The Wraiths of War (17 page)

My aim, during these ‘communing’ sessions, was to see whether I could somehow get the ‘old’ heart to link with its younger self, or at least give me some clue as to where or when the Dark Man might have gone with it – though to what end I don’t know.

‘Maybe this is what’s
supposed
to happen,’ Clover said, trying to reassure me.

‘Well, if it is, why the fuck doesn’t someone enlighten me? Why doesn’t a future version of me pop back to explain what I’m supposed to do next?’

The simple fact was, I was in limbo, and I’m afraid that didn’t make me easy to live with. I stomped about the place, being grumpy and snappy, feeling like a caged animal.

‘Maybe you should just look at this as a chance to recuperate for a while,’ Clover suggested one evening as I sat slumped miserably in front of the fire.

I scowled at her. ‘I don’t want to fucking recuperate.’

‘Because you’re enjoying the War so much you’re eager to get back to it?’

I glared at her. ‘Do you know how fucking insensitive that question is? If you had any inkling of what it’s like in those fucking trenches—’

‘Stop!’ she barked, raising a hand. ‘Just stop right there!’

Now we were both glaring at each other. In a steely voice she said, ‘I’m sick of you mooching around, whining like a spoiled brat.
That’s
why I said what I said – because you’re driving me up the wall. Now, I’m going to get a bottle of good red wine and we’re going to sit by the fire and talk this through. Okay?’

Frustration that manifested itself as anger was still boiling inside me, but I could see how earnest she was, how much she wanted to help. It caused my anger to evaporate a little, leaving a residue of melancholy tiredness behind.

I rubbed a hand over my face. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Sounds good.’

And it
was
good. Good just to sit by the fire and drink fine wine and talk things through.

Admittedly we didn’t get very far. We didn’t come up with any answers. But it untangled the angry knots inside my head, helped me see that when it boiled down to it I had two choices.

Either I could do nothing and hope that at some point Fate would intervene, as it had in the past.

Or I could be both proactive and reckless. I could try using the heart, whether to take me back to the trenches or in pursuit of the Dark Man, and see what happened – which I guess was merely another way of giving myself up to Fate, albeit in this case having first given Fate a boot up the backside to stir it into action.

‘Is that all we are, though?’ I said, swirling the wine round in my glass, enjoying the way the firelight turned it into a glowing, blood-red whirlpool. ‘Puppets? Creatures of Fate? No will of our own?’

‘Guess we’ll never really know, will we?’ We were well into the second bottle and Clover’s words were slightly slurred by now, her eyes sleepy with heat and alcohol. ‘Do we do what we do because we choose to or because we’re meant to? It’s an enigma. An enigma wrapped in a conum… com… comundrum.’ She pushed herself to her feet and gave a cat-like stretch. ‘And with that tongue-twister I’m off to bed. G’night.’

After she’d gone I took the heart from my pocket and sat staring at it again, my eyes smarting, my thoughts fuzzy. I’d seen the Dark Man die in this very room, had seen the heart consume him. But what did that mean? That the future was secure? That I was destined to get
my
heart back, leaving him with his? Or was the Dark Man a rogue element, a trickster who rode roughshod over the timelines, twisting and breaking them without compunction? Maybe, by stealing my heart, he had already caused things to start unravelling? I couldn’t help but see time as a complex plait, composed of many threads, all of which were now not only fraying, but actually coming apart, each strand separating from the others and spinning off into God knew where.

Or maybe that was bollocks. Who knew whether our actions were already pre-ordained, part of some great cosmic scheme or structure from which there was no possibility of deviation, or whether we had been given free will, in which case every little thing we did, every decision we made, subtly – or maybe not so subtly – altered all our pasts and presents and futures, creating a multiverse, a realm of endless alternate realities?

The questions swirling in my head felt like a multiverse in themselves, a cascade forever tumbling and intertwining, never coming to rest.
Was
there an answer, or answers, to these questions somewhere? And more to the point, would I ever find those answers?

‘Do I want to?’ I murmured to myself. ‘Do I want to know everything?’

Still holding the heart, my mind broke up, my consciousness washed away in the torrent of thoughts and questions that were rushing through it. And in front of the fireplace from which, over a century before, I had seen a shape-shifter emerge in the form of a black crow and kill my butler and friend Hawkins, I fell asleep.

And dreamed.

I have an impression of noise, people, dim lighting. I’m with someone, but I don’t know who it is. My attention is drawn to a figure across the room. It’s as if we’re linked in some way, but at the same time I feel repelled by the figure; it exudes an aura of horror or dread. Although I’m staring directly at it I can’t seem to properly focus on it. Is it standing in shadow, or is its face partly concealed, perhaps by a hood or a mask? I know the figure is aware of me, and when it sees me looking at it, it turns and flees. Although I’m afraid, I immediately give chase.

It was a simple dream, and yet it seemed forbidding, overwhelming, as if it possessed a peculiar and terrible darkness all its own. And although I thought I had remembered all of it, in my memory it still seemed somehow more protracted than my telling of it, as if each individual second had been saturated, engorged, with its own dreadful significance.

Despite feeling sure I’d recollected the dream in its entirety, I nevertheless had the sense that something had happened within it that had shocked me out of it, though when I snapped awake, shivering and disorientated in front of the grey embers of the fire, weak daylight leaking through the gaps in the curtains, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.

I was still gripping the heart. Gripping it so hard that my white-knuckled fingers ached when I uncurled them. Slipping it into the pocket of the hoodie I was wearing, I looked at my palm and saw a black imprint had been left there, like a charred stigmata. I staggered upstairs, and into the bathroom. After turning on the tap, however, I paused, my hand hovering inches from the column of running water.

Was it wise to wash part of the heart down the sink?

‘Fuck it,’ I muttered, and put my hand under the running tap. Because when it came down to it, what else could I do? Even if I cleaned my hand with a Wet Wipe, and then burned the Wet Wipe, the particles would still end up in the air, where they’d be breathed in, absorbed.

Besides, it wasn’t as if the heart was something alien. It was of the earth, part of the planet. I had seen myself as its creator, forging it from the clay and sand with my bare hands. It was ancient and elemental; it was a repository for primal forces.

My head was pounding. I leaned forward over the sink until my forehead was resting against the cool glass of the mirror.

‘You look how I feel.’

My skin squeaked against the glass when I turned my head. Clover was standing in the bathroom doorway in a white vest top and blue-and-yellow checked pyjama bottoms. She looked pasty, though her eyes were dark-ringed, partly due to smudged mascara, which she’d evidently been too tipsy to remove before going to bed.

‘What time is it?’ I asked.

She held up her mobile. ‘Nine twenty-two. I had a text from Jackie, Hope’s nurse at the hospital. She wants to see us.’

‘Which one?’

‘What?’

I closed my eyes. My thoughts still felt jumbled and jittery. ‘Who wants us to see us? Jackie or Hope?’

‘Oh. Jackie.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. She doesn’t say.’

‘Is Hope all right?’

‘As far as I know. She was yesterday when I spoke to her. So do you think you can find a window in your busy schedule?’

The question was delivered as nothing more than a gentle quip, but I was in the mood for neither banter nor sarcasm.

‘What time?’

‘Jackie asked if we could be at the hospital by midday. That’s when she has her lunch break.’

‘Sure. I’ll need a shower first, though.’

‘And I need coffee,’ said Clover. ‘Lots and lots of it.’

We arrived at the hospital at ten to twelve. The plan was to speak to Jackie first, who I’d met a couple of times, and then go see Hope afterwards.

When we entered the swish foyer of Oak Hill, Jackie, a slim, attractive, dark-haired woman of about thirty, rose from one of the plush armchairs in the waiting area and came hurrying towards us, hand outstretched.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Thanks for agreeing to see me.’

Her velvety voice had the barest hint of a Welsh accent. Her large chestnut-coloured eyes regarded us earnestly beneath a fringe that seemed to be balanced on her long upper lashes.

‘No problem,’ Clover said, shaking her proffered hand.

It was only when I shook it too that it struck me for the first time how small and fine-boned she was. My own hand swamped hers.

‘Shall we grab a coffee?’ Jackie said, gesturing towards an open door on the left-hand side of the wood-panelled corridor behind her, beyond which I knew was The Library Café, whose walls were lined with shelves of leather-bound books. ‘My shout.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Clover.

When I nodded Jackie gave me a quick, hesitant smile, then turned and led the way.

Once we were installed around a corner table with our various beverages – a cappuccino for Jackie, a mocha for Clover and a double espresso for me (I needed the caffeine kick) – Jackie said, ‘As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I wanted to talk to you about Hope.’

She was clearly nervous, and that made me nervous too. Anyone who spent any time with Hope, as Jackie had, would realise pretty quickly that she was anything but a normal girl. I braced myself for a barrage of questions – and hoped not only that I’d remember the fictional back-story that Clover and I had hastily worked out in the car on the way over, but also that I’d be able to make it sound convincing as I lied through my teeth.

‘Okay,’ Clover said easily, and sipped her mocha, leaving the floor open for Jackie to continue.

Jackie glanced briefly at each of us and then down at her drink, her finger prodding at the handle of her china mug as if she didn’t quite trust it. A little falteringly she said, ‘She’s a lovely girl. A real sweetie. My son Ed thinks so too. This last week or two they’ve become great friends.’

‘We heard,’ said Clover. ‘Hope talks about him all the time. And also about you. Thank you for being so kind to her.’

Jackie smiled, and this time it was less hesitant, more genuine. It turned her from an attractive woman into a beautiful one.

‘It’s no effort at all. Hope makes it easy for me. She’s a model patient.’

‘But?’ I said.

Her smile slipped. ‘Pardon?’

‘There must be a but. I’m sure you haven’t asked to see us just to tell us how lovely she is.’

Clover flashed me the briefest of frowns, as if to let me know I was being too aggressive, too confrontational.

‘No,’ Jackie said, ‘I haven’t.’ She picked up her mug, then put it down again. ‘It’s just… well, do you mind… can I ask… what’s the situation with Hope?’

‘The situation?’ Clover said.

Jackie’s cheeks were reddening. ‘I don’t want to cause offence. And I don’t want you to think I’m being nosy. But… well, Hope tells me you’re not her parents. She says you’re not even married… though you pretend to people that you are.’

‘Is that a problem?’ I said, making an effort
not
to sound confrontational.

‘Of course not,’ said Jackie, a little too shrilly, then she glanced around to check she wasn’t attracting attention. Unless they were being terribly polite, the customers sitting at the only other two occupied tables seemed embroiled in their own conversations. In a quieter voice she said, ‘If what Hope says is true, then of course your reasons are entirely your own affair—’

‘But you’re concerned for her welfare?’ said Clover.

‘Well, yes. But not because I think you’ve been mistreating her, or anything. It’s obvious that Hope loves and trusts both of you, and that you’ve treated her well…’

‘But her “situation”, as you called it, still makes you uncomfortable?’

‘Well… not uncomfortable as such…’

‘Curious then?’

Despite what she had said, Jackie
did
look uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just… there seem to be so many loose threads. And Hope herself is… well, it’s as if she’s been kept in isolation all her life. The gaps in her knowledge are… startling. As I say, I know it’s none of my business, but the thing is, I do
care
about Hope. I’ve grown to care about her
a lot
. And I thought…’

‘You thought you owed it to her to find out if she’s safe?’ said Clover gently.

‘Well, partly that.’

‘She is,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to worry about that. We care about her as much as you do. All we want is for her to be happy and healthy, to have a good life.’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt it,’ said Jackie. ‘And I really do mean that. You can call me naive if you want, but… well, you get a feel for people, don’t you? And often you can tell, by how children behave, whether they’re being mistreated, and I know that Hope isn’t. Despite all she’s been through, with her arm, I mean, she’s a happy little girl. Happy and bright and…
loved
.’

Clover was nodding. ‘She is,’ she said. ‘She is loved.’ Then she paused and looked at me. ‘Should we tell her?’

I frowned, playing my part. ‘They’d have our guts for garters if we did.’

‘Only if they find out,’ said Clover, ‘and I’m not going to tell them. Are you?’

I snorted. ‘Course not.’

Jackie was staring at us, wide-eyed, her fingers gripping the edge of the table, as if she was anticipating a bumpy ride. Her lips were pursed as if she dare not speak, or even breathe.