Lady of Hay: An enduring classic – gripping, atmospheric and utterly compelling. Barbara Erskine
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it out and take the blame. But not quite as bad as you seemed to think.’
‘He enjoyed it.’ Jo’s voice was full of icy condemnation. ‘He enjoyed every moment of that slaughter!’ She shuddered violently and then she leaned forward. ‘Sam. I want you to do something for me. I want you to do whatever you have to do to lift that post-hypnotic suggestion that I forget that first session in Edinburgh. I have to remember what happened!’
‘No.’ Sam shook his head slowly. ‘No. I’m sorry. I can’t do that.’
‘You can’t, or you won’t?’ Jo put down her fork with a clatter.
‘I won’t. But I probably couldn’t anyway. It would involve rehypnosis, and I’m not prepared to try and meddle with something Michael Cohen did.’
‘If you won’t, I’ll get Carl Bennet to do it.’ Jo’s eyes were fixed on his. She saw his jaw muscles tighten.
‘That wouldn’t work, Jo.’
‘It would. I’ve been reading up about hypnosis. Believe me, I haven’t been sitting around the last few days wondering what is happening to me. There are hundreds of books on the subject and –’
‘I said no, Jo.’ Sam sat back slowly, moving sideways slightly to ease his long legs under the small table. ‘Remember what I told you. You are too suggestible a subject. And don’t pretend that you are not reacting deeply again because you have proved you are. Not only under hypnosis either. It is possible that you are susceptible to delayed reaction. For instance, Nick has told me what happened at your grandmother’s house.’
Jo looked up, stunned. ‘Nick doesn’t know what happened,’ she said tightly. ‘At least –’ She stopped abruptly.
‘Supposing you tell me what you think happened.’ Sam did not look at her. He was staring at the candle flame as it flared sideways in the draught as someone stood at the next table and reached for their coat.
Jo hesitated. ‘Nothing,’ she said at last. ‘I fainted, that’s all. It had nothing to do with anything. So, are you going to help me?’
For a moment he did not answer, lost in contemplation of the candle, the shadows playing across his face. Then once more he shook his head. ‘Leave it alone, Jo,’ he said softly. ‘Otherwise you may start something you can’t finish.’
‘May I have the Maclean file, please?’ Nick’s assistant’s voice was becoming bored. ‘For Jim, if it isn’t too much trouble!’ Behind her the office door swung to and fro in the draught from the open window.
Nick focused on her suddenly. ‘Sorry, Jane. What did you say?’
‘The Maclean file, Nick. I’ll try to get Jo again, shall I?’ Jane sighed exaggeratedly. She was a tall, willowy girl whose high cheek-bones and Roedean accent were at variance with the three parallel streaks of iridescent orange, pink and green in her short cropped hair. ‘Though why we go on trying when she is obviously out, I don’t know.’
‘Don’t bother!’ Nick slammed his pen down on the desk. He bent to rummage for the file and threw it across to her. ‘Jim has remembered that I’m supposed to be going to Paris next Wednesday?’
‘He’d remembered.’ Jane put on her calming voice. It infuriated Nick.
‘Good. Then from this moment I can leave the office in your hands, can I?’
‘Why, where are you going until Wednesday?’ Jane held the file clasped to her chest like a shield.
‘Tomorrow the printers, then lunch with a friend, then I said I’d look in at Carters on my way to Hampshire.’ He smiled. ‘Then the blessed weekend. Then Monday and Tuesday I’m in Scotland.’ He closed his case with a snap and picked it up. ‘And now I’m playing hookey for the rest of the afternoon. So if anyone should want me you can tell them to try again in ten days.’
Three minutes after he had left the building the phone rang. It was Jo.
Each time Nick had phoned her, Jo had put the phone down. The last time she slammed the receiver down she switched off her typewriter and walked slowly into the bathroom. Turning on the light she gathered her long hair up from her neck and held it on top of her head, then she studied her throat. There still wasn’t a mark on it.
‘So. That proves he did not touch me!’ she said out loud. ‘If anyone really had tried to strangle me the bruises would have been there for days. It was a dream. I was delirious. I was mad! It wasn’t Nick, so why am I afraid of him?’
She walked thoughtfully through into the kitchen and poured a glass of iced tomato juice, then she went back to the typewriter. All she had to do was see him. Even his anger was better than this limbo without him, and once he was there in the flesh, and she reminded herself what he really looked like, surely this strange terror would go? The memory of those eerie, piercing eyes kept floating out of her subconscious, haunting her as she walked around the flat. And they were not even Nick’s eyes. She found she was shivering again as she stared at the half-typed sheet of paper in her machine. On impulse she leaned over and picked up the phone to dial Nick’s office.
The phone rang four times before Jane picked it up.
‘Hi, it’s Jo. Can I speak to Nick?’ Jo sipped her juice, feeling suddenly as if a great weight had been lifted off the top of her head.
‘Sorry. You’ve just missed him.’ Jane sounded a little too cheerful.
‘When will he be back?’ Jo put down her glass and began to pluck gently at the curled flex of the phone.
‘Hold on. I’ll check.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘He’ll be back on the twelfth.’
‘The twelfth,’ Jo repeated. She sat bolt upright. ‘Where has he gone?’
‘Scotland on Monday and Tuesday, then back and straight over to France on Wednesday morning for a week.’
Jo could hear the smile on Jane’s face.
‘And today and tomorrow?’ Jo could feel her voice turning prickly.
‘Out. Sorry, I don’t know where exactly.’
Jo put down the phone thoughtfully. Then she picked it up again and dialled Judy Curzon.
‘Listen, Judy, I need to see Nick. Will you give him a message please? Tell him I’m seeing Carl Bennet again tomorrow afternoon. That’s Friday – at three. Tell him I’m going to find out what really happened on Sunday, come hell or high water, and if he wants to know he’d better be there. Have you got that?’
There was a long silence on the other end. ‘I’m not a message service,’ Judy replied eventually. Her tone was frosty. ‘I don’t give a screw who you’re going to see tomorrow afternoon, and obviously Nick doesn’t either or you wouldn’t have to ring him here, would you!’
Jo sat looking at the phone for several minutes after Judy rang off, then she smiled. ‘Hoist with your own petard, Miss Clifford,’ she muttered with wry amusement. ‘You walked right into that one!’
‘Pidwch cael ofon.’ The voice spoke to Matilda again as she stood once more outside the moon-silvered walls of Abergavenny. Then it tried in words she understood. ‘Do not be afraid, my lady. I am your friend.’ His French was halting but dimly she recognised before her the dark Welsh boy who had brought her food the night before. But he was no longer afraid; it was her turn for terror.
She did not speak. She felt the hot wetness on her face and she felt him brush the tears away with a gentle hand.
‘You did not know then?’ he stammered. ‘You did not know what was planned at the feast?’
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