Читать книгу Barbara Erskine 3-Book Collection: Lady of Hay, Time’s Legacy, Sands of Time - Barbara Erskine - Страница 29

The room was small, shaded by a white venetian blind against the sun. She blinked slowly, trying to clear away the fog in her mind. Her mouth tasted unpleasantly chemical.

‘Jo?’ A man was sitting by the bed. He stood up, bending over her.

‘Nick?’ Her tongue was so dry the word would not come.

‘You’re all right, Jo. Look, I’ve got a cup of tea here for you. Would you like a sip?’ His voice was more gentle than she had ever heard it.

Jo rubbed her eyes. ‘Where is this? What happened?’

She managed to sit up, and drank a little from the cup Nick gave her. Her head was spinning.

‘We are still at Dr Bennet’s, Jo. Do you remember? This is a rest room. You’ve been asleep.’

‘Asleep? I thought … I thought he was going to hypnotise me again.’ She fell silent, leaning back against the pillows, discovering suddenly that there was a soft blanket over her legs. ‘He was going to see if he could make me forget,’ she repeated slowly.

‘Has it worked?’ Nick sat down on the chair beside the bed once more.

‘I … I don’t know.’ She pushed her hair off her face with both hands. ‘I feel so strange. I can’t think straight …’ Through the blind she could see horizontal lines of brightness shimmering slightly, casting shadows on the cool olive of the walls around her. The room smelled of antiseptic. It was claustrophobically small.

Behind Nick the door opened quietly and Sarah peered in. She smiled with obvious relief as she saw Jo sitting up. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘A bit peculiar.’ Jo managed to grin.

‘Carl is very sorry but he is involved with his afternoon appointment now. He was wondering if you could both come back on Wednesday morning. It would probably be better anyway to leave things for a couple of days to see how you are feeling.’

Jo frowned. ‘Afternoon appointment? I don’t understand. What time is it?’

‘It’s teatime, Jo.’ Nick stood up. ‘You’ve been asleep for several hours. She’ll be here on Wednesday,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ll see to that.’

‘What do you mean several hours?’ Jo repeated in bewilderment as he closed the door behind Sarah and turned back to her. ‘What’s happened? Did I faint again?’

‘You got a bit upset and Dr Bennet had to give you a shot of valium to calm you down, that’s all.’

‘Upset? Why was I upset?’

Nick gave the ghost of a grin. ‘I’m hardly going to tell you that, Jo. The idea was that you forget everything that has been worrying you. If the suggestion has worked, then it would be madness for me to tell you what happened, wouldn’t it?’

‘Try Judy Curzon’s flat again, May.’ Jim Greerson ran his fingers through his thinning hair as he held down the intercom switch.

‘Just did, Jim. And Jo’s. Shall I try Mrs Franklyn in Hampshire?’

‘No, don’t bother.’ Jim slumped back in his chair and spun it to face the window. His broad, pleasant face was haggard as he lifted the letter off the desk next to him and read it for the sixth time.

‘Get here, Nick, old son,’ he murmured out loud. ‘If you want a business to come back to, stop chasing women, my friend, and get here soon.’

It was ten past five before Nick finally paid off the taxi and followed Jo upstairs to her flat. The phone was ringing as she opened the door.

‘It’s for you.’ She handed him the receiver with a weary grin. ‘The office.’

She walked as always first to the French doors and threw them open, smelling the rich scent from the flowers on her balcony. Looking left and right up and down the terrace of buildings, it was strange how few of the balconies had flowers. In Germany or Switzerland they would all be a riot of tumbling colour, but here in London hers stood out almost alone with its tubs and pots of pinks and geraniums, the honeysuckle, and the exotic passion flower which clambered around the stone balustrade. She smiled faintly. Nick had always teased her that she must be a country girl at heart because of her love of flowers.

She leaned on the balustrade. Her mind felt drugged. She could not focus her thoughts. Carl Bennet’s face, and Sarah’s, floated in her head, but there were others there too she could not grasp. Someone had talked about a horse being lame … she could remember being very angry about that … and then, later, there had been a hand with a ring on the finger, a hand with filthy nails …

‘That was Jim.’ Nick came out onto the balcony behind her. ‘It appears Desco have turned down our presentation out of hand and are threatening to go over to the opposition. Goddamn it to hell! That was going to be one of the best promotions we’ve planned. I’ve only been away from the office ten days – lord knows how they’ve managed to get it wrong!’ He made an effort at a grin. ‘Will you be OK on your own for a bit, Jo? I hate to leave you, but I think I’ve got to get over there to stop Jim cutting his throat!’

She nodded. ‘Nick, I’m sorry. It’s my fault – you’d have gone back last week if it wasn’t for me –’

‘Jo – I should be able to leave them.’ He took a deep breath, trying to steady his anger. ‘Look, I’ll be back for a late supper. We’ll talk then. Don’t go out. Rest till I get back and we’ll make do with a tin of soup or something.’

She followed him to the door and closed it behind him. She felt tired and hot and sticky and slightly sick, and she didn’t want him to go.

She was lying on the sofa dressed only in her towelling bathrobe with her eyes closed after a long cool bath when she remembered what had happened. One minute she was gazing vaguely across the room, wondering whether she had the energy to fetch herself a cup of coffee, the next she sat bolt upright. It was as if a curtain had lifted. As clearly as if he were speaking in the room she heard Carl Bennet’s voice, ‘You will remember that you had a few strange, but unimportant dreams …’

‘Gloucester …’ she murmured. ‘But it wasn’t a dream. It was at Gloucester that I met John …’

It was nearly ten by the time Nick got back from Berkeley Street and he was in a foul temper. ‘Jim has cocked the whole thing up,’ he said, flinging himself down in a chair. He looked exhausted. ‘I doubt if I can sort things out. If I can’t I’m going to have to go to the States and stay there till I get another account as big as Desco, otherwise it’s the end of Franklyn-Greerson. Jim just doesn’t have a clue when it comes to fighting the big boys. He’s completely naive!’ He closed his eyes wearily.

‘But I thought Mike Desmond was a friend of yours.’ Jo sat down beside him.

Nick shrugged. ‘This is business, not friendship. But I’ll have a damn good go at getting it back before I give up entirely, you can be sure of that.’ He held out his hand to Jo. ‘Hell, I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear about all this. How are you feeling? Has the headache gone?’

‘Your post-hypnotic suggestion didn’t work,’ she replied bleakly. ‘I’ve remembered everything. Going to Gloucester, meeting Prince John – seeing Richard again.’

Nick swore softly. ‘We’ll have to try again, that’s all.’ He shook his head. ‘I wonder if Sam is right and Bennet doesn’t have the experience to cope.’

‘I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s probably that in my heart I don’t really want to give up. I want to know what happens. Anyway, come on,’ she released Nick’s hand, ‘you must be starving and I’ve defrosted some lamb cutlets. Is that a bottle of wine you brought in with you? If not, there are several in the wine rack. I’ve been stocking up.’

He drew the cork and poured two glasses for them while Jo put the cutlets on the grill pan and ground black pepper over them. She was beginning to feel hungry at last.

Nick handed her a glass. ‘It’s not getting any time to breathe, my need is too great at the moment!’ He sighed. ‘Well, what do we do about you now?’

‘Nothing. I’ll handle it alone.’

‘Handle it alone? You were screaming so loud that people came running from all over the building. Bennet had to give you a shot to calm you down, for God’s sake! How can you handle it alone?’

Jo frowned. ‘It was only finding those hands like that, knowing suddenly that the Welsh were there, even in the King’s encampment. I hadn’t realised how afraid I’d been when we were in Wales – always wondering when their revenge would start. I felt safe at last at Gloucester and I was alone in that tent, dreaming about Richard when suddenly, out of the night, in the middle of the King of England’s men, they were there. They could have cut my throat!’ She shuddered as she began slicing some tomatoes, sprinkling them with a few dried basil leaves before setting them beside the cutlets to cook. She stared down at the knife in her hand and dropped it hastily into the sink.

‘Whose hands were they?’ Nick asked quietly. ‘Do you know?’

She rinsed her fingers under the tap.

‘Three of William’s knights.’ She took the glass he offered her and sipped it thoughtfully. ‘I remember it quite clearly. We had been riding for some time, through mist, on the way to Gloucester when we saw a small wayside chapel, a shrine to a local saint. It was only a huddle of stones with a heather-covered roof, but as usual William went to kneel before the altar.’

Nick felt a quick shiver of warning touch his skin as he watched her. Her eyes were staring into the distance as she began to describe the scene and he found himself wondering suddenly if she even knew he was there any more.

‘Someone had left a garland of wild roses and honeysuckle on the stone slab and sweet herbs had been scattered around on the earth. I didn’t dismount, but Will had begun to squeal and I turned in my saddle and watched as the nurse raised him to her breast, wishing I could hold him myself.’ She paused, biting her lip. ‘Her mule lowered its head looking for grass to nibble and the boy at its head let it wander to a patch at the side of the road and stood there with the leading rein loose in his hand. It was silent, save for the champ of bits and the stamp of horses’ hooves. I used to join William, but lately I had taken to waiting in the road like the others – sometimes with a whistled prayer of my own – sometimes not.’ She smiled at Nick, who was staring at her. ‘After a moment William rose and crossed himself. Then he stopped. He was listening. Then we all heard it in the early morning silence, the sound of a woman singing somewhere on the hillside behind the shrine. Everyone’s heads turned and two of his knights wheeled their horses, closing up near him, as he stood dusting off his blue mantle at the knees. I remember they both had their hands on the hilts of their swords.

‘The deep, melodious singing was in Welsh, but I could not pick out the words. I pulled my cloak more closely round me, patting the neck of my horse, which was beginning to fidget, impatient to be moving. Still no one spoke. I think we were all frightened.

‘Suddenly William turned to one of his knights. “Take two men and find her. Be careful. It may be a trap.” He swung himself back up into his saddle. Although his face beneath its weatherbeaten ruddiness was pale, he sat erect, gazing after the three men.

‘After a few minutes the singing grew more distant, as though the singer were walking away from us, up the hillside.

‘I saw William swallow nervously, his eyes fixed on the track where his men had vanished. His horse shook its bit impatiently and pawed the ground and he stilled it with an oath and a tug at the reins. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees and the drift of mist obscured the track completely and the air grew chill.

‘He waited a few more minutes, as usual unable to conceal his irritation, then he barked a command and four more riders, their swords drawn, cantered up the track into the mist.

‘The skin at the back of my neck began to prickle and I looked round uneasily while the armed escort fingered their swords nervously. Only the nurse with the placidly suckling child at her breast seemed unconcerned.

‘Suddenly the four knights reappeared, slithering down the track. They were alone. The rider of the leading horse drew his mount to a rearing halt at William’s side and saluted with his sword.

‘“No sign of them, Sir William. The track divides in several places, but the mist is thick in the trees and we could see no hoof marks. It’s so quiet up there. We tried shouting, but …” Then his voice tailed away and he glanced over his shoulder at his companions for support.

‘William’s face flushed. “They can’t be lost,” he shouted. “Look again. Take more men – take twenty men – and scour the hillside! I want those men found, and I want the woman who was singing.” He drew his sword and held it ready across his saddle, then he gave me a grim smile. “This is some trick of those damn Welsh,” he said.

‘The hillside above us echoed to the shouts of the armed men as they forced their horses through the thick undergrowth, hacking with their swords. But they found no sign of the missing men. Eventually William had to give orders to continue without them.

‘It was not until we had trekked over the pass at Bwlch that I ceased to feel that strange prickling sensation beneath my skin. It was then that I realised what it was. We were no longer being watched. The severed hands came from those three missing knights.’

Jo came to herself suddenly with the realisation that the kitchen was full of the smell of burning. She put down her glass with a little cry and grabbed the grill pan.

Nick was staring at her, a strange expression on his face. ‘You described none of that under hypnosis,’ he said quietly.

‘Didn’t I?’ She glanced up as she turned the meat and tomatoes and lowered the flame. Putting them back, she poured some more wine. ‘No harm done, thank goodness. It was just the fat catching. A good thing we were standing here.’

Nick hadn’t moved. ‘How much else can you remember?’ he asked after a moment.

She reached into the cupboard for two plates. ‘Everything, I suppose, until we left Gloucester. At least, it seems like everything. Come on, let’s eat before this lot gets itself incinerated. I don’t want to talk about Matilda any more. Tell me what you’re going to do to sink the opposition.’

It was nearly midnight when Jo had tidied away their plates and made some coffee. Nick was sitting on the floor of the living room leaning against the sofa, his head resting on the seat cushions, his eyes closed, as he listened to the last tape of the ‘St Matthew Passion’. As the last notes of the final chorus died away he raised his head and looked at her.

‘What was that flute music you had on that day Sam came over?’

‘Flute music?’ She knelt beside him and reached for the orange coffee pot. ‘I haven’t any recordings of flute music.’

‘You must have.’ He frowned. ‘It was a strange, rather haunting, formless solo piece. I’ve never heard it before.’

She shrugged. ‘Perhaps it was on the radio.’ She glanced at him uncomfortably. Nick had drunk most of the bottle of wine himself, quickly, without savouring it, which was unusual for him, and she could see that he was still tense and angry, the lines of his jaw taut as he lay back against the sofa cushions.

‘Tell me,’ he went on after a moment, ‘if you remember everything about your visit to Gloucester so clearly, did you meet Richard de Clare again?’

‘Nick. I don’t want to talk about it.’ She was filling her cup and did not look at him.

‘I want to know, Jo.’ His voice was quietly insistent.

She sighed. ‘I did see him, yes. He was a close adviser of the King’s. Once he arrived at Gloucester he was constantly in attendance on him.’

‘But did you see him alone?’

Jo smiled reminiscently in spite of herself. ‘Yes, I saw him alone the day after the awful business with the hands. He came to my tent. William had announced that we were going back to Bramber before the weather closed in. He was unnerved by the whole affair and he had given orders that we were to set out the following day.’

‘And Richard came to your tent?’

Jo glanced up, hearing the undercurrent of anger in his voice. ‘We said goodbye, yes,’ she said cautiously.

‘Did he kiss you?’

She saw his blue eyes narrow. ‘Nick. For goodness’ sake –’

‘Did he?’ He sat up watching her intently.

‘Yes,’ she said defiantly. ‘If you must know, he did. It was the first time he had ever held me properly in his arms. The tent was flapping in the wind, the heavy hangings which lined the walls rippling as if they were going to be torn off their hooks – it was so cold. The boy hadn’t kept the brazier outside the door fed properly, and it was smoking, not giving out much heat. Richard came in and I realised Nell must have let him pass. Elen would never have let him come to me alone. William was with the Earl of Gloucester –’ She paused, sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, gazing at the table lamp. There was a long silence. Nick’s eyes had not shifted from her face. ‘Go on,’ he said at last. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me what happened next?’

She glanced up. ‘He didn’t say anything at all. He just strode in, dropped the heavy curtains across the tent doorway and laced them together, then he took me in his arms. It was the first time we had kissed properly and I remember, for a moment, I was afraid. Then I forgot everything – William, little Will in the next tent with his nurses, the fear that someone might come – everything. I had never known physical desire before, only hints of it whenever Richard came near me, but suddenly I was overwhelmed by it.’ She paused and then went on thoughtfully, ‘I think we had both imagined that the feeling we had for each other could be contained in some courtly flirtation, but suddenly it took fire. I didn’t care what happened. I led him to the bed and he pushed me down on the furs –’ She stopped abruptly, seeing Nick’s face, and gave an embarrassed little laugh. ‘Sorry. I was getting carried away! Anyway it was quite good as I remember. Matilda’s first orgasm –’

She broke off as he lunged forward and caught her wrist, pulling it viciously so that she fell towards him, knocking the tray off the low table. The coffee pot slid to the floor and cracked against the table leg, soaking the carpet with coffee.

‘Nick, stop it!’ she cried. She could feel her arm pressing on a sharp piece of broken china. Warm blood flowed over her wrist. ‘Nick please – you’re hurting me – please, look, I’ve cut myself –’ The blind fury in his face frightened her. ‘It was only a dream, Nick. It wasn’t real! For God’s sake, what’s the matter with you? Nick!’ His hand was on her throat, his eyes murderous. Jo struggled frantically, feeling the pressure on her wind-pipe slowly increase. Then abruptly his mood seemed to change. He moved his hand from her throat, catching her wrists instead, clamping them above her head while with his free hand he began to pull open her bathrobe. Then he bent over her and began roughly caressing her breasts. He smiled coldly. ‘That’s better. You like a little medieval violence, don’t you? It reminds you of the good old days –’

‘Please Nick! Nick –’ Jo was terrified by the blind savagery in his face. She had never seen anyone look like that before, except once … For a moment she stopped struggling and lay still, frozen with fear as she remembered the face of the man who had tried to strangle her before – Nick’s other face – then with a last desperate pull she managed to break free of him. She rolled away and staggered to her feet, clutching her robe round her. ‘Get out! Get out of here,’ she shouted. ‘Get out of this flat, Nick, and never, ever come back!’ Her eyes were blazing with anger. ‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on me again! I don’t know what the hell you think you’re playing at, but you get out of here. I won’t be treated like this. Not ever, do you hear!’ She backed away from him towards the front door, knotting her belt around her waist. ‘Did you hear me?’ she repeated desperately.

He was smiling as he stood up. A cool, arrogant smile, which turned her anger back to terror.

‘Nick, please. What’s wrong with you?’ She had nearly reached the front door. Turning quickly she scrabbled with the latch, frantically trying to drag the door open, but Nick was close behind her. He slammed the door shut and rammed the bolt home, then he caught her arm. As he swung her to face him Jo screamed. But the sound never came. It was cut off short as he clamped his hand across her mouth, pulling her hard against him. He half dragged, half carried her down the passage to the bedroom, and without turning on the light flung her on the bed.

She lay there for a moment, winded, then as she turned, trying to struggle to her feet again, she felt a blinding blow across her face. Half stunned she fell back as Nick’s weight came down on top of her.

‘Now, my lady,’ he breathed, his fingers feeling for the knot of her belt, his face so close to hers she could see the gleam of his eyes in the darkness. ‘Another sound and I shall have to take steps to silence you.’

She tried to wriggle sideways as she felt his knee forcing her legs apart, but he held her easily. Eventually realising that the more she fought him the more he was going to hurt her she made herself go limp, biting her lip in pain as he forced his way inside her. His mouth ground into hers and she opened her lips helplessly beneath his probing tongue and suddenly through her fear she felt a little surge of excitement. As if he sensed it Nick laughed softly, and she felt his grip on her wrists tighten. ‘So, my lady, you do enjoy violence,’ he whispered. ‘I think in a lot of ways you’ll find I can please you better than Richard de Clare,’ and his mouth left hers and travelled down her throat towards her breasts.

He fell asleep eventually, still spreadeagled over her numbed body, his head between her breasts, his hands, loosened at last, outstretched across the bedcover. Agonised, Jo tried to move. She was crying softly, afraid to wake him as she tried again to dislodge the dead weight which pinned her to the bed. In the end she gave up and lay still, staring towards the window where the heavy curtains cut out the first signs of a beautiful dawn.

Nick woke just before seven. For a long time he lay unmoving, feeling the woman’s body limp beneath his, then slowly he eased himself off her and sat up. He grabbed his trousers and staggered to the window, throwing back the curtains with a groan. It was full daylight. He looked at his watch in surprise, and then back at the bed as the stark daylight fell across Jo. She was lying naked on the bedcover, her hair spread across the pillow, her legs apart. There were vivid bruises on her wrists and breasts, and he could see bloodstains on the bedspread. There was a long jagged cut encrusted with dried blood on her forearm, more blood on the inside of her thighs –

He felt suddenly violently sick. She had not stirred. She did not even seem to be breathing. He threw himself towards the bed. ‘Jo? Jo! For God’s sake, are you all right?’

For a moment she did not move, then, slowly and painfully, she opened her eyes, dazzled by the light, and stared around the room. It was a few moments before she began to remember. He saw the fear flicker behind her eyes as she looked up at him and a wave of nausea shook him again. She still had not moved but he saw her lick her lips experimentally, trying to speak. Reaching for her bathrobe, thrown across a chair, he laid it gently over her.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ he said softly.

In the bathroom he tugged at the light pull and stared at himself in the cold, uncompromising electric light. His face looked the same as usual. Tired perhaps, and a little grey, but nothing strange. There was a scratch across his shoulder, otherwise nothing to show for Jo’s fight for her life.

He walked slowly to the kitchen and made the tea, comforting himself with the familiar sounds as he filled the kettle and fished in the jar for two teabags. Then he walked through to the living room. It was cold; the French doors had been open all night. The grass in the square was still silvered with dew. He pulled the doors closed then he turned and picked up his shirt. There were coffee stains on the sleeve. And blood. Pulling it on, he went back to the kitchen. He was numb.

Slowly he carried the two mugs back to the bedroom. Jo had not moved. Sitting on the bed beside her he proffered one of the mugs tentatively.

‘Jo –’

She turned her head away and closed her eyes.

‘Jo, please. Let me explain.’

‘There is nothing to explain.’ She did not look at him. ‘Please just go.’

He stood up. ‘All right.’ He leaned forward as if to touch her shoulder, but he changed his mind. ‘I’ll come back this evening, Jo. I’ll make it up to you somehow,’ he whispered.

Leaving the two cups of tea untouched beside the bed, he walked slowly to the door. Unbolting it, he let himself out onto the quiet landing.

As he tiptoed down the stairs towards the street he heard the distant sickly wailing of a baby.

For a long time after he had gone Jo did not move. She lay rigid, listening to Will crying. Her fists clenched, her eyes dry, she stared at the wall, feeling the ache of her body where Nick had bruised her. Suddenly she sat up. She threw herself out of bed and ran to the bathroom, turning both bath taps on full, then she went to find her address book. Fumbling in her canvas bag in her haste, she pulled the book out and began flipping through the pages with a shaking hand, trying not to notice the mess of blood and coffee stains which had soaked into the pale carpet in the middle of the room.

She stopped at Leigh Delamere service station on the M4, pulling into the crowded car park and resting her head for a moment on the rim of the wheel. She had thrown in her bags, typewriter and camera barely fifteen minutes after ringing Janet Pugh.

Pulling the rear-view mirror towards her she studied her face. Her lips were still swollen and her eyes were puffy from crying so much in the night. She had dabbed make-up over her white skin and used lipstick and eye-shadow. It made her feel better. The long sleeves and high neck of her Victorian blouse covered the worst of her bruises.

She pulled herself painfully out of the car and swung her bag over her shoulder. It was only another twenty miles, if that, to the Severn Bridge. Then she would be in Wales.

Tim stood for a long time outside the house in Church Road, staring up at the grey slate roof with its dentilation of wrought-iron decoration. The house was identical to its neighbours, save for the front door, which was cream with a brightly polished knocker. The windows were hung with fresh, plain net curtains, like old-fashioned muslin, he thought, as at last he raised his hand to the knocker.

Sylvia Walton opened the door at his second knock. She had plaited her hair and wound it round her head in a silvery braid. It made her look like an Austrian peasant. His fingers itched for his camera, but he had not brought it with him. He grinned at her. ‘It was very good of you and Bill to let me come back and talk to you.’

Sylvia smiled as she led him up the long flight of stairs. ‘He was pleased to hear from you again. Miss Clifford isn’t with you this time?’

Tim shook his head. He followed her into the room they had been in before, but this time the lines of chairs were missing. Instead a small wheeled table which had been laid for three was standing near the fireplace. Bill Walton was writing at his desk. He rose as his wife ushered Tim into the room and held out his hand. The prominent green eyes surveyed Tim shrewdly. ‘So, Mr Heacham, you want to try a little regression yourself,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m glad you found your previous visit so interesting.’

Jo drew the car up in a narrow lane and stared ahead of her through a stone arch. Her stomach muscles knotted. Abergavenny Castle. Climbing out of the MG, she walked slowly through the arch and stared around her.

The sleepless night and the long drive from London were catching up with her fast now and she ached all over with exhaustion; her mind mercifully blank whenever she thought about Nick. All she knew was that she did not want to be in London and that if anyone could comfort her it would not be Nick but Richard – a Richard she might never see again, but for whom she longed with an almost physical ache. She drew a deep painful breath of air into her lungs, and walked on.

This castle too was a ruin but there was far more of it left than at Bramber. She stepped onto a grass lawn strewn with daisies and stared up at a mock-Gothic stone keep, somehow garishly out of place on the motte at the centre of the bailey where the Norman tower had stood. Around her rose high pinkish grey ruined walls, while below the hillside the river elbowed in a lazy curve through the valley. Beyond it lay the soft Welsh hills, shrouded in heat haze. One of the massive walls was covered in scaffolding and she could hear the soft lilt of conversation from high on the ladders near the top of the masonry, where a tree cast its shade over the stone.

Shivering, she began to walk around the perimeter path. Somewhere here, in the bailey below the motte, the Welsh dead had lain in terrible disarray, and in their midst Seisyll and his son. She stood still again, staring round. Surely something of the horror must remain? The stench of blood? The screams? She felt the warm wind from the south lift her hair slightly on her neck. A patch of red valerian in the wall near her stirred, but nothing more. The echoes were still. William de Braose was dead and Seisyll long ago avenged.

She parked her car outside Janet and David Pugh’s neat white-painted house and rang the doorbell, staring back up the empty street as she listened to the sound of footsteps running down the stairs and towards the door. For a moment she and Janet stood staring at each other incredulously when the door opened. Janet saw a tall, elegant young woman with long, dark hair wearing a high-necked long-sleeved blouse and well cut slacks, most of her face obscured by dark glasses. Jo saw a very pregnant, fair-haired woman in a sleeveless summer dress and Scholl sandals. She grinned. ‘My God, you’ve changed since school!’

‘So have you.’ Janet reached forward tentatively and kissed her cheek. ‘Come in. You must have had a hell of a drive from London.’

From her bedroom at the top of the house Jo could see the castle ruins. She stood staring out across the low huddle of rooftops, her hand on the curtain, before turning to her hostess who was hovering in the doorway. ‘It was good of you to let me come like this, with no warning,’ she said. ‘I had forgotten you lived in Abergavenny, then when I knew I had to come here something clicked in my mind and I remembered your Christmas card.’

‘I’m glad you did. You’re working on an article, you said?’ Janet’s eyes went to the typewriter standing in its case at the foot of the bed. ‘David was very impressed when I rang the school and told him you were coming here. You’re famous!’

Jo laughed. ‘Infamous is a better word these days, I fear.’ She took a brush out of her bag and ran it down her hair which crackled with static. ‘You really don’t mind my coming?’

Janet shook her head. Her eyes sparkled with sudden irrepressible giggles. ‘I’m thrilled. Really. You’re the most exciting thing that’s happened to us for months!’ She sat down on the end of the bed with a groan, her hand to her back. ‘Well, what do you think of Wales, then?’

Jo sat down beside her. ‘I haven’t seen much so far, but what I’ve seen is beautiful. I think I’m going to love it here.’ How could she explain that already it felt like coming home? Impatiently she pushed the sentimental phrase aside and pulled off her dark glasses at last, throwing them on the bed. Beneath them her face was very pale.

David Pugh came home at about six. He was a squat, florid, sandy-haired man with twinkling eyes. ‘So, you’ve come to see where it all happened,’ he said cheerfully as he handed Jo a glass of sherry. ‘We were intrigued when we read the article about you in the paper.’ He stood staring at her for a moment, the bottle still in his hand. ‘You’re not like her, are you? Not how I imagined her, anyway.’

‘Who?’ Jo was looking around the small living room curiously. Books and records overflowed from every shelf and flat surface onto the floor.

‘Our Moll Walbee.’ He was watching her closely. ‘You know who that is, surely?’

Jo frowned. She took a sip of sherry. Out of the back window across the small garden there was a hedge and more roofs and behind them she could still see the pink-grey stone of the strange Gothic keep in the castle grounds. ‘Moll Walbee,’ she repeated. ‘It’s strange. I seem to know the name, but I can’t place it.’

‘It is what the Marcher people called Maude de Braose. You seem to prefer the name Matilda, which is, I grant, more euphonious, but nevertheless she was, I think, more often known as Maude.’

He poured a glass of sherry for his wife and pushing open the hatch into the kitchen passed it through to her. Janet, a plastic apron over her dress, was chopping parsley. She looked slightly flustered as she dropped the knife and took the glass from him. ‘Shut up about that now, David,’ she said in an undertone, glancing at Jo.

‘No.’ Jo had seen the challenge in David’s eyes. ‘No, don’t shut up. I’m interested. If you know about her I want to hear it. I can see you’re sceptical, and I don’t blame you. You’re a historian, I believe?’

He snorted. ‘I teach history at a local school. That doesn’t make me a historian, but I have read a bit about the history of the Welsh Marches. The Braose family made a name for themselves around here. And Maude is something of a legend. Moll is a corruption of Malt, the Welsh for Maude, of course. Walbee, I surmise, comes from St Valerie, which was her father’s name.’

Jo grinned. ‘That at least I know. Reginald.’

He nodded. ‘Or it could, I suppose, be a corruption of de la Haie – from her association with Hay-on-Wye, but there must be dozens of parishes up and down the borders which claim stories about her. She was reputed to be a witch, you know.’

Jo raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t know.’ She leaned forward and took the bottle out of his hand, refilling his glass and then her own. ‘I’m not an historian, David. I know nothing about her, save what I remember from my –’ she hesitated, seeing the disbelief in his face, ‘my dreams, if you like to call them that. I looked her up in the Dictionary of National Biography, but I didn’t look at any books on Welsh history. Perhaps I should.’

Janet appeared with a saucer of peanuts which she put on the arm of David’s chair. ‘My husband is a bit of an expert on local legend,’ she said almost apologetically. ‘We must shut him up about it, because if he starts, he’ll go on all night.’

‘No, I won’t.’ He frowned at her. ‘All I said was that Joanna does not look like her. She was reputed to have been a giantess. She is said to have stood in the churchyard at Hay and, finding a stone in her shoe, thrown it across the Wye, where it landed at Llowes.’ He grinned. ‘The stone is about ten feet long! And of course she built Hay Castle singlehanded in a night. And she was Mallt y Nos, who you can see riding across the mountains with the hounds of hell in the wild of a storm.’ He laughed out loud at the expression on Jo’s face. ‘She must have been a fearsome lady, Jo. Overpowering, Amazonian even, who kept old William in terror of his life. Or that is the way the story goes.’

Jo said nothing for a moment. Then slowly she began to pace up and down the carpet. ‘I don’t think she was especially tall,’ she said reflectively. ‘Taller than William, yes. And taller than a lot of the Welsh, but then they are a short people –’ She broke off in embarrassment, looking at her host.

He roared with laughter. ‘I’m five foot four, girl, and proud of it. It’s power not height that counts in the rugby scrum, and don’t you forget it!’

Smiling, Jo helped herself to peanuts. ‘It’s hard to explain what it’s like being someone else, even if only as a vivid dream. She doesn’t inhabit my skin. I find myself in hers. I think and speak and feel as her. But I don’t know her future any more than she would have known it. Now, talking to you, I know roughly what happened to her, but in the regressions I know no more than we know now what will happen to us tomorrow. If in later life she was called Moll Walbee, I don’t know it yet. If later she came to dominate William, I have no clue. As a young woman only a year or so married she was afraid of him. And her only defence against him was disdain.’

There was a moment’s silence. Janet had seated herself on the arm of a chair near the kitchen door. ‘Do you really believe you are her reincarnation?’ she asked at last, awed. ‘Really, in your heart of hearts?’

Jo nodded slowly. ‘I think I am beginning to wonder, yes.’

‘And are you going to go on being hypnotised to see what happened?’

This time Jo shrugged. ‘I’m not too happy about being hypnotised, to be honest. Sometimes I think I must, other times I’m too scared and I swear I’ll never go back. I tried to get the hypnotherapist to make me forget her, but it didn’t work, so now I don’t know what I’ll do.’

‘Well, that’s honest at least.’ David had wandered across to his bookshelves. He picked out a heavy tome. ‘People who are capable of regression usually, if not invariably, regress into several previous lives,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever read of a case where just one life was picked out like this.’ He smiled at her quizzically. ‘It is most intriguing. Do you think that anyone else from Maude’s lifetime has returned with her?’

Jo hesitated. ‘It is as much as I can do to believe in myself,’ she said slowly, ‘but sometimes I wonder …’ Nick’s face suddenly rose before her eyes. A Nick she had never known. A Nick, his face contorted with jealousy and anger, who had pinned her to the bed and raped her, and behind his face another, a face with red-gold hair and beard – the man who had tried to strangle her.

‘Jo, what is it?’ Janet’s whisper brought her back abruptly to the room where she was sitting.

She smiled and gave another shrug. ‘Just something I thought of, someone who’s been behaving rather strangely.’ She bit her knuckles for a moment. ‘But if he is the reincarnation of someone from my – from Matilda’s – past who is he?’

David let out a little chuckle. ‘Don’t worry about it too much, girl. I’m sure it will come to you. Either that, or you’ll regain your wits. Now, why don’t I find a bottle of wine so we can celebrate your visit, then while we eat I’ll help you plan an itinerary so you can follow Matilda’s footsteps, starting at Hay, where most of her legend is centred. That is why you’ve come to Wales, isn’t it? To follow her footsteps?’

‘I suppose it must be,’ Jo said after a moment.

‘You know,’ he said, his hand to his cheek, ‘you could be like her, at that. I suspect you’re a very determined lady when you want to be!’

Jo laughed. ‘I have that reputation, I believe.’

‘And you’re not superstitious or anything?’ he went on, almost as an afterthought.

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘Good.’ He handed her the book. ‘Some bedtime reading for you, Jo. I think you’ll find it interesting.’

Nick let himself into his flat with a sigh. He dropped his case to the floor and picked up the mail from inside the door, then he stopped and looked round, listening. ‘Is someone there?’ he called.

An inner door opened and Sam appeared, lifting his hand in a laconic greeting.

‘Sam!’ Nick threw down the letter.

Sam raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘I don’t think I’ve had so ecstatic a welcome for years!’

‘Shut up and listen!’ Nick pushed past him and went through into the living room. ‘I hurt Jo.’

Sam had followed him and was about to help himself to a drink. He swung round and stared at Nick. ‘You did what?’ he said.

‘I hurt her, Sam. Last night. We were talking about the regressions and she began to tell me about things that had happened to her in that life – things she hadn’t mentioned under hypnosis. She began talking about de Clare – describing how they had made love …’ He went to the tray of drinks. ‘I grabbed her, Sam. I saw red and grabbed her. I wanted to punish her. I wanted to hurt her. I might have killed her.’

Sam was very still. ‘Where is she?’

Nick shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I rang a dozen times this morning and went back at lunchtime. Her car had gone. I went up to the flat and looked round. She’d taken her typewriter and a case. There wasn’t a note or anything.’

Pushing him aside, Sam poured out two glasses of Scotch. He handed his brother one, then stood watching him thoughtfully. ‘How badly did you hurt her?’

Nick shrugged. ‘She knocked the tray off the coffee table and cut her arm. That was an accident, but I was pretty rough with her –’

‘Did you rape her?’

Nick could feel Sam’s eyes on him. He straightened defiantly. ‘Technically, I suppose I did.’

‘Technically?’

There was something in the coldness of Sam’s voice which made Nick step back. ‘She and I have been living together on and off for years, for God’s sake!’

‘That is hardly the point.’ Sam sat down slowly. ‘So, you forced her. Did you beat her up?’

‘I hit her. She was covered in bruises. I don’t know what came over me, Sam. It was as if I wasn’t me any more. I couldn’t control myself. I knew I was hurting her, and I didn’t want to stop!’ He fumbled in the pocket of his jacket for a pack of cigarettes, extracted one, then threw it down with a curse. ‘Christ! This is all such a mess. I was jealous, Sam, of a man who died God knows how many hundreds of years ago. I thought for a while it was Jo going out of her mind. Now I think it’s me!’ He threw himself down opposite his brother. ‘You’ve got to help me. What the hell do I do?’

Sam leaned back in his chair. He was gently swirling his Scotch around in his glass.

‘Have you ever considered,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘that Jo might not be the only one amongst us who is living again?’

Nick snorted. ‘You’re not suggesting I am the reincarnation of her husband, or something?’

‘No.’ Sam’s voice was icy. ‘I am not suggesting that. But I think it possible that you were perhaps someone close to her in the past.’

Nick stared at him. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Oh come on! Don’t hand me that crap. Jo might have been persuaded by all this. In fact she actually asked me if I thought I’d lived before –’

‘Perhaps she recognised you.’

‘No! Oh no, I don’t believe it. I’ve got enough problems in this life, and I’d have thought you’d have more sense than to encourage her. You of all people who saw the danger right from the start!’

‘I saw the danger.’ Sam swung his feet up onto the coffee table. ‘But as Jo would not sidestep it, neither can we.’

Nick glanced at him sharply. ‘What do you mean exactly?’

Sam had closed his eyes. ‘There is one way of finding out whether you were involved in her past, Nick,’ he said.

‘How?’ Nick paused. ‘Oh no! You think I’m going to Bennet to let him try his regression on me?’

‘There’s no need.’ Sam took a sip from his glass. ‘I can do it.’

Nick’s mouth dropped open. ‘Are you suggesting that I let you hypnotise me?’ he said incredulously. ‘If so, you’re out of your skull!’

‘Why not? I have a feeling you might be surprised by what we find out.’ Sam smiled gently. ‘Have you never wondered why Jo and you were so instantly attracted when you first met? Could it not have been that you were lovers once before? Is it not possible that the Richard she loved so much was your alter ego, eight hundred years ago?’ He was watching Nick’s expression closely. ‘It might be fun to find out,’ he went on persuasively. ‘It couldn’t do any harm, and it might explain a lot of your ambivalence towards Jo now.’

Nick sat down on the edge of a table, one foot on the carpet, the other swinging slowly back and forth. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this. You actually think I am the reincarnation of Richard de Clare?’

Sam shrugged. ‘When dealing with anything like this, Nick, I keep an open mind. I think for Jo’s sake you ought to as well. You owe it to her, if only to find out why you attacked her.’ His eyes narrowed.

‘But why,’ Nick said slowly, ‘if I was Richard de Clare, would I be so jealous of him?’

Sam smiled. ‘Good question. Shall we find out?’

‘You are serious?’

‘Perfectly. If you don’t regress, fair enough. Not everyone does by any means. At least we will have tried. If you do, it will be interesting.’

‘And you expect me to trust you!’ Nick stared at him suspiciously. ‘After what happened to Jo?’

‘What happened to Jo?’ Sam’s voice was hard. ‘She is a deep-trance subject, Nick, you are not. The experience would not be the same for you.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Nick said coolly. ‘There are one or two things you never explained, Sam.’ His knuckles tightened on his glass. ‘Like why it was necessary for Jo to take off her clothes the other night, when you regressed her.’

Sam raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that what she said happened?’

‘That is what she said.’ Nick was watching him closely.

Sam smiled. ‘She experiences the trances so vividly she finds it hard to differentiate between that state and reality, at least for a time, as I told you.’

‘It was reality, Sam, that I found her clothes that night, hidden in the living room –’

‘Perhaps she put them there before I came.’ Sam crossed one knee over the other, his whole body relaxed. ‘I’m not sure what you are implying, Nicholas, but may I remind you that it is you who raped Jo, not I. It is you who needs help. I think you need to try hypnosis.’

Still uncertain, Nick hesitated. ‘I suppose it would do no harm to try. And I’d rather you did it than Bennet,’ he said at last, reluctantly. ‘But I hate the idea. And I doubt if it would work on me, anyway.’

‘Why don’t we try?’ Sam sat up slowly. ‘In fact, why don’t we have a go now? You’re worried. You’re tired. If nothing else, I can help you to relax.’ He smiled. ‘Come and sit down over here, little brother. That’s right, facing the window. Now. Relax. Put the glass down, man. You’re clutching it like a lifebelt! Now, let’s see whether you can do one or two little experiments for me. We’ll start with the lamp.’ Sam leaned forward and switched on the Anglepoise at Nick’s elbow. ‘No, don’t look at the light. I want you to look past it, into the corner of the room.’

Nick laughed suddenly. ‘It’s like having the “fluence” put on you by someone at school. Why don’t you use a watch and chain?’

‘It may have escaped your notice, Nicholas, but I don’t wear a watch and chain.’ Sam moved silently from his chair and gently put his thumb and forefinger on Nick’s eyelids. ‘Now, look towards the lamp again and start counting slowly backwards from one hundred.’

Several minutes later Sam stood up. He was smiling. He walked towards the window and threw it up, staring out for a minute up the narrow street opposite towards the traffic in Park Lane. Then he turned towards Nick, who was lying back in his chair, his eyes closed.

‘Comfortable, little brother?’ he said softly. ‘No, don’t try and answer me. You can’t. I don’t want you to speak at all. I want you to listen.’