House of Shadows (24 page)

H
olly was late for choir practice that night. She had come back from Marlborough buzzing with questions about Lavinia and her daughter, questions that were destined to be unanswered unless she could find a genealogist to help her trace Kitty Flyte’s ancestry. There had been no mention of Kitty in the official biographies of Lavinia that she had downloaded, and certainly no references to a child in the erotic romps of the published version. The name Flyte was quite unusual, but she was facing the possibility that Kitty might be no connection to Lavinia at all. It was just that she had been so sure, with a deep instinct that could not be explained but felt rock solid.

There was, of course, Lavinia’s diary, which might hold more clues to both Kitty and also the mirror and the pearl. Holly was very aware that normally she would have gobbled the book up long before now, but she had come to a point where she did not want it to end. She felt an ache
inside when she thought about it finishing. Not only was it a link to Ben but it also felt like a connection to Lavinia across two hundred years and she did not want to lose that.

She let herself into the church through the vestry door, and stood for a moment in the cool before going into the nave, squeezing past the altos, and sliding into the spare seat on the pew beside Mavis Barker. Mavis had been in the church choir when Holly had been a child and she was still going strong. The choir itself had changed though. There was a wider age range and a wider repertoire as well.

David Byers, the irascible choirmaster, gave Holly an impatient nod as she took her seat. The choir was in the middle of a medley of film music. Enthusiastic was probably the best way to describe the singing, Holly thought, but as she was as rusty as the next person she was in no position to criticise.

The music ran ragged and David cut them off with a chopping motion of his hand. A sigh ran through the choir, the sheet music fluttered.

‘Basses, you’re a quaver out again. We’ll come back to that later. Let’s try “Any Dream Will Do”. Mark – from the top, if you don’t mind …’

Holly looked up sharply. She had known Mark would be here – Fran had told her that she had persuaded just about everyone she knew to join the choir regardless of whether they were tone deaf or not – but she had not seen him when she came in. Now she picked him out in the seats opposite, next to Fran’s husband, Iain.

Fran leant forwards and dug her in the ribs with her song-book.
‘Wait until you hear Mark sing the solo, Holly. He has the most amazing voice—’

David Byers silenced her with one of his fierce looks and the pianist started again. Mark’s tenor voice was the most sublime thing that Holly had heard in years. It wrapped around her, raising the tiny hairs on the back of her neck, setting her shivering. Beside her in the choir stalls, Mavis rustled the wrapping of her packet of Parma violets and leant forwards to offer Holly a sweet. She shook her head slightly, smiling.

Holly fixed her gaze on the shadowy arches leading down the nave. The air in the church smelled of warm dust mixed with the faint, cool perfume of lilies, and the light hung in a pale curtain between the stone pillars. Outside the sun had gone and the sky was fading to an ominous grey.

She missed the soprano cue and cursed herself. David’s stern black gaze swept over, noting the mistake. Holly tried not to giggle hysterically. It was just like being back at school. It was a good job Fran was sitting behind her and they could not see each other.

The notes curled, entwined. Mark might have a stunning solo voice, but he was able to mingle in with the rest of the choir when required. Holly glanced at him again and saw with a curious twist of the heart that he was watching her. He smiled at her. She felt flustered, as though the air between them was alive. With an effort she broke the contact, snapped the invisible thread between them. She looked down at her sheet music, although she knew the song by heart.

‘Let’s try something else,’ David said irritably, when someone’s mobile chirruped the theme of
Hawaii Five-O
and the choir dissolved into laughter. ‘Page twenty three – “Begin the Beguine”. One for the oldies amongst us.’

They worked their way creditably through another four songs and finished just before nine o’clock.

‘How great was that!’ Fran enthused, threading her arm through Holly’s. ‘I bet you’re glad you’re back, aren’t you? Are you coming to the pub?’

The after choir practice pub visit had been something of a tradition too, although at the age of nine Holly had been excluded from such adult mysteries. She glanced instinctively across the aisle to where Mark was chatting with Iain and Greg.

‘Mark doesn’t mind if we all go off and pickle ourselves in alcohol,’ Fran said cheerfully, following her gaze. ‘He goes home for a cup of cocoa.’

‘How decadent,’ Holly said. ‘I won’t tonight, Fran, thanks. I’ve got an early start tomorrow. I’m due in Bristol at nine to talk to a big retailer about a contract.’

‘Okay.’ Fran might be tactless but she was hard to offend. ‘Hey, good luck! That would be fantastic.’

A thought struck Holly. ‘Are any of the Craven or Evershot family graves here?’

‘Graves?’ Fran said.

‘It is a church,’ Holly pointed out.

‘Most of the family are buried at the church on the family estate outside Coventry.’ Iain had come up and slid an arm about Fran’s waist. He was big, broad, and fair-haired, dwarfing Fran’s shorter figure. Holly had always imagined
him as being in the style of the intrepid archaeologists who had journeyed to Egypt and beyond in the Edwardian era. There was an air of adventure about him even if he actually spent his time in Oxfordshire.

‘The only thing here is the Craven memorial chapel,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit dowdy and unexciting.’

‘I’d still like to take a look at it,’ Holly said.

‘Leave it until daylight,’ Iain advised. ‘You can’t see much in this half-light.’

The church was emptying fast now. Mark had disappeared. Holly knew she should be going too. It looked darker than it should have done out in the twilight and she had a mile to walk.

Nevertheless she lingered as the silence fell and someone switched off the lights in the nave and she was left in the half-darkness of the aisle. Here there were tombs of stone; not Evershot monuments, but their predecessors as Lords of the Manor, perhaps. The light was too dim for Holly to read the inscriptions. And here was the little Lady Chapel dedicated to the First Earl of Craven, Elizabeth’s earl, with marble plaques and decorated hassocks and a window depicting him in full armour. He was mounted on a white charger against a background of what looked like burning buildings, his sword clasped in one hand and a cross in the other. The last light caught the stained glass of the cross, pouring a rosy glow across the stone flags of the floor like spilt wine.

Something moved behind Holly and she almost jumped out of her skin.

‘Jesus!’

‘Hardly.’ Mark’s voice was dry. ‘Are you always this nervous?’

‘I’m afraid of the dark,’ Holly said truthfully. ‘I thought you’d gone,’ she added, aware as soon as she said it that fear had loosened her tongue and made her give away more than she had intended.

Mark smiled. ‘I thought you had too. I’m glad both of us were wrong.’ He gestured to the chapel. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘Oh, just immersing myself in Craven history,’ Holly said lightly. ‘I think I’m becoming a bit obsessed.’ She pointed to the stained glass window. ‘Why the burning buildings?’ she asked.

‘I think it’s meant to depict the Great Fire of London in 1666,’ Mark said. ‘The First Earl of Craven helped to put it out. When many other aristocrats were fleeing the city he stayed.’

‘What a hero,’ Holly said. She stared at the portrait in the glass. It was in a very Victorian style, now she looked closely. The Earl looked noble and austere, his long hair flowing, his sword clasped with grim resolve. The horse looked equally determined, just waiting for the word to gallop towards the flames.

‘Speaking of heroes,’ Mark said, ‘I’ve been trying to find a record of Robert Verity. He’s in the army record for the last decade of the eighteenth century. He served in Portugal and as I suspected, he was one of the officers mapping the country for the Ordnance Survey. He disappears from the record in 1801.’

‘Disappears?’ Holly said. A cold breeze had edged a shiver
down her spine. ‘You mean he left the army – resigned his commission?’

‘No,’ Mark said. ‘There are no further mentions of him after early 1801, not in the censuses or any other documents. It’s very odd, as though he vanished into thin air, but I’ll keep searching.’

Vanished like Ben,
Holly thought, and felt a trickle of cold fear.

There was the creak of the church door opening and the sound of footsteps on stone, then Paula’s voice, sharply from the shadows:

‘Mark? Are you there? Do you want a lift home? It’s going to rain.’

Mark’s hand tightened on Holly’s arm, warning in his touch now. They both kept motionless, no sound but the faintest breath.

‘Mark!’ Paula sounded shriller now. ‘Stop taking the piss. This place is giving me the creeps, all these tombs and dead bodies …’ There was a long moment and then Paula said something very short and rude under her breath before stomping off. The door slammed shut with what felt like a definite flounce.

There was a pause, the silence suddenly alive with awareness.

‘That was very childish of us,’ Holly breathed. ‘We could just have said no thank you. Though I doubt Paula would have wanted to offer me a lift anyway,’ she added.

‘She’s got a sports car,’ Mark said. ‘There’s only room for one.’ Holly heard him sigh. ‘Sorry. I know it was immature. I just get tired of blowing her out all the time. I don’t want
to hurt her feelings but I’m really not interested. Anyway, let’s go.’

‘Yes, let’s,’ Holly said abruptly. All the blank-eyed tomb effigies seemed to be watching her. Paula had been right; it was definitely creepy. She could imagine the tombs opening and the skeletons spilling out in a
danse macabre.
It would make a vivid piece of engraving though perhaps too sinister to appeal to any buyers.

The night felt different when they went outside. The sunset had gone, obscured behind a bank of cloud that was rolling over the top of the hill and piling darkness upon darkness. Lightning flickered along its western edge. The air felt heavy. Wind stirred.

‘It is going to rain,’ Holly said. ‘Paula was right.’

Mark checked the sky. ‘We might get back before it starts,’ he said. He led the way around the graveyard, the humps of the graves and their tumbled stones now lost in blackness, and started up the path to the Ridgeway.

‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed that the path leads straight to the south door of the church,’ he said. ‘It was the way the Evershots used to walk to church from Ashdown Park. Door to door.’

‘I’m surprised that they didn’t take a carriage,’ Holly said. ‘Surely they should have impressed the villagers by arriving at church in style?’

‘They were a keen sporting family, by all accounts,’ Mark said. ‘Perhaps they rode.’

‘It must be great to ride around here,’ Holly said. ‘You’d see the landscape from a very different perspective. Good for a surveyor,’ she added, when he glanced at her.

‘It is,’ Mark said. He smiled his sudden, warm smile. ‘You’re a very thoughtful person, Holly Ansell. And a very nice one,’ he added. ‘I can see why Bonnie likes you so much.’

‘Oh, dogs have the most terrible judgement,’ Holly said lightly. ‘Look at the way she fawns over you.’

Mark laughed. ‘Carol always used to say that. Her parents had a German Shepherd that barely gave her the time of day but was always following me around. It was embarrassing. I think that dog missed me more than the rest of the family when we divorced.’

‘How long ago did you split up?’ Holly asked. The path had started to climb quite steeply now and she could feel her breath coming shorter.

‘Four years,’ Mark said. ‘Carol went to New Zealand. She’s got a new partner now. She’s happy.’

‘And you?’ Holly asked.

Mark’s gaze came back to her. ‘I do all right. It’s true I’ve avoided relationships recently. I’ve been focussing on the business. It needs a lot of investment in time and energy at the moment.’

‘It always seems more acceptable for a man to say that than a woman,’ Holly said. ‘I’ve had endless comments about putting my engraving career before marriage and kids.’

‘Yet you were engaged,’ Mark said.

Holly laughed. ‘That’s why it’s an ex-engagement. Trying to join my life with someone else’s was a mistake. I’m not really cut out for it. Too independent.’

The thunder was rumbling nearer now. The edge of the
wood pressed close, a ragged ribbon of dancing trees as the wind rose. The first drops of rain were starting to patter down.

‘Is it really about independence?’ Mark said. ‘Or is it about not taking risks?’ Then, when Holly did not answer: ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think about what happened between us the night after Ben went missing. I get that you were upset. That’s totally natural. But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there, Holly? You were trying to deal with something that was even more difficult to handle, something you were running away from. So you turned to me to escape.’