The Edge of Dark

by Pamela Hartshorne

  He hated her and her pompous lover and her puling, puking son. She didn’t love him, she never had. She had only ever pretended.

  Taking advantage of his momentary hesitation, Adrian leapt onto him, but Jeff’s fury lent extra power to his arm as he swung to meet him and he hit him with a savagery that sent him crashing to the floor.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Helen shrieked and stumbled over to throw herself onto Adrian’s prone body, covering his face with kisses. ‘Are you all right, my darling?’

  ‘Darling? For heaven’s sake, Helen! What are you talking about?’ Adrian pushed Helen away with such an expression of disgust that Roz bit her lip and Helen’s face stiffened as if he had slapped her. ‘Has everyone gone quite mad?’ Adrian struggled to his feet, angrily wiping Helen’s kisses off his cheeks. ‘Jeff, this has gone far enough.’

  ‘It’s not Jeff,’ said Roz as calmly as she could, and Adrian stared at her.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look into his eyes. That’s not Jeff.’ Roz kept her voice quiet. She was very frightened but trying not to show it. Jeff had his head lowered like a bull, and he was shaking it slowly from side to side, and she didn’t want to do anything to draw his attention to her again. When he had glared at her she had seen the emptiness and the loathing in him and it had been like standing on the edge of a black, sickening chasm, terrified by the pull of it, the remorseless drag into its depths.

  Adrian wasn’t going to listen. ‘Of course it’s Jeff. I’ve had enough of this. Have you all been drinking?’ he blustered. He brushed down his doublet impatiently and held out his hand. ‘Jeff, give me back the necklace at once,’ he ordered, but Jeff only curled his lip and held the necklace out of Adrian’s reach.

  ‘This is outrageous!’ Adrian was very red in the face, having obviously decided not to make a fool of himself leaping at Jeff’s hand. ‘Outrageous! I’ll be having a word with your parole officer first thing in the morning!’

  Helen laid a hand on his arm. ‘Calm yourself, my love,’ she said, but Adrian brushed her hand away irritably.

  ‘For God’s sake, stop pawing at me! What’s got into you, Helen? I suggest we forget this extraordinary display as soon as possible.’

  ‘Forget it?’ Helen was uncurling, unfurling, rearing back like a snake about to strike. Roz could almost hear her hissing. She put her face close to Adrian’s. ‘Do you think to forget me? I am your one and only love!’

  ‘Helen!’ Adrian looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to be disgusted, furious or embarrassed. ‘You’re making an exhibition of yourself! Stop it at once!’

  Dear God, Helen is Margaret! Roz backed against the wall, swallowing. Why hadn’t she guessed before? Margaret, who was looking for a substitute for Robert in Adrian.

  ‘You love me!’ Helen cried, twining her arms around a horrified Adrian, apparently oblivious to his attempts to wriggle out of her grip. ‘He loves me,’ she insisted to Roz and Jeff, who curled his lip back at her.

  ‘He did not love you at the end,’ he said, and Helen jerked backwards as if he had slapped her.

  ‘You lie!’

  ‘All right, that’s enough!’ Adrian made a brave attempt to take control, but his bluster was shaken. ‘You’re both behaving inappropriately. I’m going to call the police!’ he said, pulling out his mobile phone.

  ‘The police!’ Jeff snickered as Adrian shook the phone frantically, realizing as Roz had done earlier that the screen was blank and useless. ‘I think not.’

  Adrian snatched up the receiver on Roz’s desk instead, but it was clear from his expression that the line there was dead too. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’ve had enough,’ he said, and made for the door only to find his way blocked by Jeff.

  Funny, Roz hadn’t realized until then how big her brother was. He loomed over Adrian, the sheer size of him threatening, and she saw Adrian hesitate and take an instinctive step back.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Jeff in Geoffrey’s voice. Tauntingly he tossed the necklace in the air, once, twice, three times, and in spite of themselves, they watched it rise and fall into his hands in a ripple and a glitter of jewels, their heads nodding up and down like dogs.

  ‘You cannot keep us here.’ The hostile energy emanating from Helen surged and crackled around the room. All it would take was the smallest spark and the air would erupt.

  And as if Roz had conjured up the thought, Jeff closed his fingers round the necklace, slid it into his doublet and in one smooth movement drew out a lighter. One click, and the flame burned small and steady in front of his face.

  ‘I can and I will,’ he told Helen, and he glanced contemptuously at Adrian. ‘This time I will let you die with your creature, hmm? Last time he cried for you, but not before he had disowned you. He crawled at my feet and clutched at my knees, begging me to spare him. Pah, you unmanned him from the start.’

  ‘Oh God, no!’ breathed Roz as the blood drained from Adrian’s face. What had Geoffrey done to Robert?

  Helen’s fingers curled into claws. ‘You will not better us this time,’ she snarled.

  ‘Will I not?’ Snagging a piece of paper from the pile on Roz’s coffee table, Jeff set light to it almost tenderly. ‘See how it burns,’ he said as he let it burn almost to his fingertips before lighting a flyer from it and letting the first one fall unnoticed to the floor. ‘Do you care to wager on that, madam?’

  Roz’s eyes skittered frantically around the room, looking for a way out. She had to get help, but how? Jeff was blocking the door, but if she could sidle closer, she might be able to get past him if he was distracted.

  ‘You did not succumb, did you?’ Jeff said almost admiringly to Helen. ‘You cursed me to the end. What a shame I had to burn down Holme Hall to rid the world of you, but it made a splendid blaze. Now that was a fire! And a fine hall that I built in its place,’ he congratulated himself.

  He let another burning paper drift to the floor, where it rekindled the others. Roz took a cautious step sideways. She didn’t think the fire was dangerous yet. The flames were small still, and could be easily stamped to ashes, but Jeff – Geoffrey – was intent on feeding the fire, dropping more and more papers. Surely the smoke alarms would start to go off soon?

  She could see Adrian belatedly realizing that he wasn’t dealing with Helen or Jeff any more. He was standing frozen in disbelief. Helen gripped his arm, her face contorted with hate, while Geoffrey had consumed Jeff so completely that Roz barely recognized her brother.

  Very cautiously, she slid her foot sideways. She’d hoped that Adrian might realize what she was doing and cause a distraction, but instead he stared at her so obviously that Jeff swung round just as she took another tentative step.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Her mouth was dry with fear but she moistened her lips. ‘That is not much of a fire,’ she managed. ‘I will fetch you something to make the flames burn higher.’

  His eyes gleamed with interest but Helen interrupted him before he could speak. ‘Don’t be a fool! She’s not going to bring you anything. You can’t trust her.’ She let go of Adrian to pace, her skirts rustling dangerously close to the fire. ‘This is all your fault,’ she told Roz fretfully. ‘If you hadn’t taken him away, we would have brought him up as one of us. He would have been a true Holmwood.’

  ‘I am a true Holmwood!’ Jeff’s face darkened. ‘No more lies about your sister and that tailor! I am a Holmwood through and through, and you,’ he said, turning on Roz, ‘you denied it. You denied me my inheritance!’ he accused her, kicking petulantly at the little pile of burning papers, so that they tumbled like burning autumn leaves over the carpet. Roz prayed that it was fire retardant. ‘You abandoned me,’ he remembered, resentment thick in his voice.

  ‘No.’ Roz couldn’t take her eyes off the flames. They were starting to catch together, and the smoke was rising slyly. She fought to stop her voice shaking. ‘I never abandoned you. I came with you, Geoffrey. Do you not remember?’


  Confusion clouded his face. ‘No . . . no, you left me alone. I was alone. I remember that.’

  Roz tensed. All at once there was a lost look in his eyes. If she could just reach him . . . ‘Mikey? Mikey, I didn’t mean to leave you. I was just a little girl, Mikey. I couldn’t save you.’ If she kept saying his name, he might fight through, but she knew from her own experience how hard it was to blot out another voice in your head. ‘Our mother tried to save you. She didn’t abandon you.’

  ‘What?’ His brows snapped together but she took courage from the fact that he was at least listening. ‘What mother? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I spoke to a fire officer,’ Roz persevered. The smoke was making her eyes sting. ‘He was there that night. He said she hadn’t called the fire brigade. She’d gone back to the house to look for you.’

  ‘No,’ said Jeff, but there was a thread of uncertainty in his voice. ‘You’re my mother.’

  ‘I’m Rosalind,’ she said. ‘I’m your sister, Mikey.’ Roz coughed and covered her nose and mouth with the back of her hand. The flames had died but the smoke was gathering into a dense cloud. ‘Jeff, I know the fire wasn’t your fault,’ she said urgently. ‘I know it was Geoffrey, and he’s here again now, but you can beat him this time. You were just a little boy before, but you’re a man now. You don’t need to do what he tells you. Put out the fire and let us all go. We can sort it out.’

  Roz kept her eyes fixed on Jeff, although it was getting hard to breathe. What had happened to the smoke alarm? She had personally arranged for the fire service to install a state-of-the-art system. It was supposed to alert the fire station at the first hint of smoke, but she couldn’t hear any sirens.

  She didn’t dare look at Adrian but she hoped that he was making his way to the door behind Jeff’s back. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Helen watching with a sneer. She didn’t seem to have any notion of the danger she was in.

  ‘Come on, Mikey,’ said Roz, holding out her hand. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  He hesitated, looking between her hand and the fire with a mixture of longing and fear. ‘Jeff,’ she said urgently, between coughs. ‘It’s time to go.’

  And then everything seemed to happen at once. Roz didn’t see Adrian move but he must have been waiting for his chance, for he tried to plunge past Jeff, who dropped the lighter as he was startled into a roar. At almost the same moment, Helen grabbed Roz and pushed her hard. ‘We’re going,’ she said, her eyes wild. ‘This time you two can burn!’

  Roz was sent reeling backwards, as Jeff punched Adrian, who dropped cold. Helen let out a blood-curdling shriek and threw herself on him. ‘No, no, no!’

  Desperately, Roz tried to recover her footing, but the smoke was making her dizzy and she tripped. As if in slow motion, she saw Jeff starting for her through the choking air. There was a moment of utter stillness. Roz was frozen in mid-fall and as the smoke cleared she saw his face. Not Geoffrey, but Jeff. Her brother, coming for her. Then time moved on, and she kept on falling until her head hit the edge of the coffee table and she crumpled into darkness.

  Little lights were flickering blurrily in front of her vision. She blinked in an effort to focus. There was something wrong with what she was looking at, but it took a long time to realize that she was lying on the floorboards and watching tiny flames dance across the floor towards her. The necklace was right by her fingers, and she touched it wonderingly, unsure of what had happened. She was sick and dizzy, and there was a pain in her head that made it hard to see. The smell of burning was very strong. Blearily, she pulled herself up to a sitting position, gathering the necklace as she went, horrified to realize that the guards of her skirts were already smouldering. She pulled them away from the flames. The fire was spreading fast, gobbling up the air as it went, and the flames stretched right across the room. Already it would be hard to step over them without getting burnt. The smoke was gathering itself into sly clouds and she coughed.

  ‘Geoffrey,’ she said, looking at him across the flames. ‘Help me.’

  ‘You were going to leave me. You were going to go back to him.’

  ‘I won’t. I’ll stay here with you.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. You were going to break your vow. You will break it if I give you the chance.’

  ‘Geoffrey, help me,’ she said again, trying to keep her voice steady. The necklace was hot. It burned against her palm, but she closed her fingers tightly around it. The necklace meant Gilbert. It meant love. It meant hope.

  ‘No,’ said Geoffrey. ‘You must stay. I will go outside and watch the fire from the street. I will tell everyone that you were talking wildly, that you were careless with a candle. By the time we can stop the spread of the fire, it will be too late for you. My father and grandmother won’t care. And perhaps I will send a letter to Mr Harrison to tell him that you are dead, and remind him that you chose me.’

  The flames weren’t growing, Jane realized, but the smoke was thickening. Her eyes stung and her throat was raw. Geoffrey must have felt the same, but he was just standing there by the door, smiling at the fire. She had to get out of there. Summoning her courage, she threw herself over the flames, but before she had finished her leap, Geoffrey had slipped out of the door, and even as Jane reached for it, she heard the bar drop into place.

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Geoffrey, open the door!’

  But she could hear him running down the stairs. She beat on the door anyway, but the smoke was making it too hard to breathe. Coughing, she slid down against the door. Just to get her breath. Just to decide what to do next. The necklace was still clutched in one hand, and she held it close to her face so that she could see it through the smoke.

  The gleam of its gold burned through the thick air like sunshine through the fog that hung over the Ouse, dispersing the foulness in a dazzle of light so bright that it hurt her eyes, illuminating a radiant path through the swirling darkness that pressed on either side. And there, at the end, was a figure, beckoning.

  ‘Gilbert,’ she whispered, lifting her arms towards him. He was there at last. The relief was so intense that it seared through Jane like a sharp pain, but she was smiling as she closed her eyes against it, knowing that when she opened them again, Gilbert would be there. He would take her home, and keep her safe, and never let her go again.

  ‘Jesus, what’s been going on? Come on, come on, wake up, Roz!’ Nick’s voice was rough with panic. ‘Wake up, wake up! We’ve got to get out of here.’

  Roz coughed and choked, struggling her way up through the blackness. ‘Thank Christ,’ she heard Nick say quite clearly. ‘Roz, can you hear me?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she managed hoarsely, and she clutched blindly at him as she tried to drag herself up. ‘What . . . what’s happening?’

  ‘Your office is on fire. Why aren’t the fire alarms going off?’

  ‘I don’t—’ Roz began before Jeff’s voice cut in and she realized the question hadn’t been meant for her.

  ‘I think . . . I remember switching them off on my way upstairs.’

  ‘What? What the fuck did you do that for?’

  ‘It was Geoffrey,’ said Jeff wretchedly. ‘He loves fire. He wants the house to burn again and again and again.’

  ‘Jesus . . .’ Nick was fumbling frantically with his mobile.

  ‘There’s no signal.’ Jeff made a helpless gesture with his hand. ‘The landlines are out too.’

  As Roz’s vision cleared she could see that she was half kneeling in the corridor outside her office. Smoke was billowing through the door, thick and murky. Her head was throbbing and she put a hand to it. ‘What happened?’

  ‘There’s no time for that now,’ said Nick curtly as he hauled her to her feet, ignoring her wince of pain. ‘We need to get everybody out and call the fire brigade. Jeff, take Roz’s other arm.’

  ‘Helen and Adrian are still in there.’

  ‘No!’ coughed Roz as Jeff turned back for the door. ‘No, Jeff,’ sh
e begged. ‘We’ll get the fire engines here. They know what they’re doing.’

  ‘This is my fault, Roz,’ said Jeff. ‘Everything’s my fault. I can’t leave them. Nick, get her out of here. Call the fire service. Tell everyone to leave.’

  Nick hesitated, then nodded briefly. ‘We’ll get help.’ Putting his arm around Roz, he urged her towards the stairs, but she held back. ‘Jeff!’ she pleaded and stretched her hand out to him. ‘I don’t want to lose you. Not now.’

  Jeff’s fingers closed around hers in a warm clasp. ‘I have to do this,’ he said, and he let go of her hand so that he could turn and head back into the smoke.

  Blue lights revolved frantically, and the night throbbed with activity. The guests huddled on the pavement across the road, watching the firefighters moving purposefully around. An extending ladder stretched up from one of the appliances to the attic rooms. The firefighters had come with incredible speed once Nick had reconnected the fire alarm. As far as Roz could tell, most of the guests seemed to regard the fire engines as part of the evening’s entertainment and there was no panic as people filed outside. There were police cars and ambulances blocking the road and a couple of police officers were posted to keep gawpers at bay.

  Roz felt sick as she clung to Nick. Every time someone came out of the house, her heart would leap, but it was never Jeff. Tears trickled down her grimy face. ‘Where is he?’ she kept asking, but Nick’s face was very grim and he didn’t answer.

  The blue lights and the silent figures of the firefighters moving through the dark were tugging at Roz’s mind, and when the senior officer looked round and headed for her, she felt her brain unlock and a memory slide into place with an almost audible click.