Shadows on the Nile
Page 11
‘Georgie, I’ve been thinking.’
‘I think all day, every day.’
‘I know, of course you do. But I want you to show me your arm. Push up your sleeve.’
‘My right or my left?’
‘Your right.’
I undo the cuff button on my shirt sleeve and roll the material back in neat folds up to my elbow.
‘Look at your arm,’ you say.
I look. Nothing strange. Just my arm. I quite like it.
‘Now look at this.’ You push back your own sleeve all bunched up in a green hummock, and hold out your arm towards me. ‘See the difference?’
‘Yours is ugly.’
It is true. Mine is pale, with a pattern of blue veins beneath its translucent skin; it is smooth and elegant like marble. Yours is the colour of honey, with tiny golden hairs over it and several small craters which I know are chicken pox scars. Yours is twice as thick as mine with crudely fitting big bones at the wrist, but I suddenly remember to put a hand over my mouth, as you have taught me, to stop my thoughts leaking out. You lean closer, and I try not to push you away.
‘So why do you think there is such a difference?’ you ask me.
‘Mine is prettier.’
‘Yours is like a girl’s arm, Georgie.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘Yes.’ You flex your muscles under your skin, making the flesh move. It looks horrible. ‘Mine is the arm of someone who does things. I have been digging troughs in the earth all week at the remains of a Roman villa near Cheltenham and I’m exhausted, but I was working outdoors every day, and getting good exercise.’ You pause and inspect me slowly from head to toe. ‘I think you need more exercise, Georgie.’
‘I exercise every day,’ I explain. ‘We all do. Half an hour every afternoon and an hour on Sunday.’
You snort. I don’t know what it means, but you add a smile. Not a nice smile. ‘They herd you all out into the garden and make you shuffle round in a circle for a while, no running in case you fall, no jumping or kicking a ball. Nothing to get the heart beating.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I have watched you.’
‘In the garden?’
‘Yes.’
I stare at your dirty hair. I feel naked. You have spied on me.
‘So.’ You jump to your feet. ‘We are going to start an exercise regime. You are nothing but skin and bone, pale as a ghost.’
‘Nothing but skin and bone? That is not true, Tim. I have a heart and lungs and kidneys and …’
‘It’s just an expression. Don’t take it literally.’
‘But it is a lie.’
You sigh again. ‘Let’s concentrate on the exercises. Don’t look so miserable. Look what I’ve brought you.’
You lift up your coat from the floor. Under it lie two beautiful Indian clubs. About the length of my arm, bulbous at one end, smooth rich wood. You hand one to me. It is heavier than I expected but when I see you start to swing yours in a wide figure of eight in front of you I copy you, careful not to bang into anything.
My blood grows hot in my veins and my arm takes on a force of its own. I feel powerful for the first time in my life.
14
Monty Chamford could not stand uncertainty. It put him on edge. He liked things clean-cut. But here he was turning into a quiet culde-sac of terraced houses without the faintest idea who Nell would be today. She and her spirit friends dealt in uncertainty on a daily basis, relished it with a gusto that drove him mad. And it amused Nell – he was sure of it – to keep him guessing. On the telephone he had laid down the rules for today, Keep it low key, but with Nell, blast her satin turbans, he could never be sure. Madame Anastasia liked to play games.
Monty parked the Rolls outside Nell’s tiny front garden, which was choked with weeds that his fingers itched to uproot. He jumped out of the car, aware of net curtains twitching, but before he could whisk the door open for his passenger, Miss Kenton had emerged and was heading for the front gate. He liked the way she was dressed today, a bit arty with a loose flowing cape and strong colours. She wore her hat at an angle and it looked slightly mannish in style, almost a trilby, hiding the soft waves of her fair hair. She meant business, he had no doubt of that.
‘My dear young lady, how lovely to meet you,’ a woman’s voice floated out in greeting.
Monty blinked, and turned his bark of laughter into a cough.
Nell had taken him at his word – low key. This was a Nell that was new to him. She had emerged from the front door kitted out in a long tweed skirt, a brown hand-knitted cardigan that did nothing for her full figure, and heavy brogues. Only the weighty pearls at her throat possessed a milky gleam, a hint of hidden secrets and better times. Her hair was rolled up into sausage curls and she was wearing tortoiseshell spectacles. Spectacles? Monty knew she was forty-nine but she could have passed for sixty today. She looked like everybody’s spinster aunt, trustworthy and honest, but rather dull and bookish. Oh Nell, my wicked Nell, you have surpassed yourself. She is going to believe every word you say.
He stepped forward. ‘Miss Kenton, let me introduce you to Madame Anastasia.’
The two women eyed each other speculatively and shook hands.
‘Come inside, my dear, into the warm,’ Nell invited and led the way indoors, stomping along in her thick shoes that seemed a touch too large for her.
Monty could not suppress a smile as he entered the living room. Banished were the dramatic purple swathes of material that usually smothered the settee and chairs, gone were the strings of tinkling bells and scattering of crystals. Instead there were lacy doilies frothing on every surface, an aspidistra, a sullen canary in a cage and in a corner a vile stuffed stag’s head with moth-eaten ears. Where had it all come from? For a fleeting second he made eye-contact with Nell and mouthed, ‘Perfect’, behind Miss Kenton’s back.
The two women sat down opposite each other, the younger woman’s eyes trained on Nell’s face with all the intensity of a portrait painter. Monty wondered what she did for a living. Could be something in medicine. Or even connected to the police. That thought made him shudder. But it was in the way her blue eyes dissected things with such precision, as if she could see under the skin to the colour of the blood in a person’s veins or the exact shape of a person’s thoughts in their head. Monty propped himself against the piano, unwilling to take a seat.
Miss Kenton sat still and attentive, her hands in her lap. The afternoon sun was slanting through the net curtains, turning her hair to gilded threads while she waited for Nell to stop fussing, then she asked her question outright.
‘Can you help me? Madame Anastasia, my brother disappeared ten days ago after he attended one of your séances.’
‘Did he indeed?’
‘Do you know my brother, Timothy Kenton?’
Nell tilted her head to one side, her dark moody eyes assuming a motherly expression. She patted one of her sausage curls. ‘No, not exactly, my dear. I don’t know the boy, but I believe our paths did cross this side of the veil as we sought to—’
‘So you know him? He was definitely one of your clients?’
‘I prefer to think of them as fellow seekers rather than clients. Together we try to penetrate the darkness, to give voice to those spirits who have passed over but who have a message to convey to a loved one still on this fragile earth.’
Nell spoke in a Sunday-school teacher’s voice, gentle but with a conviction that shone through. Nicely done, little Nell.
‘Please tell me what happened on that evening? Was Timothy upset? What time did he leave? And was he alone or with someone else?’
‘My dear, we are all with someone else at all times, the spirits hovering close, but too often people are unaware of them.’
Miss Kenton made a tight little sound under her breath. ‘I mean with another person.’
Don’t goad her, Nell. Give her something.
Unnervingly, Nell seemed to pick the thought out of his head.
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‘Your brother came alone,’ she told her visitor. ‘But he did seem to know a couple of the seekers who were present at the circle, two other young men.’
‘What were their names?’
Nell gave an unladylike snort. A sign of disapproval that was her habit when irritated. ‘Ah now, young lady, I couldn’t tell you that.’ Nell managed a beatific smile. ‘Everyone who enters into one of my séances does so with the assurance of complete confidentiality. I cannot break that. I give my word to those needy souls who come to me.’
‘Madame Anastasia, my brother is missing. I need to know where he is. I’m asking you to help me.’
She said the words with such need that even Nell faltered, startled out of her kindly smile. The small room suddenly grew smaller and there was a sense of movement in the crowded space. Damn Nell and her spirit friends. He swatted the air with a hand, just in case one had sneaked too close. Nell thought she knew all there was to know about death and no one could tell her different, but Monty was a believer in life and he didn’t care for mumbo-jumbo.
He stepped forward, on the edge of annoyance. ‘Tell her.’
Nell cast a ferocious look in his direction. ‘One name,’ she conceded sulkily. ‘Dr Scott was present.’
‘Dr Scott,’ Miss Kenton repeated, but her face was turned towards him, not to Nell. ‘Who is he?’
Monty ignored the question. ‘Tell her what happened at the séance.’
Miss Kenton’s blue eyes widened for a second, then narrowed warily. He realised she didn’t trust him. Why should she? But she switched her attention to Nell now and he could feel the full force of her determination to extract the truth from the medium. But the truth was always a variable feast and Nell was an expert at cooking up her own version of it, spiced with the whisperings in her ears that pestered her all day.
‘Tell me what happened at the séance,’ Miss Kenton said, her hands spread on the low table in front of her as though ready to snatch up Nell’s words the moment they emerged.
Nell closed her eyes and drew in a deep rattling breath. Then silence. No tick of the clock on the mantelpiece. No creak of the old timbers. No sniff of the wind at the glass panes. A silence as empty as his bank account. Monty waited patiently, accustomed to Nell’s antics, but the younger woman flashed a quick glance at him, brimming with restlessness. She would thrust a hand down Nell’s throat and yank out the words herself if they didn’t come soon.
He coughed a warning.
‘An elderly man came to me through my spirit guide,’ Nell murmured immediately. Her voice sounded different, younger and kinder. ‘He wanted to speak with your brother, Timothy Kenton, but …’ she popped open her eyes and glared at the young woman opposite, ‘… he would not have it. Your brother shunned the contact. I felt the old man’s pain, sharp as a serpent’s tooth, and heard the trickle of his tears.’
Miss Kenton had not moved a muscle. ‘Tell me. What happened?’
‘It’s veiled in mist, my dear.’
Get on with it, Nell.
‘Your brother became annoyed. Agitated. He broke the circle – destroyed the contact – and staggered to the door.’
‘Was he ill?’
‘No. I believe he was frightened.’
A gasp. ‘Frightened of what?’
‘Of what was in his head, of what the spirits were telling him.’
The silence elbowed its way back into the room. Brittle this time. Unyielding.
So. What next, Nell?
The older woman reached forward, planting her hands over Miss Kenton’s on the table, trapping them there.
‘Do you want me to search for your brother beyond the veil?’
‘No!’ Fierce. Angry. ‘Timothy is not dead.’
‘Do you have something of his? Something I could hold while I …?’
‘No!’ She snatched away her hands.
Nell shrugged. She was getting under the young woman’s skin, rattling her. Enough! Monty prowled back and forth in front of the piano.
‘Tell Miss Kenton what happened afterwards,’ he prompted. ‘Did you see anything more of her brother?’
Nell’s cheeks were flushed. She shook her head. ‘But I heard him. Out in the hall, complaining in a loud voice that it was not what he expected, that …’ she hesitated. For a moment Monty feared she had forgotten her lines, but she continued with a sadness that was convincing. ‘He called out that he was going home.’
‘Did you hear Timothy, Sir Montague? In the hall?’
‘No, I did not. I had the sense to be tucked away in the warmth of the kitchen. Ask Coriolanus.’
Her eyelids fluttered for a second, uncertain.
‘Then I heard a car start up on the drive,’ Nell insisted, ‘and he drove away. I was glad to see the back of him, to be honest, young lady. He had wrecked the séance. Done my reputation no good.’
Better, Nell. Much better.
‘Didn’t you check on him?’ Miss Kenton demanded. ‘To see that he was all right?’
‘No. I had my other seekers to pacify. And the spirits were wailing through the house, screeching in my ears until I couldn’t stand it. I had to end the session.’ She said it with regret, as if it pained her physically to do so.
‘They all left?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long after my brother?’
‘About half an hour, I suppose around ten-thirty.’
‘And this Dr Scott? He left too?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Where can I find him?’
Nell closed her eyes and refused to answer. Monty watched Miss Kenton’s expression change into one of quiet obstinacy. She was going nowhere. He released a silent sigh of annoyance but walked over and sat down on the settee next to Nell.
‘Miss Kenton, I know this Dr Scott.’ He saw hope brighten her face and for a moment she forgot to mistrust him. ‘He’s always up in Northumberland for the weekend at this time of year, bagging his tally of grouse, but he’ll be back here at his club on Monday night.’
‘You’ll give me the address?’
‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you there for breakfast on Tuesday and introduce you.’
The smile of gratitude she gave him didn’t loosen the knots in his stomach. It tightened them.
*
‘That was quite a show you and your Madame Anastasia put on for me.’
‘Pardon?’ Monty jerked his head round to look at her. She was staring straight ahead through the windscreen at the road.
‘You and Madame Anastasia.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What is she like usually? More dramatic and unpredictable, I suspect. Was it her idea to act the dependable mother-figure or yours? To reassure me, I presume.’
Monty felt something sharp slide under a rib and he recognised it as failure. Not a sensation he cared for.
‘Listen to me, Miss Kenton. We just wanted you to know that your brother left my house of his own accord and that he is probably at this very minute drinking coffee in a London hotel with a charming female companion. That’s the usual reason young men go missing.’ He paused, glancing across at her profile but it revealed nothing. ‘How did you know it was an act? She was damn good.’
‘Small things.’ She shrugged. ‘The shoes were too big. The skirt – someone else’s – covered in dog hairs. The fawn material of the sofas too new-looking, as if they were usually covered up by some other rug or fabric. I imagine something more colourful. And she kept touching her hair, so I suspect it was not her usual style. And, of course, the spectacles.’
‘What about the spectacles?’
‘Plain glass.’
Monty released a burst of laughter. ‘Sherlock Holmes himself could not have done better. How observant you are, Miss Kenton. I am impressed.’
For the first time since leaving the house, she smiled. Not much of a smile, small and private, but it was a sign that she was human. Not just a hound on the scent of blood.
Damn the place. Damn it to hell. Its grip on him was like a vice.
He dragged his gaze away from it as he accelerated up the hill, and instead studied the solemn face at his side. They had not spoken for most of the journey back and, as he drove, his mind had wrestled instead with the problem of what to do with the lower east field. Mr Grainger, his estate manager, swore it would be flooded again this winter if they didn’t sink some pipes pretty fast. But now he noticed that Miss Kenton’s cheeks were pale, her fingers clenched into tight balls on her lap.
‘You must love him very much,’ Monty said suddenly, ‘this brother of yours.’
She turned, her blue eyes full of some dark emotion he couldn’t read, but her voice when it came was calm and controlled.
‘You must love it very much,’ she echoed, ‘this house of yours. To do what you do.’
To do what you do. He had a brief flash of Timothy Kenton’s limp body heavy on his shoulder as he carted it through the rain, the golden curls matted into dark patches.
‘Yes,’ Monty answered in a light tone. ‘Yes, I love this place of mine far too much.’
The light was fading. The day was yielding its last fragments before being swallowed by the night. Jessie was seated at the window, drawing, letting her pencil do her thinking, but the dead weight of disappointment lay in her chest.
Who are you?
The face half-formed on the paper stared back at her but gave few answers. With each touch of her pencil it became more of a presence in the room.
I like the way you dip your head courteously when you speak to me. I like the way your large hands hold the steering-wheel, as if you are friends with it.
She sketched an ear, tucked back neatly against his head, and a lick of hair springing across his high forehead.
I don’t like the way you lie to me. I don’t like the way you connive to deceive me.