Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Duncairn, for one.’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I want to discuss the future with Jack Grant. There are repairs that need doing as soon as possible to the hotel.’

  ‘I see. And where is the money going to come from?’

  ‘I am sure I can find it. I still have money of my own, Paul.’

  ‘Yes; and I know exactly how much. How far do you think that will go?’

  ‘Far enough for the time being.’

  ‘Clare! You’re crazy. You might as well stand on the edge of that damn cliff and tear up the money, note by note, and throw it into the sea. No one in their right mind would contemplate pouring money into that hotel.’

  ‘Except the man who wants to buy it. You wouldn’t object to him throwing his money away, I take it?’ She tried to keep her voice steady.

  ‘He doesn’t want the hotel, Clare. He wants the oil.’

  ‘Well, he’s not getting it.’ She clenched her fists. ‘I thought I would go up north later this week.’

  ‘We have a dinner party on Saturday, if you remember.’

  ‘Early next week, then. I’ve made my mind up, Paul.’

  He had slept in the spare room, and he had left for the office before she was awake.

  Thoughtfully she reached up to clip another rose, sniffing it absent-mindedly before she dropped it into her basket. Since Zak’s visit she had not left the house.

  When the meditation had ended, she had remained sitting on the floor, still staring at the guttering candle, waiting for him to speak. Slowly he had risen to his feet and walked across to the window. Opening the curtains, he stood, looking out into the road. For a long time he said nothing, then at last he turned.

  ‘Clare, I think I must suggest you turn your meditations in a different direction. What you are doing is a valid exercise, but it is not one which is going to bring you the results you need. I want you to go back and practise some of the methods I first taught you. Especially the counting.’ He smiled. ‘That is the one you find so boring, I think you said.’

  ‘But why can’t I go on as I am?’ She looked up at him. ‘What am I doing wrong?’

  ‘You are not doing anything wrong, as such.’ He hesitated. ‘I have been trying to decide what is taking place. As you suspected, although your technique is correct, what is happening to you is not usual; it is not what you expect from a simple visualisation. There are several possible explanations. The most obvious, and the one I hope it is, because it is the least complicated, is that you are remembering a previous incarnation; that you were this Isobel in another life and that meditation has given you access to the memory.’ He gave an almost apologetic smile.

  Clare stared at him in astonishment. ‘That’s not possible!’

  ‘Why? Don’t you believe that you have lived before?’ He frowned.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it. I suppose I’ve had feelings that I’ve been here before – doesn’t everyone? But not as Isobel, Zak.’ She shook her head firmly.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘I know. All right, you want something more positive than that. Well, Aunt Margaret saw her too. We can’t both have been her in a previous life, can we?’

  ‘Ah.’ Zak moved slowly back and sat down stretching his long legs out on the carpet in front of him. He was silent for a moment. ‘Then we must consider some of the other possibilities.’

  ‘Zak.’ Clare was thoughtful. ‘How do you know about Isobel? Did I talk out loud?’

  He frowned. ‘A little. I prompted you and you answered.’

  ‘Without knowing it?’

  He nodded. ‘You were hundreds of miles away, Clare, and you were in a different time. You had no knowledge of me being there, but with part of your mind you heard me and you replied.’ He hesitated, unwilling to give up his theory. ‘Are you sure your aunt saw the same things?’

  Clare nodded.

  ‘And she spoke to you of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did she ever tell you how she summoned Isobel?’ He was feeling his way with care.

  She nodded. ‘She used to tell me that she closed her eyes and imagined as hard as she could, and if I imagined hard enough I would see her too: that when I opened my eyes again she would be there.’

  ‘And it worked?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘So that was that you were doing just now?’

  ‘Not consciously.’ She hesitated. ‘At least, I don’t think so. I’m not aware that I was trying as such – or at least not in the same way …’ She stopped, confused. ‘She just comes.’

  ‘That is because of the meditation technique. You have learned how to open your mind to the past without effort.’ He pushed. ‘When you were a child, was Isobel a child?’

  She nodded. ‘I played games with her.’ She paused again, embarrassed. ‘She was very real to me when I was little, Zak.’

  ‘And she’s very real now, isn’t she?’ Zak was becoming more and more uneasy.

  She nodded again. ‘And now she’s grown up. Each time I see her she is older, closer to my age. It isn’t meditation, is it?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think it is. I hoped you were reliving a past incarnation. That may be traumatic, cathartic even, but I don’t think it can really harm one. If that is not it …’ He stopped, again, trying to choose his words carefully. ‘I think, Clare that you must have managed to get the knack of doing something which takes people years of study. You have a natural aptitude for a science which should not be undertaken by someone who is not properly prepared, or by someone who is’ – he hesitated – ‘uninitiated. I think for your own sake you must stop, Clare.’

  ‘But why? Surely it can’t do me any harm? You yourself said anything I enjoy doing would be better than nothing.’ Something like panic had crept into her voice.

  ‘I didn’t realise then what you were doing,’ he interrupted her.

  ‘But you don’t know now for sure! All you could do was see me sitting there with my eyes closed and ask me a few questions!’ She scrambled to her feet and pinching out the candle put it on to the sideboard. Her eyes were alight with rebellion.

  ‘I do know,’ he repeated. He was watching the trail of smoke rising from the wick. ‘You see, I saw them, Clare.’

  ‘What?’ She stared at him, aghast.

  ‘I saw them. You have learned to project thought forms. You have made these people real. I don’t know if they are actual physical entities or whether I saw them telepathically, but I saw them. I don’t know if they are spirits, or from your imagination – I think perhaps the latter, as they seem unconcerned about relaying messages and only re-enact their own lives – but the power of your imagination has given them reality. And that is dangerous. Please, believe me, Clare. You should stop.’

  ‘And what will happen if I don’t? What if I enjoy it?’ She pushed her hair back from her face.

  Zak sighed. ‘No one can stop you doing it if you want to continue, Clare, but you would be crazy to go on. The power of thought is very real. To a certain extent these people you have created have a life of their own now. And they will take you over if they can.’

  ‘You’re not serious!’

  ‘I am and I’d blame myself if something happened to you, don’t you see? You have, in a sense, set a mechanism in train which is very hard to switch off, not least because you, on your own admission, enjoy it.’

  ‘And is that so bad?’

  ‘It is once you lose control.’

  ‘But that won’t happen –’

  ‘It might.’ He was looking at her very seriously. ‘You might find you had no choice but to go on, Clare. I think maybe your Lady Isobel needs you as much as you need her.’

  Clare stared at him. Her face had gone white. ‘Oh for God’s sake, Zak! You’re not serious? What I am doing is a child’s game. Pretend, that’s all. They are part of my imagination. It’s the meditation technique which has allowed my imagination to run wild
, that’s all. You said that yourself. It’s a game! Just a game!’

  ‘Then why did you call me? Clare, you were worried enough about what you were doing to want to talk to me about it.’

  She glanced at him almost guiltily. ‘I called you because I couldn’t do it any more. I panicked because I thought I would never see her again. Then I could and – well’ – she hesitated. ‘I wanted you to tell me it was all right, not tell me I’m engaged in some sort of occult practice! For God’s sake, Zak!’

  ‘You panicked because you thought you’d never see her again,’ he repeated, quoting her. ‘Leave it alone, Clare. I mean it.’

  She had never seen Zak angry before. It was out of character. His cool, gentle tone had gone and he had sounded almost afraid.

  And he had refused to change his mind.

  ‘Clare, please think about what I’ve said.’ He stood up slowly. ‘Promise me.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. Of course I will.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go, it’s late.’ Zak picked up his jacket almost with relief. Outside it was nearly dark. ‘But I’ll come back on Monday or Tuesday and we’ll talk again. I want you to promise me you won’t do any more meditation of any kind until we’ve talked again.’

  ‘Zak –’

  ‘Promise me, Clare. Please.’

  ‘All right.’ She sighed.

  ‘And don’t be alone, Clare. Don’t give yourself the opportunity to be tempted.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  She did try to ring Emma, but there was no reply.

  That night the dream came back. Alone in the big double bed Clare turned this way and that, fighting the pillows, her hair damp with perspiration, and when at last she sat up, suddenly and violently awake, there was no dog to comfort her.

  She lay still, shaking, too afraid and disorientated for a moment to move at all, then, slowly she dragged herself out of bed and switched on the light. The house was completely silent. She sat for a long time on the side of the bed, trying to calm herself, then at last she lay back on the pillows, worn out. But sleep had not come back.

  She took the roses into the kitchen and put them carefully into a porcelain vase, glancing up at the clock as she did so. Zak was coming back that afternoon before he returned to Cambridge, but she still had most of the morning to get through. She had already spent two days fighting the longing to retreat into her dream world. She wanted so much to know what was happening to Isobel. Isobel who had become pregnant so easily and who wanted so desperately to lose her child. Clare shivered. Surely her curiosity was natural? Morbid, perhaps, perverse even, but not sinister. It couldn’t mean that already Isobel was gaining some kind of hold over her. Could it? That Zak was right, that already she preferred the past of her dreams to the present. She shook her head slowly. She had to get out of the house. That at least would distract her until he came.

  Harrods was crowded. For a long time she wandered around the ground floor, staring at the displays, browsing at different counters, picking up scarves and handbags and putting them down again; she bought an olive-green suede belt, a pair of gilt earrings and in another department a length of pale blue silk, none of which she really wanted. At about half past eleven she decided she would like a cup of coffee and she walked up the stairs, heading for the coffee shop. As she threaded her way across the fashion floors she could hear in the distance the jerky rhythmic music which accompanied a dress show and unconsciously her steps quickened. Anything to keep her mind occupied for a few more minutes. It was very hot upstairs, and she unbuttoned her jacket as she made her way between the displays of clothes, through the shoppers towards the crowd of spectators.

  The music was loud, the beat subliminally painful as she stood on the edge of the crowd. Strobe lights cut the air in a whirling mock disco as models danced and jerked their way, marionette-like, around the floor. Behind them the scene was set with a huge hardboard slab of prison bars; to the left of them another stretch of bars, the real things this time, glinting in the lights. They were hung with chains. The models too wore chains, their clothes brief, erotic, black and khaki, their limbs painted silver and covered with sequins, their faces immobile, their black wigs short and masculine. Clare glanced around her. The women near her had their eyes glued to the production; she could see the beads of perspiration on one woman’s lip. Her mascara had run and her lipstick was caked at the corners. She was swaying to the music, fascinated.

  The arcs of colour crossed and recrossed the bars, throwing their shadows across the floor as the elegant, gawky limbs jerked and dangled their way around the dais. The music grew louder and mo+re insistent; the air was stifling with rich perfume and a less discreet hint of sweat. Near Clare a security man was scanning the crowd, a radio clipped to his breast pocket, his face shaded and sliced by the lights. The shadow of the bars fell across him and she could see the whites of his eyes gleaming, watching, staring …

  She didn’t realise that she had screamed. Dropping her parcels she turned and began desperately fighting her way back towards the stairs, pushing out of the crowd, her heart thudding with panic, her throat dry, oblivious of the startled faces near her, pushing out of the heavy swing doors on to the cool broad staircase.

  The door opened immediately behind her and the security man appeared. He stopped abruptly, seeing her leaning against the wall, her face glazed. ‘Can I help you, madam?’ He was staring at her suspiciously, only with difficulty restraining himself from taking her arm.

  Still trying to steady herself Clare shook her head. ‘I’m all right. I’m sorry. It was the lights –’ She could barely speak.

  Behind them a second figure appeared in the doorway, carrying Clare’s belongings. It was the woman who had been standing next to her. ‘Are you all right?’ Pushing the man aside she put her arm around Clare’s shoulders ‘It’s all right, officer, or whatever you are. I’ll take care of her. I could see you going funny, love. All that heat and those lights and the crowds: it’s enough to make anyone feel faint.’

  The security man frowned, obviously out of his depth.

  ‘If you’re sure –’

  Desperately Clare nodded and with a thankful shrug the man disappeared. The woman gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘Disappointed. He thought you’d snatched something! And it was me that ended up with your bags! Here.’ She pushed them at Clare. ‘Are you sure you’re OK? Do you want me to get you a taxi?’ The cheerful voice pattered on as, slowly, she guided Clare down the broad staircase and out into the Brompton Road. ‘A bit of fresh air and you’ll be fine.’

  Clare barely heard her. Her head still whirled: bars; lights; noise, the searching, probing eyes; the eyes, the bars of her nightmares. Clutching her parcels she allowed herself to be pushed into a taxi; she heard herself thank the woman, heard herself reciting her address to the driver, then she flung herself back in the seat and knew that she was crying.

  ‘Paul Royland.’ Neil Forbes sat on the edge of the desk reading from the typed notes in front of him. ‘Aged thirty-eight. Eton and Oxford – I knew that – we were at the same college, though he was a couple of years ahead of me. Career in the City. Coutts; Lombards, from 1981 a partner in Beattie Cameron, now a director of BCWP. Married in 1981 to Clare Gordon, daughter of the Hon. Alec Gordon who died in 1962.’ He threw the notes down on the desk. ‘Paul Royland!’ he repeated in disgust. ‘The bastard tried to talk me down in the Union once. Then he tried to get me banned.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were at Oxford.’ The folk singer, Kathleen Reardon, was standing watching him, her coat on, her bag already slung from her shoulder. Four years older than Neil, she looked ten years younger. ‘Quite the gentleman yourself, aren’t you?’ The soft Belfast accent was mocking.

  Neil stood up. He went across to her and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘There are a lot of things about me you don’t know.’

  ‘And a lot I do.’ She narrowed her light blue eyes. ‘I know you’re a chauvinist bastard; I know Mr and Mrs Royland have got up you
r nose; I know that if the poor bugger went to Eton you’ll be ready to string him up from a lamp post, and I know that you promised to buy me some supper. And if we sit here much longer, sure every food outlet in Edinburgh will be locked and barred and bolted and the sun will rise over my poor bleached empty bones!’

  Neil chuckled. ‘I always forget what an amazing appetite you have.’ He reached to turn off the light. ‘I’m going up to Duncairn again,’ he said as they left the office and turned out into the cold Grassmarket, the huge bulk of the castle walls looming high behind them in the dark. ‘I want to get this campaign off the ground before the Roylands know what has hit them, and before Sigma realise that their interest in the place is out in the open. We’ve got the edge on them, but only for a very short time.’ He pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. ‘Earthwatch is mounting a huge campaign against onshore drilling and in today’s climate with oil prices at rock bottom, we should be able to win. I’m going to use Duncairn to spearhead our campaign in Scotland.’

  Kathleen glanced at him curiously. ‘Just because you hate this Royland man and his wife so much?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with personalities, Kath.’

  ‘Oh no? Like hell it hasn’t!’ Glancing at him, her face illuminated by a street lamp, she tossed her long black hair back over her shoulders. ‘You know I almost feel sorry for those two.’

  Two days later Neil was back at Duncairn. He climbed on a bar stool and leaned on the counter, a glass of malt whisky nursed reverently between his hands. ‘Have you heard anything from your new owner yet, Jack? I remember last time I was here you mentioned that the place had changed hands.’ He glanced casually up at the landlord’s craggy face as the man tidied up the bar.

  Jack Grant had run the Duncairn Hotel for twenty years now. He had moved there from Aberdeen after his wife died, full of ideas to renovate the place and make it popular. Margaret Gordon had initially given him the money to improve the fabric of the building, a Victorian grey granite pile built from the stones of the old castle itself, but his plans to modernise it had met with a veto. No new bar with piped music; no ceilidh nights; no large notice on the main road to bring in the passing trade. She wanted the place to remain a haven of peace for the people who knew it. She was not interested in making a profit, and slowly Jack had come round to her way of thinking and he had come to love this rugged piece of headland with its ever-changing skies. The only solace to his former ambition, the only extravagance he permitted himself now, was the excellence of his menu which was slowly gaining a reputation throughout north-eastern Scotland. There were few evenings in the summer when the restaurant wasn’t full and often at weekends the guests would stay a night or two in the faded splendour of the baronial rooms. But now, in October, the hotel was all but empty.