The records must have triggered some kind of fit. She had been reading them just before she had blanked out. Tess swallowed a couple of paracetamol and stood looking at her laptop, remembering how the sight of those names had made her head ring with recognition; how one minute she had been sitting at the desk, the next walking out of the barbican with Alice.
Would it happen again?
Did she want it to?
Of course she didn’t. What was she thinking? She was a historian. It hadn’t been real.
Drawing a deep breath, she pulled out the chair and sat back down at the desk. She took hold of the mouse, and after a moment’s hesitation, she clicked. The screen sprang back to life. There was the record, just as she had been reading it.
Tess made herself read it again. Nothing happened.
Straightening the second laptop so that she could see the other screen, Tess placed her fingers carefully on the keyboard,
poised to snatch them away if anything untoward happened, but the cursors on both screens just blinked stolidly back at her.
She started to type. Nothing happened.
She transcribed to the bottom of the screen, and pulled up the next image as Ashrafar padded back into the room. The cat leapt up onto the desk and settled down to a thorough wash. Sticking her leg straight in the air, she cleaned carefully between her spread toes, barely pausing to lift her head when Tess laid a hand on her back. Her warm, living presence was insensibly reassuring.
She had just been tired, Tess decided. Not enough sleep, that was all, she told herself again, but even as she tried to reassure herself, she was aware that it was an excuse that was beginning to wear thin.
Luke was hammering in the study when Tess let herself back into the flat after walking Oscar to school the next day. She put her head round the door to wish him a brief good morning, unwilling to admit to herself how pleased she was to have somebody else in the flat.
It had been another disturbed night. She hadn’t dreamed again, as she had half-expected that she would, but the scrabbling in the wall came and went until she had to put a pillow over her head to block out the sound. Then there was the phone that rang at odd times in the evening after Oscar had gone to bed, only for Tess to get the dialling tone when she answered, or that horrible steady breathing.
‘Please stop calling me,’ she had said, hating the way her voice had teetered on the edge of angry tears, but in the end she had had to unplug the phone altogether.
‘That’s awful,’ sympathized Richard when she rang him. ‘You do sometimes get cold calls at odd hours, but if it’s bothering you, of course I don’t mind at all if you disconnect the landline. Everybody who matters has got my number here anyway. Presumably you’ve got a mobile you can use?’
Tess wished she could reassure herself as easily as she reassured Richard. The idea that Martin had tracked her down already was disturbing, but if it was him ringing from London, then unplugging the phone ought to put a stop to it. He would surely have a harder time tracking down her new mobile number.
‘Richard, did you ever notice anything odd about the back bedroom?’ she asked him.
‘I can’t say I ever spent any time in it. I used to put guests in there.’
‘And they never said anything about a noise or anything like that?’
‘A noise? What sort of noise?’
‘A scrabbling, or sometimes a banging, but it’s very faint. Like there’s something in the wall.’ Her shoulders twitched at the memory of it. ‘I think it might be rats.’
‘Oh, my dear, how ghastly!’ Richard was horrified.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ said Tess. ‘I just wondered if anyone had ever mentioned anything to you.’
‘No, not that I remember. I’d have called the council at once if I thought there were rats around. You must get something done about it.’
‘I will.’ Tess wanted to ask Richard about the way the air pulsed sometimes, about the way the flat seemed to be waiting for something, but she didn’t know how. Richard was an eminent historian. He had written magisterial tomes on the social history of the Elizabethan period. He pored over documents and analysed the evidence. He wasn’t interested in feelings or atmospheres. He wanted facts.
‘It’s a great flat,’ she said instead. ‘Do you know anything about the history of it?’
‘Only in as much as it relates to Stonegate. As far as I know, there’s no documentary evidence about the house itself before the late seventeenth century.’ Richard wasn’t interested in anything more recent. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason,’ she said. ‘Just interest.’
‘How are things going otherwise? Has Luke started work on my shelves yet?’
‘He has. He’s here right now, in fact.’
Tess thought her voice was perfectly neutral, but Richard picked up on it straight away. ‘It’s not a problem him being there, is it? He seemed nice enough when I met him, and he came highly recommended.’
‘No, no, not at all. He’s fine.’ Hastily, Tess changed the subject. ‘I’m enjoying working on the records. I came across a case of suicide yesterday.’
‘Really?’ She could hear him sitting up in interest. ‘That’s unusual.’
‘I think the folio has been bound in with the others by mistake. It’s in a different hand, but the same date. I don’t know anything about suicides in that period,’ she went on, hoping she sounded suitably casual. ‘What would have happened to the body? It is true it would have been buried in unconsecrated ground?’
‘Absolutely.’ Unconsciously, Richard shifted into lecture mode. ‘There was very little compassion for people desperate enough to take their own lives in the sixteenth century. They were considered to have committed a sin, an act of violence against themselves, and they were commonly believed to haunt the site of their suicide. So there was a macabre ritual of driving a stake through the heart of a corpse before it was buried. It’s quite well documented. It’s an interesting link with later popular mythologies of vampires, isn’t it?’
‘Very interesting,’ said Tess faintly. She hesitated. ‘Did you ever do a lecture about burial rituals or anything like that when I was an undergraduate?’
Richard thought for a bit. ‘I honestly don’t remember. I might have done. I’ve always had an interest in death. As an academic subject, of course.’
So she might have heard about the burial of suicides from him. Or read about it in some obscure journal. Tess was feeling better by the time she put the phone down. She had read so many books and articles for her dissertation, there was a whole mass of information stored away, ready to be plucked out of her subconscious and woven into a dream for reasons best known to a psychiatrist.
It was called recovered memory. She definitely remembered reading about that. The brain simply couldn’t deal with all the information it absorbed every day, so it filed it all away where it wouldn’t cause the mind to overload. So everything she had ever read or seen or heard about the Elizabethan period could have contributed to the texture of those two dreams.
As for Nell and Tom and that scene by the riverbank, well, it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to interpret that as sexual frustration somehow brought on by seeing Luke again. Their relationship might have been doomed from the start and they had had virtually nothing in common, but she had never been able to deny the physical attraction between them.
She could hear him moving around in the study, where he was dismantling all of Richard’s old bookcases, and warmth tingled deep in her belly. The trouble was that her memories of him were all muddled up with those of Tom now.
Except she didn’t remember Tom. She had imagined him, that was all.
So now those weirdly vivid hallucinations were explained, she could get on and sort out everything else that was bothering her. She had promised Richard that she would deal with the rat problem straight away, so she looked up pest control on the council website and arranged for an inspection. She would have to pay for it, but after tw
o broken nights’ sleep she would do anything to stop that awful noise.
But when the pest control officer came, he couldn’t hear anything. There was no sign of rats anywhere in the flat, he said. ‘You’ve got no droppings, which is usually your first indication, and as far as I can see there aren’t no holes in the wall either.’
‘But I can hear them!’ Tess protested.
He shook his head. ‘There’s not much I can do. If you’ve got a little boy, you want to be careful about putting poison down unnecessarily,’ he warned. ‘Besides, you’ve got a cat.’ He bent to stroke Ashrafar who was preening herself on the bed. ‘She’ll deal with them for free if they do get in. If they’re contained in the wall, they’ll move on after a while.’
Tess was frustrated. She’d had just as little success with the solicitor when she had asked if there was anything that could be done about Martin harassing her with phone calls.
‘Can’t I get a restraining order or something?’
‘Has he actually threatened you?’
‘No, but I’m sure it’s him who’s been ringing.’
Her solicitor looked dubious. ‘Have you got any proof of that?’
‘No.’ She should have thought to dial 1471 and get the number, Tess realized. ‘No. I just know,’ she finished lamely.
The solicitor was no more encouraging when it came to setting divorce proceedings in motion. ‘I’m obliged to suggest that you and your husband try mediation first,’ she said. ‘You should both be thinking about your child.’
Tess thought about the way Oscar had stiffened his thin shoulders whenever he heard Martin’s car crunching over the gravel drive. ‘I am thinking about him! Martin isn’t interested in him at all.’
‘Nonetheless, he’s entitled to contact with his child.’
Tess had been appalled to discover that Martin could compel access. If Oscar was reluctant, the meeting could be arranged under the supervision of social services, but as things stood, there was no way she could stop Martin seeing his son.
Her only hope now was that he would lose interest in them both. She had unplugged the landline and was just using her mobile, so unless he actually came up to York, he would find it harder to harass her.
If he had been harassing her.
At least the weather had improved, Tess thought as she let herself in a couple of days later. She had been to the supermarket on the way back from dropping Oscar at school, and had stupidly bought more than she could easily carry. The temperature had soared and the sun had been pleasantly warm on her back, but it had made for a hot walk with frequent stops to rest her arms from the heavy carrier bags.
Vanessa would say it served her right for living somewhere without parking.
The door open, Tess flexed her fingers as she bent to pick the bags up again. It was odd how often her hands felt sore now. They would throb as if they were torn and bruised, but whenever she turned them over they looked perfectly normal. She hoped she wasn’t getting arthritis already.
‘Want a hand with those?’ Luke appeared in the doorway of the study, which was just opposite the door to the flat.
He was wearing a faded T-shirt and jeans that were ripped at the knee. There was a curl of sawdust in his hair, a saw in his hand, and Tess was dismayed at the treacherous kick of her pulse.
That was Nell’s fault. If it hadn’t been for that explicit, arousing dream, there would be no jolt of blood to her head, no sly stirring of heat in her belly.
There had been no more dreams of Nell, but the memory of that throb of pleasure unsettled Tess and made her brittle and tense whenever Luke was around.
Still, there was no point in turning down his offer. ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘That would be a help.’
He bent and gathered all the bags up in one fluid movement and she followed, half grateful, half resentful, as he carried them into the kitchen and set them on the worktop.
‘Thank you,’ she said again.
His presence seemed to suck the oxygen out of the confined space and the silence jangled between them. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ she asked after a moment, not looking at him, concentrating on unpacking the bags. She wished he would leave so that she could breathe properly.
‘Coffee sounds good,’ he said laconically. ‘Black, two sugars. But maybe you remember that too?’
She did, of course, but Tess was too flustered to respond to his smile.
‘Give me five minutes and I’ll bring it in,’ was all she said.
Tess was waiting for the kettle to boil when the phone in her pocket started to ring. Vanessa. Pulling it out of her jeans, she switched it on. ‘Hi,’ she said, without checking the call display. Vanessa was the only person she had given the number to. ‘Vanessa?’ she said after a few seconds. Sometimes it took a little while for the connection to be made.
When there was still no reply, she took the phone from her ear and looked at the caller display, and everything in her stilled. It wasn’t Vanessa calling at all. Whoever it was, they had blocked their number.
Slowly, she switched off the phone and stood by the kettle, biting her knuckle worriedly. How could Martin possibly have got the number? It had to be a mistake. Keying in the wrong digit was easily done. Of course it was just a mistake.
But there was still a pucker between her brows when she took Luke his coffee.
The study was still in a state of organized chaos. Richard’s books sat in lumpy piles under dustsheets, while the old bookcases had been dismantled and were propped against the wall. Luke had set up a saw horse by the open window and the smell of cut wood on the warm air hit Tess as soon as she stepped in.
The closet.
The kist.
She faltered under the onslaught of memories so vivid that for one awful moment the floor tilted perilously beneath her feet.
‘Hey.’ Luke reached her as she tried to fumble the mug onto a surface. He took it from her and set it down before guiding her over to a pile of books. ‘Sit here for a second. Put your head between your knees.’
He kept his hand on the back of her neck as she hung her head and drew in some ragged breaths. The warmth of his palm was disturbingly reassuring.
Slowly, the hollow sense of falling faded and Tess’s head cleared enough for her to be able to sit up. ‘Thank you,’ she said to Luke, who was hunkered down beside her, ferocious brows drawn together in concern. ‘I’m all right now.’
‘You look like shit,’ he said brutally.
‘Same old silver-tongued devil,’ said Tess, but it was an effort.
He straightened, frowning down at her paper-white face. ‘I’m serious. You don’t look well.’
‘I’m just tired,’ she managed. ‘I’m not sleeping very well.’
‘Tough time?’
Her eyes slid away from his. ‘I’ve had worse,’ she said. ‘I’m fine now. Really.’
She summoned a smile, but it clearly didn’t convince Luke, who stood studying her with a worried expression that sat a little oddly on his stern features. She must look as bad as she felt, Tess decided with an inner grimace.
‘Here, have some coffee,’ he said after a moment. ‘The sugar will do you good.’ He handed her the mug she had made for him and she wrapped her hands round it, glad of the warmth. She still felt jarred and queasy. Her teeth clattered against the rim of the mug when she took a tentative sip and she saw Luke shoot her a penetrating glance. He’d perched on a pile of dictionaries, obviously close enough to catch her if she toppled over. Tess wasn’t sure whether to be touched or irritated by his concern.
She didn’t want Luke to think of her as needy and pathetic. She’d had enough of being treated as someone incapable of making her own decisions, a fragile flower who had to be looked after by a man. But if she was determined to show that she could manage on her own, she wasn’t going about it the right way by practically passing out at Luke’s feet, was she? She really had to pull herself together and stop being so feeble.
Taking anoth
er sip of coffee, she steadied herself and tried a smile. ‘Thanks, that’s better.’ She offered him the mug. ‘Would you like your coffee back?’
‘You have it,’ he said. ‘Your need is greater than mine.’ He leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes on her face, and Tess squirmed a little under his scrutiny. She wanted to meet his gaze calmly, but her eyes couldn’t quite do it. They kept glancing off the angle of his jaw, skittering from the line of his cheek to the cool set of his mouth and back again.
‘Have you been ill, Tess?’ he asked abruptly.
‘No!’ Ruffled, she put down the mug and hugged her arms together in an unconsciously defensive gesture. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me!’
‘You’re really pale, and you’re too thin . . . I hardly recognized you at first. And what the hell happened to your hair?’
‘I had it cut.’
‘It was beautiful hair.’ He scowled. ‘I always liked it long.’
So had Martin. Sitting in the hairdresser’s, hearing the snip, snip of the scissors had felt like an act of liberation. Tess was still light-headed with the defiance of it. Every time she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror, she was startled and thrilled by her own daring. She looked so different. Older, sharper. More like the person she wanted to be.
She lifted her chin, touched a hand to her hair. The hair that was left. ‘I like it like this,’ she said, and this time she was able to meet Luke’s eyes directly.
His expression flickered in appreciation, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. He looked down at his hands, and then back up at her with those disconcertingly pale eyes – how could she have forgotten how they could look right through you? – and his voice changed.
‘What the hell happened to you, Tess?’ he asked quietly.
Tess pushed herself to her feet. ‘Nothing,’ she insisted. What did he want, the whole sad, sordid story? ‘I’m not ill. I’m fine.’ Arms wrapped around herself, she glared down at him with compressed lips. ‘I know I’m not looking my best, but I’ve told you, it’s just because I haven’t slept well since I moved in here. I think it’s just being in a new place, a new bed. Worrying about stuff. And the noise – it’s awful.’
The Memory of Midnight Page 9