‘That’s good,’ said Charles soothingly. ‘Very good. Why don’t you sit down, Jeff?’
Obediently, Jeff sat, his eyes fixed on the candlelight dancing over Roz’s face.
‘Right.’ Charles took a deep breath, his expression worried. He leant towards Roz. ‘Jane?’ he said. ‘Jane, can you hear me?’
‘I’m in here,’ Jane called from the still room when she heard the new maid asking Catherine if she knew where the mistress was. She clicked her tongue at the interruption. She was making a distillation of her own recipe for an excellent remedy for all manner of sicknesses, and it needed careful attention. Gilbert suffered sometimes with gout, and it made him irritable, but Jane had found her aqua vitae helped his temper. She had filled a pot with red wine, and was measuring out powdered camomile, gillyflowers, ginger, nutmeg, galingale, spikenard, pepper, cumin, fennel seed, parsley, sage, rue and mint, being careful to weigh each to the same amount.
‘What is it, Avis?’ she asked when the maid appeared in the doorway, twisting her hands in her apron.
‘There’s a visitor for the master in the hall, mistress,’ Avis whispered.
‘Did he say what he wanted?’ Jane’s mind was on pouring the herbs and seeds into the wine.
Avis shook her head. She was very young and very nervous. ‘He just asked for the master.’
Gilbert had gone to do business at the vintners’ hall and would not be back for some time. ‘Tell him . . . oh, never mind,’ said Jane, seeing the terror sweep across Avis’s face at the thought of having to remember and relay a message. ‘I will go. Do you sweep out the kitchen, Avis, and make sure there are no scraps left for the cats to fight over again.’
Leaving the herbs steeping in the wine, Jane wiped her hands on her apron and made her way to the hall, followed by Poppet, who was growing old and blind and was increasingly dependent on her. The years since her marriage had increased her confidence, and she was smiling and composed as she stepped into the room.
The visitor was standing by the fireplace, talking to Geoffrey. Jane’s smile faltered a little at the sight of Geoffrey, who at eleven still had the habit of materializing out of nowhere, and overhearing the most private conversations.
‘Geoffrey!’ she said a little sharply. ‘What are you doing here? You should be at school.’
Irritation flashed over Geoffrey’s face, only to be smoothed away as the man turned and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘The lad has been keeping me company,’ he said. ‘He is a fine boy.’
The Yorkshire edge to his voice was the first warning. Jane was already moving across the hall before the realization kicked in and by then it was too late to go back to the shadows. She could see him plainly now, and the floor lurched beneath her feet, the hall tilting alarmingly as dismay raced through her. She had thought herself safe. She had forgotten that fortune was a wheel that kept turning and that a single moment could change everything.
For the past had reared up without warning, and she was facing it across her husband’s hall. The last person she had feared to see, and the worst.
Sir Thomas Parker.
Robert’s friend, who had been primed to dishonour her. She had last seen him through a drugged haze, kneeling above her with his breeches down. He was stouter now, his nose veined with red, but there was no mistaking him.
She forced her expression to look dull and blank, as if he were just another of her husband’s business associates.
‘I am sorry, my husband is not here,’ she said, hoping that she had changed more than he had. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed her in York. She had been invisible then to Robert and his friends.
But Thomas was frowning, staring at her as if trying to place her.
‘I do not know how long he will be,’ she persevered, keeping the same pleasant smile on her face, but she wasn’t sure how successful she was, because Geoffrey’s eyes were darting between her and Thomas, sensing something amiss. ‘May I tell him who called?’
‘Thomas Parker,’ said Thomas, still frowning. ‘Have we met before, mistress?’
‘I do not think so,’ she said. ‘But you know how London is. We might pass each other a dozen times a day and not know it.’
‘Sir Thomas is from York,’ Geoffrey offered.
‘You have come a long way to see my husband.’
‘I have business in London, and your Sir Gilbert was recommended to me for his knowledge of the law.’ Thomas paused, shook his head. ‘You look mighty familiar, mistress.’
‘They say that we all have a double somewhere,’ Jane managed. ‘I do not know when my husband will be home, but I will—’
‘I can run and find him,’ said Geoffrey with uncharacteristic eagerness. ‘I know where he will be.’
‘I don’t—’ Jane began, but Thomas was already clapping him on the shoulder.
‘Good lad. I would be glad if I could see him today.’
Jane was forced to smile and swallow her frustration as Geoffrey beamed. It was typical of Geoffrey to play the bright boy with the one person she didn’t want him to impress. ‘May I bring you some wine while you wait, Sir Thomas?’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That is a fine boy you have. How old is he?’
‘I am almost twelve,’ said Geoffrey before she could lie.
‘Your father must be proud of you.’
‘I do not have a father. Sir Gilbert is my mother’s husband.’
‘Is that so?’
Jane could feel his eyes on her back as she left. His mind worked slowly, but it was turning. What if he remembered where he had seen her before? What then? Jane’s fears scrabbled in her brain and she forced herself to stop and take a breath. She would just deny it. She would tell Thomas he was mistaken. He could not prove anything.
A fine boy . . . almost twelve. Please God he did not remember.
She sent Avis back with wine and some cakes and prayed that Gilbert would stay away. But Geoffrey found him and brought him home, and the next thing Geoffrey was in the kitchen to say that Gilbert had invited Thomas to dine. Too late, Jane remembered her distillation. It had burnt dry, like her luck.
‘Ah, wife,’ said Gilbert when Jane appeared. ‘We have a guest for dinner. This is Sir Thomas Parker from Yorkshire.’
‘I know, sir.’ She dropped a curtsey, keeping her head down as far as she could. ‘You are welcome, Sir Thomas.’
‘My wife is from the north as well,’ said Gilbert to Thomas. ‘She has lost her broad vowels, but I promise you there was a time when we could barely understand her.’
‘From the north?’ Thomas’s eyes sharpened. ‘Perhaps that is why you seem familiar, madam.’
‘I am from Beverley,’ she said, improvising, fingering her necklace desperately for reassurance.
Gilbert looked puzzled. ‘I thought you came from York?’
‘Yorkshire,’ said Jane, her mouth dry. ‘It is a big place, is it not, Sir Thomas?’
‘Aye,’ he said slowly. ‘How long have you been in London?’
‘I hardly remember. A long time.’
‘Geoffrey was still a babe,’ Gilbert reminded her helpfully.
‘So he was.’ Jane nodded and picked up a plate. ‘Do you care for some mutton, Sir Thomas?’ she asked brightly.
The meal seemed to last forever, but finally it was over and Jane excused herself. She was tense from avoiding Thomas’s ponderous gaze, from waiting for memory to slide into place. Perhaps he was down with Gilbert even now, telling her husband that she was unlawfully married to him, that Geoffrey was stolen, that everything he thought was true about his wife was a lie.
That William, her dear, sunny-natured William, was base begotten.
Jane paced the chamber, pleating her fingers together, waiting to hear the door close, waiting for Gilbert to come upstairs, his face black with anger.
But when he came in, he was yawning. ‘I thought you would be abed,’ he said, scratching his hair.
‘Did you do good business with Sir Thomas?’ she aske
d after a moment.
Gilbert grunted. ‘He seemed very interested in you,’ he said. ‘I think you have another admirer, my heart. I had to remind him, very politely of course, that you were my wife.’
Jane managed a weak smile. ‘I thought he was very curious too.’
‘He was taken with Geoffrey, though.’ With a resigned sigh, Gilbert bent to acknowledge Poppet’s squirming greeting. ‘Anyone would think I had been gone for months, dog.’ He gave the spaniel’s head a pat and absently caressed the silky ears. ‘It seems the boy made a good impression, which is encouraging. Perhaps he just needs employment,’ said Gilbert as Poppet collapsed with a satisfied sigh and he sat on the bed to pull off his boots. ‘I let him come and sit with us in my closet so that he could learn about my business. He seemed interested in Sir Thomas, or pretended to be. We may make a lawyer of him yet!’ he said good-humouredly. ‘Why don’t we send him to Norris? He would teach Geoffrey the law and give him a place if I asked.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Jane reluctantly.
‘My heart, I know you do not want to lose him, but the boy needs to learn a business. And God knows, Geoffrey is tricky enough to make a good lawyer!’
Jane helped her husband unlace his doublet and she brushed it carefully before laying it in the chest, but her mind was on Geoffrey. She had not forgotten the day in the woodstore when she had glimpsed a vulnerability in him, a fear that she would abandon him. I won’t abandon you, she had said. I promise.
Geoffrey had never showed her that side again, but Jane was certain that it was still there, that beneath the sly malice hid a frightened child. So she bit her lip whenever she heard about a fire nearby, and she kept her doubts, and her fears, to herself.
‘Will Sir Thomas be back?’ She tried to make the question casual. She had to know whether she needed to brace herself for his appearance. If only she had had some warning, she could have disguised herself somehow, or feigned illness. She could have sent one of the maids to tend to him, but it was too late now. Jane kept seeing Geoffrey’s face. There had been an alert look in his eye, as if he had somehow sensed that she was afraid of Thomas, and was wondering how to turn her fear to his advantage. Jane had no idea how he could have known that Thomas was the last person she wanted him to meet, but he had, she was sure, and now her mind ran round and round like a trapped mouse, scrabbling for a way out. ‘Have you finished your business with him?’ she asked hopefully.
‘I think so.’ Gilbert’s voice was muffled as he tugged his shirt over his head. His body was strong and hard still, and Jane longed to go over and lean into him, to wrap her arms around his waist and breathe in the familiar scent of his skin and tell him the truth.
But the truth was that she was too afraid. Gilbert hated pretence, hated untruths. He believed in order and the law of the land. Jane couldn’t bear to see his face change at the realization that she had lied, to him, to his children, to their friends, to God. She had stood in the porch of St Dunstan’s and sworn that there was no impediment to her marriage. She had said nothing about the husband she knew still lived, to whom she had also sworn obedience till death did them part.
Gilbert might send her away. Jane had been banished by a husband before, she knew it could be done, and few would blame him if they knew the truth. He might send her away and she would never see him again. She would be forbidden William, the girls, Poppet . . . Jane’s whole body clenched with panic at the thought. The fear was so sharp that it almost bent her double, and it was only later when she had forced herself to breathe calmly again that she realized to her shame that she hadn’t included Geoffrey on the list of those she would miss most.
‘Why?’ asked Gilbert as he dragged his nightshirt over his head. ‘Did you wish me to invite him again?’ He lifted his brows teasingly. ‘Are you lonely for your friends from the north?’
‘No,’ said Jane, almost sick with relief at her reprieve. She went over to him and wound her arms around his neck. ‘No,’ she said again, lifting her mouth to his. ‘I do not miss them at all.’
‘You met Mikey?’ Nick stared incredulously at Roz. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’
‘There’s been a lot going on.’ Wearily, Roz dropped onto the sofa and closed her eyes. She was very glad to be back in London.
When she had come round in the great hall the night before, it had been to find Jeff and Charles watching her with anxious expressions, and she’d been horrified to learn about Helen’s interruption. For whatever reason, Helen hadn’t, in fact, called the police, which Roz was grateful for. She was tense and vulnerable, still shaken from the shock of suddenly coming face to face with Thomas Parker again, and she would have been in no state to have explained everything to a sceptical constable.
The next day she had slunk into Holmwood House early and had stayed in her office, glad that she had no need to go out and run the gamut of Helen’s hostility. She had been desperate to get to London, but now that she was here, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in the wrong place. The flat felt profoundly alien. The polished floorboards, the Ikea furniture, the oh-so-minimalist white voiles . . . none of it felt like home.
Roz couldn’t tell Nick that, though. She couldn’t tell him that she hungered to be back in Minchen Lane, where the sign of the golden lily creaked above the shop door.
Nick seemed to be picking up on her sense of disorientation anyway. He was making a stir-fry, talking to her over the counter separating the kitchen from the living room, but his movements were jerky, and his mouth was set in a hard line.
‘You met your long-lost brother who just happened to kill your entire family, and that didn’t seem worth a mention?’ Bang, bang, bang went his knife on the chopping board.
Roz sighed. It was all too hard to explain.
‘How did you know it was him, anyway?’ asked Nick after a moment.
‘He called me Boo.’ She told Nick about being in the yard with Jeff, and the certainty that had gripped her when he’d used her family nickname. ‘We went and had a coffee.’
‘I think I’d have needed a stiff drink rather than a coffee.’
She smiled faintly. ‘It was a bit early for that.’
Nick pulled another pepper towards him. ‘What was it like? It must have been a bit awkward, wasn’t it? I mean, what did you talk about? Hey, sis, remember the time I set fire to the family house?’
‘It was weird.’ Roz pushed a hand through her hair and rested her head on the back of the sofa, remembering the little cafe with its plastic tablecloths and plastic flowers. ‘I’ve never had a brother before so I’m not sure what it’s meant to feel like. Jeff – that’s what he calls himself now – is a stranger. We didn’t exactly gasp and fall into each other’s arms. At the same time, there was . . . I don’t know . . . a connection. But I don’t really know anything about him.’
‘You know he’s a killer.’
‘I’m not so sure about that.’ Roz pushed herself up off the cushions and went to the fridge to pour two glasses of wine. She nudged one along the counter towards Nick before pinching a bit of raw pepper. ‘I think it’s all bound up with the house in Micklegate,’ she said. ‘I think Mikey was haunted by Geoffrey just like I am by Jane. I felt so sorry for him, Nick,’ she said. ‘He lost everything, and he was blamed for it all and now he’s labelled a murderer, but it was Geoffrey all along. Not that prison psychiatrists would ever have accepted that as an excuse, anyway. They just called him schizophrenic and pumped him full of drugs.’
Nick put down his knife to take a sip of wine. ‘Are you sure he’s not playing you, Roz?’
‘I was the one who made the connection. Jeff didn’t think of it until I suggested it. He just knew that he couldn’t remember anything about that night, just like I can’t remember what happens around me when I’m Jane. I’m sure that Geoffrey was responsible for the fire that killed my parents.’
‘Okay, just supposing I buy the fact that Mikey was haunted and not just a disturbed kid,’ said Nick,
‘why would this Geoffrey, a boy who’s apparently been dead for four hundred years, decide to come back to life just to kill your family?’
‘I don’t think he did,’ said Roz. She stole another piece of pepper. ‘I think he was in the house all along. When you look at the history of it, it’s amazing how many fires there have been there in the past.’
‘That doesn’t prove anything.’
‘No, it doesn’t prove anything, but it’s suggestive.’ Irritation feathered her voice. ‘Geoffrey doesn’t care about anyone, but he loves fire. I think Mikey was sad and vulnerable, and he gave Geoffrey a chance to leave the house and make fires somewhere else. I did some reading about it.’
Roz turned and leaned against the counter, holding the cool glass to her cheek. ‘Apparently fire setting is relatively common among boys between eleven and fifteen. It’s usually just part of a pattern of delinquency, but with Geoffrey it’s more than that. He’s a psychopath.’ Setting down the glass, she rubbed her arms nervously. ‘Jane thinks he’s a lost boy crying for attention, but I think he’s cunning. She’s not going to be able to rescue him and make him right, no matter what she does.’
There was a pause. Nick tidied the sliced peppers into a neat pile. ‘It sounds to me as if Jane is more of a threat to you than this Geoffrey is,’ he said, picking his words with care. ‘This cleansing ritual you told me about doesn’t seem to have worked at all.’
‘It might have done if Helen hadn’t interrupted us. Charles said that she’s incredibly hostile.’ Unaware of it at the time, Roz had still been able to feel Helen’s fury jangling in the air long after she had gone.
Nick’s expression was serious. ‘I think it’s time you tried a priest,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about you, Roz. You’re talking about Jane and Geoffrey as if it’s normal to be haunted or possessed or whatever is happening to you. Now you tell me you’re going into a trance alone in a dark room with some psychic no one knows anything about and a man who turns out to be your brother and, oh yes, the killer of your entire family.’
The Edge of Dark Page 33
