by Peter James
‘Strange?’ Frannie echoed, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Oliver’s words last night. It’s you … That’s where it’s coming from. She was remembering the Latin she learned at school. Remembering the Latin teacher who was a crabby, elderly man with a voice like a saw. Remembering when she was thirteen and asking him why it was necessary to learn a dead language. He had exploded in rage. Then, when he had calmed down, he had made her learn by heart, first the names of dozens of plants, then dozens of animals. Made her recite them out loud to the class. She was remembering Edward giving the plants their Latin names as they had both walked through the grounds of Meston. Edward reciting the names of the animals in the Range Rover driving back to London last Sunday night.
Frannie removed the photograph from her handbag and handed it to Phoebe. ‘Is this him?’
Phoebe studied it carefully, then stared back at her suspiciously. ‘Is he a witness? Has he said anything?’
Frannie was trembling. ‘Is it him? Is it the boy you saw?’
Phoebe looked again. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Definitely. Because I can remember him so clearly. When I saw him, it was like one of those freeze-frames on a video – as if time had stopped. He didn’t look real. It was almost as if I was imagining him.’ She smiled distantly. ‘Or as if he was a ghost.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The boy was curled in a foetal position, face downwards in a scooped-out hollow of rock inside the glass case. Urns and vases lay in there with him, as well as some metal bangles and an earthenware drinking-vessel. His face had long gone and his desiccated skin had hardened so that he looked more like a grotesque wooden sculpture than someone who had once been flesh and blood.
Declan O’Hare patted the top of the case with a paternal air. ‘Egyptian Predynastic, this fellow,’ he said. ‘Gebelein. We date him around 3250 BC. The baubles and jugs are typical of the grave goods that would have been buried with him at the time.’
Frannie stared through the glass; she had done so several times before and she was never comfortable with the sight. There was something she found both morbidly fascinating and at the same time deeply disturbing about a dead human being in a display cabinet.
She watched the reactions of the other two research assistants who had been assigned to the preparation of the exhibition: Hermione Wallis, a friendly but slightly dozy girl with a beaky nose, hair swept back by an elastic band, hands rammed into her dungaree pockets, was glancing uncomfortably round the mummy room; Roger Wencelas, in Doc Marten boots, starched blue jeans and a pristine white T-shirt, was peering fiercely through his wire-framed spectacles at the corpse’s tiny buttocks.
Mummies lined the walls of the room: several in upright showcases, and one in a rotting wooden box. Frannie was tired. The monochromatic overhead lighting in the exhibit rooms became oppressive after a while. You forgot whether you were above ground or below it.
It was half past ten and the room was already teeming with tourists. The living posed in front of the dead, smiling to hide their unease; and smiling because they were on the right side of the glass, Frannie thought, suddenly.
‘Attitudes to death,’ O’Hare said. ‘The way a civilization views its own mortality tells you a great deal.’ He looked at each of them in turn, then nodded at Frannie. ‘You’re a good Catholic girl, perhaps you can enlarge on that for us?’
‘Our civilization’s afraid of death,’ she said.
‘Very good. Indeed we are. Afraid of that Great Unknown. Afraid of what we can’t take with us.’ His gaze scanned all three of them again, his bright blue eyes sparkling with the near-manic passion with which he addressed his work. ‘Look at this chap.’ He tapped the glass cabinet again. ‘What kind of a world did he leave behind? What did he think of in those last moments before death?’
Frannie stared at the cabinet. The remains of Tristram were lying in there. The pink Bermudas with his thin legs and the tiny trainers. The coil of intestines like a dead snake; the splintered shaft of his backbone.
She pressed her hand over her mouth and turned. Jonathan Mountjoy stared out from another cabinet. His mouth was open and there was a bullet hole in his forehead. She spun her head, saw a blackened, shrivelled mummy; but it wasn’t a mummy, it was Meredith, her socketless eyes staring back through the glass.
Frannie backed away, perspiration running down her neck, bumped into a cabinet, put a hand out to steady herself. Declan O’Hare was looking at her, so were her two colleagues. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’
The meeting finally ended at twelve. Frannie hurried back to her office, wanting desperately to phone Seb Holland.
Penrose Spode was seated primly behind his desk, looking unusually fashionable in a yellow Lacoste shirt buttoned to the neck beneath a white jacket; he gave her a rather self-conscious smile as she came into the office, as if he were seeking reassurance.
He was normally in before Frannie, but this morning he had been late and it was the first time she had seen him today.
‘Hi, nice weekend?’ she said.
‘Yes, thank you.’ He watched her expectantly, like a puppy awaiting praise. ‘Did you?’
‘I’ve had better.’ She gave a smile that felt like a twitch. ‘I like the gear – is it new?’
‘It’s – ah – a birthday present to myself.’ He blushed.
‘When’s your birthday?’
He blushed even harder. ‘Today.’
‘Oh, Penrose! I wish I’d known.’ She switched on her word processor and sat down, then began rummaging in her bag for Seb Holland’s business card. ‘Are you celebrating tonight? Having a party?’
Spode wetted the point of his pencil with his tongue and tested it on his pad. ‘Having a quiet dinner,’ he said.
She thought he sounded rather sad. ‘I think small celebrations are the nicest,’ she said as cheerily as she could.
Spode opened his mouth as if to say something more then seemed to change his mind and returned to his work.
She found the card. It was embossed with the address of a skyscraper office block in the City which she had always liked immensely. She dialled, praying silently that Seb Holland was going to be all right. She was put on hold by a faintly hostile secretary, then Seb’s cheery voice came on the line. ‘Great seeing you last week – no – the week before,’ he said. ‘Real surprise!’
‘Congratulations on your engagement.’ Her relief that he was all right was tempered by anxiety.
‘Have to give me your latest address – you must come to the wedding. Anyhow – we have to get together before that, have a drink or a bite or something.’
‘Actually I’d like to – there’s something I need to talk to you about.’
‘Oh? Business?’
‘No –’ She saw Spode’s ears were busy. ‘It’s not something I can talk about that easily over the phone.’
‘Sounds mysterious!’
‘I need to see you as soon as poss.’
‘You’ve just caught me – I’m off to New York on Wednesday, and I won’t be back until …’ he paused and she heard the flick of a page, ‘5th October. How about that following week sometime? Are you free for lunch?’
‘I need to see you before then, Seb. It’s really urgent.’
‘It can’t wait?’
‘No.’
There was a pause. ‘Christ – I just haven’t got any time – how long do we need?’
‘Not long. Half an hour?’
‘Could you come here at lunchtime tomorrow – we’ll shoot off round the corner somewhere?’
‘Yes, that would be fine.’
‘Know where we are?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Come up to the fortieth floor and ask for me in reception. About one?’
‘One. Fine.’
‘You’d better give me your number in case something comes up.’
She gave him her home and office numbers, then hesitated. ‘Seb, listen – this may sound a bit daft, but will you be really care
ful until I see you?’
‘Careful? Of what?’
She wished Spode would mind his own business and stop listening; he was making her feel even more foolish. ‘I – I’ll explain tomorrow.’
‘Right. OK.’ He sounded uneasy; not about her warning, but about her. She tried to think of something to salvage the situation, but Seb terminated the conversation before she had a chance. ‘Listen, I have to dash. I didn’t want to be rude and not take your call. See you tomorrow, here, OK?’
She turned back to her screen and tried to apply her mind for the next hour, compiling the list Declan O’Hare had asked her to do from the central memory bank of every item of Egyptology in the Museum. She thought, glumly, that only a few days ago she had been relieved to be taken off a monotonous cataloguing job. This one was going to be even worse. If she lived long enough to complete it.
She stared at the screen; the cursor blinked, waiting for her next tap on the keyboard, for her next command, for the next piece of stored information she wanted to access.
Information. She thought about Oliver’s research into numerology. When he had dropped her at the Museum this morning he had made a big effort to be bright, positive, to reassure her. But she could see it in his eyes: he was as scared as she was.
She thought hard, her brain tired, blunted by the pills she was taking to help her sleep and damp the shock. They were doing neither. There had to be more she could unravel. She had met Oliver at King’s Cross. Before that their paths had crossed in the café. Maybe she had even met him before then, somewhere else. A connection. Something between her and the Halkins. Or her family and the Halkins. All this horror wasn’t limited just to the group who were at the Ouija. Tristram hadn’t been there. Nor had Dom. Nor had Edward’s mother. Oliver was blaming her. But maybe there was something in his past, which he was hiding from her.
Or wasn’t aware of.
At one o’clock Frannie hurried outside, weaving through the tourists and the pigeons. She crossed Great Russell Street, went into a newsagent and found a selection of birthday cards that were all either dull, or lewd and suggestive. She opted for one with a picture of the Horse Guards Parade, bought a packet of tiny candles then went into the café next door where she bought a pastrami sandwich, a lemon cupcake and a can of lime-flavoured Perrier. She perched on one of the stools, ate quickly, signed the card and put the cupcake into her handbag. Then she went back into the Museum, glancing at her watch. It was twenty past one.
She showed her pass and went into the hallowed domed silence of the British Library. There was a sharp contrast between the Library and the Museum even though they shared, for a short while longer, the same building. Whilst the interior of the Museum had a modern, progressive feel, the Reading Room of the Library felt as if it had been unchanged for centuries. Ancient volumes lined the grand circular shelves. The room smelt of old bindings, old paper, buffed leather and wood polish. The silence was disturbed only by the squeak of shoes, the rustle of turned pages, the putter of word-processor keys.
Frannie noticed Archie Weir, a genealogist she had met a couple of times. A kindly, worried-looking man, he sat behind piles of tomes that were stacked like a barricade, engrossed in some research. He was wearing an ancient tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, and an even more ancient shirt and tie. The tufts of grey hair on either side of his bald dome looked as if they had been glued on as an afterthought, and his wire half-framed glasses were perched halfway down his nose. His lips chattered wordlessly as he scanned a document, reminding Frannie of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.
Frannie quietly stood in front of him. After some moments, he looked up with a start, a frown of recognition spreading across his forehead as if a name and a face were speeding somewhere through his memory banks but had not yet collided.
‘Frannie – Francesca Monsanto,’ she said. ‘Oriental Antiquities.’
‘Ah, yes, yes, yes!’ He put down the document. ‘With Mr O’Hare.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Ah, yes, yes, yes.’ He was blushing and she wondered why. Then through a chink in the barricade she saw a flattened paper bag and a half-eaten sandwich. Eating was strictly forbidden in here. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to disturb you.’
‘Not at all, no, no, not at all.’ To emphasize this he placed his hands firmly to either side of him on the desk and sat more upright.
‘I was wondering if you could tell me the best books in here on the English aristocracy?’
‘English aristocracy, yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. General history or a specific family?’
‘A specific family. The Halkins – Marquess of Sherfield.’ She thought as she whispered the name that she detected the faintest hint of distaste in his expression.
‘Ah, Sherfield, the Halkins, yes.’ A slight brake seemed to have been applied to his enthusiasm. ‘Ah, yes, let me see, we’re bound to have their family archive here if it’s been printed up; most of them have been at some time, fortunately. Might be under the family name or in the name of their principal residence. There’d be something in Debrett’s of course, and Burke’s Peerage. Let me see.’ His fingers, soft and wrinkled like old carrots, drummed the table. ‘Ark-wright’s History of the British Aristocracy, might be something in that. How much detail do you need?’
‘As much as I can find.’
‘You might also find a few mentions in one or two books on witchcraft.’
Before she’d digested this last remark, he’d picked up a stub of a pencil, a piece of notepaper and was writing down some titles in fat, slanting writing. When he’d finished, he gave her a list of a dozen books.
She thanked him and walked across into the vast Reading Room, awed as she always was in here by the sheer quantity of the volumes stacked floor to ceiling. Her watch said it was half past one. In her haste she walked straight past the Genealogy section the first time, and did a complete circuit of the room before finding it and scanning the titles.
She searched first for the name Halkin, then Sherfield. Then she went along the Ms. Marlborough, she read. Montagu. Melbourne Castle. Melksham. Ment-more. Then she saw it. A blue volume an inch and a half thick, with the wording The Meston Hall Archives embossed in gold on the spine. Next to it was Meston and the Halkins – A History by Keenan Towse.
Frannie pulled it out. Although the book was slim, it felt heavy. There was a ring on the cover where someone had once stood a glass or a mug. She opened it where she stood and smelled the dry, faintly woody smell that rose up from the pages. The frontispiece was an oval vignette of Meston Hall, in much better condition than now, with a horse and carriage outside. On the facing page was the family crest.
She glanced at a few pages further on. There were references to the Halkin family pedigree, the family archives, manorial records, title deeds and leases … She turned forwards a few more pages and came to the family tree which was on a triple page, folded over. She read some of the names: Sir Godfrey Halkin; Marie, dau. of Henry Le Sabanne; Agnes de Bournelle; Francis Edward Alwynne, second Marquess; Thomas; Lady Prudence.
There were several pages detailing the contents, followed by a dozen introductory pages in minute type that gave the French origins of the family, the first recorded instance of a Halkynne arriving in England in 1066, and where he’d settled.
She turned back to the contents: The First English Halkins 1066–1300, Halkin Rôles in the Crusades – Home and Abroad, Elizabethan Halkins, Halkins and the English Civil War.
She turned to that chapter and scanned through it. Six pages along, the second Marquess of Sherfield’s name jumped out at her. She went back several paragraphs until she found the start of the section, then read through it slowly.
Francis Halkin. Second Marquess of Sherfield. 1600–1652. Unscrupulous and tenacious in asserting the right of the Halkin family, he inherited the title and the family’s estates on the death of the first Marquess in 1625, and immediately came into conflict with his overlord, the Ar
chbishop of Canterbury, and even with a group of tenants of his manor of Meston who complained of his ‘daryke and bullynge behaviour and hideousness to defie ymaginacion amonges them’.
It is fair to say that Lord Francis Halkin was unique among nine centuries of Halkins for his sheer evil and depravity, a one-off in a family that in general contributed in many ways to the growth of the country and British Empire.
Francis Halkin, a true Jekyll-and-Hyde nature, outwardly a fickle political animal, inwardly a greedy and brutal sadist, deeply involved in the dark arts of Satanism and Numerology which he manipulated both for political and financial gain and for sexual gratification of the most perverse nature. In the Civil War he sided first for his own protection with the Parliamentarians, providing finance and men to Cromwell but subsequently provided help to the Royalists in the City of London, in particular the use of the underground passageway from the Halkin residence to the Thames, in exchange for a supply of children for sexual favours and ritual sacrifice.
In 1652 his younger brother, Thomas Halkin, informed on him to the Parliamentarians (whether from disgust at his perversions or in order to inherit the title is not established). His arrest warrant was signed personally by Oliver Cromwell, but soldiers, sickened by what they found in the premises, carried out their own fitting execution.
She turned forward, flipping through several pages of detailed information on the Halkin family properties – covering, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, several counties. Then several plates of photographs. As she flipped through them, she stopped with a start, turning back to a scene of London that looked familiar.
Frannie felt her skin tightening around her body. The book shook in her hands as she was confronted by a print of Victorian London. The City. Hansom cabs and horse-drawn carts travelled down the street, and the shops were different. But she knew exactly where it was. She had spent most of her childhood there. The junction of Poultry with Cheapside. The front few buildings of Poulterers’ Alley were clearly visible in the centre of the print.
