The Full Legacy (16 page)

I didn’t turn on the light. I didn’t want to make the dark outside darker when I had to leave.

And the dripping tap was barely audible now above the rain, pouring from the branches of the trees that jostled and scratched at the window.

Then I heard the rustle of someone passing along the corridor outside.

Thinking it must be Turner, I went to the doorway, pulled the door open and looked out down the corridor. At the bottom, a shadowy figure was turning the corner and a chill ran down my spine.

God knows why I followed, feeling like I did. Maybe I was still trying to make sense of my fear... Anyway, I
did
follow, finding myself climbing a narrow flight of wooden stairs into what must once have been the servants’ quarters. Ahead of me was total darkness. I ran my hand along the door frames, counting – one – two - three. Then a door creaked open, square in the middle of the corridor, spilling a pool of blue over my feet, and dazed and adrenalin-drunk by then, I went in.

Once I got my bearings, I realised that I was in a huge loft, like the studios artists inhabit in American books and films. It had sloping walls with massive windows swooping right across one side, taking up almost all of the space between vertex and floor. A thin ultramarine light flooded in and the sound of the rain, battering down onto the glass, was like fistfuls of impatient fingers tapping.

When I finally located her, I barely recognised her at all. She was standing so still and staring at me so strangely. She was like the woman I’d been holding in my arms only moments before, and yet, so unlike her...

Sick with uncertainty, I tried to say her name, but I couldn’t, I was too filled with a sense of the eeriness of the room and too unnerved by the presence of this strange version of my girlfriend. I began to wonder if I was truly awake. There was a dreamlike quality about her now. It may have been a trick of the light and the shadows cast by the raindrops on the glass, but even the air about her seemed to be shimmering. She took a step towards me and panic pulsed through my entire body. For a moment I tried to reason with myself. Then fear got the better of me and I almost fell over myself backing out of the room, staggering backwards, breaking into an almost run as I got out into the corridor and skidded, scrambling for a foothold down the stairs.

I don’t know how I managed to find my way back to our room again, but some kind of homing instinct took me there.

Once inside, I pressed myself against the cool silk of Turner’s dressing gown hanging behind the door. I was gasping for breath. I kept telling myself that it was all okay. Turner had every right to walk around her own house if she wanted to. I must have given her a real fright following after her in the dark like that. In fact, she was probably up there right now, thinking she’d brought some crazy woman home with her. We’d have a really good laugh about all this when she came back downstairs.

I’d just about convinced myself when I slid back into bed and turned over... and she was there.

I wondered how long she’d been watching me.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked quietly, reaching for me in the dark.

‘Oh, nowhere... Just the bathroom,’ I lied, trying to stop myself from shaking.

‘You were ages.’

‘Yeah, I got a bit lost.’

‘Mm... I missed you.’

She was drifting back into sleep. I forced myself to steady my breathing, feeling her warmth against me. I wished she would stay awake and keep holding me, but her arm grew limp and eventually I turned away from her, curling myself into a tiny ball, cool, at the edge of the bed.

I kept thinking of that stupid Ouija board all those years ago – still not knowing if Corinne had rigged that up with her friends, just for a laugh at my expense. She’d had that kind of edge to her, that ability to exploit people’s weakness for fun.

I wondered if Turner was like that too.

I’d felt so alone then and I felt it now.

It was almost dawn before I dared to close my eyes.

The Study

By the morning, I’d convinced myself that I’d imagined the whole thing.

No wonder I’d scared myself, I thought, still half asleep but already rationalising like mad. What did I expect? Wandering round a spooky old house in the middle of the night when my nerves were already shot from Mary dying and psychic messages and shadowed photographs and goodness-knows-what after effects from Ros’s bloody vol-au-vents.

I opened my eyes warily though, still half afraid of what I might see.

Everything looked normal enough to me.

Sickly grey sunlight filtered through Sanderson drapes.

Turner was leaning on one elbow, gazing down at me. She didn’t look like somebody who’d been zooming around on different astral planes. She looked gorgeous in fact – tousled and a bit sleepy.

‘You look like butter wouldn’t melt when you’re asleep,’ she said.

‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ I replied.

And didn’t I just know it?

Bemused at how much I’d scared myself, I reached out for her under the sheets and let my hand rest lightly on her hip, curving my thumb round to stroke a path over her skin. Her sigh of appreciation came deep.

‘Are you trying to turn me on?’ she asked.

‘Might be.’

‘You don’t want any breakfast then?’

Actually, I was very hungry.

‘Since you come to mention it,’ I said. ‘I do.’

‘Okay.’ She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. ‘There are bound to be some croissants in the freezer.... Coffee?’

‘Mm – please!’

‘Okay. Give me twenty minutes or so... I’ll be back.’

While she was gone, I took stock of my surroundings in daylight. The soft green walls were painted in matt emulsion, the white picture rail held a huge Hockney photo-montage above the chest of drawers to the left of the bed, and there was an original marble fireplace opposite that reminded me instantly of graveyards. I wasn’t all that keen on being alone there if I’m honest, so I strained my ears to listen for the comforting sound of the plumbing, tracing the sound to Turner, running a tap in some distant kitchen and told myself that it really wouldn’t be all that long before she was back.

She made a surprisingly good breakfast out of things in cold storage.

Then she was keen to show me round the house.

I hesitated. ‘I think I’d better have a shower first,’ I said.

I stared at my clothes from the day before. I was completely unprepared for a weekend. I’d already borrowed a toothbrush last night, but with no clean clothes this morning, shower or not, I was worried about how I was going to smell.

Turner followed my train of thought.

‘Help yourself to any of my stuff,’ she said. ‘I never wear half of it anyway. The clothes are in the wardrobe – undies in the top drawer.’

I guess I looked dubious. I’d always been much too shy to make friends of the clothes-sharing variety... even Michelle – even, if I’m honest, Corinne.

Turner decided that I needed to be taken in hand.

‘Here.’ She delved around and bundled some stuff onto the bed for me. ‘Try these. You look good in black. I remember.’

It was an amazing house. Four floors (not counting the cellars). Huge basement kitchens with some of the ranges still intact. An oak panelled dining room with an octagonal glass ceiling and massively plumed flower arrangements. And a drawing room with a magnificent Persian rug in eggshell blue, coral pink and white, where there were big cosy leather sofas and chairs, and a TV set with a screen not much smaller than a lot of art-house cinemas....

But she didn’t show me the attic.

‘What about the loft?’ I asked.

‘The loft?... Oh, that’s Mum’s old studio. I haven’t been up there for years. She goes up sometimes when she’s around. She’s got paperwork and stuff up there. I think it’s locked. I don’t even know if I’ve got a key.’

She opened a door to her left. ‘This is my favourite room,’ she said.

It was a music room, painted Wedgwood blue and housing a Steinway grand piano so glossy, you could have fixed your make-up in it.

‘Hell’s bells!’ I gasped, staring at this elegant monster. ‘Who’s the pianist?’

‘Me now,’ said Turner. ‘I guess.’

It was hardly the sort of instrument anyone would own just to dabble on. Not unless they were very wealthy... But then, of course, it was becoming increasingly clear to me that Turner, or at least her family, were very wealthy indeed.

‘It was my dad’s piano originally,’ she said. ‘He had dreams once of being a concert pianist.’

‘Did he teach you to play?’

‘Yes.’

‘Show me,’ I challenged.

She looked shy, for once. ‘I’m a bit rusty,’ she said.

‘I’ll make allowances.’

‘Well, okay. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.’

She went over to the piano and heaved the lid open. Pensively, she sat down and ran her fingers over the keys, taking a deep breath. ‘Okay then...’ she said.

And then she began to play.

I wasn’t prepared for the beauty of it. My past acquaintance with pianos had never extended much beyond school assembly uprights and the occasional TV concert strained through a three inch speaker and my prejudices against any music played in evening dress. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what Turner was playing. I just knew that it moved me. I sank into a chair by the hi-fi cabinet and closed my eyes.

When the last note faded away, I didn’t want to accept that it was over.

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and looked at Turner. She looked back at me, a little bashfully – flushed.

My feeling for her deepened to another level, overawed at what I’d experienced.

‘That was beautiful!’ Words were quite inadequate to describe how I felt.

‘Brahms,’ she said.

‘Oh?...’ I swallowed back the automatic Cockney rhyming addition of Liszt. I was starting to realise that I was going to need to keep a tight rein on the working class North/East Londoner chip on my shoulder here. ‘I don’t remember seeing a piano at your place in London.’

‘No. Adam didn’t like to be disturbed by my practising.’ She smiled grimly. ‘Thankfully, that isn’t going to be a problem anymore, is it?’

I persuaded her to play something else for me.

At 11am, she glanced at her watch.

‘I have to see our estate manager,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some papers to sign. Mum still trusts me with
that...
for the time being at least. I’ll be about an hour. You can come over there with me if you like.’

I shook my head uncertainly. I guessed she wouldn’t want me tagging along on business with her. And anyway, I wanted to keep up the independent image I’d managed to project so far. I had the feeling she might despise me if I got too clingy.

‘I’ll be fine here,’ I said, keeping the doubt firmly out of my mind.

Her eyes searched mine until she was assured that I meant it. Then she rewarded me with an approving smile.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘If you’re sure... Make yourself at home – Music – TV – coffee – Anything you fancy, just help yourself.’

‘I will – thank you.’

She fascinated me; the way she could shift in an instant, from business woman to vamp to vulnerable little girl. There were so many personalities in one woman and all so different. Maybe we’re all like that to some extent, but Turner made a fine art of it. Pulling on a light grey plaid jacket now, she looked every inch the Lady of the Manor. She even
felt
respectable as she kissed me – a soft, gentle, but very hasty brush of her lips against my cheek as she headed for the door.

‘There are some keys here if you want to go out,’ she said over her shoulder as she left, pointing to a rather ornate looking hook beside the door where a mortice and Yale key dangled together from a single shared key ring.

I strained my ears for the last sounds of her leaving – the creak of the door – the Yale lock clicking to.

I didn’t hear the car engine starting, so I guessed that wherever she was going, she must be walking.

Alone, I took myself into the silent drawing room and told myself I had nothing to fear.

I
was
scared though, almost instantly. I went to the window to look out. It was a grey day, but brighter than yesterday. The clouds were breaking up a little and there were patches of watery blue in the sky. In daylight, I could appreciate the design of the garden at the front of the house. The drive swept into a large gravel circle by the front steps, sodden deep grey from the rain, and bordered with mature shrubs and trees and white and silver ground-cover plants, leading to a long lawn stretching to the boundary wall. It all looked pretty much as if it would look after itself, though I imagined there would be more grounds behind the house, and gardeners to tend them – probably some ancient retainer and a young lad or two to help with the heavy lifting.

I realised as I pictured this that my image of British Upper Class life was stuck in some time-warp, based almost entirely on TV and films like ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and ‘The Go-Between.’

I felt completely out of my depth and suddenly, I really wanted to talk to someone back home.

I’d seen the telephone in the study on my guided tour. I tried to get my bearings... out of the door, turn left, then right by the stairs opposite the music room.

It was exactly the kind of study you would expect to find in a house like that – oak panelled and book lined, with a big fireplace to read by. There was a huge cosy looking armchair by the fire and an open copy of ‘The Flora and Fauna of East Anglia’ on the small table beside it. The desk was inset with leather and had an ancient swivel chair to match. The colour scheme inhabited the russet end of the spectrum and there was the lingering, faintly sulphurous smell of coal from the last time the fire had been lit.

It all looked like a carefully laid out room in a National Trust property, though on closer inspection there were some paperbacks on the shelves – Susan Howatch, Anita Brookner, even some Ian Fleming. They’d been read too, I could tell by the faint creases down their spines.