“A stranger in the house at night? Definitely. You’d have found your voice then, wouldn’t you, little Piecrust?”
Xanthe processed this information. If what Helga said was reliable, the dog hadn’t barked, which meant nobody had broken into the shop or the flat and started the fire. Not a random arsonist. Not Fairfax. She turned to the firefighter who was at that moment pulling up some of the loose floorboards in the hallway.
“Any clues as to what could have started it?” she asked.
“Not so far. Your wiring looks blameless; nothing suspicious there. Was anything left switched on downstairs? A cash register, maybe? Or spotlights?”
“We keep the money in a tin in a drawer. The lights are switched off at the door. I do use standard lamps in displays sometimes, but not at the moment.”
“Any smokers in the house?”
She glanced at Helga who was at the front of the shop and busy recounting Pie’s heroism to another firefighter.
“A guest, but she’s adamant she hasn’t been smoking indoors. Why, have you found anything to suggest…?”
“No. Just trying to get all the information that could help us. Not pointing the finger of blame at anyone. Not yet.” He went back to scrutinizing the site of the worst of the damage. “What’s mysterious,” he said, almost to himself, “is that there appear to have been other pieces of wood here. Did you have some antiques on the stairs, perhaps? Old wooden boxes or decorative bits and pieces?”
“What? No, nothing like that. The stairs are quite narrow and Mum uses her crutches to get up and down them. We’d never put stuff where she might trip over it.”
The man straightened up, his demeanor subtly altered. He was suddenly a little less friendly and a little more professional. “You’re recently come to the town, I understand. This is a new business.”
“That’s right.”
“Going well, is it?”
It was a simple enough question, but she knew exactly what lay behind it. Had they deliberately started the fire in an attempt to make a hefty insurance claim because the business was struggling?
“It’s going just fine,” she told him. “I know you are only doing your job, and I’m sure you’ve met some desperate people, but is anyone crazy enough to start a fire that’s likely to trap themselves and their family above it?”
The fireman made no comment, but turned back to his task. Xanthe took a deep breath. She knew she was still shaken by what had happened. She didn’t need anger at unjust accusations making her feel worse. She went to join her mother, who was being told it would be at least an hour before they could go upstairs and get their clothes.
“They think we should find somewhere else to wait,” Flora said. “I suppose we are only in the way here.” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears.
“Hey, Mum. It’ll be OK. Look, this room’s just a bit grubby, and the door to the vintage clothing was shut, so it shouldn’t be too bad in there. I’ll ring Gerri, see if she can come into town and open up early. We can have some breakfast while we’re waiting.”
Flora mustered a smile. “Cake for breakfast could go a long way to making us feel better. Oh, look! Liam’s here.”
Xanthe glanced at the ormolu clock. In all the drama she had forgotten she had invited Liam to join her for an early morning dog walk. As he hurried through the door and saw her he let out a breath he had clearly been holding since finding the fire engine parked at the top of the alley.
“For God’s sake, what happened?” he asked, pulling her into a warm hug and holding her tight. She let herself be held, resting her head on his shoulder, comforted by the feel of his strong arms around her and his calm, reassuring presence.
“There was a fire,” she mumbled.
He pulled back so that he could study her face. “That much I worked out for myself.”
Flora tried to explain. “Pie smelled the smoke and woke Helga.”
“Such a good girl!” Helga patted the whippet with pride. “We might all have been burned to a crisp in our beds if she hadn’t raised the alarm.”
“But what started the fire?” Liam asked, still holding Xanthe’s arms, his expression suggesting he had not quite yet recovered from discovering she might have been injured or worse.
She took his hand in hers. “Can we go to your flat while we wait for the firemen to do their bit? They won’t let us back upstairs yet. I was going to ring Gerri, but…”
“No need. Come on.” He let go of Xanthe at last and took Flora’s arm. “I can’t promise catering at Gerri’s level, but I do have coffee and brandy.”
“Lead the way!” said Helga.
Liam took off his leather jacket and gave it to Xanthe. After a little persuading, one of the firefighters fetched a random selection of footwear and coats from Flora’s bedroom, so that they were able to walk to Liam’s flat.
The rooms he inhabited were set above his workshop, the smell of petrol and engine oil growing fainter as they climbed the stairs. He patiently helped Flora to the top, and ushered them all into the kitchen. Pie was excited at yet another new place to explore and insisted on doing reckless circuits of the room for a full minute before settling down.
“I’m most impressed,” Helga announced.
“Really? My flat is nothing special,” Liam said, filling the kettle while the women took seats around the little kitchen table.
“I’m impressed by how respectable and tidy the place is. Most young men would be horrified at the thought of a surprise visit sprung upon them at such an hour. No chance to clear away signs of youthful high jinks.”
“Oh, Helga,” Flora laughed at her friend, “you’re making daft assumptions. Not everyone under the age of thirty lives a wild existence.”
“I try,” Liam insisted.
Xanthe helped him make a cafetière of coffee. He set sugar, milk, and brandy on the table, along with the biscuit tin, which yielded gingersnaps and shortbread.
“A feast!” Flora declared, spooning sugar into her mug.
“So,” Liam unscrewed the brandy and began sloshing it into the coffee cups, “who’s going to tell me exactly why Marlborough’s finest firefighting team are, as I speak, stomping up and down what is left of your stairs?”
No one was able to give a satisfactory answer. They went around in circles, dismissing each possible cause for the fire, becoming increasingly baffled by what had happened. All the time, Xanthe had her own silent ideas about the origins of the blaze, none of which she could share with the others, and most of which put Fairfax squarely in the picture. Somehow. And yet he hadn’t been in the building. Or at least, she realized, he hadn’t been in it a few hours ago. Not in her own time. Could he have done something in a past time that somehow caused the fire? As the thought occurred to her it seemed more possible and more terrifying. What if Fairfax had been able to set the fire in the stairwell decades ago? Centuries ago? Would that result in a fire in the present? Surely if he’d done that the results of the fire would become evident, but not the actual fire itself. It didn’t quite add up, and yet nor could she completely dismiss it as a theory. And if it was possible, what else could he do from a remote time, safely out of harm’s way himself? And how would she be able to stop him starting another fire, or somehow else damaging the shop? Her head started to ache with the effort of trying to make sense of the impossible. She gulped her brandy-laced coffee and immediately wished she hadn’t as the caffeine and alcohol only worsened the pain in her temples.
“I’ll give you a hand with the cleaning up,” Liam was saying to Flora.
“That’s sweet of you, Liam. I don’t suppose you know a reliable carpenter who could come and fix the stairs?” she asked.
“Leave it with me. It’s finding one that can do it at short notice that will be the tricky bit.”
Helga pointed out that Flora wouldn’t be able to get up and down to the flat from the shop until they were repaired. “Unless the lovely firemen are going to come and carry you up and down like the Que
en of Sheba every day,” she added, laughing loudly at the thought.
“You can stay here until it’s mended,” Liam offered. “I can kip on the couch.”
“Thank you.” Flora helped herself to another biscuit. “I’m sure we’ll sort something out at the shop, but it’s good to have a backup plan. Don’t you think so, Xanthe?”
“Sure, Mum. That’s a great idea,” she answered, but her mind was elsewhere. The stairs were easy enough to repair. The smoke and water damage to the rest of the building and the stock could, with hard work, be made good. None of it was worth doing, however, if Fairfax remained able to rain chaos upon them whenever and however it suited him. She had to find him. She had to stop him. And she needed Harley’s help to do it.
6
The beer cellar beneath The Feathers was several degrees cooler than was comfortable without a coat. Xanthe perched on an upturned mixers crate and pulled her old tweed jacket a little tighter around her. The air was so heavy with the smell of hops and ale she could almost taste it. The many pipes which fed the different beers from carefully positioned barrels up to the bar above ran along the walls and arced across the low-slung ceiling, making the space feel like the ribcage of some giant creature. There were soft hissing and bubbling sounds as the levers upstairs were worked by the bartender pulling pints. On the other side of this singular space, Harley manhandled a new barrel into position and swapped the connecting pipes to it with practiced ease, before rolling the empty one out of the way.
“So, tell me again, hen, how that nasty piece of work sat calm as you like outside your shop just waiting for you to notice him. That guy has some brass balls right there.”
Xanthe had given him only the briefest summary of recent events, wanting to update him, but eager to get to the main point of her visit. Once again, she needed Harley’s cooperation if she was to travel back in time. She had spent most of the day back at the shop, sweeping up debris, washing walls, sorting items into damaged or not damaged, and generally putting the place back together again. In fact, although the fire had been frightening and the heat intense, it had been mainly confined to the stairwell, with less damage elsewhere than she had first feared. An electrician had already been summoned up by the fire service and made good any wiring that had been affected. Liam struck gold with a sympathetic carpenter who had turned up within the hour, assessed the situation, measured up, gone to fetch materials, and returned to start work, all before lunchtime. Flora’s spirits had been lifted by the realization that they would be back in the flat the same day. She set up a repair station in her workshop with Helga helping, including popping out to fetch snacks and lunch from Gerri. With everything being so swiftly put right, Xanthe had been able to slip away to see Harley without feeling as if she was abandoning them.
“Fairfax seems to pick his moments very well,” she told Harley. “It was as if he knows exactly where I’ll be at any given time. As if he is watching me.”
“Not a pleasant thought.”
“It isn’t. Nor is the fact that he hasn’t yet said what it is he wants from me. Just made threats.”
Harley paused in his work, straightening up to look at her, his brow furrowed in concentration. “So, do you think that the wedding dress you found is in some way connected to him? It’s singing away, you tell me, and now he reappears. Coincidence, or more than that, d’you reckon?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. The dress is supposed to be Edwardian, and it’s possible that is the time he’s now inhabiting. He was wearing a shirt with a starched wing collar, so that would fit the fashion of the era.” She pushed her hair back off her face, weary from lack of sleep, the drama of the fire, and the challenge that lay ahead. “It’s not much to go on, though. He could be hopping back and fore, picking up clothes from any time. Who knows.”
“Trouble is, hen, if Fairfax isn’t connected to the dress and you answer the call, well, you’ll be spinning off to deal with that, meanwhile yon man could be somewhen else, so you’d not be dealing with him at all.”
“Worse than that, I’d be leaving Mum unprotected. Apart from Pie.”
“I’d want something a wee bit more than a skinny hound between me and that bastard, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I know. I wish I could be sure. I tried to find an answer in the Spinners book.”
“Oh aye. Any joy?”
“Hard to tell. It showed the story of a young man killing someone who had evidently been tormenting him for years. I couldn’t work out what time period the events took place in. And what his story has to do with the wedding dress or with Fairfax I have absolutely no idea. It really doesn’t make any difference, not to what I have to do next,” she said firmly.
“I know that look. You’ve decided then? You’re definitely going back?”
“I have to. It’s the only way I’ll find out if the dress and Fairfax are connected. Its singing does seem to have got more urgent since he reappeared. And … I hate to ask, but I need your help. With Mum.”
“And here was me thinking you’d come to ask my advice as the ally of a Spinner, an expert on all things weird and downright peculiar hereabouts, a man of multiple and invaluable talents.…”
“Could you invite her round to dinner again? Please?”
“And which night would you like me to wine and dine and lie to your lovely wee mother?”
“Preferably the same night you’ve sent me to London to sing at your friend’s pub. Again.”
“Oh aye, that’ll be the friend who doesn’t exist in his ever-so-popular fictitious pub?”
“I’m sorry.”
Harley walked over to her and put his bear paw of a hand gently on her shoulder. “Tell me where to go, hen, but in my opinion, you are going to have to tell your mother the truth.”
She nodded. “One of these days,” she agreed. “But not today.”
“Today,” Harley insisted. “You said yourself, she’s in real danger. She has a right to know.”
“I think she’ll believe me. I hope so.”
“The daughter who’s been listening to singing antiques all her life? I should say so.”
“What if she tries to stop me traveling…?”
“Hen, she’ll be able to see how you have no choice in the matter. Even if it wasn’t for Fairfax … this … this spinning … it’s what you have to do. It’s who you are.” He squeezed her shoulder gently. “Tell me to bugger off and mind my own business if I’m wrong, but…”
“You’re not wrong. I’ve wanted to tell her for ages, really. I mean, it is a wonderful thing.… A crazy, beautiful thing. And I feel honored that I’ve been chosen, that I have this fantastic gift.…”
“There, that expression on your face right now, the one you get when you talk about it, that’s what’ll convince her, lassie.”
Back at the shop there was much to be done, and Xanthe had to be creative to engineer getting her mother on her own so that she could talk to her. She took Helga briefly to one side and spoke quietly to her, telling her she was worried Flora was struggling with the work the fire had caused and would Helga mind if she took her off for a quiet tea somewhere, just the two of them? Helga had proved herself a true friend, immediately volunteering to get on with some of the clearing up herself, so that Flora wouldn’t feel compelled to do it on her return. Xanthe had brushed off her mother’s initial resistance to the idea, letting her know she needed to talk to her on her own. As soon as Flora realized her own health was not, in fact, the issue she fetched her coat and bag and followed Xanthe out to her car. They set off in silence, driving through the afternoon countryside as long shadows fringed the rolling fields. At last the tension was broken by Flora spotting two hares standing in the center of a swath of plowed land, paws raised at each other.
“Oh, would you look at that! Stop the car, let’s watch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen hares properly boxing before.”
Xanthe pulled over onto the grass verge and switched off the engine. “There is someth
ing magical about them.”
“Now I know it’s properly spring.”
“They say hares are witches in disguise,” she told her, casting about for a way into talking about the impossible.
“Really? I didn’t know that. I knew they heralded spring, and that there’s nothing madder than a March hare.”
“Except possibly your daughter.”
Flora turned and studied her face closely. “OK, let’s have it, love. You can tell me anything, you know that, don’t you?”
“It’s hard to choose where to start … are you sure you wouldn’t rather we go and find a café? Do you want tea?”
“I want you to tell me what’s troubling you. What’s been troubling you for some time.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Xanthe, I’m your mum. Just because I don’t ask, doesn’t mean I don’t notice.…”
“I hate that you might worry.”
“I’m not a child. It’s not your job to keep things from me because you think I might not like them. Is it … something to do with Liam?”
“Liam? No, no, not him.”
“To do with the fire, then?”
“No, well, yes, in a way.”
Flora raised her hands and then let them drop on her lap. “OK, I’m not going to play this game. Love your taxi as I do, it’s not the warmest place to sit, and no, I don’t want to go somewhere else. Just tell me, right here, right now: What’s wrong?”
“Well, actually … it’s not all bad. That is, there’s something quite wonderful that I’ve wanted to tell you about for a while now. Something even more magical, even madder than those hares. The thing is, Mum, I haven’t been entirely honest with you. When I said I was going to London, to do gigs for Harley’s friend, well, I went somewhere else.”
“You made it up? There were no gigs? I don’t understand.…”
“There was no pub. No friend of Harley’s, either. I had to come up with an explanation for my absence.”
The Garden of Promises and Lies Page 8