(1992) Prophecy

by Peter James

  In a corner, Captain Kirk was busily digging toys out of his basket and rearranging the blanket inside it, snorting and panting, his tail wagging furiously. The windows looked out on to an internal courtyard that was in the shade. She could see a rusty barbecue and some garden furniture.

  ‘OK, three o’clock. See you then,’ Oliver said with some reluctance and hung up. ‘No peace for the wicked.’

  Frannie looked at him.

  ‘Tenants. Always problems. I’m like a marriage-guidance counsellor half the time.’ He sifted uninterestedly through a stack of post. ‘The really frightening thing is that they actually take my advice.’

  ‘Perhaps you give good advice,’ she said.

  ‘No, I just sound convincing.’ He went over to the dresser and unhooked two mugs.

  ‘How many staff live here?’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘None.’

  ‘None?’ she said, surprised. ‘Doesn’t the woman who met us – Mrs Deakdene?’

  He put the mugs on the table. ‘Beakbane. No, she lives with her husband in the village. She stays here and looks after Edward if I have to be away, and there are four ladies who come in every day to clean.’ He frowned at an envelope and ripped it open with his finger, glanced at the letter then dropped it in the waste-bin.

  ‘What about cooking?’

  ‘Either Mrs B or me.’ He tapped his chest with his thumb, then switched the percolator off and filled the mugs. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit frugal and rather primitive here. All the money gets gobbled up on maintenance. The house went through a long spell when almost nothing was done and it’s now in a pretty desperate condition. Sugar or milk?’

  ‘Black, thanks. Do you get any grants?’

  ‘A bit – English Heritage and the local council – but you only get a portion of the total cost or a small contribution.’ He took a bottle of milk out of the fridge and eased off the top. ‘There’s subsidence on the north wing, where the scaffolding is. It’s costing three quarters of a million to underpin and make good the damage.’ He smiled grimly.

  ‘Is that why you’re open to the public?’

  ‘We don’t make much from the public. There are about six thousand visitors a year at three quid a head, and we pick up a bit from brochures and teas and things, but it all goes on wages for the staff. We have to employ a sitter for each room, for instance. But we have to be open to the public to qualify for grants for the repairs – we’re getting about £400,000 towards the costs.’

  ‘And you have to find the rest?’

  ‘Yes.’ He brought her mug over to her and put it on the table. He stood beside her and gave her a long, fond look. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  She smiled, touched. ‘Thanks for inviting me.’

  There was an easy, warm silence and Frannie wished suddenly that Edward was not about to turn up, and that they could be on their own together. ‘Did you inherit this from your parents?’

  He sat on the edge of the table and blew into his mug. ‘My father made it over to me to avoid death duties. They moved into a smaller house on the farm.’ He stared into the rising steam. ‘To avoid inheritance tax you have to survive for seven years after handing the property over. He died twenty-four hours before the seven years was up.’

  ‘God! So you had to pay?’

  ‘Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘They were pretty crippling. I’m still paying them off.’

  ‘Did you have to sell anything?’

  ‘Our two finest paintings – a Canaletto and a Vermeer.’ He hunched his shoulders and pulled the mug closer to his chest, as if he were drawing warmth from it. ‘I don’t believe in flogging things off. I feel that each person who lives here has an obligation to pass on what he inherits intact, and in better condition. I have to do what I can, and one day, I hope, Edward will do what he can.’

  ‘The zun would be worth a lot, if –’

  The doorbell rang and there was a sharp rapping of the knocker at the same time. Captain Kirk raced across the kitchen and down the passageway, barking furiously. Oliver put his mug on the table and jumped down. ‘Might be them!’ he said and hurried out.

  Frannie hesitated, uncertain whether to follow. She heard the sound of the door opening and then a commotion of voices.

  ‘Edward! Hey, hey, hey! How are you?’

  ‘Captain Kirk! Hello, Captain Kirk! Good boy! Daddy, guess what? We nearly had an accident! We nearly had a crash!’ Although Frannie had only heard Edward’s voice once before, she recognized it instantly.

  ‘No we didn’t, stupid!’ said another boy’s voice, very insistent.

  ‘We did, Daddy! This car pulled out right in front of us. We had to brake really hard.’

  ‘The car was miles away, stupid. We hardly had to brake at all!’

  ‘Clive, hi!’ Oliver said. ‘Caroline! You all look wonderful!’

  A collage of photographs on the wall caught Frannie’s eye, and she walked across to it. There were several of a pretty red-haired woman of about her own age, one of Oliver, a boy she recognized as Edward, and the woman – whom she presumed must be Oliver’s late wife – standing by the wing of a small aeroplane. The resemblance between the woman and the boy was striking. Unable to restrain her curiosity, Frannie looked more closely at Lady Sherfield and noted the classical English rose features. The designer country-wear. She felt she could imagine the voice: cut glass, precious, confident. And hard?

  There was a happy innocence in the photograph. A family together, going off somewhere or just posing. She looked at the woman again, wondering, absurdly, whether it was possible to tell from a photograph that someone was going to die. Then she stepped back, disturbed by the darkness of her own thought. She felt awkward doing nothing, she wanted to look interesting in case Oliver brought his visitors in to meet her.

  ‘We’re bloody tired,’ said a woman’s voice in the hall. ‘The hotel we stayed in last night had lorries thundering past non-stop.’

  ‘Hey, Daddy, I had snails for dinner,’ she heard Edward say. She was beginning to feel like an eavesdropper.

  ‘No you didn’t,’ said the other boy. ‘They weren’t real snails, anyhow.’

  ‘Yes they were. You can’t have pretend snails.’

  ‘They weren’t, were they, Mummy?’

  ‘Like some coffee, or a drink?’

  ‘We ought to get going,’ a man’s voice said. ‘Caroline’s mother’s expecting us for lunch.’

  ‘I’ve got a surprise for you, Edward!’ Oliver said.

  ‘What? Tell me!’

  There was a sudden silence as if Oliver was whispering. And Frannie felt her remaining confidence evaporate. She heard footsteps and turned round, prepared to be intimidated. Edward was standing in the doorway, in a white T-shirt, jeans and espadrilles. His face was tanned, bringing out more freckles than when she had seen him before, and the tip of his nose was peeling.

  His intelligent, brown eyes widened and his mouth broke into a grin that was an exact replica of Oliver’s. ‘Hey! You’re the lady from the railway station!’

  She relaxed and grinned back, warming to him instantly as she had before. ‘That’s right.’

  He looked more serious suddenly. ‘We nearly had an accident.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘A woman pulled right out in front of our car. Uncle Clive bad to brake very hard indeed.’ He paused. ‘He’s not my real uncle, but I call him that.’

  ‘How was your holiday?’

  He stood, studying her without replying, as if he had not heard her.

  ‘Ghastly business,’ said the woman out in the hall.

  ‘Who was driving the boat?’ Oliver’s voice asked.

  ‘Jean-Luc’s boy, Albert. He’s normally quite a careful lad. You know what it’s like. The kids love driving boats – Edward drove it quite a bit too, and Dominic. Problem was that the adults were a bit pissed – had a boozy day – left the kids to it really.’

  ‘And no one saw the swimmer?’

  ‘She was quite
a long way out but it was fairly calm. He should have been able to see her, and he wasn’t fooling around or anything. He can’t explain it. Poor Jean-Luc’s in a terrible state.’

  ‘Can you water-ski?’ Edward asked Frannie.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can mono-ski now. It’s really great. I can get out of the water with one ski. Dominic couldn’t do that; he could only start on both skis then kick one off.’

  Another boy came into the room. He had a fat, aggressive face, untidy tufts of fair hair, and was wearing a gaudy shirt and Bermuda shorts. He stopped a safe distance from Edward, his face screwed up into a knot of anger and shouted at him. ‘You know something? You’re weird! Really weird! And you’re really stupid and I never want to see you again. You’re a stupid, stupid bumhole!’ He ran straight at Edward and pummelled him on his right arm and chest, then ran out of the room.

  Edward stood his ground without flinching, barely even acknowledging the assault, and Frannie admired his restraint. ‘Dominic got scared to go into the water because he saw a jellyfish,’ he said as if nothing had happened.

  A tall, fine-boned woman appeared in the doorway, looking tired and hot from travelling; her dry blond hair was scraped back beneath a floral printed headband and she was wearing a creased, lightweight shift-dress. Her face had a haughty, rather disdainful expression, and she had a matching accent, elongating each of her words as she spoke, with virtually no movement of her lips.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she said.

  ‘Hello,’ Frannie replied, feeling slightly undermined by her.

  The woman gave her a thin, patronizing smile and went back down the corridor.

  In the hallway, Frannie heard her say: ‘Is she the new nanny, Oliver?’

  Bitch, Frannie thought.

  Oliver sounded embarrassed. ‘No – that’s Frannie – let me introduce you, I’m not thinking –’

  ‘No, we really must be on our way,’ the woman insisted. She and the man called their goodbyes to Edward in turn.

  ‘Box jellyfish can kill you within seconds,’ Edward said, ignoring the farewells.

  Oliver called out: ‘Edward, they’re off, come and say goodbye and thank you.’

  Edward screwed up his face, then marched reluctantly out of the door.

  ‘I’m going to give you a ring, Oliver,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘There’s someone I absolutely want you to meet. Great friend of mine, stunning looking. Just been through a horrendous divorce. I think you’d like her. And this is the best bit: she has a degree from Cambridge in mathematics! I’ll fix something up in the next couple of weeks.’

  Frannie strained hard, unsuccessfully, to hear Oliver’s reply, feeling a strong twinge of jealousy, and a desire to go out into the hall and throttle the woman. She seemed to be the odd one out. She suddenly wondered if she should have stayed in London and gone partying after all.

  The voices faded. With relief, Frannie glanced back at the photographs, thinking about the boy’s attack on Edward and his oddly mature response. There was a shot of Edward fishing in a small rowing-boat on a lake. Behind him was a boat-house and overhanging trees. The water was hat and he was holding his rod with deadly serious intent.

  ‘Can you ride?’

  Edward’s voice startled her. ‘No,’ she said, turning round.

  ‘I could teach you, if you like. My horse Sheba’s very docile.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll have a go.’

  His face lit up. ‘Would you? She’s quite old – she’s fourteen; she’s a hunter.’

  ‘Do you hunt?’

  Outside there was the slam of a car door. Then another. Then a scream that started low and slowly and built up to a high-pitched howl like a siren. It took her a moment to realize that it was a human scream.

  ‘I think I’d quite like to hunt, really, but I’m worried because it’s cruel,’ Edward said as if he could not hear the scream at all.

  ‘I think we’d better see what’s happening,’ Frannie said as the scream worsened. She went to the door. Edward stayed where he was. She ran across the hall, out of the front door and down the gravel path.

  There was a commotion around a silver Volvo estate car parked beside the Range Rover. The blond woman was shouting hysterically. A balding, rather plump man was trying desperately to open the rear door of the Volvo. He had one foot pressed against the wheel fairing for leverage while he heaved with both hands on the door handle.

  The scream was coming from inside the car.

  The boy’s face was visible through the open rear window. It was he who was screaming, his face stretched and twisted in agony.

  Frannie saw to her horror that his hand had been shut in the hinged end of the door; his fingers were trapped between the edge of the window frame and the door pillar.

  A man was running towards the car. So were Mrs Beakbane and another woman in their Meston Hall T-shirts. The woman in the bandanna, the boy’s mother Frannie presumed, clambered frantically in through the opposite door, leaned across, and pushed the door from the inside.

  The boy’s screaming continued, getting even louder, whooping with pain and shock. Droplets of blood slid down the paintwork, deep crimson against dusty metallic silver. Oliver ran across, found a grip on the door’s top edge and pulled too. Both the balding man’s legs left the ground for a moment as he used every ounce of leverage he could. The door finally came open with a splitting sound like a safe that had been jemmied.

  For a brief instant the screaming stopped. And the footsteps.

  Three fingers detached themselves from the door pillar, one after the other. At first Frannie thought the boy was relaxing his grip. Then his fingers fell limply on to the gravel. In the silence she could hear each one land.

  *

  Oliver took charge. He sent Mrs Beakbane to phone for an ambulance, and told Frannie to come with him. They sprinted into the house and through to the kitchen. Edward had disappeared but in her panic she hardly noticed. Captain Kirk bounded in after them, barking.

  ‘Towels, that drawer!’ Oliver said, turning on a tap, hunting around the room with his eyes. ‘Soak them!’ He yanked open a drawer, then another, rummaged through it and pulled out a long knife steel. Frannie bundled tea towels into her arms and dunked them in the sink. He helped her wring them out, then they raced back to the car.

  The boy’s stunned mother held a bloodstained handkerchief over his hand. Oliver took his arm and removed the handkerchief. The forefinger was hanging from a thread of skin. Blood spurted unevenly from the stumps of the other fingers; some pattered like rain onto Frannie’s trousers as she knelt with wet towels at the ready, and she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. The boy screamed relentlessly, emptying one lungful of air after another and pausing only for choking gulps. A slick of warm blood struck Frannie’s cheek, then another her forehead and she felt it sliding down towards her eye. She turned away, swallowing hard again, fighting not to be sick, unable to look at the hand or the boy’s twisted, boiling face.

  Oliver swathed the hand in a tea towel, and she helped him wind it around the wrist, then repeated the process with a second one. He put a third over the top, and with Frannie and the boy’s mother’s help, using the knife steel as the lever, wound the towel tightly into a tourniquet. The boy’s father leaned over, agitatedly crowding them, a feeble twitch animating his expression of utter helplessness.

  Oliver scooped up the fingers and parcelled them in another towel, which he gave to Frannie. ‘Pack these in ice.’

  The commotion had attracted the attention of several visitors, who watched in a group a short distance off. They were talking amongst themselves, trying to work out what had happened. One woman said she thought the dog must have bitten the boy.

  ‘Dom? You OK, Dom?’

  Edward was rushing towards them, his face horrified. ‘Dom?’ He looked at his friend, then at Frannie. ‘What’s happened?’ His eyes shot to the tourniquet. ‘Hey, Dom –’ He blanched.

  As Frannie ran into the h
ouse she wondered where he had been during the past few minutes, and why he had not come with her. She unfolded the towel on the draining-board, and stared at the three fingers, each of which was leaking blood. Like joke fingers, she thought. Then a wave of giddiness struck her; her stomach up-ended; she swayed, gripped the edge of the sink and threw up into it. Her eyes streamed and she wiped them with her shirtsleeve, then rinsed the sink out, washed her hands and forced herself into sensible action.

  There were several trays of ice cubes in the fridge, and she searched for a suitable receptacle. The screaming was coming closer and Oliver carried the boy in, followed by the parents and Edward. Mrs Beakbane was trying to comfort the boy by assuring him the ambulance would be there any moment. Oliver laid him on the sofa, and Mrs Beakbane went to the sink and peered at the fingers with a surprising nonchalance that made Frannie feel displaced.

  ‘I was a Red Cross nurse in the war,’ she said, as if by way of explanation, and helped free the ice cubes, again making Frannie feel inexperienced and in the way.

  The screaming abated into an undulating, sobbing moan of pain. Edward hovered, looking very distressed. He put his arm around his friend but the boy shook him away and began screaming again, even more vehemently than before. His mother sat beside him, white-faced.

  ‘Look,’ the father said, ‘this bloody ambulance could take hours. I’ll drive him myself.’

  ‘No,’ Oliver said. ‘He’s got to go somewhere they can do microsurgery – they might be able to sew the fingers back. If you go to the wrong place you could waste valuable time; I think you only have a few hours before the nerve endings die.’

  ‘Six,’ Mrs Beakbane said, authoritatively. ‘My Harry lost his little finger in a lawnmower but we never found it until the following day.’

  The father paced over to the sink, then turned away rapidly at the sight of the fingers. Frannie stood back and let Mrs Beakbane pack them carefully, using all the cubes, then they were placed with a couple of freeze packs inside a picnic cool-box.