Days Without Number

by Robert Goddard

  ‘You can’t prove any of this,’ Nick objected.

  ‘Oh, but we can,’ said Demetrius.‘That’s the beauty of it. Your father would not have let the knowledge perish from his branch of the family. He would have passed it on to the next generation—or the one after that. He would have told one of you.’

  ‘It must be so,’ said Emily. She looked straight at Nick, something like guilt or pity darkening her face for the first time.‘One of you knows.’

  ‘But which one?’ Demetrius smirked.‘That’s the multimillion-dollar question.’

  ‘It wasn’t Andrew,’ said Emily.‘He was too keen to sell to the mythical Mr Tantris. Your sisters are ruled out for the same reason. It certainly wasn’t Tom. He’d never have gone along with my scheme if it had been. Your niece is too young. Besides, your father was a traditionalist. He believed in patrimony. The secret goes down the male line. Which leaves you and Basil as the only possible candidates. You were both lukewarm at best about the sale.’

  ‘But if it was Basil,’ said Demetrius,‘why would he come here in such evident innocence? Why would he take such a risk?’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ said Emily.

  ‘Exactly.’ Demetrius and Emily were feeding each other their lines now. They were rehearsing for Nick’s benefit a debate they had already had several times over.‘Besides, I have held a gun to the man’s head with every appearance of being willing to pull the trigger. And he has revealed nothing.’

  ‘You bastard.’ Nick stared at Demetrius, willing him to understand what he could not afford to say: that if he could ever contrive a way to strike back at him he would not hesitate.

  ‘It’s you, Nick,’ Emily said quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re the one.’

  Nick looked straight at her.‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘Won’t you tell us il segreto favoloso, Nicholas?’ Demetrius sarcastically enquired.

  ‘I don’t know it.’

  ‘You promised your full cooperation.’

  ‘And I’m telling you the truth.’

  ‘Disclose the secret and Basil goes free.’

  ‘I don’t have it to disclose.’

  ‘You have it.’

  ‘Aren’t you listening to me? / don’t know.’

  ‘We think you do.’

  ‘For God’s sake—’

  ‘You’ve had your chance.’ Demetrius took his mobile out of his pocket.

  ‘Stop!’ Nick was out of his chair, lunging towards Demetrius.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Emily was suddenly between them, her hands clasping Nick’s shoulders, her face close to his.‘It’s OK, Nick. He isn’t going to make the call.’

  Nick looked past her at Demetrius, who fixed him with his gaze and ostentatiously tossed the phone into an empty chair to his right.

  ‘No call,’ said Demetrius softly.

  ‘Sit down, Nick.’ Emily’s eyes pleaded with him to ignore the many reasons why he should not obey her.‘Please.’

  He pushed her away and stood where he was for a moment, swaying slightly. His breathing slowed. His muscles slackened. The tension eased by a degree. He sat down.

  Emily crossed to the chair where Demetrius had tossed the phone, put it on’the table next to the briefcase and sat down herself.‘Listen to me very carefully, Nick. We believe you know. But we also believe you may not know you know.’

  ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I’m talking about your breakdown and what may have caused it. I think your father told you the secret. You were the prodigy, the budding genius—the obvious choice, really. But it was too much for you, or one of several things that were too much for you. You couldn’t cope with the knowledge. You rejected it. You put it out of your mind. But the subconscious doesn’t take orders. It’s still there, locked away. All you have to do is turn the key.’

  A key did turn in his memory at her words. He stared at her as he saw himself in his mind’s eye clambering up the riverbank near Grantchester after his leap from the punt. Only he had not leapt. He had merely stepped. Into the water. Out of the world. Away, through the long grey evening, across the damp and dusky fields.‘Keep walking,’ he had muttered to himself.‘Keep moving.’ Part of him was still the fugitive he had become that day. And the same part of him still did not want to know what he was a fugitive from. Could it be true? Could she be right? Could he have known without knowing, all along?

  ‘I need to hypnotize you, Nick. Don’t worry. I know how it’s done. With your cooperation, we can unlock the memory you’ve suppressed for so long. We can learn the truth.’

  ‘They gave me hypnotherapy at the time. Nothing like what you want came out of it.’

  ‘They didn’t ask the right questions.’

  ‘Maybe not. But they told me a few things. Like probing suppressed memories under hypnosis can be dangerous.’

  ‘I’ll be careful.’

  ‘We all have to take the occasional risk,’ Demetrius remarked.

  Nick kept his eyes trained on Emily. He could not afford to get angry. Not now. Not yet.‘The patient also has to trust the hypnotist. Otherwise it doesn’t work.’

  ‘It’ll work,’ said Emily with quiet insistence.‘You just have to let me take control. This will help.’ She released the catches on the briefcase and raised the lid, swivelling the case as she did so to block Nick’s view of the contents. From inside she took a slim plastic holder, snapped it open and laid it on the table. Inside was a syringe and a small bottle of fluid.‘It’s a simple tranquillizer. It’ll take effect more quickly if I administer it intravenously. We need you to be relaxed—open to the experience.’

  ‘Full cooperation was our agreement,’ said Demetrius, drawing a glance from Emily that hinted at irritation.‘This is the only way you’re going to see your brother again.’

  ‘What guarantee do I have that I’ll see him again if I do go through with this?’

  ‘None. But killing Basil—and you, if you want to take your suspicions that far—would draw the police’s attention to the name Paleologus. And since I plan to buy Trennor from your family in order to exploit what’s hidden there, I’d be foolish to make such a connection for them. So, give me what I want and you and Basil can have a happy reunion back at the Zampogna later today. Then, in due course, you and your sisters can decide how to spend the money I’ll pay you for the house. There’ll be more than enough for you all, I assure you.’

  ‘What do you say, Nick?’ Emily’s eyes had not left him.

  Nick sighed.‘Get on with it.’

  ‘The patient has given his consent, Emily,’ said Demetrius.

  ‘Yes.’ Emily took a deep breath.‘All right. Roll up your sleeve.’

  As Nick did so, she loaded the syringe, then sat on the table and leaned forward to inject him. He looked away from the needle, his focus blurring slightly, aware of her perfume tingling in his nostrils.

  ‘OK. You can relax now.’

  He sat back, feeling certain that relaxation was, in the circumstances,- impossible.‘What if you’re wrong? What if I truly don’t know?’

  ‘I’m not wrong.’

  ‘No-one’s infallible.’

  ‘This is the answer. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Even so—’

  ‘Basil will be fine. I promise.’

  Nick chuckled, somewhat to his own surprise. It was futile to point out how little Emily’s promises were worth. The truth was that he had to hope this one was worth something. Those other players in the game you told me about. There aren’t any, are there? You arranged with Demetrius here for your father’s body to be removed from the shaft.’

  ‘We can’t have the police digging around at Trennor, Nicholas,’ said Demetrius.‘There’s no telling what they might find.’

  ‘But you sent the video to the police. You put them onto it in the first place.’

  ‘And I telephoned them after the search,’ said Emily.‘I had to keep Tom on-side. I had to make him bel
ieve we were serious.’

  ‘What did you do with the body? How did you dispose of your father, Emily?’

  ‘Cremation,’ she murmured.‘It was decently done.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  ‘Try to relax. Try not to think.’

  ‘I wish I couldn’t.’

  ‘I’m going to record what you say under hypnosis, OK? Your words might be slurred, your meaning unclear. We need to be able to go over it later.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  Emily took a pocket recorder out of the case and set it up on the edge of the table closest to Nick.‘How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Great.’ Nick had intended to be sarcastic, but actually a strange and disquieting euphoria was beginning to creep over him. The tranquillizer was taking effect more quickly than he had anticipated.‘Where does Farnsworth come into all this, by the way? Is he working for you?’

  ‘Forget Farnsworth.’

  ‘You’re getting ahead of yourself, Emily. It’s only when the patient’s in a trance that you can tell him what to forget and what to remember. It’ll be all forgetting in this case, won’t it?’

  ‘I think we’re ready. Could you close the curtains, Demetrius?’

  Demetrius stood up and walked away towards the windows. Nick heard the curtains slide across on their tracks one by one. The light dimmed. Emily took a pen-torch out of the case, laid it on the table and switched it on, with the light shining towards her. Then she switched the tape recorder on as well.

  ‘Look at the torch, Nick. And listen to me. The torch and me. Nothing else. Relax as much as you can, physically and mentally. Breathe slowly. Slow everything down. We have all the time in the world. Keep looking at the torch. Keep listening to me. Forget everything else. Let it fall away. Let it go. As you do, start counting in your mind, backwards from one hundred.’

  Nick started counting. And Emily’s voice seemed to keep pace with him, slowing as he slowed, falling almost to a murmur as the numbers wound lethargically down in his head.

  ‘Your arms are beginning to feel heavy. Your legs are beginning to feel heavy. Your eyelids are beginning to feel heavy. Relax. Give way to the drowsiness. Close your eyes. Let yourself drift away. Keep listening to me. I’m with you. Your eyes have closed now, but you’re still counting. Slowly. Very slowly. Let yourself go. Let yourself go completely.’

  Her voice was all he could hear. He realized, though it felt more as if he was remembering, that her voice was actually one of the things that had most attracted him to her, especially when, as now, she was almost whispering. There was a sibilance to it, a sussuration, like a gentle breeze in long grass. It reminded him, though this too he had not consciously thought of before, of another voice from deep in his past. It had belonged to a guide in one of the rooms at Buckland Abbey, Sir Francis Drake’s old home near Plymouth. Nick had gone there with his father during one of his summer vacations from Cambridge and been entranced, almost literally, by the woman’s particular tone and timbre. He had stood listening to her telling visitors much the same thing about the history of the house several times over. He recalled wishing that he could go on listening to her for ever.

  Something else had happened that day. There had been a painting on display—an idealized Victorian depiction of Drake’s burial at sea off the Panamanian coast in 1596. Something about the name of the Spanish settlement the ship had been lying off, mentioned on the caption, had struck Nick as eerily reminiscent of a phrase firmly lodged in his mind at the time. Nombre de Dios. That was it. That was the place. And the phrase it echoed? His Spanish had been quite good back then. Nombre de Dios. The Name of God. It resembled the Spanish rendering of another English phrase. He had said it under his breath, his father standing beside him. If he let his mind dwell on the moment, far off though it was, he would retrieve the words. He felt sure of it. There. He nearly had them. So very nearly. All he had to do—

  ‘Ten. You remember nothing except that you remember nothing. You haven’t forgotten. It simply hasn’t happened. Nine. You aren’t so deeply asleep now. Your limbs are lighter. Eight. The world is returning to you and you to it. It’s easy. It’s what you want. Seven. You are beginning to sense your surroundings, to hear other things than my voice. Six. You’re aware of yourself and where you are. Five. You feel comfortable. Refreshed. Happy. Four. You’re beginning to wake up. Light is seeping through your eyelids. Three. You’re nearly awake. You have only to open your eyes. Two. You are awake. One. You open your eyes.’

  Nick blinked and looked around. He was alone. The room was empty. There was a click as the tape recorder switched itself off. He stared at the machine, wondering how long had passed since Emily had gone, leaving him to obey her recorded instructions. She had not told him this was her intention, though perhaps another deception was only to be expected. He looked at his watch, but, since he did not know when he had entered the trance, calculating precisely how long it had lasted was impossible. Half an hour or so was his best guess, though it felt to him as if only a few minutes had passed, as if she had asked him nothing, as if she had merely hypnotized him and then immediately reversed the effect. But he knew that was not true. He knew she must have asked him many questions and he must have answered them.

  The briefcase had gone, along with the syringe and the pen-torch. Emily had gone too, along with Demetrius. The house was filled with silence. Nick could hear the sound of his own clothing sliding across his skin as he stood up. He felt slightly woozy, as if the tranquillizer was still affecting him. He looked down at the tape recorder. Emily had said she would record what he said under hypnosis. But they must have taken that tape with them. This was a different tape, recorded beforehand. Everything had been planned meticulously. And everything, apparently, had gone according to plan.

  What about Basil? The urgency of the question burst suddenly on Nick’s mind. Had he given them what they wanted? Had he done enough to save his brother? He stumbled towards the door.

  That was when he noticed the blood—irregularly spaced blotches of it across the pale carpet, bright red and recently shed, leading in a meandering arc from the table to the door. He stopped and stared for a moment, struggling to comprehend what he saw. Then he moved to the door and pulled it open. Light flooded into the room, momentarily dazzling him. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he saw a man lying on the floor about halfway along the hall, close to the wall. There was a pool of blood around him, wine-red against the polished white of the marble. A gun was cradled in the upturned palm of his right hand.

  Nick took the few steps it needed for him to see the man’s face. It was Mario. His dark shirt front was wet with blood. There was a smear of blood on the wall above him too, as if his left hand, which was splayed across his chest, had touched the wall as he fell. His mouth was open. His eyes were staring. He looked as if surprise had been the last thing his brain had registered.

  Nick looked to his left, through an open doorway, into a room kitted out as a study, with desk, bookcase, filing cabinet and computer. Something on the desk, of which he could only see one corner, caught his attention. He struggled for a few seconds to identify it. Then he realized he was looking at the fingers of a man’s hand. There was a signet-ring on the little finger, a ring Nick felt sure he had seen before.

  As he edged clear of the pool of blood and stepped cautiously into the room, recognition stirred. It was Demetrius’s ring. Nick craned round the edge of the door and saw Demetrius Constantine Paleologus lying dead across the desk, his left hand stretched out as if he had been trying to reach something. The telephone perhaps. It was upended on the floor. But the jack plug had been pulled from the wall. The howler was silent.

  Demetrius’s head was turned towards Nick, his right cheek flattened against the desk. His face was slackly twisted. There was blood beneath and around him, a dark meniscus of it pooled across the pale-brown wood. As Nick stared at the scene, a drip of Demetrius’s blood formed and fell from the rim of the desk, plopping softly on
to the carpet to join another, smaller pool, just beyond the edge of which lay a knife, its narrow blade and much of the handle red with yet more blood.

  Nick began to tremble. He licked away some sweat from his upper lip. How could so much have happened without his being aware of it? Was he still unconscious, perhaps? Was this a dream? The trance had weakened his hold on reality. And it weakened still further in the face of so much blood. Two men were dead. But where was Emily?

  He moved back into the hall, averting his gaze from Mario’s body, sprawled close by. There were drops of blood on the floor at intervals between him and the front door. He walked carefully between them, his nerves and senses straining. As he reached the door, his ears detected a sound from outside. A low, thrumbling note. He eased the handle down and edged the door open.

  The sound was louder now and more distinct. It was a car engine, in idling mode. He could smell its exhaust fumes. He peered round the edge of the door.

  A small white Fiat was parked in front of the Lancia, its bonnet pointing away from the villa, a haze of exhaust rising behind it. The driver’s door was wide open. And Emily was sitting at the wheel.

  Nick rushed out and down the steps. He rounded the car and met Emily’s gaze as she looked up at him. Her face was grey, her hair streaked with sweat. Her left hand was on the steering wheel, her right clutched to her stomach. Blood was oozing through her fingers and dripping down from the seat to the door sill and the gravel below. The briefcase lay on the passenger seat, blood smeared round its handle. A gun was wedged between the case and the back of the seat. There was blood on that too.

  ‘Hello, Nick,’ Emily murmured.‘It’s strangely good to see you.’

  ‘What happened?’ He knelt beside her.

  ‘Things didn’t quite work out.’

  ‘I’ll phone for an ambulance.’

  ‘Don’t.’ She let go of the steering wheel and clasped his arm.‘Please don’t.’