by Jan Siegel
‘Don’t go there,’ Annie said. ‘Here. I’ve got iron.’ The number in her pocket, little use against human or water-spirit, but effective for gnomons.
‘I too,’ said Eric. ‘There is no iron in car?’
‘Chrome. Wood. Plastic. Is he – is he dead?’
‘Not dead, mad. They eat his mind. Nothing left.’
Suddenly, Annie found she was sobbing, from relief or some other reaction, while Eric patted her clumsily; he was still not comfortable with physical contact. She strove to pull herself together, curbing the tears, though she was still trembling inwardly. The gnomons seemed to have gone. She glanced round at the man in the car, and then hastily looked away.
By the time the inspector arrived, with Bartlemy, Nathan and Hazel in his wake, Michael was beginning to drool.
Teatime found all of them except the police in the drawing room at Thornyhill, eating their way through the reserves of Bartlemy’s larder and drinking tea, with stronger stimulants for those who weren’t driving. ‘You never said how you all managed to get there at more or less the same time,’ Annie was saying. After a rather careful interview with Pobjoy, tiptoeing round the more questionable aspects of her story, she was at last beginning to relax.
‘Obviously we all started worrying about you at once,’ said Bartlemy. ‘Anyhow, Nathan was back safe, and I wanted to bring him home. When you weren’t there, we asked along the High Street, like Rowena and Eric. You’ve lived in a village long enough, Annie: you know what it’s like. In a city, no one would have noticed a thing, but here, half the population saw where you were going. Anyway, Hazel joined us and insisted on coming too, then Pobjoy turned up. I was very concerned when I realized you’d gone to Riverside House. After I talked to Woody I was pretty sure Michael was behind the appearance of Nenufar in these parts. I’m not certain how Rowena reached the same conclusion –’
‘He lied about the weather in Oxford,’ Rowena said. ‘Stupid sort of lie. Why bother? Unless he was giving himself an alibi. Couldn’t have done the robbery – too tall – must’ve been the murder. What was that thing acting as his wife?’
There were several muddled attempts to explain. ‘We may never know who she really was,’ Bartlemy said. ‘Nenufar was no more her real name than Rianna Sardou. But with nobody to conjure her, she cannot return. The police will look for her, of course, but they won’t find anything. They’ve got a very old corpse and a murderer too far gone to plead Not Guilty who’ll have to spend the rest of his life in an asylum. Pobjoy won’t be completely satisfied – he’s too intelligent for that – but he’ll make do. The Grail’s been returned and he won’t press the matter of the theft, though I daresay he’ll always suspect you two were involved.’ He nodded at Nathan and Hazel.
‘But you told him you found it, not Nathan,’ Hazel said. ‘I heard you.’
‘I thought that was best,’ said Bartlemy. ‘He didn’t believe me, though.’
‘Who did take it?’ asked Rowena. ‘Who was this dwarf?’
‘That I also wish to know,’ said Eric. ‘If he return it to my world he must have much force.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Bartlemy replied. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know all the answers, and we can only speculate. However, some old records suggest that Josevius Grimthorn had an assistant, a hunchback – or a dwarf –’
‘Ought to be a hunchback,’ Rowena said unexpectedly. ‘Traditional.’
‘At a guess, his master imprisoned him for some unknown offence. He’s werefolk, a true dwarf not just a short human – he must be to have survived so long. Anyway, he’d know there was a transition point in the sunken chapel where the Grail could pass from world to world –’
‘Could a human get through?’ Nathan interrupted. ‘Sorry. I just wondered.’
‘I wouldn’t recommend trying it. Remember, the Grail was going home – and it’s an inanimate object, though clearly it has certain powers. A living thing would probably be annihilated by the forces involved in the transition, even if it was able to pass through that portal.’
‘Why would dwarf wish to return cup to my people?’ Eric demanded. ‘Did he do right thing? Is it wrong, we keep it here?’
‘Again, we don’t know,’ Bartlemy continued. ‘Maybe the dwarf thought he did right. Maybe we’ve done wrong. The spell that can save your people – if such a spell exists – is not yet prepared. Until then, the Grail seems safer here, out of reach of local terrorists.’
‘If I can get it back,’ Rowena pointed out. ‘Julian’s taking it to Sotheby’s again – for the Von Humboldts.’
‘We must do what we can.’
She took a restorative gulp of tea. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I’m really supposed to believe all this stuff – about other worlds and sea-spirits and so on.’
‘Believe what you want,’ Bartlemy said. ‘You know what you saw.’
‘Oh yes, I know. Won’t forget in a hurry.’ She gave a shudder, and reached for another biscuit. ‘What were those things that went for Michael? Not exactly invisible, but …’
‘Gnomon,’ said Eric. ‘From my world. Bring madness. Iron keep them away.’
‘They could be protecting the Grail,’ said Bartlemy. ‘Though on this occasion they seemed to be protecting Annie. We don’t know why.’
‘All over, isn’t it?’ said Rowena. ‘Time we knew everything.’
‘Life doesn’t work that way,’ smiled Bartlemy, both amused and a little sad.
‘Not over,’ said Eric. ‘My people still die.’
It can’t be over, thought Hazel. Everyone else had big adventures except me; I only had small ones. Unless you count getting arrested, and that wasn’t much fun. I wasn’t even arrested properly, in the end, just interviewed …
It isn’t over until I can stop myself dreaming, Nathan reflected. (And Halmé had said: ‘Sim vo-khalir,’ till we meet again.)
I wish it was over, Annie thought, but it isn’t. I haven’t told him about his father – that’s part of this, it must be – but I can’t. Just let me have a little more time – time for innocence, and childhood, and trust, before I have to destroy them forever.
It isn’t over …
Later, Bartlemy said to her: ‘You must be very upset about Michael. I’m so sorry. I know how much you liked him.’
‘It’s odd,’ Annie said, ‘but I’m not. Not yet, anyway. It’s as if, when I saw through him, all the liking – all the attraction – drained away. Perhaps it’s because it was false, all along – he was false – false charm, false courage – his whole persona was just a mask, and when you tore it off there was nothing underneath left to like. I don’t feel betrayed, just a bit silly. Falling for him like a teenager – sorry, Nathan, Hazel.’
‘He was very clever,’ Bartlemy affirmed. ‘He probably used more than charm on you. He was Gifted, but he hid it well. I never picked up on it, and I should have done. He must have suppressed it very carefully in public.’
‘What d’you mean by “Gifted”?’ Rowena wanted to know.
‘How did Nathan get cup back?’ Eric said. ‘That is story I like to hear.’
‘What is the real meaning of the universe?’ Annie added mischievously. She was feeling sufficiently recovered to be a little mischievous now.
They sat there well into the evening, talking and talking, while Bartlemy went into the kitchen, setting the questions aside, knowing that some of them would never have answers, and began to prepare a dinner that would celebrate the occasion, and salve the spirit, and fill the spaces where the answers would not come.
EPILOGUE
Afterthoughts
About four months later Inspector Pobjoy found himself in the vicinity of Thornyhill. He hadn’t really found himself, of course; this was a visit he had been meaning to make for some time, delaying it, desiring it, touched with curiosity and something more, maybe an element of apprehension. Bartlemy didn’t look surprised to see him. Pobjoy wondered if he was ever surprised to see anyone. If the Queen had knocked at the door
he would have greeted her with the same tranquil smile, there would have been tea and biscuits …
There was tea, and biscuits. Different biscuits from last time, winter biscuits with a hint of cinnamon, a whiff of spice. Hoover sat at his feet studying him with an expression that would have been disconcerting on the face of a witness, and was completely unnerving on a dog. Fortunately for him, Pobjoy didn’t notice.
‘I gather you decided to set aside the matter of the theft,’ Bartlemy said. ‘I’m so glad. I can’t help realizing I was the prime suspect. It took place in my house, I’m known to be a collector, in a small way – no doubt you could prove I have an obsession with the history of the Thorns – and it would have been very easy for me to engineer the power cut. I was out of the room at the relevant moment, after all. No one else could have done that; I’m sure the point must have occurred to you.’
Shaken out of his normal inscrutability, Pobjoy could only stare. Bartlemy was quite right – but it never bad occurred to him.
‘Then when things got a little too hot for me – when I felt the investigation was coming too close – I simply restored the Grail to the appropriate people, and happily, that was the end of the matter. Most kind of you.’
‘The – the dwarf?’ Pobjoy stuttered.
‘My dog,’ said Bartlemy blandly. ‘He’s very highly trained.’
Hoover cocked an ear, thumped his tail, and did his best to exude both high training and low cunning.
‘That wasn’t a confession, you understand,’ Bartlemy concluded. ‘Merely a hypothesis. Have some Christmas cake. I know it’s a little premature, but one can’t eat all the good food over the holiday: it’s too much. Far better to spread it out a bit.’
Pobjoy, who generally tried to work over the Christmas break because he had nowhere else to be, accepted mutely.
‘How is poor Michael?’ Bartlemy asked.
Poor Michael, the inspector noted. Aha. A soft-centred liberal. He might have guessed …
‘Insane,’ he said. ‘Or so they say. The psychiatrists claim some sort of shock has virtually blanked out his mind. Most of the time he says nothing. Occasionally he babbles – or gibbers. None of it makes much sense. They say he’ll need permanent care; he’s effectively an imbecile. He could be faking it in the hope of the chance to do a runner. But his accomplice is still out there somewhere – the woman who was posing as his wife. We never found her.’
‘Are you completely satisfied of his guilt?’ Bartlemy said.
‘I’m never completely satisfied. He did it, no doubt about that, but some of the things he says … He seems to have been obsessed with the Grail; quite possibly that’s why he came to live in the area. And he was a psychopath – he didn’t need to kill his wife, there was no financial motive, and divorce is a lot less risky. We don’t know how he did it; the corpse was too old to tell. We don’t know how he managed to drown Von Humboldt in the middle of a wood. Carried a bottle of water with him, perhaps. Knocked his victim out, poured water into a bowl, and drowned him – but for God’s sake, why? There are easier ways to kill. Even our local psychological profiler is stumped. He says there must be a fixation of some kind, but Addison’s too far gone to find out what, or why. At least the death of Mrs Carlow is fairly straightforward. At a guess she saw something, and he did for her. Maybe she was trying blackmail. He lured her down to the river and pushed her in.’ But he wasn’t happy. There was also Hazel’s insistence that her great-grandmother had been killed in the attic …
‘There are a lot of loose ends,’ said Bartlemy, ‘but that’s the nature of life.’
‘There are always loose ends. But this … When he does talk, he seems to be going on about the river. Something about a spirit from the water. I suppose he’s one of these New Age cranks.’
‘Multiple murderers are often quite cranky,’ Bartlemy said gently. ‘Or so I believe.’
But Pobjoy was immersed in his own doubts, and irony washed over him. ‘Nenufar, he keeps saying. Apparently it’s French for water lily. Nenufar.’
‘Maybe it was the name of his accomplice,’ Bartlemy suggested.
Pobjoy gave him a long look, and some of the hardness was gone from his face. ‘You know, don’t you?’ he said. ‘You know the truth about all this.’
‘The famous hunch that policemen always have in fiction?’
‘I’m not asking as a policeman.’
‘You’ve got the villain of the piece,’ Bartlemy said at last. ‘That’s the important thing. He won’t do any more harm. That should content you for now. And the Grail’s back where it should be.’
‘I heard it was returned to Mrs Thorn?’
‘That’s right. Possibly the remaining Von Humboldts decided it was cursed. Or maybe they thought they could afford the gesture, since they clearly weren’t going to make much money out of it. Nobody was ever able to verify its date of origin or even what it was made of. I understand Epstein suggested to the owner that it wasn’t worth the trouble of another court case. They have enough problems dealing with Birnbaum. It seems there are several paintings in dispute, also a Cellini salt cellar. At least, I believe it’s a salt cellar. That should keep them busy for a couple of years.’
Pobjoy shrugged. That wasn’t his problem. ‘I’d better be off,’ he said.
‘Come back some time,’ said Bartlemy. ‘You’re always welcome.’
As he went down the path Pobjoy looked back, and was visited with the curious notion the phrase hadn’t been mere politeness. He wanted to go back – one day. He wanted to ask after Annie. But he had suspected her son and she would never forgive him for that. Probably better not …
A few days after Christmas, a little group was gathered outside the Registry Office in Crowford. It was a cold, grey day, damp though not actually raining, but although coat-collars were turned up and shoulders hunched against the weather the faces were rosy-tipped, bright with anticipation. Bartlemy appeared even more benevolent than usual; Annie, flushed from the wind-chill, had a sparkle in her eyes which had been missing for some months, though she always insisted the revelations about Michael hadn’t affected her. The three teenagers stood close together: Nathan, who had grown an inch or so, looking dark and striking, older than his years, Hazel wrapping her hair around her cheeks for warmth (her mother had recently tried to persuade her to cut it, but without result), and George fidgeting, mumbling in an under-voice that he thought it was a bit disgusting really, at Mrs Thorn’s age, though of course she was probably doing it for the company. A couple of old friends of Rowena’s were there; also, rather surprisingly, Alex Birnbaum. Presently Rowena arrived, wearing an unexpectedly smart suit and an old hat which Annie had refurbished for her with pheasant feathers. Eric escorted her, looking magnificent in a camel coat which was actually long enough. Rowena had bought it for him, but as he had no concept of the price of clothes he was fortunately unaware how much it had cost. They waited for a minute, people kissed other people, then they went inside.
They emerged shortly after. There were more kisses, and hugs. Rowena tried to be her usual brisk, practical self, and didn’t succeed. George, who had a new digital camera which his parents had given him for Christmas, took photographs. Annie, with an old Olympus which had done yeoman service on holidays and suchlike for years, did the same. Then they all piled into taxis and were driven to the Happy Huntsman for a lingering lunch. There was champagne, and this time the teenagers got their own glasses.
‘I don’t see why people shouldn’t get married at any age if they want to,’ Hazel said to George, picking her words. She didn’t want to be caught defending romance.
‘Well, all right,’ he conceded, his attitude softened by the champagne. ‘As long as they don’t do anything.’
‘Good luck,’ Bartlemy said to Rowena. ‘Where are you going for the – er – honeymoon?’
‘Honeymoon!’ Rowena snorted. ‘Ridiculous! Just a little holiday. Thought Africa would be a good idea.’
‘I see. Especially
as Eric is supposed to come from that region.’ She threw him a shrewd glance. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘Morocco. Got a friend in Marrakech we’re going to visit. Deals in this and that …’
‘Good luck,’ he said to Eric. ‘May the force be with you.’
Eric, who had discovered the handshake, pumped his vigorously. His big face was creased into many smiles.
‘Now he’s married to Rowena, the government won’t be able to send him off anywhere, will they?’ Annie remarked to Bartlemy. ‘Because he’s here illegally, I mean.’
‘I trust not,’ he said. ‘But with today’s rules and regulations you never know. Still, we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.’
‘D’you think he minds,’ she said, ‘that in our world he won’t go on living indefinitely?’
‘He won’t go on existing indefinitely,’ Bartlemy said. ‘He will live.’
And, at the end of the afternoon, as the party wound down and Nathan supported George, who was being sick in the Gents, there was just one more detail. Rowena handed Bartlemy a small package wrapped untidily in brown paper. ‘Look after this for me,’ she said. ‘You know what it is.’
He nodded. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Not safe at my place. It’ll be safe with you. I’m the guardian, but it should be at Thornyhill. You know where to keep it.’
That evening, back at home, Bartlemy opened the secret panel beside the chimney, and tucked the parcel inside. He didn’t even unwrap it. He could feel the contents – the paper fell open for a moment – but he sensed it was better not to touch it any more than was necessary. Only Hoover saw where it went.
The New Year arrived. The sun, travelling down the hill, probed the Darkwood with its long rays, but nobody was there.
For now.
About the Author
Amanda Hemmingway has already lived through one lifetime – during which she travelled the world and supported herself through a variety of professions, including those of actress, barmaid, garage hand, laboratory assistant, journalist and model. Her new life is devoted to her writing, but she also finds time to ride, ski and attend the opera.