Anyway, I can’t bear the idea of somebody putting the file down and losing all its contents while I’m away. I think the bottom line is that I don’t trust anyone to do this apart from me.
God, Susie’s right: I am a control freak. Rafe Thorne should be very afraid.
I’m still dithering in the corridor when Simon comes striding towards me, his handsome face all smiles of delight. I glance over my shoulder to see who the lucky recipient of this greeting might be, but there’s nobody there. Goodness. It seems it’s me he’s so pleased to see. I’m a bit taken aback. The last couple of times we’ve met we’ve hardly parted on good terms – and I still haven’t forgiven him for insinuating that I’m not a viable candidate for the Assistant Director post. Still, it’s hard to hold a grudge against somebody who beams at you as though you’re the only woman in the world, and I find myself smiling back. If Dawn could see me now she’d be envious – as green as my new sweater, even – because Simon has pulled me into his arms and is dropping a kiss on my cheek. She’d probably burst.
“Hello, stranger,” Simon says. With his hands on my shoulders and his deep blue eyes staring down into mine, he steps back slightly. “Hey! You look different. Nice, but different.”
I’m in jeans and a duffle coat and my hair is loose. I look a wreck. Still, it’s sweet of him to try.
“Where are you off to?” he continues, lifting the label on my rucksack. “Cairo? Seriously?”
I laugh. “Nothing quite as exciting as that. I’ve got to go and see my father for a few days, so I was just letting the Prof know.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?” Simon’s voice is feathered with concern and I can’t help feeling bad for fibbing.
“Just family stuff,” I tell him quickly. Well, this isn’t exactly a lie. I am going to Bucks on family business; the family just happens to be Alex Thorne’s and not mine.
“And how are you feeling?” His hands are still on my shoulders and he’s so close that I can feel his minty breath on my cheeks. “I’ve been so worried about you.”
Actually I’m not sure I like way his hands are clamped on my shoulders. Being this close to Simon isn’t all it’s cracked up to be after all. I feel odd. Trapped. Wiggling away and pretending that I need to adjust my rucksack straps, I say briskly, “I’m fine now, Simon. Honestly. Once I’ve sorted out this family stuff it will be back to work as per normal. In fact I’m just about to give Paul my job application. Or I would do if I could find him.”
Simon whistles. “You are feeling better! I’ve just passed the Professor on his way to see the Principal Director, probably about this very matter.”
I pull a face. “Great. No Dawn and no Professor Paul. I guess Dusty Dave it is.”
“Dave? Christ! I wouldn’t leave a shopping list with him,” Simon shudders. “Look, don’t waste time hanging about here. I can see you’re in a hurry to get to see your family. Let me take it for you. I’ll catch the Prof later on and make sure he gets it.”
Simon holds out his hand for my folder. I pause.
“I’m not going to read it,” he says softly. “My application went in several days ago. Don’t leave it with me if you feel uncomfortable, but please don’t leave it with Dawn. That girl has a brain like a Swiss cheese.”
He looks so worried on my behalf that I’m touched. “OK, I promise I won’t give it to Dawn.”
“Phew!” Simon mimes mopping his brow. “The future of the Wellby’s Egyptology Department is saved. How about you and I grab some breakfast to celebrate? We never did make it out for lunch, did we?”
I glance at my watch. It’s almost ten o’clock already. If I’m going to find Rafe Thorne before dusk I’d better get going.
“I’d love to, but I really need to get to Marylebone.”
“I’m starting to think you don’t want to hang out with me,” he sighs, pulling a mock sad face. “What do I have to do to persuade you? Look, I’ll even buy. Come on Cleo, you know how much lattes cost in this place – and me on an academic’s wages, too. What more can I do?”
How can I resist? Even the stone statues in the exhibition rooms would be moved. We make our way to the café by the stairs, where I sit and text Susie while Simon fetches the coffees. By the time we’re drinking them and sharing a Danish pastry, I’m feeling much more relaxed. Bloody Alex; this is his paranoia about Simon, not mine. I really need to get a handle on this.
“I really must go,” I say finally, once we’re saturated with lattes and have covered our tray in flaky pastry crumbs. “I’ll probably have caffeine shakes for the rest of the day.”
“Spare a thought for those of us here,” Simon sighs. “I’ve got a paper to finish before I get to enjoy my Sunday.”
He helps me put my coat on and offers to accompany me to the station. Then, when I decline, he kisses me on the cheek and wishes me a good stay.
“If there’s anything you need me to do,” he says softly, “then just ask, Cleo. I’m only a phone call away.”
I’m clutching the folder in my left hand, and both of us drop our gazes to look at it. Simon raises a quizzical eyebrow and shrugs.
“My offer to deliver that still stands,” he says. “And leave your laptop with me too, just in case the Prof needs to see anything on it. It’ll save him having to call you and ask. You know how that drives him wild – and he’s useless at downloading files.”
I do know this. But abandon my laptop? I’m not sure. I know my files are password protected and backed up on the office computer as well as on a USB stick but, even so, abandoning my laptop would feel a bit like losing an arm…
“I don’t know,” I say. I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to tighten my grip on the strap of my laptop bag. “What if I need it for work?”
Simon’s chiselled face is a picture of concern and he shakes his golden head at me.
“Cleo Carpenter, what am I going to do with you? You’re supposed to be going home for a rest and to spend time with your family, not to work. Besides, what is there left to do? The application is done, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say reluctantly.
“So what will you need your laptop for? Hacking into NASA? Or maybe your online poker habit? No, don’t tell me, because I’ll be devastated: you have countless online admirers on some dating site or other,” Simon teases, and I can’t help laughing in spite of the odd clawing sensation in my stomach. I’m being ridiculous. Simon just wants to help.
“Seriously, Cleo,” he says gently, “you have your iPad for browsing and your Kindle for all that weighty reading or your secret chick lit! Don’t lug anything more onto the train than you have to. I’ll lock the laptop away for you and if there’s anything that Paul needs he can always ask the techies for your password. Or guess it! Rumplestiltskin, right?”
Aamon actually. Not the most original choice, I guess, but I’m hardly the Pentagon. I glance at my laptop bag, torn between hanging onto it and leaving it safely locked away. My laptop isn’t a bright and shiny MacBook Air almost light enough to float, but an ancient contraption that runs on steam and is the size of a small table. The department issued it when I first started at the museum and it’s so heavy that when I have it slung over my shoulder and across my back I resemble one of the Ninja Turtles. I’ve kept it partly because it works and partly because I’d prefer that we spent money on my research rather than on gadgets. Simon does have a point: it weighs a tonne and, combined with my rucksack, will probably be responsible for a couple of trips to the chiropractor when I return.
“It’s up to you,” Simon says. He glances at his watch. “Christ! You’d better decide one way or another because your train’s leaving in about half an hour.”
“I’d no idea we’d been here so long! I’d better get going,” I agree.
Simon nods and says nothing. Again I glance hesitantly at the folder containing my application, and then at my laptop bag. What is the matter with me? I never used to be this emotional. He’s right: travelling light makes far more s
ense and I need to get to the station on time for my train.
Right. That clinches it. I’m being ridiculous. Come on, Cleo; just give this nice, sex-on-a-stick Egyptologist your job application and laptop. That way, rather than playing hunt the professor, you can just get on with your journey, see Rafe Thorne and get rid of Alex. Then your life goes back to normal.
I pass the folder and the bag containing my laptop to Simon and try to ignore the sense of panic tightening around my chest. I never, ever let anyone else handle my research; it’s as though I’m parting with a baby. Once the folder is in his grasp and the laptop bag is slung over his shoulder, my heart starts to hammer against my ribcage and I have to stop myself from snatching them back. This is crazy behaviour, and yet it’s how I feel. Even when I arrive at Marylebone half an hour later I’m still uneasy about the whole thing – but by then, of course, it’s far too late.
The matter is literally and metaphorically out of my hands.
Chapter 15
The feeling of unease stays with me after I board the train at Marylebone; try as I might to tell myself I’m being irrational, I just can’t shake it off. As the guard blows his whistle and the train begins to creep out of the station, I’m wondering whatever possessed me to leave my research and job application with Simon. I never leave my research with anyone. I’m realising now that my decision is more evidence that I’m not myself at the moment – as if seeing ghosts and having conversations with imaginary rock stars isn’t enough proof of that already. I’ve never been one for gut instincts and intuition before, but having made such a rash choice, now every cell in my body is urging me to turn around and snatch my laptop back. I’m beyond irritated with myself.
Still, on the bright side, now that I’m committed to a wild goose chase across Buckinghamshire, everything around me seems remarkably ordinary. The carriage is almost empty apart from a handful of tourists and a few students, and so far today there’s been no sign of Alex. Yes, the world is looking like its usual self, with not a dead rock star in sight – which is just the way I like it.
As I fiddle with my iPhone I can’t help thinking that it’s a supreme irony that Alex’s absence confirms rather than makes me doubt his existence. He’s promised to stay away if I play my part, and so far so good. Things are normal, if a little dull, but I’m determined this is just how they’re going to stay once I’ve kept my word and made a prat of myself in front of Rafe Thorne. Dull is good if you ask me. Dull is wonderful. I’ve had enough excitement lately to last me for a lifetime.
The train gathers pace and before long the crammed terraces of the inner city start to smudge into the semis of suburbia. I haven’t done this journey for a long time but I know that within the hour I’ll be watching the green blur of the Chilterns pass by, threaded through with the silver ribbon of a young Thames, before I have to change at High Wycombe for the branch line. Trying my best to push away thoughts of the kind of reception I’m likely to get from Rafe Thorne – he’ll think I’m mad at best and a lunatic stalker at worst – I send up a quick prayer of thanks to whatever genius invented on-train Wi-Fi, and tap Rafe’s name into Google. I think the only way I can carry out my mission and keep some dignity is to treat it like a piece of research. I’ll start digging through his history and find out exactly what it is I’m dealing with. Then, just like I would with my work, I’ll start to examine the facts. Never mind the chance encounter we had all that time ago: I just need to find a way to let Rafe know that his brother doesn’t hold him responsible for his death.
Alex might be full of bright ideas and good intentions, I think despairingly as I scroll through online newspaper stories about Rafe’s latest stint in rehab, but he hasn’t been an awful lot of help when it comes to how I might deliver his message. No, that minor detail of his master plan seems to have escaped his attention. Somehow I don’t think turning up on Rafe’s doorstep and saying that his dead brother sent me is going to work.
“Any ideas?” I say aloud, glancing around the carriage just in case Alex is about – but for once he’s silent. Fat lot of help he is; it looks like I’m on my own with this. I sigh and return to my phone, scrolling through the Google search results and feeling more nervous by the minute. Rafe Thorne has had an eventful few years, that’s for sure. The open-faced young man I met for that brief hour has vanished and in his place is a scowling Heathcliff type, shut away in his big house with only alcohol and memories for company. His face glowers at me from my laptop screen; it’s a pap shot taken when he checked out of rehab for the latest time, and although the eyes are the same there’s a darkness behind them now that was never there before. I shiver. This merging of the familiar with the unfamiliar makes me very uneasy, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to knocking on his door. I really wish I had Alex with me.
Listen to me. I wish I had Alex with me? I’m seriously missing a dead guy I never knew in his lifetime? My imaginary friend?
Susie’s right: I ought to get out more. But in the meantime I need all the help I can get. “Alex! I need a hand with this!” I murmur. I take a deep breath and try to quell the growing wave of panic that threatens to swamp me as I consider the insanity of what I’m planning to do when I reach my destination. “Come on, Alex! This isn’t funny. I need some help.”
But apart from the noise of the train speeding ever closer to what could well be my impending doom, there’s silence. Alex does not materialise on the seat opposite; neither does he choose to whisper words of wisdom into my ear like something from a Hollywood movie. God. Whoopi Goldberg was so lucky to get Patrick Swayze. Here I am carrying out Alex’s final wish, and probably making a right idiot of myself to boot, and he can’t even be bothered to show up. He’s probably riding the Circle Line right now and peering down girls’ tops with Hank.
Men are useless. Dead or alive.
I raise my voice. “Alex! How on earth do I speak to Rafe? What do I say?”
There’s no reply and I feel like thumping my head on the table in frustration. Only the fact that the last time I banged my head didn’t work out too well stops me.
“Thanks a lot,” I mutter, beyond caring now whether I look crazy. What does it matter when in an hour or two I’ll be behaving like a lunatic anyway? Luckily most people in the carriage are wired into iPods and phones, and the bunch of teenagers at the far end are far too busy trying to look cool to notice me. My questions go unanswered. Defeated, I return my attention to Google, where I read all about Rafe’s acrimonious relationship break-up, his heavy drinking and finally his reclusive life in his house on the River Thames. It doesn’t make me feel much better.
By the time I change trains at High Wycombe and take my seat on the small branch line that winds its way through some of Buckinghamshire’s prettiest countryside, I’m extremely nervous. No matter what Alex thinks, I know this isn’t going to end well. I’m also dreading seeing my father and being back in a house that echoes with grief and memories. With every mile of track I’m coming closer to my own past and, believe me, I don’t like digging about in that at all. Some things really are better off left buried. It’s too late to back out now, though: the train’s drawing into Riverside Halt and I know from experience that there won’t be another back to the town for over an hour. Like it or not, I’m committed to this.
The small unmanned station that serves several scattered dwellings seven miles beyond Taply-on-Thames hasn’t changed a bit, but then why would it? Just because everything in my world shifted and altered that long-ago Christmas doesn’t mean it did for anyone else. That “Stop all the clocks” poem has it spot on; how is it possible that the day-to-day minutiae of life carry on when it feels as though your world has ended? We buried my mother, my lovely, clever, ambitious, beautiful mother, and then we all tried to return to our lives as normal. But of course nothing was ever normal again and our family was changed. Dad went to pieces, Tolly became obsessed with work and I fled to Egypt. Vicars could drone on about heaven as much as they liked, but I doubted i
ts existence. Working with the remains of a culture who’d believed wholeheartedly in the afterlife, only to end up as dusty artefacts, had erased any lingering faith I might have had in life after death. Or at least, it had until a few weeks ago.
What a little ray of sunshine I am this morning. Snap out of it Cleo, I tell myself firmly as I shrug my rucksack on and wait patiently for the train to stop fully so that the doors will open. Maybe I ought to read one of those self-help books that Susie’s always accidentally leaving on my desk or open on the arm of the sofa – books with covers showing ancient scrolls and which claim to unlock the secrets and mysteries of eternal happiness and abundance. What a load of hokum! Susie, who’s permanently broke, really should ask for her money back. Besides, it’s pretty hard to think positive when you’re worried that you’re going mad and that your entire life hangs in the balance. Somehow I don’t think any of those books have a chapter on what to do when a ghost called Alex Thorne won’t leave you in peace and makes you go and visit his brother to deliver a message from beyond the grave. I’m just going to have to figure it out for myself.
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