Changeling

by Sarah Rayne

  Nothing. Rain-slicked crags, the narrow, winding track, blades of grass caught and frozen in the beam of light. And then – oh God, yes, the house was there after all. Flynn stared up at it, for several seconds almost forgetting the creeping footsteps. The house rose up out of the swirling mists, black and forbidding, as much a part of the craggy cliffs as if it had simply grown there of its own accord. It was not quite large enough to seriously audition for the nightmare mansion of legend, but it would certainly never be cast as the woodcutter’s cottage either. He swung the torch in the opposite direction, scanning the darkness.

  Flynn shouted, ‘If you’re out there, show yourself, and let’s fight this out!’ and heard his words bounce off the rocks.

  ‘Damn you, come out into the light! Or do you have to cower in the shadows all the time?’ This time his words were snatched away by the wind and flung into the dark wastes beyond the cliff road. Nothing stirred and Flynn waited, his heart racing. He’s out there, he thought, furiously. Damn it, I know he’s out there!

  And then rearing up from the darkness appeared the figure he had been waiting for. The pitiful, macabre being who had prowled the Harlequin, and who had held a portion of Soho’s denizens in his power. Cauldron’s composer, if Flynn’s guess was correct; Tod Miller’s killer almost certainly; surely James Roscius’s never-acknowledged son, hidden away out here for God-alone knew how many years, until his mind had warped and his soul had become helplessly embittered.

  The dark cloak billowed out as he came forward, giving him the semblance of a monstrous black bat. Hands, curving into murderous claws, reached for Flynn’s throat, and the very force of the onslaught knocked Flynn backwards onto the ground. Flynn swore and lashed out and felt again the frailty-over-steel of his assailant. As he struggled to lift his right hand, to bring the torch smashing down on the other’s skull, Christian forced him back onto the ground, and taking Flynn’s head between both hands, knocked it hard against the rocky path.

  Flynn’s world exploded in a cascade of spiralling stars and jagged lights, and the dark night spun away as he tumbled down into unconsciousness.

  If Christian had left it another day he would not have met Flynn on the dark cliffside, and he would have had to create another opportunity. But he had not left it another day; he had acted immediately on the buskers’ information, and no opportunity had needed creating.

  He had telephoned to the Royal George Hotel in Galway that morning, using a call box on the main Galway road so that the call could not be traced, and asking if Mr Flynn Deverill was still staying there. He had sounded friendly and ordinary, and the hotel receptionist had said, Oh now what a pity, Mr Deverill had left only that morning.

  ‘Damn, I was afraid I’d missed him. I wonder if he’s on his way here – did he mention where he was going?’

  The receptionist thought Mr Deverill had not precisely done that, but he had certainly asked which direction to take for Moher. ‘And it’s barely an hour since he set off.’

  Christian said, lightly, ‘Oh, then I know where he’s going. I can reach him there. Thank you very much indeed.’

  It had been an ordinary and normal telephone call; the kind that the receptionist would not think twice about, and would probably not even remember.

  But it had told Christian what he wanted to know: Flynn was coming out to Maise. He was walking straight into the trap. Christian waited until night fell; taking Fael’s supper up to her, and then going quietly down to the old hut on the edge of Maise’s land, that had been built by his father as a hide for the many bird-watchers who had once come out here.

  The hide smelt of the night and of the old, damp timbers, but Christian barely noticed it. He half-closed his eyes and clenched his fists, because he must remain in control, he must not let the dark inner creature take over before he had Flynn in his power.

  It was possible that Flynn would wait until morning and daylight, but Christian thought Flynn would come tonight. He dragged the large boulder across the mouth of Maise’s private road, positioning it carefully. If Flynn was driving, there was a good chance that he would run straight into it in the dark and damage his car, forcing him to get out. Even if he spotted it, he would not be able to drive round it; he would have to get out and move it. That was what Christian wanted; he wanted Flynn alone and vulnerable in the dark.

  He was aware that he was shivering violently, but he knew it was not from the cold. His mind was singing with hatred of Flynn, and the thought of rendering him senseless, of dragging him up to Maise and down to the subterranean room with the ancient disused well, was like a thrumming electrical current through his whole body.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Cauldron company arrived in Ireland in untidy little clusters of threes and fours, variously by plane, ferry, road and train, depending on their personal inclinations and who was paying the travelling expenses. Most of them looked at the Gallery Theatre with dismay, and all of them regarded Julius Sherry with disbelief when he said it was nowhere near as bad as when he had first seen it. Wonders, said Sir Julius firmly, had been performed.

  What had actually been performed was a compromise between Julius and Gerald Makepiece, resulting in some hasty, if rather makeshift, repairs. ‘Cosmetic work,’ the cheerful, erratic builders from Galway had called it, and said weren’t they only papering over cracks, but in the end even Sir Julius had been forced to admit that the old place was looking a bit healthier. It was still a pity about the rampant rising damp and the Victorian flavour of the dressing rooms and backstage lavatories, and complete re-wiring would certainly have made everyone on the lighting deck feel a lot more comfortable, not to say safer, but at least the front of house area was freshly painted, and sections of new carpet had been laid. It was amazing what good carpeting did for a place. New washbasins had been fitted in the cloakrooms for the audience and the graffiti painted over, and the moss on the theatre’s exterior had been removed by pressurised water jets. Gerald said hopefully that it quite spruced the whole area up, but Sir Julius was still annoyed with Gerald for opposing him, refused to be mollified, and said once a slum always a slum and the entire surroundings were a pustule on the face of the Irish countryside.

  The compromise had meant that the work had partly been funded after a few persuasive telephone calls to people of authority and several expansive lunches for a few more people of generous inclination, and partly with the aid of a further investment by Gerald himself. Simkins of the bank had written a number of increasingly gloomy letters, advising Gerald strongly against throwing good money after bad, and prophesying ruination and bankruptcy, but Gerald, with a weak man’s obstinacy, said he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.

  ‘Turkey,’ said Sir Julius, sepulchrally.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The correct theatrical expression for a flop is a turkey.’

  ‘This isn’t going to be a flop.’

  But even with the repairs and the carpets and new paintwork, and even with the re-gilding of the once-famous stair in the main foyer, the prospect of staging Cauldron in such surroundings, and attracting enough audiences to balance the books, was formidable. Julius had arranged for a series of very carefully-worded press releases to appear before the opening, and there was to be an on-stage party after the first performance, to which local dignitaries were being invited. Simkins, getting wind of this in London, sent off another flurry of letters, warning that this would cost the earth because everyone knew that the Irish drank like fiends, and he hoped nobody would expect the wine merchants to be paid by the company.

  Gilly, seeing the Gallery shortly after her arrival, thought it was the atmosphere as much as the theatre’s actual condition. She thought you might renovate the place to within an inch of its life and the depressing aura would remain. It was as dismal as anything she had ever encountered, even in her worst days, even when she had been living in that dreadful squat near Mornington Crescent. Danilo thought the atmosphere was actually worse tha
n the squat, which was where he and Gilly had met, although he admitted this might simply be because there was so much more of the Gallery than there had been of the Mornington Crescent house.

  ‘And if we don’t all fall through the stage it’ll be by the grace of some saint or other,’ said Danilo, surveying the place on the first afternoon.

  ‘Is there a theatre saint?’

  ‘I don’t think so. There’s always Jude.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Patron saint of lost causes,’ said Danilo, gloomily.

  ‘Oh. Well listen, will all this rot and mildew and whatnot make it any easier for us to keep a look-out for – you know, him?’ It seemed absurdly melodramatic to use the Shadow’s title; Gilly was annoyed to find that she flinched from it.

  ‘I don’t see why it should make any difference one way or another. How long do you suppose it will be before he finds out where we are?’

  ‘Flynn thought he would come out here as soon as he knew,’ said Gilly. ‘It was in one or two of the papers in England. But it wasn’t banner headlines; it was only a small paragraph and it laid more stress on the murders than anything else. He might easily have missed it; I nearly missed it myself.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Danilo, after a moment, ‘I think I’m going to walk round the auditorium and the backstage area every night after rehearsals finish. And before every performance once the run starts.’

  ‘What do we do if we find he’s here? Prowling about?’

  ‘I think,’ said Danilo, after a moment, ‘that first off we tell Julius Sherry and Stephen we’ve seen an intruder. We needn’t tell them the whole story – at least, not yet. It sounds too far-fetched for words still. But at least the police could be tipped to keep a look-out. What do they call the police out here? Gardai, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re being very – very rigorous about it,’ said Gilly, curiously.

  Danilo paused, and then said softly, ‘Yes, I am. I think this is Cauldron’s last chance, Gilly. If there’s the least hint of sabotage here, I think it’s finished.’

  ‘Doomed.’

  ‘Don’t mock. I don’t want anything to destroy this show.’

  ‘I didn’t know you cared so strongly,’ said Gilly.

  ‘Didn’t you? Don’t you care just as strongly?’

  ‘Oh God yes. Oh yes, I do. I’m sorry, I was just being flippant.’

  ‘Then let’s try to find this bastard before he knackers the thing all over again.’

  ‘Yes, but look here,’ said Gilly, who had been thinking about this. ‘Look here, will he really do anything a second time? We’re agreed that he removed Mia because she would have ruined the London production – doesn’t that mean he wants it to have every chance? Isn’t that logical?’

  ‘Gilly, love, a madman isn’t logical. Remember he’s mad. Keep remembering it. He may have reasons that make sense to him but that wouldn’t make any sense to anyone else. And what about Tod Miller?’ demanded Danilo. ‘Don’t forget that he killed Tod Miller as well.’

  ‘I’m not forgetting it,’ said Gilly.

  ‘Now,’ said Danilo, ‘unless we can bring anyone else in on this—’

  ‘We can’t do that.’

  ‘No, we can’t, can we? Then that means we’ll have to split the patrolling between us.’

  ‘What about if I do the after-rehearsal check, and you do the before-rehearsal one?’

  ‘Other way round,’ said Danilo at once. ‘It’ll be dark after rehearsals, or at least darkish. We’ll work out a route when we’ve seen all over the place. And let’s be very casual over it.’

  ‘We could pretend to be looking for something or someone,’ suggested Gilly. ‘I’ll call for you as I go, and you do the same. That ought to look pretty innocent.’ She looked at Danilo. ‘You think he’s still dangerous, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. But Flynn thought he was. And Flynn’s no fool. What I do know,’ said Danilo, firmly, ‘is that we aren’t getting into any mad fights with this weirdo. At least, you aren’t. Agreed?’

  ‘All right. Yes, agreed,’ said Gilly, rather white-faced. ‘Has Flynn got here yet, by the way? Somebody said he’d probably have to come over to supervise the resetting.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s here yet. If he is, no one’s seen him. He’s probably gone to ground with a female somewhere – you know what he’s like.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gilly, and felt depressed.

  ‘Oh, he’ll get here. He’ll never let his precious sets be butchered by the ASMs.’

  The company had been billeted in two or three small guest houses and hotels around the area, but Gilly had been allotted a very plush double room in the Ennismara Castle Hotel which had at first gratified, and then unnerved her.

  ‘You don’t think it’s just because you’re playing the lead?’ said one of the sidh girls, enviously. ‘Star rating and all that. You might find that it’s only that.’

  Gilly thought that the rating she was being given was of a different category entirely, and the only thing to be found out was whether it was Julius Sherry or little Gerald Makepiece who was paying the Ennismara Castle’s bill, and therefore expecting a half share of the bed. Maybe even entitled to it.

  ‘A moral entitlement,’ she said, worried.

  ‘More like an immoral entitlement,’ said the sidh scornfully. ‘And will you?’

  ‘Nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Oh, so you will. Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gilly, crossly. She thought, but did not say, that it was ridiculous in the extreme to pretend to squeamishness after the two years in Soho, but she had wanted to be finished with all that.

  ‘It’s worth thinking about,’ said the sidh girl.

  It was, of course. On the one hand Julius Sherry would be preferable on account of his prestige and the title, but on the other hand Gerald Makepiece was more timid and probably more easily managed. Also he was rather endearingly old-fashioned and he might even think it necessary to marry her once he had stopped being a sorrowful widower over that greedy vampire Mia Makepiece. Yes, it all needed thinking about very carefully.

  ‘There’s also the fact that Makepiece is richer than Sir Julius,’ pointed out the sidh.

  ‘That’s being cynical.’

  ‘No, it’s being realistic. You’d be surprised the men that some girls sleep with, purely for cash.’

  Oh, no I wouldn’t, thought Gilly and went off to bed, intending to make a sensible mental list of the pros and cons of the two gentlemen concerned, and ending up dreaming about Flynn Deverill until breakfast-time, which was very irritating indeed.

  The rest of the company were less lavishly housed than Gilly, and inclined to be disgruntled about it when they all foregathered for the first rehearsal, although the lodge-keeper said they had none of them known what it was like in the old days, when you had to put up with bedbugs and rusty bacon, to say nothing of cheating landladies permanently pickled in gin. He contrived to make it sound as if he had rubbed shoulders and shared discomforts with the likes of Jonathan Miller and Ron Moody and Julie Andrews, or even Gertrude Lawrence and Noël Coward, so that it was rather a pity when, at the first break, his stage wife told everyone that most of the discomforts had been endured under the dubious banner of a third-rate touring company, whose only claim to fame had been putting on things like Getting Gertie’s Garter, and bad revivals of Rose Marie and The Desert Song.

  It was next found that the sidh’s bawdy rape of the lodge-keeper in Act One had been drastically moderated, in what Stephen Sherry and Maurice Camperdown explained was diplomatic courtesy to the conventions of the country in which they were performing, but in what the lodge-keeper said was a downright sodding liberty, pardon for swearing.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s necessary if we’re to be well received over here,’ said Stephen. ‘It’s tactful.’

  ‘It’s not tactful to Tod Miller’s work. Or,’ said the lodge-keeper deliberately, ‘to whoever wrote Cauldron.’
r />   There was an abrupt silence. Gilly thought: So we aren’t the only ones who are suspicious.

  Stephen glanced round the dusty stage and, raising his voice slightly, said, ‘Tod Miller presented Cauldron to my father and the trustees of the Harlequin Theatre. He presented it as his own original work – music, book, lyrics, everything. Since he’s dead—’

  ‘“And never called me mother”—’ murmured an irreverent voice from one of the Fianna soldiers who had played in Victorian melodrama.

  ‘Since he’s dead,’ said Stephen, ‘we can’t ask his permission to cut the scene. Since Fael is still missing, we can’t ask hers, which we’d normally do, as next of kin.’

  ‘Flynn Deverill’s missing as well,’ observed the stage manager.

  ‘What, literally?’

  ‘Well no, I don’t suppose so. But he hasn’t turned up to supervise the rebuilding of the sets.’

  ‘We gave him the dates and so on, but he’s so unpredictable it’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll actually turn up,’ said Stephen. ‘There’s no problem, is there?’

  ‘Not really,’ said the stage manager. ‘We can manage the sets without him, although I’d prefer him to oversee.’

  ‘You’ll probably get them up a damn sight easier without him,’ said Stephen. ‘He’s probably tucked up somewhere with a female,’ he added, unwittingly echoing Danilo’s earlier view.

  ‘Oh, well, in that case—’ said the stage manager glumly.

  Stephen looked back at his cast. ‘The rape scene,’ he said. ‘It’s my responsibility to do whatever I think best for the show, and I think it’s best that we cut it.’ He looked at the lodge-keeper. ‘I’m sorry about it, but we simply can’t risk explicit sex on stage here, they don’t approve of it.’

  ‘It’s the first I’ve ever heard of the Irish not approving of sex,’ said the lodge-keeper huffily, not best pleased at losing three-quarters of a scene, never mind the titillating intimacy with the leading sidh girl.