She stood still for several minutes, drained of energy. There had been a small part of her, she realised, that had hoped Tim would be here. She wished fervently she hadn’t come.
As she began to trudge back towards the main road she realised she had no idea when the next bus would arrive; she would probably have to wait hours.
Behind her, the driver of the unmarked car parked under the trees nudged his companion. ‘Did that woman come out of the Old Mill House drive?’
‘I didn’t see.’ The young police constable had been doing the crossword in yesterday’s Evening News. He reached for the printout of the picture of Timothy and April that had been circulated round the force. ‘Doesn’t look like her to me.’
They watched the retreating figure plodding away from them as the rain began to fall. ‘We could offer her a lift back to town,’ he said with a malicious grin.
The man at the wheel considered the idea. ‘I don’t think so. We’ll give this another half hour then we’ll go and get something to eat in the pub.’
In the distance, April disappeared round the corner and headed towards the bus stop oblivious to the fact that she had been observed.
64
Ruth liked her room in the tower. It was quiet and cosy and, since Malcolm had carried an extra gate-legged table upstairs for her to work on, suited her very well. She smiled as she sat before her laptop thinking of the struggle he had had getting it up the spiral staircase on his own. ‘Wait till there’s someone to help you,’ she had begged.
‘There isn’t anyone else, in case you haven’t noticed.’
‘What, no varlets?’
‘No varlets, sadly. Not since my mother’s time. Varlets are out of fashion.’
‘Even Fin has a gardener.’
‘Fin is a celebrity chef; he’s probably a rich man.’ He had sat on her bed until he got his breath back, then he left her to work.
There had been no word from the police. Fin had rung that morning to say he would be staying with Max for a few days if they needed him. Harriet’s phone was still switched off. The Twitter account of RuthieD had not displayed any new comments for several hours.
When they convened in the kitchen at lunchtime, Malcolm handed her a glass of wine. ‘Can you work up there OK?’
‘It’s perfect. I feel safe there.’
‘Good.’ Neither had mentioned their conversation of the previous day. He studied her face. ‘Are you making progress with your research?’
She nodded. ‘I would like to think Thomas wants me to set the record straight.’
‘You mentioned he was struck by lightning a second time.’ Malcolm sat down at the table and took a sip from his glass. ‘Where did you hear about that?’
She hesitated. ‘He mentions it in one of the letters. And it’s a family story. Mummy told me about it when I was very little and I was hugely impressed. He is supposed to have been struck by lightning three times and lived to tell the tale. She used to say he was in the Guinness Book of Records.’
‘Not the sort of story that even a doting family would make up.’
‘No.’ She sat down opposite him. ‘Do you mind if I don’t show you my own notes yet? They are all a bit mad; ad hoc; unintelligible in places; not really suitable for a serious historian.’
‘You forget I am no longer a serious historian,’ he sighed, somehow not managing the light-hearted tone he was looking for. ‘Have you managed to get hold of Harriet?’
She shook her head. ‘Her phone is still switched off.’
‘I wonder how she’s planning to do her research into ascended masters without you. She must realise she will have upset you as well as me.’
Ruth reached for the wine bottle and topped up her glass. Almost as an afterthought she leaned across and poured some for him too. ‘We don’t know it’s her, Mal. I keep thinking about what the policeman said. Supposing it is Tim.’
‘Whoever it is, RuthieD will get bored soon.’ He was thoughtful for a minute or two. ‘You’re right. We shouldn’t be too hard on Harriet. Not till we’re sure it’s her.’
‘Whoever it is intended to ruin your career, but people can live with the slur of believing in the paranormal,’ she added mischievously. ‘Thomas for one. He was much mocked for his beliefs.’
‘Well, there you are then. If he can, I can.’ He pushed away his glass. ‘Bread and cheese OK for lunch? I’m afraid I can’t complete with your Masterchef.’
Thomas handed his greatcoat and briefcase to a servant. He carried the fetish with him everywhere now, carefully wrapped in a silk neckerchief, hidden amongst his papers, and so far it seemed to have kept Farquhar at bay. He walked into the drawing room surrounded by his dogs to find Frances there alone, practising the harpsichord. ‘That sounds lovely, my darling. You have a real talent,’ he said. ‘Where is Mama?’
‘She’s lying down. She was tired.’ Frances rose from the music stool and came over to her father. She patted the dogs. ‘They wait for you to come home all day, you know.’
‘Rubbish. They love playing with you all, especially the boys.’ He walked over to the fire and sat down in his chair. ‘Come and talk to me. There is something I wanted to discuss with your mama but my intelligent daughter will do just as well. It is a problem I have at my office and I need some advice. Have you heard of a man called Thomas Paine?’
Frances sat down on the chair next to him, arranging her skirts with care, glad to have her father to herself.
‘Of course.’
‘Tell me what you know.’
‘He is a revolutionary and a troublemaker and he has just written a book called the Rights of Man.’ She gave a small smile. ‘He supports the American cause.’
‘My goodness, I have an informed daughter.’
‘He interests me because you yourself told us all those stories about your visit to America when you were in the navy and your stay with our cousins in the Windward Islands, and Mama has told us so much about her grandfather who was Attorney General in Pennsylvania.’
‘I know,’ he teased, ‘and her uncle who was a privateer!’
Frances giggled. ‘He was only a privateer briefly, Papa. Mama’s heart has always had a soft spot for her American relatives, you must know that.’
‘Indeed.’ He tried to look stern.
‘And it makes us all interested in America. Davy wants to go there when he finishes at university.’
‘Does he?’ Thomas’s children never ceased to surprise him. ‘So, please don’t tell me you have all studied Thomas Paine’s ideas?’
Frances looked at him knowingly. ‘Mama has a copy of the Rights of Man; she has Mrs Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman as well.’ Her expression had become quite coquettish.
‘Oh, does she now.’ Thomas laughed. ‘So, let’s keep to Mr Paine for now. Tell me, how is he regarded in England?’
‘As a traitor and a troublemaker for his demands for parliamentary reform.’
‘And what if I were to tell you that he is to be indicted for sedition and that I have been asked to defend him.’
She turned so she could look into his face. ‘The Prince of Wales would not like that, Papa.’
‘No, indeed he wouldn’t.’ She was very wise, this child of his. ‘No more than does the noble Lord Loughborough, who accosted me on the heath this very evening as I was on my way home and begged me not to take the case.’
‘But you are going to?’ Like her mother, she knew him so well.
‘I think I must. Whatever his views, he has the right to express them.’
‘And if you take the case, what will happen?’
‘His Royal Highness has already told me that he could no longer employ me as his Attorney General. And I would be very unpopular in certain circles.’
Her troubled gaze lasted a few more seconds, then it melted into laughter. ‘And as long as you were doing the right thing by your conscience, you wouldn’t care at all what people thought, would you.’
‘No.’
‘You must tell Mama.’
‘Of course. She will back me up.’
‘She always backs you up, Papa.’ Frances reached for his hand. ‘She is so proud of you.’
* * *
Ruth’s hands paused over her laptop. Was it really like that? An affectionate supportive family, a talented daughter who could giggle with her father? A man sitting by the fire with his dogs sprawled around him, a glass in his hand, his feet stuck out to the warmth of the flames, listening as she gave a very passable rendition of a minuet. Ruth listened, her head on one side. The minuet was finished. Now she was playing a Bach prelude. This was nonsense. Malcolm must be in his study with some suitably themed music playing as a background while he worked. She stood up and walked over to the door, opening it gently to look down the stone steps as they wound away into darkness. She listened. Silence. The music was in her room. In her head. Gently she closed the door and went back to her laptop. She knew what happened next. Almost every breath Thomas took during this period had been documented, pored over, analysed. The quest for parliamentary reform in the face of corruption, the fear of revolution.
She read over the last section of her notes. Frances had kissed him goodnight and left him sitting by the fire. A servant had come in and put on more logs, and Thomas had told him to leave the candles so one by one they had burned down in their sconces and the room had grown dark. It was then the voice of Andrew Farquhar had returned. ‘So now you’re an advocate for the people.’ It was mocking, insidious, hissing in Thomas’s ear.
The dogs did not react. They couldn’t hear it. ‘You, in your fine house with your lovely children, standing up for the poor and disenfranchised.’ Farquhar was there, a shadow in the flickering light from the glowing logs, sitting on the chair on the far side of the hearth.
‘And you’re claiming to be an advocate for the poor and needy?’ Thomas looked up. ‘You, who raped and murdered and robbed your neighbours. I would ask our parson to pray for you if I thought it would do any good. Leave me to do what I can for the good of mankind and go back to the boiling runnels of hell where you’re at home.’
He stood up and went over to the sideboard, reaching for the whisky decanter.
‘So, it’s for the good of mankind, these high fees you collect. The silver, the servants, the coach and the horses.’ The voice was mocking.
‘Yes, by God!’ Thomas spun round. ‘It is.’
‘Thomas?’ The door opened behind him and Fanny appeared, a chamberstick in her hand. The shadows ran across the wall and over the ceiling. The figure in the chair had gone. ‘Who were you talking to, my darling?’
Thomas put down his glass. ‘I’m sorry. Did I wake you?’
‘No, Frances came up to say goodnight and she told me she was worried. You take on so much work and you give yourself so little time to sleep.’ She went over and put her arms round him. ‘Was it Farquhar?’ she murmured.
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘When I’m tired, I can’t get rid of him.’ He had realised that he had left his briefcase with its precious hidden talisman in his chambers.
‘Ruth!’
The voice, cutting through the quiet of the room, was followed by a loud knock. Frances and Thomas vanished. The elegant, shadowy drawing room in Hampstead disappeared. For a moment Ruth sat still, bereft, then she looked up.
‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’ Malcolm was standing on the threshold. ‘I’m sorry.’ He took in her blank look. ‘You were working and I’ve interrupted. I should know better, shouldn’t I. I would kill anyone who walked in when I was in full flow.’
She shook her head, trying to dislodge the voices from the past. ‘I was lost in the story.’
‘Just so long as Farquhar wasn’t there.’
‘But he was. He’s there all the time, in Thomas’s head. Mocking. Deriding everything he stood for.’
‘Keep your boundaries strong, Ruth.’ Malcolm turned away, the cup still in his hand.
‘No, don’t take it away. I need it.’ She reached out. ‘Come in. I’m quite glad to stop, actually. I am stiff and cold. I’ve been reading and typing for hours.’
They both looked at the table with its lamp and the laptop, the books, the notebooks, the pencils. Malcolm smiled. ‘A familiar scene. The ingredients we use to bring the past back to life.’
‘And music. Do you ever play music to put you in the mood? Bach?’
‘Not when I’m working, no.’
‘Just now, Thomas’s daughter was playing the harpsichord in my head. It was beautiful.’
Mal perched on the edge of the chair by the window. Outside a quarter moon was struggling to emerge from the clouds. ‘You really were there.’
‘It felt real, yes.’ She sipped the tea.
‘And Farquhar was there with them?’
‘A shadow, by the fire, when Thomas was alone. The moment Fanny walked in, he disappeared.’
Malcolm was looking thoughtful.
‘Thomas told Farquhar he would ask the parson to pray for him if he thought it would do any good.’
‘Interesting. So was the doubt there because he didn’t believe in the power of prayer, or the power of that particular parson?’
‘I got the impression it was because he thought Farquhar so imbued in evil he was beyond redemption.’
‘Ah. That might explain our problem in the present day.’ Malcolm walked over to the window and stood looking out. It was almost dark now, yet if he looked west he could still see the line of pale light on the horizon where the hills fell into a V at the end of the glen. For the first time in his life he sensed something sinister out there and he shivered.
‘What is it?’ Ruth was watching him.
He stood back and reached up to close the shutters. ‘I was wondering where Bradford has got to.’
‘You think he’s out there?’
‘No. But I would feel happier if I knew he was under lock and key.’ He turned back into the room. ‘Shall I leave you to it? Supper in the kitchen later?’
‘Yes, please.’
As soon as he had gone she went over to the window and opened the shutters again. But she could see nothing out there now. The woods had shrugged themselves into the night.
65
Tim hadn’t bargained with having to walk the whole five miles or so to Morningside. He had found shelter for a few hours in someone’s garden shed, but the cold had woken him up in the early hours and he had set out again in the dark, thankful only that it had stopped raining at last. The sky was full of stars; there was no traffic, no one to thumb a lift from, but as dawn broke his spirits lifted. It turned into a glorious day. He had forgotten how beautiful Edinburgh could be as he trudged towards the West End, passed the huge black bulk of Edinburgh Castle high on its rock above the streets, and more by luck than good judgement arrived in Morningside as Sally Laidlaw was closing her front door and heading up the road. Stupid woman! He had never forgiven her for summoning Ruth. If that hadn’t happened the will would have gone unchallenged and he would now be warm and cosy in the house he still thought of as his own. One day he would get even. But not yet. For now he would keep his head down and concentrate on finding food and warmth. He waited for her to walk out of sight round the corner then he groped in his pocket for the keys he had stolen from Ruth’s bedside table.
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, smiling.
She hadn’t touched the old man’s tins of food. He pulled them out of the cupboards eagerly. Baked beans, tinned pears and, bliss, sausages in tomato sauce. Tuna, potatoes, packets of this and that, some old and distinctly past their sell-by date, but the tins were OK. The gas turned on easily, as did the electrics, though he must remember not to switch on the lights at night if he wanted to keep his presence secret. He made himself a meal at once, and only when he had eaten every last scrap on the plate did he turn his attention to the rest of the house. There was always the faint hope that he would find some cash in t
he back of a drawer.
The desk in the dining room had been emptied; the chests in the old man’s bedroom contained only rubbish, pens that no longer worked, rusty paper clips, a few old pre-decimal coins that were no use to anyone. The cupboards on the top floor containing the rubbish left after he had removed everything he had thought of value had finally been emptied completely. Never mind. His stomach was full, he had a choice of comfortable beds and he had a base from which he could venture forth to try his hand at a bit of petty thieving. It was astonishing how many people still nipped out to the shops leaving their back doors open, or left their cars with the passenger doors unlocked and a glove box full of loose change.
Time you learned to pick pockets, my friend.
He frowned and rubbed his forehead. The voice in his brain was like an interloper, mocking, insidious. ‘April?’ he responded out loud. ‘Is that you?’ Of course it wasn’t her. The voice belonged to a man, a coarse powerful voice that seemed to whisper but was insistent. As he pulled blankets and sheets from the cupboard on the landing he stopped, suddenly in a complete panic as the realisation hit him again. April had gone.
‘Who are you?’ Timothy dropped the blankets and turned round slowly, scanning the open doorways. There was no one there. He was hallucinating through lack of sleep. Stooping, he scooped up the bedclothes. He could live without April very well. If he missed her it was only because she always knew what to do, always had a fiver in her pocket. Well, it was time for him to step up on his own. After all, her plans had in the end gone disastrously wrong and now his were back on track.
* * *
April walked on through the crowds looking this way and that, enjoying the buzz. She had more sense than to try to do any business; she was here like everyone else, to enjoy herself. Later she would make her way back to one of the bigger antique markets, but on a Saturday one had to be careful. They often upped the security. She pulled the strap of her bag further up onto her shoulder and pushed on through the crowd. She had enough cash to treat herself to an upmarket coffee and a cake. It was as she was sitting at the table sipping the froth off the top of her cappuccino that the man at the next table opened his newspaper. Timothy was headline news and there was a Photofit picture of him, with a woman at his side.