Kingdom of Shadows (78 page)

‘Oh, but I do. Besides, it is better for Clare to be rid of it. It is Duncairn that is haunting her.’ For a second he had lost his bantering tone and his voice was sincere.

Emma frowned. Was there any possibility that he could be right? She shook her head. Even if he was he could not be allowed to go on. ‘She isn’t haunted, Paul. You were the one who started this stupid idea. You’ve even got Geoffrey believing it now!’

‘Because it is true. Clare is possessed, Emma. Stop trying to fool yourself into believing that she isn’t. Geoffrey should know. I couldn’t talk him into something that wasn’t true. The man is a professional!’

Emma shook her head. ‘Oh no, Paul. No. I can’t let you do this. I can’t!’

‘Don’t try and stop me, Emma.’ Paul walked around the desk and caught her arm. ‘The only one who will get hurt if you do is Clare. And Peter, of course. Think how upset he would be if he found out that you were having an affair.’ He smiled. ‘Just think, Emma! No, you forget all about Clare. Leave her to me.’

Emma waited until he had left the gallery, then she grabbed the phone. Her hands were shaking. She had to warn Clare what Paul was up to and that he was on his way back.

‘Antonia? This is Emma Cassidy – Clare’s sister-in-law. How is Clare?’

In the draughty hall at Airdlie Antonia glanced up the stairs. Clare was still in her room, huddled in bed with a hot water bottle, exhausted after her sleepless night.

‘She’s all right, thank you, Emma. She’s very well. Enjoying her holiday. Her brother is here too, you know.’

‘Is he?’ Emma paused. She hadn’t realised that James was in Scotland. ‘Could I speak to Clare, please, if it’s not too much trouble?’

‘I’m sorry, my dear. Clare is out today.’ Antonia bit her lip. It made her hot and uncomfortable when she lied.

‘Oh, I see.’ Emma was clearly taken aback. ‘Then please, could you ask her to ring me as soon as she gets back. It’s very, very important.’

‘Of course I will.’ Antonia grimaced as she put down the phone. She had always disliked Emma. The girl was wild and unprincipled. She had been a bad influence on Clare at school, always getting her into trouble, and nothing appeared to have changed now she was an adult. There was no way she was going to let Clare talk to her if she could help it.

That evening whilst Sarah was helping Antonia in the kitchen Clare managed to reach the phone. James and her father were in the gunroom. The dogs were sprawled in front of the drawing-room fire. She picked up the receiver carefully so that it wouldn’t make a noise and dialled. She was praying under her breath that Kenneth wouldn’t answer.

‘Zak? Oh thank God!’ She was almost sobbing with relief. ‘I thought you might be in the States still. I need to see you. Please, you’re the only person who can help me.’

‘Clare, honey. Where are you? What’s happened?’ Zak frowned, knowing his own voice sounded reluctant, hearing the fear in hers.

‘I’m in Scotland. I’ll be in Edinburgh by the end of the week. Please, Zak, I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you come there. I’ll pay your train fare, anything. Look contact me at –’ She racked her brains for a moment. ‘At Earthwatch. They are somewhere in the Grassmarket. Please Zak. Don’t let me down.’

She didn’t wait for him to reply. Gently she tipped the receiver back into its cradle. It fell back silently and she breathed again.

Twice Archie and James set out for their walk across the hill the next morning, and twice they were called back. The first time, the telephone rang and it was an urgent message for James from the City, and the second time it was Antonia. ‘Why don’t you stay at home today? Please. I’m sick and tired of being here on my own.’ Her nerves were playing her up again, a migraine threatening – that strange click in the head, the sudden jerk behind her field of vision.

Archie hesitated, guilt fighting with the longing to get out of the house. In the end the latter won. After all, he owed it to James to show him the Creag nam Muir beat …

Antonia sat down after they had gone and looked at Sarah wearily. ‘Do you still want to go into Perth today?’ All she wanted herself was to creep upstairs to bed, but if Sarah went out she could have to stay up to watch Clare.

Sarah smiled apologetically. ‘Not for long, but there are one or two things I need urgently.’ Now that she had made up her mind, she was determined to go through with it, and she had judged Antonia shrewdly. The woman was strong in her way, but dominated by her boorish husband. She disliked holding Clare a prisoner, but she hadn’t the courage herself to let her go. Instead of shrieking at Archie as anyone in their right mind would have done in Sarah’s opinion, she took regular refuge in her migraines, opting out each time for a few precious hours.

She leaned forward and touched Antonia’s hand lightly. ‘You are feeling bad, my dear, aren’t you? Is it one of your heads? Why don’t you go and have a lie down? Clare’s asleep. I don’t think she will want to come downstairs today.’

Antonia sighed with relief. Within ten minutes she had taken three paracetamol and, curtains drawn, had sunk into the pillows of her bed.

Sarah stood in the hall for several minutes, the keys of the Volvo in her hand. Now that it had come to it, she was uneasy. Jobs like hers with the Roylands were not easy to come by and she needed the work. Was she throwing it all away? She had no doubt at all that Paul would sack her if he ever found out she had allowed Clare to go. She swallowed nervously – then she unlocked the front door and went out. The car was standing in the yard at the back of the house. She unlocked it and, opening the door, leant in and cautiously slid the key into the ignition. Immediately the car’s ignition alarm went off – an insistent loud bleep, ringing round the yard. She slammed the door, her heart thumping with fright and the car subsided into smug silence. She glanced up at the house. There was no sound. No one looked out of the windows. Tiptoeing now, she fled back around the side and in through the front door.

Clare was lying on her bed, reading.

‘Hurry! There’s so little time! I don’t know how long your mother will sleep for!’ Sarah was agitated now, somehow expecting that Clare would have guessed that the right moment had come so soon and would have been ready. ‘Your father and James left about an hour ago.’

Clare shot off the bed. ‘The car keys –?’

‘They are in the car. Round the back, in the yard. And I’ve left the front door unlocked. Oh hurry! Please.’

Clare flung on her clothes, threw a few things into her big shoulder bag and grabbed the coat Sarah pushed at her. ‘Bless you, Sarah.’ Clare gave her a hug, then she was gone, running down the stairs, tiptoeing across the landing, down the front staircase and out into the cold.

Upstairs her mother was fast asleep behind the heavy rose velvet curtains. In her room further down the corridor Sarah closed her door and sat down on her bed. There were tears in her eyes.

Clare pulled open the door of the car and nearly jumped out of her skin as the ignition alarm started braying across the yard. She snatched the key out, cursing. Sarah was an idiot to have left it in! She threw her coat and bag into the car and climbed in, fumbling in her panic, her breath coming in tight painful little gasps. The Volvo started first go and she turned it, her hands shaking on the wheel, and headed out of the yard, round the front of the house and down the drive as fast as she dared, scanning the woods on both sides for any sign of her step-father or James.

She was barely outside the gate when she realised that the petrol gauge was nearly at zero. Cursing again she drove straight to the garage and waited, trying to hide her impatience as the car was filled, listening to the friendly chatter of the pump attendant. He had known her and her family for years.

Tell him you are going north. Tell him you’re going to Duncairn.
Put them off the trail
.

‘Where’s the dog, then? I thought you two were inseparable!’ he said as she fumbled in her purse for her credit card. He took it from her and headed towards his office. The comment, passed casually, nearly threw her. She was missing Casta desperately. ‘She’s on the hill with my father, being a real gun dog,’ she managed to reply. ‘She’s on holiday, like me!’ She waited in an increasing agony of impatience as he hunted for his slide machine below the counter. At last he found it. ‘Well, you’ve enough petrol to get you halfway across Scotland now.’ He grinned at her as he handed her card back with the credit slip. It was a question.

‘I’m going over to Duncairn,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll be staying at the hotel for a few weeks, I expect …’

But the road she took led south towards Perth. From there she took the M90 towards Edinburgh and now she was thinking only about Zak. Please let him be there, and let him find a way of helping, otherwise she didn’t know what she was going to do …

She found a parking place in the Grassmarket quite easily. For a long time she sat there at the wheel of the car staring up at the castle silhouetted against a black and threatening sky. She was shaking with exhaustion as the succession of sleepless nights caught up with her and suffering from the tension of her escape and the fast nervous drive down from Dunkeld. Now the anti-climax hit her. She had arrived in Edinburgh. No one knew where she was. She was safe. And she wasn’t sure what to do next.

Trying to force her brain to work, she climbed out of the car and shrugged on her coat, shivering as the icy wind scythed up the street and through to her bones. She must try and find the offices of Earthwatch and see if Zak had made contact. If he hadn’t she had to ring him again, then she must find somewhere to stay. She stared up and down the street, wishing she had suggested any other place on earth for Zak to find her. But where else was there where Paul would not go?

She began to walk slowly along the street. The chance of Neil Forbes being there was after all small. He was the type who was always away, always on the move, protesting at some site or the other. He was probably still at Duncairn. The office itself would be run by other people.

She found it fairly easily in the end, beside a wine bar. There was a light on inside behind the curtains which obscured the window. Thrusting her hands deep into the pockets of her coat she pushed open the door.

Neil Forbes was seated alone in the office, poring over a desk full of papers. For a moment he stared at her blankly, then he rose to his feet. ‘Mrs Royland?’ he said in disbelief. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure!’ His voice was cold.

Shocked to find him there alone and hurt and angry at his tone she launched straight into her counter-attack, her anger and resentment of him returning with full force. ‘Why did you all have a meeting at Duncairn without telling me? And why did you tell the papers all those lies about me?’

‘If they were lies, which I beg to doubt, your husband fielded them skilfully enough!’ He did not smile. He came round the desk and leaning against it, folded his arms. ‘So, Mrs Royland, why have you come here?’

She gritted her teeth. ‘I gave this address to a friend of mine as a place to find me. Zak de Sallis. Has he been here?’ She could not hide her anxiety.

Neil raised an eyebrow. ‘How exotic! No, he hasn’t been here, and I would prefer it if you did not use this place as either a poste restante or a rendezvous for your lovers, Mrs Royland.’

‘He’s not my lover!’ Clare replied hotly.

‘Of course, I had forgotten. You are now fully reconciled with your husband.’

‘I have left my husband.’ Clare looked him straight in the eye. ‘I should be grateful if you would inform the press of my exact position over Duncairn, Mr Forbes. I am the sole owner of the property. Me, not Paul, and I do not intend to sell it! We did not at any time query my great aunt’s will, and I was delighted with my share of the bequest. You may also tell whatever branch of the newspapers which may be interested that I wholeheartedly support the Earthwatch campaign and that I shall be helping you if I can be of any use. And, for the record, I shall be seeking a divorce from my husband.’

Neil whistled. ‘That sounds like a declaration of war!’

Clare gave a tight smile. ‘I think that is what it is.’ She sat down abruptly on the chair by the door. ‘Will you help me?’ She couldn’t hide the slight tremor in her voice.

Neil’s gaze was fixed thoughtfully on her face. Without any make-up her pale skin had a translucent quality he found very appealing. ‘In what way?’ he said cautiously.

‘I think Paul will try to find me again.’

‘What if he does? He can’t force you to go with him.’

‘He did last time.’ She looked away from his face, then quietly she told him what had happened at Duncairn.

Neil listened in silence, his face darkening. ‘Are you telling me he has been keeping you locked up?’

She grimaced. ‘It makes me sound very feeble, doesn’t it. I should have shinned down a knotted sheet or something.’

He gave an unexpected laugh. ‘Indeed you should. I can see I’m going to have to send you on a survival course before we go much further. Tell me, where are you staying in Edinburgh?’

She shrugged. ‘I wanted to avoid the hotels. That’s the first place he’ll look for me. I don’t want to stay with friends either, for the same reason. I thought perhaps I’d try a bed and breakfast.’

‘There is always my place.’ He had said it without thinking, then he realised that he meant it. Why not?

‘But your friend might object.’ Clare too spoke without first thinking that her words implied acceptance.

Neil shook his head. ‘Kath is going off to a gig in London for the weekend.’ He pushed himself to his feet. ‘I tell you what. We’ll go over there now and get my spare key for you. Then we’ll go out for dinner later and draft a statement for the press tomorrow. How does that sound?’

He locked up the office and led the way up the long flights of steps in Castle Wynd, and then turned down Castle Hill towards the Lawnmarket, not attempting to slow his pace for her, walking always a little ahead. She hurried breathlessly after him, dodging across the roads, ducking between the crowds of hurrying pedestrians and the cars as they sped by, their tyres rattling over the uneven sets in the road.