Thorn (13 page)

But if the gates were locked at five o'clock in winter she had almost an hour before any of these things started to happen, so it was all right.

As Imogen had said, it was not a very big cemetery and Quincy followed the directions carefully, walking on the gravel paths, looking at each grave as she passed it. People did not want to be buried so much these days, they preferred to be cremated. They said it was cleaner and nicer. But walking between the headstones, through the thin autumn rain that was beginning to fall, Quincy thought there was a great sense of peace here. A feeling of people sleeping deeply and satisfyingly after having lived their lives. The cemetery would not feel like this after sunset, of course, because that might be when the bodies would wake up and get out of their graves. But it felt all right at the moment.

The rain was turning into a steady drizzle; it was the kind that seeped through your coat and got into your hair and drenched you all the way through to your skin. Quincy shivered and turned up her collar.

This must be the yew tree that Imogen had described, with the slight grassy rise behind it. Edmund's grave was almost directly beneath the tree, Imogen had said. Quincy moved forward, warily. It did not really matter if anyone saw her, except that it might look a bit peculiar because people did not visit graveyards at this time of day in November. But it was all right, because there was no one else about.

Edmund's grave was almost directly under the yew tree, exactly as Imogen had said. There was a small wooden cross to mark it, with his name clearly printed, and the date he had died. Quincy looked about her. There were three or four newly-dug graves nearby and she walked over to inspect each one. They all had the same wooden markers with names on: when the grass had grown people would put up headstones and bring little stone urns for flowers, or plant flowering bushes.

Quincy had bought flowers. ‘I haven't very much money,' Imogen had said. ‘So will you get whatever you can?'

There was a flower-shop in the High Street near Briar House, and the lady in the shop had said why not have chrysanthemums: they would last well, and you got a good, big bunch for your money at this time of year. After careful thought Quincy had chosen the huge mop-headed ones in bronze and yellow. They would make a good splash of colour and Quincy was pleased to think of Imogen's parents having the lovely flowers, and she was pleased to be doing this for Imogen. She had carried the chrysanthemums carefully so that they would not be squashed, enjoying the golden autumn wet-earth scent from them.

The grave was the farthest one and Quincy nearly missed it because it was on the other side of the gravel path and there was a little dip in the ground. But it was a double plot and the marker had the names of Imogen's parents – Royston James Ingram and Eloise Marie Ingram – so Quincy knew it was the right one. She had never heard the name Eloise before. It was very beautiful. She laid the flowers carefully at the foot of the wooden marker cross, and straightened up. That was all she needed to do; she could tell Imogen where her parents were, and she could tell her about the flowers. It would be nice to be back inside Briar House and to get into warm, dry clothes. She would make a pot of tea for Imogen and take it to her room and tell her all about the graves.

She turned to go; it must be getting on for five o'clock and it was important not to get locked in. The rain was turning into a soft smoky mist that rose up from the ground, so that the headstones loomed up blackly and looked ghostly and nearly alive. This might be how they looked when the bodies underneath were getting ready to come out. Whatever it was, it was beginning to be very scary indeed.

And then she heard the footsteps coming along the gravel path towards her.

It was not logical to be frightened, and it was not logical to want to hide.

But Quincy was suddenly very frightened indeed. She looked quickly about her. She was already half-hidden from whoever was approaching, because of the uneven ground, and she ducked behind a large headstone so that she was completely hidden. Crouching there unseen she felt fear – thick scalding fear – begin to start up strongly, like an engine suddenly being revved.

Through the misty rain and the creeping twilight came the thin dark-haired lady who had visited Imogen at Briar House, and who had worn nice clothes and a human mask to hide the evil black hatred of Imogen.

Thalia Caudle.

There was absolutely no reason in the world why Imogen's aunt should not be here, visiting her son's grave just as Quincy was visiting Imogen's parents' grave. Except that people did not visit graves at five o'clock on dark wet November afternoons, and they did not sit on wooden benches in the rain and stare at graves with such intensity.

Quincy's heart was pounding so agonisingly that she thought it would come up into her throat and choke her at any minute. She stayed where she was, trying not to make a sound, trying to melt into the shadows, her eyes fixed on Imogen's aunt.

Mrs Caudle was leaning forward; her eyes were fixed on the grave at her feet, and her lips were moving as if she was talking to it. Quincy risked glancing over her shoulder. The cemetery looked deserted. If she could inch nearer, she might hear what was being said, not because of what Matron called earwigging, but because this was Imogen's enemy, and it was important to know as much as possible about her.

Thalia had not meant to visit Edmund today, but she had known he would miss her if she did not.

He came to her every night now, not quite a dream but not quite reality either, standing at the foot of her bed and holding out his hands. It was agony for Thalia to see her lovely, golden boy torn and filthy with putrescence, the decay of death a little more advanced each time.

But there were times when the daylight hours until he would be with her stretched out endlessly and emptily, and on those days she would come out here, and sit in the little seat and stare down at the oblong of earth where he lay. Sometimes she could talk to him. There was nothing wrong in it; there was nothing wrong in a bereaved mother seated by her son's grave.

She talked to him today, oblivious of the soft, drenching rain, hardly aware of the encroaching dusk. It was the curious, none-too-comfortable hour when it was neither quite day nor yet quite night; the time when you had the feeling that odd, inexplicable things might happen, that the dead might stir and hear you, that an eerie, purple sorcery might be within your grasp, and if only you knew the right words you might be able to lift it between your hands and spin it into strong enchantment . . . It was a time when the dead might be persuaded to return, not mutilated and hideous, but whole and sweet-fleshed and loving.

Seated by the grave on this darkling afternoon, feeling the strange twilight bewitchment soak into her skin, Thalia knew that Edmund was listening to her. She knew he was pleased at all the things she had done, and at all the things she was able to tell him.

Imogen shut away inside Briar House, and helpless. Royston and Eloise both gone. She, herself, in control of Ingram's. And the marvellous, satisfying punishment for Eloise. When your actions were right and just, the stars in their courses fought for you and with you, and it was very right and very just that Eloise should suffer.

‘She's only a few yards away from you, Edmund,' whispered Thalia, and leaned forward. Was he hearing her? Yes, she could feel that something hovered quite close by, listening, absorbing what she was saying. ‘She's only a few yards away, but she's not dead, Edmund. Isn't that the best triumph of all? The bitch who would have let her daughter supplant you is buried alive.'

‘I don't know if it means anything at all, I might not have even heard properly. But it sounded a bit scary. And it's odd, isn't it?' Quincy had remembered not to say ‘ain't it' because she was trying to talk like Imogen.

Imogen was staring at Quincy and her face was so white that Quincy was afraid she might faint.

After a moment, she said, ‘But my mother can't be – still alive. That's what you think Thalia meant, isn't it? That she's been buried alive. And Thalia's somehow responsible—But that's – that's like something from an old horror film.'

She frowned again, as if trying to push something away, and Quincy said, ‘What are you going to do?'

I
t afforded Dan wry entertainment to discover that the dark tower he had visualised for Thalia Caudle was there for the climbing after all.

He turned his back on the drone of the West End's traffic and craned his neck to look up at the tall modern block where Ingram's carried on its daily work. Top floor, his agent had said. Where else would you expect it to be? Get on with it, Daniel.

Thalia Caudle apologised for receiving him in the large office that had been her cousin's. ‘It's sickeningly formal, and it might look like snob-arrogance,' she said. ‘But I hope it doesn't. Have you noticed, Mr Tudor, how sudden promotion can sometimes make people appallingly supercilious?'

‘And sudden riches can make them disdainful.'

‘Well, I hope I'm avoiding both,' she said. ‘But the thing is, I don't know much about Ingram's – I mean about the day-to-day running of it – and that's why I'm spending a bit of time here. I'm not going to be making it a full-time job, but I thought I should get to know some of the people here, even if I'm only going to be a kind of sleeping director – I hope that didn't sound suggestive. What I'm actually trying to do is understand the nuts and bolts of the place, and what people's roles are. Do sit down. You'd like some coffee, I expect. Or tea?'

‘Coffee. Thank you.' Dan was not exactly thrown off balance by this friendly, prosaic reception, but he was certainly given pause. The black-clad lady he had seen briefly at Edmund's funeral had been superseded by the image of Villainess Supreme. Dan had built his picture of Thalia to his own satisfaction, and to this end had clothed her in swirling black and crimson and given her a paper-white face and blood-red lips. He had allotted to her the disposition of a Lady Macbeth and the appetite of a vampiric Transylvanian countess.

Faced with the real McCoy, he was forced to own that his memory had been selective; the reality was a thin, forty-something lady wearing a modern loose-styled navy jacket and skirt with a plain yellow shirt, and although her hair was admittedly black, it was cut into an up-to-date, just-curling bob, and she looked as if she wore only a light sprinkling of make-up. Only the eyes were the same: dark and penetrating, and the mouth: thin and from some angles faintly greedy. Dan set his portable recorder down and put his notebook next to it.

‘It's very good of you to grant the interview,' he said. ‘Particularly in view of your bereavements. I'll try not to trespass on anything tender.'

‘Will you? But I might rather enjoy it if you did, Mr Tudor.'

Dan had been setting the tape, but at this he looked up sharply and found her gazing at him with sudden intensity. She widened her eyes very slightly, and flicked her glance down over his body. He stared back and incredibly felt a prickle of sexual awareness. Now that would be really crazy, Daniel. That would be absolutely insane. Yes, but it's a damn good lead-in for intimacy, if not full-blown seduction, he thought. It's an effective ploy. Understated, but it's as if she's stroked the inside of my thigh with a velvet-covered hand . . . Oh, hell. Does she know she's struck a chord? Yes, of course she does, they always do. His inner writer's mind wondered briefly if this might do for the seduction scene in chapter six, and the evil Margot, then he folded the whole thing into his subconscious to be dealt with later and focused his mind on leading Thalia Caudle into the interview.

She talked with apparent openness about the family business, and about her cousin's role as its chief executive. She was helpful and interesting, and she did not again say anything that might be taken as double-intentioned. Dan did not trust her an inch.

‘Royston was brought up knowing he would one day head the firm, and he went into it when he was twenty-one,' said Thalia. ‘He worked his way up and by the time he reached the boardroom he knew the business pretty well inside out. By contrast I've hardly had any involvement at all; I never expected to have any. But when Royston became chief executive the lawyers insisted on certain contingency clauses.'

‘In his will?'

‘Well, in that of course. But mostly in the company's Articles of Association,' said Thalia. ‘Ingram's is a private company, as you probably know, and Royston and Eloise were the major shareholders. I don't suppose it matters telling you that, because you could probably look it up at Companies House. But I hope you won't think it interesting enough to include in the feature.'

Dan thought he probably would not.

Thalia said, ‘No one ever thought the clause that gave me this, well, stewardship, would ever have to be invoked.'

‘Except the lawyers.'

‘Yes. Lawyers always have to guard against every eventuality, don't they? And since someone had to be named, Royston thought I was the closest of his own generation. Which I am.'

‘He named you Imogen's guardian?'

Thalia looked at him thoughtfully, and then said, ‘Her guardian if he and Eloise should die while Imogen was still a minor, or if . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘If at any time she should be judged incapable.' She stopped abruptly.

Dan said slowly. ‘That's surely a rather unusual provision.'

‘Royston wanted Ingram's to remain solely in the family's control for as long as possible,' said Thalia. ‘He had a horror of the Court of Protection.' She regarded Dan levelly, and Dan made the discovery that Thalia disliked Imogen very much.

‘But why would the Court of Protection ever be involved in Ingram's?' Dan waited, and thought: let's see how you field that one, madam.