A Night With No Stars

by Sally Spedding

  A NIGHT WITH NO STARS

  Sally Spedding

  © Sally Spedding 2004

  Sally Spedding has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2004 by Allison & Busby Limited.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  For Rebecca and Hannah

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  What is blacker than a raven?

  – Death

  From the Wooding of Ailbe

  Prologue

  It is the “no time” when the thin veils between the two worlds of the earthly year – the Samhain and the Beltane – are at their most fragile. When cosmic order is suspended and the ancient dead rise up to stir the souls of the living.

  The seven Pleiades are also rising in the north-east sky and Beltane dawns as if the first in all creation. While the sun slides upwards into the acid blue, licking away the night’s sharp frost, the young inhabitants of Rhayadr-gwy wake up to the prospect of a day without school. A Baker Day of empty classrooms, silent playgrounds, yet nevertheless a day full of possibilities. When anything can happen.

  For those on farms there’s winter silage to cut and stock to primp and preen for tomorrow’s Gamallt Show. For those without land but possessing boots and bikes, there are hills and valleys with stones glistening under laughing river water.

  There’s laughter too on the Ravenstone estate, but by the time the ravens have left the alders’ branches to make a single rogue cloud against the blue, that laughter dies to a silence of fear. The killing room won’t know the sun until late afternoon but its damp shade is the perfect home for slaughter; its dimness the only blessing for those who must watch . . .

  Footsteps now. The drag of steel-tipped heels on stone, enough to cause sparks. The scratch of fingernails against bone as a knife’s dull glow appears. Do those lads on the hills who are downing their beer or the girls undressing in the grass hear the scream which follows? Does anyone stop from their pleasures to wonder what crime has deserved such punishment? No, because the air already sings with suffering and in those ancient rural parts, familiarity has bred not compassion but contempt.

  And in the aftermath, while the sun clears the high bank with its scalp of scrubby trees and the chimney’s smoke dwindles and dies, one thing is certain. A reign of madness has begun.

  Chapter One

  Sacred land. Sidh of my soul with its springs

  Of eternal youth. Whose waters return the stars’

  Gaze, whose mirror traps the Glory of the Day

  And turns his eye to gold . . .

  RFJ 1986

  At six o’clock on a mid-June evening in London’s Covent Garden, and so hot that even the pavements seemed to be sweating, Lucy Mitchell, twenty-nine year old assistant editor with the literary publishers Hellebore, passed through the hotel’s automatic door and into its Art Deco-tiled foyer.

  Everyone knew the Chandos because its function suites were regular backdrops for celeb parties reported in the gossip magazines, and on this occasion, the basement Tabard Room had been booked for a signing by Hellebore’s most distinguished author, James Benn.

  After her ID had been processed, she clacked her way on three inch heels down a flight of stairs and into a large basement room of leather sofas, marble bistro tables turned pink by their red shaded lights and a trio of morning-suited musicians beginning to tune up. But to her, it was the giant-sized photographs of a greying middle-aged man filling every available inch of wall space which made her catch her breath. James Benn, no less. The biggest jewel in Hellebore’s crown. Arguably the most successful writer of literary fiction since the mid-nineties, and here she was, in lieu of the man’s absent editor, to pay homage to his latest book – a biography of his wife.

  Having set out four stacks of the bulky hardback on a table ready for signing, she turned her attention to the display, glancing from one portrait photograph to the other, feeling the author’s steely gaze on her from wherever she placed herself. He was hypnotic, larger than life, and, more importantly, through his recent Booker shortlist successes, extremely influential. It was vital therefore that on meeting him face to face for the first time, she look her best and make a lasting impression, because up to now her six-year career had slipped to being merely Keeper of the Slush Pile, and he might just be the one to help turn all that around.

  However, right now, she felt too hot, too nervous to do herself justice.

  ‘Where’s the loo?’ she asked one of the waitresses with some urgency, and within seconds was standing in an orgy of gold and granite where floor-to-ceiling mirrors had the unnerving effect of adding extra inches to her hips. She removed her black peep-toe shoes and placed them next to one of the sculpted washbasins, feeling the pleasure of cool tiles against the hot bare soles of her feet. In fact, these Manolos belonged to her best friend Anna, who’d been given them by one of her wealthy exes. Now she was settled near Lambourn with, according to her, a well-hung horse vet. Freelancing as a Sayer Price editor from home, doing all the things Lucy could only dream about . . .

  ‘They’re not called Fuck-Me shoes for nothing,’ Anna had joked, before handing them over the day before. ‘And you wear air hose with them, okay? So keep your knees together.’

  Lucy snatched a paper towel from a stone-shaped dispenser, dampening it under the tap then working it between her purple varnished toes. She recalled the moment she’d unravelled the fabulous pair from their silvery tissue-paper beds to slip them on her feet, and the word wicked had also come to mind.

  She could hear other voices now. The strains of classical music. The nerves in her stomach began to kick in. It had been a rush that afternoon, with a screen full of emails still to open and a pile of manuscripts waiting to be read, but everyone had orders to get to the Chandos on the dot of six. Benn must be kept sweet or else. There were plenty of other publishers waiting for him to slip out of Hellebore’s net.

  She re-entered the now busy room and mentally prepared herself for her encounter with the man she’d not yet met. The man who probably didn’t even know she existed. This Dorset millionaire had featured in either every Booker longlist or shortlist since 1994 and been narrowly beaten for the prize itself last October. Now Tribe was tipped to make the longlist in two months’ time. She’d read it of course, and could hold her own should he deign to speak to he
r. He certainly knew his stuff, she thought. How the other half live, or rather, survive. How one family member’s betrayal brings a lifelong fall-out. But what had puzzled her was how an archetypal Tory and ex-army major living in a part of the country where a car port would set you back a hundred grand, could write so convincingly about sink estates and the dispossessed. She’d dipped into the biography too, and been struck by his obvious devotion to a woman who now clearly needed a lot of care. Elizabeth was both his inspiration and soulmate.

  She watched the Publisher and his Sales Director hover near the door. She’d been told to ensure that Benn started signing at 6.45 after the welcoming address, and to keep a good supply of books at the ready. There’d also been the instruction not to drink too much, when a drink was what she needed most. And now the room was beginning to fill up.

  A tremor passed through her body. Why so nervous? She knew she looked good. Her thick fair hair gathered in a neat bun at the nape of her neck – the way Jon, her boyfriend, had always liked it – her black chiffon slip dress crease-free, showing off the smooth skin of her arms. The newly manicured and varnished nails . . .

  She was just wishing that Anna was here to give her some moral support when the room’s open door suddenly revealed a tall white-suited man, accompanied by a tiny grey-haired woman walking with the aid of a zimmer frame. The discreet applause became a buzz of interest as admirers and well-wishers gravitated towards them.

  She knew Benn was forty-eight and his wife ten years older, but the black-shawled figure with the strained white face looked more like his grandmother. And as for him . . . She stared hard, comparing reality with the photographs. Unsurprisingly, the photographs won, because his skin – a mix of ruddy and tan – was sun-damaged around his nose, and his hair seemed altogether more grey. He introduced his wife to the Publisher and his team, then, having snapped his fingers for the crab canapés, began feeding her as if she was still a baby.

  Lucy stared at this strange scene until those alarming blue eyes of his immediately went into roam mode as if he was out on manoeuvres somewhere. She quickly lowered her gaze when they turned her way. He was also more jowly in real life, she thought, but otherwise in good nick like a typical gym junkie; immaculately groomed with a maroon shirt tucked into an expensive-looking belt.

  Then those eyes again. On her. She looked down at her wine, embarrassed, aware of his whiteness drawing closer. When she looked up again she saw that he’d abandoned his wife to a posse of journalists and was now alongside. He took a glass of red wine from the Italian waiter’s tray and, to her surprise, clinked it against hers. He then stared down at her Hellebore ID badge pinned above her left breast as if he’d never heard of her before. As if he’d no idea she was his editor’s assistant.

  She was right. This was typical Hellebore.

  ‘Here’s to whatever it is you want, Miss Mitchell,’ he smiled. His eyes still on her breasts.

  ‘To the Booker, then,’ she replied, aware of a sudden blush hitting her cheeks. What kind of naff comment was that? she scolded herself inwardly as Nick Merrill, the Publisher, approached and pointedly ignored her.

  ‘Signing in half an hour. Will that suit you?’ he asked Benn, lifting yet another full wine glass from the proffered tray then surveying the almost full room. ‘I must say, it’s looking good.’

  ‘Sure.’ The author finished his drink in two gulps and moved in even closer towards her, his linen arm brushing her skin. Boss aftershave, she decided. The same as Merrill. Who was influencing who? she wondered, aware of Elizabeth Benn’s silvery head turned her way. However, the author’s wife was soon swamped by yet more media people. Not family, she noticed. Not a one.

  But he was asking about hers with what seemed like a genuine interest. Then he began talking shop. How Tribe’s paperback cover was proving tricky and the American market tightening. How hardbacks published in January were losers before they were even unpacked from their boxes. Nothing she didn’t already know, but that still didn’t alter her rapt focus on his every syllable.

  ‘So, how’s the new novel coming along?’ she ventured, having heard through the grapevine that Kingdom Come was almost finished and was, if anything, even better than Tribe.

  ‘Thirty chapters done so far,’ he caught his publisher’s eye and gave a quasi-military salute. ‘Should be ready by the end of this month. Would you like a sneak preview? You’d be the first.’

  But before she could reply, his hand was on her bare arm. Warm, slightly moist fingers, squeezing, relaxing in turn on her skin. The Haydn was in full swing now and when it seemed to her that the combination of talk and music had reached its climax, he took her glass from her hand, laid it on the drinks table and led her towards the door.

  This was sleep-walking all over again. Something she’d often done as a kid, especially whenever staying over in a strange house. Not only that, but she was suddenly blind, hearing not just the cello sawing out the melody as they left the reception room behind, but also her own heels mark out her walk to the lift, until muffled by its rubber-matted floor.

  What the hell was she doing? She didn’t know the man, didn’t even fancy him. And yet the flattering enticement to read his manuscript had wrong-footed her at a time when no one at Hellebore was asking her for anything more than cobbling showcards together or schlepping through the mountains of hopeful manuscripts. But why the lift? And then she twigged. This was an hotel. With bedrooms . . .

  ‘Let me out at the next floor, please,’ she said as evenly as possible, despite seeing his tanned finger press three.

  ‘This won’t take long. Just a quick skim. A few suggestions . . .’

  ‘I can’t impinge on your editor’s territory, Mr Benn. We don’t do that at Hellebore.’ She felt the lift judder to a halt and the doors slid apart to reveal a waiter poised to enter, bearing an empty tray.

  ‘Bollinger and ice for room sixteen in fifteen minutes,’ he ordered the man, guiding her out on to the dimly lit corridor. ‘After all, thirty chapters is something to celebrate.’

  ‘I want to go. Now.’

  ‘In a moment, please.’ His grip tightened. ‘You see, I’ve got a problem. Manda Jeffery’s coming from a totally different viewpoint. She’s too New World biased, whereas me, I’m . . .’

  ‘She’s done you alright up to now,’ she protested. ‘You’ve made the Booker shortlist umpteen times and now there’s Tribe . . .’

  ‘You don’t seem to understand, Miss Mitchell. I want to work with you. So, let’s go and take a look, shall we?’

  She tried to escape, to kick out with her sharp heels but his grip firmed up.

  ‘And it’s no good making a noise,’ he warned, heading for a room marked 16. ‘This place has twenty-first century sound-proofing. No one will hear you. Not even someone next door. So you see, you’d better conserve yourself.’

  Those words sent fear into every small corner of her. Her feet slipped around inside Anna’s shoes, her dress rucked up under her breasts. It no longer felt like a dress, but a trap as he pulled her towards the bedroom door. With one swift movement his key was in the lock and the door pushed open.

  Everything was white. Obscenely white, it seemed, with the blinds already drawn on the late daylight behind, the carpet, the embossed swirls which pressed into her back once he’d pushed her down on to the bedspread. His suit a malevolent spectre from which powered that reddened face and hands pushing her dress up to her chin then ripping her briefs over her shoeless feet.

  ‘I’ve got my period,’ she lied, still looking for a chance to put him off.

  ‘Liar.’ His breath rank and sour.

  She screamed as a pulpy palm swamped her mouth and then something else, forcing her lips apart. She began to retch, unable to shift his thrusting weight and for a moment he withdrew, still straddling her with his iron thighs. Still keeping control. She shut her eyes and bit her lips as he forced her legs open. She smelt latex and something else. He was big, rough. Noisy. She was just meat, a spac
e to be filled, to be devoured until his grunting climax, and when he’d finished she realised she was still alive.

  He pulled out and rolled to her left, and immediately she wriggled free, grabbed her bag, her shoes and what was left of her pants and ran towards the locked door and turned the key. In that instant she turned round and saw him advancing, zipping up his fly.

  ‘You come here.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Within three minutes, she’d reached the corridor, the empty lift, and after what seemed like an eternity, was once more outside the crowded racket of the reception where that same waiter seen earlier was on his way to the lift bearing a bottle of champagne tilting in its ice bucket. A white cloth neatly draped over his arm.

  ‘Are you alright, Signorina?’ he asked.

  How could she answer that one? Bruised and burning, she just wanted to be sick again. To vanish forever with her own private shame. For how could she tell anyone, let alone her own mother? The one person she needed right now, and with the frantic music, and Nick Merrill’s bark filling her ears, she reached the stairs then the automatic door, which sighed open, releasing her out into the hot city.

  Chapter Two

  TINA TWILIGHT

  TONIGHT! SAT. APRIL 25TH 1987, AT THE CAE IESTYN WORKING MENS’ CLUB, BRIDGE STREET, RHAYADER.

  A Cole Porter miscellany from our favourite lady of song.

  I’ve Got You Under My Skin & many, many more!

  Doors open 7p.m.

  While Lucy was back in her Tooting flat, sluicing away Benn’s legacy under her antediluvian shower, some ten hours ahead of GMT and 12,000 miles away in Sydney, former bank clerk Robert Ferris Barker clamped a nervy hand on his alarm clock the moment its wake-up call began. He’d set it for 11 p.m. the night before, knowing he wouldn’t sleep a wink with the racket going on in the unit next door. He decided it wasn’t worth having a blue over it. Not with what he’d got planned for the next 24 hours.