Caught in the Light (21 page)

"But she didn't attract you?" My pride was hurt by what he'd said. "Is that it?"

"I have the impression you don't believe me."

"The woman I met in Vienna I broke off, disabled by the truth of Daphne's diagnosis. The woman I'd met in Vienna had only existed in Vienna. Back here, she was a stranger to me. "I don't recognize your description of her."

"Would you recognize her writing?"

"Of course."

"Come inside, then. I have plenty of examples of it."

He led the way back into his office and moved towards the desk that formed, along with a conference table, a broad T of polished wood at the far end of the room. A huge, starkly framed oil painting some sort of sombre Nordic landscape shared the wall behind the desk with wooden filing cabinets. The desk itself was empty, save for a week or so's worth of the Financial Times, held down by what looked suspiciously like a genuine gold ingot. Nyman slid into an over-designed swivel chair behind the desk, opened a deep drawer and lifted out a file.

"I'm not married, as I said, but there is ... someone in my life. I wouldn't want them to see this stuff, so I keep it here." He laid the file on the desk and piloted it round with his finger to face me. The initials EM. were written on the cover in thick black ink. "I

threw the first few letters away. Then, when she didn't let up, I decided to keep them, just in case things turned ugly. Which they never did, I'm glad to say. Unless that's what they're doing right now."

"Like I told you, I'm just trying to find her."

"She's no longer in Bath?"

"Was she ever?"

"Certainly. She wrote from an address in the city. Most of the letters were posted there." He frowned at me. "You didn't know?"

"She told me she lived in a village in Dorset. Her psychotherapist thought she lived in Mayfair."

"With me, no doubt."

"With Conrad Moberly."

Nyman sighed. "She's a seriously mixed-up woman. I know you don't want to hear that, but it's the truth. See for yourself."

He flipped open the file. I sat down in the nearest chair and looked at the topmost letter. The writing was familiar. I took the envelope containing the postcard of the church at Tollard Rising out of my pocket and compared the hands. They were unquestionably the same. The letter was headed 33 Inkerman Avenue, Bath. I glanced through it, disbelief souring into dismay as I read. "You have to understand, Conrad, that we were meant for each other... I'll persist in this because I have to make you understand ... I love you and I know that secretly you love me. You just have to have the courage to admit it. I'll give you the courage. I'll give you everything." I leafed through several more in the same vein. "You say you don't want to see me, but I know that's not true. You're denying what you truly feel, Conrad. You have to stop doing that." And several more after that. "I'll meet you anywhere you like, under any conditions. Just give me a chance to explain. That's all I ask. It's not much, is it? ... Don't you want children, Conrad? I do. But they have to be yours. Yours and mine. Nobody else will do." At the end of each letter was the same message. "With all my love, Eris." I flipped through them until they were a blur. But still they read the same. "With all my love, Eris." Over and again. "With all my love, Eris."

I closed the file and sat back in the chair, breathing deeply to hold nausea at bay. Shame and shock were churning inside me. I didn't know what to think and I couldn't think what to say. Eventually, as if taking pity on me, Nyman retrieved the file and put it away. "You had no idea about any of this, did you?" he enquired gently.

"No. None at all."

"It's definitely her writing? The writing of the woman you met in Vienna, I mean?"

"I... think so. I... can't be ... absolutely certain."

"Would a photograph help?"

"You have one?"

"A still from the reception security video." He took an envelope from the drawer, opened it and slid the contents across the desk for me to see. It was a fuzzy black-and-white print of a picture taken from near ceiling level of a smartly dressed woman crossing what I recognized as the Nymanex reception area. And I recognized the woman as well. Instantly and unmistakably.

"Could I keep this?"

"Why not? I can easily get another copy. If I need to."

"Let's hope you don't."

"I've heard nothing from her since before Christmas. I assumed it had worked itself out somehow. I don't want to be hard on her. Or you. One hears of such things. Sometimes one experiences them. She never threatened me. It was only ever unwelcome attention. I wasn't going round in fear of my life. And it sounds as if she was doing her best to get a hold of herself even before she met you. This psychotherapist you '

"She knows nothing of this. Not a thing."

"What was Eris seeing her about, then?"

"Something else altogether."

"Obviously, but '

"Did she ever tell you she was in danger?"

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact she did. There was a letter in which .. . Hold on." He leafed through the file, then took out a single sheet and passed it to me. "She tried to talk to me when I left here one evening last October, but I wouldn't let her. That arrived a few days later. Read the second paragraph."

' "I'm in trouble, Conrad. I need your help. I'm involved in something I don't completely understand. Let me explain it to you, please. I have to explain. You have to help me." I handed the letter back. "What did you do?"

"I ignored her. As usual. What should I have done? Are you saying she really was in danger?"

"I think it's possible, yes. Did she ever mention photography to you?"

"Photography? No. Well .. ." He tapped his forehead thoughtfully. "Actually, I suppose she did. The first time I met her. Greenwich Park, one day last spring. Not long after Easter. I'd had a meeting at the Maritime Museum. Some sponsorship wrangle. I felt like a walk afterwards, so I took a stroll in the park. The weather was beautiful. Dashing back here didn't exactly appeal. Wish I had done, though. Would have saved me a lot of bother. I sat down on a bench up near the Royal Observatory. She Eris, I mean was already sitting there. We struck up a conversation. I probably flirted with her. A little. As you would. Pretty girl, spring sunshine. It didn't mean anything. So I thought."

"What about photography?"

"Ah yes. Well, she said she'd been to the observatory to see some special kind of camera they have there."

"A camera obscura?"

"That's right. I suppose you'd know all about such things in your line of work. I don't, of course. Cameras make me uneasy, as I told you. As I would have told Eris, if she'd given me the chance. She had a camera with her. The standard point-and-press job. She produced it quite suddenly from her bag and took a picture of me. Bizarre behaviour, really. It disturbed me. I didn't like that at all."

"She took a photograph of you?"

"You sound incredulous."

"I am. It's so ... out of character." It was also the mirror image of my own first meeting with her, in Vienna, when I'd been the photographer and she the unwilling subject. "In my experience, she was almost as camera-shy as you seem to be."

"Really? You surprise me. Anyway, that's what happened. I made it obvious I didn't like her taking such a liberty. She apologized and offered to let me have the negative as well as the print when she had the film developed. I said she needn't bother, but she insisted. In the end, I told her to send it to me here when it was ready. That was my big mistake. It meant she knew where to find me. The first letter came with the picture. No negative, however. She said I could collect that when we next met. For dinner, she suggested. Well, I didn't like the sound of any of it, so I didn't reply. But she wouldn't take no for an answer. Her ... campaign, I suppose you'd call it... started there."

"And ended in January?"

"Christmas, actually. But, tell me, what danger do you think she could possibly be in?"

"I don't know. But danger there undoubtedly is." I was angrier with myself than I was with him, but still I felt the need to strike back on Eris's behalf, to prove there was more to all this than a futile infatuation. "You remember I mentioned a bookseller called Quisden-Neve?"

"Yes. Ms Heywood's informant. I was going to ask '

"He died this morning. Found strangled in the loo on a Bath-to-London train."

"Nasty." But, nasty or not, Conrad Nyman didn't bat an eyelid. "Well, I suppose I don't have to worry about what information he had now."

"Let's hope the police don't think of that." It was unlikely they would. But they didn't have my incentive. Suddenly, from the depths of self-pitying disillusionment had come a redeeming surge of hope. The photograph of Eris proved nothing by itself. Only the letters substantiated Nyman's account. And their authenticity depended on the postcard. I'd never seen Eris write a single word. I had no way of being sure they were genuine. Niall Esguard had murdered Quisden-Neve. That, at least, I didn't doubt. But why? For reasons of his own? Or to prevent Quisden-Neve from blackening somebody else's name somebody who could well afford to pay Niall to do his bidding? "You said you'd never heard of Marian Esguard, didn't you?"

"Did I? Well, it's true. I haven't."

"What about Niall Esguard?"

"No."

"Milo Esguard?"

"No again."

"Joslyn Esguard?"

"Definitely not. Is this some kind of weird guessing game, Mr.

Jarrett? If so, let's cut to the chase. The only Esguard I know or know of- is a young woman called Dawn, not Marian."

"What?"

He smiled faintly at my confusion, painfully apparent as it must have been. "I had my security officer run a check on Eris, just to see if she posed a serious threat. The address in Bath turned out to be genuine enough. She lives there or did last year, anyway with Dawn Esguard. That's really all I can tell you. If you want to know any more, I suggest you call round there and ask them as many questions as you like. Who knows, you may even get some answers. I certainly hope so." His smile broadened. "For your sake."

It had been dark for an hour or more when I reached Bath for the second time that day. Inkerman Avenue was a long straight road of Victorian terraced houses halfway up Twerton Hill. Number 33 was no different from any of the others, a tiny, walled front garden separating a modest bay-windowed frontage from the pavement. Lamplight shone through the thin ground-floor curtains, and the subdued beat of rock music reached my ears as I approached. It seemed certain somebody was at home. But who? I rang the bell and, hearing footsteps in the hall, wondered for a crazy second if Eris was about to open the door, smile at me and blithely announce, "Oh, so you finally made it."

But the woman I saw standing in the narrow porch as the door swung open wasn't Eris, or anyone like her. She was about the same age, and prettier by conventional standards, but there was a hardness to her mouth and eyes and the set of her jaw. She had short, spiky blond hair and was wearing a loose belted shirt over leggings and pixie boots. Her right hand was resting on the latch, and I couldn't help noticing, as a trio of bangles settled around her forearm, a pronounced scar across her wrist, the sort of scar that might be left by an attempt to slash the artery.

"Dawn Esguard?"

"Yeh," she replied cautiously.

"My name's Ian Jarrett. I'm a friend of Eris Moberly."

"Is that right?"

"Does she ... still live here?"

"No. Left last Christmas. But if you're a friend of hers ..."

"Have you seen her since then?"

"No. She cleared out of Bath altogether, didn't she?"

"Did she? Could I possibly .. . step inside and' - I shrugged 'talk to you about her?"

"Why'd you want to do that?"

"Because I'm worried about her. I think she may have come to some harm."

"Eris? No chance."

"She's missing. Nobody seems to know where she is."

"What does her husband say?"

"I don't know. I'd ask him, if only I could find out who the hell he is."

"His name's Conrad, isn't it?"

"That's a very good question. Ever met him?"

"No."

"Neither has anyone else." I gave her what I hoped would look like a reassuring smile. "See what I mean?"

"All right. You can come in. But I haven't got much time." She moved aside, and I stepped past her into the hall. The rock music seemed to be coming from upstairs, but she directed me into the sitting room, where an oversized black leather three-piece suite, a vast old sideboard, a table bearing the remains of a meal, an ironing board piled with clothes and a TV switched on with the noise turned down were tangled in a sullen stand-off for floor space. "Sorry about the mess," she said, following me in. "End of the week. You know how it is. What's this about Eris, then?"

"She's gone missing. And I'm trying to find her. But, so far, all I've found is that I know much less about her than I thought. Her name, for instance. She introduced herself to me as Marian Esguard."

"Esguard? That's weird."

"Your name."

"My husband's, you mean. Ex-husband's, anyway. I don't know why I go on using it. Except, well, it's more interesting than Smith, isn't it?"

"Who is your ex-husband? Not Niall?"

"Yeh. You know him?"

"Met him. Recently. While I was looking for Eris."

"They don't know each other." She frowned doubtfully. "Do they?"

"It seems they do."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Little does in Eris's life, it seems. Have you heard of Marian Esguard? The real one, I mean."

"Don't think so." She thought for a moment. "Hold on. Niall's uncle, old Milo, he sometimes rambled on about his ancestors. Marian could have been one of them. I didn't pay much attention. I had enough trouble with this generation of Esguards, without worrying about She broke off to light a cigarette. "Eris did ask about the name. And the family history. The full works. She even went to see old Milo out at Bradford. Maybe that's how she met Niall."

"How exactly did you come to know Eris, Mrs. Esguard?"