The Memory of Midnight (42 page)

But she was not resigned. Inside, Nell was jubilant. At last she could see a way out. They would call her a harlot or a graceless strumpet when she had gone; they would brand her an adulteress
or worse. But Nell didn’t care. Now that she had made the decision, she was wild to be gone. She laid her hand on the purse hanging from her belt as if she could feel Tom’s ring pulsing
with hope inside it.

Tom was making his farewells to Meg and the servants. Meg’s lip was trembling. She admired her gallant uncle and told Nell that she wished he could stay. Nell hadn’t told her the
truth yet. Her daughter was young and every thought was writ large on her face. She had no talent for deception, while Nell was discovering an unexpected aptitude for it.

‘God speed, Tom,’ Nell said, a little catch in her voice, as Tom swung his pack over his shoulder. Meg moved comfortingly to her side.

‘Do not cry, Mamma,’ she whispered, alarmed by Nell’s suppressed distress.

‘I will come with you to the staithe,’ Ralph decided.

He wanted to make sure that Tom really sailed. Let him, Nell thought. They had it all planned. Tom would board the keelboat, but get the mariners to let him off past Fulford. When it was dark,
he would make his way back to Janet’s house, and lay low there for a few days until the tide was right again. A friend of his, the captain of
The Margaret
, had promised to be there.
Nell didn’t know the whole story – some sense of obligation, some favour Tom had done in the past – but Tom assured her that the ship would be ready to sail as soon as she and Meg
could get there. ‘I would trust Ned with my life,’ he said.

It was Nell’s idea for him to hide at Janet’s house. Tom wasn’t sure about it. He wanted to lurk in an ale house until the time to go.

‘Someone would see you,’ Nell said. ‘This is not the waterfront at Hamburg. You forget how small York is.’

‘But who is this Janet?’

‘She was my servant once. She will help.’

Nell couldn’t trust anyone else. Her stepmother would be horrified if she knew what Nell was planning. Since Nell’s father died, Anne had become increasingly devout. She would not
understand how Nell could imperil her soul by leaving her marriage. ‘It is for God to put man and wife asunder,’ she would say, and any of Nell’s neighbours would say the
same.

Janet was the only one who knew what Ralph was really like. The only one who would understand. And she owed Nell her loyalty. Nell didn’t say as much when she visited Janet, but she
didn’t need to. There in the cottage the knowledge of how Nell gave her money to find a new place away from Ralph had hung in the air between them.

Janet’s sandy brows lifted in surprise when Nell knocked on her door. Her husband, she said, had died Michaelmas past. She did well enough, she said when Nell asked. Nell wished
her
husband would die that conveniently. Then there would be no need to skulk away in the night and flee across the seas, but Ralph was sturdy and strong. He bloomed with health. He would
not die to oblige Nell.

‘And what may I do for you, Mistress?’ Janet asked at last. Her eyes were sharp with curiosity.

Nell hesitated. ‘You know what my husband is,’ she said after a moment and Janet’s gaze flickered oddly.

‘Aye.’

‘Once I stood your friend. Will you now stand mine?’

There was a pause. ‘What is it you wish me to do?’

Janet’s expression was curiously blank as she listened, and when Nell had finished she didn’t say anything for a while. She looked at the wall behind Nell’s shoulder and a
curious little smile played around her mouth.

‘This is your chance to pay my husband back for the vile way he treated you,’ Nell said at last, and Janet nodded, tucking the smile away. For some reason, it made Nell uneasy, but
she shook the feeling aside. If Janet was smiling at the prospect of helping to cuckold Ralph, who was Nell to blame her? If she couldn’t trust Janet, who had suffered too at Ralph’s
hands, she couldn’t trust anyone.

‘I will help you,’ Janet decided at last. ‘As you helped me, Mistress.’

So it was decided, and all Nell had to do now was play out her part in the charade. She lifted a hand in farewell as Tom and Ralph left. At the entrance to the passage, Tom gestured to Ralph to
go ahead, and he turned to exchange a last look with Nell. Her eyes were fierce in reply.

Soon, my heart
, they told him.
Soon we will be together always
.

Tess sucked in a ragged breath as she found herself jolted back into the present. She was still holding onto the dashboard and Luke’s gaze was flickering worriedly
between her and the traffic.

‘I’m back,’ she said with an attempt at a smile.

He didn’t smile back. ‘This is happening too often, Tess.’

‘I know.’ Tess took her hands away from the dashboard and made herself sit back in her seat. ‘It’s as if Nell is speeding up somehow.’ Worriedly, she fiddled with
the seat belt. ‘I get the feeling I’m coming to the end of her story.’

She told Luke about Tom’s return. ‘It’s good news, and she’s so happy to see a way out of her dreadful marriage to Ralph, but I’ve got this awful sense of
foreboding . . .’ She trailed off, chewing her knuckle. ‘Something’s going to go wrong, I know it is. Well, it’s obvious it’s not going to go well, isn’t it?
Nell wouldn’t be haunting me . . . possessing me . . . whatever she’s doing to me . . . if she’d lived happily ever after with Tom, would she?’

Luke shook his head. ‘It would be nice to believe that but no, I don’t think so. Do you think we should call Ambrose again?’

‘Or the church?’ Tess’s eyes were fearful. ‘Maybe it’s time to see if a priest can help Nell rest? I’ve still got the vicar’s number somewhere.’
She dug around in her handbag until she pulled out the card Pat French had given her. Holding it between her fingers produced a strange mixture of yearning and revulsion in her head, and the
cardboard seemed to sear her fingertips.

‘Nell doesn’t want me to call in a priest,’ she said slowly. ‘She doesn’t want to rest yet. There’s something else she wants me to know.’

‘I could call,’ said Luke, braking for a red light. He put on the handbrake and turned to Tess. ‘Why don’t you give me the card and I’ll call for you?’

It was the obvious thing to do, but Tess’s hand trembled under the dead weight of Nell’s will. It was just a dog-eared business card, but it burned between her fingers.
No
,
Nell said in her head.
No, no, no. Don’t do this.

When Luke reached out, she tightened her grip, and actually gasped as he tugged it free. Tucking it into his jacket pocket, he released the handbrake and put the car back into gear as the light
turned green, while relief and desperation warred in Tess’s head.

‘Do you want me to call her now?’ Luke asked.

‘Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know.’ Tess hugged her arms together. Nell was very close. She could feel her, swirling in her head, pounding at her will. She wished she
hadn’t given Luke that card, and at the same time was relieved that he had it. Luke wasn’t susceptible to Nell’s power. It felt safer knowing that he was there and would know what
to do. ‘I think we’d better pick Oscar up first. Maybe you could come back to the flat with us and call from there?’

Luke looked as if he was about to argue, but in the end he just nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you want.’

Gradually, Tess let her rigid shoulders relax. One thing at a time. She needed to get Oscar, then go home, and then she would worry about what to do about Martin. And Nell. Right now, Tess
wasn’t sure which of them was the bigger threat.

‘I’ll wait here,’ said Luke as he drew up outside Vanessa’s house. ‘I know Vanessa isn’t my biggest fan, and you’ve got enough to worry about right now
without a scene.’

Tess tried to shake the feeling of foreboding as she walked up Vanessa’s immaculate path to the front door. There were roses, perfectly trimmed, on either side. Everything would be fine,
she told herself. Luke would call Pat French, Pat French would exorcise Nell, or do whatever she had to do to make her release her grip on Tess’s mind. As for Martin, she would have to be
careful for a while, but she would keep a record, just as the police had advised. It felt good to have made some decisions and be taking control.

But still, there was something unchancy in the air. The light seemed to be shifting around her, and she had to focus hard to press the bell.

Tess listened to the ding-dong echo inside. It reverberated inside her head, and she felt that sliding feeling that signalled a rush back to the past.
Not now, Nell!
she thought in
panic, gritting her teeth against the sensation.
Please, not now!

It was like standing on the edge of a sand dune, feeling the grains slide away beneath her heels, frantically trying to keep a grip. Tess put out a hand and pressed her palm against the brick
until it hurt. She couldn’t let Nell win this time. She had to get Oscar and go home.

‘Tess!’ Vanessa’s expression of mingled surprise, guilt and dismay took a little while to penetrate.

‘Hi.’ With a massive effort, Tess pulled herself together. ‘Sorry I’ve been a while, Vanessa. It’s a long story, but I’ve been at the police station for what
feels like hours. Is Oscar ready to go?’

‘Didn’t Martin tell you?’

There was a moment of frozen stillness, of utter clarity. To Tess, it was as if she was standing outside herself, thinking quite precisely:
Let Vanessa not have said that. Let it be a second
earlier, to give her a chance to say something different. Let this not be the moment when everything,
everything
changes
.

Vanessa’s words hung accusingly in the air.

‘Martin?’ Tess croaked.

‘He said he would ring you on your mobile. I gave him the right number so I’m surprised he hasn’t called you yet. I’m so pleased to hear that you’re getting back
together,’ Vanessa rushed on, but the corner of one eye was twitching with guilt. ‘He seems so nice.’

Tess clutched at the frayed edges of her control. ‘Vanessa, what do you mean? Where’s Oscar?’

‘Why, Martin’s taken him, of course.’

‘
No . . .!
’ Even though at some level she had known this was coming ever since Vanessa opened the door, Tess’s knees buckled in despair. ‘No, please, Van! Tell
me you didn’t let him take Oscar!’

‘Tess, really, I think you’re overreacting,’ said Vanessa defensively. ‘Martin’s not going to do anything to Oscar. For heaven’s sake, he’s his
father!’

Tess was backing away, shaking her head. ‘I
told
you I didn’t trust him. I
told
you I didn’t want him near Oscar.’

‘What’s going on?’ It was Luke, solid and steady beside her. Tess clutched at him.

‘She’s let Martin take Oscar! Oh God, Luke, what am I going to do!’

‘Honestly!’ Vanessa huffed. ‘What a fuss! I’m not surprised Martin finds you difficult to deal with, Tess. I found him absolutely charming and reasonable. He said
he’d had coffee with you and you’d talked, and how else would he have got my address? And I could hardly refuse to let him take his own son, could I?’

‘Yes, you could have refused!’ Tess’s voice rose. ‘Oh God, oh God . . .’ She was stuck in panic, her wheels spinning uselessly, so horrified by the knowledge that
Martin had Oscar that she couldn’t think.

The anger, and the eerie calm she had felt confronting him face-to-face, had evaporated, leaving her to lash herself for her stupidity in believing even for a moment that Martin had accepted
defeat. She should have known he would do something like this. He had told her he knew about Vanessa. She should have come straight to get Oscar instead of wasting time at the police station,
wasting time deluding herself that Martin might have changed.

‘If you ask me, it’s a good thing Martin has come up to York,’ said Vanessa defiantly. ‘You’ve got to admit that you’ve been acting very strangely, Tess.
We’ve all been worried about you: me, your mum
and
Martin. And Luke’s been encouraging you,’ she added, shooting him an unfriendly look.

‘Martin’s doing his best. He told me that he’s taking you off on a second honeymoon so you can relax and get over the strain of the last few weeks. He’s so caring! I wish
Graham thought about me the way Martin thinks about you. He obviously adores you, Tess, and quite frankly, I don’t think you deserve him! I’ve been saying all along you need to talk
about your problems instead of running away, and Oscar needs a father.’

Tess was barely listening to her. ‘How was Oscar?’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Was he OK?’

For the first time Vanessa’s certainty wavered. ‘Well, he was a bit uncertain, but that’s only to be expected. He hasn’t seen his father in such a long time, he must seem
practically a stranger. But he certainly didn’t scream or make a fuss.’

Unlike you
, was the unspoken addition.

Of course Oscar wouldn’t have made a fuss. He would have done exactly as his father told him, but Tess knew that he would have been frightened. He would have made himself as small and as
quiet as he could. Martin might have charmed Vanessa, but Oscar knew what his father was like.

She couldn’t bear to think of him turning into that tense little boy again. ‘Did Martin say where he was taking Oscar?’ Luke asked when Tess covered her face.

‘Back to the flat. He said you’d forgotten to give him the key, so I let him have the spare.’ Vanessa seemed to take in Tess’s distress for the first time and she
wriggled her shoulders uneasily. ‘It’s not as if he’s planning to whisk Oscar out of the country or anything. I really think it’s time you accepted that you’re the one
with the problem. They’ll be there when you get back. You can sit down and sort everything out. It’ll be fine . . . Tess?
Tess
?’

But her voice was fading as Tess felt herself sliding once more, back into the darkness.

‘Quietly,’ Nell breathed in Meg’s ear. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

Together they tiptoed down the stairs, stopping to help each other over the fifth tread from the bottom, the one that had cracked and groaned for as long as Nell could remember. It cost them
precious time, but they couldn’t afford to wake anyone with an unexpected noise.