"What's the matter, can't you sleep?" Simon appeared from shadows at the side of the house. He was still dressed, a waxed jacket covering his clothes, green rubber boots on his feet. He was smoking a cigarette.
David jumped at the sound of the voice, then relaxed when he saw it was only his friend. "No," he said. "Finding it hard to adjust to the quiet of the countryside, I expect. What about you?" The lie came surprisingly easily.
"I rarely sleep much these days. Two or three hours tops. I find walking the grounds relaxation enough. Fancy a coffee, or would you prefer something stronger?"
"Coffee's fine."
Simon came inside and filled the kettle, setting it on the range to boil. "We haven't had much time to chat since you arrived. It's a pity."
"I rather got the impression you were avoiding me," David said, sitting down at the long oak refectory table.
Simon busied himself spooning coffee and sugar into two mugs. "Avoiding you? Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Well, you have, haven't you?"
Simon laughed, a short, snorting laugh without humour. "Yes, I suppose I have. I didn't know how you'd react."
"React to what? To Anna, to the fact you're getting married and didn't bother to tell me? Or the fact that you got yourself into a financial mess in Japan and had to go to her father to bail you out?"
Simon turned with a frown. "It wasn't like that, anyway who told you? Oh yes, Arthur Graham. He told me he'd had a chat with you. What else did he say?" The kettle boiled and he poured water into the mugs, bringing them across to the table and sitting down opposite his friend.
"Nothing more, though that's enough really. Why didn't you write to tell me? I could have helped."
Simon shook his head. "I doubt that." David opened his mouth to protest but Simon raised a hand to silence him. "You have no idea of the magnitude of the mess my father left when he died. The whole reason for my going to Japan was to try and sort it out."
"You told me you were going there to start again, to pick up the pieces of your life. I believed you."
"I wasn't lying to you. That's exactly what I was trying to do. I just didn't give you all the facts because I didn't want you to worry, besides, it was my father's mess I was trying to sort out. I couldn't involve you or the other people I cared about in all that. It was something I had to do myself."
David sipped the scalding liquid. The coffee was strong, black and sweet, the way Simon always used to make it. "So are you going to tell me about it now?"
"What's the point? It's all over now."
"The point is I'm interested. I'd like to know what happened to keep you out of the country for two years, and why you felt the need to tie yourself up with someone like Otani."
"You don't like him, do you?"
"That's neither here nor there."
"Oh, but it is. You're right not to like him. He's a very powerful and very dangerous man. I don't like him either."
"But you're marrying his daughter."
Simon smiled ruefully and nodded his head slowly. "My father had invested everything in a pearl farm in Gokasho-wan, that's a bay on the east coast of Honshu. I don't know how he got involved in such a scheme, though I do know he was always looking for investment opportunities, ways to make more money than he already had. He was a greedy man, David. I know he was a very affable, a charming host, a very good father... a lousy husband, but that's another story. But basically he was greedy, and quite reckless when it came to investments.
"After he died I got a call from his agent in Kyoto. A virus had swept through the oyster beds a few months previously and wiped out the entire farm. I don't know if you know anything about oysters and how they produce pearls, but it's a long-tern process. It takes an oyster up to six years to make a pearl and, after the virus had done its work, the farm was left with no assets. No oysters."
"Couldn't he have bought more, started again?"
"Possibly, but he wasn't in this venture by himself, and his Japanese partners decided to cut their losses and walk away from the whole enterprise. My father managed to raise the money to buy them out, but he was still left with a pearl farm that was not producing pearls, and wouldn't be in the near future."
David finished his coffee and shook his head. "I don't see why he continued with it, why didn't he walk away from it too?"
"Because by this time he had climbed into bed with Shinjiro Otani. During the first few weeks of the crisis he had spent some time in Japan trying to fix up the financing to allow him to continue operations. He met Otani in a bar in Kyoto, by sheer chance. They got talking and Otani offered him a deal, the exact nature of which I was unaware of until after father's death." Simon took his empty mug to the sink and rinsed it under the tap. "The situation was hopeless. Father had lost everything."
"Everything?"
Simon smiled mirthlessly. "You probably think I still own Desborough Hall."
"You mean..."
"It belongs to Otani. I believe he's giving it to me as a wedding present."
"Have you asked David to be best man yet, Simon?" The two men turned to see Anna Otani, standing at the back door, a half-smile playing on her lips. David wondered how long she had been there. Did no one sleep in this house?
"He doesn't have to ask, Anna," David said. "He knows if he wants me I'll be there for him."
"Simon is a very lucky man to have a friend as loyal as you," she said.
David searched her face, looking for some flaw in her composure, but the expression was serene. She knew he would say nothing to Simon about her attempted seduction; knew he could never deliver such a devastating blow to his oldest and closest friend. He was slowly beginning to hate her. "I'm going back to bed," he said. He walked from the kitchen and back up the stairs. He had never felt so depressed.
Heather counted off the remaining hours of the night to the chimes of the clock, turning the thoughts over and over in her head and when, at eight o'clock, someone tapped on her bedroom door, she felt her stomach lurch. She hoped it would be Anna.
Akira stood in the passageway, holding out a pair of neatly folded jodhpurs and some highly polished riding boots. Heather took them from him with a smile. The old man bowed slightly but not a flicker of emotion crossed his face.
The sound of horses hooves clattering on paving woke David the next morning. He looked out of the window to see Anna and Heather mounted on two magnificent bay thoroughbreds, walking slowly away from the house.
He was annoyed with Heather for not coming to say goodbye to him before going off with Anna, but the annoyance was tempered by the fact that, during the night he and Simon had a meaningful conversation, albeit cut short by Anna's appearance. With the women out of the way they might be able to pick up where they had left off.
He got back to his room to find his mobile phone ringing. He switched it on and said, "Hello."
"David, is that you?" It was a female voice, distant, crackling through a hiss of static.
"Yes, who's this?"
"It's Pamela Foxworth, Johnny's sister."
"I remember you. You came up to Oxford once, to the May ball."
"You've got a good memory. Look, David, I've been trying to get hold of you since first thing this morning. I rang your office and finally managed to persuade your secretary to give me this number."
"I admire your persistence. Sue normally protects my privacy as if her life depends upon it. What can I do for you, Pamela?"
There was a small sob on the other end of the line. "It's Johnny. He tried to kill himself last night."
For a moment David was too stunned to speak. Finally he said, "Is he all right? You say he tried, you mean he didn't succeed?"
"Not last night, but he's dying, David. He took a cocktail of pills, but it was mostly paracetamol. The doctors pumped his stomach, but they were too late. It was already in his blood stream. He thinks he's going to be okay, but they told me he will only last another forty eight hours at the most."
"Oh, Pamela. I'
m so sorry."
"The thing is, David, he's asking to see you. I understand you two met a week or so back. Something you said to him is really playing on his mind. He's spoken about nothing else since he regained consciousness. He said he had written to you but you haven't responded. Did you receive his letter?"
David remembered the pile of unopened post sitting on the kitchen worktop back at his flat. Several letters had arrived there yesterday morning, but none of them he had thought important enough to open. "No," he said. "I didn't."
"Look, I'm sorry to do this to you, David, but can you come and see him? I can't bear to think of him spending his last few hours in such a state."
"Which hospital, Pamela?"
"Barts. St Bartholemew's." There were tears now. He could hear her crying quietly on the phone.
"Look, Pamela, I'm in Wiltshire at the moment. It's going to take a while to get there, but I'll be with you as soon as I can. Did he give you any indication why it was so important to speak to me?"
"I really don't know. He's been so vague lately, so guarded. I knew he had something on his mind, but he wouldn't say. All I know is that you mentioned to him that you were going to stay at Simon Desborough's house for a few days. That news seemed to really bother him. He kept saying, `He doesn't know what he's getting into.' Does that make any sense?"
"Not a lot. I'm actually at Simon's now. Desborough Hall."
"I don't think I should tell him that."
"No, probably not. I'll leave right away. Depending on the traffic I can be there in a couple of hours."
"Thank you, David. I really appreciate this." She rang off.
David spent the next ten minutes searching the house for Simon, but there did not seem to be anyone about, and Simon's Range Rover was missing from the drive. He returned to the morning room, found some paper and scribbled two notes, one to Heather, one to Simon, telling them of his plans to go to London. He hoped they would understand.
As he threaded his way through the maze of streets at the back of Smithfield Market looking for a parking space, he had a sick, hollow feeling in his stomach. The drive had been atrocious. Long queues of traffic all the way. It was now early afternoon. He hoped he was not too late.
The clinical, antiseptic smell of the hospital assailed his nostrils as he stood at the reception desk and asked to see Johnny Foxworth. The receptionist hesitated, then he saw Pamela Foxworth at the end of a corridor. She saw him at the same time and beckoned. She led him into a private room where Johnny Foxworth was lying on a hospital bed, eyes closed. Tubes were inserted into his nose and a drip-fed colourless liquid into his arm through a hollow needle. He looked dreadful, and close to death. Pamela sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand. "Johnny, David's here."
Foxworth opened his eyes and looked at David, blinking once or twice as if he had trouble focusing. David approached the bedside. "They've told him," Pamela whispered to him.
"Told me I'm going to die," Foxworth said, a tear trickling down his cheek. "For the best, really. It's what I wanted. They won't be able to get me now."
Pamela flicked a worried frown at David. Foxworth took her hand. "Be a love and get David a nice cup of tea."
"I'm all right, really," David said, then caught the desperate expression in Foxworth's eyes. "Well, if you wouldn't mind, Pamela."
"Of course not."
David waited until she had left the room then took her place on the bed. Foxworth gripped his arm and started to pull himself upright, bringing his face to within inches of David's. The strain was immense and when he spoke it was from behind clenched teeth. "Whatever you do you must not go to Desborough Hall."
"Why."
"Evil, pure evil." The message delivered, he sank back onto the bed.
"You went there yourself a few weeks ago."
Foxworth laughed. A brittle bark without humour. When he spoke again the effort seemed greater than before, each sentence forced out in barely a whisper. "Biggest mistake of my bloody life... Heard Simon was back in the country, thought I'd look him up...I was in a spot of bother financially... thought he might be able to help me out."
"I know all this, Johnny. What do you mean by evil?"
His eyes were closed again and for a moment David thought he had lost consciousness. "Them," he hissed suddenly, his eyes wide. "They've been haunting me ever since. They want it back you see, but I don't have it any more."
"I'm sorry, you're not making any sense. What is it they want back?"
"I took it, didn't think they'd miss it. God knows they've got so many treasures in that house." Foxworth's voice was growing weak, trailing off into near-silence at the end of each sentence. David was leaning forward to catch every word.
"What did you take?"
"Jade...a figure...some animal." Suddenly he sat bolt upright in the bed, gripping David's hand, fingernails digging deep into his flesh. "That animal...I've seen it. It was on the stairs. Slithering along, those eyes, oh Christ, those eyes!"
David eased him down gently onto the pillow. "It's okay, just take your time. Tell me what you did with the jade figure."
"Sold it. Two hundred pounds. Dealer in Camden Passage. Oriental junk."
Pamela arrived back with the tea. Foxworth opened a watery eye and dismissed her with a flimsy wave of his hand. She hovered. "It'll be all right," David said. "I'll call you if you're needed."
Pamela left the room and closed the door behind her. "I don't want her involved," Foxworth said weakly. "If she knows anything about this they'll start on her."
"Who are `they'? Do you mean Simon?"
"Not Simon. He's as much a victim as I am. Do you think he wants them at his house?"
David was losing patience. Foxworth was talking in riddles and he had no way of deciphering them. A nurse came into the room and placed a thermometer under Foxworth's tongue. Foxworth opened his eyes, stared up at the benign, placid features of the nurse and screamed. His mouth snapped shut, his teeth biting through the glass stem of the thermometer with a crack. He lashed out with his fist, catching the nurse on the side of the head, knocking her to the floor.
At the sound of the scream Pamela rushed in from the hall, crying out her brother's name and trying, with David, to subdue him. Foxworth fought them both off, trying to wrest himself from the bed. The tubes were pulled from his nose and the drip stand went crashing sideways, ripping the needle from his arm. A bright thread of blood arced over the sheets. Foxworth had one foot on the floor when his entire body went rigid and he collapsed back on the bed.
The nurse was picking herself up from the floor. Her hair had come unpinned and was hanging down to her shoulders. Black, silky hair framing an ivory oriental face. A face not as beautiful or as inscrutable as Anna Otani's, but pretty in its own right. She was feeling for Johnny Foxworth's pulse, looking round at Pamela and shaking her head. David walked from the room.
"I can't believe that all this land belongs to the estate," Heather said. They had climbed to the top of a steep rise from where they could see the grounds of Desborough Hall spreading out before them. "Simon is so lucky."
"So am I," Anna said, coming up alongside her. "Soon I will be the mistress of this beautiful place." She sat perfectly poised on her mount, the sunlight glinting from her hair as it spread out across her shoulders. She slid from the saddle and pulled a rug from the pack behind her. "This seems as good a place as any to stop and eat," she said.
Heather dismounted and help her spread out the rug on the grass. Toshiyo had prepared sandwiches and flasks of coffee for their ride, and as Heather bit into some granary bread stuffed with ham she giggled. "I haven't had a picnic since I was a little girl."
Anna poured coffee into her mug, then leaned back on the rug, propping herself up on her elbows. "It's such a beautiful day. I could lie here forever."
After they had finished eating Heather laid down next to her, folding her hands beneath her head. "It is pretty wonderful. So quiet. You could believe that we were the last two peo
ple left alive."
Anna turned over onto her stomach, snapped off a long stem of grass and rolled it between her fingers. "Do you think you and David will marry?"
Heather stared up at the clouds, drifting lethargically across the powder blue sky. They were making shapes, twisting and turning in a slow, silent confusion, echoing her inner feelings. She shook her head. "I don't know. I suppose I haven't really thought about it. What about you? Have you named the day yet?"
Anna laughed but didn't answer.
"Did I say something funny?"
"No, not really. I'm just having difficulty coming to terms with the fact that I'm engaged to be married. It seems such a grown up thing to do."
"But you do love Simon."
"Of course I do. Simon's a sweet, kind man. He'll make an excellent husband."
The conversation lapsed into a companionable silence. Heather listened to the sound of the birds in the trees, of insects in the grass. Eventually she turned to look at Anna. So beautiful, she thought. Anna had rested her chin on her arms, her eyes were closed. Heather picked up the discarded blade of grass and drew it lightly across Anna's cheek. Anna opened her eyes and smiled at her, then rolled over and sat up. "I want to show you something before we go back." She got to her feet and started to fold the rug.
"Do you keep any pets?" Heather asked.
Anna stopped folding and looked at her. "What a strange question. Why do you ask?"
"Last night, I couldn't sleep. I saw something crossing the lawn. It was an animal of some kind but it was too dark to see clearly."
Anna stowed the rug in pack. "No animals, no pets, just the horses. It was probably a badger. We get them in the garden sometimes."
Heather nodded. "That's probably what it was," she said unconvinced. She had seen badgers in the wild. They did not move the way this creature had moved, and they were a good deal smaller than the thing she had seen last night. She shrugged the problem away, not wanting anything to spoil the day. "What is it you want to show me?"
Echoes of Darkness Page 24