by Kim Wilkins
For Elaine and Stella:
angels earthly and heavenly
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Christina Rossetti
The dead have exhausted their power of deceiving.
Horace Walpole
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Epigraph
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
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By Kim Wilkins
Copyright
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
SEPTEMBER
The smell of decay and the cold caress of a shadow, and the old woman knew how this would end. After all, she had read the story. She had never been afraid of crossing over: death was life’s last great adventure, and at eighty-three years of age she’d be foolish to harbour fears still. But could she make the crossing if she died like this?
She gasped for air, her heart thudding in her chest. Bang, bang, bang. Her joints, worn and stiff with years, could not hold out for much longer. The ground was uneven and rough beneath her bare feet, her toes were frozen, her thick dress only dulled the edge of the biting autumn wind. The bells on the church were ringing Sunday night’s service out. If she left the world now, then nobody could stop him. Nobody would know.
“Please,” the old woman cried, panting, hands on her knees, running no more. Her back curved over, open to attack. “Please.” She didn’t know why she was saying please. Please meant nothing. Especially not to this kind of being. She tried to gather herself, but the agony of ripped flesh raced up her back in one hard, hot stroke. Dark arms enveloped her, choking her. Her blood felt hot as it ran over her legs. She did not struggle, using her energy instead to project herself out of her body as she had done so many times in her practice. Don’t feel the pain. Die quietly, peacefully. Don’t look at it.
But curiosity was burning in her. The ache of ruptured skin pulled her back and kept her pinned inside. Stiff, hard fingers crushed into each arm, turning her around. She dropped her head, closed her eyes. Felt life ebbing from her. Go across, Sybill, she told herself. Jump the chasm. Don’t look at it. Don’t die in fear. Resist, resist. Slowly she lifted her head, opening her eyes.
Her scream could be heard as far away as Solgreve Abbey.
In a warm dark bedroom, oceans away, the old woman’s granddaughter awoke with a sense of dread, billowing nausea churning deep in her stomach. She barely made it to the bathroom in time. Fifteen minutes of violent retching mercifully blurred the memory of the dream. All she could recall later, in the solicitous light of dawn, was that she had touched a nightmare, and that the nightmare had somehow reached out to touch her in return.
CHAPTER ONE
On the first Thursday in November, Maisie Fielding watched as her boyfriend murdered a woman in a fit of jealous passion, but her mind was elsewhere. Verdi’s score rolled on around her, Desdemona – a chunky soprano at least fifteen years older than her leading man – died with all due drama, and the audience gradually fell in love with the handsome young tenor who had only been Otello’s understudy until three o’clock that afternoon. It was the biggest break of Adrian’s career, but Maisie was preoccupied with her lie.
And it was a big lie. It involved imaginary consultations with imaginary doctors, feigned tears and feigned winces of pain, and a reluctant acceptance of the fictional diagnosis – three months’ break from playing the cello, for fear of permanent injury. Her mother had pressed her perfectly formed pianist’s hand to her perfectly glossy black hair – still not a streak of grey – and moaned, yes, moaned, in distress. Your career, Maisie, your future.
But damn it, she had been in an arranged marriage with the cello since she was four. It was time for a trial separation.
She glanced over at her mother who sat next to her, eyes soft with tears of pride. She loved Adrian. Everybody loved Adrian, he was eminently lovable. It was entirely her mother’s own fault that she got lies instead of the truth. There was no question of Maisie approaching her and confessing that she needed a break from the orchestra, to try something different, to be someone different. Nobody ever argued with Janet Fielding, or at least, nobody ever won.
As if she knew her daughter was thinking of her, Janet reached out and touched Maisie’s right hand, the injured hand. Her caress was gentle, almost reverent. Maisie realised she would never know for sure if the touch was meant for her, or just for the body part. She turned her hand over and squeezed her mother’s in return. Everybody on stage was soon dead or lamenting a death, and the final curtain fell to rapturous applause.
“I think Adrian’s going to be a star,” Janet said, raising her voice over the din.
Maisie smiled. “He always has been. Now everybody else will know.”
They met Adrian, wig-free and scrubbed of his make-up, one hour later at a cafe on Boundary Street. In the meantime, while they waited, Maisie had carefully steered conversation away from the lie, encouraging her mother instead to reminisce over a bottomless pot of Earl Grey tea. Past glory was always a favourite topic of conversation for Janet Fielding.
When Adrian walked into the room, blond hair glinting like a halo, everyone – men and women – looked up and appraised him. He had that kind of presence, and Maisie wondered for the zillionth time what he had ever seen in a neurotic, black-haired, black-eyed girl with bitten fingernails and too-straight eyebrows. She hoped it wasn’t just her pedigree – Maisie’s mother had been a renowned concert pianist before her surprise pregnancy at forty-two. Her father was a conductor with an international reputation. He had rarely been at home through most of her childhood. Now nearly seventy and semi-retired, Roland Fielding was the one who had introduced Maisie to Adrian four years ago.
Janet took up nearly half in hour in euphoric praise of Adrian’s performance, and all the while he sat there beaming with the kind of self-pleasure which borders on vanity. But finally, as Maisie knew it would, the conversation turned elsewhere.
“I expect you haven’t heard Maisie’s bad news yet,” Janet said, her mouth turning down in faint disapproval.
“Maisie?” Adrian turned to her with steady grey eyes.
“Ah…yes. The final specialist’s report came back this afternoon. I have to take a break, at least three months.”
Adrian nodded his understanding. “I tho
ught a break might be the best way to handle your condition.” He knew the truth, of course. He knew that Maisie’s condition was not about ligaments or muscles or carpal tunnels. Instead, it was about a vague but all-encompassing dissatisfaction with her life, a non-specific longing which started way down in her toes and tickled like spider’s feet in her solar plexus.
Janet shook her head. “I’ve been playing piano for more than fifty years, and I’ve never had to take a break.”
“Not everybody is built the same way,” Adrian replied gently.
“What will you do with your time, Maisie?” her mother asked. “Adrian will be touring over Christmas, and at summer school for most of January. I hope you aren’t going to mope about at home while I’m trying to teach.”
Maisie weighed up how to word her answer. However she said it, it was going to hurt Janet. Sometimes Maisie felt her circumstances had too quickly slipped from possibilities into inevitabilities. She had never made a conscious choice to be a musician; her parents being who they were, it was expected she would learn music, but she had never displayed her father’s brilliance or her mother’s fiery genius. Just a clear-eyed grasp of the skill, an aptitude that was little more than intellectual, probably little more than genetic. Increasingly, she had begun to wonder if there was something else out there for her, something for which she would feel the pangs of obsession that Adrian said he felt for his work. To sort it out properly she needed space, air, perspective, none of which she could find in her parents’ sterile house during the endless subtropical summer. She cleared her throat, ventured a few words: “I thought I might go on a little trip away.”
“Where?”
Adrian squeezed her hand under the table. The two of them had already had this conversation in private.
“I thought I might go look up my grandmother.”
“Grandma Fielding? She’s ninety-five and practically –”
“No. Not Dad’s mother. Your mother. In Yorkshire.”
Silence. Janet pushed her lips together.
“Mum?” Maisie asked.
Janet shook her head. “Are you trying to upset me? Is that why you’re doing this?”
“But Mum…I’ve never met her. You and Dad never talk about her.”
“For a reason, Maisie.”
“What reason?”
Janet picked up a spoon and stirred her half-finished tea vigorously. “She’s a crazy old…she’s mad. She could even be dangerous.”
“I’m sure she’s not. It would be perfect, Mum. To stay with her out on some windswept moor while I recover.”
“Forget it.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
Janet fixed her with an icy glare. “But you do need her address. You don’t even know her name.”
Maisie feigned indifference as a ward against her mother’s temper. “Whatever. Just think about it.”
“I don’t need to think about it.”
“Sleep on it. Please.” She looked around. The waitress was stacking chairs on top of tables. “I think they’re about to close. We should go.”
“I’ll get the bill,” Adrian volunteered. Maisie watched him move up to the counter then turned to look expectantly at her mother.
“The answer is no,” Janet said.
And so the first battle began.
Maisie booked a flight first thing Monday morning.
“She’s going to go nuts,” Adrian said as Maisie threw the airline ticket on the bed between them with a flourish. They lived together in a downstairs bedroom in Maisie’s parents’ house, a little cramped and cluttered, but it had its own ensuite bathroom and a separate entrance. Sometimes they could almost pretend they lived alone.
“She hasn’t objected to me going to England, just going to Yorkshire. In fact, she’s hardly spoken two words to me since Thursday night. I guess she thinks if she doesn’t get into a conversation with me I can’t bring it up again.”
“Do you even know where your grandmother lives? How are you going to find her?”
“I know this much. She lives near the seaside and her surname is probably Hartley – that’s Mum’s maiden name. I’ll find her if it takes me all summer.”
“Winter. It’s winter over there don’t forget. You’ll freeze.”
“It’s better than waiting here all alone while you gallivant around the country being an opera star.” Maisie fell back amongst the pillows. “I’m looking forward to it. Like an adventure.”
“Like finding a needle in a haystack.” Adrian lay beside her. “I’ll miss you.”
“You would have hardly seen me anyway.”
“It’s the distance. You’ll be on the other side of the world.”
Maisie shrugged. “We should get used to it. When my adventure is over I guess I’ll have to go back to playing in the orchestra, and you’ll be off all over the world without me.” She groaned and covered her eyes. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about having to go back to the orchestra.”
“You’re crazy. I can’t imagine a better job.”
Maisie laughed. “God, you sound just like her. There’s a whole world out there, Adrian. There are millions of people who don’t even know there’s more than one Bach.” She uncovered her eyes and looked up at him. “Do you think my mother dyes her hair?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“There’s not a glimmer of grey and she says she doesn’t dye it.”
“Perhaps it’s natural.”
“She’s such an enigma. She’s so full of secrets.” Maisie rolled over and picked up her airline ticket. “This time she’s not going to win. I’m going to find my grandmother.”
Reverend Linden Fowler felt the cold more than most people. His bony body needed to be wrapped in four or five layers before he would venture into the church office most mornings, and even then he had to turn the radiator up to full and drink two hot cups of tea before he could think clearly enough to work. November was the worst time of the year with winter approaching and a wind which seemed to come direct from the Arctic roaring off the sea. As he walked the narrow path between his house and the church every morning in the chill air, he dreamed of tropical climes and sunny skies. He had no choice, however, but to remain here on the north Yorkshire coast. Solgreve’s tiny community needed him; it was a matter of Faith.
Reverend Fowler was surprised on this morning to find Tony Blake, the stout village constable, waiting in his office. Rather than his uniform, the constable was wearing denim pants and a musty woollen pullover. The Reverend noted that he looked rather more stupid and slack-jawed without his crisp black and a badge to impress.
“Good morning, Reverend,” Tony said with a dip of his head.
“Tony. Is there some problem?” He went to the radiator and turned the dial up to the last notch, then hung his scarf and hat on a hook by the old bookcase.
“Could be. I saw a man snooping around Sybill Hartley’s cottage yesterday. Asked him what his business was, and he told me he’s a solicitor. Works on behalf of Mrs Hartley’s inheritors.”
“She had family?”
“In Australia, Reverend.”
Reverend Fowler released his trapped breath. “Oh. Well, that’s a long way off. Perhaps they’re just finding out how much it’s worth. If we’re lucky they’ll order the old place knocked down.” He shook his head. “The last thing we need in Solgreve is new people, Tony.”
“You don’t need to tell me that.”
“Did you get this solicitor’s name?”
“I got his business card.” Tony handed over a white square of card. The solicitor’s name was Perry Daniels and he kept offices in York.
“Awful warm in here, Reverend,” Tony said.
The Reverend waved a hand in dismissal. “I’ll take care of this. Keep an eye on the place, won’t you?”
“Of course. Of course I will.”
Tony closed the door quietly behind him as he left. The Reverend paced his office, studying the
card. It was a habit of his to pace, and the beige carpet was worn in a path from door to bookcase. His office was not lush and tidy. Rather, the furniture was built of that chunky amber-toned wood that was popular in the sixties, his desk scarred and ink-stained, the curtains and other fittings a sickly olive green. He came to rest near the window, looking out over the vast expanse of Solgreve cemetery, the sea a grey-blue streak beyond it under a slate sky. No, he wouldn’t call Perry Daniels in York. It would only make the solicitor curious, and curiosity was best deflected away from Solgreve. The cottage was old and rundown, and the chances were that the solicitor was inspecting it merely to estimate the property’s value. Who would come to a remote, freezing village like Solgreve and want to live in a centuries-old stone house with a sagging roof and rising damp? He was quite sure Solgreve would remain safe from the eyes of the world.
Adrian was halfway up the stairs, under orders from Maisie to get tea for them both, when he heard Janet and Roland Fielding engaged in heated discussion in the lounge room above him. This was one of the hazards of living with his girlfriend’s parents: the unbearable discomfort of witnessing the occasional family argument. He was about to turn and go back to their room when he realised they were talking about Maisie’s trip. Guiltily, he paused to listen.
“We can’t stop her going, Janet,” Roland was saying. “She’s a grown woman and she can go on a holiday to England if she wants.”
“But we can’t let her go up to Yorkshire.”
“I think you’re being foolish. What your mother did was no great sin.”
“Not once, Roland, but twice. Twice they caught her.”
“She was old and bewildered. Perhaps even senile.”
“Never. Not my mother. You forget that I know her. I know about her foolish ideas, and I know about her stupid obsessions. And you, no matter how lapsed a Catholic you claim to be, you ought to be appalled at the idea of your daughter being part of that world.”
There was a short silence. Possibilities started to race through Adrian’s mind. Was Maisie’s grandmother some kind of criminal?
