Читать книгу The Secrets of Castle Du Rêve: A thrilling saga of three women’s lives tangled together in a web of secrets - Hannah Emery - Страница 11

Victoria would never have even met Harry if it weren’t for the rain.

He didn’t have any interest in antiques, she realised later, and he certainly didn’t need to buy any that afternoon. He only ducked into Lace Antiques because of the fat drops of salty rain that began to drum down on him without any kind of forewarning.

Victoria was sitting behind the counter, staring into a mirror that she’d found that morning. Her father always told her not to touch his things, that he’d box her ears if he found out that she’d been rooting and touching potential money-makers. But the morning had been so very long, and the customers who had come into the shop had been frustratingly indifferent to what was out on display. So Victoria had decided to move some of the objects around a little, and then, before she knew it, she was on her hands and knees in the corner, where some stock she’d never seen before was tossed into an old brown suitcase.

Once she had fiddled with the brittle clasp on the case and opened it up, Victoria had found a strange old doll with shimmering black hair and a cracked red smile. There were some discoloured white beads too, which Victoria hung around her neck, the thick, salty fragrance of the case clinging to them and permeating her dress. It was no wonder these things weren’t on the shelves. She leant further into the case, almost pulled in by its intoxicating scent. Something silver glinted in the corner and she reached for it.

You’re like a magpie, her mother had said once, a long time ago. All that glitters is not gold, darling. You’ll end in trouble if you go for everything that sparkles.

As Victoria tugged the cool, metallic object out of the cavernous case, she saw that it was a beautiful hand mirror, its back encrusted with deep-blue sapphires. She sat back on her heels and turned the mirror over in her hands to see her reflection, then over again to see the glittering dark case, then over again to stare at herself: her pale skin, opaque with youth, her black hair and heavy fringe that sat above her eyes like the brim of a hat.

It was moments after Victoria stared at her unblinking reflection, as a thunder cloud trawled through the sky like a pirate ship, that the shop door swung open, and Victoria fell in love.

Frederick, the shop cat, showed an instant affinity to the man at the door, purring and wheedling around his legs. Victoria, gazing down at Frederick in a moment of panic that he would cover the man’s trousers in unappealing grey cat fuzz, noticed that the man was wearing beautiful brown suede shoes, which the rain had threatened to ruin.

You can tell everything about a man by his shoes, Victoria had heard somebody say once, though she couldn’t remember who. Everything.

Victoria looked at the shoes and tried to work out the Everything that had been promised. But when all she could see was the tightly wound laces, the faint pattern of rain on the sides of the shoe, the water that was seeping up from the heel, she moved her gaze upwards, where it was drawn, all at once, to the man’s exquisite face.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, moving forwards and scooping Frederick up in her arms.

‘I was just wanting a little shelter, I’m afraid. I wasn’t expecting such an onslaught of rain.’

An onslaught. What a wonderful expression to use.

Frederick yowled and attempted to wriggle from Victoria’s grasp. Not wanting to seem intimidated by a small grey cat, she grasped him with all her might. But Frederick, his sights set firmly on freedom, unleashed his claws as he scrambled out of her arms and over her shoulder. She yelped as his claw ripped through her yellow dress and into her white, soft skin beneath.

The man took a step forward immediately, his face all the more attractive for its air of perfect concern.

‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.

Victoria sniffed. ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ she said, only just managing to ignore the bolt of pain that was coursing through her. ‘It’ll soon stop.’

The man pulled out the chair from behind the counter. ‘Here. At least have a little sit down.’

Victoria smiled as she took the offered seat. ‘Are you really sure there’s nothing you need to buy?’

The man shook his head. ‘I feel quite guilty now, coming in here and upsetting your day. I have an important meeting today, and I didn’t want to arrive looking like something washed ashore, so I thought I would just nip in here to stay dry.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘I’m a lecturer of English Literature at the University. We have an author coming in later to discuss some talks we want him to give to some of our prospective students. I admire him, so I wanted to make a good impression.’

‘Who’s the author?’

‘It’s Robert Bell. Do you know him?’

Victoria stood up, forgetting her wounded shoulder and her weakness from moments before. ‘Robert Bell! He’s one of my favourites!’

‘You read Robert Bell books? Well, you really aren’t what you seem, are you?’

Victoria grinned. ‘I like mysteries. I read them all the time.’ She rushed over to the counter and retrieved a tattered copy of The Blue Door from its place underneath a pile of receipts.

The man grinned: a wide, wonderful grin that showed off a broad set of teeth, his left canine slightly crooked, the rest in perfect white rows. ‘You know, I don’t think there’d be a problem with you coming along to one of the talks if you wanted to. I think you’d enjoy it. I could arrange for you to attend as a visitor, if you’d like?’

‘I’d love to!’ Victoria said, wondering if she would sit with the man, wondering if he might offer to take her for a cup of tea afterwards, wondering if her father would let her say yes if he did. He wouldn’t, she knew it. She would have to keep it to herself, somehow.

‘Well, as soon as the talks are arranged, I’ll come back here and tell you when they’ll be.’

Victoria nodded, knowing that her life as she knew it was gone, and in its place was one where all she thought of, dreamt of, was this man who stood before her with his white teeth and his rained-on suede brown shoes.

‘Forgive me,’ the man said, holding out his hand and offering to shake Victoria’s. His hand was firm, strong, warm around hers. She wanted to hold it forever. ‘I didn’t tell you my name. It’s Harry.’

‘I’m Victoria.’

‘Ah. Like the Queen,’ Harry smiled.

Victoria smiled back. ‘Yes. Just like the Queen,’ she said, pleased with her tone of voice and aware, somehow, that it was a different tone to any she had ever used before.

‘Well,’ Harry said after a few seconds, ‘I’d best be going. But it really has been excellent to meet you.’ He looked up out of the front window of the shop. Through the clocks, the candelabras, the stacked picture frames, the glass case of twinkling brooches, the sun could be seen glowing through the clouds. ‘It’s dried up as quickly as it arrived,’ he added.

Victoria, suddenly remembering her injured shoulder again, touched it and winced. Harry winced with her.

‘Get that seen to,’ he said kindly as he opened the door. The hum of the crowds on the promenade beyond, the shouts of excited children on their holidays, the screams of seagulls merged with the monotonous ticking of clocks in the shop for a moment.

Then the door swung shut and he was gone.

Lace Antiques was a small, narrow shop with a sloping floor and walls that were crawling with paintings, clocks and bowed shelves. A fine layer of velvet dust lay over the top of almost everything in the shop. Victoria didn’t like cleaning, her father was too busy at auctions to clean, and her mother was always too tired to clean. And so the layer of dust remained.

Behind the counter, which was piled high with yellowed pamphlets about Silenshore, more clocks (really, it sometimes seemed as if clocks were all Victoria’s father bought) and a small cracked bowl of garnets that her mother placed there to bring the business success, was a white door. The white door led to the stairs up to Victoria’s parents’ flat, which, like the shop, was veiled in dust, tangled belongings and a brooding quiet that threatened to build into a sudden storm at any minute.

It was an hour after Harry left the shop, leaving a chest-tightening scent of cigarettes and rain behind him, that Victoria heard the white door behind her edge open. It wouldn’t be her father behind the door because he was at an auction, probably bidding for some useless clock at that very moment. That left only her mother.

Victoria didn’t turn around, but continued staring in the mirror she had found before Harry arrived. She was trying to work out what he might have seen when he looked at her. How strange that the image seen through Harry’s eyes could have been so very different to what Victoria saw in the mirror before her. She wondered if he’d seen the faint scar on the bridge of her nose from when she’d tumbled downstairs as a baby, or the way her black hair flicked up ever so slightly on the left side of her temple, or the green flecks in her bright-blue eyes. She wondered if he had thought she was beautiful. The way he’d looked at her when he was in the shop made her sure that he did. But now that he’d gone, that certainty had vanished with him.

Victoria raised an eyebrow and inspected the impact the movement had on her features. If she saw Harry again, she would remember to raise an eyebrow. It looked quite good.

‘Victoria!’

The shout was unexpected, so unexpected that Victoria swivelled around in panic, almost dropping the mirror. It slipped slightly from her grasp and the jagged sapphires on the back scraped across her fingers. She tightened her grip around it and looked up at her mother, who was staring at Victoria in horror.

‘What are you doing with that mirror? Where did you get it from?’

Victoria hesitated. She’d had the story all planned for her father. A customer opened the case and got the mirror out. I was just about to put it back. But her mother was different. She hadn’t expected her mother to even come into the shop, and she certainly hadn’t thought her mother would notice the mirror, because her mother never really noticed anything.

‘I found it in the suitcase. I like it.’ Victoria said.

But her mother wasn’t listening. She was trying to take the mirror, trying to unpeel Victoria’s fingers from its rough, glittering handle.

‘You mustn’t play with that, darling. It’s not safe.’

Victoria thought of Harry, remembered how she could somehow smell his skin, remembered the way he shook her hand. He did think she was beautiful, she was suddenly sure of it again. And the mirror, the whole morning, was now a part of Victoria’s time with Harry. She didn’t want it to end, any of it. She didn’t want it snatched from her hands, treated like a childish game and nothing more. She wasn’t a child: she was sixteen, and if she was going to be trapped in this shop all day every day for the rest of her life then she should be able to touch whatever she wanted to.

‘Victoria!’ her mother shouted again, giving up on wrestling with Victoria’s tight grasp. ‘You cannot play with that mirror!’ Her hands crept up to her face, and Victoria watched as her mother suddenly seemed to wilt. The fight in her had gone as suddenly as it had arrived. ‘Just promise me you will put it away and leave it alone,’ she finished quietly. She turned and disappeared behind the white door again, as smoothly as a ghost, leaving the mirror behind.

Sleep was out of reach for Victoria that night. Her mind was bright with the image of Harry, and she tossed from one position to the next, wondering when he might return to the shop. She replayed their conversation over and over again in her mind until the black night had turned into a blue dawn. He hadn’t said he would be back the next day, or even soon. It all depended on Robert Bell, the author, and when he arranged to give the talks that Harry would invite Victoria to.

Robert Bell, thought Victoria as she heard the clatter of the milkman’s bottles break through the silent morning, please, please arrange to do your talks soon.

And as the milkman clinked his way down the winding hill of Silenshore, and the birds began to sing, and the blue dawn turned into a pale-yellow morning, Victoria finally fell asleep.

Since they had left school last month, Sally Winters had come into the antique shop every Tuesday to see Victoria. Sally worked at Clover’s Tea Rooms at the other end of Silenshore, near the promenade, and Tuesday was her day off. Normally, when the door swung open with Sally’s rather forceful push, Victoria would do a quick mental run-through of all the things she wanted to talk to Sally about, all the things she wanted to ask Sally about the week that had just passed. But this Tuesday, the day after Harry, Victoria yelped and jumped up as soon as she saw Sally through the glass, scurrying over to the door and ushering her in.

Sally’s silver-blue eyes widened in wonder at the tale of Harry. She sighed when Victoria had finished talking, her slim face drawn down in disappointment that she wasn’t at the centre of this thrilling new romance.

‘Is he handsome?’ she asked without waiting for a response. ‘I wish I could meet someone handsome. I hate working at Clover’s. Do you think Harry has any nice friends who would like to meet me?’

‘I’ll ask him,’ Victoria said. She turned to the mirror, which she had brought downstairs with her when she had opened up the shop. ‘Do you think,’ she said quickly, ‘that I should start wearing my hair up more often? Do you think it makes me look older?’ Victoria tore off her red headband and gathered her black hair in her hands.

‘A little, perhaps.’ Sally frowned. ‘How old is Harry?’

Victoria shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, exactly. In his twenties, I think.’

‘Twenties? Wow, Victoria. I bet he’s nothing like the boys from school.’

Victoria grinned. ‘You’re right. He’s nothing like them at all. I have a special feeling about him. I feel so excited all of the time.’ She poured two cups of tea from the teapot that she’d also brought downstairs. Every Tuesday when she visited Lace Antiques, Sally always stayed for a cup of tea served in one of the beautifully fragile china cups that had been collected by the shop over the years. Victoria had bought an orange sponge cake from Blythe’s Bakery across the road yesterday and had already sliced a piece each for Sally and herself.

They sat chatting about Harry for a while, the cake and cups between them on the counter, the sweet tang of orange in the air, until Sally stood up from her stool and brushed down her striped dress, yawning as though everything was a terrible bore. ‘I suppose I’d better be going. Mum’s given me so many jobs to do at home that Tuesday rarely feels like a day off lately.’

When she’d waved Sally off down the street, Victoria poured herself another cup of tea. She had chosen the blue cup, the one with the very fine crack around the base, finer than a hair. Using the blue cup took a certain amount of bravery; it could split and break at any moment. But today felt like a day where it wouldn’t split. And feelings were everything. Whenever Victoria felt something, it was usually right. And that is why, when Harry didn’t come through the door of Lace Antiques that day, or the next day, or the day after that, Victoria couldn’t quite believe it.

Surely the Robert Bell talks have been arranged by now, Victoria thought on Friday. Her mother had been in bed all week, and her father rarely bothered to work in the shop, so Victoria had spent three days waiting for the door to open and Harry to saunter in. She couldn’t remember if he was the sauntering kind, but she thought that he might be.

‘Where is he?’ she asked Frederick the cat. ‘Do you think he’ll ever return here?’

Frederick glanced at her regally, then began licking his pristine grey coat. Victoria touched her shoulder where Frederick’s claws had dug into her when Harry had been there. The mark had gone, she had seen that morning as she had dressed; the final speck of dried blood had been brushed away to reveal brand-new skin. It was, quite simply, as though nothing had ever happened.

Suddenly alive with frustration, Victoria took one final look at the unmoving front door, burst out of the back of the shop and flew up the narrow stairs and along the landing to her mother’s bedroom. She swung the door open, stagnant air rushing from the room in a bid to escape.

‘Are you getting up today, Mum? I need to leave the shop. I need to go out somewhere.’

There was a murmur from the bed, from beneath the mound of knotted blankets and pillows.

‘Mum?’

It was quite normal for Victoria’s mother to spend days, sometimes weeks, in bed. Mrs Lace did not live, she slept. Sometimes, she would get dressed and float down to the shop, stinking of perfume, long strings of pearls rattling around her slender neck. But then Victoria’s father would storm home and shout something, or worse, smoulder silently and then push past them both. Silence meant the worst, because silence was normally followed by a storm. Storms were followed by the pearls being hung up in an upstairs cupboard, the perfume fading, and Victoria’s mother returning to her bed for a week or so.

‘I heard you, darling. I’ll be down later, perhaps.’

Victoria stood in the doorway of the bedroom. The air was heavy with sleep, with heavy breaths and dreams and sweat. Her mother’s bony body was motionless in the middle of the bed somewhere. Victoria gazed at the dressing table to her right, from which makeup and jewellery spilled. She wandered over and touched a lipstick. Her mother still did not move. Victoria picked the lipstick up, twisting the base to reveal a shock of pointed red wax. She stared at the lipstick for a moment before twisting it back down and replacing the lid with a quiet click. Clutching it, she turned around.

‘Be careful with that,’ she heard her mother murmur as Victoria left the room.

By the time Victoria had applied the lipstick and wiped away the smear that bled out from her top lip onto her pale skin, and put on her favourite yellow shoes, and transferred the small amount of money in the till to the locked cabinet in the kitchen, as she did every night, it was almost three o’clock. Victoria’s father was normally back home at around seven, after drinking in The Smuggler’s Ship.

Four hours was plenty.

She locked the shop door quietly, just in case the sound did make her mother get up out of bed. As she left Lace Antiques and stepped out onto Castle Street, Victoria stole a brief glance at her mother’s bedroom window upstairs. Her jittering heart stilled when greeted with unmoving curtains, behind which a sleepy darkness was promised.

From the rocky beach at the bottom end, Silenshore rose upwards in an uneven hill, to where the silvery-grey spires of the University rose into the clouds. Victoria could remember being tugged along by her mother on rare occasions when she was very small, up Castle Street, and perhaps into the butcher’s and the bakery and Boots the chemist. But every time they got near the top of the hill, where the fragrance of salt and sand faded and was replaced by the damp, dark scent of the old castle towering above them, her mother would grip Victoria’s hand so tightly that Victoria could feel their bones clicking against each other, and they would turn around to walk home in a mysterious silence. So Victoria had never, ever gone further than a third of the way up the hill, past the colourful, exotic window of Harper’s Dresses.

Until now.

The spring air was warm and as she walked briskly upwards, Victoria felt her clothes become damp with perspiration. She stopped for a moment and sat on a bench outside Harper’s. Fumbling with her handbag, she took out a mint and placed it on her tongue. She hadn’t been nervous before she’d left the shop, so where had the sudden shaking fingers, the shallow breaths come from?

She crunched down on the mint, and stood up, swallowing the glassy fragments as she neared the wide expanse of shadows cast down by the sprawling university. Now that she was getting closer to the imposing stone building, the looming, ghostly turrets that Victoria had gazed at so many times throughout her childhood were somehow less intimidating, and more elegant than Victoria had ever noticed. Arched windows glittered beneath them, the golden stone carved with intricate detail to frame the leaded glass.

Victoria followed the signs for the English department and, with short breaths and the image of Harry firmly before her eyes, picked up pace along the cobbles. Although the term was probably over, he might still be busy speaking to students or other lecturers. But as soon as he saw that Victoria was outside his office, he might dismiss them. They would pass her, whispering the rumours they had heard about Harry’s new love who had the name of a queen, who had raven-black hair and porcelain skin, that this must be her, that she was just like the girl everyone was talking about.

The English department was in a squat building that lacked the drama of the rest of the castle. That was a shame, Victoria thought as she stepped through the green swinging door. It would have been quite nice to have her romance begin in the mystical, shining castle, rather than a dreary hut that reminded her of her old school. When she reached the office with Harry’s name on the door, Victoria glanced behind her to check that nobody was watching, and pressed her fist quietly against the bright teak.

Nothing.

She leaned her head against the wood and listened hard. The faint rustling of papers came from within. He was in there, then. She knocked again, more of a rap this time: the knock of somebody who meant business. The sound of rustling was quickly replaced by the creak of a chair and two light footsteps. Then the door swung open.

His face was squarer than Victoria had remembered, but no less exquisite for it. His hair, which she had taken for black, was actually the dark brown of cocoa. He ran his hand through it and ruffled it slightly.

‘Victoria! What a nice surprise to see you here!’

‘I’m sorry to come uninvited.’

Harry frowned. ‘Not at all.’

‘It’s just that I was thinking about the Robert Bell talk. I wondered if you’d managed to get it arranged yet.’

Harry gazed at Victoria for a few more seconds. He ran his hand through his hair again, looked behind him into the untidy, square office that lay beyond the door, and then nodded.

‘Forgive me if I appear distracted. Seeing you just…I was very much in my own world before you came. But I have arranged the talk by Robert Bell,’ Harry continued. ‘It’s next week. I was going to come to the shop this weekend and tell you.’

Victoria looked back up at him. ‘Really?’

He smiled then, a generous, wide smile that took her back to the dream she’d had last night. It wasn’t so much a dream, more of an image that had endured in her mind for the whole night, of Harry taking her hand and smiling at her, again and again as she tossed around underneath her tangle of blankets.

‘Yes. I was looking forward to seeing you again. The talk is on Monday at four. If you get here a bit earlier, you’ll get a good seat.’

‘Then I will be here at half past three,’ Victoria said, feeling a strange excitement crackling in the air around them.

‘I’ll look forward to it.’ Harry looked for a few moments as though he wanted to say more, but then somebody came down the corridor, and Harry smiled once more, then disappeared back into his office, closing his door gently behind him.

On Monday night, Victoria’s father was travelling to London and staying overnight so that he could attend an auction in London on Tuesday. Normally, when he visited auctions, the time he was gone was filled with a crisp, brittle tension. If he was what he called winning at the auction, then a couple of days later he would return home drunk, buoyant, red-faced with alcoholic cheer. If he wasn’t winning, if some other sod had bought up the collection he wanted, the one that would make Lace Antiques get through another blasted winter, then he would crash home drunk, pale and angry. Sometimes, if she was up to it, Mrs Lace went with her husband to the auctions. She had her uses, being so beautiful. She could sometimes make the auctioneer overlook a nod or a tap on the opposite side of the room.

Tuesday’s auction in London was an important one, and Victoria’s mother found enough spirit in her to get out of bed, hang some beads around her neck that she said were lucky, pack her small, mint-green suitcase and disappear off with Victoria’s father.

‘We’ll see you tomorrow, darling,’ she said, disappearing through the shop’s front door in a cloud of Chanel No 5.

Victoria had already made the sign that she would put on the shop door whilst she was gone. She had sat crossed-legged on the floor in her bedroom when her parents had gone to bed the night before, writing in large black letters on a piece of card:

TAKEN ILL. PLEASE COME BACK TOMORROW.

She had been sick, she would tell her parents if they somehow found out the shop had been left closed this afternoon. She had suddenly been as sick as a dog, gone to bed for a few hours, but was much better now. Who could argue with that?

Now, she taped the sign to the glass on the front door, her fingers trembling a little with thrill at the thought of seeing Harry again.

The walk to the University was longer than Victoria had remembered, and her limbs were tight with anticipation by the time she arrived at the majestic iron gates. With a judder of nerves, she remembered that Harry hadn’t told her which room the talk was being held in. She looked at her watch. Ten past three. She was a little early, but Harry had told her to get a good seat and she simply couldn’t have waited any longer. She walked down the tree-lined driveway and looked around her, gazing at the high stone buildings and the squat little place where Harry’s office was, searching for some kind of clue as to where she should be. Perhaps Harry expected her to meet him in his office?

A group of girls went past, swinging their satchels from their shoulders confidently and chatting loudly about the dancing they had done the night before.

‘Excuse me?’ Victoria said. ‘Are you here for the Robert Bell talk?’

They continued on as though she hadn’t spoken, bags swinging, heels clicking. Apart from them, there was nobody else around.

Well, if nobody was going to speak to her, she had no choice but to just find Harry. The door to the English block clanged shut behind her as she peered down the corridor and saw that his office door was open this time. Quickening her pace, she reached Harry just as he was leaving his office and locking the door. He spun around, the white grin that melted Victoria’s insides broad on his face.

‘Victoria! I was just wondering if you’d arrive soon. You’re early, that’s good. You can come over with me and meet Robert, if you like.’

It was at this moment, a moment which should have been a pure beam of elation, that Victoria realised with a jolt that she’d forgotten her copy of The Blue Door. She could see it in her mind, lying under some papers on the counter at Lace Antiques. In fact, she hadn’t even picked up the book since the day that Harry had come in. How had she been so silly? She should have finished reading it and brought it with her for Robert Bell to sign. Now Harry would think that she didn’t appreciate meeting Robert. She looked up at Harry’s face, which was bright in expectation.

‘I’ve forgotten my copy of The Blue Door,’ Victoria blurted out.

Harry turned back to his door and rattled his key back into the lock. He emerged seconds later and held out a worn edition of the book.

‘Here you go. Have my copy. I wasn’t going to get it signed, so you might as well.’

Victoria took the book from Harry, aware that their fingers were going to meet, aware that tonight’s sleep would again be a blur of Harry’s face, his voice, his scent.

‘Thank you, Harry. I haven’t had a chance to finish it, but I-’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Mr Bell won’t mind at all, as long as you’re enjoying it?’

They were walking now, out of the low building and into the warm, green air of summer. The castle spread out before them, its pale-gold stone gleaming in the sun.

‘Oh, I am. At least, I was. I haven’t read for a while. I’ve not been able to concentrate,’ Victoria said. It was as though Harry pulled her thoughts from her like a magnet. She shouldn’t have told him that, should she? Sally always said that you should make boys work for you. You shouldn’t let on that you liked them quite as much as you did.

But as she glanced at Harry, his strides long, his emerald-green tie blowing slightly in the pleasant breeze, his jaw strong, his countenance confident of exactly where he was going, Victoria realised that what Sally said about boys bore absolutely no relation to Harry, because Harry was a man, and what was more, he was the man who Victoria was going to marry.

‘Ah,’ Harry said. ‘So who do you think has the missing girl?’

Victoria forced her mind to return from her daydreams and gathered her thoughts back to when she had last read some of The Blue Door. ‘I don’t know yet. I feel as though we’re meant to think the girl’s teacher has kidnapped her. But I don’t think that he has a house with blue doors in it. He lives in a small flat, doesn’t he? And the ransom note said that she was behind a blue door. The man who plays music on the street is rather strange, but I think he’s too much of an obvious choice.’

‘What do you make of the detective?’

‘Oh, I like him. He’s not very confident in himself, but I think he should be. I’m sure he’ll crack the mystery.’

‘Well, you try and beat him to it. I’m positive that you will. You’re clever enough,’ Harry said, as he pushed open a set of heavy double doors.

The room where the talk was to take place was not so much a room but a theatre. The worn red chairs ascended up from the wide expanse of stage and were all empty. Victoria imagined what it would be like to sit in the theatre and listen to lectures about books, writing and poetry. Why had it never occurred to her before that there was a life outside Lace Antiques? Sitting in these red chairs and listening to lectures about books would be nothing like the monotony of school. It would be a whole new exciting world.

‘He’s not here yet,’ Harry said. ‘Why don’t we sit down? He won’t be long.’

‘Did you always know you wanted to work here?’ Victoria asked him, settling into a red seat that was harder and less inviting than it looked.

‘Yes. I did, actually. I used to live at the top of the hill and look up at the spires of the castle from my bedroom window and wonder how I’d cope if I didn’t one day have something to do with it. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

Victoria nodded vigorously. ‘It’s very beautiful. I’ve always wanted to come here and my mother never let me. But whenever I’m walking up Castle Street and I see the castle it seems to want to pull me in somehow.’

Harry nodded. ‘I agree. I always felt rather the same. But the funny thing is, even though I got what I wanted, and I work here, I’m stuck in the ugliest block of the lot. No spires, no turrets, no nothing.’

Victoria laughed. ‘I’d noticed that. You should ask to be moved to the very top of the highest turret.’

‘I might!’ Harry laughed too, and Victoria fought the urge to touch him somehow, satisfying herself slightly by shuffling a little further towards him.

‘Have you worked here long?’ she asked.

‘Eight years. I studied English here and then a few years later I started as an assistant lecturer.’

‘Your dream came true,’ Victoria pointed out.

Harry gazed at Victoria for a few moments, something flickering across his features. ‘I suppose it did. Well, one of them did, at least.’

Victoria stared back at him, until they heard the heavy door of the lecture theatre swing open and the air in the room shifted with the presence of another person.

‘Ah. Here’s Robert,’ Harry said, touching Victoria’s hand and then standing up. ‘Let’s get started.’

Robert Bell was much shorter than Victoria had imagined him to be, with tufts of grey hair and a rather round belly. He smiled at Victoria and held out his hand to shake it. She took it, the new thrill of shaking hands with authors and sitting in lecture theatres flickering inside her like a candle.

‘Robert, this is Victoria Lace, one of your biggest fans,’ Harry said to Robert.

‘I’m reading The Blue Door at the moment,’ Victoria said, handing Harry’s copy of the book to Robert. ‘I haven’t finished it, I’m afraid, although I’m very much enjoying it. I was wondering if you’d sign it for me?’

‘Of course,’ said Robert, taking a pen from his breast pocket.

To Miss Lace

May your life be filled with dreams come true and blue doors opened.

Best wishes,

Robert Bell

Victoria read it and smiled at Robert. She thought of the sudden new feelings she had since she’d met Harry, the empty shop, the TAKEN ILL sign, her absent parents.

‘Thank you, Mr Bell. I hope so too.’

The lecture theatre began to fill up soon after Robert had signed Victoria’s book. Robert spoke quietly and the audience strained to hear his words. He talked about how he never, ever planned his books, how he wrote every day in his shed (even in the winter, he said) and how the characters became as important to him as his friends (some girls at the back sniggered at this).

‘You have to write about what you know,’ Robert said towards the end of his talk. ‘Or at least start with that. Write about the kind of people, places and feelings you know, and the rest will follow.’

Victoria gazed at Robert as he spoke. What did she know? The shop, her favourite novels, her sleeping mother and her angry father. That wasn’t enough. Her eyes drifted over to Harry and lingered on him for a while. What would it be like to know him: to know him properly? What would it be like to know how his skin smelt when he first woke up, and how his hair felt beneath her fingertips, and how his voice changed when he was frustrated, or excited, or sad? Her blood fizzed and tingled beneath her skin as she watched him. A daydream began to cloud her mind, where she lived with Harry and could touch him and talk to him whenever she wanted. The daydream flickered before her eyes, beautiful and inspiring, gently lulling her along to the dulcet melody of Robert Bell’s voice.

When the talk had finished, and Robert had answered a smattering of questions, the theatre slowly emptied, the prospective students numb and silent after an hour of being talked at. Robert spoke briefly to Harry and appearing to be relieved to take up his notes, waved at Victoria and left the room.

The theatre was now empty except for Victoria and Harry. They were back where they had started.

‘Thank you for letting me have your book signed,’ Victoria said as she stood and wandered over to the stage. ‘Perhaps I could bring you my copy instead? And then it’ll have been a straight swap.’

‘I’d like that. So, what did you think of Robert Bell?’

‘I thought he was wonderful. I want to be a writer too.’

‘What do you want to write?’

‘I want to write mysteries, like he does. Nobody would expect me to write mysteries. I’d like to surprise everyone.’

‘Well, remember where you started, won’t you. When you’re a famous mystery author, remember who introduced you to your muse.’

Victoria nodded and stared up at Harry so hard, so intently, that she ached.

‘I’m quite sorry that the talk is over. It feels so very flat going back home after that,’ she admitted.

Harry looked at his watch. ‘Would you like to get a drink?’ he asked after a few seconds. ‘I’d quite like some fresh air and a walk, if you’d like to join me.’