‘I think…’ It seemed less threatening at a safe distance. ‘I think someone’s been in my flat.’
Felix walked into the hall. ‘Are you all right?’
Sage nodded but couldn’t get the words out.
Nick guided her into the living room to sit on the sofa, still warm from Felix’s body. Sage pulled off her gloves; her hands were still tingling with cold.
‘You’re shaking.’ Felix draped a blanket around her shoulders.
‘It’s adrenaline,’ she said. ‘I realised… I think someone was in my flat, reading my letters, moving things around. I think it might have been Marcus. The baby’s father,’ she added to Felix. When Nick sat beside her she huddled into him. ‘He could have made a copy of the key.’
Felix sat in an armchair opposite her, his hands clasped between his knees. ‘Try and engage your objective head for a moment. When did you realise something was different?’
She thought about it, feeling Nick’s warmth creeping into her. His hand stroked her back, curving over her ribs and down her spine. She had to shake off the spell he was weaving.
‘I was so tired when I came in I fell asleep on the settee. When I woke up I realised something wasn’t right. I know how I left things this morning. A letter had been opened, and my pregnancy notes and diary looked like they’d been read.’ She struggled at the idea. ‘Things were just different. I’m not a very tidy person.’ She sighed as her body relaxed. ‘He might have read that note you wrote me, Nick. Maybe he’s been following me since we broke up. He might even have made those phone calls to you. Although I didn’t recognise the voice, I’ve never heard Marcus shout and the voice was so strained. And the police… God, I told them he’d talked to Steph.’
‘He could have disguised his voice, we know that.’ Nick squeezed her around the waist. ‘And the note was innocent enough.’
Felix frowned. ‘So the calls to Nick could be from someone who’s obsessed with you? There are weird parallels here.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Obsession is a motive for stalking, even murder. Maybe enough for someone to take Isabeau’s baby.’
That triggered some memory of Sage’s visit to the manor. She rummaged in her abandoned bag, snatched up out of habit when she fled the flat. She turned her tablet on. ‘I was shown a picture of Solomon Seabourne at the manor. I took a picture.’ She found the image, and held it out for Felix and Nick to look at, pointing at the caption. ‘Caeca invidia est. Jealousy is blind. It may have been done as a gift for Viola, since it’s still at the manor.’
The men leaned over the image. ‘Jealousy,’ Nick said slowly. ‘Is that what’s causing the phone calls, someone being in your flat?’
‘And the doll,’ Felix said. ‘If it was designed to frighten you, it worked. It’s a powerful motive.’
‘I mean, if Marcus could be stalking me because he wants me back, it means he’s irrational.’ Sage shook her head. ‘I don’t even want to think about it. I have to change my locks.’ She rested back against Nick. ‘Is it possible that this Agness wanted Seabourne? I mean, was she stalking him, and mad with jealousy at Isabeau?’
Felix nodded slowly. ‘Maybe she was. It would give a motive to the brutality done to Isabeau, if she took the baby.’
‘Jealousy: who was jealous of whom?’ Nick studied the image. ‘He was engaged to Viola. Surely if Agness was obsessed with anyone it would be her, not Isabeau.’
‘Isabeau was pregnant by someone, we know that.’ Felix held her gaze, his eyes dark green in the low light. ‘Terrible violence was done to that young woman. We can’t be sure who the father was, but maybe if Agness believed it was Seabourne she could have attacked Isabeau for the baby.’
She frowned. ‘Even if Isabeau was targeted because it was Seabourne’s child, wouldn’t he have arranged a Christian burial for the mother of his child rather than putting her in the woods?’
‘Not just any burial,’ Felix said. ‘She was covered in gold embroidery and gemstones.’
Nick put one arm around her as he sat back. ‘She was denied a Christian burial but she was recognised. You said she was buried in an expensive dress. A headstone, the bells in the church, the rosary. If she was a Catholic, she might have been denied a church burial.’
Sage snuggled into him for warmth, feeling the baby wriggle inside her. ‘Attacking a pregnant woman… I don’t even want to imagine it.’
‘I’ve looked up a few recent cases,’ Felix said. ‘Imagine a woman is obsessed with a man who isn’t interested in her. She believes that he’s secretly in love with her, everything he does confirms that. Most cases of foetal abduction involve erotomania: the sort of obsession that stalkers have, that overrides normal emotions.’ He grimaced. ‘The sort that leads them to do violent, terrible things like steal a baby.’
Sage touched her belly softly. ‘But killing a woman to steal a child?’ She shivered. ‘I suppose that is the extreme of obsession.’ She thought of Steph but couldn’t frame the words. She couldn’t believe Marcus would hurt anyone, but she couldn’t think of anyone else who had access to her flat. Her thoughts seemed to spin around in circles.
Felix continued. ‘Some women believe that their rival’s baby actually belongs to them, or that they would be a better mother than the biological mother. Obviously, we don’t know the sort of cultural influences in the 1500s. It could be a class thing or a religious dispute.’
Sage settled into the curve of Nick’s arm. ‘This is all speculation. We don’t know it was Agness, or that it was Seabourne’s baby.’
‘It was.’ Felix reached in his bag and took out a booklet: the book of letters between Viola and Seabourne republished by the historical society. ‘I don’t know if you’ve read this yet, but there are hints in the letters that survive – the originals, not the translations.’ He started to read. ‘Listen to this, from Viola to Solomon: “I grieve that your son is lost, but agree that darkness should lie undisturbed.” Is she talking about the grave of Solomon’s child and the woman who took him, in the well?’
‘She did say “your child”,’ Sage said.
‘“Your son is lost”, she says. I suppose the well would have been very difficult to excavate to get the woman and child out again.’ He turned over the booklet, looking at the reproduced portrait of Viola on the cover. ‘Am I the only one who’s impressed by this girl? She was a teenager when she wrote this letter.’
Sage squinted at the antique clock, its hands in shade. ‘Is it really one o’clock?’
Nick heaved himself off the sofa. ‘Ten past. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’
‘Oh?’ She took the hand proffered and let Nick pull her to her feet.
‘Felix wants to look at the county records, maybe find some more background on them all. And you’re staying here. Tomorrow we’ll go back to your flat and sort it out. We’ll get the locks changed and you can talk to the police.’
Sage managed a half-laugh. ‘I don’t want to go back.’
‘You can’t stay there. If this Marcus is stalking you, he may be dangerous.’
Even thinking of Marcus as a stalker didn’t make sense; he had always been so genial. When he was getting his own way, an inner voice whispered. And she remembered the pale face down the well. Someone had pushed Steph to her death. ‘And to you. You were the one getting the threatening phone calls, remember?’
‘So stay here to protect me, then.’ Nick smiled, and turned to Felix. ‘Night, Felix.’
Felix smiled at the two of them. ‘Go to bed, children.’
Sage found herself pushed up the stairs by Nick. He paused at the door to what was clearly his bedroom. ‘Do you want the spare room?’
‘No.’ She kissed him quickly. ‘I’m too tired and cold and spooked to sleep alone.’
He smiled, and ran a thumb down the side of her face. ‘Me too.’
54
16th December 1580
Saltpetre for the making of bacons and hams, one small barrel thirteen shillings and sixpence
A
ccounts of Banstock Manor, 1576–1582
We tell no one but her brother and Lord Banstock about Agness Waldren’s survival. It seems to me that the reverend is disappointed that his sister still lives, as he now needs to find her a home. First find her, I say. I keep my concerns about her madness to myself. She is obsessed with Isabeau and I fear for the Frenchwoman’s safety. I send a man to ride over once or twice a day to check on her. Seabourne gives me his solemn word that he will not communicate with his mistress.
As the days shorten we have slaughtered pigs and made puddings, hams and bacons until the ground by the butcher’s is black with frozen blood. With Christmas approaching, we prepare for our guests: Lord Anthonie’s (and my) sister and her husband and daughters. Lord Seabourne comes with his eldest sons, at least in part to haggle over Viola’s bride dowry and the monies to be settled upon her should her husband die before her. Two neighbours, both old widows, also come to us at Christmas, so the manor is in a storm of cooking, baking, salting, smoking. Then we shall have Viola’s wedding, which fills me with disquiet. My strongbox, just recently fattened by the autumn stock sales and harvests, is becoming depleted again as I buy in geese, sugar, wines and sweetmeats.
I get up before dawn to enjoy the quiet as I tally figures and prepare for the day. I am just lighting my fire and a stick of candles against the dark, when Viola flies into my office, much perturbed. The servant Margery, set to watch over Isabeau, has walked over the dark fields to say the Frenchwoman is missing from the cottage.
I fear no woman so close to her confinement would go far. We walk out through the early frost, towards the grounds of Well House on the way to the village. The sky is barely lightening in the east, the sky a royal shade of blue dotted with a few of the brightest stars, so I take a lantern.
We walk through the orchard looking for footprints or signs that someone has passed that way. The frost, as clear as snow, has left marks of the passage of feet: a fox or dog, trotting under the apple trees afore the pigs are let out, rabbits criss-crossing his path, and the heavy feet of a badger. Then we spot the partially frosted-over signs of small shoes.
We find the seamstress’s cloak, tangled in a knot of brambles. Viola recognises it; the lining is fashioned from brightly coloured scraps left over from her work. It is torn down one side, as if a great struggle has occurred, and the cloth is lightly dusted with rime. It has clearly lain here for some time. I take it up, examining it. There is blood splattered on one edge, and my heart quickens.
We see her path beyond, her footsteps pressed into the soft ground, mixed with larger ones. One seems to be chasing the other. Viola runs ahead, and I, puffing behind holding the cloak, can spare no breath to command her to wait for me.
Her scream cuts through the still air, so shrill I think for a moment that it issues from a wounded animal.
‘Uncle!’ she shrieks again, and as I round the last oak I see her, cowering on the ground beyond the stream. I blunder down the slope towards the water and plough through it, the mud frozen hard on the surface and clutching at my boots beneath.
Blood in low light looks black, and such is the scene that it looks as if the thicket has been painted with darkness. The body before me, for at first I have no doubt it is a corpse, is hardly recognisable as Isabeau. Then I hear a pitiful hiss of air, and I realise the poor girl still lives.
I drop to my knees, smelling rather than seeing the woman’s torn entrails, and the horror forms within my mind slowly. Her body has been cruelly opened, and her babe removed. She mewls a moment, then turns her head. Her cap hangs from her long hair, spread with frost, and she looks like a ghastly parody of a Madonna.
I reach for the hand wavering towards me. ‘My child, who did this?’
‘Mon enfant—’ she murmurs, her face no less white than the ground she lies upon.
It sounds as if Viola gags, but then she kneels on the other side, and Isabeau turns her head slowly towards her. Viola speaks, her breath misting her face. ‘She wants us to find her child. Isabeau, you must tell me, who has taken it? Who has stolen your baby?’
‘A— Agness. Mon enfant—’ the word drifts out on the mist of a sigh. I fear it is her last. But her hand clutches mine with a spasm, then tries to lift it towards her head. I hold my hand up as hers falls away, divining her need. Like most men of my age, I remember the papist rites, as they were drummed into me as a boy.
‘I am no priest…’ I try to object, but then bow my head. Tracing the sign of the cross upon her forehead, my tongue finds the last rites as I had heard them spoken over my mother. ‘Salvam fac ancillam tuam—’
I have no idea if the words will help her, but send a silent prayer to a loving God that he will find her tormented soul and keep it safe. When I look down I see she is dead, her eyes glistening in pools of tears, which wet my fingers when I close them.
Viola stumbles away from me when I would have comforted her. ‘We have to save the baby!’
‘’Tis likely dead. Born in such a way…’ I shudder. I have seen shepherds hack open dead ewes to save the lambs, but few survive.
‘But he was stolen from a living mother – he might be alive! We have to do something. Where would Agness have taken him?’
I ease Isabeau’s cloak over her corpse. As the light brightens I can see the footprints better: a single track leading towards Well House and the sorcerer.
Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir
55
Tuesday 23rd April
It was strange to return to Bramble Cottage. The police had released the crime scene, having drained the well and processed the evidence as fast as they could out of respect for the Bassetts. Sage leaned in to get a better look at the deep carving in the beam above the fireplace while Felix made notes. Bramble Cottage seemed quite innocuous by day, and Pat, Judith’s mother, was very welcoming.
‘If you can banish the ghosts, I’m all for it,’ Pat said, bustling about with a tray of tea, and a jigsaw puzzle for Chloe. ‘I made you a hot chocolate, lovey, with marshmallows. I’ll help you with the sky pieces, if you like.’
The child was quiet and pale, staring at Sage with unblinking blue eyes. Pat appeared to be on edge, but seemed to be glad for the company, as they waited for what could only be bad news about James Bassett.
It was only after what felt like an hour of work that Felix seemed to come to a conclusion. ‘These marks are different from the ones in the well,’ he announced. ‘These are still about alchemy, but more for good luck than trapping anything.’ He stepped into the inglenook, avoiding the lit woodburner sitting in the middle, and peered up the chimney. ‘This is a strange chimney. It echoes. You know I said it might be worth having a sound engineer check it out? Ultrasonics can be caused by certain types of voids; they can trick people into imagining ghosts.’
‘Really?’ Sage lifted a finger to trace one of the worn carvings.
‘Air movements are perceptible to the human senses but don’t register as sound. The mind can fill in the gap with auditory and visual hallucinations. The metal flue from the woodburner might have amplified it.’
‘Which might explain the spooky atmosphere and wailing sounds, perhaps.’ Sage looked at him. ‘Elliott, the other student helping me with the excavation, found an alembic in the well. Maybe that was used for alchemy? The glass was fused with all sorts of metals.’
‘What metals?’ Felix was still examining the chimney.
‘Mercury, gold, uranium… and another radioactive metal, thorium.’
‘Thorium?’
‘Yes. That’s it, why?’
Felix looked as excited as she had yet seen him. ‘Alchemists were trying to convert flasks of mercury into gold. Modern chemists have tried to do it by bombarding mercury with sub-atomic particles, but the process makes radioactive metals, some of which decay into thorium and uranium, some into gold. It’s been done. One Soviet reactor laboratory even noticed their lead shielding was being slowly turned into gold by the loose particl
es.’
‘You sound like you believe in alchemy.’
His smile was a bit lopsided. ‘One day I’ll tell you why I believe in some of it. But you have found a little bit of that evidence yourself, in the alembic.’
‘Well, Elliott did.’
The house phone rang, making her jump, and Pat left the room to answer it. Sage could hear the low murmur of Pat’s voice. A moment later, she bustled in, carrying her coat and car keys. ‘James has just—’ She sniffed back tears, and lowered her voice. ‘My sister is arriving soon, she just missed a ferry unfortunately. Can you keep an eye on Chloe for me until she gets here?’
Sage stammered, ‘Uh, would Chloe be OK with that?’
‘I don’t mind.’ The child looked up from her jigsaw, her face expressionless. ‘I like Sage.’ Her voice was flat, her eyes burning in dark smudges, reminding Sage momentarily of the doll.
Pat was already half out of the front door. ‘It will only be a few minutes. Thank you. I called the vicar, he’ll be along as soon as he can.’
Five minutes later there was a knock on the front door. Felix brushed past Sage to answer it. ‘Maybe she’s already here— oh, Nick!’ He stepped outside, and the door swung closed.
Sage went into the kitchen and filled the kettle. As it bumped into action, she began to realise the room seemed very quiet, as if the sound was being trapped. A quick glance across the hall into the living room showed Chloe’s narrow shoulders, bowed over the puzzle again.
She leaned against the granite worktop, and let a sigh out. The baby lurched, and she rubbed her bump with the heel of her hand. It’s OK, Bean, I’ll find some time for you later.
When she raised her head she shivered, and wrapped her arms momentarily around herself. A sound behind her made her jump. Standing in the doorway was Elliott. He looked dishevelled, in a shirt with the top button undone, under a grey hoodie.
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