Midnight Is A Lonely Place Part 3

She glanced over her shoulder at the room and shivered. It had lost its appeal somehow. Her lap top computer and printer lying on the table rebuked her; the boxes of filing cards, the notebooks, the cardboard boxes full of books. She glanced at her watch. It was eight o'clock. She was hungry, she was tired and she was cold. A boiled egg, a cup of cocoa and a hot bath, if the wood-burner could be persuaded to work, and she would go to bed. Everything else could wait until morning. And daylight.

VII.

It was bitterly cold and barely light. Well wrapped up in a Shetland sweater and thick jacket with two pairs of socks inside her boots and a pair of her younger brother's gloves, Alison Lindsey stood staring at the cottage from the shelter of the trees. It was in darkness. Downstairs the curtains were drawn, but upstairs both the front windows which looked down across the garden appeared to be uncurtained. She frowned, then plucking up her courage she sprinted across the gra.s.s. Heading straight for the log shed she ducked inside and groped around in the darkness. After a second she gave an exclamation of annoyance. Her tools had been moved. She kicked crossly at the firewood and leaped back with a mixture of fright and malicious satisfaction as one of the piles began to slip. Dodging the cascading logs she watched until they had stopped moving, waiting for the noise to die away. The dust settled, but there was no sound from the cottage. *Lady Muck's asleep,' she whispered to herself and she gave a superior smile. She turned to the doorway again and then she saw her spade. It had been propped up in the corner.

Picking it up she peered out into the silent dawn. It was well before sunrise. The morning was damp and ice cold and there were still long dark shadows across the sea, stretching out into the black mist.

Running lightly she headed across the shingle and leaped down into the hollow on the seaward side of the dune. Her dune.

The tide in the night, she saw with satisfaction, had not been very high. The sea wrack on the sh.o.r.e, still wet with spume, was several feet short of her excavation and had come nowhere near the place where she was digging. Her tongue protruding slightly from between her teeth she set to, cutting the soft sand into sections and scooping it away from the side of the dune. From somewhere in the darkness along the sh.o.r.e she heard the scream of a gull.

Her hands were frozen after only a few moments in spite of the thick gloves and already her headache had come back. With an irritable sigh, she paused to rest, leaning on her spade as she blew on her wool-covered knuckles. The sand was crumbling where she had attacked it and as she watched, another section fell away by itself. With it it brought something large and curved and shiny. Throwing down the spade she bent over it and gently worked the object free of the sand. It was another section of pottery. Much larger this time. Large enough to hold the curve of the bowl or vase of which it had once formed a part. Through her gloves, as she dusted away the damp sand fragments, she could feel the engraved decoration. She stared at it for a long time, then carefully she put it to one side and attacked the sand with renewed vigour. Minutes later something else began to appear. It was thin and bent and a corroded green colour, like a rusty bit of old metal. Forgetting the pain in her temples she pulled at it in excitement. Thick as a man's thumb it was several inches long, with a rough k.n.o.b at one end. Turning it over in her hands she stared at it for a long time, then, scrambling out of the hollow of her sheltered digging place she ran over the shingle towards the sea. The shingle was wet and smelled of salt and weed, the night's harvest of sh.e.l.ls and dead crabs lying amongst the stones. Nearby she could see the gulls picking amongst them. Crouching down, her feet almost in the water, she swished the object back and forth in the edge of the tide and then she stared at it again. It was no cleaner. The greenness was a part of it. She took off her glove and ran a cautious finger over it, feeling a certain symmetrical roughness on the cold metal as though at some point in the distant past it had been carved, though now the incrustations of time and sea and sand had covered it forever.

Excited, she turned back towards the dune and stopped in her tracks. A freak gust of wind had risen. It had whipped the sand up and spun it into a vortex which danced for a moment across the beach and then dropped back to nothing. Behind her the first rim of the sun had appeared above the horizon. For a moment she hesitated, frowning. She was frightened, with the strange feeling that there was someone nearby, watching her. Shrugging, she huddled into her jacket, wedging her find into the pocket as she stared round. If there was someone there it would be a friend. Joe Farnborough from the farm, or Bill Norcross if he had decided to go for an early walk, or even Lady Muck herself or someone out walking their dog along the tide line.

Her spade was still lying where it had fallen in the sand and she took an uncertain step towards it. The skin was p.r.i.c.kling on the back of her neck. It was a strange feeling, one she couldn't remember experiencing before, but instinctively she knew what it was. She was being watched! The words of a poem flitted suddenly through her head. Her mother had read it to her once when she was very small. The blood of the small, impressionable Alison had curdled as she listened wide-eyed, and the words had stuck. It was the only poem she had ever learned.

When sunset lights are burning low, While tents are pitched and camp-fires glow, Steals o'er us, ere the stars appear, The furtive sense of Jungle Fear ...

Primitive fear. Fear of danger which you cannot see.

She licked her lips nervously. *Silly cow,' she said out loud. It was herself she meant. *Stupid nerd. Move. Now. What's the matter with you?'

The sun had risen further. A red stain began to spread into the sea and imperceptibly it grew lighter. She clenched her fists and took a step towards the spade. Her mouth had gone dry and she was shaking. With cold. Of course it was with cold. Gritting her teeth she jumped back into the hollow and grabbed the spade, holding it in front of her with two hands. The wind had begun to blow again and it lifted the skirt of her jacket, billowing it around her, whipping her hair into her eyes. The dust was spinning again, rising near her feet. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrist. The sand was lifting, condensing. Almost it was the shape of a human figure.

Slowly she backed away from the dune and, scrambling out of the hollow, she began to move towards the cottage. Seconds later she broke into a run. Hurtling across the lawn she dived down the side of the building, threw the spade into the shed and pelted down the track towards the trees.

In the dune the piece of red-glazed pottery lay forgotten, covered already by a new scattering of sand.

VIII.

Kate lay for a moment disorientated, staring up at the heavily-beamed ceiling, wondering where she was. Her dream had been so vivid, so threatening. Huddling down into a tight ball under the bedclothes she tried to piece it together, to remember what had been so frightening, but already she was having difficulty recalling the details and at last with some relief she gave up the attempt and, sitting up, she gazed around the unfamiliar room. It was ice cold. A diffuse grey light like no light she had seen before filtered in from between the undrawn curtains. It was eerie; luminous. Dragging the quilt around her she climbed out of bed and going to the east-facing window, she peered out. The sea was slate black, shadowed with mist and above it a low sun hung like a dark crimson ball shedding no reflection and little light. It was a cold, unenticing scene without perspective. She shivered and turned back into the room. Gathering up her clothes she ran down the stairs on ice cold feet and looked into the living room. There the curtains were still closed. After drawing them back she opened the doors of the woodburner and stared at it, depressed. The fire was out and the metal cold.

*Sod it!' She looked down at the single log. It was barely scorched from last night's paper blaze. To light it she would need firelighters, twigs, more paper ...

Of course there would be no hot water either. Shivering, she abandoned the idea of washing and pulled on a pair of jeans. Thick socks and a heavy sweater and she was ready to forage once more in the log shed.

The outside world was bitterly cold. The garden a no more than a piece of rough turf and a couple of small bare flower beds a appeared to surround the cottage in a small compact circle; beyond it in the cold early-morning light the gra.s.s grew wilder and more lumpy and matted before almost at once giving way to the dunes and shingle banks which backed the sea.

As she stepped out of the front door a movement at the side of the cottage caught her eye and she stopped, astonished to find that her heart was beating faster than normal again. The fear in her dream was still with her and the silence and emptiness of the woods unnerved her. Forcing herself to walk outside she peered around and realised, relieved, that what she had seen was a rabbit. Three rabbits. They all straightened for a moment as she appeared, their ears upright, their eyes bulging with terror and then they bounded back into the trees. She smiled, amused and not a little embarra.s.sed by her own fear. She was going to have to take herself in hand.

In the doorway of the shed she stopped. The spade was lying across the threshold. Stooping she picked it up. There were clods of wet muddy sand attached to the shoulders of the blade. Someone had used that spade recently a certainly since she had come out to the shed last night. She surveyed the woods but as far as she could see they were silent and still. Even the rabbits had gone.

Shrugging her shoulders, she gathered up another armful of logs and, this time spotting the pile of neatly stacked kindling in the corner of the shed, filled her pockets with twigs and small slivers of wood to help light the fire.

Hot coffee and a blazing furnace in the woodburner did much to restore her optimism as did the discovery that there was an electric immersion heater in a cupboard in the bathroom as a backup to the more esoteric uncertainties of hot water from logs. She ate a bowl of cereal and then set about unpacking in earnest.

Several times as she glanced through the windows she noticed that the day was clearing. The mist was thinning and the sun had gained a little in strength. By the time her bags and boxes were empty and she was storing them in the spare bedroom, the sea was a brilliant blue to match the sky.

Turning from the curtainless window her eye was caught by a stack of canva.s.ses behind the door which she hadn't noticed earlier. They stood, face to the wall, in a patch of deep shadow. Curious, she turned one towards her. The painting was of the sea a a strangely surrealist, nightmare sea. With a grimace she pulled out another canvas. It repeated the theme as did the next and the next. Then came two more, scenes of the cottage itself, one in the autumn where a bland chocolate-box house was surrounded by a curtain of flame, the other a representation of the house as it would look beneath the nightmare sea. She stared at the latter for a long time and then with a shudder she stacked it back against the wall. They were all painted by the same hand, and a hand which commanded a great deal of talent and power, but she did not like them. They were cruel; twisted in their conception.

Closing the door with a shiver she ran down the stairs and back into the sun-filled living room where her books and papers were laid out on the table ready to start work. Putting the paintings firmly out of her mind she stood looking down at the table.

The book was there, in her head, ready to start and it was going to be even better than Jane. Kate smiled as she pulled her notepad towards her and switched on her word processor.

The knock on the front door two hours later took her by surprise. She had completely forgotten Bill.

*Hi!' He grinned at her as she led the way into the living room. *How are you? Ready for lunch?'

She stared at him, miles away, reluctant to lose the mood, aching to go on writing.

Bill was watching her. *Penny for them,' he said softly. *You didn't hear a word I said, did you? I've b.o.o.bed. I've intruded on the writer with her muse.'

*Oh, Bill, I'm sorry. Of course I heard you.' Kate dragged herself back to the present and gave herself a little shake. *Blow the muse; she can go back in her box for a few hours. And yes, that's a super idea. I'd love lunch.'

The walk through the wood was thoroughly enjoyable and eagerly she looked around, noting the crisp air, the soft muddy track, the whispering fragrant pines, the winter-dead oak, and birch and hazel bright with young catkins, as she plodded beside him, her hands in her pockets, throwing off her preoccupation with the background of the poet's father, mad Jack Byron, in order to recount her adventures of the night before.

*That's typical of Greg, I'm afraid, not to tell you about the fire or leave you any logs,' Bill said, shaking his head. *There's a petty streak to him. He's angry about having to give up the cottage for you.' He kicked out at a rotten branch which lay half across the track.

*I didn't realise he lived there.'

*Oh yes. Greg is a brilliant painter. He dropped out of university about six years ago, halfway through getting a Fine Art degree, came home here and more or less squatted. That was before Roger had to give up work a I don't know if you realise, but he's got cancer.' He paused for a moment. *Anyway, the Lindseys indulged Greg disgracefully, there is no other word for it, and I think Roger gave him some sort of allowance, but when he had to stop work himself there were a few heavy hints that Greg might get off his backside and get a job to help the family coffers. He was impervious to them all, I gather. He has lofty views on the sacredness of talent and the fact that the rest of the world owes him a living so he can indulge that talent. Poor Diana, I don't know how she's coped until now. The idea of renting the cottage did not go down well with old Leonardo, as you can imagine. I gather he was dragged out kicking and screaming. So, don't take his animosity personally. But don't expect him to come calling with bunches of flowers either.'

Kate frowned. *You might have told me all this before, Bill.'

*Why? Would you have changed your mind about coming?'

She shook her head. *No, but it explains a lot.' She paused. *I found some paintings in the bedroom. He must have forgotten them.'

*I doubt it. If he left them there, he left them there for a reason. Which means he wanted you to see them.' Bill glanced at her. *His paintings are pretty grim, to my mind.'

She nodded. *I didn't like them. There was one which showed the cottage under the sea. It was a' she hesitated, trying to find the right word *a morbid a threatening.'

*Take no notice. We'll ask Diana to take them away.'

*It seems wimpish to make a fuss.'

*Not at all. You're as much of an artist as he is, remember. A better one, because you are disciplined. And you are ent.i.tled to feel as sensitive and touchy as he is.' He grinned. *Are you feeling sensitive and touchy?'

*Not in the least. Hungry covers it rather better.'

*Good. In that case, let's find your car and go eat.'

The farmhouse was empty. After a cursory glance through the windows to convince themselves that there really was no one at home they turned their attention to the barn. Kate's Peugeot was there, neatly parked next to an old Volvo estate.

*Diana's,' Bill said. *They can't have gone far if they are all packed into that fiendish Land Rover, not if they value their teeth.'

By the time they had reached the end of the track and gained the metalled road, Kate was beginning to think he was right a and that perhaps when her next royalty cheque came she should sacrifice a few teeth in the interest of her car's springs and buy an ancient four-wheel drive of her own for the duration of her stay.

They ordered curry at The Black Swan, a delightful long, low, pink-painted pub a mile or two from the lane, and sat down pleasantly near to a huge inglenook fireplace with a gentle smouldering log which filled the room with the scent of spicy apple. Save for the smiling pink-cheeked girl behind the bar they were the only people there. *So. Are you going to like it at Redall?' Bill sat down on the high backed settle, and sticking his legs out towards the fire he gave a great sigh of contentment. He raised his pint gla.s.s and drank deeply and appreciatively.

Kate nodded. *It's the perfect place to work.'

*The loneliness doesn't worry you?'

She shook her head. *I must say it was a bit quiet last night. Just the sea. But I'll get used to it. It will be wonderful for writing.' Picking up her own gla.s.s a she had opted for a Scotch and water a she looked at Bill for a moment. In a thick brown cable-knit sweater and open-necked shirt he reminded her faintly of a rumpled sheepdog. *Did you speak to Jon at all before he left, Bill?'

He glanced at her over the rim of his gla.s.s. *Only once. He rang to ask me if I knew where you were going.'

*Did you tell him?' She looked away, not wanting him to see how much she wanted him to say yes.

*No.' There was a thoughtful pause as he sipped his lager. *We had a few words on various themes related to male chauvinism a his a and misplaced chivalry a mine a and professional jealousy a all of us a and at that point I told him to b.u.g.g.e.r off to America and let you get on with your life. Did I do wrong?'

*No.' She didn't sound very certain.

She was thinking of their last meeting. Jon had been about to leave for the airport. The taxi was at the door, his cases stacked nearby and she, not wanting to say goodbye, not wanting to see him again before he went in case her resolution wavered, had arrived back at the flat thinking he had already gone. For a moment she had been tempted to turn and run a but he had seen her and they were after all both grownups. For a moment they had looked at each other, then she had smiled and reached up to kiss him on the cheek. *Take care. Have a wonderful time. I hope it's all a great success.' For a moment she had thought he would turn away without a word. Then he had smiled at her awkwardly. *You take care too, Kate, my love. Don't get too wrapped up in old George. And remember to look after yourself.' They were both hurting; miserable; stiff-necked. And that was it. Picking up his cases he had walked out to the cab and climbed in without a word or a backward glance. There was no way that she could know that there were tears in his eyes.

*I had an Irish grandmother, Kate,' Bill said after a moment's sympathetic silence. *She was always full of useful aphorisms. One of her favourites was: "if it is meant to be it will be." I think it just about fits the case.'

Kate laughed. *You're right. We need a break from each other at the moment.' She glanced up as a waitress appeared with their knives and forks, wrapped in sugar-pink napkins, a huge bowl of mango chutney and large pepper and salt sellers contrived to look like a pair of old boots. *But if he phones again, perhaps you might tell him where I am this time.' She caught Bill's eye and they both smiled comfortably.

*Is there a woman in your life, Bill?' She hadn't meant it to come out quite so baldly as she sought for a change of subject, but he didn't seem put out.

*Only Aunty Beeb at the moment a the G.o.ddess I work for. There was one once, but she b.u.g.g.e.red off too.' He paused reflectively, taking another deep drink from his gla.s.s. *You are not offering, I take it. Flattered and tempted though I would be by such a possibility, I think it would be bad for both of us.'

*I'm not offering. But I need a friend. Someone who will walk through the woods now and then and drag me to a pub for a curry.'

*Done. But not alas for a while after today. I've got a tight schedule until Christmas.'

She was astonished at how devastated she felt at his words. She had known he was going back to London and yet somehow she had counted on him being there again next weekend.

*Want another Scotch?' He had been watching her face closely and saw something of the loneliness which had shown in her eyes for a moment.

She nodded and held out her gla.s.s. *Then we can drink to Lord Byron. By the time I see you again, he will be, with a lot of luck, several chapters long.'

After dropping Bill at Colchester station she took the opportunity to drive on into the town, curious about the place which would be her nearest large centre for the next few months. Pevsner, in the edition of the book she had briefly consulted in the London Library, had waxed lyrical about it, but nineteen-sixties red-brick shopping centres now seemed to vie with nineteen-eighties gla.s.s and concrete where much of what he had described must have been. Saddened, she turned her attention at last to the castle museum.

The huge squat building was shadowed already from the late afternoon sun as she made her way across the bridge and inside the great door to buy her ticket. The place was strangely empty. In the distance she could hear the disembodied, dramatic voice of a video loop a the sound effects and urgency of the narrative strangely out of place amongst the gla.s.s cases beneath the high-beamed roof of the castle. She walked slowly around the ground floor exhibits gazing at Bronze Age and Iron Age artefacts, gradually growing closer to the sound.

For several minutes she stood watching the video a which told of the Romans in Colchester a then turning away, she began slowly to climb the stairs. At the top were Roman exhibits, life-size models, colourful, larger than life panoramic pictures on the walls, and then another video enactment, this time of Boudicca's attack and the sack of the town.

Poor Boudicca. Kate wandered round slowly studying the exhibits, piecing together her life: the wife of Prasutagus; her children; the political background of first-century Britain; her husband's death; the rape of her daughters and her humiliation as she was flogged by a Roman a the final insult after years of unrest and dissatisfaction in a country under foreign occupation, which caused the revolt which had nearly ended the Roman occupation of Britain. What a story her life made. Suddenly Kate found herself watching the video with heightened excitement. What a biography it would make; what a book, when George Byron was finished ... The burning of Colchester, the rampage of Boudicca's forces across Ess.e.x and Hertfordshire as they made their way towards London, and the final hours when she realised that all had failed and she took her own life. And Colchester was the centre of it all a a city where the flames had burned so hot that nearly two thousand years later a layer of blackened death was still clearly visible in the foundations of the town.

She watched the video through twice, alone in the darkened booth a seeing the huge sketched shapes of the warriors, hearing their shouts and screams, then she stood up and left, intensely aware suddenly of the vaults far beneath the castle which were all that remained apparently of the Temple of Claudius a the temple Boudicca had burned to the ground with most of the population of the town inside it.

She recognised this feeling: the tight, bone-tingling, breathless excitement as ideas jostled in her head, and under her breath she swore. She had had this feeling before, after she finished Jane; not until she had finished Jane. To get it now, while she was still at the beginning of Lord of Darkness meant she was going to suffer months if not years of suppressed, hidden frustration and worry in case someone else had the idea first; in case her publisher didn't like the idea; in case the idea took root in her sleep and developed and began to encroach on the work in progress.

Shaking her head in a small gesture of irritation she moved on past the exhibits. How could a woman a any woman a however hurt and humiliated, order the slaughter of other women, of children, of babies? What kind of person was she, this remote queen who offered human sacrifice to her G.o.ds before going to war?

She stopped abruptly. She was standing in front of a statue of a Roman citizen and her eye had been caught by the name. Frowning, she read the inscription: *MARCUS SEVERUS SECUNDUS, one of the very few recorded survivors of the Boudiccan ma.s.sacre. Instrumental in the rebuilding of Colchester after its sack in A.D. 60, he died full of years and honour and was buried next to his wife Augusta in the year A.D. 72. Their graves were excavated in 1986. See exhibit in case 14.'

So this was Redall's former owner. She stared hard at the stone face of Marcus with his patrician nose, slightly chipped, his warrior stance, the carefully sculpted folds of his toga and she wondered what kind of a man he had been. He had been one of those who had survived the ma.s.sacre and returned to pick up the threads of his life. She felt another sudden frisson of excitement. Had he seen Boudicca? Could he have described the warrior queen of the Iceni with her flowing red hair and her ma.s.sy torcs, her body armour and her war chariot?

She jumped suddenly as a disembodied voice, echoing around the castle, announced that the museum would soon be closing and she gave Marcus a last regretful glance. But not too regretful. She had the feeling she would be coming back to see him again.

IX.

The youngest son of the late King, he had stood head and shoulders above his brothers and he knew he had been the favourite. His love of learning, his memory, his wit had marked him out as a child for study and initiation. His priesthood gave him power. His royal blood marked him for destiny. That was why he had been given lands and authority, and why he was trusted as advisor at Camelodunum to the Roman settlers, even though his brothers led revolt in the west. He wore Roman clothes; he spoke their language; he a.s.similated their learning and their ways. And he had fallen in love with one of their women. But he hated them and he bided his time.

He frowned when he saw the detested overlords raising their temple in the heart of Camelodunum: a temple to Claudius; a temple to a man who had declared himself a G.o.d. But he kept his views silent. One day the time would come, one day the Romans would be expelled from the land of his ancestors. When that day came, he would kill Claudia's husband and he would take her back to his hall. But until then, ever the diplomat, he would smile.

His duties as druid were light. He was royal, rich, in love. The G.o.ds would understand. He would serve them in due time when the bluebells had faded and the blood ran more slowly in his veins.

The old priests disapproved. They frowned and shook their heads first at him, then at the signs from the G.o.ds; the G.o.ds who despised the Romans who would venerate a man and make him one of them.

He did not know that the G.o.ds, too, were growing angry.

It was almost dark as Kate drove down the track and into the barn and parked her car next to Diana's Volvo once more. The farmhouse, she had noticed at once and with a strange sense of loss, was in complete darkness. She had not realised until that moment how much she had been counting on being asked in to sit by their cosy fire and have a cup of tea before she set out on the walk through the wood to her cottage.

On the drive back she had found a farm shop open where she had managed to buy some bread and milk, crumbly local cheese and Ess.e.x honey and, to her great delight, some firelighters and matches.

Hefting her plastic carrier over her shoulder she was already on the track when she stopped. The torch was still in the car. Turning back she pulled open the barn door once more and, unlocking the Peugeot she rummaged in the glove compartment. The torch was there, and a experimentally she flashed it up into the high rafters a it worked. Comforted, she locked up again and set off at a determined pace into the woods.

The track ran straight for a few hundred yards and then curved eastwards, narrowing until there was only room for the rutted marks of the Land Rover's wheels. Her feet slipped and she found she needed the torch to see where to put them in the mud. The evening was very still. There was no wind and the trees were silent. In the distance she heard the warbling call of a curlew from the marshes. The sound echoed in the falling darkness and was answered by the shriek of an owl. She clutched her bag more tightly, her eyes riveted to the track.