The Edge of Dark

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘Ah, Jeff,’ said Adrian, coming up behind her, as she took in a man dressed in green overalls, looking almost as startled as she felt. ‘Roz, this is Jeff Jones,’ he said, introducing her, and Roz cringed slightly at his condescending tone. ‘Jeff does a marvellous job as the caretaker here, and he can turn his hand to almost anything, can’t you, Jeff?’

  ‘Hi.’ Roz stuck out her hand before Jeff had to frame an answer to that. ‘I’m Roz Acclam.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jeff took her hand and then shook it briefly, muttering what might have been a greeting in return. He seemed to have recovered from his surprise at their collision, and his expression was shuttered. His eyes slid away from Roz’s and she had the feeling that he was working to keep his face deliberately blank.

  ‘Once the events are up and running you may need to liaise quite closely with Jeff,’ Adrian went on, ‘but until then, if you need a light bulb changing or anything lifting, just give Jeff a call, right, Jeff?’

  ‘Right,’ said Jeff in a flat voice.

  ‘Roz, we’d better get on.’ Adrian nodded dismissal to Jeff, who stood aside with what Roz was sure was mock deference.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Jeff,’ she said.

  ‘He’s awfully competent,’ Adrian confided in an undertone as they went downstairs. ‘And really rather intelligent, considering.’

  ‘Considering?’ Roz echoed coolly.

  Adrian lowered his voice further. ‘One of the things the Foundation does is offer opportunities to ex-prisoners, who often find it hard to find employment. Jeff came to us several years ago after his release. I must say, I thought he would have wanted to move on by now, but he seems to like it here, and he looks after the house extremely well.’

  He held open the door into the Foundation. ‘Now, let’s get Helen to make that tea.’

  His chest was hurting. The pale eyes, the mouth with its slight overbite, the way she had smiled, all had come at him like a fist driven hard under his ribs. He’d known she was coming – he’d heard Sir Adrian talking about her, drawling her name in that affected way of his, and he’d whitened with shock the first time he heard it. Rosalind Acclam, coming to York. He remembered his knuckles tight around the mop handle, a roaring in his head. He’d wanted to lift the mop and strike Sir Adrian with it . . . But he hadn’t. He was proud of that, proud of his control.

  He’d learnt that here, when the hall had been a model shop. He’d crept in one day, a shy, snivelling child, to buy a kit with his birthday money, and he’d left fearless and strong. A coldness and a power had fallen over him as he watched the trains rattle round the track, and when he lifted his head and saw the kits he wanted just sitting there on the shelf, he was filled with the certainty that he could take whatever he wanted. Why should he have to pay? He hadn’t even hurried as he picked up the kit and slipped it under his jacket. He was entitled to it.

  He took a model car the next time, some paints the time after that. Nobody ever stopped him. It was as if he was invisible. Invincible.

  Sometimes, at home, when his mother was cooking and his baby sister was making everyone laugh, he would think of the stolen boxes in his room, and feel sick. He hated those times, when he could almost stand outside himself and see how cruel and deceitful he had become. But then he’d look at himself and see that pathetic little boy who’d let himself be bullied, who actually cared what other people thought of him, and he’d be filled with contempt. He wasn’t that boy any more. He’d learnt that it was easier not to care, not to feel.

  It was a lesson that had stood him in good stead in prison, too.

  Nice to meet you, she had said. She had a nice face, lively, with quizzical eyes. Quizzical was his favourite word; he thought it meant she was intelligent and humorous, ready to laugh at herself as well as at others.

  She hadn’t recognized him.

  There was no reason she should, he started to tell himself, before the coldness that lived in this place dropped over him once more, so familiar now that he didn’t question the bitterness that rose in his throat and choked him, or the fury that boiled out of nowhere and insisted that she should remember.

  She would remember. She would. He had not forgotten, and neither should she.

  ‘Meet Sir Geoffrey.’ Adrian drew Roz’s gaze to the portrait over the mantelpiece in his office. It showed a man in a ruff with red lips and cold, cruel eyes, and looking into them, something unpleasant travelled down Roz’s spine.

  ‘You’re cold,’ cried Adrian as she shivered. ‘Helen, a pot of tea, please!’

  Roz chose a chair in which she didn’t have to look at the portrait, but even so she could feel that mean, boar-like gaze pricking between her shoulders. Adrian’s study was predictably old-fashioned, with a vast, leather-topped desk and bookshelves lined with weighty tomes that looked as if they had never been opened. There was a lot of leather, a lot of gilt lettering, and the room smelt opulent and faintly oppressive. She wished she hadn’t agreed to tea.

  Helen brought in a tray and set it down on the coffee table between the chairs. She didn’t look at Roz. ‘Will there be anything else, Sir Adrian?’

  ‘I think Roz would like to see our latest find,’ he said, steepling his fingers and looking pleased with himself.

  Roz saw Helen stiffen. ‘The necklace? But it’s in the safe.’

  ‘So I should hope.’ Adrian’s smile held a hint of steel. ‘We’ll put it back, of course, but I’d like Roz to see it. She needs to know just what a treasure we have here.’

  ‘Of course, Sir Adrian,’ said Helen after a tiny moment’s hesitation.

  She came back a couple of minutes later with a flat box which she handed to Adrian. ‘Ahhh . . .’ he said on a long breath as he pulled off the lid and set it aside. Then there was a ripple of gleaming black as he lifted something out of the box. Roz’s first thought was snake, and she shrank back in her chair as horror streaked through her without warning.

  ‘We found it wedged under the floorboards when we were refurbishing the top floor,’ Adrian said, oblivious to her instinctive recoil. ‘In your office, in fact. It was blackened and charred when we recovered it, but we had it cleaned and look how beautifully it’s come up!’

  Roz made herself look again, surprised to see that the necklace wasn’t black as she had first thought but a gleaming gold, and hung with tiny exquisite flowers made of rubies and pearls which trembled in the electric light.

  ‘It’s . . . very pretty,’ she said, but her mouth was dry.

  ‘Here.’ Before she could protest, Adrian had leant forward and was dropping the necklace into her lap. Roz had to open her hand quickly to catch it, and it slithered into her palm like a living creature. Involuntarily, she closed her fingers around it and the feel of it sent a shock up her arm. Sucking in a startled breath, she looked up to find Helen watching her with a hard, intent gaze.

  ‘We puzzled over what such a valuable piece was doing on the top floor,’ Adrian said as, unaccountably shaken, Roz dropped her eyes back to the necklace. She opened her fingers cautiously, half afraid it would skitter off her palm, but it lay there, lustrous and heavy, warm against her skin. She could see every pearl in the dainty flowers, the voluptuous glow of the rubies. ‘Those rooms would have been used by servants and no servant would have owned a necklace like this.’

  ‘It was probably stolen,’ said Helen flatly.

  ‘No!’ Roz’s protest was out before she knew she was going to say anything. It was only when Adrian and Helen looked at her in surprise that she realized she had spoken at all. It felt as if the shout of denial had come from the necklace itself . . .

  Which was obviously a ridiculous idea. ‘I mean . . . perhaps we could use the mystery somehow,’ she improvised weakly. ‘We could let visitors decide or propose alternative theories about how the necklace could have got into the attic room.’

  It was the best she could think of, but Adrian nodded sagely. ‘Nice idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve already arranged to have a copy mad
e, as this is far too valuable to have on display, but it would take an expert to know the difference.’

  I would know, Roz thought involuntarily, and she could have sworn the necklace throbbed an agreement in her hand.

  ‘Has it been dated?’ she said instead.

  ‘It’s late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, so it fits into Sir Geoffrey’s period very well.’ Adrian nodded at the portrait. ‘He may even have bought it himself.’

  Roz flinched as the necklace seemed to stir in her hand.

  ‘It’s very beautiful,’ she said, meaning it this time.

  ‘Would you like to try it on?’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ Roz started to protest, but Adrian was insistent. He plucked it from her palm and unfastened the catch.

  ‘A necklace like this was made to be worn by a beautiful woman,’ he declared, getting to his feet.

  In spite of herself, Roz caught Helen’s eye. The other woman was watching her with something so reptilian in her gaze that Roz felt a chill go through her.

  ‘It’s too valuable,’ she said to Adrian.

  ‘I insist,’ he said, urging her to her feet. ‘I’ve been longing to see this as it was meant to be, not as an exhibit.’

  She could hardly refuse without making an even bigger fuss. Uncomfortable, avoiding Helen’s gaze, Roz got up and let Adrian turn her to face a mirror on the wall.

  Biting her lip, she lifted the stray hairs at the nape of her neck and bent her head so that Adrian could drape the necklace round her throat.

  ‘There,’ he said when he had fastened it carefully.

  Roz lifted her head and stepped away from him, spreading her hand over the necklace to adjust where it lay against her skin. The gold felt warm to the touch.

  ‘I’ve never worn anything so valuable before,’ she confessed.

  ‘It looks wonderful on you, doesn’t it, Helen?’

  Unwillingly, Roz found herself meeting Helen’s eyes in the mirror again, and she saw such malevolence there that her breath caught in her throat and the necklace itself seemed to pulse against her skin.

  ‘I wonder if we should get a photo of you modelling it?’ said Adrian, but Roz had stopped listening. She was sure the necklace was growing warmer. How was that possible?

  ‘What was the name of that photographer we used?’ he asked Helen while Roz touched the necklace, puzzled.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. It was definitely hotter. She twisted her fingers around the gold chain. Yes, the metal was glowing. ‘Oh,’ she said again, confused, and then, ‘Ow!’

  ‘Roz?’ Adrian broke off his discussion with Helen to look at her in concern.

  ‘The necklace . . . it’s burning me!’ The gold was searing into her skin, the pain doubling and redoubling, while Adrian just looked blank.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s burning me!’ Frantically Roz tried to lift the necklace away from her skin. ‘Please . . . take it off!’

  ‘A necklace can’t burn you,’ he said soothingly, but that only increased her panic. She knew that a necklace couldn’t heat itself, but with a collar of vicious pain around her throat she was in no mood to discuss what was and wasn’t possible.

  ‘Please . . .’ she begged, almost in tears as she struggled to protect her neck and the gold burned into her fingers instead. One hand fumbled for the catch while the other attempted to protect the delicate skin on her neck. ‘Please help me! Please!’

  ‘Roz, my dear, calm down,’ said Adrian as her voice rose, but it was Helen who stepped forward in the end.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said, briskly unfastening the clasp. ‘What a fuss!’

  ‘Thank you . . . thank you, Helen,’ said Roz gratefully. As soon as Helen pulled the necklace away, her panic subsided into short, jerky breaths. Her hand was at her throat still, and her eyes were wide and dark with horror as she stared at the necklace gleaming and glittering in Helen’s hand.

  ‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it,’ said Helen with a disgusted look. She handed the necklace back to Adrian, who turned it over between his fingers.

  ‘I have to say, it feels perfectly normal to me,’ he said.

  ‘It was hot,’ Roz insisted shakily. ‘It’s burnt me.’

  But when she looked in the mirror, expecting to see the flesh around her neck red and blistered, her skin was smooth and unmarked and there was no sign that the necklace had been there at all.

  A dull throb had started behind Roz’s eyes and she was glad in the end to let Helen call her a taxi. Adrian had wanted to take her to the flat, but before Roz could demur, Helen had reminded him about a meeting, and Roz sent her a grateful look, which she met with a stony glare. It was a shame Helen seemed so hostile. They were of a similar age and Helen was from York too. They might have been at a toddler group together. If things had been different, they might have gone to the same school. They might have been friends.

  As Adrian had explained at length, the Holmwood Foundation was all about preserving the past, and Roz had somehow expected to be given a little flat in one of the historic houses they owned around the city. Instead she found herself in a modern apartment on the second floor of a purpose-built block, surrounded by similar blocks with the kind of faux Georgian facades that Nick so loathed.

  Inside, the proportions were meagre and the décor bland: beige carpets, beige furniture, blank cream walls. Roz left her case by the door and unbuttoned her coat as she went to explore. It was only then that she realized one of the buttons was missing. She’d been in too much of a state when she’d left to notice that she’d lost a button somewhere along the line. It was a shame as the coat was one of her favourites and the buttons were particularly striking. She inspected the gap more closely. How had the button come off without leaving so much as a thread behind?

  Roz frowned. Just one more odd thing on this odd day. With a sigh, she threw the coat over a mean-looking armchair and touched her fingers to her neck. It wasn’t painful exactly, but her flesh shrank just thinking about that searing agony. Clearly Adrian and Helen thought she had made it all up, but why would she want to make a fool of herself? Roz wriggled her shoulders uncomfortably at the memory of her panic, the way her voice had risen to a shriek. So much for impressing them with her professionalism.

  It didn’t take long to investigate the flat: it had a living room with an open-plan kitchen at one end, a windowless bathroom and a bedroom, all decorated in the same bland colours. Roz tried to talk herself into a more positive mood. So it wasn’t the most characterful flat in the world, but it was dry, clean, central; that was all she needed. She’d be going home to London at weekends, and for a moment the thought of the flat she and Nick had bought and decorated together stabbed her in the belly with such intensity that she covered her stomach with her hands.

  Enough. Roz scowled at her own weakness. She could make this boring flat more homely. It would be fine.

  Wandering over to the window, she pulled down the slats of the venetian blind – a pale grey plastic – and peered out to see if the view was any more inspiring.

  It wasn’t. No charming higgledy-piggledy medieval houses met her gaze, just a courtyard paved in brick with some neatly parked cars and more pseudo-traditional apartment buildings.

  Unimpressed, Roz was turning away when a drift of smoke below caught at the edge of her vision. Weird. Who would be having a bonfire here? She craned her neck anxiously to see where the smoke was coming from in case she needed to make a run for the stairs. Even before she’d understood why, she’d had a phobia of fire, and the idea of being trapped in a burning building was the worst fate she could imagine. Just thinking about it made her palms sweat.

  But all was as it should be. She relaxed when she saw that the smoke was puffing out of the kitchen chimney. The narrow yard beneath her window ran past the kitchen, past the wood-store and the henhouse, past the apple trees and the scrubby patch of herbs to the thatched stable and the back gate that opened into –

>   Kitchen? Stables? Roz blinked as her mind caught up with what she was seeing, and the scene vanished. There was no smoking chimney. There were no trees, or outbuildings, just the cars parked in their slots and the bland block of flats behind.

  Roz jerked back from the blind, and the snap of the slats rattling into place sent her heart lurching into her throat. ‘What . . . ?’ Puzzled, uneasy, she stared at the blind. Through the slats she could see the top of the building opposite and some bruised-looking sky. There couldn’t be a yard below, but she could picture it so clearly: the way the smoke had drifted in the damp air, the grey-green lichen clinging to the tree trunks, the trampled path to the woodstore, the hens pecking in the mud. The stable door had stood ajar.

  ‘What stable?’ Roz said out loud, her voice echoing queerly in the empty room. ‘How did I know that was a woodstore?’

  Her head was aching, a dull steady pounding inside her skull, and she dropped onto the sofa, pressing her fingers to her eyelids. She must have imagined that scene. She was tired as she hadn’t been sleeping well, and it had been a strange day. Perhaps it had been a hangover from a long-forgotten dream? It hadn’t been real.

  Lowering her hands, Roz lay back against the cushions and opened her eyes. She looked up at the plain white ceiling. Of course it hadn’t been real. How could it be real? There was nothing there. She should get up and unpack, make a cup of tea. Do anything other than sit here and wonder about what she had seen through the window.

  Still, her eyes kept sliding sideways to the blind. From the sofa the slats looked secretive and enticing at the same time. Come and look, they seemed to whisper into the air. Come closer. You won’t be able to see unless you come really close. What do you think you’ll see if you do?

  Roz knew what she would see. A car park. She didn’t need to look. She was going to put the kettle on instead. But when she got to her feet, the blind shifted at the edge of her vision.

  ‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ she said at last. Now she was going to have to check.