Kingdom of Shadows (84 page)

Ross took the Queen’s arm. ‘Outside, madam. Think yourselves lucky it was I who found you.’ He glanced at Isobel. ‘Had your husband got to you first, Lady Buchan, he would not have let you live long enough to see the sunset. As it is, it is for the King of England to decide what is to be done with you all. I shall take you to him.’

28

The flat in Rothesay Place was cold and dusty. Kathleen looked around it sadly, then, dropping her two suitcases on the floor, she walked across to the window and threw it open. The taxi was just drawing away from the kerb and she stood watching as it drove out of sight. So. It was over and Neil had thrown her out. She went over to the carved oak fireplace and gazed into the mirror which hung over it. Her face looked haggard, old and hard. Her hair was lank after the cold and the wet the night before when she had paced up and down the streets, thinking.

‘God damn it, but you’re a bastard, Neil Forbes!’ She shouted at the mirror. ‘And you’ll pay. I’ll make you pay – and that English bitch. You can’t throw me out like that!’ She saw her eyes fill and brighten with tears and she turned away angrily. She had known it was coming. It had been in the cards for months now. Somehow she could have avoided it – and yet she had been swept on, carried by the tide of fate. She fished in the patchwork bag she had thrown down on the table and brought out her cards, turning them over twice in her hands, feeling the familiarity of them, the comfort, the immediate sense of certainty and rightness they gave her. She could do less and less now without consulting them – they told her everything; they were her confidant and adviser, friend and family. She bit her lip, then throwing them down she fumbled in the bag for her cigarettes. Her hands were shaking. ‘Damn you, Neil Forbes! Damn you!’ She sat down and ran her hand across the pack, spreading them face down across the table, then edging one at random out of the run she picked it up. For a moment she didn’t look at it. What was she asking of the cards? Was it Neil or herself or Clare Royland she wanted to interrogate? Slowly she turned the card face up. The Tower. She stared at it blankly. The house of God or the house of the Devil. The most complex of all the cards: disruption, imprisonment, disaster and change. But for whom? Whom had she been thinking about when she asked her question? She smiled grimly and stood up, walking slowly back to the window. Clare. That was the future for Clare.

She picked up her guitar and sat down on the window seat. Clare Royland was mad. Imprisoned by her dreams, wasn’t that what her husband had said? Quietly she began to strum the guitar:

I have a dream, a song to sing. 
To help me cope with anything.

She smiled quietly to herself.

If you see the wonder of a fairy tale, 
You can take the future, even if you fail …

Was that it? Was that what made Clare Royland mad? A dream which helped her cope with the world.

I have a dream – a fantasy. 
To help me through reality.

So, what did she dream about, this smooth English lady with her mink coats and her flashy cars?

Not about Neil. Her eyes were always fixed on the distance, looking inwards. She smiled. Neil would soon tire of her. She was too effete, too feeble for him. He needed a woman with strength and experience – a woman like herself. Men were so naive! Did he really think she didn’t know where he had stashed Clare away! Idiot! Putting down the guitar, she stood up and stubbed out her cigarette angrily. Did he really think she would let him hide her away for his own amusement just because he had thrown her out? This time when she told Paul Royland where his wife was she would see to it he found her at once; and she would see to it that Neil never knew how he had done it! She smiled bitterly. All she had to do was find out where Paul Royland was staying.

* * *

Paul took a taxi from the airport straight to the Canongate. He stood for a moment in the windswept street, staring up at the high buildings around him then he began the long climb to the top floor.

Neil opened the door in his shirtsleeves.

‘Where is she, Forbes?’ Paul was panting heavily. It put him at a disadvantage.

Neil looked at him for a moment before answering.

‘Nowhere you will find her.’ He didn’t bother to pretend not to know whom Paul was talking about.

For a moment Paul’s face darkened then he took a visible hold on himself. ‘You’d better let me in. We have to talk.’

Neil hesitated. He had an overwhelming urge to throw Paul down the stairs but he mastered it rapidly. It made more sense to speak to him and find out which way his mind was working. For Clare’s sake. He turned and led the way into the untidy living room, wondering briefly why he wanted to do anything for Clare’s sake.

Throwing himself down in the armchair, he left Paul to stand or clear himself a space on one of the other chairs with their clutter of newspapers and books.

Paul elected to stand. ‘I know she’s in Edinburgh,’ he said slowly. ‘And she’s obviously taken you in. Look, Forbes, there are one or two things I’m going to have to tell you; information I’m going to have to trust you with.’ He hesitated, picking his words with care. ‘Clare is a very vulnerable woman. She is, or should be, under the care of several professional people at the moment, a doctor and a priest amongst them.’ He glanced at Neil. ‘I would rather not have told you this, but I must.’

Neil was watching him closely. His face was impassive.

Paul licked his lips nervously. He moved towards the window and stared out for a moment at the sheen of frost on Calton Hill, then he turned back to Neil. With his face in shadow his expression was harder to read. ‘My wife is very unstable, Forbes, and has been since she was a child. As a child her family protected her, and when I found out what I had married’ – he paused – ‘I protected her.’ It was nothing less than the truth, he realised suddenly in amazement. ‘Without me there, and without the back-up of the people who understand her, she is a danger, both to herself and to those around her.’ He paused again. Neil said nothing. The silence stretched out between them and Paul found he was rubbing his cheek nervously. He was beginning to sweat in the heavy overcoat. ‘She is schizophrenic; she hears voices and sees visions. She began some months ago to dabble in the occult and as a direct consequence of all this she has been in some way possessed.’

Neil stood up slowly. ‘You bastard!’ he said. ‘Do you really expect me to believe all that?’

Paul sneered. ‘You will – when you get to know her.’ He strode towards the door. ‘Bear in mind that you are keeping her from her friends, her family, her doctors and her medication,’ he said portentously. ‘You have taken a very great responsibility on yourself, Forbes. God help you if anything happens to her.’

Neil stood for a long time after Paul had left, just staring at the spot by the window where his visitor had been standing, then slowly he went to the telephone. It was several seconds before she answered. ‘Clare? I thought I’d better tell you that your husband is now in Edinburgh. He has just paid me a visit.’

There was a moment’s silence, then: ‘What did he say?’ Clare sounded subdued.

‘A few choice epithets on what would happen if I failed to tell him where you were. You’d better not come near the office or the flat today in case he’s still prowling around. He doesn’t seem to be the kind of man to take no for an answer. I’ll pick you up at lunchtime and we’ll have lunch outside Edinburgh somewhere, OK?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Are you all right? Is the flat comfortable?’

‘It’s lovely.’

‘Did you sleep all right?’

‘Oh God! What’s Paul been saying?’

He heard the sudden sharp defensive note in her voice. ‘About your sleeping habits?’ Neil managed a laugh. ‘Nothing at all. Did you expect him to?’

He picked her up at one and drove her out to the Hawes Inn. Clare was very pale. He glanced at her from time to time as he drove. She was wearing a pair of trousers and a heavy multi-coloured sweater this morning; they made her look less formal, more relaxed; more approachable. And completely sane.

‘Did your friend Zak get into the Caley all right?’

He saw her tense. ‘I think so. I tried to ring him last night but he wasn’t there.’ She was on the defensive again. ‘He doesn’t know where I am. If he gets in touch, will you tell him?’ She sounded lost. On her lap her fists had clenched.

‘He said he’d stick around for a few days, didn’t he?’

She nodded. ‘He wanted to see a bit of Scotland. He’s never been here before.’

They arrived at South Queensferry and Neil backed the Land Rover into a parking spot. The Forth glittered in the hazy sunshine. High above them a train roared across the diamond segments of the bridge. She desperately wanted him to touch her. Her whole body had suddenly become intensely aware of his.

‘Why are you doing this?’ They were leaning on the wall staring down into the swirling water.

‘What, exactly?’ He turned his back on the Forth to watch her, his eyes narrowed in the frosty sunlight.

‘Taking me out to lunch. Being nice.’

He smiled. ‘You don’t feel it’s in character?’

‘Kathleen told me you loathed me.’ Her gaze was fixed on the far shore.

He didn’t answer and she closed her eyes, unprepared for the desolation which gripped her. She had expected him to deny it at once.

‘I loathe what you stand for,’ he said at last. ‘A moneyed aristocracy; class privilege; the fact that you can own somewhere like Duncairn and can with the snap of your fingers dispose of it and the people who live there at a whim.’

‘But I haven’t disposed of it. I turned my back on the money and remembered my responsibility to the land and to the people.’ She intoned the words softly like a litany.

He glanced at her. ‘That must be why I think there is hope for you yet.’ He grinned at her unexpectedly. ‘Why don’t I buy you a drink and something to eat before you fade away completely? That’s another thing. You’re too thin.’ He softened the harshness of his tone by throwing his arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on. It’s cold out here. We’ll go and find a fire.’

After lunch they took Casta for a walk in the Dalmeny woods. On the edge of a sheltered bay they sat down on a fallen log out of the wind. Clare had been very silent.

‘Is any of what Paul told me true?’ He said it very quietly as they sat with Casta, panting, between them. Both of them reached forward to fondle her ears.

Clare tensed her shoulders. ‘What did he tell you?’

‘That you are under the care of a doctor. That you need regular medication.’

‘That’s a lie.’ She took a handful of Casta’s scruff and kneaded it gently.

‘That you’ve been ill since you were a child.’

‘That’s a lie, too. There is nothing wrong with me.’

‘When I came in and saw you in the bath –’ He was picking his words with care. ‘And later, that evening, when you were in bed, it was as if you were in some sort of a trance.’

She was staring across at the shore of Fife, hazy in the afternoon sunlight. ‘I was daydreaming, I expect.’

‘And that was all?’

‘What else would it be?’ Their hands met for a moment on the dog’s neck. Clare closed her eyes. She desperately wanted him to leave his there, lying coolly on her fingers. For a moment he did, then slowly his hand moved away towards Casta’s ears. ‘I suppose he told you about Geoffrey,’ she said. Her voice was strained.

‘Who is Geoffrey?’

‘My brother-in-law. He is a rector in London. For a joke I told him I was conjuring up spirits and things. He took me literally.’ She gave a tight laugh. ‘The Roylands are all very pompous. They have no sense of humour.’

‘My God! And the MP as well? How many are there?’

‘Three brothers and a sister, Emma. She’s my friend.’ She said it very simply.

Neil glanced at her. ‘You said that as if you didn’t have any others.’

‘I sometimes don’t think I have.’ She shivered. ‘A thousand acquaintances and one friend. I’m not doing very well, am I?’

‘To date, no.’ He laughed. ‘But I think you’ll find you’ve got a lot of friends in Scotland, if you want them. People at Earthwatch, at Duncairn.’

‘Jack Grant was my friend until you turned him against me.’

‘I’ll put him right.’ Neil stopped stroking the dog. He picked up a pebble and threw it far out into the water. It made no rings in the choppy windswept tide. Casta ignored it.

He took Clare to the committee meeting that evening, introducing her simply as a new member. Afterwards he dropped her at the door of the flat in Moray Place. He made no move to get out of the Land Rover. For a moment she hesitated; she wanted him so badly that she was almost prepared to beg. She didn’t understand herself. She had never felt this way before. The longing and the fear of being alone were sweeping over her, drowning her. She glanced at him, but it was too late. He smiled and leaning across her, opened the door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow evening,’ he said.

She gave him a strained little smile back, and snapping her fingers at Casta slid out of the car. Running up the steps to the front door she fumbled for the key and let herself in without a backward glance.

Zak looked at Neil hard, studying the rugged, weatherbeaten face, sensing the sensitivity and the turmoil within. Slowly he nodded. ‘Yes. Clare does have problems. Nothing like her family make out, but she needs help, without a doubt. Not the kind of thing her husband has in mind, however, that’s for sure.’

‘And she really thinks she sees this woman, Isobel?’

‘She really does see her.’ Zak spread his hands out on the table between them. The restaurant was very quiet. It was barely twelve. ‘Clare is very psychic. From the first time I met her I knew that, and I could tell she didn’t have the knowledge or the confidence to deal with her own powers. I taught her to meditate. I thought it would give her insight into her own subconscious and give her control …’ He shrugged. ‘At first I thought Isobel was some kind of visible projection by her mind of this woman she seems to have been obsessed with since she was a child. Now, I don’t think so.’ He was studying Neil’s face, looking for the slightest flicker of doubt or derision. Neil’s expression was impassive. ‘Nor do I think she is reliving a previous life. This woman Isobel seems to have haunted Clare’s aunt as well. She is a family obsession – and she is tied up with Duncairn Castle and with Clare’s nightmares and her claustrophobia. Clare feels – lives with – Isobel’s emotions all the time.’