Oh, but you do. Did you wonder where I was? I went to see Ruthie this evening. You want to screw Ruthie, don’t you. We could go together. We could knock on her door and persuade her to let us in. She’s all alone there, waiting, longing, begging for it—
‘Shut up!’ Tim banged his ears with his fists.
The sound of mocking laughter filled his head. Soon he would give up trying to fight it, he knew he would. He would go out. To resist was too hard. He wanted to go. He wanted a woman so badly it hurt. He lay back on the bed and pulled the pillow over his face, moaning.
In the room next door April heard him call out and she shivered. Quietly she prayed to a god she didn’t believe in, ‘Please, don’t let him go and do it again,’ and she slid out of bed to turn the key in her own door.
Thomas
I saw her again, of course I did. And again and again. Most of the time her messages were authentic, or so they seemed to me. It was Fanny’s tone, her wit, her humour and more often than not her concern over the family and for me. I asked and begged she give me details of how she had fallen down the stairs; I had again interrogated Margaret, who was with her when it happened, asking if my darling could have been pushed, but my sweet gentle daughter merely looked at me as if I were mad and said, ‘I’ve told you. There was no one there but me.’
I disliked going to Stonecutters Court and I disliked even more Sarah’s brother who lurked there amongst the dust and rubble of his trade as a plasterer. He was a greedy man, with a sharp eye for my fortune and status and I did not trust him.
In the end it was easier to bring her to Hampstead. I gave her a place as under-housekeeper, much to Abi’s fury, my butler’s indignation and Margaret’s disgust. None of them liked or trusted her or believed in her mediumistic gifts. I did not require her to work with the other servants and gave her two small rooms of her own. It made them hate her the more, though she tried to befriend them as best she could. Poor Sarah, neither fish nor fowl, she wandered sadly through the house with no one but me to talk to when I was at home and in those days I was more often at the House of Lords or at Lincoln’s Inn. My children were united in disliking the situation. They saw her as an interloper and a fraud and all hated the rumour and mockery in the broadsheets.
It was Margaret who stayed at home, Margaret who for the sake of civility tried to talk to Sarah, and Margaret who came to me one evening when I had returned from dinner with the Prince of Wales, to sit me down in the drawing room at long past midnight and talk to me seriously. ‘She must go, Papa. I’m sorry. She means well and I think she may well be honest, but if she is, have you not thought how hard it must be for Mama, to see this woman beginning to play you like a caught fish, to wind you round her fingers, speaking in her name? It must distress her beyond all comprehension and Sarah herself admitted to me that you are keeping Mama earthbound, unable to take her place in heaven.’
I stared at her, appalled. ‘Sarah told you that?’
Margaret nodded. She pursed her lips. ‘It is not right, Papa, any of it.’
She was correct, of course, and it was not right in more ways than that. I wondered if she knew the truth? Presumably not. Margaret was a well-brought-up lady. She could not have dreamt how far I was about to go in error.
73
Thomas told his butler to send the servants to bed and then to go himself. He would not be needed again that night. It was windy and the great trees outside were particularly noisy, their branches thrashing to and fro. New logs had been stacked on the fire and the candles replenished and he was sitting in his favourite chair poring over a speech he was to deliver the next day, with a glass of port beside him on a side table. Margaret had gone to bed an hour since after playing for a while on the harpsichord for him. When the door quietly opened he looked up startled and for a strange displaced moment thought he saw Fanny there, a chamberstick in her hand. It was the kind of thing she would do, wondering where he was and why he had not come up to bed and still, all this time later, he half expected it to be her, about to chide him for working too hard. The woman in the flickering candlelight was wearing a nightgown, a shawl about her shoulders and her hair was loose down her back. A part of him knew full well it was Sarah, but even so he put down the papers and beckoned her over to the fire. She came at once and without hesitation sat on his knee and put her arms around his neck. ‘You miss her, don’t you,’ she whispered. ‘She has told me to come to you, to comfort you, to tell you to close your eyes and imagine I am she.’ Her mouth was close to his ear, he could feel her warm breath on his neck, as slowly she felt for his neckcloth and began to unknot it.
He could have pushed her away, he could have dismissed her from the room and from his employ but he did neither. With a small groan he buried his face between her breasts and began to kiss her warm scented flesh.
It was Sarah who slid from his lap and caught his hand. It was she who led him up the stairs to his own bedroom and who then slid under his counterpane and waited with a slow sleepy smile as he tore off his clothes.
When he woke in the morning he was alone. His trousers and shirt had been neatly folded and lay on the chaise longue at the end of his bed. There was no trace of his companion in the room. He rang for his valet and within half an hour was shaved and dressed and had called for his horse. He ordered his carriage to follow him, to bring his books and papers to Lincoln’s Inn. What he needed was a gallop on the heath. He did not return to Hampstead for more than a week.
Sarah crept back to her own room at dawn before the servants were awake and slipped into her own bed. When she awoke again it was full daylight and she lay there for a while, feeling warm and sated and triumphant. Later she would go down to the servants’ hall and order the housekeeper to appoint her her own maid and tell them that in future she would take her meals alone in the small morning room. It did not bother her that Thomas had already left for London. He would come home soon enough. She knew him too well by now. He would ponder and rationalise and probably feel anguish at what he had done, but now that the longing had been reawakened, he would not be able to stay away. He was a passionate man, older than she might have liked perhaps, but he was rich beyond her wildest dreams and last night had proved that she had him caught fast in her web. He had thought he was making love to his wife. He had called out Fanny’s name. He had kissed the face he remembered with so much love and anguish. She, Sarah, had brought the past back to life, that was her gift to him.
She saw the shock and dislike in the housekeeper’s eyes before the woman hid her feelings and she smiled condescendingly. ‘Lord Erskine said I could make these arrangements,’ she said smugly. ‘If there is a problem I can send to Lincoln’s Inn—’
‘There will be no need for that,’ Mrs Ford said quietly. She glanced at Martha, who was sitting sipping tea at the table in the servants’ hall. The two women had been talking quietly when Sarah had walked in. Only Mrs Ford had risen to her feet. ‘If Miss Margaret says it’s all right, I will see that the morning room is prepared for you.’
‘Miss Margaret will be only too pleased, I can assure you. Thank you, Mrs Ford.’ Sarah turned on her heel and walked out of the room, feeling their eyes boring into the back of her skull. It didn’t matter what they thought. The only person who mattered in this house was Thomas.
Wrapping her shawl around her, she let herself out into the gardens and walked slowly down the path out of sight of any prying eyes that might be watching from the windows. She didn’t like the country. The village here was not to her taste at all, but she knew she couldn’t expect to live at Lincoln’s Inn. The house was too busy, there were visitors constantly coming and going. At least here there was only Margaret and the staff to contend with. She walked on a little way, shivering as the wind caught at her skirts.
So, you have ensnared your prey.
The voice in her head was no more than a whisper.
A triumph, no less. And you will bring him down.
She took a deep breath. Voices wer
e something she was used to, had been used to since she was a child. This was a man, from the West Country by his speech, and instinctively she shrugged him away.
No. Not so easy. I’m not some passing tosspot, I have had dealings with Lord E for many years. Since we were boys. And he is mine.
And suddenly she knew who this was. ‘It was you who pushed Thomas’s wife to her death,’ she said out loud. ‘You are Andrew Farquhar.’
There was no reply and she turned slowly round on the wind-swept walk. ‘Speak to me!’ she commanded.
Again there was no reply.
She smiled. ‘So, you wish to play games with me. I don’t advise it, Mr Farquhar. You have met your match with me.’ She paused, hearing only the rustle of leaves, and the moan of the wind in the Scots pines. ‘You thought you had destroyed Thomas when you killed his wife. Think again. I can bring her back to him any time I choose.’ She smiled. ‘That is power, Mr Farquhar. Something you will never have. Leave your petty grievances in whatever hell you inhabit and stay there with them to rot.’ She raised her right hand and snapped her fingers. It was a definitive dismissal.
One of the under gardeners, rake in hand, was watching her curiously from behind a stand of holly. He pushed his hat back and scratched his head thoughtfully. He could see her talking into the wind and that there was no one near her and he could see the look of triumph on her face as the wind caught the rim of her bonnet and blew its ribbons backwards across her shoulders. He shivered. Later, over a tankard of ale in the Spaniards Inn, he relayed what he had seen to Thomas’s groom. ‘She’s mad as a hatter,’ he said. ‘Whatever His Lordship sees in her I cannot imagine. I hope he ditches her soon. She’s no good for him, that’s for sure.’
Ruth had laid out the letters on the kitchen table. This new bundle seemed to have been kept less carefully than the previous ones she had been reading. The pages were torn and faded. She unfolded the first and reached for Malcolm’s magnifying glass. ‘The best friend to researchers after ancient secrets,’ he’d said with a smile. ‘You’ll find it helps enormously, especially when the ink’s faded.’
It seemed Thomas’s staff weren’t the only ones worried by his dalliance. This letter to his sister, Frances, was from Davy, Thomas’s eldest son by now returned to England from his post as ambassador to America. He seemed to be living in London with his family and, Ruth seemed to remember from her notes, did not have enough to do – code for he was interfering in his father’s private life. And here was proof.
I went to Evergreen Paradise yesterday to take luncheon with Margaret. THAT WOMAN is still there, playing the lady, and to my horror I saw that she is enceinte! How can this be? Please, my darling sister, speak to Papa. He might listen to you. His career will be ruined. Even if he cares nothing for his family’s reputation, surely he has some regard to his own. At least persuade him to put her away and find her a cottage somewhere far away.
Ruth pushed the letter aside and sat back in her chair, wishing Malcolm was there to share her excitement. This was so intriguing. Just imagine the scandal!
Sadly, there was no copy of Frances’s reply to her brother, or her subsequent note to her father, if there was one. Ruth switched on her laptop and called up her own draft notes. There was her own account of Sarah’s seduction of Thomas. The woman had channelled – wasn’t that the word? – Thomas’s beloved wife. Had he really thought he was making love to Fanny? Surely not. He was an intelligent man. Yes, he believed in the paranormal but this was something else! Ruth sighed, wishing, as she did almost daily, that her mother was still alive. Her mother had known so many stories about Thomas: that he had been struck by lightning three times; that he was haunted by a fellow crew member from the Tartar, and this one, that Sarah Buck had been a clairvoyant and thus had somehow gained a hold over him. And was it her mother who had inherited and somehow inadvertently passed on to her the curse of Andrew Farquhar?
There, on her screen, she carefully reread her own words. Andrew Farquhar had tried to climb into Sarah’s head and she, strong and experienced in her art, had snapped her fingers at him and he had disappeared in a puff of metaphorical smoke.
Pushing back her chair, Ruth stood up and went over to the kettle: reflex action when trying to think. Sarah had snapped her fingers at him. Was that all it took? She gave a grim smile as she reached for the tin of tea bags. In a sense that was exactly what she had done herself. When he had come sniffing around earlier she had stood up to him, sent him away and he had gone. She had reacted without thinking – with anger rather than fear – and it had worked. So where was he now? Where did he go when he was not showing himself to her? Malcolm hadn’t been able to answer that question but now she found herself wondering again if it was at all possible that their lascivious, vicious ghost had climbed into Timothy Bradford’s head.
Timothy had dozed off, lying on his bed with only the side lamp on, the curtains tightly shut against any possibility of someone seeing the light. He woke suddenly and raised his arm to see his wristwatch. It was midnight.
Perfect timing. Partygoers, staggering home, drunk.
He didn’t even bother to try and argue; he didn’t want to argue. Climbing to his feet, he reached for his jacket. On the landing he could hear April’s steady snoring. He gave a grim smile and proceeded to tiptoe down the stairs. He scanned the parked cars outside carefully. There was no sign of the police. So, Mr Plod didn’t bother to patrol at night. It was too cold for him, perhaps.
He set off towards the town. No point in looking round here at this time of night. He needed to go where the nightclubs were emptying and party girls were staggering out into the streets, scantily clad in spite of the cold, falling out of their shoes, dodging the waiting arms of the Street Pastors who were trying to save them and ducking into the alleys and wynds to vomit in the dark.
He found the girl he was looking for so easily. She was standing in a doorway fumbling in her bag for cigarettes. No coat, no sense, only one shoe, almost insensible from the vodka slammers he could smell on her breath. At least she didn’t smell of vomit. She struggled frantically, trying vainly to push him away, and as he ripped down her skimpy dress she began to scream. What had she expected, going out dressed like that? Presumably she had wanted to pull, but maybe not the kind of man she was confronted with now, a man from the meanest streets of eighteenth-century London, a man who wanted to hurt her badly.
He left her lying where she fell and faded back into the night, walking and jogging, back towards the quiet streets of Morningside, too excited and energised to want to go home yet. He wished he had something to drink. Grog, the voice muttered, that’s what we need.
As he turned the corner of the road at last, exhausted, heading for bed, he was appalled to see a police car parked up outside Number 26. He shrank back, his heart thudding with fright. The voice in his head had gone; he was alone. Shaking, he turned and walked away. When he returned, much later, the car had gone.
Next morning Ruth was standing in the kitchen surveying the table with its neatly stacked papers and letters. The sun had risen behind the hills and it looked as though it would be a fine morning. Already she knew what she was going to do later. She would walk through the woods to the chapel and sit there for a while, on her own, in quiet mindfulness, just to see what would happen. Timothy was long gone and she would keep her eyes open. There would be no danger in broad daylight.
But first she would eat some scrambled eggs. She was hungry and unaccountably cheerful. The phone rang as she was lifting the heavy iron pan off the stove and she felt a leap of excitement. It would be Malcolm. Today he would be giving his talk; the next day he would be setting off for home.
‘Ruth? It’s Sally Laidlaw, from Number 24.’
Ruth’s heart sank instinctively. Please let it not be any more bad news. She set down the pan. ‘Hello, Sally, how are you?’
‘I’m fine, dear, thank you. Look, it’s not my business but I just wanted to check. Were you over here last night?’
‘No.’ Ruth felt a tremor of unease. ‘Why?’
‘I went out late to bring in my washing. I had forgotten about it in the garden. And, well, I could smell cooking. I’m not sure it was coming from your house, but I remembered what you said about keeping an eye on the place.’ She hesitated.
‘Aren’t the police watching the house?’ Ruth found her mouth had gone dry.
‘Oh yes, they come by all the time. Ever such a nice young man was here last evening. He sat outside for a while in his car so I went out and asked him if he’d like a cup of tea.’
Ruth smiled. ‘That’s OK, then. Thank you for letting me know. But I will call in, Sally, next time I come by.’
She laid her phone gently on the table and stood staring down at it. Somehow she had gone off the idea of scrambled eggs and her plan for a walk in the lonely woods no longer seemed such a good idea, either.
April went out early, her laptop in her bag, leaving Timothy a note saying she was going into town and would see him later. He was still asleep. She could hear him muttering as he slept. She wasn’t worried about getting back into the house; when she had gone shopping the day before she had had a key cut for herself at the corner shop.
She opened the front door cautiously and looked up and down the road before stepping outside but there was no sign of the police car. The sun was shining and she allowed herself a brief moment of glee as she set off up the road in the cold glittering air. She planned to stay out most of the day and she would start with coffee. She found a patisserie in Rose Street, sitting unobtrusively at the back of the shop, in a corner, with her laptop on the table in front of her.
So, Malcolm Douglas was in London. She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. The post came from his publisher and that meant that presumably Ruth was alone in her tower. She wondered if Timothy would go over there today, unable to keep away, and she smiled. She didn’t care what he did as long as he didn’t bother her. Before she went looking for a bookshop, the fact that Malcolm was away needed to be addressed. She clicked onto his Twitter account. No, he hadn’t mentioned it himself.