‘You can’t make me go, Alec.’
‘No, you’re right, I can’t. But Sholto can.’
‘So
you’re prepared to tell him what’s been going on?’
‘No
. I’m going to tell him we have to put Cauldstane on the market.’ He emerged carrying two mugs of coffee and tried to hand one to me, but I was too stunned to take it. ‘D’you not want coffee?’ I took the mug and stared at it absently, watching the spiral of scum as it rotated. ‘If I do that,’ Alec continued, ‘it will put you out of a job, I’m afraid. The main reason he was wanting to write the book was to raise cash, so we could hang on here. It was a daft wee idea, but Ferg and I humoured him. He’s had a grand life and it deserves to be recorded. But if I back Ferg’s plan to sell up, it’s unlikely Sholto will hold out against both of us. He knows the writing’s on the wall for us financially. But I’ll see you’re paid in full. It’s not fair you should lose out over this. But you
will
have to leave, Jenny.’
I was speechless
. When I finally found my voice, I said, ‘So that’s what you’re prepared to do to appease Meredith? Sabotage your father’s book. Put Fergus out of a job. And Wilma. And me. Abandon the business you’ve built up here to start over somewhere else. Sell up the historic MacNab seat – to some foreigner probably, who’ll use it as a bijou hunting lodge! Good grief, Alec MacNab, have you no
pride
?’
‘Aye, I’ve pride enough and to spare!
’ He set his mug down with a bang that chipped the base and spilled coffee on the workbench. ‘But I’m not stupid, nor am I reckless. I’ve seen what Meredith can do. No one else is going to die on my watch.’
‘So you admit you’re beaten?’
He flinched,
as if my words had stung him physically. ‘Not beaten. But I think it’s time for a tactical retreat.’
‘No, i
t’s time to fight back, Alec! There’s a way we can deliver Cauldstane from Meredith’s evil. I’ve been doing some research.’ I set down my mug and braced myself before continuing. ‘I’ve been talking to a priest.’
‘A
priest
?’ His laugh was sardonic. ‘You’ll be suggesting exorcism next! We might live in a sixteenth-century castle, Jenny, but that doesn’t mean we live in the dark ages.’
‘It’s called deliverance ministry and it isn’t exorcism. Exorcism is
actually very rare and it’s only used in cases of demonic possession. That’s not what we’re dealing with here. This is an unquiet spirit who haunts the place where she lived. She died a sudden and violent death and she has… unfinished business. In cases like these – and they’re surprisingly common apparently, even though no one ever talks about them – the Church’s ancient rituals can be very effective. I know it sounds unlikely, but I have a friend who’s a minister and he’s done this kind of thing before. It’s worked elsewhere. It might work here. Surely it’s worth a try?’
Alec
drank some coffee, considering, then said, ‘What does it entail?’
‘
In the first instance, Sholto would have to talk to the local priest.’
‘Sholto
doesn’t
talk to the local priest. Ever.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea. They fell out years ago. And I don’t think it was a theological argument. In any case, Sholto doesn’t even know his home is haunted.’
‘I’m
not so sure. He told me he’s aware of Meredith’s presence at times, but he dismissed it as a delusion. He also described her to me as “a pernicious influence” on the family. I think he might be prepared to believe it’s a genuine case of haunting. If I tell him who I saw in the river—’
‘He’ll think you’re deranged.’
‘But you saw her too, didn’t you?’ Alec was silent, then he nodded. ‘What did you see? Tell me.’
S
taring into space, his eyes dull with defeat, he said, ‘A wee girl. With dark curly hair. She was standing in the middle of the river, on a stone. And she was watching you as you came out to help her.’
‘What colour was her dress?’
‘Red. And she was wearing long white socks. She looked like she was dressed up for a party.’ He turned and looked at me. ‘Is that what you saw?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you think Sholto would believe us?’
‘He might. There’s a lot of
other evidence. Zelda told me Coral used to hear the harpsichord. So do I. You and I both saw the little girl. And I’ve got those messages on my laptop.’
‘You could have faked those.’
‘Of course, but why would I do that?’ He didn’t reply. ‘Why would I fake my own near-fatal accident? And what about Coral? We both saw her camera. It wasn’t suicide.’
‘Why would Sholto believe us?’
‘Why
wouldn’t
he?’
‘Because it sounds completely crazy!’
‘Yes, it does, and I have a history of going crazy, but you don’t. And you’re his son. He knows you don’t want to give up on Cauldstane. In fact, I doubt he’d believe you if you told him you wanted to sell up. He’s pretty astute and I suspect you’re a rotten liar.’ Alec seemed less certain now, so I pressed home my advantage. ‘I think Sholto will believe us if we’re completely honest with him.’
‘But i
t would mean telling him about us. I can’t see that he’ll buy it unless we explain her motives. He knew about Meredith and me, so I suppose he’ll understand why Coral was hounded to death. But the real evidence – Meredith’s hissy fit in your room, her attempt to drown you – we can only account for all that if we tell Sholto what’s going on.’
‘Well, if you tell him your first idea was to sell up the family seat to ensure my personal safety, I think he’ll get the general idea
, don’t you? And I doubt he’ll have any trouble believing I’m smitten with you.’
He looked at me directly then and
his dark eyes flickered, reflecting the flames dancing in the furnace. ‘Are you?’
‘
I suppose I must be if I’m prepared to give this religious mumbo-jumbo a whirl. But it has to be worth a shot, doesn’t it?’
‘I do
ubt he’ll agree to it, but he’ll give us a fair hearing.’ He shrugged. ‘We can but try.’
‘Thank you!’ I flung myself at him and
, after a moment’s hesitation, his powerful arms closed round me. We stood holding each other and neither of us spoke. I felt safe, protected by the warmth and strength of Alec’s body. Shivering with emotion, I clung to him more tightly. He murmured something in my ear – my name, I think, my real name, Imogen, as if he was trying it out on his lips.
‘I didn’t believe in ghosts
before I came here,’ I said, my voice faint. ‘And I don’t think I’ve ever believed in God. But I do believe in you, Alec. And Cauldstane. And the MacNabs.’ I laid my palms on his chest and looked up into his haggard face. ‘We can do this! I know we can. Just believe in me.
Please
.’
He released me and took my hands in his.
‘I do, Jenny. But I also have good reason to believe in the powers of darkness. And I fear they may be stronger than you, me and Cauldstane put together.’
‘Zelda said if you live in fear, you fear to live.’
‘Did she now? Well, that’s probably true.’
‘We mustn’t
be afraid, Alec. That’s the real power Meredith has over us. The power to make us live in fear.’
‘The only thing I fear is losing more loved ones. I lost my mother, my wife and my unborn child. And I nearly lost you too. I’d rather send you away than have you taken away. And that’s what I’ll say to my father.
Leave it with me, Jenny. I’ll choose my moment.’
Letting go
of my hands, he turned away, picked up the rod of cooling metal he’d been hammering and thrust it back into the furnace. He raked the hot coals over the metal and stood staring silently into the fire.
It seemed there was nothing more to say, so I let myself out, closi
ng the door behind me. The chilly autumn air came as a shock after the cosy fug of the armoury. As I made my way across the ancient cobblestones, back to the castle, it started to rain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
With my head down
to avoid the rain, I almost collided with Fergus on his way out. He held the back door open for me with a solicitous smile and, as I wiped my feet, I decided to seize the moment. Alec’s talk of selling up had persuaded me other avenues must be explored, and urgently.
‘Thanks, Fergus. Have you got a moment? Just a quick question.’
He removed his tweed cap and said, ‘How can I help?’
‘You know we were talking about Cauldstane valuables on the bridge, before… before my accident. You mentioned some paintings
in store.’
‘Aye
, there are a fair few. Were you wanting to see them?’
‘Oh, I don’t want to trouble you. I
just wondered if I could have a browse on my own? I’ll be very careful. I do know a bit about paintings. I had dealings with a famous art forger.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘All perfectly legal, I hasten to add.’
‘
Let me guess – you were writing his “autobiography”?’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ I said with a smile. ‘But I did pick up quite a lot from him. That’s one of the joys of my
peculiar job. You’re always learning something new.’
‘I think our
pictures are all genuine. Genuine rubbish mostly, including a few ancient family portraits done by travelling artists. You know the sort of thing I mean?’
‘Oh, yes. The artist would arrive with a body already painted
on the canvas, then the sitter’s head would be painted in to finish it off.’
‘Aye
, we’ve one or two of those. They remind me of a book I had as a kid called
Heads, Bodies and Legs
. You’ll see what I mean when you get up there. I suggested to Sholto we should hang them, just to give folk a laugh.’
‘Where can I find them?’
‘Go right up to the top floor. Have you ever been up there?’
‘No. That would be the third floor?’
‘Aye. There are a few rooms up there which we never use, apart from the Long Attic. Alec set that up as a gym and fencing studio. If you’ve ever heard music and wondered where it was coming from, that would be Alec or me in the gym.’ I refrained from telling Fergus I had indeed heard music, but it had nothing to do with the brothers keeping fit. ‘The Long Attic is at the east end of the corridor,’ he continued. ‘Next door is a lumber room where we store spare furniture, paintings and centuries of junk. We should create a museum. Folk might pay money to look at it. Or maybe we should just have the mother of all car boot sales.’
‘If I get lost
up there, I won’t be barging in on anyone will I?’
‘No
, there’s just the old nursery and some spare rooms.’
‘Right. I’ll go and have a snoop round, if that’s OK?’
‘When you get to the top of the staircase, turn left. You’ll be facing the Long Attic. Have fun.’
‘Thanks.’
As I set off along the corridor, Fergus called out, ‘A
nd don’t be alarmed by the tiger.’
I wheeled round.
‘
Tiger?
’
‘He’s stuffed.
Other kids had rocking horses. Alec and I rode a tiger,’ Fergus said proudly. He turned up the collar of his jacket, pulled his cap down over his eyes and headed out into the rain. As he slammed the door behind him, I started the long climb up to the third floor.
~
When I got to the top, I turned left, as instructed. The door to the attic was open and I looked in. New floorboards had been laid and the room had been painted white, presumably to maximize the light coming from a series of small windows. At one end there was an impressive-looking sound system and an array of fearsome gym equipment and weights that made me think of torture chambers from earlier times. The rest of the very long room was given over to fencing. There were foils and epées in a wall-mounted rack. Masks and a couple of fencing outfits hung on a coat stand. The room smelled sweaty, male and foreign.
I turned away and looked for the lumber room. Fergus
’ instructions had been clear but incomplete. There were two rooms adjacent to the attic, one on each side. I had no idea which contained the paintings, but he’d assured me none of the rooms was occupied. Nevertheless I knocked before opening a door.
The room was completely dark and I had to grope on the wall for a light switch. When I flicked it
, a crystal chandelier burst into dazzling light. Blinking, I realised this wasn’t the lumber room. I’d stumbled upon some sort of shrine – a shrine to execrably bad taste.
As I
entered, I was thrown by the sight of people emerging from the shadows and I stepped back in alarm. So did they. Laughing at myself, I realised the room was full of mirrors, some of them full length. The windows were totally obscured by burgundy velvet curtains of an Edwardian opulence. Swagged, frilled and embellished with gold tassels and braid, they reminded me of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. The stage curtains were the same colour and, when hoisted, fell into similarly extravagant folds.
The walls were covered in red damask,
badly stained in places from a leaking roof. The effect was tacky rather than luxurious and I wondered if the mirrors had been hung to conceal more stains. The centrepiece of the room was a brass bedstead covered with a gold satin bedspread and piled with velvet cushions. A few threadbare stuffed toys perched incongruously on top. Above the bed hung a black and white photographic portrait of a woman, apparently at a masked ball, wearing a gown that resembled the curtains. The effect was just as depressing.
Most of one wall was taken up by an outsize walnut armoire.
Every flat surface was decorated with bric-a-brac and photographs, some of them autographed. There were scrapbooks of yellowing press cuttings and theatre programmes blistered with damp. All of them were for operatic and concert performances given decades ago.
F
ans, shawls, scarves and a variety of ladies’ hats hung on pegs and wig stands. Good luck cards were tucked round the ornate mirror of a dressing table cluttered with silver-backed brushes, make-up, bottles of scent and ancient tins of French talc. A posy of dried flowers sat in a china jug. They might once have been rose buds. It was hard to tell. The flowers were now almost grey with age.
A dim corner of the room was fenced off with a
n oriental screen and I padded across the deep pile carpet to peep behind. I stepped back quickly, thinking I’d discovered someone in hiding, but it was a tailor’s dummy wearing a Japanese kimono. Someone had propped up a parasol on its shoulder. The screen also concealed a silver drinks tray and a two-bar electric fire. On the wall above was a poster for
Madama Butterfly
, starring Maria Callas.
This was Meredith MacNab’s bedroom. She’d been dead for twelve years
but no one had ever cleared it. I was sure if I’d opened the magnificent wardrobe doors, I would have found her clothes hanging there, smelling of the stale
Opium
perfume that still sat on her dressing table.
The room was remarkable in itself, but e
ven more remarkable was the fact that no surface was dusty. The room looked perfectly clean, though it smelled musty. Turning to a window that probably hadn’t been opened for more than a decade, I dragged a curtain aside to let daylight in. The window panes were crusted with dirt on the outside, but inside, the deep sill was spotless and decorated with yet more photographs, plus a motley collection of twee china ornaments.
O
ne of the photographs drew my eye and I picked it up. It showed a little girl at a birthday party – her own, presumably, as she was cutting a cake with eight candles. She was dark-haired, pretty and wearing a red dress. It was the child I’d seen by the river. I was looking at Meredith, aged eight, posing for the camera and wielding a large knife in a determined way. I dropped the picture frame as if my fingers had been burned.
I suppose the panic that seized me
then was some sort of flashback. Spinning round, I saw myself reflected over and over in all the mirrors, my pale hair catching the light from the crystal chandelier. As I swayed, unsteady on my feet, the mirrored figures appeared to dance, leaning this way and that. I moved away from the window and held on to a bookcase till I felt calmer.
When my breathing was steady again, I
examined the bookcase. There was a collection of leather bound books, journals of the kind I’d coveted as a teenager, with crisp cream pages and marbled endpapers. Meredith had probably bought them in Italy. I opened several, just scanning the pages. Each was filled with her flamboyant hand. She’d written in thick black ink with much underlining and copious use of exclamation marks. Alec’s name caught my eye and I was tempted to read what she’d written. Instead I closed the book.
Was it an invasion of privacy to read the diary of a dead per
son, someone you’d never known, who was a minor celebrity? And did you need to consider these niceties if the author of the journal had tried to kill you? I decided I owed Meredith MacNab nothing, not even respect, and I flipped open the journal again. The entries were dated 1999, the year before Alec’s marriage. The year before Meredith’s death.
If you’d asked me, I woul
d have said Meredith could sink no lower in my estimation, but by the time I’d read a page of the rambling sexual fantasies of a middle-aged woman, lusting after her much younger stepson, my contempt for the woman was mixed with disgust and disbelief. I turned the pages, hoping to find something less degenerate, but Alec was the subject of most entries. Variety was occasionally provided by a spiteful rant about Sholto or Coral.
Sickened
, I closed the book and as I replaced it on the shelf, I noticed the spines had dates. I selected another volume, 1982. The year of Meredith’s marriage to Sholto. She would have been about thirty. Skimming the pages, I found accounts of shopping sprees, wedding lists, dinner parties and performances. (She always recorded the number of curtain calls she’d taken.) There were badly-executed sketches for a wedding-dress with fabric swatches sellotaped alongside. She’d cut out the announcement of her marriage in the
Times
and pasted it in. I looked for any mention of Sholto, anything to indicate she’d once loved him, but I searched in vain. The journal was devoid of romance, despite its preoccupation with a wedding. Another man’s name began to appear as frequently as Sholto’s, then more frequently. Soon I was reading a catalogue of assignations in which Meredith described her sexual exploits with her lover.
I shut
the journal and put it back on the shelf. I felt a pressing need to wash my hands and it wasn’t because the books were grubby – at least, not on the outside. Like everything else in the room, they’d been dusted recently. By Wilma, presumably. I hoped to God she’d never opened them. Knowing Wilma, she would never have indulged her curiosity about the mistress of whom she’d been so fond. I was relieved to think she’d been spared hideous disillusionment.
There was a sound on the stairs and I recognised it as the distinctive tap and shuffle of Sholto with his stick. Confused, I stood paralysed, wondering what to do for the b
est. I could see no reason why Sholto should enter Meredith’s room. It seemed equally unlikely he was making his way to the gym. If I emerged now, it might startle him. I decided to stay put. If he found me, I would just tell the truth. I’d been looking for the store room and had got lost.
To my d
ismay, the footsteps approached the door, then it swung open. Sholto stood on the threshold, breathless and clutching a poker at head height.
‘Jenny
– it’s
you
! Thought it must be burglars. Knew it wasn’t Wilma – she’s in the kitchen – but I could hear someone moving about up here. I’m underneath, you see. I heard creaking floorboards and thought I’d better come up and investigate.’
‘I’m sorry, Sholto. Fergus gave me directions for the store room. I want
ed to look at some of your paintings. But then I took a wrong turning. I hope I didn’t alarm you.’
‘Not really
, I was just puzzled, that’s all. Thought Meredith must have come back to haunt me!’ I didn’t know what to say and in the hiatus, Sholto gazed around the room. ‘I expect you’re wondering why I never cleared out all her stuff. Especially as I told you I was planning to divorce her when she died.’
‘You don’t have to account to me for your actions, Sholto. After all, it’s not something that’s likely to feature in the book.’
‘But you must have wondered.’
‘Well, yes. I was
surprised to see the room so well preserved. And
clean
. Wilma, I suppose?’
‘I don’t ask her to do it. But she insists. Sh
e was devoted to her mistress. The only one of us who was. But Meredith was quite good with servants and that’s how she treated Wilma, who didn’t seem to mind. Wilma saw Meredith as a celebrity. Someone with a special gift. God-given. Which is how Meredith saw herself, of course.’ He surveyed the ghastly room, barely able to conceal his distaste. ‘No doubt Wilma found all these folderols…
glamorous
.’