And, no sooner had the sweep’s watery footsteps faded away up the track, the willing ravens left their perch to follow him.
Chapter Seventeen
Hi you,
Third time lucky – for you maybe. Me, I’m called ‘skinandbone’ here.
They’re getting worried, which is what I want. I still can’t send you my address but at least you know why I’m in this godforsaken hole. Did the ink work? I will see you again.
Your one x
While some 150 miles north west of Burton Minster, ‘Simnai’ Williams was still nursing his anger at being driven off the Ravenstone estate by a posse of hungry ravens, James Benn sat at his study desk in deep despair watching the typical late Friday afternoon traffic already beginning to clog up the Wimborne Road, heading south to the sea.
People carriers – hideous things, he thought, especially the hearse-like ones with dark tinted glass – jeeps and 4×4’s. Then caravans in every permutation of cream and beige. Fucking Kestrels and Rapidos with top speeds of 20 mph, who should be banned from every nondual carriageway during daylight hours . . .
All this helped him forget for a few seconds, the freshly edited manuscript which had just arrived by special delivery from Hellebore, but the longer he sat there, the more dispirited he felt. Even though the sunlight was still warm on his desk and his wife had had the good sense to keep a low profile since her protest last Monday, he was looking at a demolition job. So much for his intended dedication to Manda Jeffery as a brilliant editor. The bitch would now be getting nothing.
He lit his third cigar of the day, focusing now on page one, decimated like all the rest. But why, for Christ’s sake? What was her problem? Especially when he recalled the same editor’s minimal alterations and polite suggestions for Tribe. Here instead lay angry circlings in red, the 6B slashings from corner to corner meaning one thing only. That this particular page which had taken him a fortnight to get right, was, in her eyes, utter crap. He stubbed out his cigar prematurely, watching the last of its smoke fade away. Page two was no better, showing stray smears of scarlet nail varnish caught in the mesh of long curving arrows which mutated most of its paragraphs into aerial views of Crewe Station.
He flicked through the remaining 320 pages with growing disbelief. Barely a single word of his was untouched. She was taking the piss, surely? Treating him like an illiterate. Besides, he wondered, contemplating yet another cigar, how could she have possibly wreaked such havoc in just three days? Instead of reaching for the cigar box, he noticed a pink post-it note jutting out from the last page. The same handwriting, but this time, less frenetic, more controlled. He pulled it free, forgetting to breathe.
I was prepared to overlook your shag with Lucy Mitchell, but VT? Oh, please, Major Benn. That’s paedophilia, surely? Get a life, eh?
Damn her.
So she’d known about June 15th and never let on. Then must have seen him eyeing up the design assistant, in the sushi bar on longlist day. He’d only cupped Vikki Tate’s little arse in his hands for two seconds as they’d hovered in the restaurant doorway. Nothing more. Benn looked at his open cigar box then the lighter. It made short work of the note and he blew the ashes on to the floor.
If he was honest, hadn’t he wanted Jeffery to see him flirting? To send out a signal she was getting too close, too pushy. And then later, over coffee, he’d reminded her – nicely, of course – that despite one or two moments of weakness, he was still Elizabeth’s devoted husband.
That must have done it, he thought, closing his manuscript. Because, as the Hellebore party were returning to the office, she’d held him back to lie about her pressing for a big advance for his next book. The first part of her revenge. The second lay in front of him like a crazy battleground.
He snatched up the phone’s receiver and dialled Hellebore’s number which of course he knew by heart.
‘James Benn here,’ he barked at the receptionist when she answered. ‘Extension twenty-one for Manda Jeffery.’
‘She ain’t around. Can I try someone else?’ This was clearly the same moron as he’d seen there last Monday.
‘It’s about my new book. She’s my editor.’ That last word stuck in his gullet, nevertheless he urged himself to try and be patient.
‘Yeah, I know. But she left for New York this morning.’
‘New York?’
‘Yeah. Business trip. Three weeks.’
He stared out at the creeping traffic beyond his window. So, this was her leaving present? A manuscript he could barely read, and his unique voice totally undermined . . .
‘I want Nick Merrill. Now.’
‘Sorry. In a meeting.’
‘Don’t give me that crap.’
He knew full well that on Fridays, the publisher liked to be installed in his rustic Suffolk retreat in time for an evening’s solid and solitary drinking.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Let me have his private number then.’ His fingers drummed on the desk bought by Elizabeth when Relic was first published and his future looked bright and certain. ‘It’s urgent.’
‘Can’t do that, sir. More than me job’s worth.’
‘Who’s your line manager?’
‘Why?’
‘How dare you insult one of this country’s top authors. It’s people like me who pay your damned wages. You’re supposed to be a facilitator, not a prevaricator.’
‘A what?’
He slammed the phone down, his neck burning with fury. Then he glanced back at his study door – an irrational act since his wife had been left in her recliner in the lounge since 1 p.m. when he’d last escorted her to the lavatory.
‘Curse the lot of them,’ he snarled turning once more to his manuscript. He took a couple of deep breaths, flicked to the pivotal Chapter ten then gasped. The grainy photo of Preston slums, a bummer to get hold of, had been scored through not just by the usual pencil but a thick black marker pen which made distracting weals on the reverse side of each sheet.
‘Tightarsebitch . . .’ he muttered, reaching for his PCs mouse and deleting his specially commissioned screensaver showing a trio of bronzed female butts on some tropical beach. Normally he’d have lingered over their sand-dusted curves, but not now. The 14th Labour of Hercules had been delivered so late in the day that he couldn’t protest.
He accessed Word and the Kingdom Come file with grim determination, scrolled to his original script.
CHAPTER ONE
Could I come near your beauty with my nails
I’d set my ten commandments in your face.
Shakespeare: Henry VI Pt 11. L iiii (1590)
Monday 8.15 a.m. and a punishing sun prevailed with no hint of the usual easterly wind, nor any likely interruption to the blue sky. The only activity on the Meadow Rise development was at number nine where a couple of car valeters hosing down two luxury saloons, left soapy maps on the tarmac.
Louis felt the cool spray of water kiss his cheek as he passed by. Heard REM from the men’s radio. His favourite group. He liked their name, their lyrics, especially Nightswimming, and that gave him some much-needed credibility with the others in his class, especially Toby Lake.
He’d just re-typed these two paragraphs when his phone suddenly rang. He jumped, pressed something wrong on his keyboard by mistake and watched as his words disappeared.
Error! Your file will be lost unless you save on to A Drive!
He swiftly obeyed instructions then picked up the receiver.
‘Who is it?’
‘Good day to you, sir,’ a cheerful sounding man responded. ‘Guy Roper, Features Editor, Dorset Gazette . . .’
Immediately the author brightened. At last, a local paper showing some interest.
‘Ah. Is this about the longlist?’ he asked.
The other man paused.
‘Er . . . Yes and no.’
He frowned. Why the hesitation? he asked himself, when the big guns, The Independent and the Mail had come straight to the point with their con
gratulations.
‘What d’you mean, yes and no?’
‘We’ve an interesting little story here and were just wondering if you’d like to tell us more . . .’
‘More? Do please explain.’
‘Certainly. Does the name Sarah Dyson of Kingsdown Travel in Shaftesbury ring any bells? Ding dong ding, you know.’
Sarah Dyson. Big milkers. Nifty fingers . . .
His heart thudded in his chest. So this was the price for fixing up a weekend return to Paris with his editor. Things were getting worse. He tried to calm down. ‘What’s she been saying about me?’
‘Ah, so you’re not denying that you know this Miss Dyson?’
‘No, I’m not. I was merely buying tickets from her.’
‘She’s claiming you gave her a lift home and raped her in a field on the way.’
He swallowed hard. Regained his composure.
‘Look, there she was, giving me the big come-on. If you must know, I was embarrassed. She’s young enough to be my daughter, for God’s sake. In fact, my own stepdaughter would be about her age. She died ten years ago.’
‘That doesn’t alter what Miss Dyson’s claiming . . .’
‘But Mr Roper,’ he began in his most controlled, most patronising voice, ‘isn’t it sad that the only way a mediocrity like Miss Dyson can get any attention these days, is by spinning such an outrageous lie. And isn’t it disappointing that a reputable paper like the Gazette should be so easily taken in? Naturally, I’ll be contacting my lawyer straight away.’
‘I think we should talk,’ Roper said quietly. ‘Before she goes to hers as well.’
James Benn glowered at the wreck which was his MS. If he didn’t nip this slander in the bud, all his achievements would slip away faster than his own turds in the Armitage Shanks.
‘Where?’
‘Let’s say The Pilgrim, Dean Street, Wimborne.’
‘Hold on,’ he covered the receiver as a high-pitched wailing sound was coming from behind his study door. ‘Elizabeth?’ he yelled, wondering how the hell she’d managed to move herself from the lounge. ‘What the hell are you up to?’
He left the receiver on his desk and stumbled towards the door as the wail was now a full-blooded scream, so loud, so hellish it delivered him an instant migraine. When he opened the door his mouth fell open. There was no sign of her, but something else instead. The small white CD player normally kept in the kitchen, was blaring out one of the Horror music tracks he always listened to when writing the first draft of a new work.
The crafty cow . . .
He kicked the thing out of its socket and returned to the phone where Roper’s voice was all too audible.
‘What’s all that racket?’ asked the newspaper man. ‘You having a spot of bother down there at the ranch? Sounded like a woman yelling, to me.’
‘Just some American rubbish on TV. My wife often nods off with the set on full blast.’
‘OK, as I was saying, The Pilgrim. Can you make one o’clock Sunday?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Mr Benn, if I were you, I’d do rather more than try . . .’
He slapped the receiver back in its cradle then spun round bellowing out his wife’s name and everything else about their relationship that he could dredge up. He found her back in her recliner, his biography between her trembling hands. She didn’t look up as he towered over her, casting her whole body in a dark shadow the way a cloud can change a hill.
‘No good my saying that next time will be the last time,’ he hissed, ‘because there won’t be a fucking next time.’ He hit her arm and she flinched. ‘Are you listening?’
Elizabeth continued to stare doggedly at the book’s pages.
‘How the hell did you set all that up, eh? You must have taken that CD from my collection and the player from the kitchen worktop when you’re supposed to be . . .’
‘Disabled?’ she interrupted. ‘With no zimmer frame, no sticks. Go on, say it,’ she challenged, her eyes unwavering from his fulsome account of her ‘fall.’
‘You’re obviously up for another stint on the bed. That’s all I can say.’
‘Whatever you decide.’ She calmly closed the book and with all her strength, flung it across the parquet floor. It landed in an ignominious heap under the grand piano and he made no effort to retrieve it. ‘Just think of all those trees which have been cut down so your prettily packaged lies can be published for all and sundry.’
‘What lies, you dry old fanny?’
‘You pushed me into that filthy pond. I can still feel where your hands touched me – like bruises on my skin. I know you wanted me out of the way so you could have all the women you want, but isn’t it strange,’ she taunted, turning her pale eyes on to him at last, ‘that however much plotting you do, real life never quite goes according to plan?
Chapter Eighteen
Our doubts will like a cancer spread
And steal our joy, our one rare dream
if tongues don’t cease to rumours make
Who will remain to hear the scream?
MJJ 24/8/01
Although the rest of the United Kingdom was bathed in a late summer’s warm faintly muggy glow, over mid-Wales, clouds from the west had merged and thickened to hang brooding above the land. The breeze too had sharpened and before Lucy left the Hall once more to visit Jewsons and a plant hire firm with Mark, she swapped her denim jacket for a pink fleece which Jon had bought her last Christmas.
Both Hector and Mark were waiting at the foot of the stairs and it seemed the ex-copper had something important to say.
‘The newsagent over in Llanfihangel-Nant-Melan has just phoned,’ he began. ‘You weren’t the only one to have heard something odd by the waterfall. Apparently, a local woman out walking her dog nearby reckoned there was some kind of row going on – lover’s tiff kind of thing – just after half past one it was . . .’
‘That must have been just before I turned up,’ observed Lucy, sensing this wasn’t going to go away.
‘Didn’t want to get involved, mind. Sign of the times, that, I’m afraid.’
‘So, what are the police doing about it?’ realising for the first time since she’d met him that Hector’s breath wasn’t likely to start a fire.
‘Taking a look,’ he said, allowing her through. ‘That’s got to be the first step.’
‘You will tell me if anything comes to light?’
‘Course I will. Like I said. Leave it to me. I’ll have a sniff round again on Monday as well if that’ll make you feel better. Now then,’ he turned to her as she checked the sky, thinking umbrella. ‘You choose those new roof tiles carefully, eh? We don’t want the Council round here kicking up a stink. In fact,’ he added mysteriously,’ the less attention we draw to ourselves, the better.’
‘But it’s not a listed building, surely?’ She wondered what he meant by that.
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Mark. ‘Dad’s getting a bit paranoid, that’s all. We’ll call in on Dai Davies who does real slate from Bettws-y-Coed.’
‘He’s kosher. Good man is Dai.’ Then Hector tapped her shoulder, adding mischievously, ‘pink suits you, don’t you agree, son? Just like your mam.’
At least he can talk about her now, she thought, but Mark had visibly tensed up and made for the front door. Having acknowledged the compliment, she selected the least decrepit umbrella from the stand and tried to press the stiff clasp to open it.
‘No, no, don’t do that,’ Hector suddenly took it from her.
‘For God’s sake, Dad . . .’
‘Only thinking of Lucy. We don’t want any more bad luck, do we?’
Mark didn’t reply and as he opened the door she felt the draught of cold air creep under her clothes and for a moment, this unexpected chill seem to slow her heart.
‘Jump in,’ he told her, ‘and thanks for keeping stumm.’
‘That’s okay,’ she hesitated, sniffing the intense smell of sap and sawdust which came from inside the vehicle
and noting the mounds of old sandwich wrappers and Farmers Weeklys which made the passenger seat invisible.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ he leant over in front of her, gathered up a heap of junk in his arms and crammed it into the already full wheelie bin. ‘I keep meaning to sort it.’ She noticed a strip of tanned back where his shirt had risen up above his jeans belt; like the rest of him, it was smooth honed flesh, and at that moment, very touchable.
‘The fields seem bare without the sheep,’ she observed instead as he reversed out of the drive. ‘You never know, I might try rearing a few here myself. I’ve always loved Jacobs. My dad had a cap made from their wool once – it was his favourite whenever we went out anywhere in the country. Look,’ she produced her wallet and withdrew the Llanberis photo. ‘That’s my mum holding it for him because it was windy.’
Mark glanced down at the image and quickly looked away. He had the narrow track to negotiate after all.
‘You look like him,’ he said simply as the van lurched over the bumps and potholes.
‘Thanks. Receding hair, ears a funny shape . . .’
‘No, I mean his eyes. They’re kind but curious. I bet you got on well.’
‘We did. He always took my side whenever Mum had a go at me. Used to tell her to be thankful I wasn’t like some of the kids he saw on his travels. Nine-year-old addicts, the hard cases he used to treat in some of the Local Authority homes. But she was obviously dishing out to me what she’d had. Convent schools, the puritan bit about not flaunting yourself around and being a useful member of society.’
‘And so you are,’ he grinned. ‘Very useful indeed. Read my poem again if you don’t believe me.’
‘Or, why not write me another?’
‘I’m honoured.’
She watched the river Wye spuming over the rocks below the roadside while a heron lifted itself into the air and cruised over the water’s length on outspread wings. Yes, her father would have loved it here, she thought which was why, despite everything, she was going ahead with the strange little house. Using his money with a clear conscience to get herself something he’d never had. The Irish called it Canan Ara. She called it nurturing the soul.
A Night With No Stars Page 14