The Chalice (60 page)

      
'Oh.' She almost smiled. When she was up in Yorkshire, Juanita
had sent her a two-page picture spread from Hello! magazine. It had said,
Dame Wanda Carlisle, newly adopted into the
Pagan Faith, receives us in her Home Temple in Mystical Glastonbury
. The
actress had been photographed in Egyptian costume. There'd been no mention of 'The
Cauldron'.

      
'Diane, listen to me.' Ceridwen's voice so close she could
 
feel the warm breath on her cheek. 'I've
dealt many times with this situation. If you're alone, you won't sleep. You
won't feel secure. You know they know you can identify them. You'll feel so
much safer here. There are plenty of rooms. And we shall watch over you.'

      
'Honestly, I ...' She tried to lift her head from the soft
cushion. It felt so incredibly heavy.

      
'Which brings us to the question of the police. Do you think we
should call them? I think perhaps we should. Especially if one of the attackers
works for your father ...'
      
'Gosh, no. Please.'

      
'Unfortunately,
 
I
didn't see them do anything. They scattered when they saw me advancing. I could
testify that they were there, of course. I know the rest would be your word
against theirs, but...'

      
'No, really. My father mustn't know. That above all. Please
don't tell the police. I don't think I could face it. I don't think I could
summon the strength. I just feel, you know, so awfully tired.'

'Diane, I know you 're there. Will you at least do
me the common courtesy of returning my calls ... ?'

      
There were nine messages on the answering machine down in the
shop. Most of them from Lord Pennard.

      
'Yes, well, not calling him back was the most sensible thing she
could do under the circumstances,' Juanita said. 'His family have been pushing
people around for centuries, and Diane's easy. If he gets to speak to her, he
gets what he wants.'

      
'She does seem a bit malleable,' Powys said. 'For an upper-class
rebel.'

      
'She's not a rebel, she ... she's been pushed around all her life.
Father, Archer, nannies... even the so-called Third bloody Nanny ... That's
your rebellion.'

      
'DF?'

      
'Right.' Juanita accepted a cigarette in her lips. 'Thanks.'
      
There was a different tone to Pennard's
final message.
      
'
Diane, this is difficult for me...'
      
Juanita snorted smoke.

      
'... I should have
talked to you properly that night...'

      
'Old bastard should have talked to her properly from when she
was a kid,' Juanita said.

      
'
... but we were both
somewhat overwrought. I know what I did was high-handed. I'm sorry. I beg of
you to telephone me at the earliest possible...'

      
'He can sound very plausible sometimes. If the chainmail
gauntlet doesn't work, slip on the white evening gloves.'

      
'Shush,' Powys said. 'This one sounds interesting.'
      
'
... Mrs Shepherd in Coln St Mary, Gloucestershire. I understand you
have had dealings with my late husband…'

      
Juanita went still. 'Late?'
      
'...
who before he died was most perturbed that you had not contacted him after
promising you would.'

      
'Oh my God,' said Juanita. 'He rang up the night before the fire.
I'd forgotten all about it. I promised to go and see him, pick up some ...'

      
'...
papers, documents which, when I was sorting through his effects, I realised
should have been collected by you. I have made several attempts to telephone
you and I now merely wish to say that I am sending the package by courier to
Miss Endicott at Meadwell. If you wish to collect them from her, that will be
in order. Thank you'

      
'Oh, shit.' Juanita extracted the cigarette, using the tips of
her fingers. 'I should have gone over there the day I woke up in hospital. I
don't think I've thought about it from that moment to this. Now the poor old
boy's dead. He sounded awful, thinking about it, really ill
 
That's another one I've let down.'

      
'Oh, come on,' Powys said. 'Like you were supposed to ask the
ambulance driver to take you to Bristol via Gloucester?'

      
'I wouldn't feel so bad if I'd even thought about him, just
once.'

      
'Diane…Diane, it's
Woolly…'
      
'Oh God, here we go.'

      
'…got to talk. I'm at
the end of…Oh fuck, we just got to talk…I'm at home. Please call me when you
can. Please.'
      
'There you are.' Powys said.
'That's where she's gone.'
      
'OK. If you hold the phone I'll
call him.'
      
'Before you do, these papers. The
ones that woman mentioned.'

      
'Oh. Well, it was strange. Normally I would've listened harder
when he called, but that was a night we had other problems, with Ceridwen
downstairs and hearing about this man Headlice. Major Shepherd said ... he said
there was a missing chapter from Pixhill's diary that they couldn't publish for
legal reasons. He said that it cast light on what was happening here. I don't
know what he meant.'

      
'Why was he telling you, if it was unpublishable?'

      
'I don't know. He said Verity couldn't handle it on her own
any more. God, how could I forget this?'

      
'I'd like to see this stuff,' Powys said.

      
Juanita said sharply, 'You're thinking about your book, aren't
you? The Secret Pixhill Wasn't Allowed To Tell.'

      
She looked up in alarm as something fell against the shop door
like a heavy refuse sack.
       
Powys
moved across and lifted up the blind.

      
'Diane, for Chrissake let me in. We've got to talk.'

      
'God,' Juanita said, 'it's ...'

      
'Diane, listen ...' the voice still slurred but low and urgent
now. 'I know this isn't the best time. But I love you. I love you Diane.'

      
'... Sam Daniel?'

TWELVE

From a High Shelf

They' took Sam upstairs. He
was certainly pissed. But Juanita suspected there was more to it than that.
Some imbalance, something which had toppled him from his comfortably cynical,
nonchalant perch.

      
The sudden perception of a slow-burning desire for Diane?

      
Devastating, but not enough to do this to him. There was a
kind of desperation here.

      
'Juanita? Is that Juanita?' Sam peered at her, eyes wide and
blurred. A tremor went through him. 'I need to be sick.'

      
Powys showed him the lavatory and shut the door on him.

      
'I'm quite shocked,' Juanita said. 'I don't think I knew about
this. I don't think that even in my wildest...'

      
'I may be wrong,' Powys said, 'but I don't think Diane knows
about it either.'

      
'Christ,' said Juanita. 'The perfect suitor. A drunken,
left-wing anti-bloodsports-campaigner. If only Pennard were here.' She
collapsed into the sofa. 'OK, let's call Woolly.
Ask him to keep her there for a while. Some things need to be put into
perspective.'

      
Powys held the phone to her car and called the number.

      
There was no answer.

      
Juanita swallowed. Her throat felt very dry. She found herself
looking at one of Jim's pictures, was flung brutally back into the moments when
she was ringing Jim and ringing and ringing, and he didn't answer, kept on not answering,
that was when they went to the cottage.

      
'Juanita?'

      
Staring at the picture. Was it going dark? She must have told
Karen, the nurse, about that when she was feverish. Karen had said next day,
'That happened to my gran the night before Grandad died.' It used to be well
known. The pictures in the room go dark before a death.

      
'Come on ...' Powys on his knees in front of her. 'Calm down,
huh? Just tell me where he lives. I'll go and check this out. As soon as we
make sure Sam's OK.'

      
'Powys, you think something's happened to her, don't you?'

      
'I'm more worried about you. You're not well. You're very
pale.'

      
'I'm OK. Leave Sam to me. You go.'
      
'I'll leave Arnold. He's a dowser's
dog.'
      
'What on earth does that mean?'

      
'Pray you never have to find out.' Powys produced his
enigmatic earth mystery-guru's smile, but she could tell it was a struggle.

      
There was the sound of the lavatory flushing.

      
'And then we need to talk,' he said. 'About what that policeman
said. About Jim's cat.'

      
'Not his cat,' she said hoarsely. 'His hat.'

      
On his way out, Powys spotted on the table in the downstairs
parlour, an ancient copy of
The Avalonian
.
There was a drawing on the front of a woman looking up towards Glastonbury Tor.

      
He recognised her at once and felt an almost-aching sadness.

Despair made a cold
compress on Verity's heart as she switched off the light and padded in her
pom-pom slippers to the bed

      
Dr Grainger had said.
Go
to bed earlier in the winter, semi-hibernate like the animals. And, if sleep
will not come, make use of the peaceful hours to commune with the dark. Listen
to the night sounds, the conversing of owls, the creaking and shifting of the
house. Listen to the ancient, beating heart of Meadwell.

      
Verity lay under the sheets with her eyes open, drawn to the
windows, two chalky-grey rectangles like paving slabs. Like gravestones in the
wall. There were no owls tonight. Occasionally she would hear traffic from the
main road, half a mile away, but only the loudest lorries. She wished the road
were close enough for headlights to flash on to the glass.

      
Dr Pel Grainger would wince at such defeatism.
      
What did Dr Grainger know?

      
Rolling over on her cold pillow, aware of that painful tug her
left hip.

      
Arthritis.

      
Although it would be more comfortable that way, she could not
lie on her back, remembering how her mother had eventually died in the night
and Verity had found her
 
next morning, eyes wide open to the
ceiling like a stone effigy upon a tomb.

      
Verity felt utterly lost. Almost wished that she could See.

Powys said, 'Woolly?'

      
The little guy dropped his shovel in alarm, spilling fragments
and splinters of wood. Under the lamp projecting from the wall, his scalp gleamed
through sparse hair. Behind him was a hole where a window had been.

      
'I'm sorry. We haven't met.' Powys felt foolish. There were
shards of broken glass on the cobbles and remains of what might once have been
a guitar.

      
He was getting a bad feeling. If Arnold had been here, Arnold
would have growled that particular growl.

      
'Who are you'' Woolly retrieved the shovel, brandished it like
a weapon. Powys swiftly identified himself.

'J.M. Powys.' Woolly smiled
the smile of a man for whom everything comes too late. 'Heard you were in town.
Tried to find you once. Ask your advice. Sheesh.'

      
He lowered the shovel. 'Been a bad night, J.M. Bad as they
get.'

      
'We picked up your message for Diane. On the answering machine'

      
'Where is she?'

      
'We thought she might be here.'
      
'We?'

      
'Juanita Carey and me'

      
'She's back?' Woolly ran a weary hand through his hair.
      
'Shit. She picks her nights, don't she?
No, Diane's not here.'
      
'Has she been here?'