Northanger Abbey

by Val McDermid

  ‘Well, that seems pretty clear,’ Henry said.

  ‘I’m sorry, I seem to leave a trail of confusion wherever I go,’ Cat said.

  General Tilney got to his feet and came towards them. ‘That’s what comes of being such an attractive young woman,’ he said. It was a line that from another might have seemed louche or inappropriate. But in the General’s dry tone, it was impossible to take exception to it. ‘Eleanor, are you going to introduce me to your friend?’

  Ellie dipped her head. ‘Father, this is Catherine Morland from Dorset who is here in Edinburgh for the festival with her friends the Allens.’ It was curiously formal, but it seemed to be the style of the house, for the General acknowledged the introduction with a half-bow from the waist.

  ‘A pleasure,’ he said. He gave Ellie a sharp look. ‘But you didn’t come in together. Why did Calman not bring Miss Morland in? What was he thinking? We don’t just barge into rooms in this house.’

  ‘My fault,’ Cat said, clapping a hand to her chest. ‘I was incredibly rude. I ran straight past him. Poor man, he didn’t stand a chance. And please, General, call me Cat. Everyone else does.’

  He smiled. ‘Come and sit with us. Calman will bring us tea and cakes, it’s that sort of time.’ He nodded at Ellie, who hurried out of the room, and waved Cat to a sofa near the massive marble fireplace. Now she saw him at closer range, she could see that although his features were very similar to his son’s, his skin was covered in fine wrinkles as if he’d spent years out of doors in all weathers. But because his hair was the kind of light brown that disguised the strands of silver, he still looked amazingly young. Like a two-hundred-year-old vampire, Cat’s wicked angel whispered in her ear. That same angel noticed there was a faint outline above the elaborate mantelpiece, as if the large mirror one might expect to find there had been temporarily removed.

  Afternoon tea soon appeared, so lavish Cat was fascinated by its generosity to the point where she failed to notice her companions ate hardly anything. Instead they all chattered as cosily as if they’d known each other for years. The General remained formal and somewhat aloof, but he was not averse to joining the conversation when he had something germane to contribute. Eventually, he stood up and apologised for having to leave them. ‘I have some calls to make,’ he said. ‘But we would be very happy if you would stay for dinner.’

  Cat was as dismayed as she was surprised. ‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘But I know Mrs Allen has tickets for a concert this evening and I mustn’t let her down.’ She also got to her feet. ‘In fact, I really should get back. This has been a lovely afternoon. Thank you.’

  ‘We’ll see you tomorrow morning around nine,’ Henry reminded her.

  ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ the General said. He took her elbow as they left the drawing room. ‘You have the spring in your step of a natural dancer,’ he said as he opened the front door. ‘I thought as much when I saw you dancing with Henry.’

  It was the icing on the cake, to be complimented by a man as eminent as the General. Cat proceeded happily to Queen Street, taking note of that dancer’s spring in her step that she’d never noticed before. What an afternoon of ups and downs it had been. She hated upsetting James and Bella but she had been determined to do the right thing. And it had been the right thing, in spite of Bella’s snide suggestion that she was trying to justify what she intended to do anyway. If anyone was selfish, Cat told herself, it was Bella. She checked her phone and sure enough, there were half a dozen messages from Bella entreating her to change her mind, plus a couple complaining of her intransigence.

  The Allens were both sitting in the window sipping white wine when she returned and she amused them over dinner with her adventures. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you made the right choice,’ Mr Allen said. ‘Gadding about in gaudy convertibles sends the wrong sort of message about the kind of girl you are, Cat.’

  ‘You’re so right,’ Susie said. ‘I don’t think your father would approve. Much better to take a sedate walk with the Tilneys. Such a good family, by all accounts. Just the kind of young people your parents would like to think of you hanging out with, Cat.’

  Generally, that would have been the opposite of a recommendation to a teenager. But Cat was so deeply mired in her admiration for the Tilneys that not even the potential approbation of her parents could divert her.

  14

  The following morning Cat was in a ferment of apprehension. The weather was fair; a thin layer of cloud kept the sun at bay, making it perfect for hill-walking. But that would also make it perfect for driving to Glasgow with the top down. Since Bella had not given up texting her till after midnight, Cat was by no means convinced that the others wouldn’t turn up on the doorstep for a final attempt at persuading her away from the Tilneys.

  But nine o’clock struck and Cat’s vigil by the window was rewarded by the sight of a Mercedes drawing up outside and Ellie exiting the passenger door. Cat grabbed her daypack and raced down the stairs, meeting Ellie halfway. They hugged and filled the stairwell with gleeful teenage exclamations.

  Henry was behind the wheel of the Mercedes and although she feared momentarily that she might have to endure another bout of extreme male driving, Cat’s anxiety turned out to be groundless. Henry drove like a perfectly sane person, so it was possible for his passengers to exchange remarks that didn’t include squeals of terror.

  The car park on Queen’s Drive was almost empty, which boded well for their walk. ‘I do hate crowds when I’m out walking,’ Ellie said. ‘It defeats the object of getting out of the city if the hill paths are as busy as Princes Street.’

  ‘If you don’t like crowds, you should avoid Dorset in the school holidays,’ Cat said with feeling. ‘Ever since they christened it the Jurassic Coast, it’s mobbed with small boys hunting dinosaur fossils. And the rest of their families filling the beaches with all the paraphernalia of middle-class leisure. Windbreaks and portable barbeques. Bloody boules and beach cricket. You can’t move for folding chairs and boogie boards and wetsuits drying on the shingle.’

  ‘You make it sound quite lovely,’ Henry teased as they set off up the main path leading to the gap between the crags.

  ‘It is lovely. Just not when the tourist hordes descend. Come and visit, both of you, and see it for yourself. The coast is truly dramatic.’

  ‘But what about the Piddle Valley? What’s that like?’ Ellie giggled. ‘Is the River Piddle a gushing torrent or a feeble dribble?’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ Cat said sarcastically. ‘It’s an insignificant little river, but the countryside is exactly what English chocolate-box scenery is meant to be.’

  ‘We shall have to come and see for ourselves,’ Henry said. They were silent for a while, saving their breath for the steep uphill climb that brought them to the top of Salisbury Crags, with its panoramic view of the city, the Firth of Forth and the hills of Fife beyond. They paused for a breather and Henry took the opportunity to tell Cat something of the three-hundred-and-fifty-million-year history of the volcanic landscape.

  ‘It’s amazing, somewhere so wild and yet so close to the city centre. When I turn my back on the city and look up to the summit, I feel like I could be in the heart of the Highlands,’ Cat said.

  ‘I love it up here,’ Ellie said. ‘Whenever we’re in Edinburgh I always try to sneak away and come up, even if I’ve only got time to come this far.’

  ‘I’ve been reading the Hebridean Harpies books and somehow, being here in this landscape makes the books even more alive to me,’ Cat said. She cast a sideways look at Henry. ‘I don’t suppose you read novels like that, do you?’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Because they’re not highbrow enough for someone like you?’

  ‘I hate literary snobbery, Cat. Anyone who can’t take pleasure in a good story well told is the worse off for it. I’ve read all of Morag Fraser’s novels – Ellie turned me on to them a couple of years ago. They’re real page-turners, and they’re genuinely scar
y. I know some blokes think they’re soppy girls’ books, but that’s because they’ve never actually sat down and read one.’

  ‘He’s not lying, Cat,’ Ellie said. ‘When the last one arrived in the post at Northanger, I was out with friends, and he opened the parcel. I got back that evening to find him curled up in his chair, totally gripped. I had to wait till he’d finished before I could read my own book.’

  ‘I’m a vile thief,’ Henry admitted. ‘But I didn’t think she’d be back so early. I thought I could finish it by morning and wrap it all up again like new and she’d be none the wiser. So now do you have a better opinion of my taste in books?’

  Cat laughed in delight. ‘I shall never again be ashamed of reading the Harpies. But my brother despises the whole category of fiction, and I assumed he was a typical bloke.’

  ‘I believe it’s true that women read more novels than men. Certainly they buy more and they borrow more from libraries. But it may be that their brothers and boyfriends and husbands can’t be bothered picking them out. It’s like food,’ Ellie said. ‘They’d complain soon enough if the cupboard was bare and there was no dinner on the table. But they don’t want to come to the supermarket with us. They just expect food to turn up. Maybe it’s the same with novels.’

  ‘You girls have such a low opinion of us men, I’m amazed any of you ever agree to go out with us,’ Henry said, setting off up the escarpment.

  ‘Well, I think it’s cool that you like the Harpies books,’ Cat said, walking alongside him.

  ‘Cool?’ Henry groaned. ‘Meaning what? Delightful? Fashionable?’

  ‘Henry, stop it. Cat’s not your sister, don’t be so sarcastic with her,’ Ellie complained. ‘He’s so bloody pedantic, he’s always on my case about the way I use language. Father’s got an excuse, he’s from a different generation, but Henry’s just a fully paid-up member of the awkward squad.’

  ‘What’s wrong with “cool”? Surely what matters is that people understand you? And everybody understands “cool”,’ Cat said.

  ‘Very true. And this is a very cool day and we’re taking a very cool walk and you two are very cool young ladies. Man, it’s such a cool word. It works hard for a living, that’s for sure. Once, cool referred to the temperature, either literally or metaphorically. But now it’s made half the language of description redundant. Nobody thinks twice before they open their mouth. Everything is “cool”,’ he said, using his fingers to approximate inverted commas in the air.

  Cat laughed. ‘That thing with the air commas? That’s not cool, Henry.’

  ‘Yes, Henry, you are definitely uncool. Whereas we are the very epitome of cool. So, Cat, what do you read apart from Morag Fraser?’

  ‘I love novels that transport me into their world. When I was a kid, I adored Harry Potter and the Narnia books. But now I read all sorts. The last thing I read before I came away was The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. And in the car on the way up, we listened to Dracula.’

  ‘The original? Wow, I’ve never actually read that all the way through.’

  ‘It’s amazing. People are very sniffy about vampires, but I think they’re incredible. They’re brave and driven. They can be really heroic because they’re always outnumbered. And they’re so passionate,’ Cat added enthusiastically.

  ‘Oh, I know. They’re so edgy. And you can’t help falling for them.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Cat said dreamily. ‘I love all that. But there’s one kind of book I totally can’t get on with, and that’s those solemn history books. I think history could be much more interesting if it was about the unseen as well as the seen.’

  Walking behind them, Henry shook his head in bemusement. ‘I wish I knew what you meant by that,’ he sighed. ‘History is what tells us who we are.’

  Cat turned to face him, walking backwards. ‘Then why does it have to be so dull? I sometimes think the writers of history books sit down to write with the sole intention of torturing little boys and girls.’

  ‘Isn’t that the point of little boys and girls? To be tormented by their elders and betters? How else are we supposed to have fun?’ Henry asked. ‘But, Cat, really, you can’t believe that’s what serious historians are about? Surely you must admit that they’re there to instruct us? Or do you think that instruction and torture are the same thing?’

  ‘Here we go,’ Ellie groaned.

  By now they were at the base of the final steep climb that led to the summit. ‘I’ve seen the look on my poor mother’s face when she’s trying to cram some knowledge into our thick heads. And I’ve been on the receiving end of that cramming enough to know that torture and instruction can be synonymous.’

  ‘But if we didn’t allow that torture to happen, you wouldn’t have learned to read. Think how much pleasure you’ve had over the years from that little bit of torture. Consider – if you hadn’t been forced to undergo those terrible hours, Morag Fraser would have toiled in vain.’ He spread his hands as if there was no possible comeback. ‘Game, set and match, I think.’

  ‘I told you, once he starts there is no stopping him. He could argue black is white,’ Ellie said.

  ‘That’s why I’m such a good lawyer.’

  Again they fell silent as they scrambled onwards. Finally, out of breath and sweating, they reached the summit and stood with their hands on their knees getting their breath back and taking in the glorious views. Then Henry stood up and made a frame with his hands. ‘This would make a great opening sequence for a movie. You start off up here, then you zoom slowly in, getting closer and closer to a segment of the city, then to a building then to a window then to a single room.’

  Ellie joined in what was obviously a game they’d played before. ‘And in that room . . . a vampire.’

  Henry sighed. ‘It’s always a vampire with you. What about a zombie, for a change?’

  ‘Or a murderer, planning his next evil crime,’ Cat said, desperate to make a mark.

  ‘Maybe. But look, check out this framing shot over here. If you set up the camera right here and went in tight on those rooftops, you could do something really dramatic.’

  ‘And now you know Henry’s deep dark secret,’ Ellie said. ‘He actually wants to be a film director, not a boring old lawyer. But Father wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘Do you have to do everything your father tells you?’ Cat said. ‘My dad hardly ever puts his foot down because he knows we generally don’t pay the least attention.’

  A muscle tightened in Henry’s jaw. ‘My father takes the view that anyone who lives under his roof plays by his rules. I wanted to go to film school but he refused point-blank to support me. So I went into the law. I haven’t given up my dreams, though. I’ve still got plans.’

  It was clear that he didn’t want to discuss the subject further, so Cat sat down on a rock and took a packet of biscuits out of her daypack. She handed them round, casting about for something else to say. ‘I heard there’s something truly shocking brewing in London.’

  Ellie looked startled. ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Only that it’s going to be more shocking and gruesome than anything we’ve ever encountered.’

  Ellie’s eyes widened and she clutched her brother’s arm. ‘Oh my God. How did you hear about it?’

  ‘I got a text from somebody I know. There was a link to a video clip. It looked like it was made on a hand-held camera in a cellar. The guy was talking about murder and child abduction and monsters in the streets.’

  Ellie squealed. ‘In London? My God, how can you be so calm about it? Why is there nothing on the news? What are the police doing about it?’

  Henry was struggling not to smile. ‘Not a damn thing. There must be murder and abduction, or what justification would the police have for their existence?’

  ‘I don’t believe you. The police wouldn’t just stand by while such terrible things happened.’

  It dawned on Cat that Ellie had misunderstood her. ‘No, Ellie—’

  ‘Cat’s not t
alking about reality, are you?’

  ‘No, it’s a new TV series. They made these viral marketing clips that look like they’re real underground news reports, but they’re just trails for a new Channel 4 series.’

  Henry laughed at his sister’s discomfiture, but not unkindly. ‘Bless you, El. You’ve got such an imagination, you should be writing this stuff yourself. One word from you, Cat, and she’s picturing a mob of thousands assembling in Hyde Park, the Bank of England attacked, the Treasury firebombed, the streets of London flowing with blood as the crazed zombies march on Parliament. But never fear, sister dear, before you know it, the gallant Captain Freddie Tilney will be driving his tank down Whitehall to save the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.’

  Ellie punched him on the arm and Henry howled in mock-pain, skipping away from her. ‘She’s not a complete simpleton, Cat. Truly. And I do actually have a very high opinion of the intelligence of women. I think you have a far better understanding of human behaviour than men do, and you apply it in the most subtle of ways. We are putty in your hands.’

  ‘You see?’ Ellie said. ‘He can’t even pay a compliment without being facetious.’

  ‘Facetious? Moi? Never.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Henry. I want Cat to be my friend, so don’t put her off. Any more of your silliness and I’ll push you off Salisbury Crags on the way down.’

  He poked his tongue out at her. ‘And I will simply fly through the air on my vampire wings and wait for you at the bottom.’

  Cat’s heart gave a little jolt. Henry’s manner was so playful that she had struggled all morning to know whether he was serious. And here he was, talking of being a vampire. Was he merely joking or was this some bravura double-bluff calculated to divert suspicion from his true nature? The more time she spent with the Tilneys, the more off-kilter she felt. Was that to do with her own emotions or their behaviour? And if it was them, was their conduct deliberately unsettling?