Realm of Darkness

by C F Dunn

  “He’s gone!” I cried, nearly colliding with Matthew as he saw for himself. He swore under his breath.

  “Wait here!”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Wait until I get back; don’t move.” He left before I could insist on an answer. Moments later, the sound of his car speeding down the drive filled the room. Then silence, and nothing more than the ticking of the clock, the passing of time.

  CHAPTER

  30

  A Matter of Time

  It must have been later than I thought. Dawn crept through sheets of cloud pressing in on all sides as it smothered life from the dry land. It would be hotter than the day before.

  The clock claimed five. Six. I showered and changed, but Matthew still hadn’t returned. The initial shock abated, leaving me as arid as the earth. I had eaten and drunk little since the day before and, after a night without sleep when my whole world seemed on the brink of collapse, I began to tremble, and then to shake.

  Low blood sugar. I reached into my desk drawer for chocolate and only then noticed something missing: the forbidden photograph of our wedding.

  I checked the drawers, the floor, and then Matthew’s desk, and saw the empty space where something once stood. It was gone. The tiny photograph in a new silver frame of him with Ellen on their wedding day – the one he had always kept in his wallet, the one I insisted he keep now because it represented part of his life and an element of him he shouldn’t forget – was gone. He’d put it away? I wrenched open the drawers one by one. I slid the chair away from the desk. I checked under the cushion. Nothing.

  Primary evidence.

  I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed the keys from the hall table and ran to my car.

  The day choked. The yellow haze from the previous evening had thickened into a suffocating membrane between earth and sky through which I drove, tearing the heart from the engine. The campus was stirring, but not yet awake.

  “Ma’am!” I almost ran into the security guard as he blocked my path. “Professor D’Eresby, ma’am!”

  I had seen him around; I didn’t know his name but he seemed to know mine. “What is it? I’m in a hurry.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t let you on campus – the Dean’s orders.”

  “What do you mean? I work here.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but the Dean has told me to accompany you from the premises. I’m sorry.”

  So soon.

  I dodged past him. “I’ll be back in a minute.” The path rang hard under my feet, the air heavy in my lungs. His shouts faded as the distance grew and the library came into view, rising like thunder.

  Sanctuary.

  A pause to catch my breath, then I ran to the lifts and sank down through the heart of the building to the secure door. The numbers. The code. The key. “Come on, come on!” and the swift sweet air escaping as the door released. I halted in front of the racks and my heart stopped with me. The box hadn’t moved, but the paper had gone. On the floor by the toe of my shoe lay a tiny white scrap, invalidated by its position. Checking the box became mere formality: where the journal had once lain was now a brazen void.

  “No!” The empty room echoed. Why did I leave it to chance? Whatever I had done, Matthew didn’t deserve this. Shoving myself from the racks, I forced leaden legs to move towards the door.

  The guard waited by the main entrance to the library looking sweaty. “Professor…”

  “It’s OK, I’m leaving. You can tell the Dean I won’t bother him any more.”

  Guy had the journal.

  I was fairly sure that last night he had had nothing more than fragments of evidence against Matthew, too disparate to draw any real conclusion, but today he possessed the journal and it would be only a matter of time before he read it. And he had the photographs.

  Time. A matter of time. My watch said seven-twenty. Guy would be in his hotel in town. I could make it there before he left. I could get there and confront him and retrieve the journal and the photographs before… before what? Who was I kidding? Could I really stroll in there and ask him for them? Hey, Guy, you seem to have some items that don’t belong to you. Please may I have them back? He would smell a rat even if he hadn’t done so last night. And where there were rats, there would be sewage, and Guy had always been good at sniffing it out.

  What then? I couldn’t kill him; the moment of blind fury had passed and that only left desperation. But desperation wasn’t enough to fuel murder – because that is what it would be. Matthew knew what it would do to me, how it would corrupt and eat away at me until I could no longer look at myself and I would turn away from all that I loved, and be lost. That he had been willing to do so haunted every minute that had since passed. What was more, I had no idea where he was now.

  I used the back roads to avoid the worst of the morning traffic over the main bridge into town. Even at this early hour, heat rose in torrid waves from the mirrored surface until mirage merged with memory and I drove on silvered glass. I’d driven through this part of town only a couple of times before, but faintly recalled where I could find Guy’s hotel.

  Except for the odd suited executive, the modern foyer was all but empty.

  “Dr Hilliard,” I said to the reception clerk in a voice that meant business.

  “Is he expecting you, ma’am?”

  I considered lying, then found a better way. “Please tell him Dr Lynes is here.”

  Guy opened the door, his expression changing from languid anticipation to curious satisfaction when he saw me. The room behind him seemed vacant. No Matthew. “Dr Lynes, is it, today? I would say this is a pleasant surprise but I’m short of time. What do you want, Emma?”

  “You have something that belongs to me.”

  “Can’t it wait un…”

  “No,” I blocked.

  He shrugged. “In that case, you’d better come in.” Leaving the door open for me to follow, he went over to a glass-topped table sitting in front of the window letting in feeble day, and held up a coffee jug. “Want one?” I didn’t answer and he poured himself a cup. Next to the tray with the partial remains of breakfast and a knife smeared in butter, lay a pad of paper and a pen, and beside that, the journal. It was open, and he’d used a napkin to mark the page. How far had he read?

  “I would offer you breakfast but that might give the staff the wrong idea, and I wouldn’t want Ellie thinking I’ve screwed her aunt – again.”

  I kept my eyes from drifting towards the journal and marking my desire, and fixed them on his face. “I want the photographs.”

  He viewed me speculatively. “I expect you do. Did your husband send you? Didn’t have the balls to get them himself, or doesn’t he know they’re gone?” The insulated coffee jug chinged noisily as he set it down. He picked up the two photographs from where they lay side-by-side as if he had been comparing them. He’d taken them from their frames. I held out my hand.

  “You know, I find it curious that you haven’t asked me why I took them.” He flipped one against his thumb and then squinted at it. “These two men are extraordinarily alike. Ellie said Matthew takes after his grandfather, but they could be the same man. It even looks as if it’s the same signet ring. Impossible to tell, I expect, as this picture is so small, and perhaps he inherited it – you never know.” He smiled briefly at my frozen expression. “You look shocked, Emma, but you must have seen the similarity yourself. When I first met Matthew, do you know who he reminded me of? Of course you do – your grandfather – it’s that signature hair. I’d know it anywhere. It always struck me how similar it was to the young man in the Lynes memorial window at the Old Manor – you know which one I mean, don’t you? The one old Joan Seaton said you fainted beneath when you saw it for the first time. That puzzled me. You – faint? Reminded you of your grandpa, did it? Or of Matthew?”

  He wandered over to the window and seemed to be deliberating. I took the opportunity to inch closer to the table. His edgy scrawl covered the lined pad; he’d been making notes
. Dates and names jumped out, sending spirals of jangled alarm. I could take the journal and run. I was smaller than him, but faster, and I had fear at my tail. I could be out of the hotel in less than the time it would take for him to call security. But he stood too close. I opted to bluff it out until I found a clearer way.

  “This is all very interesting, Guy, but I never took you for a fantasist, although Grandpa did write something about you…”

  He swung round; I’d touched a raw nerve. “What did he say?”

  I decided against finishing the sentence. “It doesn’t matter; it’s all in the past. I’m going to be late. I want my photographs, and I want them now.”

  For a long moment I thought it had worked, but I was a fool to think he’d give up that easily.

  “I think I’ll hang on to these for a bit – as a memento. Then, perhaps when Ellie and I are settled…” He smiled. “Or perhaps not.” He picked up the leather portfolio lying on a nearby chair, slipping them in.

  It was now or never. The instant his back was turned I snatched the journal from the table. Too late. His hand slammed down on mine, pinning it against the journal until I let go or risk him breaking my fingers. Picking it up, he held the volume in front of my face like an allegation as I nursed my already bruised hand. “This is what you came for, isn’t it? This is what it’s all about. The damn journal you harked on about as an undergrad.” I tried to grab it from him but he lifted it higher. “Your grandfather wouldn’t tell me his source material, tight sod, but it was this, wasn’t it? He said he’d only a portion of it, that the rest was elsewhere, but he wouldn’t tell me – he’d only ever entrust it to his beloved little Pipkin.” His face contorted, grinding out my pet name like an insult. “Do you know how I knew I would find it here? Because it was the only reason I could see why you’d come to this forsaken pit of a college – for this tedious…” he slapped the fragile book against his hand, “… crap.”

  “Give it to me, Guy! You’ll damage it!”

  “You want this? Then you’re going to have to do something for me in return.”

  I let my arm drop, taking a step away from him. “What?”

  “What do you think? I said we have unfinished business, Emma.”

  I always knew him to be self-centred – it gave him the edge in his ruthless pursuit of knowledge – but I had also imagined that somewhere, somehow, there might be a decent core to the man that conscience would one day prick and reveal.

  “What about Ellie?”

  But I was wrong. He seemed surprised at the mention of her name, as if he had forgotten she existed.

  “What about her?”

  What remorseless conceit. I could see nothing of the man I had been attracted to as a girl. What I admired turned out to be no more than his single-minded narcissism.

  “Not even after what you did to your wife and children did I imagine you could be so callous. I was a fool to think there is any semblance of decency in you. All that talk of forgiveness, Guy, was a smokescreen. I don’t understand how I could have been taken in by you so easily. I should have trusted my instincts.”

  He moved closer until I could smell the soap on his skin and the taint of coffee on his breath. Close, too close, and too physical a presence to ignore.

  “Because you saw what you wanted to see. Because you are as ambitious as I am. You’re greedy for the truth, Emma; it’s what drives you – your lust, your insatiable desire for knowledge – at any cost. We are kindred spirits…”

  I turned my face away in disgust. “We are not! I am not.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Why indeed? What did I think I could achieve? He held the journal just out of reach, holding my life in his hand as surely as he held the secret to Matthew’s past. He had only to open the diary and read on and the final disparate pieces would be drawn together. In that book lay all the evidence he needed for the fissure to become a fault through which our lives would fall.

  “Just give me the journal, Guy – please. It’s my research; it’s what I came for.”

  “Is it? Are you sure about that?” I recognized the look in his eyes. His voice thickened. “What’s it worth, Emma? What are you willing to give in exchange?”

  Lumpen distaste lodged in my throat. I shuddered. “I have nothing to give.”

  His eyes slid over my body. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I’m married and you’re engaged to my niece.”

  He brought the journal within tantalizing reach, and with each breath, I inhaled its age like incense, its secrets bittersweet and lethal, leather-coated suicide.

  “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  I hung my head, frantically trying to find a way out but discovering every path barred. He took it as rejection. He didn’t appear surprised and only mildly disappointed.

  “In that case, if you’re not interested you leave me no option.” Discarding the napkin, he opened the journal. “Now, where was I? It takes a bit of getting used to even for me. Richardson’s style hardly makes for scintillating reading. Ah, yes, late June 1643 and it seems things between the Lynes brothers have become a bit tense, but – what’s this? The young master is at hand. I wonder what happens next…?”

  “All right,” I snapped. “You win.”

  Game, set, and match. He closed the journal and placed it on the table where my eyes followed it. “With a little more grace, if you would, Emma; you don’t sound as if your heart is in it.”

  I glared at him. “I said, I will sleep with you if you give me the journal. What more do you want?”

  “Sleep? I didn’t say anything about sleep.” A taunt in every movement, he started to unbutton his shirt. My mind racing, I couldn’t think straight. His shirt fell open; I looked away. He reached for me. “Well?”

  “Later, Guy. After the conference.”

  He moved closer, close enough to feel the heat of his body. A crack of thunder tore the brooding sky. “No, Emma – now.”

  Eking out time, I slowly started to undo the buttons on my blouse. His eyes pursued the stumbling movements of my fingers and his breathing shortened. He used to relish this moment, when fabric fell from my body revealing golden skin, but each time had been a new violation, hoping that one day it would feel like love.

  Guy moistened his lips. “You never know, you might even enjoy it like old times, perhaps.”

  Like old times? Sex with Guy had been like cardboard – flat, grey, and dry. It was all I had known until I encountered Matthew’s passionate tenderness and understood what had been missing. Had Guy’s ego been so inflated he never realized? His shirt came off and he started to unbuckle his belt. Nausea rose in my gullet.

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Don’t be long,” he called after me. “We have to go soon. I don’t want to miss my lecture.”

  A single window let thuggish light into the small bathroom. Outside it began to rain – thick and engorged with heat. There was no wind, and humidity bloated the space between each drop. I was buying time, but for what? Postponing the inevitable? Did he honestly believe that I could want sex with him? After all that had passed between us, could he be so delusional? He had said last night that he seduced me in vengeance, but I felt certain it wasn’t the whole truth. I closed my eyes and forced myself back in time, remembering his face and the wretched despair in his eyes as he lay in the hospital bed following his suicide attempt. He had said many things last night, and I believed he thought they were true, but time and bitterness had warped his perspective and I remembered otherwise. That might be so, but of what use was it to me now?

  The extractor fan whirred overhead and I ran a basin of cold water as I tried to get things straight in my mind, but water could not alleviate lack of sleep. He couldn’t possibly find me desirable in this state, but what had desire to do with power and control? Sex with him would be a betrayal of my marriage and all that had come between us in the first place, and I had no intention of giving him what he wan
ted. He would make it public knowledge because he could, and I doubted he would relinquish the journal, for the simple reason that I wanted it so much. There had to be another way.

  Buy me time, Matthew had said. I found my mobile in my handbag and, smothering its telltale voice, switched it on. The text took only moments to send.

  “You took your time.”

  I made myself look at him lying still partially clothed on the bed, and dawdled, putting my bag on the glass table, bumping against the breakfast plate and making the knife sing. I reached out to still it, my fingers lingering on its cold blade. Even through the expanse of the window, dull daylight struggled into the room.

  “I’ve been thinking.” I sat on the bed closer than he expected, tracking the quilted lines on the bedspread within inches of his thigh. “After the conference we could leave, go away – together.”

  He hadn’t expected that. “What about your husband?” he asked guardedly. Moving closer, I pulled a pillow towards me. It felt cool against my hot skin. I leant on one elbow, letting my hair unfurl and lie in copper scrolls against the rich green fabric of the quilt. He reached out and touched it. I had his full attention.

  “I’ve got what I want out of him. If I divorce him, I’ll have all the money we need. He’s loaded.”

  Threading his hand through my hair, his frown gave way to a mystified smile. “You little witch – you do intrigue me. I didn’t think you had it in you. What’s changed your mind?”

  I ran my tongue over dry lips. “You reminded me of what it used to be like between us.”

  Tugging my head back, he exposed my throat to his mouth, slipping his other hand down my blouse. “You’d better show me.”

  Pulling away, I gritted my teeth and formed a smile. “Later. We don’t have time now.”

  He pushed me back onto the bed. “I’ll take something on account as a token of your… intent. It won’t take long.”