Deceit (3 page)

Suddenly her dad was being vilified. He hadn’t been distraught enough on the television. He hadn’t cried. He didn’t have an alibi at the time of Matthew’s abduction. He was out to get revenge against his ex-wife who had denied him access to his children.

The old family house where he now lived on his own, since Claire, Micky and their mum had moved to Grandma’s, was besieged with reporters. When Lindsay had stayed over, she’d been attacked coming out to go to work. Insults were thrown and worse.

It got so bad the police had to provide
round-the
-clock protection. Even the Chief Constable was forced into making a statement live on television. “Simon Cottrell is not a suspect in this case and never has been. He was at work at the time of the abduction, as was his partner, Lindsay Walsh. Mr Cottrell has a close and loving relationship with his children. We are happy that no member of the family
or
any family friend is involved in Matthew’s kidnap. If the harassment of Mr Cottrell
or
Miss Walsh continues, we will take swift action against anyone involved.”

Things calmed down, but the rumours didn’t go away. And they were doing damage. Claire’s mum was trawling the Internet obsessively. Reading anything and everything she could find about Matthew’s kidnapping, however unlikely or bizarre or terrifying. And the insanity was infecting Micky.

“You don’t think it was aliens that abducted him, do you? Or vampires? They won’t come and get us too, will they?”

She wouldn’t go outside, even into the garden, unless Claire was with her. And she followed Claire everywhere, even to the loo where Claire could hear her anxious breathing outside the door. If Claire was out of sight Micky started to panic… she hated going to school. Was unhappy that Claire went to a different school and they had to be apart during the day. She wouldn’t sleep alone either and she had bad dreams and would thrash about and cry. Stroking her hair gently would calm her, make her sigh in relief as she slipped back into a deep sleep, but Claire would wake exhausted. She had a continual buzzing in her head and a permanent ache behind her eyes.

The old fear that she thought was buried deep started to surface again. Her thumb continually rubbed at the ring. When no one was looking she went up into the attic. Checked that the Emerald Casket was still safely hidden under some loose floorboards covered over with an old rug. Nothing had been moved. The dust had settled on everything and had not been disturbed.

I was stupid
, Claire thought.
I should have hidden it up here when Grandma first left it to me. Mum’s so terrified of spiders she’d never have dared look for it in the attic. Then she wouldn’t have been able to sell it to Robert when he first appeared in their lives over two years ago and the whole terrible chain of events would never have started. But maybe I’m just being paranoid. Maybe it’s the stress of Matthew’s abduction that’s messing with my brain… the casket isn’t in danger or Jacalyn would know. The guardian’s ring would tell her, wouldn’t it? Just like mine would tell me. And surely there would be another epidemic spreading across London. Like the Great Plague of 1665 in Margrat’s time – and the bird flu outbreak two years ago. People had died both times. Lots of people. Please God that wouldn’t ever happen again
.

So what if a few cases of a rare and deadly form of tuberculosis had been reported at Newham University Hospital. That was in east London and miles from Grandma’s house – their house – and there had been no other reports of any other sort of sickness anywhere. She wouldn’t even have known about the TB if she hadn’t overheard Lindsay talking to Dad about it. And no one seemed worried it was going to get out of hand.
The Chief Medical Officer hadn’t been on TV broadcasting a warning about it… not like last time with the bird flu.

Still it made Claire wonder if Jacalyn had been right when
she’d
refused to take the casket with her to France, saying it must stay with Claire until all the spells had been reunited.

“But how’s
that
going to happen now?” Claire had asked her. “Robert had the spells with him when he fell, so how will we ever find them?”

Jacalyn had sighed. “We wait, Claire. The spells will find
us
.”

And on top of the nightmare she was already living, Joe was starting to distance himself from her. She could feel it and it added to her sense that everything in her life was spinning out of control. He denied he was doing it.

When she asked if he still loved her he said, “’
Course I do
.” But he hadn’t asked for all this mess to drop on him. He had exams coming up.
Life-changing
ones. His mum and dad were lovely, but ambitious for their son and they wouldn’t want him to be distracted. They would put pressure on him to concentrate on his work and not on his relationship with Claire. Maybe even to finish with her.

When she said that he’d got
very
cross. “I’d have to be a real bastard to dump you now wouldn’t I?” But she knew how much he cared about what his parents thought.

Besides, he must be losing patience,
she thought
, with a girlfriend whose little sister was always there. Whose house was like a fortress. Whose mother had lost the plot. And whose little brother was missing and was probably dead. Or worse
.

They never had time to themselves. If they went to Joe’s house, his mum and dad were embarrassed and didn’t know what to say to Claire. What can you say to someone who has had her brother kidnapped and whose family has fallen apart and had all their intimate details aired in the tabloid press? So they avoided going there. And if they stayed at her place Micky was never far away. Claire would hiss, “
get lost
” at her and she’d run, but Claire would know that Micky’d be crying and then she’d feel really bad. She and Joe had tried going out, but her mum was paranoid about letting her out of her sight.

The only time they had together was at school and school was a nightmare. The whispering and the pitying looks and the teachers cutting Claire
slack when she didn’t deserve it, when she should have been working hard for her exams. And the elephant in the room… Matthew’s abduction… which was never mentioned, but always there.

She started to avoid school. And that made Joe mad. He’d been brought up to believe that getting a good education and working hard was everything. So they’d argued about her bunking off. She hadn’t seen him like that before… all goody goody… and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Telling her she ought to try and keep her life as normal as possible and that skipping school was a bad idea and she’d fail her exams.

“What a
stupid
thing to say,” she’d shouted at him. “As if I give a toss about exams when Matthew’s missing!” And she’d stormed off.
Whatever
Joe had to say, it wasn’t going to stop her going back to the park every single day. Sitting at the same table outside the café. Reliving everything that had led up to Matthew’s disappearance. If only she’d stayed at the swings a minute longer. If only she’d remembered to tell Joe about the orange juice before he went inside. If only she’d asked the family at the next table to look out for Matthew. And it
hadn’t even been two weeks yet since Matthew had gone, but already the detail was getting hazy and she was embroidering over the facts.

So there she was, sitting outside the café, at ten o’clock on a Monday morning when she should have been in a French lesson. She was breaking up the biscuit she’d got with her coffee and dropping crumbs for the sparrows that were hopping around under the table. One of them was looking sick. Its eyes were filming over and its feathers were fluffed out and it wasn’t moving. She started to reach down to it when its head just went limp and its eyes closed.

She knew it was dead, poor little thing. She didn’t even stop to think. She just scooped it up. Held it in the palm of her hand close to her face and stroked its back with her index finger. Then she felt the vibration of every atom in her being build to a crescendo as she breathed out over the little body. And in a second the bird’s eyes were open and she launched it up into the air and it flew away. She was still smiling when she heard
his
voice.

“
Claire
…”

And smelled the cinnamon and flowers.

It is early morning still on the fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord 1666. I, Margrat Jennet, have escaped from Nicholas Benedict and Darke House. But I am still close by it and fear is squeezing at my heart, for I am even now in plain view. What if Nicholas has escaped the mob I set on him after he hurried from the house? What then? How soon might he return?

A river of people stream past me, intent on leaving the city before the fire that started in Pudding Lane and now rages out of control spreads further. I shout out, asking for anyone passing to take me with them as they leave the city. I offer money to anyone willing. For I have my three half crowns still, left to me by my mother, and have scoured Nicholas’s house and taken whatever coin I can find.

A man stops his cart. It is filled with things. A gilded mirror. A rich tapestry. There is a glint, here and there, of silver and gold. But his clothes are ragged and dirty. He will not look me in the eye. He rubs his fingers against the palm of his hand; a rough, dry, rasping noise even though sweat
drips off him, making white rivulets through the soot that blackens his face. Can I put my trust in him? Do I have any choice?

“I will take you on my cart, lady,” he says, “but we must go this minute. I can wait no longer… the fire may spread this way at any moment. Give me the sovereign you promised and let us be out of the city.”

I give him the sovereign, hot from my hand, and I start to climb up onto the cart, my manuscript, the Emerald Casket and my precious bottle of laudanum bundled up in my shawl and tucked in close to me. But I can feel how he looks at it. How he will not be satisfied until he knows what is inside the bundle. How he will covet the casket the moment he claps eyes on it… and will try to take it from me the first moment he can. And even if he fails… there will be many others along my journey just like him.

“I have forgotten…” I climb back down off the cart and turn towards Darke House. I am caught between fear of the Doctor’s return and fear that the casket will be taken from me by this man.

If only Christophe were here with me, but I have not seen hide or hair of him since he prevented Nicholas from forcibly marrying me,
and helped me to escape down the church tower. He fled towards the river then. I prayed for a glimpse of him from my window at Darke House… hoping he had not forsaken me and the Emerald Casket and the spells… but I never saw him. I should feel so much calmer if he were here, for he is guardian of the casket and would protect me from harm.

The man makes a sharp hiss of irritation.

“Wait,” I say. “I will not be long. I have left something of value…” I hope the promise of more treasure will keep him waiting for me.

I hurry down the lane at the side of the house and through the gate in the wall. I look back, but he does not follow me. For a moment I hesitate. Where shall I bury the casket? I remember how Martha buried my stillborn baby son in the orchard and so I will bury it close by him, for it seems only fitting.

Martha is my only friend in the world now that Christophe has left the city. These past months, since Nicholas dispensed with her services as his maid, she has visited me in secret, calling softly up to my window.

Little hurried conversations about nothing… my health and that of the baby I carry inside me…
the girl child Nicholas so longs for? Gossip about Ralf, to whom Martha is betrothed. How Ralf’s skills are in constant demand, even as far as France, for he is a master stonemason. And how Martha likes her new position in a great mansion out at Clerkenwell, but misses me every minute of every day. As I do her, so strong has the bond grown between us.

The great shadow that threatened and still threatens to engulf us is not spoken of, though fear of it – fear of him, Doctor Nicholas Robert Benedict – colours and informs every word we speak. Everything we do.

There is a spade leaning against the wall of the house. But the orchard grass, strewn with fallen apples, is yellow and parched like straw and the earth is baked hard after the heat of the summer… and now the heat of the fire. For though the flames rage some distance away yet, the air is like a furnace.

Sweat drips into my eyes and stains my bodice. My hands grow raw with the digging. My shoulders ache and a spasm of pain shoots up my neck, but I think only of what I must do. I do not stop digging until I have made a hole, four hands deep. Then down on my knees, I untie the bundle.

I hesitate. The manuscript… my account of all that has gone before and written as a warning to any who may come after… what should I do with it? Keep it with me? And to what purpose? No… the manuscript will be safer here with the casket. I am sure of it. Besides, it is fitting that it should rest close to the body of my stillborn son, for it will tell any who may read it of the iniquitous curse Nicholas placed on him and any future male children in the bloodline. God willing, one day I will return for it.

So I place the casket and the manuscript, hastily wrapped in my petticoat, into the hole and cover them over with earth and then the turf, using my hands to pat it down. Burying the casket and manuscript here is the right thing to do, for Nicholas never comes out into the garden; he would think it a waste of his precious time to stroll along its gravel paths and smell the sweet flowers.

I rest on my heels, wipe the soil from my hands down over the swell of my belly and raise a corner of my skirt to mop my brow. Only then does the fear come and I turn in terror, expecting to find Nicholas at the window, or worse, close behind me, his hand a heartbeat from my shoulder. But the
windows are shuttered and dark and there is no other living soul but me in the orchard.

Thinking quickly I bundle apples into my shawl and tie it up. At least, if all else fails I will have something to eat. And my carter will have a great surprise if he thinks to steal the bundle from me.