Memory and Desire (2 page)

With the toe of his running shoe Richard nudged the papers beneath the table. Housekeeping accomplished, he looked around at Claire. His eyes were those of a tiger, brown flecked with gold, alight with perception, reflecting rather than revealing. Appraisal ran both ways, didn't it? Claire ducked.

The whistle of a teakettle came from the next room. Richard smiled ruefully, as though only too aware of—and not exactly comfortable with—his effect on the opposite sex. “Would you care for a cuppa?"

“Yes, please,” Claire said.

He vanished into the kitchen, where he apparently started throwing dishes on the floor. She stifled any offers to help and warmed her hands at the fire. The gargoyle shared the mantelpiece with a penknife, two drawing compasses, a burned-down candle in a silver holder, duct tape, a floppy disk, and a swatch of brocade.

Heat rushed to Claire's cheeks. The wad of velvet half-concealed a color postcard. Glancing toward the kitchen, she moved the cloth aside.

She didn't have to see the entire picture, though, to recognize it. It was a distant shot of the Texas State Capitol looming at the end of Congress Avenue in Austin. She turned the postcard over. Her own handwriting jumped out at her. “Hey Melinda, Here's something to remind you of home. I put the ring in my safe-deposit box. Happy antiquating!—C."

Last summer, the night before Melinda left for England, she'd stopped by Claire's house for pizza and Chianti and a post-mortem of her marriage to a London solicitor. Taking off her wedding band, she'd inspected it with archaeological detachment. The engagement ring with its three exquisitely cut diamonds had stayed on her hand.

“Nige told me to keep the diamonds. He was glad I didn't want the cottage in the Cotswolds and the BMW. But what good would they do me? Money doesn't mean happiness. Neither does marriage. It was nice while it lasted. But it's over now. Finito. Kaput.” She'd thrown the wedding ring up in the air and laughed when she couldn't find it.

Two weeks later Claire had turned up the ring behind her couch and e-mailed the good news. “Keep it for me,” Melinda returned. And now that ring, an engraved gold band inscribed “To Melinda from Nigel” was in Claire's jewelry case in the car, a talisman for her quest.

Melinda's bittersweet laugh had always been directed mostly at herself, Claire reflected. She knew herself altogether too well. No wonder she sometimes made less self-aware people uneasy. Claire tucked the postcard back behind the velvet. She hadn't planned to find a clue quite so fast—she hadn't unpacked her deerstalker and magnifying glass. And yet there it was.

She'd wondered before she met him if Richard was Melinda's new lover. Now she put him at the top of her list. He'd not only known Melinda because she'd worked at the Hall, but he, too, had had a role in the play. According to the playbill Melinda sent, Richard played the role of Phillip Lacey, who'd written the melodrama in 1775 and who appeared as narrator in its production.

Richard emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray loaded with teapot and cups. Claire reminded herself that after her broken engagement she was supposed to be cynical about men and looked at Richard more critically.

The angles of his face were almost too severe, she decided, as though freshly-sculpted and not yet weathered. He was tall and slender as a Corinthian column and carried himself as straight—which could just as well indicate arrogance as self-esteem. In contrast to the domestic disaster of his house, his RAF blue sweater with its dashing nylon patches on the shoulders and elbows was as clean as the jeans it was draped over. Did that imply a contradictory nature?

“Are you related to Phillip Lacey?” Claire asked.

“Author of The Play?” Richard replied, his careful enunciation capitalizing the letters, his velvet voice enriching the words. “I'm a descendent, right enough."

“Is that why you were chosen to be Somerstowe Hall's conservation expert?"

He elbowed a pile of magazines off a coffee table and set down the tray. Speaking to the teapot rather than to Claire, he said, “My presence here is a bit more than cosmic coincidence, yes. But it's been donkey's years since a Lacey owned the place. Phillip was the family wastrel. His sons had to sell up to the Cranbournes and their descendents left the place to the Trust. One sugar or two?"

“One please."

He sloshed milk, tea, and sugar into a cup and handed it over. Claire sipped at the steaming caramel-colored brew. Should she try cleverly worded leading questions about Melinda or should she simply ask him outright? Her blood-sugar level probably wasn't up to cleverness.

With a fine disregard for the temperature of the tea, Richard drank deeply. “Tea thick enough to trot a mouse across, my mother always says. Mind you, she's Scottish."

“You make that sound like a confession."

“In some quarters it might be.” His smile was like the sun coming out after forty days of rain.

Dazzled, Claire reminded herself once again to be cynical. This man was a suspect.

“Is this your first trip to the UK?” Richard went on.

“Oh no, I've been here several times."

“So the driving on the left's not too bad, is it?"

Claire groaned. “When you can concentrate, no. I probably made a public menace of myself today, renting a car as soon as I stepped off the plane. The motorway wasn't so bad, with three lanes of traffic going the same way. But the interchanges, and the smaller roads—I kept repeating,
keep left, keep left, keep left,
like a crazed communist bureaucrat."

He laughed. “I've driven in America. It's all backward, like stepping through the looking-glass, isn't it?"

“Tell me about it,” she said, and couldn't help a Cheshire cat grin in return.

He set down his mug and strolled over to the fireplace, where he prodded the burning chunks of wood into a pile. His efforts released a few more BTUs into the room.

“The last time I was here,” Claire went carefully on, “was two years ago, for Melinda Varek's wedding. You met her last summer. I was hoping to find out what happened to her. Along with my volunteer work, of course."

Richard was leaning to the side, putting the poker back in its rack on the hearth, when the magic name passed her lips. She couldn't see his face, but even his back was expressive. He straightened very slowly. His hands tightened into fists at his sides. His shoulders squared themselves beneath the sweater. Claire waited for him to turn around and say something along the lines of, “Oh yes, Melinda. Quite the baffling mystery. So you're here now, how can I help you?"

He spun around. The blaze in his eyes knocked Claire back against the couch. She'd sneaked up on him. He was resentful, angry—maybe even, oddly enough, frightened. “That's your game, then,” he said, his voice clipped to the minimum. “I've been wondering ever since your application came in why your name was so damnably familiar."

“It's no game,” retorted Claire. “I'm trying to find out what happened to Melinda. You knew her. You have a postcard I sent her on the mantel."

“The police couldn't find her. Why do you think you will do?"

“I knew Melinda."

“Well, we all knew Melinda, didn't we?” Richard turned back to the mantelpiece. In one swift gesture he threw the postcard into the fire. It flared with yellow flame and then shriveled into black crepe paper. He assumed a pose that was obviously meant to appear casual, but was closer to the stance of a man before a firing squad.

“Do you know anything that could help explain her disappearance?” Claire persisted. “Maybe she said something about making a quick trip somewhere."

“I assure you I was thoroughly interviewed by the police. I couldn't help them. I can't help you."

Claire scowled, then reminded herself that discretion was the better part of valor—or foolishness, as the case might be. She put down her cup and stood. “What time do you want me to report to work tomorrow?"

“Nine,” Richard said to the gargoyle's carved leer.

“Thank you for the tea."

“You're welcome."

She let herself out. The afternoon had lightened. The rain had stopped, the fields glistened an ethereal fairy green, and through the massed ranks of gray and white clouds a sunbeam shone like a searchlight. Crows called harshly from the trees behind the wall. The windows of Somerstowe Hall glinted as though with sudden inspiration.

Claire was more puzzled and indignant than inspired. So much for the direct query. She should've opted for leading questions, made friends with Richard, won his confidence ... No. She was cautious, but she wasn't sneaky. Not on purpose, anyway.

If Richard had been Melinda's lover, wouldn't he be just as frustrated at her disappearance as Claire was? Wouldn't they be allies? But what he was was defensive. Why? Because of a guilty conscience?

Yes, there'd been a spark of mutual attraction. Big deal. Richard's handsome face might just as well have been the gargoyle's for all she was attracted to him now. He knew something. She was positive he knew something.

Sheep stood like bundles of cotton candy in a distant field. Two boys on bicycles splashed by on the road. Claire tried closing her burning eyes, but when she opened them they didn't focus any more clearly. She'd waited a year and now everything was happening too fast.

She climbed back into her car and slammed the door. Someone had stolen the steering wheel ... No, she'd gotten in the wrong side. With an aggravated snort she crawled across the emergency brake to the driver's seat.

Claire could be certain of only one thing. Whether Richard had been Melinda's lover or not, whether he knew anything about her disappearance or not, his attitude was going to make him the very devil to work for.

In the suddenly bright evening Somerstowe was picture-postcard quaint. There was even a village bobby ambling down the drive from the Hall, his hands folded behind his back.

Claire expected a director to shout “Cut!” and crews to rush forward and disassemble the false fronts of the houses. But the village remained solid, damp stone glowing, gardens winking in multi-colored floral fantasy. Richard or no Richard, she told herself, Melinda or no Melinda, I'm going to like Somerstowe.

Across the street from the Druid's Circle was the village shop, a red post office sign on its bay window. Claire turned into its tiny parking lot, parked, and hefted her suitcase and carry-on bag.

The shop smelled of newsprint and exotic spices. Behind the counter a plump woman with sleek black hair pulled into a bun stood sorting a pile of letters and magazines. She wore a loose dress in a lush paisley pattern, belted with an apron of dazzling whiteness. When Claire stepped through the door she looked up smiling.

“Mrs. Nair?” Claire asked. “I'm Claire Godwin. I've booked your efficiency apartment."

“I am most certainly Sarita Nair,” returned the woman. “Welcome to Somerstowe. Your journey was a pleasant one, I trust?"

“I don't relish playing a sardine for several hours, but I arrived safely, that's the important thing."

Sarita looked a bit puzzled, but didn't ask for an explanation. She swept the mail into a tidy stack and pushed through a swinging door in the counter. “First you must see your flat, then you will be taking dinner with us."

“Why, thank you.” Food, Claire thought. She remembered food. Her stomach growled.

Sarita led her into an old-fashioned but spotless kitchen and plucked a key off a rack by the door. A man with the smooth round features of a teddy bear, adorned with a moustache that made Blake's look underfed, sat at a table with newspaper and tea. “This is my husband Roshan, Miss Godwin."

“Greetings, Miss Godwin,” said Roshan, standing and bowing. “Your journey was a pleasant one, I trust?"

Claire abandoned her sardine metaphor. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Nair."

“That is very good. I am minding the shop now.” He vanished toward the front of the house.

Claire followed Sarita across a bricked yard and up a stairway clinging to the outside of a low stone building. Former stables, Claire estimated, now inhabited by a car and a red mail van.

The apartment was just about what she'd anticipated, a long low-ceilinged room furnished with haphazard bits of furniture. A small television occupied one end of a bookcase filled with tour guides, old paperback novels, and Reader's Digest magazines. A miniature kitchen nestled in a curtained alcove. Sarita demonstrated a foldout bed and the complex controls of the shower, which took up most of the floor space in a cupboard-sized bathroom.

The apartment was as spotless as Sarita's apron. Slipcovers, pillows, and tablecloths were made of bright Indian fabrics. Everything else was drab and serviceable, including a wall to wall carpet of an institutional muddy green. Claire hoisted her suitcase onto a rack by a huge wardrobe and dumped her carry-on and purse to the floor. Odd how much heavier her luggage was on this side of the Atlantic. “It's very nice, Mrs. Nair."

“Thank you very much. I have placed a few food items in your kitchen, and such things are always available at the shop, but I'm sorry to say there is no telephone connection for your computer."

“I didn't bring one. My friend Melinda Varek stayed here last year and told me about having to scrounge for a place to plug in her laptop.” This time Claire had her witness squarely in her sights as she spoke.

Unlike Richard, Sarita shook her head. “Now that is a puzzle. Such a—well—lively young lady. You are her friend Claire, then?"

“Yes. I'd like to find out what happened to her."

“I opened the flat to the police, I packed her things when she could not be found. It seems as though she ran off still wearing her costume from The Play, taking her computer and her camera only. Miss Godwin, I can offer no explanation."

“Claire,” Claire murmured. “Just Claire."

“She had many admirers, did Melinda. I thought perhaps she had gone away with one. But they are still here, mystified as are we all."

“Was Richard Lacey one of her admirers?"

“Oh, certainly, yes. Melinda spent much time with him at Somerstowe Hall. The Hall is Richard's passion. His family built it, his family enacted the story that became The Play—memories are long here, I'm thinking."