Читать книгу Blood Will Out - Jill Downie - Страница 9

It was coming along well. Hugo Shawcross leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands. Beyond the study window, he could see the chestnut trees on his neighbour’s property growing darker by the minute as the sun set. He must go out soon and call Stoker in, or he’d get into a fight to the death with Mudge, the small and surprisingly aggressive tortoiseshell female that lived two houses away. Fortunately, Stoker’s life was ruled by greed rather than the need to assert his neutered-male superiority, and he could be relied on to leave the fray and return to his tidbit-carrying master.

Hugo saved the last speech he had composed, and contemplated it before turning off his laptop.

You have the dark gift. But this must be our secret. You must tell no one, do you hear me? No one. (Fade to black.)

Good. A strong ending to Act One. He already knew who he wanted to have as his Lilith, and that the difficulty would not be persuading her, but her family. Her mother reminded Hugo of Stoker’s multicoloured bête noire, a small and surprisingly aggressive female whose genteel roots gave her an unshakeable belief in her own importance.

Carey, De Saumarez, Brock, Gastineau. The ancient aristocracy of Guernsey. Les Messux, as they had once been known. Of course, as Noel Coward had so inimitably put it, their stately homes were frequently mortgaged to the hilt, which had rather taken the gilt off the gingerbread. Or they didn’t belong to them anymore, and had become hotels, or were broken up into elegant and desirable flats, which was the case for Mrs. Elton Maxwell, née Marie Gastineau. Island gossip said that Elton Maxwell had wooed and won Marie by making her an offer she couldn’t refuse: the saving of her St. Peter Port family home. They now lived in one of the luxe apartments of the Gastineaus’ former Georgian home on the Grange.

Hugo padded into the hall, removed his slippers and pulled on his boots. It could be quite wet at the back of the garden, and he hoped to find some mushrooms there, as he had before. He looked briefly in the hall mirror at his reflection with a tingle of satisfaction. Not bad for a man of his age, he thought. His occupation was sedentary, but the treadmill in his bedroom took care of that, and his nicely barbered beard conveniently hid the jowls that were beginning to form as he moved through his middle years. He must do something soon about replacing the weights he had left behind in his rather hasty departure from the mainland. His hair was thinning at the front now, but was still thick enough at the back to be worn on the long side, implying an artistic nature. He smiled at himself, then frowned.

“Bloody idiot,” he told his reflection.

He shouldn’t have done it, but he couldn’t resist the temptation. Suggesting to Marie Maxwell that she could be the target of his undead affections had been foolish of him. If indeed he had any vampiric lusts, he would not have wasted his nightly visits on the undelicious Marie, but on her far more delectable daughter, Marla. Besides, from his research it seemed that vampires preferred virgins. Not that Marla Maxwell was the least bit virginal, exuding a sexuality so strong that the few young men who belonged to the group were in lust with her, rather more than with the theatre. Oh yes, the perfect Lilith.

Hugo went into the kitchen and selected a handful of fish-shaped morsels from a packet, then went to the back door, walked down the gravel path and started calling Stoker’s name. As he did so, he heard a voice calling back from the garden beyond the chestnut trees.

“He’s over here. Will he let me pick him up?”

Ah, his slightly standoffish neighbour with the pretty name. Elodie. A pretty name for a pretty woman.

“Not unless you are carrying food. Don’t worry. I am, so he’s likely to head in my direction.”

There was a scuffling noise in the undergrowth, and Stoker appeared. Hugo picked him up and started back towards his house, calling “thank you” over his shoulder. To his surprise, he heard his neighbour say, “I am a member of the Island Players. Is it true you’re writing something to open the new season?”

“Yes. Just let me put Stoker in the house, and I’ll be back.”

Hugo scampered back along the path, dropped Stoker unceremoniously inside the door, threw in a handful of fishy nibbles after him, and returned to the low fence near the chestnut trees. Elodie Ashton was standing there, holding a small basket.

“I was mushroom-hunting,” she said, “and your cat joined me. But I don’t think mushrooms are his thing.”

“No, but they are mine. I was hoping to find some on my side. I have, before, and they’re very good.”

“As long as you know what you’re doing,” said his neighbour, and then added, “I’d love to hear about your play. Forgive me for not doing the neighbourly thing when you moved in, but I had a deadline. Now that’s done, would you like to come over for a drink and tell me something about it?”

Would he like to? Elodie Ashton, so he was told by Brenda Le Huray, came from an old island family and knew everyone who was anyone. An ally on the Island Players would be a real stroke of luck.

“Love to! Just give me a moment to get out of these boots, and I’ll join you.” Hugo started to turn back to the house.

“Tell you what,” said his now far from standoffish neighbour, “I’ve found some nice mushrooms over here, and I can see some beauties on your side. Why don’t you pick them, bring them over and join me for dinner? They’ll go very well with lamb shanks — or are you a vegetarian?”

“God no! Far from it! The bloodier the better!”

For a moment Elodie Ashton seemed startled by his facetious response, then she laughed. “Lamb shanks aren’t bloody, of course.”

“Just a figure of speech. I’ll pick the mushrooms and join you in about an hour?”

“Perfect.”

A shaft of sunlight sliced across the path and through the trees, making Elodie Ashton’s red hair burst into flame.

More than perfect, he thought, as he hastened back to his house. Lamb shanks, and a pretty woman who was an island insider! Marvellous. No. Bloody miraculous.

They had needed the air-conditioning at the Beau Sejour Centre that summer, which had been hot and dry, right into September. Liz finished her exercise routine and made for the showers. Dinner with Elodie meant using the showers there, rather than waiting until she got home, her usual pattern.

As she got into the change room, Marla Maxwell was coming out of one of the shower stalls, towelling her hair and singing. Liz didn’t recognize the song, but certainly the singer could have lured any red-blooded male onto the Pea Stacks in a matter of seconds, and he would have died happy. Trouble on two nicely muscled legs, thought Liz, as the girl surveyed herself with unabashed approval in one of the long mirrors. She was tanned without tan lines, which suggested frequent use of a tanning bed. When she saw Liz’s reflection in the mirror, she turned round and fixed two startlingly blue eyes on her.

“Hiya. You’re Detective Sergeant Falla, aren’t you.”

“And you’re Marla Maxwell. Hi.”

Liz was about to pull off her sweater when Marla Maxwell said, “I’ve got a problem. Can I talk to you?” The self-satisfaction was gone, and the girl now looked worried, a frown wrinkling her pristine forehead. Liz pulled her sweater back on.

“You can, but this is not the ideal place. Why don’t you come and see me at the office? I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t want to be seen at the police station, because someone will tell my mother. Why not now? No one’s around.”

Marla began to put on some clothes, which Liz found helpful. Although, God help her, she only fancied men, a naked Marla did nothing to establish a professional atmosphere in this already unbusinesslike setting.

“Okay. What’s bothering you?” Resigned to her fate, Liz sat down on the bench in front of the lockers. Marla Maxwell threw her towel into her gym bag and started to tie her damp hair into a ponytail.

“Not what. Who. I’m being harassed.”

“That’s serious and we can help you. Who is doing this?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. I’m getting these weird text messages, and they’re not from the people who they say they’re from. And someone’s following me, I’m sure of it.” Marla’s low dramatic tones began to sound like something from one of the daytime soaps.

“That’s all a bit garbled, Marla.” Liz took the padlock off her locker and started to take out her belongings. “If these things are happening, surely your parents should be the first to know.”

“No!” Marla Maxwell sounded as if she was about to burst into tears. “Because then they’d know about …and I’ll be sent to my horrid old aunt on the mainland, and if you say anything to them I’ll deny everything!” The soap opera tone had returned.

“Marla, you still live at home, don’t you? And your parents are friends of the chief officer’s. I’d have to tell them.”

“That’s why I wanted to tell you here, not at the police station.”

At this point, two women came in, chattering away, and Marla picked up her gym bag and ran past them, bumping into them in her hurry.

On her way back to Elodie and lamb shanks, Liz mulled over her change room encounter. Overly dramatic as the girl had sounded, there clearly was something bothering her, or why would she voluntarily open up a can of worms with a member of the police force? And a can of worms it was, since she was afraid of her parents finding out whatever it was she was doing — and it was easy enough to guess what that was. Sex, yes, and probably involving some youth the Gastineaus would consider undesirable. Or, rather, unacceptable.

It was a short drive to Elodie’s cottage, but by the time she got there she had decided there was nothing she could do unless the girl laid a formal complaint. She could only guess at Marla Maxwell’s age, but she suspected she was younger than she looked, still in her teens. Certainly she talked like a fifteen-year-old. She sighed, remembering herself at that age, hormones a-bubble, one minute melancholy and the next over the moon, secretive and sociable, a mass of contradictions. Come to think of it, had she really changed that much?

She was laughing as she drove up the gravel driveway alongside Elodie’s cottage, but her laughter died when she realized she had forgotten to pick up a bottle of red, as she had intended. Thinking about Marla Maxwell’s problems had driven it clean out of her mind. Ah well. Liz got out of her car, locked it, went up and knocked on the door before letting herself in. As she did so, she heard voices, Elodie’s voice, and that of a man. The scent of something delectable hung in the air. Not lamb shanks. It smelled like mushrooms cooking.

“Liz! Come on through! Into the kitchen!”

She walked into a scene of cosy domesticity. At the kitchen table, her aunt was slicing up a baguette and, at the stove stood a small, bearded man in a striped apron cooking — yes — mushrooms.

Gandalf.

As she came in, he turned around. He was not looking particularly pleased at the intrusion.

“Liz, let me introduce my neighbour, Hugo Shawcross, who will be joining us for dinner. Hugo, this is my niece, Liz.”

Gandalf nodded, managed a smile, said hello, then turned hastily back to his mushrooms. As he did so, Elodie mouthed something at Liz, shaking her head slightly. It looked as if she was saying, “Only Liz.”

Ah, no job description.

Before Liz could make any response, Elodie said, with cheerful animation, “Hugo and I have been having the most fascinating conversation.” She brandished the breadknife in the air like a cheerleader waving her pompoms. “Sit down, pour yourself a glass of wine.”

“About —?”

“About vampires,” she said. There was just a touch of hysteria in her voice, which seemed to Liz to be more about a wild desire to laugh, than fear. “Hugo can tell you all you might ever want to know about them.”

Gandalf turned away from his pan of mushrooms, and chuckled. “The undead,” he said, and held up his glass of wine, which stood close to the stove. From the colour of his cheeks, it was far from being his first, and he looked not in the least vampire-like. “Here’s to the undead,” he repeated.

Almost exactly an hour after their across-the-garden-fence conversation, Hugo Shawcross had arrived at Elodie’s front door carrying a very nice bottle of wine, a paper bag of mushrooms, and a buff-coloured folder. The trouble-making play, presumably, thought Elodie as she let him in, although it was not at all certain if he knew he was in Mrs. Maxwell’s bad books. They exchanged the usual pleasantries, thank-yous for the invitation and the wine, idle chatter about mushrooms, appreciative comments from Hugo about Elodie’s cottage, and an offer to do the mushroom-cooking.

“Lovely. I’ve already put out a suitable pan, and I’ll make garlic bread — if you like garlic bread?”

“Love it.”

“So,” said Elodie, vigorously mashing crushed garlic cloves into the softened butter, “tell me about your play. I hear the subject matter is somewhat controversial?”

Hugo helped himself to a blue-and-white striped apron from a peg by the stove and put it over his immaculate white shirt. “Some have found it so, and, unfortunately, the some in this case is a Mrs. Maxwell, who has clout in the group.”

So he knew that much. “Not just in the group, Hugo. She is island aristocracy.”

“I know, and that’s the other thing. I am, naturally, interested in the ancient Guernsey families — she’s a Gastineau, isn’t she? — but when I started asking questions about her family history she seemed quite put out, I can’t think why.”

“Not a good person to get on the wrong side of. You said ‘the other thing.’ What else is she upset about?”

Hugo stopped cleaning the mushrooms, and banged his fist on the wooden table. “It’s my own fault,” he said. “She got up my nose with her hoity-toityness and I made a stupid joke. The play, you see, involves vampires, and the Players are hopeful it will bring in a new, younger audience. She objected, and I — laughingly — claimed to have the inside track on vampires, because I am one.”

“Gracious!” Elodie waited, but Hugo didn’t go on to his neck-biting threat. “I wonder why she was so upset about vampires? It seems to me they are everywhere nowadays — in the entertainment world, I mean, and besides,” she added, “you’re not, are you?” She laughed and held up a clove of garlic, and Hugo playfully shrank away from her in jest. Hopefully in jest.

“Interestingly enough, they don’t play a significant part in Guernsey folklore. Werewolves, yes, but no vampires. Of course, that could be why, because the werewolf is the sworn enemy of the vampire. But you’re right. They are everywhere.”

“Literally?”

The most troubling thing about Gandalf, thought Elodie, is that he is absolutely straight-faced about this stuff.

“Who knows. But he, or she, is an archetype, and we humans love archetypes. And we all know people who feed off the emotional energy of others.” Hugo reached for the bottle of olive oil on the table and added some to the pan, which was already heating. He tossed the prepared mushrooms into the pan on the stove, then spread them out carefully. Faintly, they began to splutter. “But there is one overwhelming truth about vampires that has the Mrs. Maxwells of this world up in arms.” Hugo poured himself another glass of wine and took a good swig.

“And that is —?”

“Sex. The vampire, above all, is an erotic metaphor. The vampire, Elodie, is always about sex.”

Hugo Shawcross turned and fixed a piercing gaze on Elodie. Just at that moment, mercifully, she heard the sound of Liz’s Figaro in the driveway.

They sat around the kitchen table to eat, and the meal was delicious. Liz was starving, so she ate and watched Hugo Shawcross, allowing her aunt to do the questioning. All she had to do was listen, and the wine had loosened Hugo’s tongue, which probably didn’t require much loosening in the first place.

“Are you a vampirologist? I believe that’s what they’re called — people who study the phenomenon?”

“Well, that is part of the project I am involved with right now, so maybe I am!” Hugo chuckled through a mouthful of garlic bread, and helped himself to more. “I was originally a university lecturer with a particular interest in European folklore, and I was able to devote myself to it after I took early retirement. I am now working with a group of researchers on a project dear to my heart.”

Liz allowed herself a question. “About vampires?” she asked. It was all she asked, but Hugo Shawcross gave her an impatient glance as if she had interrupted some private moment, and turned back to Elodie.

“Have you heard of the Malleus Maleficarum?” Without waiting for a response, he continued, “Not many have, so let me explain. It is a fifteenth-century Latin text on the hunting of witches. In English, the title means ‘The Hammer of Witches.’ At one time, there was much heated discussion in the Catholic Church about its validity as a part of Catholic doctrine, but the twentieth century more or less threw it out the stained glass window.” He chortled at his little bon mot. “We, a group of us, feel it’s time to take another look at it.”

Elodie got up, took Hugo’s plate back to the stove for another helping of lamb. His back was to her and, above his head, she threw a glance at Liz and grimaced. “Sorry, Hugo, if I’m being a bit slow here, but does this book have anything to do with vampires?” She brought the plate back to the table and placed it in front of him, then reached out for Liz’s plate.

“It’s okay, El. I’ll get my own, thanks. This is just delicious.”

Cutting into her remark, Hugo went on. “Not directly, but the man who first translated it from the Latin was indeed a vampirologist. His name was Montague Summers. A much misunderstood man, in my opinion. I became interested in him, and thus interested in vampires.”

“Hence the subject matter of the play.”

“Oh yes! The perfect topic to bring in a younger audience, and to recruit new talent to the group. A dramatic theme.” Hugo wiped a piece of bread around the last juices on his plate.

“A melodramatic theme.”

Standing behind him, Liz could not see the expression on Hugo Shawcross’s face at her observation, but she saw Elodie’s eyes widen. She picked up her plate and walked back to her seat. As she passed him, he grasped her arm, nearly knocking the plate out of her hands.

“Wrong, little lady, wrong. Serious theatre. I will not allow it to be played any other way.”

Looking down into his eyes, Liz saw malevolence — or was she now being melodramatic? She pulled her arm away.

“Sorry I spoke.” She resumed her seat and her meal as if nothing much had happened.

“But there is the chance nothing will come of this, because of Mrs. Maxwell’s opposition.” Elodie poured herself the last of the wine from the bottle on the table. She could hear the wind getting up and starting a gentle moaning in the chimney, the defruited elderberry tap-tapping against the kitchen door. They were usually familiar, soothing sounds, but the conversation around the kitchen table gave them a disturbing quality.

“Exactly. I think I played my cards wrong there. Any advice as to how I can appease the lady?”

“Yes.” Elodie got up and started clearing the dishes. “Write a part for her she cannot bear to refuse. There are always more women than men in community theatre, and more competition for roles. Is there a good role for her in the play?”

She laughed, and removed the empty wine bottle from the table. Hugo had demolished most of it, also the first, and was now at the stage where his tongue was having difficulties shaping itself around his words. He was looking thoughtful.

“Not yet, but I haven’t started Act Two. “ His face lit up. “But I have the perfect role for her daughter!”

Liz, who was beginning to wonder when she could take her departure, but also whether she should leave her aunt with this weirdo who clearly wanted nothing more than to be left on his own with her, started to pay attention.

“Marla Maxwell?” Elodie asked. “Stunning girl, and quite a handful, from what I hear. Marie Maxwell might be very happy to have her occupied where she can keep an eye on her. Coffee?”

Liz settled back in her chair.

“Wonderful!” Hugo Shawcross slumped back in his seat, rocking his chair perilously as he stretched his arms over his head. “Mama can be good, and the daughter can be ba-a-ad!” It came out as a bleating noise, sheeplike rather than sexy, which from the glance he gave Elodie was what was intended.

“And what is this perfect role?” Elodie began loading the dishwasher as the coffee brewed. Her guest swivelled his chair around to face her.

“Lilith,” he said, with some difficulty. “Lilith, the greatest demoness of them all. Lilith!”

“Ah, Lilith.” Liz’s clear, resonant singer’s voice floated over the heads of Elodie and Hugo Shawcross. “Just about the oldest-known demon in folklore.”

Always nice to turn heads, thought Liz, and both Elodie and Hugo were now staring at her in surprise. She had her audience, so the little lady decided to hold forth.

“Of course, that is how men want to see her, as the betrayer of Adam left on his ownsome in the Garden of Eden, the baby-blood-sucking killer, seducer of men with her voracious sexual appetite, draining them dry. I think she got fed up with Adam pushing her around and got out from under. If you’ll pardon the expression. I think she’s great. In the gym change room I just chatted with Marla, fresh from the shower and in the altogether, and she’ll fit the bill perfectly.”

Liz smiled serenely and waited for a response. It came.

“Feminist claptrap.” Hugo Shawcross got up from his chair with some difficulty. His voice was shaking, with anger or red wine, or both. “In Sumerian mythology —”

“I thought that was now disputed.” Liz got up and went across to where Elodie was standing, holding the cafetière in stunned silence. She poured herself a cup of coffee, handed the pot back to Elodie and returned to her seat. “And after you’ve had great sex with an archangel, I doubt you’d want to go back to a mere mortal. I wouldn’t.”

“Coffee, Hugo?” The banality of Elodie’s query landed on deaf ears. Hugo was weaving his way to the back door, stopping en route to pick up his play-script.

Liz got up and followed him. Given Mrs. Maxwell’s enquiry and her recent conversation with Marla, it might be as well to make her peace with Hugo Shawcross. “I think a play about vampires will be a huge hit for the Island Players. Sorry I went on like that, but in my job you tend to question things all the time.”

“You are an academic?” Hugo looked as if, suddenly, this explained everything.

“No, far from it.” Liz laughed. “I’m a detective sergeant — I’m in the police force.”

At her words, Hugo Shawcross seemed to sober up instantly. “The police force,” he repeated. He mumbled a few words of thanks at Elodie, who rushed to open the door for him as he fumbled with the latch. On the threshold, he turned and said, “Not all about sex, vampirism, not all about sex.” He pointed a quivering finger past her in Liz’s direction. “In the end, in the beginning, it’s always about the blood.”

Behind him, an owl hooted with melodramatic timing.

“Was it something I said?” Liz was laughing.

“Where in the name of — Lucifer? — did all that come from?” Elodie sat down on the sofa in her little sitting-room, and surveyed her niece.

Liz held out the bottle of cognac Elodie had been planning to offer with the coffee. “Gandalf drank most of the wine, so I think I can risk a little of this in my coffee. Can I pour you some, El?”

“Please. No coffee for me. Are you taking some sort of university correspondence course in demonology?”

“God, no! I’m as ignorant as I ever was. Have you heard of Lilith Fair?”

“Can’t say as I have. Enlighten me.”

Liz poured them both cognac, came and sat down opposite Elodie. “It happened in the nineties, an all-female concert series, started by a singer I like — a Canadian called Sarah McLachlan. There’s a song of hers I came across when I was getting over — someone — so I looked it up, and got interested. But it was really about the music, nothing else. Shawcross said ‘it’s always about the blood,’ didn’t he. Outside of my job, for me it’s always about the music.”

“Apart from your — what did he call it? — your feminist claptrap, he seemed just as disturbed by that job of yours,” said Elodie.

“Didn’t he, though? Did he say anything before I came that might be useful?”

“It’s more what he didn’t say. He told me about his claim to be a vampire, but he didn’t mention his threat. Other than that, there was just the fact that he quizzed Marie Maxwell about the Gastineau family history and she clammed up. Or so he said.”

“Could just be he’s nosy, and Mrs. Maxwell pushed him away. Wasn’t there an old saying? The Brocks speak to the De Saumarez, the De Saumarez speak to the Careys, the Careys speak to the Gastineaus, but the Gastineaus speak only to God? That certainly doesn’t include the undead.”

“Speaking of the Gastineaus and God,” said Elodie, “I did just that earlier this evening.”

“You spoke to God?” Liz looked inquiringly at her godmother, whose religious scepticism was a source of some discomfort among certain family members.

“Almost. I spoke to a Gastineau, Marie actually, and put the cat among the theatrical pigeons. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“I’ll look forward to hearing about it, but I should make a move now.” Liz uncurled her legs from under her and started to get up.

“Stay and let that brandy go down a bit longer,” said Elodie. “Let’s talk of other things, anything else but vampires and demons. And blood. What was the song you liked? That had you researching Lilith?”

“It’s called ‘I will remember you.’” Liz grinned. “And you know what? I didn’t.”

After Liz had gone, Elodie went to her office and switched on her computer. “I don’t remember,” she said out loud at the screen. “I don’t remember.” She typed in “Lilith,” and sat there into the small hours. When she finally went to bed, it was the reproduction of a painting that stayed in her head, of Lilith naked, tossing her long mane of hair, a snake wound around her legs, one of its massive coils hiding her pudenda.

Sex and blood. Sex and blood. The three words drummed over and over in her head until, finally, sleep came.