Kingdom of Shadows (70 page)

‘I don’t believe you. They wouldn’t!’ Clare was really frightened. ‘You can’t keep me here! You can’t guard every door and window all the time. What happens when you have to go back to London?’

‘I’m not going until Wednesday.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll have what I want by then.’

‘And if I sign, then what happens? Do I have a miraculous cure?’

‘That’s up to Geoff. Your soul is his department. After all, Clare, I’m not making any of this up, am I? You can’t deny what you have been doing.’

Clare turned away, her face white. ‘But what I’m doing isn’t bad. There’s nothing wrong with it!’

‘Then Geoff will no doubt give you a clean bill of health.’ He smiled. ‘Personally, I think you are possessed.’

‘No.’ She shook her head desperately.

Paul folded his arms. ‘What about the beautiful Isobel, then? She just comes along for a chat when you’re lonely, is that it? Grow up, Clare, and face the facts! You need help. You’ve needed help for a very long time!’

The day seemed endless to Clare. As Paul had promised, every door was locked and she was never allowed to be alone for a moment. Either Paul or Archie followed her wherever she went. Antonia did not reappear. Outside the cold rainshowers swept in across the hills from the east, splattered against the windows and disappeared as swiftly as they had come, leaving the gardens brilliant with cold blustery sunshine. The two minutes’ silence came and went. Archie alone, in his study, stood at his desk, gazing into space and remembered. Antonia was asleep. Neither Paul nor Clare were even aware of what day it was.

Archie cooked a joint of beef for lunch and the three of them sat round it in the cold dining room in silence, picking at their plates. Tea and supper were the same. Clare watched and waited patiently, trying to force herself to relax, trying to keep calm, determined that Paul would not see her nerves beginning to fray at the edges. She had worked out what she was going to do. It was so obvious, and it would be easy once every one had gone to bed. As a child she had climbed often from her bedroom window, edging along the parapet and scrambling down the sloping roof to the old apple tree, and she was sure she could do it again. But she had to wait. She must not seem too eager. She must not let Paul suspect. It was just after nine when at last she stood up. ‘I may as well go to bed,’ she said. ‘I’m exhausted and my shoulder hurts.’

‘Good idea.’ Paul stood up too.

‘There’s no need for you to come!’ She had snapped at him without thinking, forgetting her resolution to be calm.

‘Oh, I think I’ll come.’ Paul smiled at her mockingly. ‘Is everything ready for her, Archie?’ He turned to his father-in-law.

Archie nodded uncomfortably and subsided once more on to the sofa before the fire. He sat hunched with his back to them as Paul opened the door for his wife and followed her out into the hall.

‘There is no need for you to come up, Paul.’ At the foot of the stairs Clare stopped. She spoke through clenched teeth. As the time for her escape came closer she was getting more and more nervous.

‘Oh, but there is, darling.’ He strode up the stairs beside her and accompanied her along the landing.

She had reached out to open her bedroom door when he took her by the arm. ‘Not here. Not tonight. We thought you might be more comfortable somewhere else.’

Clare froze. She clung to the door handle. ‘What do you mean, somewhere else?’

‘I’ll show you.’ He tightened his grip on her arm and he began to force her along the landing. At the north end of the corridor there was another staircase, leading up to what had been Aunt Margaret’s room in the old tower. Paul smiled. ‘We thought you would be happier up here. Archie has brought all your things up for you. It has the advantage of a bathroom of its own, and windows you can’t climb out of.’ He was dragging her now, up the narrow stairs, his hand around her wrist. She tried desperately to pull away, fighting him, her shoulder a mass of pain, but he was very strong. His fingers bit into her arm. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Clare, believe me,’ he muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Just remember, to get out of here, all you have to do is sign. It’s all so easy.’ He pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and flicking on the lights propelled her inside. She just had time to see that a new shiny bolt had been screwed on to the outside of the door below the keyhole before Paul banged the door behind her and she heard the key turn. Then the bolt slid home.

She stared round in despair, still hardly able to believe what was happening to her.

Aunt Margaret had loved this room. It was large, almost circular, built into the first floor of the sixteenth-century tower around which Victorian Airdlie had been built. Like most buildings of its date its windows were small, set deep into the thick walls, and they were high above the ground. There was no possibility of anyone escaping through them. The bathroom was built into what had been a storeroom next door and beside it, behind a thick oak door, a narrow spiral staircase led up to the room Margaret had originally used as a bedroom before she grew too old to climb the stairs. The room Clare stood in now had in those early years been a living room, giving the old lady a self-contained suite in the house. Above it again was another room which she had used as a studio, painting competent and very attractive surrealist watercolours until her eyes had failed her. Above the studio a staircase led up on to the roof of the tower, with its battlements and the flagpole where James used to raise the Gordon standard when they were children.

Cautiously Clare tried the upper staircase door. It opened. She ran up the dark, cold, winding stair, groping for the light switch at the top and she peered into her aunt’s former bedroom. It was empty save for the huge wooden frame of the bed, which had been built up there and could never be moved down the narrow winding stair. There were no curtains now, no carpets, not even a shade on the light bulb, and there was no heating. The room was bitterly cold. She did not bother to go up the next flight. That room would be empty too, filled with the memories of the sun-lit days when a younger Margaret had painted in the quiet stone room, the air sharp with the smell of turpentine and linseed oil. There was no point in going up on the roof. There would be no escape that way.

Turning off the light, Clare made her way back downstairs to the room which was still furnished. Her suitcases, she saw now, stood beside the four-poster bed, her old woolly dressing gown, from behind her bedroom door, was laid across a chair.

She went to the door and tried the handle, but it was still locked as she had known it would be. Paul had not been joking when he brought her up here, he had been deadly serious. She shivered again. She went over to one of the windows and looked out. The night was completely black. All she could see was her own white face, gaunt in the reflection, peering back at her. She drew the curtains sharply and stared round the room, overwhelmed with despair. She was a prisoner; a real prisoner in her own home! She sat down on the bed, realising suddenly that there were tears on her cheeks. She was exhausted, aching and very afraid.

It was a beautiful room. The four-poster bed, the table, the chairs, the coffers, all were carved out of ancient black oak, softened and cushioned by warm blue velvets and old worn brocades. The carpet was Aubusson; she had always wondered why her mother hadn’t taken it downstairs to show it off, but perhaps she hadn’t dared. This was still very much Margaret Gordon’s room and always would be. But Margaret Gordon wasn’t here. Clare had never felt more alone.

She stood up restlessly, drying her tears, and began to pace the floor. Her moment of self-pity over, she was once more frustrated, angry and very tense. Too tense even to have given a thought to Isobel. She was too preoccupied with her own worries.

She didn’t feel claustrophobic, not yet. It was a large room, a room she had always loved, and she was very aware of the two large echoing rooms upstairs, with above them the roof and the sky. She was not hemmed in. Not caged. Her mind shied away from the thought quickly and she frowned. The situation was beyond belief. If she told anyone what had happened she doubted if they would believe her. Probably that was what Paul was counting on. She thought of Emma suddenly, and her eyes filled with tears again. If only Emma were here. She could imagine Emma’s voice:
My God, how bizarre! How Gothic!
You mean he locked you up?
One day they would laugh about this together, but not now, not yet. She shivered violently.

Again and again she pushed at the door, rattling the latch, but it held absolutely solid. Beyond it the house lay in total silence. She had no way of knowing what the time was. For the hundredth time she cursed the fact that she had left her watch behind in London – such a feeble, useless gesture of defiance. It felt late, but then she was desperately tired. Wearily she got up at last and went into the little bathroom. It was a gesture of normality to run a bath and change into her nightdress. When she came back into the bedroom it was growing cold. The radiator was still warm, but outside when she peered through the curtains she could see the silver moonlight streaming across the tops of the fir trees. They glittered with frost.

She climbed into the bed at last, and sat there, hugging her knees. The bookshelves were empty. Antonia must have taken all Margaret’s books downstairs. There was no radio or television. Only one book remained in the room, lying on the bedside table next to the lamp. Stretching out to reach it Clare found that it was a brand new Bible. She threw it down on the bedspread with a shaky little laugh, then with a frown she picked it up again. Perhaps it would help to keep the nightmares at bay.

She had to sleep. She was so tired that she could hardly keep her eyes open – and yet she was afraid. Afraid of the nightmares which would come, she was certain, as soon as she closed her eyes. Afraid of Isobel, who would come when she wanted to, whether Clare closed them or not. She stared round the room, hating the silence, hating the shadows, huddling beneath the blankets, hugging the Bible to her.

She had only been asleep for a few minutes, or so it seemed, when she was woken abruptly by the sound of the bolt on the door sliding back. She sat up, her heart pounding as the door opened, hoping that Antonia or Archie had relented and decided to release her.

It was Paul. He came into the room and locked the door behind him, dropping the key into the pocket of his silk dressing gown. He stopped for a moment in the middle of the floor.

‘How nice to know that one’s wife is bound to be there waiting for one. How dutiful.’ He began to undo his dressing-gown sash.

‘Go away, Paul.’ Clare felt suddenly very afraid. She lay down, turning her back on him. ‘I don’t know how you have the face to come up here.’ She pulled the blankets around her. Her mouth had gone dry and she felt sick with fear.

He laughed quietly. ‘And so loving. It’s a long time since you and I made love, Clare.’

‘And we’re not going to again. Ever.’ Clare clutched the blankets tightly.

‘No? It was you who came to me, that night at Bucksters, with your silk nightgown and your perfume, oh so seductive. You wanted it then, didn’t you?’ His tone was mocking.

‘Well, I don’t want it now!’ Clare buried her face in the pillows. Behind her Paul sat down on the edge of the wide bed. He pulled the key out of his pocket and slipped it under the corner of the high mattress, then he took off his dressing gown, and letting it fall to the floor he turned out the light and climbed into the bed beside her.

His hands on her breasts were very cold. Clare threw herself towards the edge of the bed, but he held her easily, pulling her back and pinning her to the sheets with the weight of his body. ‘A little marital indulgence would be good for us both, don’t you think?’ he murmured, dragging at her nightdress. He didn’t try to kiss her. Instead he buried his face between her breasts and with a shock of pain she felt his teeth closing on her skin. For a while she struggled to throw him off, then she lay still. He was too heavy for her to shift him, and anyway Paul’s lovemaking never went on for very long. All she had to do was endure it, then he would go away. She closed her eyes in the darkness and gritted her teeth.

‘Do you make love to the devil, like the witches of old?’ He was murmuring in her ear now, his hands hard on her breasts. ‘Is that what happens in the garden at home, when you summon your spirits? Do your lovers come to you with horns? Or in the shape of animals perhaps?’ He forced his thigh between her legs.

‘Oh God!’ Disgusted, she tried once more frantically to wriggle away from him. ‘Is that what it takes to turn you on, Paul?’ She was crying now. He could feel the warm wetness of her tears on the pillow under his face and the fact that she was crying pleased him. Suddenly he wanted to hurt her; he wanted her to suffer the way he had suffered when he had learned he could never father a child. He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her face towards his own. ‘Witch!’ he said. He liked the sound of the word. ‘Witch!’ The witch who had stolen his virility. He could feel her thighs pinned beneath his, as she struggled to avoid him. She could struggle all she liked; she wouldn’t be able to prevent him from entering her when he was ready.

Except that he was not ready. Not yet.

He laughed out loud. ‘You know, I almost believe it myself. A wife possessed by the devil. It sounds exciting doesn’t it?’ He caught her wrists and held them above her head, pressed into the pillows. ‘Your parents believe me, you know. They believe every word, and they’re determined to save your soul!’

He laughed again.

He wanted her, he wanted to pin her to the bed and screw her till she screamed for mercy, but still he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t hard and she must know it. Perhaps she knew he could never be a father. Perhaps she had guessed it wasn’t her fault that they would never have a child. Coldly he looked down at her, seeing nothing of her face in the darkness, feeling with his mouth her hair tangled across her eyes. He had to possess her; he had to show her he was her master. with devils put him

She was lying still now, not bothering to struggle, and he knew that she had realised that he was impotent; that she despised him; that she was probably laughing at him even now.