The String Diaries

by Stephen Lloyd Jones

  Charles climbed out of the car as Nicole helped her mother from the back seat. He led them inside the cottage and along the hallway to the kitchen. As they assembled inside the low-ceilinged room, he felt a sudden flush of awkwardness. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten my manners. You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t often have guests. Please.’ He indicated a rectory table in the corner and ushered them to chairs. While her mother took a seat, Nicole placed the bundle of books on the table and went to the window. She looked out at the garden.

  Impeccably manicured lawn stretched to a rear border of blackcurrant and raspberry bushes, with wild meadow beyond. Beds spilled over with dahlias, foxgloves, chrysanthemums, geraniums: a barrage of pink, purple, and red swaying on dark stems. Wild flowers clustered around the trunks of apple trees, cherry and Japanese maple. Bees hovered and buzzed, bodies sticky with nectar. On one side stood a shed in front of a tilled vegetable patch. A metal water butt collected rainwater from its guttering.

  Charles felt another pang of self-consciousness, uncomfortably aware of how feminine his garden looked. He moved to the sink and filled a kettle with water.

  ‘You surprise me,’ she said. ‘I never would have pictured this.’

  ‘You’ve caught it at the best time of the year, of course.’

  She looked past him at the blossoms, smiling.

  Charles made tea in a china pot and carried it to the table on a tray loaded with cups. He waited until the leaves had steeped and then he poured. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you’re involved with, what situation you’ve found yourself in. But it’s clear you’re worried about telling me much about it. I’m not going to pry, I promise you, but I do want to help, and it’s going to be difficult to do that very well without knowing at least something about you and what you’re facing. It’s pretty obvious that you’re running from someone. You’ve been concealing your identity too. At this point I don’t even know if I should call you Nicole or Amélie.’

  ‘It was probably a stupid thing to do, but I told you the truth when we met. Like you, I just felt compelled. One of those things. I can’t explain it. My name is Nicole Dubois. This is my mother, Alice. The doctor bit is also true. I earned my Ph.D at Paris-Sorbonne. My field is early medieval history, the same as you. I lecture at the university in Lille.’

  Charles extended his hand in mock formality. ‘Well, Doctor Nicole Dubois. It’s good to meet a fellow academic.’ When Nicole placed her hand in his he nearly jumped at the sensation of her fingers on his skin.

  She treated him to a tired smile. ‘I don’t know where we go from here.’

  ‘Catch-22.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You don’t feel able to confide in me, and I can’t help you until you do.’

  She sipped tea. ‘We need to get to Paris. We’ll be safe there, both of us. We have identities we can use in France. Préfontaine, others.’

  He frowned. ‘OK.’

  ‘We’re not professional criminals, Charles, if that’s what you’re thinking. Yes, we have other identities, documentation, but none that would stand up to the scrutiny of an international border. When we travel it’s under the names on our passports. Coming here was a risk. We planned to visit only briefly. With the car crash, insurance report, investigation, there will be an easy trail. And without passports to leave England . . .’ She left the sentence hanging.

  ‘What were you looking for at Balliol?’

  ‘Charles, I can’t tell you that. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s for your own sake. I’m not in any personal danger. Not really. But it’s not the same for anyone close to me. It is better you do not know. Believe me.’

  ‘You can’t expect me to—’

  Her temper flared. ‘Charles, have you listened to anything I’ve said? I will tell you what I can, but not that. I don’t even know you.’

  ‘My exact words earlier when you asked me if I trusted you.’

  ‘That was different.’ She glanced around the kitchen, at the copper pots hanging from the ceiling rack, at the vase of lilies on the windowsill. When she looked back at him, her face had changed. Hardened. ‘How do I even know you’re who you say you are?’

  He sat back in his seat. ‘That’s an odd thing to say. You met me at the university. You’re in my house.’

  Alice Dubois leaned forward and laid a hand on her daughter’s arm. She spoke for the first time, in accented English. ‘Nicole, you can find out. Validate him. If that’s the only way you can trust him, then do it.’

  Nicole looked at her mother, then back at Charles. ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Four years. Since I—’

  ‘Tell me something about this room. Something only you would know.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Anything. Just something I can verify.’

  He cast about. A line of cookery books stood on the work surface, squeezed between two mason jars.

  ‘There’s a small notebook bound in brown paper in that stack. My mother’s old recipe book. Sellotaped towards the back is a folded recipe for pavlova taken from a magazine. There’s a cross mark in pencil on it,’ he told her. ‘The pavlova was a disaster.’

  Nicole rose from the table, found the book and riffled through the pages. She found the scrap of paper tucked at the back, and the cross in the location he had described. She came back to the table and laid it down for her mother to see. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry that I had to—’

  ‘Don’t apologise. Look; stay here, tonight. The spare room is already made up. We can talk more later if you want. And if you don’t, fine. I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of supplies. So let me pop out. I have a few errands to run first, but I can pick up some food and make us dinner. Perhaps all this will become clearer after that.’ He stood, hoping that by demonstrating his full trust in her she would begin to lower her defences. ‘Treat the place as your own. Use anything you need. I’ll be gone for a couple of hours at most.’

  Nicole stared into the tea leaves at the bottom of her cup.

  Charles returned at seven o’clock that evening with three paper sacks filled with groceries. For supper he cooked them linguine with mussels and tarragon in a cream and white wine sauce. He opened a Chablis to accompany their meal, and he soon found himself fetching a second bottle from the fridge.

  While they ate, Charles talked of his work at the university. Remembering the texts he had seen her reading – early histories of the Hungarian people – he steered the conversation towards his knowledge of Eastern Europe. Nicole contributed little, but she did ask questions of him and listened intently to his replies.

  He told them of his other projects. How the BBC had commissioned him to write and present a five-part radio series on medieval Europe. The first two episodes had aired in the past few weeks. He had received only a modest fee, but ratings had been promising so far and his producer was talking about a larger follow-up project.

  Afterwards, they cleared the table and Nicole helped him wash the dishes. She brewed a pot of coffee and they took it into the living room. Nicole and her mother sat on the small sofa, across from his armchair.

  ‘I’ve thought of a way to get you back to France,’ he told them. ‘It’s going to take me a few more days to arrange things, but you’re welcome to stay here with me until then.’

  ‘Get us back to France?’ Nicole asked. ‘How?’

  Charles could not resist a grin.

  CHAPTER 5

  Snowdonia

  Now

  Hannah kept the stock of the shotgun tight into her shoulder, sighting down the barrels and aiming at the centre of the old man’s chest. She was only a few yards away from him but she had seen how quickly he could move. She would not give him a chance to react.

  His eyes flared as he saw the weapon, and Hannah felt cowe
d by the power they conveyed. As he raised his hands, his expression remained inscrutable.

  ‘Don’t,’ she snarled. ‘Put them back down. Into your lap. Now. Don’t misread me and think I won’t pull this trigger. Give me the slightest reason to shoot you and you’re dead, I promise you that. If you move out of that chair, you’re dead. If I ask you a question and I don’t like your answer, you’re dead. If your goddamned dog does something weird, this ends very quickly for you. Understand?’

  He glanced briefly at Moses sitting by the fire, then carefully measured out his words. ‘If you are who you say you are, you have nothing to fear from me.’

  ‘I’m the one holding the gun, old man. I have nothing to fear from you at all.’

  He continued as if she had never spoken. ‘If you’re not Hannah Wilde, if you’re the other one, then I know your secrets. Do what you will. I’m too old to be scared by guns. I’ve made my peace and I’m ready to face whatever comes next. You can send me on in the knowledge that we’re closing in on you and that this may well be the last murderous act you commit.’

  She could see from the quick rise and fall of his chest that he was not as calm as his demeanour suggested. It had taken a feat of will to keep his voice steady as he uttered those words. ‘That was quite a speech.’

  He inclined his head. ‘Perhaps a touch dramatic, but heartfelt nonetheless.’

  ‘How do you know who I am?’

  ‘I don’t. Not for certain. Let me ask you a question.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then pull the trigger.’ He waited, never taking his emerald eyes off hers. When she didn’t respond, he said, ‘When you were fifteen years old your father bought a farm in south Oxfordshire and inherited a herd of cattle. Which breed?’

  She stared, stomach roiling. Not only did this stranger know who she was, but he was trying to verify her identity just like her father had taught her. She wondered what advantage she might give him by answering truthfully, and could not see one. If he was trying to win her trust, it was a laughable ploy. He could have forced the answers out of her father.

  When he saw that she was hesitating, he added, ‘This is not to help you verify my identity, Hannah. It’s to help me verify yours.’

  ‘They were Ayrshires.’

  ‘Shortly after you arrived, there was an accident. What happened?’

  ‘I tried to milk one of them by hand,’ she said. ‘I must have pinched, because it kicked out and broke my wrist.’

  ‘What happened to the cow?’

  ‘Nothing. We named her Footloose.’

  The old man closed his eyes. When he opened them, they sparkled with intensity. ‘Hellfire, for a minute there I thought I was talking to him. That was a bit of excitement, eh? I was all ready to gut you.’ He chuckled, then he cast a look at Nate and the laughter faded on his lips. ‘Hannah, I’m so glad you’re all still alive.’

  ‘Thanks, I’m touched. But the rules haven’t changed. You move off that—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ he snapped. ‘I move, I die. Very poetic.’ Now that he seemed satisfied with her identity, his brashness had resurfaced. ‘I’m not moving, am I? I’m sitting on this damned uncomfortable chair with an aching back, after bending over your husband for the last hour trying to save his life. Even if I wanted to move I think it’d take me a week to straighten myself out. I thought you were making some tea.’

  ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘Because we’ve met before. A number of times. Not for a good few years, I’ll grant you, and I can see your manners haven’t improved in the meantime. Last time I saw you was out in Hungary when your father brought you. And still with that look on your face sour enough to curdle milk.’

  ‘You know my father?’ she asked, frowning.

  ‘Of course I know him. Was with him when he picked out this place. You made a lucky choice, by the way, coming here.’

  ‘Your turn.’

  ‘My turn to what?’

  ‘Validate. Before you say anything else, I want some proof.’

  ‘OK, fine.’ He started to worm his right hand into the pocket of his Barbour.

  ‘Whoa, there. Easy with the hands. Nice and slow.’

  With exaggerated care, he eased his finger and thumb into the pocket. He withdrew a wicked-looking hunting knife, its metal dull but sharp, its wooden handle smooth with age.

  ‘Careful,’ she warned, keeping both barrels high.

  He nodded, then dropped the knife back into his pocket. ‘I will be, now I know who you are. ’Course, I don’t know what would have happened if you had been him. I reckon maybe he’d be a bit quicker than me. Who knows? I’m getting on a bit these days. But then again, so is he. The gun’s empty, Hannah. If you’d pulled that trigger I would have buried this knife in your throat. Lucky for you, and for my conscience, you didn’t.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘When I last checked in on this place, I found a loaded shotgun in that pantry. Second shelf up on the left-hand side, wasn’t it? Just where you must have found it. Knowing the types we sometimes get in empty properties like this, I didn’t want to leave a loaded weapon there. So I removed both rounds. I know you didn’t have time to check when you hopped back there to fetch it. If it makes you feel better, you’ll find the cartridges back in their box in the drawer of that Welsh dresser behind you. The one with all the crockery on it. Now, please – point that thing away from my face. It’s very rude.’

  Hannah stepped backwards, widening the gap between them. When she was nearly at the door to the hallway, she broke the shotgun and checked the chambers.

  Empty.

  ‘Tell me something else,’ she demanded.

  ‘The day your father met your mother they fought over a table. I can’t remember where exactly, but one of the Oxford colleges, where he lectured.’

  She knew how unlikely it was for anyone to know that story unless Charles had told them personally. Coupled with his knowledge of the shotgun, she decided he had to be telling the truth.

  Hannah felt exhaustion wash over her. Somehow, she had managed to get Nate and Leah away from her father’s place alive. For the moment it seemed as if they had not been followed. Nate’s condition was dire. The possibility that he might not survive the night, however shattering, was something she had to consider. But they had found a safe-house. A temporary respite from what hunted them. They still had a chance.

  ‘Hannah?’ he asked.

  She blinked away weariness. ‘I’m sorry, Sebastien. When I saw the tattoo, I panicked. Knew I’d seen it, just not where.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. If you ever need to validate again, for whatever reason, you don’t hesitate. Better to be safe. If I don’t answer quickly enough, or I seem insulted, puzzled, you shoot me. Aim for my head next time, not my chest. Charles made those rules very simple for a reason. They work, and they’re the only way you have of keeping your family safe. Later I’ll tell you a few things you can use to validate me when you need to.

  ‘Now, I’m not a patient man by nature, I’ll admit that. So I hope for both our sakes you’re going to keep to your word and make that tea.’

  She forced a smile at his words, even though she didn’t feel like smiling. He was trying to lighten the atmosphere, and he deserved something for that; he had already done so much more. ‘I think that’s the least you’ve earned. Thank you. Thank you for being here. For helping Nate.’

  Sebastien waved away her gratitude.

  She went to the dresser, found the box of cartridges and loaded two of them into the gun. Returning the weapon to the pantry, she emerged with tea bags, powdered milk and sugar. ‘These don’t look too ancient,’ she said, indicating the supplies.

  ‘They’re not. I make sure everything’s up to date, just in case something happens.�
�� He paused, then added, ‘I’m sorry something has.’

  This time it was Hannah’s turn to brush aside a well-meant comment. A childish part of her still hoped that by refusing to dwell on what had happened tonight, it might still magically right itself. Nate, lying pale and motionless on the sofa, was testament to the foolishness of that thought.

  The kettle on the stove began to boil. She switched off the gas, added tea bags to two mugs and poured water. While the tea brewed, Sebastien lowered himself into an armchair by the fire. Once he had settled, Moses padded over for some attention.

  ‘You already knew something was wrong when you got here, didn’t you?’ Hannah asked him. ‘Even before you saw Nate.’

  He nodded. ‘I spoke to Charles this evening.’

  She felt jolted by the admission, felt her emotions churning. ‘You spoke to him? When?’

  ‘Shortly before he talked to you, I suspect.’

  ‘What did he say? Have you heard from him since? Is he all right?’

  Sebastien held up a hand and signalled Hannah to lower her voice. ‘I spoke to him once, that’s all, quite a few hours before you turned up. I haven’t talked to him since you managed to get away, and he hasn’t tried to call back. I doubt he would. He told me you’d been compromised.’

  She nodded. ‘Did he tell you how?’

  ‘He said someone from his solicitor’s office called him. They were worried they might have let something slip. He didn’t give me the details. It was a very quick conversation. Can I ask what happened? How Nate got injured?’

  ‘I don’t even know that myself. Dad called us in to see him. Told us we needed to leave right away and not to tell him where we were going. Nate and I split up. He went to pack a few things, I went to get Leah. I was out in the field when I heard the shots.’

  ‘Shots?’

  ‘It sounded like a pistol. I think Nate shot him. When I heard it I didn’t know what to do. I called Nate on my phone and he told me to reverse the Discovery up to the side of the house. We pulled up and Nate climbed into the car. I didn’t even know how badly he was hurt until we got here.’