Читать книгу The Ghost Tree - Barbara Erskine - Страница 16

Timothy’s sister, April, was waiting for him in the White Hart, a glass of shandy before her on the table, a bottle of lager for him. She looked up as he walked in. ‘Did you get in?’

‘Nope! She’s changed the locks.’

‘I told you she would. You should have taken everything while you had the chance.’

He sat down opposite her and reached for the bottle, twisting off the cap. Taking a large gulp, he wiped the foam from his lip with his sleeve. ‘We’ve got most of the valuable stuff anyway. Do you want to get me another one?’

‘Not particularly.’ She was very like him to look at; the same skin, the same colour of hair, but while his eyes were brown hers were hazel. She studied his face closely. ‘You look rattled.’

‘There was someone else there. A big bloke. Some kind of minder.’

She scowled. ‘Never mind. You don’t need to go there again. We got what we came for: the old man’s cash, jewellery, silver. Now you can sit back and wait for the house to fall into your lap.’ She took a sip from her glass.

He noticed the packet of crisps at her elbow and reached across for it. ‘But she’s obviously gone to the solicitor.’

‘Of course she has. He will have contacted her the moment he received the new will.’

‘Doesn’t it worry you?’

‘No. It’s your word against hers. She hasn’t seen her father for years.’

‘What about the DNA?’

She gave a grim smile. ‘You got it, didn’t you? The swab from the old man’s mouth.’

Timothy grimaced. ‘Disgusting.’

‘Proof!’ She smiled at him. ‘Just don’t lose it.’

She reached into her pocket. ‘I’ve been going through some of the stuff you brought back.’ She brought out a small cotton bag and tipped half a dozen rings into the palm of her hand.

‘Don’t!’ Timothy let out a cry of alarm. ‘For God’s sake, April. Someone will see.’

‘Shut up, you numpty. You’re just drawing attention to us.’ She rattled her two hands together then opened them with a smile of triumph as if she had produced the rings out of thin air. ‘These are nice. Gold, rubies, diamonds. Victorian, I should say. Not worth a lot these days, but better than a slap in the face. Eighteen carat. They’ll melt down well if nothing else.’

They both looked down at her hands. She reached for one of the rings and slid it onto her little finger. It wouldn’t go over her knuckle. ‘They must have had tiny hands in those days,’ she said critically. She shivered suddenly and plucked the ring off. ‘It doesn’t feel right. Been on a dead person, I reckon. That’s why I hate second-hand stuff.’ She tipped the rings back in the bag and pulled the cord round its neck to tighten it. ‘Best move these on as soon as.’

Timothy frowned. ‘We can’t risk it. Not yet. Ruth might be able to identify it. Just sit on it for a bit. All of it.’ He helped himself to a handful of crisps. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ She was staring down at her hand, lying on the bag.

She shuddered visibly. ‘I told you. Someone walked on my grave.’

He laughed. ‘Stupid mare. I tell you, if you want something spooky, it’s that house. It gave me the creeps, there on my own with that old boy. He talked to people I couldn’t see. He thought his wife was there with him. He told me she didn’t like me. He told me to go away. Then he thought there was someone else there. Her grandfather or someone. He was scared of him. Terrified. He kept saying he was sorry. What?’ He realised April was staring at him, her eyes wide with horror.

‘I’m not handling these.’ She pushed the bag of rings away from her. ‘There’s something bad going on with these. I reckon we should bail. Go somewhere else. I do not want to be landed with a haunted house.’

‘Stupid!’ Timothy glared at her witheringly. ‘Not after all the trouble I’ve been to. We’ve done the hard bit now. As you say, we’ve just got to wait.’ He reached out for the bag and stuffed it into his pocket. ‘I need a proper drink.’ He climbed to his feet and went over to the bar. ‘Two large gins,’ he said to the girl behind the till, ‘and two hot pies when you’re ready.’

Ruth stood looking up at the great crown steeple of St Giles’ cathedral. It had been so vivid in her dream, the silhouette against the stormy evening sky, the small boy alone in the crowded street. She shivered. It had been uncannily real.

Number 26 was claustrophobic now, and lonely without her father there. Or Fin or Hattie. She hadn’t been able to stand it this morning when she woke. A walk had seemed a good idea, especially now the locks had been changed and she wasn’t afraid Timothy would sneak in behind her. She hadn’t planned to come here to the Royal Mile, but that was where she ended up, standing staring at the place where Thomas had seen a murder. And a ghost. And it was her Thomas, her five-times great-grandfather, she was sure of that now. The names fitted, the names she had heard shouted out in her other dream, the dream of three excited, happy boys on holiday.

She looked round. This iconic street, stretching along Edinburgh’s spine, from the castle to Holyrood Palace, was similar to her fleeting memory, but the booths had gone now of course; the images in her dream were like old photographic negatives, the buildings taller, more crowded, the people wearing darker clothes, the women in long skirts and shawls, carts, horses. The parliament building, and the Old Tolbooth near it, shadowy backdrops to the drama in the street.

Slowly she walked on. Thomas had lived at the top of a lofty tenement in somewhere called South Gray’s Close. She glanced at the address on the piece of paper in her hand. She had looked it up on the Internet that morning. It was next to the Museum of Childhood. The actual building in which he had lived had long ago disappeared, it seemed, but there had been a plaque there once, marking the place where Tom and his brother Henry had been born. She came to a halt outside the entrance to the close. There was the rounded archway. Did she remember that from her dream? She thought so, but more than that, she wasn’t sure. Everything had been dark then, save for the warm rooms briefly lit by the setting sun before the black rain clouds had swept in. There was graffiti now where, presumably, the plaque had once been. The memory of Thomas and his family in Gray’s Close had vanished with her dream.

On her return to Number 26 Ruth went back to her slim file of notes and the Internet. She moved the cursor across to the portrait of Thomas and studied it carefully. He had short wavy dark hair and deep-set piercing eyes. The reproduction was poor; it was dark and hard to make out the detail. She clicked on it. The picture had been painted by Thomas Lawrence in 1802, when Thomas was fifty-two years old.

Sitting back in her chair she thought for a moment, then she rummaged in the zipped pocket of her bag for the portrait miniature. Was it him? The face staring out at her was very different to the arrogant, powerful, quite modern face on the screen. For a start the man in the miniature was wearing an old-fashioned white powdered wig; he was half smiling and he appeared to be very young. She narrowed her eyes, holding it under the light. The glass reflected badly and the picture was, she realised now, very crude in its execution. She dipped back into her bag to bring out the locket. The lock of hair could have belonged to anyone. A woman? Someone from another family altogether? She ran her finger across the glass. She badly wanted to touch the hair. The small oval of glass which held it in place felt loose. She squinted at it, angling it this way and that under the light. Could she prise it off? And if she did, would the hair reveal in some mysterious way the identity of its owner?

She picked up the miniature again, wondering why she assumed everything she had found was to do with that one man, as if he was the only ancestor her mother had. But that was her father’s fault, she realised. He was the one with the obsession. It was as if the name, the title, had got under his skin as a personal insult.

Whoever the lock of hair and the miniature had belonged to they had been very precious. With a shiver she dropped them on the table. The thought that the touch of that hair might directly link her to the person from whose head it had been taken felt suddenly like witchcraft.