The Greenstone Grail

by Jan Siegel

  ‘I told you, my daughter didn’t write –’

  ‘Please, Mrs Bagot. Hazel, do you know something?’

  ‘Not really.’ How could she tell him what she knew? He’d laugh in her face, which would be worse than threats. ‘I know it wasn’t an accident, that’s all. She went to the attic and locked herself in and never came out. I’d have heard her: my room’s underneath. I always heard her before.’

  ‘So you wrote the letter?’

  ‘Mm.’ It was almost an admission.

  ‘But she must have come out of the attic,’ Pobjoy said carefully, ‘in order to get to the river.’

  Hazel relapsed into silence.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’

  ‘Bacardi and coke.’ She had never had one, but it sounded like a good idea.

  ‘Just coke,’ said Pobjoy, nodding at Sergeant Hale. There was coke in the kitchen. The sergeant brought it to her, poured it into a glass.

  ‘She must have left the attic,’ the inspector reiterated, ‘to get into the river.’

  Hazel mumbled something, into the coke.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The basin was broken.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pobjoy. ‘There was a broken basin in the attic. Are you saying – she might have been drowned in the basin, not the river?’

  Hazel gave a half-nod. It’s true, she thought. A bit of the truth. The basin, and the river. He would never manage the whole truth.

  Lily, like the inspector, was following the clue in a different direction. ‘That’s nonsense. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. You’re bullying her …’

  ‘We can check the broken shards for fingerprints,’ Pobjoy was saying. Instinct told him they were onto something, though he wasn’t sure what. As the girl had said, her room was underneath the attic. She must have overheard an argument – a struggle – not knowing what it meant, not till it was too late, afraid to accuse someone close to her. ‘Who else had a key to the attic?’

  ‘Nobody,’ Lily said. ‘My grandmother took the only key.’

  ‘There may have been a copy you didn’t know about – in your husband’s possession, for instance.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Lily persisted. ‘Gran came to stay here when – when my husband moved out. She took the key then. It was unplanned. Dave couldn’t have known she would do that – he had no idea he might need a copy made. If – if he had meant to hurt her, which he didn’t.’

  ‘They didn’t get along, did they?’ said Pobjoy. Her argument had been garbled, but he took the point. Every time he thought a clue was leading him somewhere, the trail petered out. Beneath his surface inscrutability, he was annoyed.

  ‘Gran didn’t get along with most people,’ Lily said. ‘She was – she could be a difficult person.’

  ‘Why did she take the attic key?’ Pobjoy demanded. ‘What did she want to do there?’

  Lily merely looked baffled, but he saw the sudden tension in Hazel’s expression, behind the disorder of her hair.

  ‘She liked her privacy,’ Lily said, though she didn’t look convinced about it. ‘She wanted a place to be … alone.’

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked Hazel.

  Hazel achieved a gesture between a twitch and a shrug which got the interrogation exactly nowhere.

  ‘I know you’re keeping something from me,’ Pobjoy said in what was, for him, a gentle manner. ‘Why did you write the letter? Did you want justice for your great-grandmother? Or revenge on her killer?’

  Hazel was looking down at her hands. This time, she didn’t even manage a gesture.

  ‘Who are you protecting?’

  He didn’t expect an answer, but he got one, in the suddenly-deep voice that she used when she was nervous or upset. ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Then why won’t you tell me what you know?’

  She lifted her head, pushing her hair aside, and for the first time she met his eyes. ‘You wouldn’t believe me,’ she said.

  Rowena had employed Eric to do a few odd jobs for her in the shop in Chizzledown that week. He had never seen a screwdriver and thought a hammer was an antiquated religious symbol, but, as always, he learnt fast, and his strength matched his size, making him invaluable when it came to heavy lifting. Two young men arriving with a vanload of furniture Rowena had bought at auction found themselves effortlessly upstaged by a giant of a man who looked like a cross between a gipsy and a tramp, spoke bad English, and had to be at least twice their age (the actual arithmetic they would have found rather hard to take). But somehow, Rowena noticed, Eric always seemed to win friends. After much moving of furniture, coffee and sandwiches the youths evidently decided in favour of Eric’s eccentricities. With Rowena, he spent his spare time scanning old books or poring over pictures of the cup. ‘Of course you cannot date,’ he explained. ‘Sangreal from my world. Time in my world different from yours. Stone different, too.’

  He’s a little barmy, Rowena thought. But it’s an explanation – of sorts. She knew nothing of particle physics but everyone was aware that alternative universes were supposed to be a scientific fact. And there was his evident belief in magic as if it were a natural form of energy, like radiation or kinetics. All nonsense, of course: she knew it was nonsense, her father and grandfather would have known it was nonsense. But then, her father and grandfather would have thought the mobile phone and the microchip nonsense, and she herself had always dismissed the legends surrounding the cup of the Thorns – until lately.

  ‘We need to arrange for you to see the Grail,’ she told Eric, remembering Annie’s reaction to the cup – or at least, what she assumed was a reaction to the cup. If he saw it, if he touched it, there might be a sign. She would know.

  She called Julian Epstein, but the looming court case had made Sotheby’s wary and unwilling to cut her any more slack.

  On the Friday, Dieter Von Humboldt came into the shop again.

  ‘Have some tea,’ said Rowena, allowing a trace of brisk friendliness to colour her approach. ‘Been hoping for a chance to talk to you.’

  ‘So you have been thinking about my proposition?’

  ‘Ran into that chap Birnbaum the other day. Seems determined to get his pound of flesh – or pound of something, anyway. Says he wants justice, not money. Think it was justice.’ She led him into the back room and offered him a chair.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you want the cup, I want money, he wants justice. It will be interesting trying to work out a three-way split.’

  ‘That emotional stuff about the death of his family will go down well with the court,’ Rowena said, watching Von Humboldt narrowly. ‘I’m just the relic of an old family – outmoded class system and all that – you’re the grandson of a Nazi. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is. He’ll get the sympathy vote.’

  ‘I felt your rush into legal action was – a little hasty.’ She could sense he was pleased at what he thought of as her weakening, but he held back, waiting for her to put her cards on the table. Like all frank, matter-of-fact people who rarely choose to be devious, Rowena was very good at it when she did. She had no intention of showing her hand. Let him guess – and guess wrong.

  ‘I was thinking of a meeting,’ she said. ‘Informal. Couple of witnesses but no lawyers. Got to have the right location. Birnbaum’s impressed by the history of the cup, so let’s use it. Family home’s been sold years ago, but I know the chap who owns it. He’d let us meet there. Make Birnbaum feel he’s trying to destroy a tradition. He won’t want that. He’s the romantic type.’

  ‘That would benefit you,’ Von Humboldt pointed out, ‘but not me.’

  ‘We’d have to deal on the side. He won’t give an inch to you; he might to me.’

  ‘You are unscrupulous,’ the Austrian said. He sounded slightly shocked.

  ‘The cup belongs to my family. I want something out of this.’

  ‘Something … I see. Yet you said all you wanted was the cup itself.’ Von Humboldt accepted a mug of tea, but didn’t drink.


  ‘As things stand, not much chance of that. Could have fought you in the courts, harder with Birnbaum. For him, we need to deal out of court.’

  ‘And with Birnbaum out of the way, you will return to legal means to fight me?’

  She permitted herself a quick, tight grin. ‘Nice one. No: if we make a bargain, that’s it. Not suggesting anything in a hurry, though. Just a meeting to start the ball rolling. Doesn’t commit anyone to anything, does it? Wasn’t that what you wanted?’

  ‘As you say.’

  ‘One more thing: the Grail should be there.’

  ‘No.’ His tone was flat.

  ‘Why the fuss? Have all the security you want. No one’ll nick it – it’s unsaleable without provenance. That’s why Sotheby’s contacted me in the first place. Carbon-dating didn’t work; if I say it’s a fake you probably won’t get a buyer. Not at the price you want, anyway. Need it there if we’re going to meet. Atmosphere.’

  ‘Mrs Thorn, I am not a romantic. You won’t get round me like that.’ Von Humboldt was looking puzzled.

  ‘Know that.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘Told you. Atmosphere.’ She waited a minute, then affected to drop her guard. ‘Want to see it back where it belongs, just once. Then, if I have to let it go …’ She shrugged.

  He didn’t entirely believe her, but she knew he was curious – and he didn’t want to wait for slow legal machinery to grind into action.

  ‘I’ll discuss the matter with Sotheby’s,’ he said.

  For Nathan, the advent of the holidays didn’t bring the usual feeling of unalloyed bliss. Instead, there was relief, because the distraction of school was removed and he could focus on other matters. He felt a faintly uncomfortable fizz of excitement, and the leading edge of fear. He put out tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt to sleep in – he was fed up with universe-hopping in pyjamas – anointed himself with Bartlemy’s herbal mixture, and proceeded to sleep without dreams, or at least, none of any significance.

  Saturday was spent with Hazel and George, who were, as always, deeply envious of his early break-up. ‘How come people who pay for education get less of it?’ George wanted to know.

  ‘Mum doesn’t pay. I’m on a scholarship.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  That evening, Annie said she had to go and see Bartlemy for a couple of hours. ‘Will you be all right on your own?’

  ‘’Course. Anyhow, Hazel will stay. She’s been grilled by the cops: she needs lots of moral support.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ Annie asked her.

  Hazel nodded. She’d told Nathan about writing the letter, but no one else.

  ‘I’ll put a pizza in the oven. Mushroom and mozzarella or pepperoni?’

  They opted for pepperoni. ‘What’re you going to see Uncle Barty about?’ Nathan asked. It was unusual for her to go without inviting him.

  ‘Private talk,’ Annie said. Bartlemy had been emphatic that she should come alone. ‘Grown-up stuff.’ And, mentally crossing her fingers: ‘Probably about money.’

  Nathan said nothing, but he didn’t believe her.

  Annie arrived at Thornyhill to find Bartlemy alone; Eric had gone to have supper with Rowena Thorn. ‘She’s up to something,’ Bartlemy said, taking Annie into the kitchen. ‘Apparently, she’s trying to persuade the owner to allow the Grail to be brought here for a couple of days. She wants Eric to get a look at it. She seems to have taken quite a shine to him.’

  ‘Everyone does,’ Annie smiled. ‘Perhaps she believes he really does come from another world.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ As she was walking, not driving, he presented her with a glass of elderflower champagne which packed the punch of vintage Krug. ‘I’m afraid we’re not eating till later. I have a little research I want to do first, and I need you with me, in case there’s anyone – or any thing – you recognize.’

  ‘What sort of research? And why all the secrecy?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  In the drawing room, he had pushed back the furniture and rolled up the Oriental rugs. The curtains were drawn, shutting out the long light evening. ‘I would prefer to wait for dark,’ he said, ‘but it would make us very late.’ He crouched down by the fireplace, striking a match; Annie thought what was on the hearth wasn’t coal. The lumps appeared to be pallid and angular, like chunks of crystal. Presently they began to burn with a bluish flame which looked wan in the veiled daylight.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked him, and there was a note of fear or doubt in her voice.

  ‘Something I haven’t done in a long, long while. I was never very good at it; my heart wasn’t in it, as they say. But I had the Gift, so I was taught all the tricks of the trade. I rarely use them. Cooking has always been magic enough for me.’ Hoover padded at his side as he began to sprinkle powder from a flask round the perimeter of a wide circle. A mark on the floor, faint as a shadow, indicated that this had been done before.

  Annie said: ‘Is this – magic?’

  ‘Oh yes. One of the oldest spells. Quite powerful, really, but don’t worry. As long as the boundary is correctly sealed nothing can leave the circle.’ Still using the powder, he drew four strange runes beyond the rim. When not talking to her, he murmured something under his breath, words she couldn’t hear properly, or hearing, couldn’t understand. ‘I’ll do the talking. You can sit here. It’s best if you stay in the chair. On no account try to cross the perimeter.’

  Annie sat down, clutching her glass. ‘Are you – are you going to call up the dead?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. Waste of time, in most cases. Spirits who have passed the Gate cannot return. Of course, some don’t, and the recently deceased often hang around for a bit – unfinished business and all that. I suppose we could try … well, we’ll see. In due course.’

  ‘Can you summon people from another world?’

  ‘No. That would take unimaginable power. The circle is just for this world. It’s a way of getting in touch with spirits who don’t usually talk to Man. Or people who don’t want to. Once called to the circle, you see, they have to answer your questions truthfully. At least, that’s the theory of it. They have to say something, anyway. And even lies and distortions can be informative, if you read them right. Personally, I don’t know that it will be useful and I don’t really like doing it, but we need all the information we can get.’ Suddenly, he turned to her with his most calming smile. ‘Don’t be upset by anything you see. Or hear. Spirits are a lot like people: they like to talk big and act tough. And they resent being summoned, of course. It’s rather like the genie of the lamp, you know. You rub, he has to appear. I’ve often thought he must have been regularly annoyed about that.’

  ‘I never saw it that way,’ Annie murmured.

  He positioned himself at the circle’s edge, one hand on Hoover’s head. She had the feeling the dog, too, had been here before. Bartlemy spoke a single word – she thought it was: ‘Fiumé!’ – and a spark ran round the perimeter, igniting the powder to a flame which flared and sank. Then both the runes and the boundary burned with a barely visible flicker. In darkness the effect would have been far more dramatic, but for Annie it was the banality of it – the fact that darkness and drama were not essential – which she found deeply disturbing. This was a spell, it was potent, it was real, perhaps even dangerous – and yet it was also ordinary. As much a part of Bartlemy’s routine as preparing a complex dish which he hadn’t tried for a while, with ingredients which might have gone off in the interim.

  Hoover sat down looking unusually alert, both ears cocked. Bartlemy started to speak in an unfamiliar language, a language that sounded cold and strange even in his soft voice, changing it, changing him. At the heart of the circle there was a thickening in the air – a mistiness – a blur. Then a shape. A woman – a woman who looked pale and insubstantial, as if drifting in and out of reality. She seemed to be seated – there was a suggestion of chair beneath her – and held something in her hands as if it were very precious, somethin
g small and round. She was all monochrome save for a red veil which covered her face.

  ‘Greeting, Ragnlech,’ Bartlemy said politely, in English. ‘You are welcome.’

  ‘What do you seek of us?’ The voice from behind the veil was faint as the wind sighing far off, and full of echoes.

  ‘Knowledge. A seeress sees many things, both present and past. I need to know what the sisterhood have seen.’

  The woman lifted the veil. Her face looked curiously unstable, sometimes young and unlined, sometimes withered with years. The skull gleamed through the dim covering of her flesh. Her eye-sockets were empty. When she raised her hands, holding the little ball, Annie closed her own eyes for a second.

  Only for a second. Now the Eye was in place, in the left-hand socket. It looked far more solid than the face around it, glowing as if lit from within, fixing some point beyond the circle with a monstrous stare.

  ‘What would you have us see?’ asked the seeress.

  ‘The vessel called the Grimthorn Grail. I would know how it came into the world, and for what purpose. Also something of its making, if possible.’

  ‘Its making is hidden from us, and its purpose. One Josevius Grimthorn brought it here, more than thirteen hundred years ago, from another place. A place outside the dimensions of this world. How he did this we cannot tell. There was great magic involved, but it is unfamiliar to us.’

  ‘If not its purpose, can you tell me of its power?’

  ‘Its aura is very bright.’ The Eye shone brilliantly for an instant, then Ragnlech blinked once, and a tear ran down the shadow of her face. It looked like blood. ‘It hurts us. We cannot look at it. Its power is great. It can wipe the memory of those who should not see it, or bind the tongue. It has protectors, beings – entities – not of this world. They are invisible here, or nearly so. They speak words without thought, make footsteps without feet. They were sent with the cup.’

  ‘Sent … Who sent them?’