I smiled and waited for her to carry on securing the building, while I had a quick look around the gift shop. It contained some informative books and some local craftwork, as well as the usual tourist tat.
‘Right, are you ready for a tour?’ she asked, stuffing the jangling keys into her pocket. They made an unsightly bulge.
‘I thought I’d look around on my own, if that’s all right. I’m here to take photos,’ I said, not wanting her company or her colour. And I already knew the castle’s history – it was the reason why I was here in the first place.
‘Sorry, no can do. Not after hours. Health and safety.’
I kept my expression neutral, trying not to show my disappointment. If this is how it had to be, then I needed to suck it up. She was only doing her job, but I could really do without any companionship at the moment. My emotions were too raw to deal with anything other than the task in hand.
‘My name is Dorothy, and I’ll be your guide for today,’ she began, and I heard the tone and rhythm of a well-practiced speech.
‘Olivia Parr,’ I replied.
‘Any relation to Catherine?’ she joked with a cackle. ‘Catherine Parr? Henry Tudor’s Catherine?’
I smiled. ‘No, but if I was going to be distantly related to any of Henry the Eighth’s wives, I would prefer it to be her. At least she didn’t have her head chopped off and she managed to outlive him.’
‘You know your history, then?’
‘A little. I’m not an expert like you.’
‘Oh, I’m no expert, but I do know my way around a castle or two. As you know, this is Carew Castle, and it began life early in the twelfth century when Gerald de Windsor decided to construct a castle here, although he wasn’t the first to build on this site. Remains of an Iron Age settlement have been discovered, as well as shards of Roman pottery, and we suspect a Dark Age fort might also have existed on this site.’
We’d left the gift shop as Dorothy was speaking and had come to a halt on an open grassy area between it and the impressive square gatehouse. My camera was practically glued to my face as I took shot after shot. None of them was arty enough, none of them caught the mystery and majesty of the place yet, but that was okay. It would take me a while to search for the perfect angle, when the light was just right, so I carried on clicking away, letting the guide’s voice wash over me. Actually, her history lesson was setting the mood perfectly, as long as I didn’t have to look at her.
‘Gerald built the castle with his wife’s money. Princess Nest was apparently a great beauty – in fact, she was nicknamed “Helen of Wales”,’ Dorothy was saying as I crouched down, aiming the camera up the side of a vast curtain wall, catching a beam of light from the setting sun through an arrow slit. That photo might be a contender, and I was pleased with the result when I took the viewfinder away from my face and examined the image.
I looked up. A flash of red caught my eye but vanished before I could zero in on it. Dorothy was behind me, keeping out of the way of the lens, so I knew it couldn’t be her. Anyway, her aura was mostly a light yellow. I frowned and squinted into the gathering gloom.
‘Princess Nest was a bit too much for him to handle, though,’ Dorothy was saying. ‘By the time she married Gerald, she already had a child by King Henry I, although he was still a prince when she’d slept with him. For a while, Nest seemed to settle down with her husband, but—’
I spotted more red out of the corner of my eye. The light was bleeding quickly from the sky and the shadows were growing darker and longer. Who else was in the ruins with us?
Or was I imagining it?
The fine hairs on the back of my neck rose and a tingle of unease rippled down my spine.
‘Did you see that?’ I blurted, interrupting my guide.
She frowned. ‘See what, dear?’
Of course, she hadn’t seen it. I wished I hadn’t said anything. ‘Nothing. I just thought I saw someone.’
‘Impossible, the last person left an hour ago.’
I nodded. She was probably right. I was still spooked from the events of last night, jumping at shadows, feeling a bit disconnected and out-of-sorts. It was only to be expected. I hadn’t slept well either, which didn’t help my state of mind. I was tired, on edge, and my nerves were shredded. No wonder I was imagining things.
And who was to say the red I kept seeing was someone’s aura. Not when I’d seen enough blood last night to last me two lifetimes, and those images were still very much in the forefront of my mind. I was probably imagining it.
I closed my eyes for a second, trying to refocus, then brought the camera up to my face once more. The familiarity of the movement calmed me, a little.
‘As I was saying...’ Dorothy sounded a little irked that I’d interrupted her, so I nodded for her to continue. ‘Nest was a beautiful woman, and nine years into her marriage to Gerald she caught the eye of Owain ap Cadwgan, a prince of this part of Wales, who stormed the castle. The story has it, that while Gerald hid inside the toilet shaft, Nest was carried off by Owain: willingly I might add.’ The guide paused for a moment, probably waiting for me to give her a suitable response.
I carried on taking photos.
When Dorothy resumed her speech, it was in a slightly huffier tone. ‘It took her ex-lover, King Henry, to threaten Owain and force him to return her to Gerald. But not before she’d borne Owain two children.’
I lowered the camera and made an effort to smile. The poor woman didn’t deserve to be treated this way. Rattled and still feeling anxious, I wasn’t at my best, but I attempted to make amends by looking her in the eye and saying, ‘She was a popular lady. It’s a wonder Gerald took her back at all.’
There it was again. I wasn’t imagining it. And this time, there was a shadow of a person to go with it. Whoever the person was, he or she lurked beyond one of the doorways to our right.
‘There,’ I whispered, interrupting Dorothy mid-flow. ‘Over there.’
Dorothy turned to look where I pointed, but the red disappeared, as did the figure it belonged to.
‘What?’ Dorothy asked. ‘I can’t see anything.’ She peered into the gloom, a frown on her face.
‘A figure. Someone was there.’ Please tell me you can see it too, I wanted to beg. I needed some reassurance I wasn’t losing my mind.
Dorothy drew her shoulders back and jutted out her chin. When she turned back to me, she looked positively cross. ‘You’re lucky,’ she stated. ‘Not everyone can see her.’
‘Who?’ My voice was low, barely more than a whisper.
‘The White Lady, the ghost of Princess Nest,’ Dorothy said, and I heard the envy in her voice. ‘She haunts the castle.’
I wasn’t sure what I had seen was female at all... there was something about the shape of it which made me think it wasn’t. ‘Is she red?’ I asked and received an incredulous stare in return.
‘She most certainly is not! She’s called the White Lady for a good reason. Maybe you saw the ape?’
I frowned. What I’d seen was no ape. Besides, I don’t see animal auras.
‘Ah, now here’s a story for you,’ she began, and although I already knew it, I didn’t interrupt. ‘We’ve jumped ahead a bit of course, but I’ll tell it anyway... In the seventeenth century a man called Sir Roland Rhys lived here and he owned an ape, a horrid beast from the Barbary Coast of Africa. Now, Sir Roland spent most of his time with this creature, but when Sir Rowland’s son eloped with the daughter of a local merchant, the merchant turned up on Sir Rowland’s doorstep to have it out with him, and Sir Roland set his ape on him. The poor merchant was badly mauled, and he put a curse on Sir Roland that he would suffer the same terrible fate as the merchant had—’
Dorothy’s words hardly registered, fading to background noise as I scanned the castle. The figure I’d glimpsed had most certainly been human, and the red I’d spotted was most definitely an aura.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I told myself I didn’t believe in coinciden
ces. But what else could it be?
When she returned me to the gate, I thanked Dorothy profusely for her expert guidance and knowledge, and put a donation in the box near the till.
She said, as she locked up behind us, ‘They told me it’s for an article in the Sunday Times?’ The glow from the outside lights illuminated her hopeful expression.
‘That’s right. It’s a series of pieces on haunted castles and manor houses. I’ll be sure to mention you, although the editors might not keep it in.’
‘Oh, there’s no need. You’re very kind.’ She held out a hand and I shook it.
It was always best to leave a place and the people in it on good terms. I hoped she would one day get her wish and see the spirits she claimed resided here. And in some ways, I wished I had seen the ghost of Nest or the ape this evening.
It was more preferable to being stalked.
Chapter 11
Crow
Nothing Olivia Parr had done so far had given Crow any indication she was anything other than what she seemed. Take this evening, for instance – she was in the ruins of a castle, taking photos in the twilight. Exactly the sort of thing a photographer might do. He seriously debated whether to knock his surveillance of her on the head, but without anything else to go on, he decided he may as well carry on.
Despair pricked at the edge of his mind. He’d not seen or heard from his sister for a couple of weeks, now. Dear God, please let Meadow be okay.
This inaction was killing him. It was taking everything he had not to roam the streets at night looking for her. The odds of his sister being in the exact spot, at the same time he was, were infinitesimally small. His only lead, his only hope, was the girl clambering around a pile of rocks with a camera lens glued to her face, and the interest she’d shown in Rochdale.
He was now as certain as he could be that she’d had nothing to do with either the awful events of that night in the opera theatre, or with Rochdale, himself. But there was still something... He couldn’t put his finger on it, but his gut was telling him to hang on in there, and his gut wasn’t often wrong.
His contact had come up with the goods on Olivia Parr in record time. Twenty-eight, single, basic education (no university for her) but she appeared intelligent, as the articles she’d had published proved. She was self-employed, owned her own home (albeit with a hefty mortgage attached to it), both parents were still alive and living in Shropshire, and she had an older brother and sister. The sister had recently had a baby, but there were none of the usual messages, texts or phone calls he would have expected, so it seemed the sisters weren’t close. The brother was a bit of a flash git, and Olivia didn’t appear to have much contact with him, either.
Crow gave a mental shrug – you didn’t get to choose your relatives.
She was skilled at taking photos, and had no debts apart from the mortgage. There was little about her in the way of social media, apart from using it for her business. She liked opera, but not the theatre. She didn’t appear to have much of a social life. Took holidays in remote locations. Was a bit of a loner.
There was nothing wrong with that – Crow had been described as a loner himself. He’d even been called a rogue, a maverick, and the label had almost cost him his career on more than one occasion. Nobody could ever accuse him of being disloyal, though, and he would have put his life on the line for his men in a heartbeat. He just happened to be a natural leader, not a follower, that’s all.
Olivia didn’t strike him as either a leader or a follower; she didn’t appear to like people enough for either. She seemed to want to avoid them altogether, in fact, and actively shunned places where too many congregated. She did her grocery shopping online, did most of her other shopping online too, according to her bank statements and internet history (yeah, his contact was even able to access those), and the only people she phoned were to do with her work, and occasionally, her family. She didn’t seem to have any friends, if her phone records were anything to go by.
Courtesy of someone rather dodgy indeed, Crow had paid handsomely for the privilege of being able to access her phone records in real time. From what he could gather by doing a reverse check on any phone numbers she dialled, nearly all of her contacts were work-related.
On paper, she was perfect Rochdale material, but how could Rochdale know that from a chance meeting of eyes across the theatre? There was another explanation – Rochdale had known Olivia would be at the opera.
He thought some more... No, that didn’t feel right. Crow would stake his life on his instinct that Rochdale hadn’t been aware of Olivia Parr’s existence until that night. But why, then, had the man been so interested in her?
Crow was as sure as he could be that Rochdale hadn’t made contact with her yet, although Ms Parr’s work was plastered all over the news. If Rochdale hadn’t known her name before this morning, he most certainly knew it now. Once you knew a person’s name it was quite scary how much more you could find out about them. Although that wasn’t strictly true when it came to Rochdale himself. All of Crow’s contacts had drawn a blank. It was as if the man was a ghost, or had never existed.
Christ! Olivia had seen him!
Crow ducked down, as low as he could behind the remains of a wall, and wondered how she’d spotted him. He was dressed all in black and had made sure to keep out of sight. Either she had x-ray vision, or he was losing his touch.
Shaking his head in annoyance, he backed slowly away, making certain he was out of her line of sight, then, when he was happy there was no way Olivia could see him, he straightened up and made his way back to his car.
Rochdale wasn’t going to show tonight, and Crow wasn’t scared of losing her. If he wanted her, he knew where to find her.
With a sigh of frustration, he went to find a bed for the night.
Chapter 12
Olivia
It had to have been a coincidence, nothing more, because although I was on high alert for the next couple of days, no hint of red showed itself. I didn’t really leave my cottage much, to be fair, but I saw nothing in either the lane or my semi-wild garden to cause me concern.
After a while, common sense and logic prevailed – how many of the billions of people on this planet have red as the predominant colour in their aura? Millions. Therefore, it was only reasonable I’d see a fair few of them in my lifetime. It was also reasonable to accept that auras could look remarkably similar. They weren’t like fingerprints, fixed from birth and one of a kind. Auras changed, fluctuating over a lifetime, reflecting health, events, and states of mind. If I could see my own aura, I guessed it would have changed over the course of the last week due to the shootings in the opera house in Oxford. Such a terrible thing was bound to leave its mark; although those changes might, or might not, be permanent, and could often be transformed and transmuted over time.
Even basal aura colours could, and did, change. Babies were born with their basal colours reflecting their personalities, and most people carried that colour with them all their lives to some degree. But events, health, and so many other factors impacted on auras, that reading them was more guesswork than anything else, as far as I could tell.
Some auras did make me want to jump in the shower and give myself a good scrub, though. They were the ones that looked dirty, slimy, or gave off a bad vibe. But even then, it could be because the person it belonged to was dealing with something horrendous in their lives, and not because they were evil or had done awful things.
For me, it was better to simply not see them, to pretend they didn’t exist. If I could avoid people, or not look at them, then that’s what I did – I didn’t want daily reminders of my difference, because with them came the memories; ostracisation and bullying weren’t things I liked to recall too often.
I’d long ago arrived at the conclusion that seeing auras was cruel and rather pointless.
Which was why I was quite pleased I didn’t see any after I returned from Carew, except for those belonging to the postman and the superm
arket delivery driver. I needed some alone time, to recharge and recover. I was also pleased I didn’t have a stalker. The idea was ludicrous when I came to think about it. Why would anyone want to stalk me?
I spent the following day choosing photos, sorting the good from the totally indifferent, experiencing that moment of rare joy when I discovered I’d taken something truly great (I lived for those occasions). I also took my time in writing the piece on Carew Castle, slicing up the words I’d written like a butcher dissecting a carcass, until I only had the best cuts left, the most edible of copy.
I hoped it was good enough; I was a photographer, not a writer, but I’d written stuff in the past, and The Sunday Times must have thought I could do a decent job, or else they wouldn’t have approached me.
Other things occupied my time, too, like framing some of the better pictures, and offering the prints for sale on my website. I also sent images to a couple of galleries I use, asking if they wanted to display them. My job wasn’t simply a case of point and shoot – a great deal more went on behind the scenes to let me earn enough to pay my mortgage and put food on the table, than taking photos.
I also spent a good few hours touting for work, answering emails, studying the competition, ordering a supermarket delivery and numerous other everyday stuff; anything to keep from dwelling on that night. I did catch snippets of the news popping up on my social media feeds, but for the most part, I managed to cocoon myself in denial and the safety of home.
That is, until the police came to my house with a request to view any, and all, of the photos I’d taken that night.
Two of them turned up at my door, plain-clothed and solemn, and I invited them in and offered them coffee. What else could I do?
‘We were surprised you didn’t come forward, Miss Parr,’ one of them said. She was young, female, dark-haired, and attractive, although she was so pale I wondered if she was unwell.
‘I’ve emailed all the photos I’d taken to the police,’ I countered.
The Colour of Death Page 6