Ghost Song

by Rayne, Sarah

  Then he went back to the office and continued helping the police with their search. Unobtrusive, helpful Mr Merrick. That nice little man who occasionally comes in to address envelopes and run errands. A pity he had to go home at lunchtime, but he would have his own life and commitments. The Harlequin would not represent his entire life. Caley knew that five minutes after he left they would have forgotten about him.

  When he reached his house he locked all the doors and went into the little back room which Mary had designated as their dining room and which still had the gate-leg table by the fireplace. Caley put the two files onto the table and sat down, looking at them. His heart was racing as fast as it had done earlier, but now it was racing with excitement and anticipation. I’ve stolen two files, he thought. I’ve obstructed a police investigation. He did not care. This is going to be it, he thought. This is going to be the moment when I find the link I’ve wanted since I was eighteen. The mysterious owner. The person who might hold the key to my real family.

  He opened the document wallet first, sliding the sheaf of papers out, seeing almost at once that they were unlikely to hold any secrets. In the main they were bank statements showing payments made in and out, and accounts from cleaning companies. There were also current insurance cover notes, certificates from the electricity board and fire authorities. All of this was information he already knew.

  At first look the second file was no more promising. There were a few letters to and from the bank, and some correspondence with a builder who had renewed some guttering two years ago—Caley remembered that being done because he had had to dodge the builder. The letters were all clipped together, and he began to turn them over, conscious of deep disappointment, thinking he need not have gone to so much trouble to get the files out.

  And quite suddenly, there it was. A single sheet of paper, loose in the file as if someone who was careless or in a hurry had just slipped it inside, not realizing it had slid between earlier letters. It was rather unevenly typed, with a printed address at the top and a signature at the bottom, and it looked like a photocopy. Caley sat very still, staring down at it, seeing the printed words dance back and forth across the page, forming crazy, unreadable shapes.

  It was from the Tarleton’s owner. Its owner. She was a lady living in Somerset, a lady called Madeleine Ferrelyn, and she had written this letter as recently as three days ago. And whatever the police might do to the theatre was a mere fleabite, because Madeleine Ferrelyn had already started the process that really would spoil Caley’s life. He read the letter again, this time not feeling sick, but feeling as if he was being drawn down into a black and lonely well.

  ‘…the Tarleton is to be woken from its long sleep at last,’ the letter said. ‘…my father’s will stipulated it should remain closed until fifty years after his death.’

  A brief anger welled up inside Caley—how dare she write those words. How dare this Ferrelyn woman talk so lightly of bringing back to life the one place where he belonged: the place that had become his life, the place where he could make music flow from the battered old piano, and where he felt he was among friends who understood him. It did not matter that the music was old and most of it virtually forgotten, and it did not matter that the friends were the ghosts of people long since dead and also forgotten: the music was wonderful to Caley and the people were not dead to him. He could not lose those marvellous hours he spent there, it would be like ripping out most of his life.

  He left the letter in its folder—he had no idea yet what he was going to do with it or whether he could risk destroying it—and sat very still for a long time. At last, moving jerkily as if something was forcing him to unwillingly do its bidding, he reached for the phone to dial the number for National Rail Enquiries. Connected to an anonymous operator, he asked about trains from London to Glastonbury. Fairly early in the morning, and a direct train if possible. It was disconcerting to be told there was no railway station in Glastonbury itself, but Caley asked if they could advise him of the nearest one to a place called Fosse Leigh. He thought it was quite near Glastonbury. Could they help him with this? He made himself sound older than he really was and a bit shaky, because it was remarkable how sympathetic people were if you did that.

  National Rail could indeed help him. In ten minutes Caley had the information that the nearest railway station to Fosse Leigh was Castle Cary and there were some through trains from Paddington. The journey would take about an hour and a half. Yes, there was a train at 8.34 a.m. Would he like to book a ticket now and collect it from the station?

  But it was automatic to Caley not to do anything that could ever be traced back to him, so he said he would think about it, and rang off. Then he found one of the old map books from his cupboard—he and Mary had occasionally taken a little holiday at Herne Bay or Hastings and the maps had been useful—and saw that Fosse Leigh was only about ten miles from Castle Cary. It was not ideal, but it was better than he had hoped. There might be a bus service, but it was more likely that he would have to get a taxi from the station. It would all be a bit expensive, but he would draw out some of his savings.

  As he folded the maps away, he wondered if DS Treadwell or his men would find any other way of tracing Madeleine Ferrelyn. He did not think it was very likely.

  It was six o’clock when Robert’s phone rang. He snatched it up, willing it to be Hilary, and was aware of a stab of disappointment when he heard Treadwell’s voice.

  ‘I thought you’d like to know we’ve finally got a name and address for the Tarleton’s owner,’ he said. ‘We had to go through the Harlequin’s bank and they weren’t very keen about releasing the information, but we pointed out that this was a police investigation, no matter how far back the crime, and that we had a body to move. At that they saw the argument and supplied the information. It’s owned by a lady living in Somerset. A Mrs Ferrelyn— Madeleine Ferrelyn, in a village near Glastonbury. We’ve tried ringing her, but there’s no reply, so we’ll get the local man to go along in the morning. It can wait until then—from what the bank said she’s an elderly lady, so we don’t want to alarm her unnecessarily.’

  ‘You haven’t heard from Shona Seymour yet?’ asked Robert.

  ‘No. We’ve tried her flat as well, but she’s not there.’ He paused, and Robert said, ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Probably not.’ But there was the definite impression of hesitancy. Robert waited, and Treadwell said, ‘It’s just that Shona Seymour’s meeting—it was with Radio 4, by the way—seems to have ended at half past ten this morning. The people at that meeting thought she was going back to her office right away.’

  ‘Is that particularly odd?’ said Robert. ‘Couldn’t she have just sneaked a day off for some private thing of her own?’ But he remembered that Hilary seemed to have sneaked a day off as well.

  ‘Well, yes, but when we went out to her flat we had a word with the doorman,’ said Treadwell. ‘It’s one of those rather plush quayside conversions and they have a kind of janitor-cum-security guy. He said Shona Seymour went in shortly after eleven this morning, then went straight out again with a small suitcase. He remembers particularly, because he made some remark about her going away, and she said yes, she would be away for the night, and would he go up later to push the evening newspaper all the way through her letter box so as not to advertise that the flat was empty.’

  ‘It’s still not really very odd,’ said Robert, but he was aware of a vague uneasiness. ‘In any case, it can’t be connected to that body in the Tarleton’s cellars.’

  ‘No, but what is odd is that we didn’t find any files on the place while we were at the Harlequin offices,’ said Treadwell.

  ‘You didn’t?’ Robert managed not to say that Hilary had referred to a file with bank statements.

  ‘Not so much as a Post-it note,’ said Treadwell. ‘And the fact that Shona Seymour seems to have taken off without telling anyone where she’s gone—and that she did so immediately after you found that body is a curious coinci
dence. Still, there’s probably a very ordinary explanation.’

  Robert hung up, frowning as he considered this new development. He realized he had not eaten since the scrappy meal he had made for himself at midday, and disinterred some lasagne from the fridge. After he had eaten it, he tried Hilary’s flat and mobile again; both were still on voicemail, but this time he left a message on the mobile, just saying he hoped she was all right and asking her to call him, deliberately making his voice sound offhand.

  But the feeling of unease was mounting. The thing he could not put out of his mind was the memory of that shadowy watcher in the Tarleton’s box that night, and of the soft-footed figure who had stolen through the darkness, humming quietly as it went. Robert had tried to brush it aside at the time, but he had known, deep down, that someone had been standing in the box at the side of the stage, watching himself and Hilary. And now Hilary and Shona seem to have disappeared and were not responding to phone messages, and the Tarleton file, which Robert definitely knew existed, had also disappeared.

  How easy would it be to get this Madeleine Ferrelyn’s phone number? Robert did not have a complete address, but it was an unusual name and he could probably get it from one of the directory enquiry services. Could he phone an unknown lady though, just on the off-chance that Hilary was there?

  By nine o’clock he faced the fact that he was not going to sleep that night unless he was sure Hilary was all right. He dialled directory enquiries, and asked for the number of a Mrs Madeleine Ferrelyn. The address was near Glastonbury, he said, hoping this would be enough.

  The voice at the other end sounded a bit bored. It said, ‘Would that be Ferrelyn of Levels House, Fosse Leigh, county of Somerset?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Robert, never having heard of Fosse Leigh, and was given the number.

  He sat staring at it for a long time. Mrs M. Ferrelyn, Levels House, Fosse Leigh, Somerset. It was not so very late to make a phone call; he could simply say he was trying to trace a friend—that there had been a mix up over a message somewhere—but that he thought she might be there, and then apologize if she was not there after all. Or could he? But the memory of that shadowy figure in the theatre’s box kept presenting itself to him, and he snatched up the phone and dialled the number before he could change his mind. There was a series of clicks and then a high-pitched continuous whine. Robert swore, and tried again. The result was the same on the second attempt and also on the third. Fault on the line? He fought his way through the labyrinth of the telephone fault-reporting system, and was eventually told that yes, there was a fault on this line and it would be passed to the engineers to deal with.

  ‘How soon…?’ began Robert, but the voice could not give any information on this point. It would be for the engineers to make tests, it said. It might be a local fault—this was a call centre in Glasgow and they had no knowledge of local conditions.

  ‘I’d be grateful if it could be treated as urgent,’ said Robert, and rang off.

  He spent ten minutes telling himself he had no idea what he was going to do next, but of course he did know. He was going to get out his maps and see how long it would take him to drive to this place, this Fosse Leigh, where the mysterious owner of the even more mysterious Tarleton apparently lived. When he looked at the map Fosse Leigh seemed to be a very small village indeed. It ought to be easy enough to find Levels House and if everything seemed all right, he would simply turn round and drive home. He did not know, yet, how he would establish if things were all right but he would think of a plan as he drove.

  A part of him still did not believe he was going to go haring off into the unknown in quest of a female. He was sensible and cautious and never yielded to mad impulses. He amended this: he had been sensible and cautious and not given to impulse until he met Hilary Bryant.

  He marked the route on the clearest of his maps, picked up his jacket, collected his wallet and car keys, and went out of his flat and down to his car.

  There were times when you had to cast sense and caution to the winds. In any case, he would probably find it was not a very difficult journey at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  June 1914

  IT HAD NOT BEEN as difficult a journey as Toby had feared.

  They reached Sarajevo around midnight on 26 June which was not late for Toby who was used to theatre hours, although Sonja’s face was white with tiredness. Even so, as they got down from the train and stood on the small platform in Sarajevo her eyes glowed with fervour. Ilena Osapinsky appeared hardly to have flagged at all: Toby thought she somehow gave the impression that having partaken in so many rebellions and revolutions in her life, this was just another in a long line. He could not decide if this was a calculated impression or if it was genuine. The bearded Ivor, who looked slightly crumpled from the hours on the train, took her arm and helped with her luggage.

  The accommodation turned out to be in the house of someone Toby supposed was a Tranz member, but the language spoken was beyond him and he had no idea what was being said. They were shown to two bare but clean rooms at the top of the rather ramshackle house: Toby was to share with Ivor and there were two other beds in the room, both with a few belongings already set out on them. Toby wondered if Petrovnic would be sleeping in one of the other beds and hoped he would not.

  A supper was served on a scrubbed-top table in what appeared to be a kitchen. There was a large pot of stew, with coarse-fibred bread, rice and fruit. Ilena refused to eat anything except a small portion of the fruit, but Toby, who was hungry, accepted a large helping. The meat could have been goat or rabbit or even human flesh for all he could tell, but he found it excellent and attempted to convey his appreciation to their hosts by gestures.

  Afterwards coffee was offered; it was so thick and strong Toby only managed a few sips, but Ilena drank two cups with relish and informed the company that on her father’s estate in the old days, they had always had coffee of this flavour.

  ‘Does that mean she really is a baroness?’ murmured Sonja to Toby.

  ‘Either that, or her father was the estate handyman,’ said Toby, and Sonja laughed, then remembered about being earnest and purposeful and told him to be quiet.

  He woke next morning to bright sunshine streaming through the windows, to find himself alone. If Ivor or anyone else had occupied the other beds, they had made them neatly and left the bedroom quietly. There was a polite tap at the door, and the house’s owner put his head into the room, to say, in slow difficult English, that Mr Chance was please to join them for coffee and discourse with the master.

  ‘Is the revolution about to start?’ asked Toby, who was feeling considerably better after a night’s sleep.

  ‘Excuse?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I was being flippant. I’ll be downstairs in five minutes.’

  Sonja was already seated at the kitchen table, and Petrovnic was talking in a low voice with Ilena and Ivor. He looked up as Toby came in, favoured him with a brief nod, then, raising his voice, said they were to assemble at the Café Zlatna Moruna in one hour’s time.

  ‘Battle orders?’ murmured Toby to Sonja as Petrovnic went out.

  ‘It’s one way of putting it. Coffee?’

  ‘Not if it’s that syrupy stuff we had last night.’

  He was glad, however, to find that the host’s ‘coffee’ translated as a plain but perfectly acceptable breakfast of some kind of porridge sweetened with honey, together with more of the coarse-fibred bread and fruit. He ate everything and drank plain milk.

  ‘I don’t know what animal the milk’s from,’ said Sonja, peeling an apple.

  ‘I don’t care if it’s from a herd of elephants. Let’s walk through the town before the meeting at the café, shall we?’

  There were flags and flowers decorating the streets, together with several large posters depicting the Archduke who had the distinctive heavy Habsburg jawline and a luxuriant moustache. Toby and Sonja found Sarajevo attractive. As they walked through the streets there were glimpses of a rive
r glinting as it ran under old stone bridges. A rather imposing cathedral shared part of the view with what Toby thought was a mosque. ‘All beliefs catered for,’ he said to Sonja.

  ‘Don’t be so flippant.’

  ‘If I can’t be flippant when I’m hundreds of miles from my home and its responsibilities—’

  ‘This looks like Zlatna Moruna,’ said Sonja. ‘We’d better go in.’

  ‘Petrovnic was right when he said it was humble.’ Toby surveyed the exterior of the café dubiously. ‘I can’t wait to see how our Ilena behaves in here.’

  The café was much as Toby had expected: a bare-floored place with small tables, and flagons of wine served at the tables. A modest choice of food appeared to be available. The windows looked directly onto the street, but they were so small the café was perpetually dark, and gas jets flickered and popped even at eleven o’clock in the morning. There was a smell of oil and cigarette smoke on the air.

  The café was filled with people—most of whom were men—talking in earnest little clusters round the tables. Toby had the feeling of stepping deeper into a den of secrecy and he paused in the doorway, exchanging a look with Sonja before sitting down and accepting a glass of wine from the earthenware jug ordered by Petrovnic.

  Also at the table were three young men whom Petrovnic introduced to the English party. Their leader was clearly a boy of about twenty called Gavrilo Princip: Toby remembered Petrovnic mentioning Princip before they left London—‘He sees our work as a crusade,’ Petrovnic had said—and Toby studied him with interest. So far from looking like someone about to embark on a crusade, Gavrilo Princip looked as if he should be in bed with wintergreen on his narrow chest and a camphor kettle steaming in a corner. He coughed frequently, several times touching a handkerchief to his lips.