Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘We’ve got to talk, Chloe. Is Geoff here?’ Emma shed her wet coat in the hall.

  ‘On a Sunday?’ Leading the way down to the kitchen Chloe gave a hollow laugh. ‘Hardly. He’s taking Holy Communion at St Thomas’s. Then he’ll rush back for a bite of breakfast before Sung Eucharist at ten at St Peter’s. It’s Remembrance Day today, or had you forgotten?’ She smiled wryly. ‘That means I have to go as well. Did you want to see him urgently?’

  Emma frowned. ‘Paul’s followed Clare up to Scotland.’

  ‘So?’ Chloe picked up the coffee pot. ‘Look, love, the young won’t get out of bed for hours yet. Not on a Sunday. So we won’t be interrupted. You’d better tell me what is happening.’

  ‘Paul is in trouble over money.’ Emma hesitated. ‘Chloe, I think it is a case of sell Duncairn, or he will go to prison!’

  Chloe frowned. She sat down abruptly across the scrubbed pine table. ‘Prison?’ she echoed.

  Emma nodded.

  ‘Does Clare realise it is that bad?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Emma shrugged helplessly. ‘We’ve got to make her understand; we’ve got to make her sell, Chloe.’

  She was still questioning her own motives in deciding that the only solution to the problem was for Clare to sell Duncairn to Rex. ‘Paul is my least favourite person. In fact I detest him most of the time. But prison …’

  ‘What about the family shares?’ Chloe was suddenly practical. ‘Surely he’s got some, like you and Geoff and David? Why doesn’t he sell those? They’re worth a bomb.’

  Emma shrugged. ‘Perhaps they’ve already gone.’

  They were silent for a moment. ‘Paul came to see Geoff last week,’ Chloe said at last. ‘Geoff was very worried afterwards.’

  They both looked up as the door banged. There were heavy footsteps in the hall above, and then the sound of someone running down stairs. Geoffrey greeted his sister with a kiss. ‘Only five people in church this morning. I should like to think it is because they will all be going to services later, but somehow I doubt it. Remembrance Day means so little to the modern generation.’ He sat down with a sigh. ‘Can I have some coffee, dear, please? I’m starving.’

  ‘I’ll make you some toast.’ Chloe stood up. ‘Emma is here about Paul and Clare, Geoff.’

  Geoffrey frowned. ‘Poor, poor Clare. I have to help her. Paul is genuinely very, very worried you know.’ He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘I know you have both talked to her, and I know neither of you is inclined to take what she’s doing seriously, but things appear to have deteriorated badly. Paul has actually watched her at these practices of hers – invoking spirits.’

  His wife and sister both stared at him, stunned. Behind them the toast under the grill turned black. ‘She began innocently enough, experimenting with the trance state,’ he went on. ‘I understand that, just as I understand the unhappiness which led her to experiment in the first place, but she wasn’t told how to protect herself. She opened her mind and allowed something evil to possess her.’ He was watching absently as his wife threw the burned pieces of toast into the bin and put two fresh slices of wholemeal bread on the grill pan. The room was full of blue smoke.

  Emma stood up and going over to the window, threw it open. ‘Doesn’t it occur to you, Geoff, that Paul could be lying about all this?’ she said slowly. ‘Clare isn’t raising the dead! For God’s sake, you don’t believe him?’

  ‘I did wonder at first, I must admit.’ Geoffrey rubbed his hand across his face. ‘It is something of which one has comparatively little experience, at least in my parish, but things he told me, things she told me herself –’

  ‘I thought she was having you on, Geoff. I told you that before!’ Chloe retrieved the second batch of toast in time and set it in the rack in front of her husband. ‘I think she was making it up!’

  ‘No.’ Geoffrey pushed his elbows forwards amongst the plates and steepled his fingertips. ‘No. She enjoyed telling me about it, yes, and there was bravado there too, but intrinsically she told me the truth. Whether to test me or to taunt me, I don’t know, but she was afraid, Emma, really afraid.’ He sighed. ‘I have prayed again and again for help. I don’t know what to do.’ He stood up, rubbing his hands together helplessly. ‘I have decided to go to see the bishop and talk to him about her. I need to discuss it with someone, and he is a good man – he will have the experience of these things which I lack. There are special teams of people within the diocese who know how to deal with things like this. Specially trained people. Exorcists –’

  ‘You are not serious!’ Emma interrupted. She stood up so violently that her chair tipped backwards on the red floor tiles.

  ‘I have never been more so.’

  ‘You can’t! You can’t exorcise her! That is grotesque! Bell, book and candle – all that, because a woman has a few vivid daydreams? Tell him, Chloe! Tell him he can’t!’

  ‘Emma, I don’t know.’ Chloe looked unhappy. ‘Geoff does know what he is doing.’

  ‘No he doesn’t! He’s being made to look a complete idiot by Paul. Paul is a cynical, lying bastard. You should know that as well as I do, damn it! He wants Clare broken so that he can sell Duncairn over her head! Oh God, can’t you see?’

  ‘No, Emma. You’re wrong. You are not being fair to Paul,’ Geoffrey put in wearily. ‘He is thinking of Clare. He wants what is best for her, believe me.’

  ‘He wants what is best for himself, Geoff. Money to stop him going to prison.’

  Geoffrey sat down heavily, staring from his wife to his sister and back. ‘Prison!’ he repeated at last.

  ‘Yes.’ Briefly Emma related what Rex had told her. She refused to meet Chloe’s eye as she mentioned her lunch with him.

  Geoffrey tightened his lips, ignoring for the time being the implications of Emma’s meeting with this other man. He couldn’t cope with that. ‘I’ll talk to David. If it’s true that Paul has already sold the family shares, then he’s in breach of the trust and we can’t help him. If he hasn’t then maybe we can do something. But this has nothing to do with Clare’s state of mind, Emma, believe me. Her danger is very real.’ He stood up. ‘I want to talk to her doctor; perhaps get a psychiatrist to see her. I won’t just act on Paul’s story. I shall investigate every possible explanation for what is happening to her, I promise. Look, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later. Come to the Remembrance service with Chloe, Emma, and then come back to lunch afterwards –’

  Emma shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t, Geoff, I’m sorry.’ She caught her brother’s hands. ‘Promise you won’t go to the bishop. Not yet. Please.’

  Geoffrey kissed her on the cheek. ‘The bishop is a wise man, Em. He will advise me. I don’t know what to do for the best, and I have to do something. Believe me.’

  ‘If you do, you are falling for Paul’s trick. He wants Clare so confused that she doesn’t know what’s happening to Duncairn.’

  ‘That’s an appalling accusation to make!’

  ‘Yes.’ Emma stared at him, her eyes blazing suddenly. ‘It is, isn’t it? I think he is prepared to buy himself out of trouble with Clare’s sanity. That is the kind of man our brother is!’

  It had been nearly three in the morning when the green Jaguar nosed its way up the drive towards Airdlie. It drew up on the gravelled area in front of the steps and Paul switched off the engine. A light was on in the hall. He could see it through the coloured glass above the front door.

  Beside him Clare sat hunched in the passenger seat, her eyes closed.

  ‘I don’t suppose your parents are still awake, but no doubt the door is open.’ Paul climbed out of the car.

  The sleet had stopped and the wind was less strong inland; the temperature had dropped several degrees and a sheen of ice was forming over the puddles on the drive.

  Followed by Casta, Clare climbed stiffly out of the car and walked towards the front door. She was shivering. Paul pulled her case out of the car. He was immediately behind her as she pushed open the front door.


  The hall as usual smelt faintly of lavender furniture wax and dogs.

  ‘I suggest you go straight to bed.’ Paul closed the door behind him.

  ‘What, no great showdown in the early hours?’ Clare turned on him bitterly. ‘I’m not going to sign my land over to you, you know. Bringing me here isn’t going to make any difference.’ Her shoulder which had been jarred again when Paul pushed her across the room at Duncairn was hurting badly now, and her head was throbbing with exhaustion and tension.

  ‘We’ll see.’ Grimly Paul picked up her case. ‘I’ll take this upstairs for you.’

  Somewhere at the rear of the house they could hear Archie’s dogs barking. Slowly Clare began to climb the stairs. She was suddenly so weary that she could hardly walk. Paul followed her to her bedroom – her own, not the spare room she shared with Paul on the few occasions they had stayed at the house together – and he opened the door for her, turned on the light and dropped her case just inside. Then he stood back. ‘Sleep well, my dear. We’ll talk in the morning.’

  In the drawing room he poured himself a large double whisky, then he picked up the phone.

  Sir David Royland took several minutes to answer it. ‘For the love of Mike, Paul, do you know what time it is?’

  ‘Of course I do. I haven’t been to bed yet. I’ve been driving halfway round Scotland.’ Testily Paul took a sip of whisky. ‘Listen, David, there’s trouble coming. Neil Forbes of Earthwatch is up at Duncairn and he’s well stuck in there. I know him of old. He has a reputation second to none for stirring up trouble and he’s already on to the press about Sigma’s interest. You’ve got to knock the story on the head before it gets off the ground.’

  In Suffolk David sat up in bed and leaned over to turn on the light on the side table. Beside him Gillian groaned.

  ‘What do you mean, knock the story on the head? Why? What on earth has it got to do with me?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, David!’ Paul was impatient. ‘My name is Royland, and as far as Forbes is concerned, I’m the bad guy in this story. He’s going to milk it for all it’s worth. You think the press are going to overlook the small matter of my being your brother – you – an MP?’

  ‘Development in the area will mean jobs,’ David said calmly. ‘That’s my interest, Paul. Jobs.’

  ‘Jobs for whom?’ Paul stood up and reached towards the sofa table for the whisky bottle. ‘Not for locals, David, and not for long. All that will happen is that the fishermen will have yet more to complain of. Believe me, you’ve got to keep Forbes away from the press.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Paul. It’s hardly D notice stuff.’ David sighed. ‘Unfortunately it is the kind of story that Fleet Street loves, and there is sod all we can do about it, old boy. I suggest you grin and bear it. No doubt counting the money you get for the land will compensate you for the aggravation. I take it you have persuaded Clare to sell?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Paul nodded grimly. ‘I’ve persuaded her to sell.’ He put down the phone and flinging himself into the chair he drained the whisky glass.

  Christ! What if the campaign succeeded? What if Cummin withdrew his offer? He could feel the sweat standing out between his shoulder-blades. He had thirteen days to close the deal.

  Gillian pulled herself up in the bed with another groan, and put her hand to her back with a sudden frown. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He thought I could stop the Earthwatch man going to press with a story about Duncairn.’

  ‘What story?’

  ‘Paul thinks he is going to be the villain of the piece. At a guess Forbes has got hold of the fact that Paul is selling against Clare’s wishes.’

  ‘Poor Clare. All this on top of her …’ she hesitated over the word. ‘Her illness. He is selling then?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘I should think it will break her, the way she loves that place. Damn Paul! It won’t do you any good either, you know.’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘Well, he’s right. It’s obvious.’ She winced suddenly. ‘David, darling, I think you’d better ring the hospital and tell them to expect us fairly soon!’

  David stared at her. He sat bolt upright in the bed. ‘Not the baby?’

  ‘Of course the baby! I’ve had enough experience at this.’ With another groan she reached for her dressing gown. Already she was practising her breathing exercises.

  Neil and Kathleen were back in Edinburgh by 10.30 next morning. The Grassmarket office was cold and damp. Lighting the gas fire Neil glanced out of the back window across the small yard towards the black granite cliff. High above them the castle was a dark silhouette against the blue, blustery sky. On the esplanade the crowds were gathering for the Remembrance Day march down to the City Chambers.

  Kathleen shivered. ‘Do you really have to work on a Sunday?’

  Neil nodded grimly. ‘Go back to the flat if you like. I’m going to be here all day. This campaign is taking off tomorrow. I’m going to nail that bastard, Royland. There won’t be a paper in Britain that isn’t going to make his greed a lead story!’ He smiled grimly. ‘If you want to make yourself useful, my love, you get the coffee going. I’ve got some phone calls to make.’

  ‘What about Clare Royland? Are you going to nail her as well?’ Kathleen was staring out of the window now. In the next yard someone had left an old dishclout on the line. It had been ripped to shreds by the wind. It was 10.50. Above them the sound of shouted commands rang out above the wind, and the pipe band struck up, heading down towards the echoing confines of Castle Hill.

  ‘She went back to him, didn’t she?’ Neil’s hand tightened on the receiver.

  ‘She did indeed.’ Kathleen smiled. ‘He’s an attractive man, Paul Royland.’ She glanced round. ‘She never meant a word of all that protestation of innocence, did she? She intended to sell out all the time. Not that she looked capable of having any intentions for any length of time. She’s obviously very unstable. These so-called aristocratic people often are! It’s all in the breeding. Like pedigree dogs!’

  Neil suppressed a smile. Even when he agreed with them he found Kathleen’s prejudices amusing. They were so passionately held, so bitter, so all encompassing.

  He opened his notebook, looking for the campaign phone numbers. ‘Well, aristocratic or not, and mad or sane, she’s going to wish she’d never been born when I’ve finished with her!’ he said. ‘Paul Royland is just an English shit. She is a traitor to her country!’ From the castle came the resounding crash of the eleven o’clock gun, followed two minutes later by another.

  Clare had not slept. She had lain in bed, tossing and turning, afraid to close her eyes for too long in case the nightmares returned. Outside, the night was very quiet. She dozed uneasily for a while, Casta on the bed next to her in the cold room, then abruptly she was awake again. She groped for the clock on her bedside table, but it had stopped. She had no idea what time it was. She lay still for a moment listening. The house was totally silent. It was still dark but some sixth sense told her it was nearly dawn. She rose quietly and dressed, then she tiptoed to the door and opened it a crack. A cold nose touched her hand.

  ‘Come on, Casta. Let’s get out of here,’ she whispered.

  Her shoes in her hand, she crept down the long hall, past her parents’ bedrooms and down the broad flights of the oak staircase, the dog’s paws padding silently after her. The front hall was dark save for a lamp burning on the chest next to a huge bowl of Michaelmas daisies. Slipping on her shoes she opened the glass inner door of the vestibule. Beyond it the air was ice cold. Above the front door she could see the sky faintly outlined in the glass panel. The stars were brilliant. She put her hand on the door handle and cautiously she turned it and pulled. Casta whined with excitement and scrabbled at the oak panelling.

  ‘It’s locked.’ The voice behind her made her jump violently. ‘And the key is in my pocket.’

  ‘Paul!’ She turned to face him, her heart thumping with fright. ‘Well,
open it then. Casta wants to go out.’

  ‘The dog can go out. Not you.’ Silhouetted against the lamp he looked very large. He had spent what remained of the night on one of the sofas in the drawing room, from where he could see the front hall and the stairs.

  ‘This is ridiculous, Paul! I want to go out.’ She had raised her voice now.

  Upstairs, doors opened. Her parents appeared at the top of the stairs and peered over the banisters. Antonia’s face was very white.

  ‘When did you get back?’ Archie strode past his wife and began to descend the stairs, his red striped pyjamas swathed in a tightly-belted camel dressing gown. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped. He peered past Paul into the shadowy vestibule. ‘Clare? Come in, my dear. Your mother is going to get us all some breakfast.’

  ‘I want to take my dog for a walk first.’ Clare kept her voice even with difficulty.

  ‘I’ll take her out in ten minutes with the others. No problem.’ Archie gave a falsely hearty smile. ‘Do come in and shut the door. The hall is getting cold.’

  Reluctantly Clare stepped back into the hall. She looked up at her mother who was halfway down the stairs clutching the banister for support. ‘Mummy, will you tell Paul to unlock the front door?’

  ‘I’m sure he will, darling, soon.’ Antonia glanced nervously at her husband.

  ‘All in good time,’ Archie put in. ‘Let’s go into the kitchen and get some grub, what? Antonia, my dear, how about some coffee as we all seem to be well and truly awake?’ He led the way into the warm kitchen and turned on the lights. Shooing the two cats away from the Aga he put the kettle on himself.

  ‘Sit down, Clare,’ he said. He pulled out a chair for her.

  Clare sat down. She put her elbows on the table. ‘Look, I don’t know what Paul has been telling you, but I warned you something like this was going to happen. As far as I’m concerned our marriage is over.’ She ran her fingers through her hair in agitation. ‘He knows it, and I know it. I don’t know why he wanted to bring me back here. It’s not going to change anything. I’m not going back with him and I am not staying under the same roof with him here.’ She looked at them all in turn.