilda.’ She felt his hands on her head, slipping off the gauze headdress, allowing her hair to fall loose over her shoulders, then he was unlacing her gown, pushing it down so that it too fell to the floor. She was left clad only in her shift. She shivered violently in spite of the warmth of the early autumn afternoon.

Behind her the flute player shifted his position slightly as the trembling notes of his tune died away. There was a long silence, then, unbidden, he began to play again.

‘Take it off.’ William stood back and folded his arms.

Matilda crossed her hands on her breast, clutching the embroidered neck of her shift. ‘Would you have me stand naked before the servants, and before your men?’ Her eyes blazed suddenly, her fear eclipsed by a wave of scorn and fury. She dodged away from him but he was too quick for her. He caught her wrist. ‘I’ll have you stand naked at the whipping post, my lady, before the whole world, if you defy me,’ he said evenly. He tore the flimsy shift from her body, tossing it to the rush-strewn floor. Panic-stricken, she raised her hands towards his face, clawing at him frantically, and beneath her nails a bloody welt opened down his cheek. With a curse he caught her by the hair, jerking her head back as greedily he seized her mouth with his own, his hands catching hers and holding them still as she struggled frantically to escape him. Behind them the flute player played on.

William was breathing heavily, sweat pouring from his face and with a shudder she stood still, sensing suddenly that part of his excitement came from the knowledge that she was afraid. Raising her chin slightly she stared at him disdainfully. He released her wrists immediately and she took a step back, proud in her nakedness, feeling his eyes on her body which only weeks before had been swollen and misshapen, but now had slimmed back, with the resilience of youth, to a lithe tautness. Only the fullness of her breasts betrayed the recent childbirth and as she moved her head the heavy curtain of her hair swung forward to hide them from him. He licked his lips and slowly he began to remove his mantle.

Once again she could hear steps on the spiral stairs at the corner of the chamber. They were coming closer. She could hear knocking – a loud insistent banging at a door. Near them someone was shouting. She ignored the sound, her eyes on her husband’s face, a flicker of mocking amusement showing in her expression as she saw him glance over his shoulder towards the rounded arch covered with a curtain which led towards the stairs. Abruptly he threw his mantle round her shoulders.

‘So,’ he breathed. ‘We are interrupted after all, but only for a while. You will forget this little incident until we have another opportunity to be alone, do you hear me?’ He drew her to him, his hands locked in the embroidered border of his mantle, her body pressed against his, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘You will remember nothing about it, nothing at all, but when I order you to come to me again, you will come, Jo, do you hear me? You will come.’

‘Jo!’ Nick was banging on the door again. He tried the key a second time and cursed. ‘Jo? I know you’re in there. Open the door!’

Outside the flat upstairs a face appeared, peering over the winding banisters. ‘She’s in there all right. I saw her earlier.’ Sheila Chandler came down a few steps. ‘It’s Mr Franklyn, isn’t it?’

Nick gave her a brief smile. ‘She doesn’t seem to be hearing me.’

‘Perhaps she’s asleep. What with the baby keeping her awake and everything.’

‘Baby?’ Nick stared up at her. He frowned, with a sudden shiver of apprehension, mechanically taking in the immaculate wave of the woman’s hair and her elegantly cut silk shirt, then he turned back to the door and thumped on it with his fist. ‘Jo, if you don’t open this door I’m going to break it down!’ His voice echoed up and down the silent stairwell and above him Sheila Chandler’s eyes rounded. Silently her husband came to stand beside her, staring down.

When the door was unbolted at last they both craned forward. Only Sheila saw that it was opened by a man.

‘Sam?’ Nick stared at his brother. ‘What the hell is going on? Where’s Jo?’

Sam stood back to let him in. ‘Shut up, Nick,’ he said angrily. ‘There’s no need for all this noise. Jo’s fine.’ He closed the door and as he did so Nick caught sight of a long raw scratch on his brother’s face. Sam was in shirtsleeves – two buttons from the front of the shirt were missing.

‘What the hell has been going on here?’ Nick repeated as he thrust Sam out of his way and strode into the living room. It was empty. From the stereo the lonely, monotonous sound of a flute wove a pattern into the silence.

‘She went into some kind of spontaneous regression.’ Sam was leaning against the wall, watching his brother closely. ‘She asked me to come over after she’d been having a series of nightmares about the baby –’

‘The woman upstairs talked about a baby.’ Nick frowned.

‘That is the strange part.’ Sam threw himself down on the sofa. ‘Apparently they’ve heard it wailing. Assuming the noises do come from this flat, I can only put forward the hypothesis that the sounds come from Jo herself.’

‘You mean she’s crying?’

‘Either that or the sounds are being created by the strength of her emotions. You’ve heard of poltergeists! Noises created by energy charges within an individual.’ Sam wiped his face with a handkerchief. Noticing the blood on it he frowned. ‘She … she flew at me when I tried to restrain her,’ he said quietly, dabbing at the scratch. ‘No, don’t worry. She’s all right now. She’s asleep.’

Nick gave him a long hard look. Then he strode down the hall towards the bedroom. Jo lay on the bed wearing her bathrobe, her hair loose around her shoulders.

‘Jo –’ Nick sat down beside her and took her hands gently in his. ‘Jo?’

‘Don’t touch her.’ Sam had followed him. His voice was sharp. ‘I was about to awaken her when you started trying to break the door down. May I suggest you go and pour us all a drink while I sort things out in here?’

Nick’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’d rather stay.’

‘I am sure Jo would prefer it if you did not. She would be extremely embarrassed to think you had seen her like this.’ Sam walked to the bedroom door and held it open for him. ‘Wait next door please. This won’t take long.’

Nick hesitated, then with a shrug he walked through to the living room. He reached for the bottle of Scotch. It was empty and he began to rummage in the cupboard, unconsciously straining his ears for the sound of voices. In the distance he could hear Sam’s gently monotonous tones and on impulse he tiptoed back towards the bedroom door and listened.

‘Can you hear me, Jo?’ Sam was standing over her now, looking down. ‘When you wake up you will remember nothing of what happened whilst you were hypnotised today, do you understand? You will remember that you asked me to help you, that is all. You will awaken calm and happy, but you will remember that next time I wish to hypnotise you, for whatever reason, you will agree. You will hear my voice and you will obey me. Do you understand me, Jo?’

Nick pushed open the door. ‘What the hell are you saying to her, Sam?’

Sam did not look round. ‘Do you understand me, Jo?’ he repeated. ‘Now, when I count three you will wake. One. Two. Three.’

On the bed Jo lay quite still, then slowly she opened her eyes. She looked around her, completely dazed, her gaze going past Sam to Nick.

‘You haven’t answered my question, Sam,’ Nick hissed at him furiously.

Sam smiled coldly. ‘Nor do I intend to. My methods of professional practice are none of your business.’ He sat down on the bed next to Jo. ‘How are you feeling now? You had another little fainting spell,’ he said.

‘Fainting?’ Jo hoisted herself up on her elbow. ‘I don’t understand. What time is it? We were having coffee –’ She tried to sit up but Sam pushed her gently back against the pillows. ‘Rest a minute, Jo. You’ll be all right in a short time, I promise.’ He pushed the hair back from her face with a cool hand.

Jo was staring at him. ‘You!’ she said suddenly. ‘You made me take my clothes off! You stood and watched me while that man was playing the flute. You said he was blind, but he wasn’t, he was watching too –’

A frown crossed Sam’s face. ‘You’ve been dreaming, Jo,’ he said. There was an edge to his voice.

‘Oh no, I remember clearly. You ordered me to take off my clothes.’ Her voice shook. ‘You had given orders that no one come in, hadn’t you? I expect everyone in the castle knew what you had planned for me. Did that make you feel big, my lord? Did it? Is that how you get your pleasure?’

Jo scrambled across the bed away from him and stood up. She tightened the belt of the bathrobe. ‘What a shame that someone came!’

‘Dear God, she’s still in the past,’ Nick murmured. ‘Sam, it’s happened to her again. For God’s sake, wake her up properly!’

‘Jo?’ Sam ignored him. ‘Jo, calm down. Don’t you recognise me?’

‘Of course I recognise you!’ She pushed her hair back off her face. ‘You’re …’ She stopped short, groping for a name. A second later she put her face in her hands, shaking her head from side to side. ‘You’re not William,’ she whispered between her fingers. ‘You’re not William, you’re not … you’re not.’

Sam caught her wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. ‘Who am I, Jo?’ he said. His eyes held hers.

‘Sam,’ she whispered. ‘You’re Sam.’

‘And who is this with me?’ He was still holding her wrists.

‘Nick.’ Her reply was scarcely audible.

He released her. ‘Fine. I suggest we all have a cup of coffee. Nick, rather than snooping in here, perhaps you could do that much for us?’ He rounded on his brother harshly as Jo walked slowly over to her mirror and stood before it, staring at her face. Numbly she picked up her comb and began to draw it through her hair.

With a shrug Nick went into the kitchen. His hands were shaking as he picked up the kettle and held it under the tap.

Behind him he did not see Sam walk swiftly down the hall to the living room where he slipped the cassette into his pocket, and then picked up Jo’s dress and her bra and panties from the carpet and stuffed them behind a cushion on the sofa. When Nick appeared he was standing at the open French window staring out across the square.

‘How is she?’ Nick slid the tray onto the low table.

‘Confused and disorientated.’ Sam did not turn round. ‘Give her a little time and she’ll be fine.’

‘She needs help, Sam. If this is going to happen spontaneously, for God’s sake! She needs psychiatric help.’

‘You seem to forget, little brother, that that is what I’m here for,’ Sam said, turning at last to look at him. ‘I warned you both what might happen if she got involved in this. Now all I can do is help. And first I want to see to it she doesn’t go near that quack Bennet again.’

‘He’s in the States.’ Absently Nick picked up a cup and drank. His mouth tasted acid.

‘Good.’ Sam smiled enigmatically. ‘Long may he remain there.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You haven’t told me, incidentally, what you are doing here. I thought you were in Paris until the weekend.’

‘I changed my mind.’ Nick drained the coffee and picked up the coffee pot. ‘That was a pretty damn fool trick to play, sending Judy after me. What was the idea exactly?’

Sam sat down. ‘It was her idea, old son. I just gave her the name of the hotel. Where is she now?’

Nick shrugged. ‘I told her to get lost.’

‘I see.’ Sam’s gaze narrowed. ‘And you thought Jo would be interested to hear all this?’

‘I don’t give a damn if she’s interested or not. I was worried about her. I saw that article Pete Leveson wrote and I thought she must be going out of her mind to give him the story. You have seen it I suppose?’

‘I’ve seen it. And she didn’t give, Nick. He took.’ Sam stretched his legs out in front of him slowly. ‘I must say I think it was singularly naive of her to talk to him at all, but she’s not herself these days as we can all see. I want you to leave her alone, Nick.’ He sat forward suddenly. ‘Do you understand me? I want you to keep away from her. She can’t cope with any more hassle.’

‘I don’t think that’s for you to say, Sam.’ Behind them Jo had appeared silently in the doorway. She was wearing jeans and a deep-red silk shirt, unbuttoned at the throat. Her face was still very white.

Sam climbed to his feet. ‘Have some coffee, Jo.’

She accepted the cup coolly. ‘I keep getting the feeling you two are trying to run my life for me,’ she said. ‘I’m very grateful and all that, but I don’t need it.’

‘You do need help, Jo.’ Sam’s voice was gentle. ‘And I think you realise it. That was why you rang me this morning.’

Jo bit her lip. ‘I wanted someone to talk to. But full-scale analysis, no.’

Sam grinned back amiably. ‘You couldn’t afford me, love, not for full-scale analysis! But seriously, I do want to help you. I have to go home tomorrow. I’m giving a lecture on Friday and another on Monday at a post-graduate conference, but after that I can come back and I want you to agree to see me then, just to talk things through.’

She frowned. ‘I won’t need to, Sam. Really.’

‘If you really don’t need to, we’ll forget it, but if you have any more dreams, any more crying babies, then you must call me. Promise?’

Jo sighed. ‘All right, I promise.’

‘I’ll give you my number in Edinburgh so that you can reach me there as well. And I don’t want you to go back to see Bennet. He’s away anyway at the moment, I gather, but he’s not competent to help you, Jo. He doesn’t know how to cope with the reactions he’s getting from you and more to the point, neither do you.’ He sipped his coffee thoughtfully, not looking at her. ‘I know you’ll do the sensible thing.’

Jo grinned. ‘You’re the first person who has ever said that to me,’ she said. She reached forward and kissed him on the cheek, then she frowned. ‘What is that awful mark on your face?’

Sam glanced at Nick. ‘I scratched it on some wire,’ he said quickly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll live.’ He put the cup down. ‘And now, I must go and get on with some packing. I’ll give you a lift back to the flat, Nick, shall I? I’ve got your car. It’s parked round the corner.’

‘Then I’ll have the keys.’ Nick held out his hand. ‘Perhaps you’d grab a taxi, Sam, if you don’t mind. I’ll come on later. I want to talk to Jo.’

‘It will be easier if we drive back together.’ Sam’s tone was insistent.

Stubbornly Nick shook his head. ‘I’ll be along later.’

‘Jo –’ Sam appealed to her. ‘You’re tired. You don’t want Nick here.’

‘That’s all right, Sam, thanks. But I do want to talk to Nick as it happens.’ Jo smiled almost apologetically. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. ‘You’ve been very sweet, Sam, thanks for coming.’

Nick closed the door behind his brother thankfully and stood for a moment staring at it. Mortice, Yale lock, chain and bolt. Why the bolt, in broad daylight when Sam was here? He shot it experimentally.

‘What are you doing?’ Jo was behind him; she looked apprehensive.

‘I was wondering why Sam found it necessary to bolt the door. Unless it was you, of course?’ He eyed her thoughtfully.

‘I never bolt the door. What are you talking about?’

The particular shade of burgundy silk she was wearing suited her exceptionally well. His eyes travelled to her breasts, outlined beneath the low-buttoned blouse. They seemed more prominent than usual. She was looking very beautiful. ‘Then Sam must have done it,’ he said. ‘Did you ask him to hypnotise you, Jo?’ He moved away from the door and picked up his empty cup. He stared at it absently.

She nodded. ‘I heard the baby crying again and Carl Bennet wasn’t there and I didn’t know what to do, so I rang Sam. He was marvellous, Nick.’

Nick put down the cup. ‘He is pretty good, so I’ve heard,’ he said cryptically.

Jo smiled. ‘You heard right.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘So. How was France? I gather you had company while you were there.’

‘I thought Sam might just find it necessary to tell you she had come after me,’ Nick said cynically. ‘It was the end of us, if it’s of any interest. As far as I know, she’s still there.’ He glanced at her. ‘Jo –’

‘The answer is no, Nick. I don’t accept cast-offs.’

His face hardened. ‘You are assuming too much. I came here to see if you had recovered, not to resume our affair. I don’t beg women to take me back.’

‘Good.’ She looked defiant. ‘I don’t think begging would suit you.’ She walked out onto the balcony and stood there for a moment with her back to him. Then she turned. ‘Nick, do you believe in reincarnation now, after what’s happened?’

‘No. I do not.’

‘Then what do you think is happening to me?’

‘I think you are the victim of your own imagination. No more than that.’

‘You don’t think it is possible that everyone lives again? You don’t believe that we might have known each other before, when I was Matilda –’

‘No, I don’t.’ Nick joined her on the balcony. He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Don’t try and talk yourself into this, Jo. It’s madness.’

‘It was when I fainted at Ceecliff’s,’ she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘As I was coming round I saw someone else’s face there, in the room. Someone who was you, and wasn’t you. Someone beside you –’

‘Shut up, Jo. I don’t want to hear any more –’

‘That person tried to strangle me. I couldn’t breathe. That was why I fainted. I thought it was you, but it wasn’t. His eyes were different and he had a beard …’ She pushed past him and went back inside. ‘Nick, you were part of that life. And it’s catching up with me! The people from the past are following me into the present! They are here, in the shadows!’ Her voice was rising. ‘William, my husband William was here, in my bedroom, and the baby, my baby, little Will. Nick, I started producing milk to feed him! That’s why I called Sam. I didn’t know what to do!’ Tears began to roll down her cheeks. ‘And the man at Ceecliff’s house reached out of the past to try and kill me, Nick. None of it was my imagination. They were real!’

Nick was staring at her in horror. ‘Jo, for God’s sake, get a grip on yourself. You’re talking rubbish.’

‘Am I?’ She took a deep breath. ‘How come the Chandlers upstairs heard the baby crying?’

‘You should be very glad they did, Jo. That proves absolutely, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it was a real baby they heard.’ Nick sat down, still watching her. ‘You need to get away, Jo. Right away for a few days. Listen, I’m not due back in the office until Monday –’

‘I know what you’re going to say.’ She gave him a brittle smile. ‘Thanks, but no.’

‘You don’t know what I’m going to say. I was going to suggest that you come down to the boat with me –’

‘Nick! Don’t you understand? I’m afraid of you! Afraid of that other person –’

‘There is no other person, Jo!’ Nick caught her arms. ‘You’ve been cooped up too long in this flat with this story all round you – tapes, books, nightmares. You’ve got to get away before it sends you really insane. I’m going to take Moon Dancer back to Lymington – I never got round to it when I went to see Ma last. Come with me. You know you’ve always loved the boat, and the sea air will help get things straight for you. It always did, remember?’

Jo hesitated. He was right. She had got to get away. ‘No strings? Separate bunks?’

Nick grinned. ‘Scout’s honour. Why don’t I ring the marina and ask them to get her ready? We’ll call in at Lynwood House and pick up my gear and we could be at Shoreham in a couple of hours or so.’

Jo sighed. She stared round the room, thinking of the night before, sitting all alone, waiting to hear if the baby was going to start crying again. Abruptly she capitulated. ‘OK, I’ll come. Thanks.’

He smiled. ‘Pack a bag while I phone.’ He watched as she moved towards the bedroom, seeing already a new lightness about her. He made the call and then threw himself back on the cushions of the sofa. They slipped a little and a bundle of rolled-up clothing fell onto the floor. He picked it up and shook the garments out, puzzled, then his face darkened.

Standing up, he strode towards the bedroom. ‘Did you do a striptease for Sam as the hors d’oeuvre or the encore?’ he asked, dropping her briefs on the bed.

She stared at them blankly. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t understand?’ Nick threw her dress and bra down as well. ‘How strange. I should have thought it was obvious. It is no doubt part of that precious professional relationship Sam is so keen to preserve. He takes off your clothes perhaps to take your pulse, then hides them under the pillow for tidiness’ sake! Or was it because I arrived unexpectedly? Not that it’s any of my business, of course.’

‘No, it isn’t any of your business!’ Jo flared angrily. She picked up her dress and shook out the creases. She felt suddenly very sick. ‘I must have left them there earlier. I don’t know … perhaps last night. I felt so strange last night. I was drinking, and I took the last of the pills –’

‘Jo, for God’s sake!’

‘There is nothing between Sam and me, Nick. Nothing. If it’s any of your business.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I’m not so sure this boat thing is such a good idea after all!’

‘We’re going, Jo.’ Nick picked up her bag. ‘Forget Sam for now. We’ll talk about him later. Get a jacket. It might be cold on the water.’

She hesitated. ‘Nick, this is stupid. We can’t do it. To go away together would be crazy.’

‘Then it’s a kind of craziness we both need.’ His tone was becoming threatening. ‘I’m prepared to carry you to that car, Jo.’

She was too tired to argue any more. She swallowed the automatic flareup of rebellion and followed him downstairs, thankful only when the front door was closed without her hearing again the echoing wail of baby William’s hungry cries.

Two and a half hours later, Jo clutched Nick’s arm. ‘Nick stop! Go back!’

The Porsche screamed to a standstill on the dusty road. ‘For God’s sake, what’s wrong?’

‘That signpost! Did you see it?’

‘Jo, you could have caused an accident. Christ! What is wrong with you? What signpost?’

Turning in his seat he reversed up the empty road, past the narrow turning to which Jo had pointed.

‘There.’ She was pale and excited. ‘Look. It points to Bramber!’

‘So?’ Nick glanced in the rear-view mirror and waved a lorry past, then he pulled the car into the grass verge. ‘What’s so special about Bramber, suddenly?’

‘It was William’s home. It was where I went after I was married!’

Nick’s hand tightened on the wheel. ‘After Matilda was married, I suppose you mean?’

‘That’s what I said. Oh Nick, can we go there? Please?’

A car slowed behind them, hooted and overtook, the driver gesturing rudely as he disappeared around the curve of the road.

‘Jo, we’ve come to forget all that.’

‘Oh please, Nick. I’ll never rest until I’ve been there now. Just for a few minutes. It’s research for the article amongst other things. I can see how much it’s changed. Nick, don’t you see? I’ll be able to compare. It might prove that everything has been in my imagination –’ Sadness showed in her eyes suddenly. ‘If I recognise nothing at all, at least we’ll know then. The Downs can’t have changed all that much, or the river. Please, Nick?’

With a sigh Nick engaged gear. He turned up the narrow road, glancing at the countryside round them. ‘We’ve been round here half a hundred times before, Jo. Every time we’ve left the boat at Shoreham we’ve explored the Downs to find pubs and restaurants –’

‘But we’ve never turned off here.’ She was peering through the windscreen, her hand on the dash. ‘I don’t recognise anything, Nick. Not the countryside, the Downs are so naked – so small.’ He could hear the disappointment in her voice.

‘They are the same as they were the last time you and I came down to the boat,’ he said gently. ‘Look –’ He slowed the car. ‘It says “To the Castle”. Shall I turn up there?’

She nodded. Her mouth had gone dry.

Nick swung the car up the steep lane between two small modern flint turrets and into a muddy car park. Above them rose a wooded hill with a squat little church nestling into its side. Jo pushed the car door open and stood up, her eyes fixed on the church. Nick hadn’t moved. He was leaning across, watching her.

She looked down at him unhappily. ‘Nick, I have to do this alone. Do you mind?’

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded.

‘And you’ll be all right?’

She looked round. ‘I’ll be all right. Go and find one of those pubs you were talking about. Come back in an hour.’ She pushed the door shut.

Nick watched her walk towards the church. Only when she had disappeared inside did he turn the car and drive back down the lane.

Jo opened the door into the nave and stared round. The church was completely empty. She stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind her, her eyes on the huge arch of pale stone which spanned the roof before the altar. In her hand was a copy of the little tenpenny guide. This was William’s chapel – and before him the chapel of his father, and his grandfather. It had been dedicated, the guide book said, in the year 1073.

Slowly she walked towards the altar. If it were anywhere, his ghost would be here, in the very walls where he had knelt and prayed. She felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle as she stood staring up at the simple wooden cross with the pale ochre curtain behind it. No lighted candles, no incense. The bell was silent. But there was a sense of prayer. A presence.

‘I should be praying for their souls,’ she thought. ‘Their souls – our souls – which are not at rest.’ With a shiver of something like defiance she made the sign of the cross and knelt before the altar, but the prayers would not come. The faith and burning trust which Matilda had felt before the twelfth-century statue of the Virgin were not for the twentieth-century Jo Clifford, kneeling in her shirt and jeans on the cold soap-scented flagstones. She felt nothing.

She was suddenly conscious of how quiet the church was, and how empty. Raising her eyes to the three small, arched windows above the altar she felt very cold. The air around her had become oppressive; the silence so intense she could hear it beating inside her head. Overwhelmed with panic, she scrambled to her feet and fled down the aisle, letting herself out of the door to stand in the vestibule, breathing deeply. Two women walked in past her and she felt them staring at her. They too bought a copy of the little guide, then they disappeared inside the church.

She stood in the graveyard shivering, feeling the warmth of the evening sun sinking through her shirt and into her bones. The air was glorious. It smelled of honeysuckle and woodsmoke from a bonfire below the churchyard, and of wild thyme from the Downs which ringed Bramber, bare and dusty beneath the hot evening sky. Immediately below her around the foot of the hill clustered the uneven, ancient roofs of the village of Bramber. Above, like a reproving finger, stood a huge pillar of masonry – part of the now ruined castle.

Taking a deep breath, Jo left the churchyard and began to walk up the shallow steps cut in the side of the castle hill, across the overgrown depths of the defensive ditch and on towards the ruins.

The top of the hill was a broad flat area of mown grass in the centre of which rose another steep-sided hillock, the motte on which the first William de Braose’s wooden keep had been raised in the days of the Conqueror. It was shrouded now by trees, guarded by ancient yews. Very little of the castle remained. A few areas of crumbling wall around the perimeter of the hill where the only invaders were ash and sycamore, hung with the greenish, scented flowers of wild clematis. Only the one tall finger of wall remained rearing into the sky to remind the visitor of the castle’s former glory.

Jo stood staring round her, lost. She could recognise nothing. Slowly she began to walk, seeing her shadow running before her across the grass, looking south towards the sea. Somewhere out there in the forest she had gone hawking with Richard and fallen at his feet to lie with her head on his lap. The forest had gone. Trees climbed the castle hill now, which then had been bare. Only the gap in the Downs was the same. The river was quite different too. So small. Surely then it had been vastly wider and there had been a jetty right here beneath the hill with ships and bustle and noise. The only noise now was the roar of traffic from the broad sweep of the fast road south, carried on the still evening air.

‘Are you all right, Jo?’ Nick had been following her silently.

She smiled at him. ‘The only thing I can recognise is the gap where the Downs aren’t.’ She laughed wryly. ‘And the church. I think the tower was the same, though there used to be something on top, then. And there was water all round here.’ She waved her arm. ‘I thought I said an hour?’ She looked at him closely.

‘I didn’t like to leave you, so I parked in the lane at the bottom of the hill. I was afraid …’ He hesitated. ‘Well, that something might happen.’

‘So was I.’ She put her hands on a fragment of wall, lightly touching the flints and mortar. ‘I should be able to feel something. I know I’ve been here before – how often have you heard people say that, joking? I do know it, yet I feel nothing. Why?’

‘Perhaps you don’t need to.’ He touched the wall himself. ‘Besides, it’s quite possible that you had no particular affinity with Bramber. You probably have no reason to remember it. Matilda spent most of her time in Wales, didn’t she?’

Jo nodded. ‘You’re right. I expect all her memories are there.’ She sighed. ‘There was something, though – just for a minute, in the church.’ She shivered again. ‘William was so obsessive about religious observance. Do you know, his clerks had to be paid extra because of all the flowery bits of religious pomposity he insisted on adding to all his correspondence –’ She stopped abruptly. ‘I must have read that somewhere –’

Nick took her arm. ‘Come on, Jo. Let’s get on to Shoreham.’

She shook off his hand. ‘You were right. I took my clothes off for Sam.’ She was staring into the distance. ‘I thought he was William. He ordered me to do it, Nick.’

‘Are you sure?’ Nick stared at her grimly.

‘I was in the solar of the castle at Brecknock and he stood in front of me and ordered me to undress whilst the blind man played the flute.’

‘William may have ordered you in your dream, Jo. Not Sam, surely. Sam wouldn’t do such a thing.’ Nick swallowed uncomfortably.

‘Why did I take my clothes off, then?’ she cried. ‘Why? If it was just for William I would have described it, not actually done it!’

He frowned. ‘You’re making a terrible accusation, Jo.’

‘There was no tape of what happened,’ she whispered. ‘No one else there. Just Sam and me. And a pile of crumpled clothes.’ She shivered again, looking down at the shadow of the castle wall on the grass. ‘People can’t be forced to do anything against their will whilst under hypnosis, I know that. But I was Matilda, and I thought he was my husband –’

‘No, that’s crap! You’re talking complete, unmitigated crap.’ Nick turned away sharply. ‘I can quite believe that you might do anything. I’ve seen you, remember? But Sam? He’d be crazy to try something like that. Besides, nothing happened, did it? Your husband didn’t rape you?’ His voice was harsh.

Jo coloured. ‘No, he didn’t rape me, because someone – presumably you – came. But not before he had humiliated me and mocked me and set out to browbeat me like the sexist pig he was. He threatened to whip me, naked, before everyone in the castle and no doubt if there had been time he would have had me on my knees before he put me on my back.’

She began to walk swiftly down the way they had come.

Nick followed her. ‘Well, that proves it wasn’t Sam at any rate,’ he said grimly. ‘I don’t see him as kinky.’

‘Don’t you?’ Jo flashed back. ‘You surprise me.’

Nick glanced at Jo from the phone. She was sitting in the corner of the pub nursing a Scotch and ginger. The noise level in the bar was fairly high. Taking out his diary, he found the number he was looking for and dialled it, leaning against the wall so that he could watch her while he waited, change in hand, for the call to connect. He was thinking about Sam.

Carl Bennet had only come in from Gatwick airport three-quarters of an hour before. He cursed quietly as his wife came to get him out of the bath.

‘Nick Franklyn? What the hell does Nick Franklyn want?’ he muttered, wrapping a towel round his middle.

‘I don’t know, dear, but he’s in a phone box.’ Melissa Bennet smiled fondly at her husband as he tried to clean the steam off his spectacles. ‘Get rid of him, darling, then come down and eat.’

‘Eat, she says,’ Bennet snorted as his wife ran down the stairs. ‘What the hell else does she think I did on that plane?’ He picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’ he barked. His glasses had steamed over again.

Within seconds he was reaching for his notepad. ‘You are right. I should see her as soon as possible. I could fit her in tomorrow here.’ He listened again for a few minutes, frowning with irritation as Nick paused to slot more money into the phone.

‘Very well, Mr Franklyn. Monday at ten. I agree a break would do her good. But should this happen again – anything which worries you – I want you to promise to ring me, here, at once.’

He hung up at last and sat still, chewing the inside of his cheek. He sighed. Post-hypnotic suggestion was always a dangerous field. To do as Nick Franklyn asked and wipe out the girl’s memory of Matilda forever – that was a sad request. But the man was right. The past had to be controlled. It had to be relegated to where it belonged, otherwise it threatened to take Jo Clifford over, and in so doing, destroy her.