Mirror Image (18 page)

Frowning, Haaren reached for the mirror. And it suddenly split right down the center. Jagged splinters of glass tore into the soft flesh of the palm of her hand. The larger pieces shattered into the sink, tiny flecks stinging the bare skin of her arms and legs.

The detective staggered back, shaking with fright and reaction, cradling her torn palm. The remaining pieces of glass in the mirror were smeared in her blood, and there were bright red droplets on the sink and floor. Already her conscious mind was beginning to rationalize the event—she had pressed too hard on the glass … the heat of her hand against the cold glass …

And the face, the woman's face?

Imagination or even the scotch perhaps.

Just that. Nothing more.

*   *   *

I
N A HOSPITAL
bed two miles away, Emmanuelle Frazer twisted and turned in a nightmare in which she was trapped in a block of ice. No matter how she hammered or shouted or screamed, she couldn't get out, couldn't attract attention of the people looking in.

 

36

D
AWN WAS
breaking when Jonathan Frazer returned to the house in the Hollywood Hills. The street was quiet and completely deserted; this was one of those rare mornings with no trash services and no gardeners.

Although Detective Haaren had told him that she was assigning officers to keep an eye on the house, it was still a shock to find an unmarked police car parked in the street opposite the house. The doors opened and two men moved out of the car when they saw the Volvo slowing to approach the gates. One of them must have recognized him, or the registration of the car, and they returned to their car with a wave. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the men talking into a radio, obviously noting the time of his arrival.

He parked the car neatly in front of the garage and then sat for a few moments, listening to the engine tick quietly. He had come back to the house to pick up a few things for Manny. He also badly needed a shower to clear the sterile hospital odor from his clothes and body.

Frazer stepped out of the car, breathing in great clean lungfuls of air. There was a definite feel of autumn in the chill morning air and the grass was dew-damp. His footsteps sounded extraordinarily loud as he crunched across the driveway. He walked around the side of the house toward the rear garden. It felt colder here and tendrils of white mist coiled across the grass, wrapping and twisting around his ankles. The sprinkler system was on a timer and came on just after sunset and just before dawn, damping down the garden in anticipation of a fine day. They had obviously just switched off. The air smelt sweet and earthy and water droplets glistened everywhere, dripping off the overhanging branches and leaves.

He walked down the pathway to the guesthouse, his breath pluming before his face, digging his hands deeper into his pockets, suddenly conscious of the chill that clung to the garden, but unable to distinguish if it was simply a natural phenomenon of the pre-dawn chill or … or something else …

He stopped in the middle of the path, abruptly realizing that he had accepted—
had actually accepted—
that something very strange, that something very different, that something very frightening was happening here.

And it was all somehow connected to the mirror.

People had died around that seven foot tall piece of glass. He was forty-five years old and he had never seen a dead body before. In the past week he had seen three.

The crime scene tape had been removed and the padlock on the door was cold, slick with the morning's dew. The lock was stiff and his fingers were so cold that it took him several moments before he finally got the plywood door open.

When he stepped into the guesthouse, he was immediately aware of the smell, a strange, almost sickly sweet odor that was tainted with burnt fabric and human flesh, and another stink, something sweet, something rotten. After the chill of the garden, it was warm and close in the large room and he pulled off his jacket and draped it over his arm. He stood for a few moments, absorbing the atmosphere of the place, almost frightened by the change that had come over it.

This had always been his favorite place. It was his sanctuary. Whenever he had wanted to escape from Celia's insistent nagging, or simply to be alone with his thoughts he would retire to the guesthouse and walk along its narrow aisles, looking, touching, handling the objects of the past and absorbing the peace and tranquility of the room.

Now the warmth, the comfort he had taken from the room was gone: it had been replaced by an atmosphere of menace, of death.

He breathed deeply, gagging slightly on the tainted air and walked directly towards the mirror. He could see his reflection in the glass, not distinctly and in detail, but far clearer than he had seen it before. He thought that the glass seemed brighter, and certainly some of the distortion and bubbling effects had vanished. However, as he drew nearer, he could see that a layer of grime still clung to the mirror.

Frazer walked right up to the edge of the mirror, putting his face close to the surface and attempted to stare
into
the glass. Only his own frightened, hollow-eyed face stared back at him, ghostly pale, deeply shadowed in the dirty glass.

“What are you?” he whispered.

The silence mocked him.

“What are you?”

Jonathan Frazer backed away from the glass and sat down in the chaise longue he had set up before the mirror, draping the jacket over his legs, wrapping his arms across his chest.

High above him, still perfectly visible in the paling morning sky, the full moon shone down through the grimy skylights to illuminate the mirror.

 

37

T
HE WOMAN
stood naked in the small wooden tub while two women moved around her body, rubbing the soft flesh with pumice stones, massaging scented oils and unguents into her skin. Her rich dark hair had been bathed in dew skimmed from the grass in the last moments before the dawn. She had been told it was of the purest quality and certainly her hair now glistened like burnished metal. The slightly abrasive touch of the pumice had brought the blood flushing to her skin, giving it a rich glow, and expensive and exotic oils had soothed the slight irritation that was an unfortunate by-product of the volcanic stone.

There was a chill draught as the door opened and the tall, red-haired, red-bearded, green-eyed man stepped into the room. He shook snow from the shoulders of his cloak, brushed it from his beard and strode to the fire to kick off his boots. He looked at the woman dispassionately. “Are you near ready?” he demanded.

She turned in the tub to face him, spreading her arms wide, a smile twisting her full lips. “Do I not look ready?”

“Clothes?” he grunted.

“I wasn't going to wear any,” she leered.

“Then you'll catch your death. It's freezing. There were folk walking on the Thames earlier today. The queen complained that she was so cold that they actually began to burn some of the old wooden furniture, and that was fine until they began chopping up an oak chest that had once belonged to Henry, and you know how fond she was of her father.”

The woman laughed dutifully. This was as close as the dour Kelley ever came to humor. “You have found someone else, someone suitable?” she continued, ignoring the two women servants, both of whom had been deafened by having their eardrums punctured.

The man known as Kelley suddenly looked evasive. “Yes … no … possibly.”

She knew better than to mock him, but she found this sudden indecisiveness a little frightening.

“Get dressed,” he commanded. “We can talk then.”

“We can talk now; my nakedness doesn't bother me.”

Kelley strode over to her and gripped her small face in his large hands, squeezing along the line of her jaw and cheekbone. “You may think what you wish of me, but I am still a man, and I would be less than a man if I were not aroused by the sight of your nakedness, so cover yourself, you wanton. We have much to discuss.” He turned away, to stand before the fire.

The woman swallowed hard and stepped out of the tub. The two women, who had retreated before Kelley's approach, returned with towels.

“How is your master?” she asked, exacting a little revenge for his treatment of her by reminding him that he was little more than an employee.

“The good doctor is well. He had prepared yet another horoscope for the queen, which delights her no end, and he has promised her further delights when he has mastered the art of crystallomancy.”

“You told him!” she accused.

“I had to give him something,” he said defensively. “It was a hint, nothing more. I spoke to him about scrying.”

“But it is a gamble,” she said, climbing onto the high-soled wooden shoes, while the two maids fixed the ornate ruff around her neck.

“He has some art, you know that, but no talent. He has some mathematical and alchemical knowledge and he has the contacts at court, not only with the queen, but also with Sir William Cecil and Sir Francis Walsingham. Now, we can never oust him from that position—he is too close to the queen—but if we can control him, it places us in an extraordinarily powerful position. We will have power without the danger.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Dismiss the women,” Kelley commanded.

“They are deaf.”

“But not fools. Dismiss the women.”

The woman turned, and waved her hand to attract the attention of the two servants who were busying themselves around the tub, mopping up the water splashed onto the wooden floor. When they looked up, she pointed to the door.

One—the older of the two—indicated the tub and raised her eyebrows in a question. The dark-haired woman shook her head and pointed to the door again, her face tightening into a frown. Both women scurried from the room.

When they were alone, Kelley turned to the woman and grabbed her forearms, pulling her close. “How badly do you covet immortality?”

“To live forever?” she asked dreamily.

“In saecula saeculorum. For ever and ever,” he promised.

“I will do anything. You know that.”

“Even marriage?” he asked.

“In light of what I have already done, marriage would be the least of my crimes,” she smiled.

“And to conceive a child?”

She looked into his mad, bright green eyes and frowned.

“And to conceive a child?” he repeated.

“If it was necessary,” she said cautiously.

“And to give that child, unbaptized, to me.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“To allow me to fulfill my promise to you: to grant you immortality, to enable you to live for ever and ever…”

“But surely we could buy a child on the street?”

“It would not have those especial gifts from its parents. It would lack your own power, your consummate skill, your devotion to the carnal senses.”

“And the father? What of his skills?” She almost expected him to nominate himself as the child's father. Though they had never slept together, and at times she thought him a catamite or a eunuch, she knew he was prepared to do almost anything in the pursuance of his art.

“The father is a mathematician and an astronomer of some note. He possesses a little knowledge of natural magic and the arcane arts and much of alchemy.”

Realization flooded through her, and she suddenly laughed, almost with relief. She had thought he was going to suggest union with a demon.

“That's right,” Edward Kelley smiled. “I want you to wed John Dee, our noble Queen Elizabeth's Astrologer Royal.”

 

38

J
ONATHAN FRAZER'S
eyes snapped open and he came to his feet with a shout, his jacket dropping to the floor. He stood swaying before the mirror, his heart tripping in his chest.

The dream had been so vivid, so clear … and he abruptly remembered his previous dream. That too had been clear, vivid, alive. And he had experienced that whilst sleeping before the mirror.

And the nameless woman and the man Edward Kelley had been in both.

With a growing sense of elation, he realized he was close to something. He had clues now, clues he could pursue. He had another name: John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's Astrologer Royal. To solve the mystery of the mirror he would have to trace those references back to their source.

And soon.

Before the mirror exerted its baleful influence on anyone else.

 

39

J
ONATHAN FRAZER
met Detective Haaren at the hospital. He would have avoided her if he could; he knew she held him responsible—indeed, he held himself responsible—for the injuries to the two officers, and he knew that she suspected his involvement with their attacker ran far deeper.

“Mr. Frazer, may I talk to you privately?” Catching his arm by the elbow, holding it in a vise-like grip, she directed him down the long corridor away from his daughter's room. She led him into an empty private room and pushed the door closed behind them. Then she turned to face him.

“I just received a report from forensics. It seems the watch they found was a fake gold Rolex with the name ‘Robert Maurice Beaumont' engraved on the back.”

Frazer stood frozen in horror. “Robert? That was his body?”

“May I ask what he was doing in your guesthouse Mr. Frazer?”

“I have no idea, I swear.” Frazer's shock turned to anger. “I was with you, remember.”

“We know he went to your house, Mr. Frazer. We can only assume that he heard us talking in your office that day and decided to get out before you confronted him. We think he went down to the guesthouse to steal something.”

Jonathan nodded. Beaumont had taken him for a fool. And had paid the price. But no one deserved to die like that. “I keep wondering how much Manny witnessed,” he whispered. “Did she see him burn to death?”

“I don't think so,” Margaret lied. She had no idea what his daughter had witnessed. “How is she doing, Mr. Frazer?”