Property of a Lady (9 page)

‘Hello, Beth. I’m Michael.’

‘You gave him quite a shock shouting like that,’ said Nell. ‘He’s a friend of the American people with the little girl who’s going to live here. I told you about her.’

‘Yes.’

Michael said, ‘I’ll go downstairs and check everywhere. Just in case there really is anyone prowling around. Would that make you feel better, Beth?’ The two figures on the bed seemed to him dreadfully vulnerable and fragile.

‘Um, yes, thank you.’

‘Had I better lock the shop door while I’m there? Just for the moment?’

‘Would you?’ said Nell. ‘Drop the catch and turn the sign to “Closed”.’

The shop and the rooms above it were innocent of any passing burglars, and the back door, which appeared to open on to a small courtyard with outbuildings, was firmly locked and bolted. Michael went back into the shop, intending to make a tactful exit, but Nell came down to meet him.

‘Can you stay for a cup of tea? I’m just making it.’

‘Well, that would be welcome, but I don’t want to—’

‘If you were going to say “impose”, you aren’t,’ she said. ‘I’d like to thank you properly. You can tell Beth about Liz Harper’s little girl. Beth’s looking forward to meeting her. Come up to the sitting room.’

Beth was huddled into a chair near the fire. She had a bright rug wrapped round her, and she was hugging a large, furry bear. The marks of tears were still on her face, and she looked so small and white that Michael forgot about being a stranger or intruding and sat down opposite her.

‘Hello, Beth,’ he said. ‘The American girl your mum talked about is my god-daughter. I think she’s about the same age as you.’

‘I’m seven,’ said Beth rather shakily.

‘Exactly the same, then. My god-daughter’s called Ellie, and she’s coming over here for Christmas. She doesn’t know anyone in England, so I think she’d like to meet you and have a friend here.’

Beth said, ‘I didn’t know any people when I came here either. Is she nice?’

‘Yes, very.’

‘What does she like to do?’ It was said a bit dubiously.

‘All kinds of things. She likes animals.’

‘I like animals.’

‘Cats? Ellie loves cats. She likes hearing about my cat,’ said Michael. ‘His name’s Wilberforce, and he’s always getting into trouble.’ Without realizing he was going to do so, he started to relate one of the adventures he made up for Ellie – the one where Wilberforce got mixed up with the mice’s redecoration of their home.

Beth’s small face was instantly absorbed, and she laughed when Wilberforce ended up sitting in the paint pot, very indignant, with scarlet paint on his whiskers.

‘I’ll send you a photograph of him, shall I?’

‘Can it be on the computer? I’m allowed to use it after homework.’

‘Yes, certainly.’ He could send Beth one of the photos he had sent to Ellie. He would tell Ellie about this possible British friend waiting to meet her, as well. He finished the cup of tea, then got up and said, firmly, he would leave them to it.

‘I’m so grateful to you,’ said Nell as they went down to the shop. ‘I loved the story of your cat, by the way. Beth did, as well.’

Choosing his words carefully, Michael said, ‘That nightmare . . . For a child to think there’s someone in her room – someone standing there watching her while she’s asleep – would be terrifying. It would spook me, never mind a child.’

‘It’s the recurrent theme,’ said Nell. ‘I don’t know if it indicates a lack of security – whether I should get medical advice. Whether it’s something to do with her father dying last year—’ She broke off, and Michael saw her eyes flinch as if from a too-bright light. She said, ‘Beth insists the man who comes into her room has no eyes.’

Michael had been reaching for the door, but at these words he felt as if something cold had clutched at his throat. He turned back. ‘What did you say?’

‘The man in the nightmare has no eyes.’ She had half-turned away, and without looking at him, she said, ‘Last year my – Beth’s father was killed in a car crash. It – the impact of the crash – penetrated his eyes. Tore them out completely.’

‘Oh no,’ said Michael, appalled. ‘Nell, I’m so sorry. And you think that’s what’s triggering Beth’s nightmares?’

‘She doesn’t know any of the details of Brad’s death,’ said Nell.

‘Are you sure? Could she have overheard somebody talking?’

‘Well, I’m as sure as I can be. The only other people who knew were the coroner and our GP in London and they certainly didn’t tell her.’

‘Could it be a form of telepathy?’ said Michael after a moment. ‘Could she have picked it up from you?’

‘I suppose it’s just about possible. It’s the only explanation, isn’t it?’ She finally turned round to look at him.

‘Yes,’ said Michael very firmly. ‘It’s the only explanation.’

He left for Oxford late next morning, calling in at the shop on his way to see if Beth had recovered.

‘Entirely,’ said Nell. ‘She went to bed talking about Wilberforce and the mice, and she slept all the way through till breakfast, then got up and ate a huge bowl of porridge and honey.’

Michael smiled at the thought of the small, grave Beth, diligently eating an A.A. Milne breakfast. He said, ‘That’s great. I’ll send the photo later today. Have you got a card or something with your email— Thanks. I’ll email Liz as well and tell her I’ve met you and that I might have found a friend for Ellie.’

‘Beth’s pleased at the thought of meeting Ellie,’ said Nell. ‘It’s taken her mind away from the nightmare. You’re very good with children. Have you any of your own?’

‘No,’ said Michael. ‘I haven’t got a wife either, so it’s just as well about the children.’ He grinned at her.

‘You were looking at those decanters for Liz and Jack,’ said Nell. ‘If you do decide to get them as a house-warming present, I’d let you have them for what I paid. I don’t mean that to sound like a hard sell.’

‘It’s not much of a hard sell if you’re offering them at cost,’ said Michael. ‘I’d already decided to get them, but I’ll pay full price.’

‘I mean it. There wasn’t much of a markup anyway.’

He saw she was not going to change her mind, so he said, ‘All right. But on condition I buy the sampler at its full price, as well.’

‘That’s supposed to be local work,’ said Nell. ‘It’d be nice to think it’s from Charect, but I don’t think it is.’

‘No, but there’s a cat worked into it – in one corner. So I’d like to get it for Ellie’s room.’

‘Wilberforce,’ said Nell and smiled. ‘OK, that’s a deal. D’you want to take them now? I can wrap them up fairly quickly.’

To his own surprise, Michael said, ‘I thought about coming back next weekend to check progress for Jack. Can you keep them until then? I could call around lunchtime.’

The smile came again. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, do that.’

Michael had no idea why he had made that tentative arrangement to see Nell West again. He could easily have taken the decanters and the sampler with him. He had, in fact, meant to remain firmly in Oxford for the rest of the Michaelmas term, but as he drove back he found he was looking forward to seeing Nell and the small Beth again.

It was curious that Beth seemed to be having the same nightmare as Ellie. A man with no eyes, Beth had said. And Ellie, thousands of miles away, had talked about a man with holes where his eyes should be. Michael had only just stopped himself from blurting it out to Nell West. It was just a macabre coincidence, of course. Something to do with insecurity, maybe – Beth had lost her father a short time ago, and despite Nell’s conviction that she had not known about the injuries in the car crash, children had a way of picking up things their parents did not realize.

But Ellie, suffering what sounded to be the same nightmare, had not lost her father. Ellie was surrounded by love and stability, and she had two eminently sane parents who had a happy marriage. She was probably one of the best-adjusted children on the planet. Or was she? Who knew what darknesses existed in any child’s mind?

He reached Oriel College on Saturday evening to find that Wilberforce had got into the buttery and eaten an entire cream trifle intended for the weekend visit of a second-year’s parents, after which Wilberforce had apparently been sick on a pile of essays about Swinburne. Michael apologized to everyone he could think of, told the second-year to buy another trifle from the pastry shop in the High at his expense, and cleaned up the Swinburne essays as well as he could. After this he sat down to send the photos of the unrepentant Wilberforce to Beth West, with an email for Nell saying he would see her next weekend.

He surveyed the Swinburne essays with distaste and, instead of reading them, sat down at the computer to record Wilberforce’s adventures in the buttery before he forgot it. He would send it to Ellie later. He might send it to Beth as well.

Nell hoped she had not been too pushy with Michael Flint over the decanters, but he had definitely said he was intending to buy them. He had been great with Beth. She and Beth had talked about Wilberforce over their supper, and Beth had asked if they could invite Ellie Harper to tea one day, did Mum think that was a good idea?

‘Terrific,’ said Nell, so grateful for Beth’s apparent return to normality that she would have agreed to the entire population of Marston Lacy coming to tea.

They spent most of Sunday in the workshop at the back of the shop. Nell was currently stripping a small oak table that had been semi-vandalized by several applications of dark brown varnish at some stage in its life. The work was slow, but it was immensely satisfying, and she was uncovering an inlay on the top – squares of African blackwood and pale beautiful beech, immaculately dovetailed into a chessboard. Beth pottered around, fetching rags and cloths, singing to the radio.

After they’d had supper and Beth was in bed, Nell tidied the sitting room, coming across Alice Wilson’s journal, which she had thrust on top of a bookshelf. It was annoying that it ended so abruptly. Alice had hidden the pages in the clock and then seemed to vanish. What had happened to her? It was a good forty years ago, and the trail – if there was a trail – would be very fragile by this time.

Next morning she dropped Beth off at school, relieved there had been no more nightmares. She generally opened the shop at ten, but Mondays were always quiet, so she finished work on the oak table. She enjoyed being in the workshop: it was a large, one-storey outbuilding, and it was exactly right for storage of furniture not currently on display and for renovation projects. There was electricity and even an old Victorian stove, although Nell was not inclined to trust its efficiency and she had fitted modern convector heaters.

She was hoping she could hold antique weekends next spring, booking small groups of people into the Black Boar and providing practical workshop sessions on restoration, interspersed with trips to one or two nearby National Trust properties to study furniture and tapestries. It would be an interesting project, and Nell was enjoying working out the details.

She locked up the outbuilding around eleven, washed the cobwebs and dust away and put on a clean shirt and cords, then opened the shop, flipping her mobile on, which she had switched off while she was sanding the table.

There were two messages. The first was from Beth’s school asking her please to telephone them as a matter of some urgency.

The other message was from the local police station requesting her, in even more urgent terms, to call them without delay. There was no immediate cause for panic, said the fatherly voice on the voicemail, but there was a strong possibility that her daughter was missing.

EIGHT

N
ell drove to the police station as if the denizens of hell were chasing her and was taken straight to an interview room, where the owner of the fatherly voice, who introduced himself as Detective Inspector Brent, explained there was no immediate cause for concern. The thing was that Beth’s school had phoned them when Beth had failed to appear for class at nine o’clock.

Nell, fighting to keep panic down, said, ‘But I dropped her off at the gates. It was ten to nine – I didn’t watch her go in, but the gates were open and I saw her wave to a couple of friends and walk towards them.’ She frowned, then said, ‘Why did the school phone you so quickly? Oh God, is there something you haven’t told me? Was she seen getting into a strange car or—’

‘Nothing like that at all,’ said Inspector Brent at once. ‘At first they thought Beth was sick and not coming in. As there didn’t seem to have been a note sent in or a phone call, her teacher asked if anyone knew where she was. A couple of her classmates said they had seen her get out of your car and walk towards the school gates.’ He spread his hands.

Nell said with horror, ‘But she didn’t turn up in the classroom?’

‘No.’

‘She disappeared between getting out of my car and her classroom.’ It was bizarre and impossible and terrifying.

But Brent said, ‘I’m afraid that’s what seems to have happened. After the teachers realized she had been on her way through the gates, they were a bit concerned. They searched the school – thinking, you know, she might have fallen down and sprained an ankle or something of that kind. The search didn’t take long – it’s only a small place.’