THE APOTHECARY’S DAUGHTER an absolutely gripping crime thriller that will take your breath away

by Jane Adams

  Hope’s father said that the thought was like to the deed and Hope knew that she had thought wistfully about the things Kitty had described. That she had wanted to wear her garland home for everyone to see and not have to creep inside the house with Mim’s collusion and hide it swiftly, wrapped in an old shawl and pushed to the furthest corner of her bedroom cupboard.

  Hope was afraid. She wasn’t certain if she feared her parents’ displeasure more than that of God, in fact she had trouble sometimes distinguishing the two, but she knew that she was afraid and badly in need of comfort.

  She thought of creeping from the house and going to find Kitty, but at this hour of the night everyone would be in bed and Kitty would be sleeping.

  Had Samuel still been home she might have confided in him. But Samuel was far away with their cousins in Devon and Hope had no idea of when she might see him again. She missed him terribly. Without Samuel in the house she felt so utterly alone.

  Silently, Hope crept from her bed and cast a shawl around her shoulders. The house was in darkness and there were no sounds except for the slight creaking of settling timbers and the light wind outside.

  She felt her way down the stairs and into her father’s study. On a table beside the window stood the large, leather bound Bible that Edward Randall read to his family twice each day and used most often to preach to his flock on the Sunday. It was a King James translation, written in the common tongue, something Edward Randall heartily approved. He kept a Latin copy on the bookshelf near to his desk and often pored over both, comparing the translation, making certain that he should not be found wanting when he delivered God’s word.

  Hope had great respect for her father’s faith. It would be so much simpler, she thought, if she could have a fuller share in it.

  A candle stood beside the Bible and Hope lit it with the tinder box and flint, then she closed her eyes and opened the book, allowing her finger to run down the page as Kitty had done until she felt it right to stop.

  ‘As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Hope turned guiltily to face her father. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘I thought, if I came down and read awhile . . .’

  He crossed the room to where she stood and looked down at the page she had been reading. ‘I heard you come down,’ he said. ‘I, too, found it hard to rest tonight.’

  ‘I should go back to bed now, I suppose.’

  ‘In a moment.’ He sat down in the chair behind his desk and motioned his hand towards her. ‘Read it,’ he said. ‘The passage you were studying.’

  Her heart pounding, Hope began to sound the words. She was still not fluent, though most of them now came easily enough. She was reading Ecclesiastes, she realized, by chance, or God’s will, one of her father’s favourite books. He listened with closed eyes to her halting rendition, then held up his hand for her to cease.

  ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters,’ he said softly. ‘I often wonder what bread we really cast and what will return to us after the many days.’

  ‘Father?’

  He shook his head. ‘Do not trouble yourself. Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning my thoughts wander most unprofitably. Did you find comfort in the holy words?’

  Hope nodded. ‘Yes, Father,’ she told him, glad to be able to do so honestly and grateful of whatever chance had brought her to read from that page.

  ‘The voice of God can always be relied upon to comfort. Go to bed now and try to sleep.’

  She curtsied and took her leave, grateful that at least there were some things upon which her father and Kitty seemed to agree.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  When Ray arrived home that evening Sarah was already there, having let herself in with the spare key he’d given her. She had some information for him. It had been faxed through from the Leicester records office.

  ‘Excavations,’ she said. ‘I thought about what we were saying and wondered if there’d been anything dug up that might be relevant.’

  ‘And is there?’

  ‘Just maybe. This is from a local history magazine. A couple of the groups put them out.’ She pointed out one of the articles. ‘It was what’s called rescue archaeology,’ she said. ‘There’s a car park there now and shops, but a group went in and dug what they could before the developers took over.’

  Ray read the article. An outline of a building had been found and fragments of seventeenth-century grenades. From the little written evidence they had, and the objects found, it was speculated that the building had been some kind of overspill prison and that the prisoners had been employed in the making of grenades.

  ‘No bones though?’ Ray felt vaguely disappointed.

  ‘Well, no, but they’ve been able to match the building to documentary evidence. It’s possible Kitty might have been held there.’ She frowned. ‘Isn’t there a bit in Jordan’s diaries about her being taken to court in a wagon?’

  ‘Um, yes, I think so.’

  ‘That would fit. If she’d been held at the castle, where the assizes would have taken place, then she wouldn’t have needed transporting. The cells are underground there.’

  ‘OK, so Kitty was imprisoned at this place. There’s no evidence that she died there.’

  ‘Well, no,’ Sarah admitted. ‘But it’s the best bit of evidence we’ve got so far.’

  ‘You’ve a lot to learn about evidence. I’d call it conclusion jumping.’

  ‘Well, whatever. Lord, don’t you nit-pick? Read the bit over the page. There was a prison breakout, two men and a woman escaped after one of the grenades went up and blew a bit of the wall down. Apparently, they even found powder marks on some of the bricks.’

  Ray scanned the report, but was less than convinced. ‘I’d love to think that the woman was Kitty,’ he said. ‘But it’s not enough, Sarah. And I don’t see that excavating the site of somewhere she might possibly have been imprisoned could have started these appearances. Even if it had, wouldn’t she be more likely to haunt this bloody car park rather than come all the way back to the cottage?’

  Sarah shrugged. ‘Given the choice I know where I’d rather be,’ she said. ‘And the timing fits. I asked for reports from about three years ago. I don’t know, maybe they unearthed something personal to her, I could try to get a list of finds from the site.’

  ‘Do that if it’s not too much trouble. Where would she have been executed anyway?’

  ‘Could have been one of two places. Maybe outside the castle, close to St Mary de Castro church, but more likely on what’s now Gallowtree gate, close to the Angel Gateway.’

  ‘Angel what?’

  Sarah laughed. ‘It’s a rather scruffy little alleyway running from Gallowtree gate through to the marketplace. The name always intrigued me. When I was a kid someone told me that the gallows stood in front of the Angel Gateway and if the hangman got it wrong and executed an innocent person, God’s angel waited at the entrance to take their soul to heaven. It was the kind of stuff I loved when I was a little kid.’

  Ray grinned. ‘A kind of divine insurance policy?’

  ‘I guess so. It’s a nice story though, don’t you think?’ She swept the faxes aside and sat down at the table. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘how was your day out in the real world?’

  He told her about his visit to Helen Jones and what she had said about Halshaw.

  ‘And you never suspected Halshaw of anything underhand?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I didn’t work that closely with him as a rule. There were rumours, but there were always rumours about a successful officer and Guy did nothing to quash them. I think he liked the image, you know, being a bit of a fly boy. To be honest, Sarah, most of the time I got on with my job and let the rest wash over me. I saw a lot of people mangled by the rumour machine. Saw a lot more who lived for the work and couldn’t see life outside of it. For
them every little titbit was precious. Not that I had much of a social life either.’ He laughed. ‘I used to go home and listen to my music or watch bad cop shows on TV.’

  ‘Were you . . . are you a good policeman?’

  ‘Right the first time. I was, I got results, and I jumped through the promotion hoops because it’s what Anne always wanted.’

  ‘Anne?’

  ‘My ex-wife. It’s daft, I know, but Anne was ambitious for me. “Take your sergeant’s exam,” she said, and I took it to keep the peace. “Put in for a transfer to CID,” she said, and I did it. Actually, it was a good move for me. She wanted to be married to a DCI at the very least.’ He grinned. ‘I almost made it.’

  ‘But I thought you parted years ago?’

  ‘We did, ten — no, closer to twelve — but the habit was ingrained by then. I went through the motions because it seemed easier. You could almost say I was a copper by default, I couldn’t think what else to do with my life.’

  Sarah snorted rudely. ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Believe it, there’s a lot of truth in it. Oh, I cared about the job, cared about the people. You get to meet someone like Helen Jones and you remind yourself why you took the job on in the first place. But I wasn’t like Halshaw. I might not have had much of a life outside of work but work wasn’t my life. It was for Halshaw. It defined who he was and, stress or no stress, I’m sure what George said was right, I can’t see him retired willingly.’

  They went to bed early, leaving the lights out and the curtains open to let in the blanched gleam of a fat full moon. Their love making was gentle, a little clumsy, neither being quite back in practice. After all this time of being alone, Ray couldn’t believe how lucky his life had become. It scared him.

  * * *

  Kitty often did not sleep well. This night she had drifted into a restless doze and finally into dreams. In her dream, the man she had seen in her room knelt on the bed beside her. He lay down, pulling her to him and holding her tightly, his hands stroking the length of her body and his voice soft as he spoke words she could only half understand but which were full of his love for her.

  Kitty turned onto her back and looked up into his face. He bent to kiss her, his mouth gentle on hers and so familiar, though no one had ever kissed her that way. She wanted the dream to go on and on and when his hand moved to touch her breast she reached out for him wanting to be held so tightly it would be as if he could never let her go.

  No man had ever touched her as this man did and no man had ever seen her naked, but she was naked now. Her nightdress gone and the covers on the bed pulled back. And Kitty wanted him. Wanted him so badly that it hurt. Wanted the hands that touched her so intimately, caressing her breasts, moving across her belly, resting so lightly between her legs to go on touching and caressing. For him to go on loving her and wipe away all of the loneliness and pain.

  * * *

  In his dreams, Ray touched the woman he was growing to love. He tangled his fingers in the thick red hair and held her face while he kissed her mouth with a passion that made him clumsy and unsure. He felt her arms around him, the length of her body, cool and smooth against his own and the warm scent of her skin. Ray felt that he could never be close enough to her. Even inside her it still wasn’t enough. The need to possess, to become a part of this woman, was just so strong it frightened him even while it filled him with elation.

  * * *

  It hurt when he made love to her, she was so tense and scared though she could not have borne it if he’d sensed her fear and stopped. And then it didn’t hurt any more. He held her, telling her how beautiful she was and how perfect and all the words that she had dreamed a man might say to her and that could be real only in a dream and then, suddenly, he was gone. All taken away so abruptly that the emptiness he left behind was worse than any pain that she had ever known.

  Kitty awoke, her body soaked with sweat and her heart racing. Her nightdress lay on the floor and the covers on the bed were pulled back and, although it was far from her time of the month, her thighs were smeared with her own blood.

  * * *

  Ray dozed and woke in the early hours of the morning. A strange scent filled the room, like garden flowers and cool damp air. It clung to the woman who lay, breathing softly beside him.

  And it was all wrong.

  Ray propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over to look at Sarah’s face but it was Kitty who lay beside him, the unmarked side of her face pale in the moonlight and her dark hair loose around her.

  Ray cried out in shock. Was out of bed and backed against the wall when Sarah herself appeared at the bedroom door.

  ‘Ray? What’s wrong?’

  He was now more outraged than scared. He pointed at the place where Kitty had lain. ‘She was here,’ he told Sarah. ‘In my bloody bed.’

  Sarah switched on the light and pulled back the covers. The scent of roses and lavender rose up to meet her.

  Part IV

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Tuesday morning found Ray decidedly unsettled. They had finally slept again, making up the bed in the guest room. Neither prepared to go back to sleep in Kitty’s room.

  At breakfast Ray was quiet and disturbed and Sarah uncertain as to how to approach the subject of Kitty’s appearance at so private a moment.

  ‘You all right?’ she asked finally when the silence had become as close to uncomfortable as their relationship had ever got.

  Ray sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized. ‘But I don’t know what to think. It was so damn vivid. I could touch her, her skin was warm and . . .’ He gave up, not willing to admit to Sarah just how real the dream, or whatever it was, had been. His feelings for Sarah were so strong and so certain, or had been until he had held Kitty in his arms. Suddenly, his emotional world was in turmoil.

  Sarah reached across the table and took his hand. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she told him. ‘I didn’t see what you saw, or feel whatever it was you felt, but I know it was . . . well . . . real, what happened. Her perfume, if that’s what it was . . . and did you feel how cold the room got?’ She broke off. ‘Look, I have to go. I need to change before I turn up for work. Sure you’ll be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I might give George a call, see how things are going on his end.’

  ‘Do that.’ She grinned. ‘At least we know what we’re dealing with on that front.’

  Sarah left and Ray mooched about unsure what to do with himself. He had planned to go to the records office later but wanted to speak to George Mahoney first. It was ten before he could catch him.

  ‘I’ve got Halshaw’s address for you,’ George said.

  He dictated slowly while Ray wrote it down. His hands were stiff this morning and the pen felt awkward in his fingers.

  ‘I’ve been talking to some people,’ George said. ‘They say we should leave well alone.’

  ‘Who?’ Ray wanted to know.

  ‘You know better than that. Look, the bottom line is that Halshaw got himself in too deep. A deal was struck, high level, it resulted in a major drugs ring being smashed and some of the main dealers put inside. Others turned informant and their families have been given protection, new identities.’

  ‘Very FBI.’

  ‘It happens here, too. You know that as well as I do. Look, we’re talking international, not some local bust, however impressive. Halshaw seems to have landed himself right in it. Planted evidence. The ironic thing is, he didn’t need to, it was already there, but he was seen and the case against one of the main dealers almost collapsed because of it. Three years of planning nearly went down the toilet because of one overzealous copper. Halshaw’s lucky he kept his retirement package.’

  Ray absorbed the news. ‘But what does that have to do with us?’ he asked. ‘It explains Halshaw, but it gets us no nearer to what I want to know — who attacked me and why. Was Guy Halshaw implicated in that and what the hell had Frank Jones to do with any of it? We may have been warned off one w
ay, George, but someone else wants me involved or they wouldn’t have sent me that clipping.’

  ‘And that worries me. You were happy to leave well alone before. You’d have slipped into early retirement and not left a ripple. Now you’re all set to make waves.’

  ‘George, I know that tone, you want to get to the bottom of this as much as I do. I want to know who sent it and what they want from me.’

  * * *

  Thoughtfully, Ray replaced the receiver and stood at the foot of the stairs looking up towards the door at the top. He climbed the stairs reluctantly and went into Kitty’s room. His room now, he reminded himself sternly. Ray stood for a moment in the doorway before sitting down on the edge of the bed.

  Bending towards the pillow he could still catch the faint scent of lavender and roses. Kitty’s perfume. And, if he closed his eyes, he could still see in every detail the face of the woman who had lain beside him. Could taste her skin and feel the warmth of her body. Could feel it so strongly that his own body began to respond.

  Angrily, Ray snapped his eyes open and pushed himself off the bed, promising himself that he would sleep only in the spare room from now on.

  There was something else he had not told Sarah. Had no intention of telling her. He had pulled on a bathrobe while they had been making the bed in the spare room and it was only afterwards, when he had gone to the bathroom, that Ray had realized he had drying blood smeared on his own skin.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Ray had always found motorway driving tedious, but it was the quickest way to get to see Guy Halshaw. He had thought of phoning ahead, if Halshaw was away the whole exercise could be a tiresome wild goose chase. In the end he had decided to risk it without giving him notice, feeling he’d rather Halshaw be unprepared.

  He had spent the previous night at Sarah’s house, hoping to be away from hauntings for once and forcing himself to put the events of the night before firmly out of his mind. Even so, he had awoken with Kitty’s scent in his nostrils and suffered from a moment of panic before realizing that it was only the perfumed oil that Sarah had put into her bath, the smell drifting in when she opened the bedroom door. The feelings he had experienced for Kitty still took some getting used to. He kept reminding himself that Kitty was someone who had been part of another world. Sarah was here and now and he was profoundly grateful for that.