Ancient Appetites (9 page)

'Bit flimsy for fighting,' Gerald mused.

'It's a medicine shield,' Nate informed him. 'I got it from a witch-doctor. Thought you might find the story interesting. The skin is supposed to be that of an ancient medicine man who was flayed alive for offending the gods—'

'That's disgusting,' Tatty burst out.

'The symbols were a decoration on his back. They are said to hold the secret key to a language only he understood,' Nate continued. 'Take a closer look.'

'These look like mathaumaturgical symbols,' Gerald muttered, running his fingertip down the column on the right.

Mathaumaturgy was a relatively new science that was attempting to explain magic and the supernatural – or even to determine whether they existed at all – through the use of mathematics.

'They're different, but close . . . But what are these?' Gerald went on, pointing at the column of over a hundred markings on the left. 'They look like "I"s and "O"s.'

'Or ones and noughts,' Nate agreed. 'I don't know. Thought you might be able to tell me.'

'Could be nothing.' Gerald held it up to the light from the tall windows. 'Or it could be the key to the whole mathaumaturgical mystery. What did you trade for it?'

'A shaving mirror.'

'A hard bargain.' Gerald looked sideways at him.

'He wouldn't take "no" for an answer.'

Tatiana looked fit to explode with impatience while Nate pretended to look at Gerald's shield for a while longer. Her eyes bulged at the other package.

'And I have something really special for you!' Nate smiled, finally handing it to her.

Tatty breathed again and then put on her best attempt at a reserved smile, clasping her hands together. The package was tall and round and wrapped in a more delicate, Oriental paper. Tatiana put it on the table and began to tentatively pull at the string that bound it. But her excitement got the better of her and she ended up tearing the paper to shreds to expose a large birdcage.

Sitting on the perch was the oddest bird she had ever seen. Like the toast-maker, it was an engimal but, unlike other engimals, it was actually shaped like a creature of flesh and blood. It was blue and silver, with a white breast, a copper-coloured beak and bright orange eyes. It appeared to be made of a mixture of metal and some other, softer material.

'It's beautiful,' Tatiana whispered. 'Oh, thank you, Nate. It's so beautiful. Can it fly?'

'Absolutely,' he replied. 'But don't let it out just yet. It has to bond with you first.'

'Mm hmm.' His sister's attention was firmly fixed on the creature, which was little bigger than her fist.

'Did you catch it?' she asked.

'No, I had to buy this one.'

'Must've cost a bloody fortune,' Gerald muttered under his breath.

Nate nodded grimly.

'Can it sing?' Tatiana turned to look up at him.

'Yes, it's trained to obey some key words,' Nate said. He leaned and whispered something in her ear. 'But before you use it, I should warn you—'

'Songbird, sing!' Tatty cried, clapping her hands.

The petite little bird opened its beak, but instead of a melodic birdsong, a noise erupted from its tiny frame that had Tatty and Gerald recoiling in shock. A yowling cacophony like a quartet of hoarse violins trapped in the depths of hell carried across the room on a rolling, gyrating drumbeat. The bird flapped its wings happily as the deafening clamour bellowed from its beak.

Nate darted forward, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted something to it. The bird fell silent again, looking slightly disappointed.

'Good God!' Gerald exclaimed. 'What on earth was that racket?'

'It has an unusual repertoire,' Nathaniel explained to his sister. 'You have to learn how to use it. It took me a while . . . And you should have heard the abuse I got aboard ship until I got the hang of it.'

Tatiana was wearing that mixed expression of horror and fascination peculiar to girls of a certain age. She didn't speak for a full minute, staring fixedly at the bird.

'If you'll excuse me,' she said at last, 'I think I'll take it to my room.'

'By all means.' Gerald waved her away. 'Take the little menace as far away as you like.'

Nathaniel waited until his sister had left before speaking again. Gerald was touching the side of his head tenderly.

'I've got a buzzing sound in my ears,' he complained. 'That thing could have deafened us all.'

'I've got a favour to ask,' Nate said to him.

'Well, ask it then.'

'You're in . . . what – the third year of medical school?'

'I may jump up to fourth,' Gerald said modestly. 'The others are very slow.'

Gerald was a genius; everyone who knew him knew that. He was less than two years older than Nate, but several years ahead in education and, as he delighted in pointing out, in evolutionary development.

'Have you done any autopsies yet?' Nate prompted him. 'Anything like that? I want you to come and see Marcus's body before they finish fixing it up.'

Gerald looked at him and sighed.

'Nate. Warburton's already examined it. He said there was no foul play'

'I want to see for myself . . . And I need you to help me,' Nate pressed him. 'You'll see things I won't. Please, Gerald. You know Warburton's half blind, and nobody's taking this seriously enough.'

Gerald stroked the surface of the shield, avoiding his cousin's gaze.

'Maybe you should be thankful for that, Nate. If they did find something, you know who'd be first to be blamed. Berto's been sidelined – as we all knew he would be. You'll control the money when the old man's dead. The fingers will point at you. I mean, nobody would do anything about it, of course. That's the Wildenstern way. But everybody's feelings are a bit raw at the moment. Maybe it's better left alone.'

Nathaniel stared hard at him. He knew his face had turned red.

'You don't think I had anything to do with this, do you?' he asked quietly.

'Of course not, old chap,' Gerald assured him, smiling slightly. 'But maybe you shouldn't stir things up. After all, if you didn't do it, who did? Not Berto, that's for certain.'

'No, not Berto,' Nate said, shaking his head. 'But what about his wife?'

Gerald looked sceptical for a moment, and then he frowned. None of them knew Daisy very well, but they were aware that she was ambitious and intelligent. And while she appeared to be fiercely loyal to Berto, she was nothing if not wilful. If Berto ascended to the position of Patriarch, she would become one of the most powerful women in Europe – and Berto already consulted with her before making any major decisions. Gerald shook his head.

'I don't think she'd have the nerve, Nate,' he said at last. 'Don't get me wrong: she's a gold-digger, there's no doubt about that – take the shirt off your back if you gave her half a chance. But I just can't see her doing away with anybody. She's . . . Well, she's a
woman,
for God's sake.'

'Will you come with me or not?'

'I don't think you should—'

'Somebody murdered him!' Nate shouted. 'They killed my brother and I want to know who! He shouldn't have died like that – not in some stupid bloody fall off a bloody mountain.' Nathaniel was taken aback to find tears streaming down his face. His voice was cracking into sobs and his breath started to catch in his chest. 'It's not right! It . . . it . . . You've got to help me find the vermin that did this, Gerald. Somebody's got to pay for this!'

His legs felt suddenly weak and he staggered over to a stool and sat down. He wanted to shout some more, but instead he found his pride stripped bare as he broke down in front of his cousin. Gerald left the room for a few minutes to spare his friend some embarrassment, and came back with a steaming cup of coffee once Nate's sobs had calmed down. Gerald often served himself when he was in the midst of delicate experiments. He found servants a terrible distraction at times. Nathaniel took the cup gratefully and sipped the hot, bitter contents.

'I've already seen the body' Gerald told him gently.

'You went without me?' Nate frowned, wiping his face with his handkerchief.

'Last night, after you'd gone to bed, I helped Warburton with the . . . the reconstruction,' Gerald said. 'I didn't find anything suspicious – but that doesn't mean you're wrong. I mean, maybe it
was
foul play. All I'm saying is . . . Look, he was in a bad way, all right? He fell from a height and his body was . . . it was horribly damaged, Nate. I thought it would be better if you waited until he'd been patched up a bit. It's not how you'd want to remember him.'

Nate sniffed and blew his nose. He took another sip of the coffee and then put down the cup.

'I'll remember him how I like,' he grated.

Slipping off the stool, he strode towards the door.

'You shouldn't have done it without me,' he called over his shoulder before he left the room.

D
aisy had long ago discovered that it was difficult to move discreetly in a voluminous crinoline dress; particularly one with heavy, embroidered binding on its tiered layers and flared over-sleeves that rustled as one moved. There were more practical dresses she could have worn in order to stalk her husband, but there were issues of style to consider.

And she loved the exotic, Chinese-orange colour.

Women in this day and age were not expected to be very mobile, but she was light enough on her feet as she kept a safe distance behind Roberto, letting him reach the next corner each time before she followed with quick, quiet steps.

Daisy glanced behind her, conscious that she was beginning to perspire. That would be a disaster. She tried to slow her pace, but Berto was tall and took long strides and would quickly outpace her if she gave him the chance. She nearly tripped on the hem of her dress and uttered an unladylike curse under her breath. Looking up, she was relieved to see Roberto had still not noticed her.

It was important that nobody else saw her either. Apart from being an undignified way for a lady to behave, the sight of her sneakily scurrying along after her husband would raise questions about their marriage. And she would not have that.

The servants were a different matter. Daisy passed a door and noticed a chambermaid pressed into the doorway, her face turned away They were everywhere, like mice; busy but unnoticed. Whenever a member of the family approached, the junior house servants were trained to hide or turn their faces to the wall until the way was clear again. They had to be as unobtrusive as possible, but Daisy was not fooled. She remembered sneaking around her own house as a little girl, trying not to be seen and listening in on the adults. The servants heard and saw everything. But there was nothing she could do about that except count on their abject fear of being sacked.

Roberto had been lying to her for some time; he was a woeful liar, so it hadn't required any great powers of deduction on her part to realize that he was hiding something from her. A secret that disturbed him so much that it had him tossing and turning in his sleep, and caused him to exhibit any number of other signs that any good wife would spot in her man. But she didn't think that anyone else had noticed, and if she had her way, they never would.

At one point they passed the hallway that led to Tatiana's room and Daisy was sure she heard some kind of horrible noise coming from that direction. Alarmed for her young sister-in-law, Daisy was about to give up her pursuit to check on her safety when she heard shrieks of laughter from Tatty's room. Reassured that her friend was not in mortal danger, Daisy continued on her way.

She turned another corner into a corridor that looked much like the others. It helped that the paintings appeared to be themed; this hallway lined with watercolours of naval battles, that one hung with romanticized oil paintings of the Irish countryside and its content peasantry. Even so, Berto was leading her a merry chase. Daisy had never been in this part of the house before and she was trying to map her way by remembering the decor. It didn't help that the whole house was stuffed full of baroque details that boggled the senses. Everything was adorned with ornate vine leaves or twisting animals or clever little curlicues. It was enough to drive a person blind. If Berto did become Patriarch, there was going to be some serious redecoration.

Her husband's agitation had grown steadily worse since Marcus's death, and Daisy was deathly afraid that Berto might somehow have been involved. He was not like the rest of the Wildensterns, of that she was sure – her husband was no killer. But deep in her heart, she had doubts. She knew he kept secrets from her, and like all the men in his family, he had been trained from childhood in the art of murder.

Berto was no killer, she told herself over and over again. This was a man who enraged his family by whirling servant girls around the dancefloor at the summer balls or bringing beggars home for dinner. This was a man who caused havoc among the shooting parties, sending everyone running for cover by shooting over their heads, instead of at the 'defenceless' pheasants. But normally he boasted of these exploits to her, delighting in his family's reaction. Whatever he was up to now, it was clear he did not even want his wife to know.

She paused at another corner, peering round the wall over the brass arm of a gas-lamp. Roberto had stopped by a tall grandfather clock that stood at the end of the hall. He took out his pocket watch and seemed to check the time against that of the clock.

Whatever he had done, Daisy was determined to find out and face it with him. She had promised to stand by him and so she would; be it guilt, disgrace, ridicule or damnation, they would face it together. Roberto had known about her father's looming ruin when she had agreed to marry him, but he had never questioned her motives. He had trusted her and now she would repay his faith by being the loyal wife he so desperately needed.

Assuming, of course, that she could find her way back through this enormous bloody maze of a house.

Nathaniel strode along the hallway until he came to a trophy wall. It comprised the heads of deer and wild boar, all hanging from the mahogany panelling as if the wall had blocked off some deranged, multi-species stampede – each animal plunging through it up to their shoulders before being stopped dead. Literally.

There was a badger's head that hung in the middle of this stuffed menagerie, looking out of place among all the bigger animals. Looking around him to make sure that no one was watching, Nate stuck two fingers into the badger's gasping mouth and pushed down. There was a click, and the panel behind the black and white striped head popped outwards. Nathaniel pulled the secret door open and stepped into the space inside. There was a box of candles and some matches on a ledge beyond the door, and he put his hand on them before closing it behind him and cutting off the light.

He lit a candle and, peered down the dusty passageway, illuminated for only a few yards by the flame's weak light. This was one of many secret routes through Wildenstern Hall. As children, they had been encouraged to play and explore through the massive building – often leading to frantic searches when one of the family's little darlings went missing in the sumptuous labyrinth. Part of their self-defence training had involved learning the secret ways of the house, its hidden doors and passageways, its safe rooms and booby traps.

This passage led to a number of different places in the house, including Warburton's surgery, where the good doctor was reconstructing Nathaniel's brother. Nate wanted to inspect the body for himself, but he didn't want to be seen doing it. He knew that he would be suspected if any evidence of foul play was found – but another thought had occurred to him. If Marcus had been murdered to advance somebody's position, then whoever had committed the act might not be finished. They might not have counted on Edgar's contempt for his next eldest son; Berto had always protested against his father's cold-hearted business methods and the family knew it. So the real power – the business in America – had been handed to Nathaniel. Which meant he could very well be the next target.

So now he needed to find out who was responsible, but he wanted to do it without tipping them off. The less they knew the better. He started off down the dark, musty corridor.

It was no mean feat to navigate these dark passageways; with each branch and junction, Nate struggled to remember the route. But all his training paid off and he became more confident as he recalled the games of catch and hide-and-seek they had played along these passages as children. He had almost reached the turn that would take him to Warburton's surgery when he heard a sound in the corridor ahead of him. He froze. Why would anybody else be using this passageway? Few enough people even knew of its existence; the closest family and a few trusted servants. Nate blew out the candle. Perhaps somebody else was trying to get into Warburton's quarters. Someone else with an interest in Marcus's corpse.

He stood still, not making a sound, and waited. A few feet away, a floorboard squeaked. And then another, squeaking again as the foot was lifted carefully from it. Nate held his breath. The darkness was like a mass of black wool around him, soft and yielding, yet smothering too. He ignored what his eyes were telling him, concentrating on his other senses. There came the barely detectable sound of tense, nervous breathing. There was a man here with him. Nathaniel could smell the faint whiff of tobacco smoke on his breath and the pomade in his hair.

Fingers suddenly brushed across Nate's face and he grabbed them, twisting the hand back to try and get an arm-lock. The other man reacted quickly, reversing the move and almost succeeding in wrenching Nate's arm up behind his back. Nathaniel turned to the side, pushed down sharply with his fist and then drove his elbow up into his opponent's chest. The air was driven out of the man's lungs. The wheezing exhalation gave him a target and Nate, too close to use his fists, swung his other elbow into the sound, catching his assailant across the cheek. He slammed his shoulder into the other man's midriff and they crashed against the wall. Nate caught a knee in the stomach and doubled over, but pulled aside before the edge of a hand could come down on the back of his neck. It hit his shoulder instead and he replied by bringing his head up abruptly under the man's chin.

There was a grunt of pain and he drove a couple of swift jabs into the man's stomach before twisting his opponent's arm up behind his back and shoving his face against the wall.

'Aaargh! Enough, for God's sake!' the man shouted.

Nate's grip loosened as he recognized the voice.

'Berto?'

'Nate?' came the incredulous reply. 'What did you go attacking me for? That head-butt bloody hurt. I'm going to have a bruised chin from that . . . And what are you doing here?'

'I could ask you the same thing,' Nate responded, letting go of his brother. 'Why were you creeping around in the dark?'

'I heard you coming, thought it might be someone . . . you know, up to some mischief.'

'But why are you
here?'
Nate pressed him.

'I . . . I was going to have a look at Marcus's body' Berto said.

Nate knew he was lying as soon as he'd opened his mouth. Berto never could lie worth a damn. He wondered what his older brother was hiding.

'Why?' he asked. He lit his candle again, holding it up to see Roberto's face. 'And why go in secret? You could just walk in and take a look.'

'I wanted to do it in private,' Berto said, sounding sheepish. He brushed his clothes down and took out his own candle. 'Just so I wouldn't have the family telling me what was what. So I could see him for myself He paused. 'That's why you're here, isn't it? To find out if his fall really was an accident?'

Nate avoided his eyes, but nodded tersely.

'Can I pinch a light?' Berto held up his candle. Lighting it off Nathaniel's, he eyed the sputtering flame. 'There was nothing to see. Warburton's already done a good job of fixing him up.'

'I'm still going to take a look,' Nate insisted.

'Suit yourself,' Berto said, shrugging. 'The undertaker's in there, but the old Cavalier painting with the eyeholes still overlooks the examining table. You can see the body through that – they won't even know you're there. God, these tunnels are dusty. Look at the state of my clothes! We'll have to get someone in here to clean up. Anyway, I'll leave you to your. detective work; hope it gives you some peace of mind. Ta-ra!'

He seemed in a hurry to be off, so Nate let him go. Watching the glow of his brother's candle disappear off down the passage, he stood there, lost in thought.

'Pssst!' a voice hissed behind him.

Nate swung round, wax spraying from his candle.

'Who's there?' he demanded, dropping into a defensive stance.

A pale-faced figure in a coppery orange dress stepped into view from round a corner. It was Daisy.

'I'm sorry if I frightened you—' she began.

'As if you could!' he retorted, straightening up and trying to hide his frayed nerves. 'What are
you
doing sneaking around in here?'

At first she hesitated, but she was in an impossible position and she knew it.

'I was following Berto,' she confessed. 'He's been acting strangely lately and I wanted to find out why'

'So you
followed
him?' Nate exclaimed, amazed at her nerve. Then he saw a way to take advantage of her indiscretion. 'And what did you find out, exactly?'

'That's none of your business!' Daisy snapped.

'I'm making it my business,' he barked back. 'Unless you'd like me to tell my brother that his wife has been tracking him like a prize beagle!'

Her stare could have cut glass, but he returned it steadily.

'Nothing,' she admitted at last. 'I haven't discovered a thing. He entered this passage through a grandfather clock. Wherever he was going, he bumped into you before he got there. And now I'll never catch up with him . . . What was all that about anyway, that fighting? You were rolling around like a pair of piglets in the mud.'