Singled Out (26 page)

I left him in the kitchen with a pile of toast and a pot of tea while I went to shower, dress, and get into my right mind: such as it was. I was beyond exhausted, and into dream-like trance, but it was a happy and satisfied weariness.

Meanwhile, Jamie had been amusing himself by listening to my accumulation of phone messages, but had now got to Pa’s latest rant. Judging by the tail end I caught it seemed to be even more demented than the last.

After that, Jamie said he was in two minds whether to continue his journey home. ‘What exactly has Jane done, Cass? And why is it your fault?’

‘Everything’s my fault,’ I reminded him, rewinding the tape and listening to a couple of loving messages from Max, who was perversely bombarding me with them now that it was too late.

He didn’t once mention Kyra the Confessor or even golf.

I deleted him, and then Jane’s voice said breathily: ‘I’m here at last. I felt a total dog arriving all muddy and in such a mess, but Phily’s been an angel and loaned me all her things.’

‘Let’s hope she paid for them, then,’ I muttered, and Jamie looked baffled.

‘Are you there, Cass my dear? Saturday, 10am on the dot at the King’s Arms,’ said a new voice. ‘All slaves to be there an hour earlier.’

‘Crank?’ asked Jamie.

‘Charles – the vicar. Don’t ask.’

Jamie looked like he’d caught me out in something very dubious indeed (maybe a kinky nuns’ and vicars’ party?) that maybe his little sister shouldn’t really be doing, but obediently said nothing.

There was one call where the tape ran for a few minutes and then Jason, sounding furious, said: ‘If you won’t answer your door, at least answer the bloody phone!’ and slammed his receiver down.

This was followed by a couple of plaintive messages from Orla asking if I was all right.

‘Though if you’re not all right – I mean, if we were wrong about Jason and you’re lying in a bloody puddle in the kitchen, you’re not going to get up and tell me so, are you?’

The last message, if you could describe it as one, was just my name, spoken questioningly in an instantly familiar voice. Shivers ran up and down my spine, but don’t ask me to try and define whether they were pleasurable or not because I listened to him speak my name five times and I still couldn’t decide.

‘That one
must
have been a crank,’ Jamie said. ‘You’ve forgotten to wipe it. I’ll do it for you, shall I?’

‘No! No – I’ll leave it for now, just in case I recognise it.’

‘OK. You get a lot of messages, don’t you?’

‘Only because I’ve been working so hard for three days trying to finish this book, so I’ve just let everything accumulate. But it’s done now. Let’s see what the post has brought.’

The top envelope was inscribed with the word Urgent! in big straggly capitals.

Dear Sis,

Just to warn you – have been shanghaied by Ma and Pa to drive them down to Westery in search of the ewe lamb that was lost, or something. Pa’s off his head, and these days I don’t think it’s just the booze. They seem to mean Jane by the ewe lamb, but she’s more like mutton dressed as, if you ask me.

Booked us all into some B&B in the village – Haunted Well? – for a couple of nights. Do you know it?

They don’t want to see you, only Jane, Pa says. Thought I’d better tell you. Hide the vampire teeth and the upside-down crosses. I’ll slip out when I can and come and see you.

Love, Francis.

I was still looking at this aghast (and I don’t mean by the weak black magic humour and terrible handwriting), when Jamie, who’d been riffling through the pile, said:

‘Here’s a hand-delivered note from that dishy blonde friend of yours, Orla.’

‘Couldn’t get you on the phone,’ he read. ‘Have got three Easter B&B bookings by people all called Leigh. Any relation? Are you all right in there? Love, Orla.’

‘Wonder who these Leighs are?’ he pondered, his brow furrowed.

‘Ma, Pa and Francis – this letter’s from Francis telling me they’re coming to rescue Jane from my evil influence: but she’s not here.’

‘Better tell them, then,’ he advised, which is easier said than done when you haven’t phoned them for over twenty years.

He cravenly refused to do it for me, but there was no reply anyway, and Robbie answered when I rang Francis’s shop, and said he’d gone away for a few days.

‘They must have set out already,’ I said despairingly. ‘Jamie, you’ll have to stay here too, so you can tell them what’s happening. They don’t want to see me.’

‘No fear, not after listening to Pa on that tape! I’m off back down to Portsmouth again. I’ll have to fake an illness, or something.’

‘Coward,’ I said bitterly, but he just grinned and took himself off. Perhaps it’s his survival instinct that has kept him out of serious trouble so far, because it certainly isn’t due to intelligence.

When he’d gone I drove furtively round to Orla’s and informed her just who she was about to entertain in her guesthouse, but cowardly declined to meet her and Jason at the pub that night, even when she said Jason had now simmered down to mild volcanic bubbling.

‘I can’t – I’ve finished the book, but there are a few bits of tidying-up on it to do. I’ll see you at the auction tomorrow.’

‘You certainly will! Dante and Jason are shaping up to have a bidding war over you, and the vicar just told me his housekeeper’s going to be bidding for your services on behalf of someone who’s abroad. I wonder who
that
could be?’

My heart sank. ‘Oh no, he wouldn’t – would he? He
was
asking all sorts of questions about it though, and – oh, shit!’

‘Max, of course,’ she agreed.

‘Honestly, talk about too much, too late!’ I fumed. ‘And what do you mean, Jason and Dante are going to have a bidding war over me?’

‘Dante’s been haunting the pub the last couple of days looking even more morose, as has Jason – waiting for you to turn up, I think – and whatever they say to each other seems to have some sort of unspoken subplot.’

‘Subplot?’ I stared at her.

‘Yes. What could that be, I wonder?’ she asked innocently. ‘Maybe something like: whoever buys you can father your offspring?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said primly. ‘I hope neither of them will waste their money when they’ve read the list of things I’m offering, because sex is definitely not on it.’

‘Oh, I think they’re both expecting considerably more than a little light dusting,’ she said dryly. ‘Especially since Dante’s under the impression that you’ve ended your affair with Max.’

‘I was going to – I just haven’t quite got round to it yet. And I’m sure you’re wrong about Jason and Dante,’ I added doubtfully. ‘Are they friendly?’

‘Not very. Jason is angry and hurt, and Dante has gone quiet, thoughtful, and even more withdrawn. But then, he’s clearly worried about your brother and Rosetta too, isn’t he? They seem to be everywhere together, like Siamese twins.’

‘I think Rosetta’s old enough to look out for herself,’ I said. ‘And anyway, I think they’re really in love with each other, so it doesn’t matter what Dante says about it.’

‘It’s rather sweet of him to care though, isn’t it? Anyway, I’ve given her lots of advice about her guests, because we’re both almost fully booked for Easter visitors. I’ve got your family coming, and Rosetta’s got three members of some ghost-hunting society
and
a medium with her husband, although she says Dante made her write to the medium and tell her that she couldn’t hold seances on his premises. She’s called Madame Something.’

‘It sounds busy, though my parents probably won’t stay more than one night when they realise Jane’s really not here.’ I ferreted about inside my bag and then handed her a note: ‘Will you give this to them when they arrive? It explains where she is.’

‘What are you doing for Easter? I haven’t got any vampire bookings for you for about a week, and then there are two.’ She pushed a bit of paper with the dates of my next appearances on across to me. ‘I’ve got one Marilyn Monroe on Saturday.’

‘I’m going to do nothing over Easter, except avoid Ma, Pa, Dante and Jason, and wait for everyone to go away or go back to normal. But I’ve had an idea for a new costume for you, one that I think would make Jason forget I even exist.’

She looked at me expectantly.

‘Barbarella!’

‘What
me?
I’d explode out of that outfit!’ she exclaimed.

‘All the better. I think he might just go for it. Most of his tastes are stuck in a time warp, anyway.’

Orla looked thoughtful. ‘Well, it would certainly be striking! I might give it a go. Nothing ventured … I’ll get on to that big fancy dress suppliers in London, I bet they can come up with the goods.’

‘Sock it to him!’ I urged.

‘I’ll do my damnedest, and even if it doesn’t work on Jason it should be pretty popular as a singing telegram. Only, what would she sing?’

‘I’ll think about it, and let you know.’

‘Tomorrow!’ she said firmly. ‘You’ll have to come out then for the auction. No trying to fake illnesses from pure cowardice.’

I groaned. ‘But if I was really ill, Orla, you could phone the vicar for me?’

‘No.’

‘Call yourself a friend?’

‘Even a friend can enjoy watching you squirm tomorrow!’ she said unfeelingly. ‘May the best – or worst – man win!’

I drove back by the same circuitous route, thus avoiding passing Jason’s shop. Later I rang Charles myself and tried my excuse, but he thought I was joking. ‘Teasing again, Cass my dear? And you with a huge reserve price on you!’

I felt like the prize winning heifer at the show.

‘I suppose you mean this telephone bidder? I think I can guess who that is!’

‘I’m sure you can, and the amount he will go up to is quite stupendous, my dear! I might just try and run it up a bit…’

‘That’s cheating,’ I said. ‘It
is
Max, isn’t it?’

‘Confidential, but let’s say I was surprised after what you’d told me. But then, if you are at all uneasy about whoever buys your services, I will chaperone you, my dear.’

‘Thank you, Charles, but I’m sure I can look after myself … except that I really am
not
feeling very well at all: I don’t think I’m going to be up to it tomorrow.’

‘Always the joker!’ he said with cheery imperviousness, and rang off.

Still, at least if Max wins the bidding for my services I won’t be called upon to provide them for some months, by which time I will either have told him definitely that it’s all over, or left the country. Or both.

Leaving the country before Dante reads my manuscript is something I was thinking of doing anyway, because I really don’t think he’s going to like having an evil vampire ancestor in his beloved house, so I can economically kill two vultures with one stone.

Then I had an even better idea, one fulfilling my promise literally to the letter: when Eddie popped in briefly later I gave him a ghost-pale copy of the manuscript to take to Dante. He’s sure to give up trying to strain his eyes before the end of the first chapter!

*   *   *

Saturday found me at the pub being issued with a numbered sticker, along with all the other slaves-for-the-day.

After my past experiences, this time I’d dressed down for the occasion. Contrary to popular belief I do have more practical garments than ankle-length crinkle velvet or crimped silk, and today I was wearing plain black jeans and a polo neck.

Admittedly, the said polo neck was made of stretch black velvet and clung a little, but at least it did not display a
centimeter
of cleavage.

‘You look terribly sexy in that outfit,’ Orla said, grinning. ‘What on earth are you offering to do this year? Cat burgling?’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ I asked anxiously. ‘I was trying not to look even remotely sexy, because of all that trouble I had that time with old Mr Browne.’

‘Cass, you’d look sexy in a sack, in a hollow-eyed, Morticia Addams kind of way. Oh look – there’s Dante and Rosetta. And isn’t that Eddie?’

‘I’m afraid so. He and Rosetta do seem to be inseparable, don’t they? You can’t see where one ends and the other begins, and Dante doesn’t look too pleased.’

This was an understatement: he’d have put the Grimm into anyone’s fairytale.

‘No, but I don’t know why,’ Orla said. ‘Eddie’s so sweet! I know he’s a bit off-beat, but—’

‘Not so much off-beat as off his head, but in an entirely harmless way.’

‘You don’t look too worried about who’s going to give the winning bid for you,’ Orla said curiously.

‘Because I’m sure Max is the mysterious absentee bidder, with a wallet impelled into action by sheer dog-in-the-manger jealousy. Charles says he will chaperone me if I want him to.’

‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ she said, then nudged me like a schoolgirl as Dante sauntered over, tall, dark and doomy.

She went all pink when he smiled at her, but he didn’t smile at me: just eyed me dispassionately from top to toe, like I was a link in the food chain that might just put him on as a snack until something tastier came along.

The
weakest
link.

I squinted down to check I hadn’t somehow lost my clothing without realising it, but I still seemed to be covered pretty well from chin to toes. He was definitely in a rage about something, though, unless it was just natural reaction to having bared some of his soul to me, but I hadn’t
forced
him to, after all.

‘What will you do for me if I buy you?’ he asked coolly, but there was a disconcerting glint at the back of his eyes that caused me to blurt unthinkingly:

“Probably not what you think, Dante Chase!’

‘You have no idea what I’m thinking – and let’s keep it that way. But you have certain talents that interest me, and if I can’t have you one way, I’ll have you another,’ he said and strode off.

‘What the hell does he mean by that?’ I demanded. ‘Orla, stop giggling – it isn’t funny!’

“Oh yes it is – your face! But don’t worry, I’m sure he just means that he’s going to enlist you as First Ghoul for the grand opening weekend of Spooky Hall B&B.’

‘He can’t ask me to do that when I haven’t put it on my list. I didn’t even put Crypt-ograms on it, in case he tried to get me to do it when I’d already refused.’