‘But what do you see?’ David persisted quietly.
‘Spirits!’ Sarah said darkly. ‘Shadows. Ghosts, moving in the darkness round her.’
In the hall Clare gasped. She felt suddenly very sick.
‘You are quite sure of this?’ Even without seeing his face she could hear the scepticism in David’s voice. She saw Sarah colour. ‘If you don’t believe me, you ask Mr Royland. He’s seen her do it. He told me. In the London house. And look at the dog! Animals always know. There’s evil in this house, Sir David. Evil!’
Clare leaned against the wall, pressing her burning face against the cool wooden panelling.
‘It’s good of you to stay, my dear.’ David’s voice reached her dimly. It was reassuring, and just a little condescending. ‘As I told you, I know Mr Royland is deeply grateful. He is relying on you to look after her while he’s away, but he is seeking expert help. There is nothing for you to worry about in the meantime, I promise you –’
He broke off as Clare marched into the kitchen. Her face was white, but somehow she kept her voice steady as she looked from one to the other of them. ‘So, where is this coffee? Don’t forget you’re in a hurry, David.’ She smiled at Sarah as brightly as she could. ‘Gillian and I thought you must have run off together!’
She saw the quick glance flashed between them as Sarah agitatedly threw her gloves down on the kitchen table.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Royland. I’ve only just got back from church …’
‘That’s all right, Sarah.’ Clare smiled again, somehow forcing her face to act normally. ‘Perhaps you would bring it through as soon as you can. David –?’ She held the door open for him to precede her up the passage towards the front of the house.
It wasn’t true! It couldn’t be true! That Sarah had watched her meditate! That she had seen something? Dear God, it couldn’t be true!
Somehow she got through the next half hour pouring coffee, talking cheerfully, watching David and Gillian, knowing they were watching her. It seemed a lifetime before they left at last and she could go back to the kitchen where Sarah was thickening the gravy for lunch. She had removed her coat at last, and put away her gloves.
‘What do you mean by lying to Sir David about me?’ Clare cried. ‘How can you tell him those wicked things?’
Putting down her wooden spoon, Sarah turned. Her face was white. ‘I never tell lies!’
‘You told him you’d spied on me. Oh, I believe that! But you said you’d seen things!’
‘I did see things.’ Two bright pink patches appeared on Sarah’s cheeks. ‘I told him the truth! What you’re doing is evil, Mrs Royland. If it wasn’t for Mr Royland I wouldn’t stay here another minute!’
‘Then don’t. Please don’t stay. Certainly not to please my husband. You can go. Right now, if you’re so afraid of me –’
‘No.’ Sarah was shaking her head. ‘No. No. I can’t leave. I have to stay. I have to try and help you. I’ve been praying for you.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘Please, let me stay –’ She broke off as the door opened and Casta nosed her way into the kitchen.
Clare stared down at the dog, then she dropped to her knees and put her arms around Casta’s neck, burying her face in the thick fur. Casta wagged her tail and licked Clare’s hand.
‘Was she really afraid?’ Clare looked up at Sarah suddenly.
Sarah nodded. ‘Animals always know, Mrs Royland.’
‘Don’t leave me, Sarah. Please.’ Suddenly Clare’s anger had gone. It was replaced by fear. She could feel herself beginning to shake. ‘I shan’t be doing it any more. None of it. No yoga. No meditation. It was really only daydreaming, you know. I wasn’t doing anything terrible. It was just something to fill the emptiness …’
Sarah’s face softened. ‘You should do that with real people, Mrs Royland.’ Embarrassed by the sudden intimacy she turned back to the cooker and picking up the wooden spoon she began restlessly to stir the gravy. ‘Mr Royland has been very worried about you, you know.’
‘I’m sure he has.’ Clare’s voice was dry. ‘Well, there is no need for him to be worried any more. It is finished.’
‘She said she could see the people, Zak!’ Clare came straight to the point. She had barely looked at the bright, sparsely furnished room with its view across the Cam. ‘Don’t you see, she said she could see them!’
She had parked Sarah’s car near St John’s and walked through the narrow streets towards the river. She had barely slept the night before, and when she had, the nightmare had returned: the eyes, the bars, the terrible, all-embracing fear. She had rung Zak at half past seven and set off for Cambridge only half an hour later.
Zak was sitting on the edge of his desk, his long legs crossed, his fingers interlaced on his knees. ‘Clare, I did warn you,’ he said gently.
‘You didn’t say they were real. That other people could see them! You said it was telepathy when you came to Campden Hill! But you saw her, you really saw Isobel!’ Her voice was unsteady.
‘I’m not sure what I saw, Clare.’ He spoke very slowly, considering every word. ‘I think I saw her, but it could have been telepathy. That is the most likely explanation.’ He hesitated, his confidence wavering before her attack. ‘I don’t believe I really saw anything physical, and I very much doubt if your Mrs Collins did either. My guess is that in her case she was making it up; trying to impress; saying something she knew would shock your brother-in-law. Perhaps she had been exaggerating when she talked about it to your husband, and she couldn’t retract what she’d said.’
‘You said before that you thought I might be creating thought forms,’ Clare said wearily.
‘I still prefer to believe that.’ He was watching her face, noting the pale, drawn expression, the dark rings beneath her eyes. He could see the strain.
‘But aren’t they things that no one else can ever see?’ Her voice was shaking.
Zak frowned, uneasily. ‘I’m not saying it’s not possible for other people to see them – or at least to think they see them,’ he said cautiously. ‘People can and do create tangible thought forms by the sheer power of their imagination. But I have always believed that when people claim that they have seen independent entities, the forms they have seen actually come as a result of telepathy rather than some true physical manifestation –’ he hesitated. ‘But I have read about it happening. I have read about people creating creatures of such power that they can exist on their own.’
‘And would those creatures be able to return on their own without invitation?’ Clare asked softly. She sat down abruptly on a plaited rush chair, placed to look out of the window.
‘Without invitation?’ Zak echoed. He ran his tongue across dry lips. ‘God, I wish I hadn’t gotten you into this. Why didn’t you stop when I told you before?’
‘Because I couldn’t stop, Zak. I didn’t want to then, and now …’ Her voice trailed away to a whisper. ‘Yesterday, Zak, it happened to me without my summoning them and it is the second time it has happened. I was reading the papers. I didn’t want it to happen. I tried to fight it. I tried to push it away. But I could see the figures in the room around me – shadows – talking, moving, all round me, only I couldn’t hear them or see them properly. Then they grew stronger. I couldn’t stop it happening, Zak. It was as if I had to watch. I was being forced to see what happened. I couldn’t fight it.’ A tear ran down her cheek and she rubbed it away angrily. ‘I don’t know what to do.’ She rose and stood by the window with her back to him, groping desperately for a tissue in the pocket of her skirt. ‘My brother-in-law, who is a rector in the Church of England, thinks they’re spirits. He thinks I’ve raised the spirits of the dead.’ She did not turn, but he could hear the fear in her voice.
Zak swallowed nervously. He was out of his depth. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘that is possible.’ He ran his fingers through his hair.
‘I feel tied to Isobel. She’s part of me; an ancestress of mine; I’m intrigued, fascinated by her.’ Clare put he
r hands on the glass of the window, staring abstractedly out at two people, drifting by in a punt. They were muffled to the eyebrows against the cold wind. ‘She’s haunting me, Zak.’
Zak was watching her closely as she stared out of the window at the water. The rushing clouds and bright windswept morning left it glittering dazzlingly in the sudden autumn sun. He could see the reflections playing on her face.
He sighed. How could an intelligent, vivacious, and, looking at her objectively, a very attractive woman have allowed herself to get into such a state? He shivered. He did not want to believe in the thought forms. He did not want to believe in the spirits. He did not want to believe that he had set her on this path. He pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, shrugging his shoulders uneasily as he watched her.
She turned suddenly. ‘I had that dream again last night. The bars; the terrible feeling of being trapped; the awful despair. It threw me. I had to talk to someone. Oh God, Zak, I can’t stand much more of this. It’s getting so that I’m afraid to go to sleep. I am afraid to be alone. I’m afraid of my own shadow! What am I going to do?’
‘What does your husband think about all this, Clare?’ he asked quietly.
‘He thinks I’m going mad,’ she whispered. ‘He doesn’t understand. He won’t even try. I’m not sure he even loves me any more.’
‘Ah.’ He paused for a moment, then tentatively he looked up. ‘Have you ever thought of leaving him?’ He was clutching suddenly at the obvious; the Freudian explanation for her dreams.
She frowned. Had she ever thought of it? Not in so many words perhaps, but in the last day or two, hadn’t that been the way her mind was working; hadn’t that been exactly what she was planning yesterday morning, in bed, when Isobel had driven all other thoughts out of her head?
‘If you’re feeling trapped, Clare, and your life is unhappy and lonely,’ he went on, ‘surely the thing to do is to change it. Radically.’
‘I don’t know that I do want to leave him. Perhaps I still love him –’
‘Do you? Are you sure?’ He was studying her closely.
Clare frowned. She looked away from him abruptly.
‘If you loved him, Clare, you would go to him, trust him, let him help you,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You’re not certain, are you? Are you sure he isn’t just a habit? Someone you’ve got used to having around. It is awfully hard to kick a habit, Clare. It takes a lot of courage, but once you have, the feeling of freedom can give you the biggest high you’ve ever had.’
‘Paul isn’t a habit. He isn’t a drug, Zak. He’s my husband!’
‘It doesn’t sound like it to me. Of course I’m not much of an expert on husbands.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘But he sounds to me like something or someone you’ve grown dependent on.’ He stood up abruptly and caught her hands. ‘Clare, you need to rethink your whole life. All your problems. The dreams, the meditations, the visions, the emptiness, they are all part of some dead-end alley you have wandered up; part of the dream of marriage and babies and husbands which you’ve been living in too long. I know I sound cruel. But you must see it. Those dreams tell it all. You are trapped. You want to break free. You have to break free.’
‘But …’ She stopped. When he put it baldly, like that, she was afraid. It was too abrupt, too great a break. Perhaps she still loved him, but couldn’t live with him? She shook her head. ‘I do still love Paul,’ she repeated stubbornly.
‘Do you? Do you really?’ Zak looked at her searchingly. Abruptly he released her hands. ‘OK. You love him. Then stay with him. Go to London. Go to Zurich or wherever it is he is. Stick with him. Follow him. Don’t be alone. But don’t bury your personality in his. Be yourself. Be strong.’
‘And that will stop the dreams? Stop the visions?’ She looked at him doubtfully.
‘It will if you really want to stop them.’ He wished he felt more certain that what he was saying was true. ‘You have to find the strength to fight them, Clare. No more meditation. That path is not for you. You have to find the answers through activity, not passivity. Through action. You must close the door on the past and bolt it. Look to the future. You must build your own life. I can tell you things you can do to protect yourself, teach you banishing prayers and tell you where to buy protective oils to anoint yourself, show you how to make a magic circle to keep you safe from Isobel, whatever or whoever she is, but before everything else, you must get rid of that castle. If someone wants to buy it, sell. Then create something real with the money.’
‘Sell?’ she echoed.
‘You have to. If you cling to that, you cling to the past, and to the dreams, don’t you see?’
‘So I should let Sigma have it?’ She was almost talking to herself. She turned away from him, back to the river. ‘No, Zak. I can’t do that. Never. The past is part of me.’
He scowled. God in heaven, couldn’t she see the danger? Wasn’t that why she had come to him? He slammed his fist down on the desk. ‘You have to fight it, Clare, don’t you see that? Unless you fight it, it will take you over. You have to sell that damn castle.’
But she was still shaking her head. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I won’t do that.’
The meeting with John Carstairs of Carstairs Boothroyd had lasted under one hour soon after Paul returned from Zurich. The young man was so excited that he was barely able to sit still in Paul’s office. Paul, behind his desk, watched him speculatively. At the far side of the room Henry was impassive. The takeover, if it happened, would make Carstairs’s fortune and he had asked BCWP to advise his company.
Paul shifted sideways behind his desk. ‘We’ll schedule a meeting with the full board,’ he said at last. ‘But I don’t see any problems.’ And Henry had nodded in agreement.
In the quiet office of the old Cameron Beattie building that afternoon Paul glanced at his watch and frowned. It was just after three. Slowly he reached for his direct line phone and began to dial.
Stephen Caroway, at Magnet Charles Plimsoll, was an old friend. He asked no questions as he wrote down the order for Carstairs Boothroyd shares which Paul gave him and automatically noted the time. ‘You want these New Time, for payment at the end of the next account, old boy, and to be sold as and when, right?’
‘They’ll triple before settlement date.’ Paul’s mouth had gone dry.
Caroway smiled. ‘I don’t doubt it. The profit to the usual account?’
‘If you please. And lunch on me, next week, OK?’
‘Screw lunch! I’ll take a case of Bollinger when the time comes.’ Caroway hung up. He looked down at the note. When he phoned the order through he had added £10,000 to it for himself.
In his office Paul had put down the phone and wiped his hands on his handkerchief. Then he walked over to the cabinet and reached for the bottle of Scotch. It was Thursday 23 October. If the gamble came off, he stood to make a fortune.
Rex was poring over the papers, his eyes racing down the lines of print.
‘Shit!’ He stood up abruptly. Then he pressed the intercom switch on his desk. ‘Is Doug there yet, Leonie?’
‘He’s just come in, Rex.’ His secretary’s voice sounded a little breathless.
‘Then send him in.’ Doug was no doubt touching her up in the outer office whilst he should be working. Rex waited an impatient ten seconds until the door swung open. ‘Well?’
Doug, a tall, fair Texan in his late forties, grinned. ‘You win some, you lose some. This one, I think, you win. I had a word in the right ear at the Department, Rex. There aren’t any other applications in that sector as yet. Could be you’ll be unopposed. Unless they say no in Houston.’
Rex slammed his fist on the table. ‘You leave Houston to me. We’re going to walk into this well, Doug, and it’s a good one. I can feel it, in my bones. Royland is going to sell.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘And I’m going to shift the European headquarters up there.’
Doug gaped at him. ‘To Duncairn? What in God’s name for?’
‘Prestige, Dou
g. That’s what for. The hotel can come down. We’ll build an admin block there. Air strip – everything. And rebuild the castle. Sigma is going places, Doug!’
‘Do they know all about this in Houston?’ Doug stood, hands in pockets, staring at the other man.
‘Some.’ Rex was guarded. ‘As much as they need to know.’ He smiled. ‘It’s the right place, Doug. It has all the ingredients. A rich oil strike on company-owned land with space to develop, space for a rail head, new roads, collecting tanks, plant, a refinery, everything!’
‘You haven’t begun test drilling, yet. We haven’t even got the XL –’
‘We’ll get it. No problem. I’ve had a word with the man at the D.o.E. too. There is no opposition to the idea in principle and if there are no other applications we’ll walk it at the next round. Then all we have to do is convince the local planners.’
‘And we’ll own the land by then.’
Rex nodded. ‘I’ve got Mitchison working on the contracts already. I’ve told him we’re running to a deadline. Royland has until next Wednesday, and he’s running scared. He’ll sell.’
‘Or what?’ Doug stretched out in a leather easy chair. He was watching Rex with amusement. He had never seen his usually phlegmatic boss so animated.
‘Or he’ll wish he had agreed before Wednesday.’ Rex gave an easy smile. ‘I didn’t like Royland. Too smooth. Too conceited. Too anxious. I like his sister,’ he paused thoughtfully. ‘I even like the sound of his wife. Now she’s a real fighter.’ He stood, his head slightly to one side. ‘I’d sure like to meet her one day – show her what I intend to do with that ruin.’
‘I reckon you’re keener on owning that castle than actually striking oil, my friend,’ Doug said, amused.
Rex threw back his head and laughed. ‘Just as long as you don’t say that to the boys in Houston. I get the feeling sometimes that they think I’m getting senile. I don’t want them to know too much about this deal till we’ve signed all the contracts.’