Teena: A House of Ill Repute

by Jennifer Jane Pope

  'Good morning, sleepyhead,' Anne-Marie said, and I saw that she was smiling as she stood looking down at us from the doorway. 'I've got coffee on the go downstairs, if you're interested.'

  'What time is it?' I mumbled, struggling to sit up from beneath the weight of Andy's arm, which lay across my chest.

  'Half-eight,' she replied. 'I've been up and about since six, but then I had the benefit of a good night's sleep,' she added, grinning mischievously. She nodded down at my still unconscious bed partner. 'Looks equally good in or out of drag, doesn't he?'

  'Yes,' I admitted uncertainly. I managed to sit upright finally. 'You don't mind, do you?'

  Anne-Marie shrugged. 'Mind?' she echoed. 'Why should I mind? We don't do it together, you know. Even though we're not actually blood relations, well, it wouldn't feel right, if you know what I mean.'

  I had to suppress a laugh at this. Anne-Marie's ideas concerning morality, or the lack of it, were curious to say the least. 'He told me he loved me,' I offered lamely.

  Anne-Marie's smiled widened. 'I thought he might,' she said.

  I had both eyes open now and both eyebrows lifted. 'I - I didn't think he'd said anything to you,' I stammered. 'He told me—'

  'She hasn't said a word to me,' Anne-Marie assured me, raising a placating hand, 'but then he didn't have to. Our Andrea is as transparent as cellophane. I've known for days now, probably longer than she has herself.'

  I didn't fail to notice how she referred to Andy in the feminine at first, despite his currently obvious male condition.

  'Actually,' she continued, half turning to go, 'I think it's really sweet. Now I've got my two little slaves in love, which should make for some very interesting times.'

  Interesting times, I reflected as the door closed behind her. The Chinese have a curse, May you live in interesting times, it says. Well, I thought as I shook my now slowly awakening lover, we certainly were living in interesting times at the moment. Two very interesting times, indeed.

  I wondered what Anne-Marie would say when we told her that now Andy and I were not only lovers in the present, but also fellow travellers in time.

  'Gone, you say?' Gregory Hacklebury slapped the palms of his hands down onto his desk with a crash that echoed around the library. 'Gone where?'

  'I have no idea,' Megan Crowthorne replied, spreading her own hands, 'though I am already taking steps to find out. I have sent for Marjoribanks and he will arrive before noon. His people will find them quickly enough. The coach will be difficult to hide, to begin with.'

  'And Erik has gone too, you say?' Hacklebury's features were contorted with barely suppressed anger. 'That's all the thanks you get from dragging the great oaf from the gutter.'

  'I do seem to have misjudged him,' Megan admitted. 'I thought he was truly loyal to me, but then we do not yet know the circumstances. The girl may well have forced him. There is a pistol missing that belonged to Garfield.'

  'Garfield, yes,' Hacklebury said, frowning in concentration. 'I can't believe the bitch managed to get the jump on the fellow. Garfield has been a poacher and a gamekeeper for twenty or more years and yet he allows a slip of a girl to plunge a knife through his neck.'

  'Presumably she managed to, er, distract him,' Megan suggested.

  'Very resourceful for a peasant wench,' Hacklebury snapped. He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. 'And Angelina?' he asked after a moment.

  Megan swallowed, trying to avoid his direct gaze. 'The bitch dog is safe in her kennel,' she replied quietly. 'I have left Burrows to watch over her in Erik's stead. She'll not be going anywhere, not until we want her to.'

  'Good,' Hacklebury said. 'At least that's something. Without Maud, we may yet have need of little Angelina.'

  'I think,' Megan began slowly, 'that it will be best if we avoid any situation where we might have need of Angelina. Short of drugging her into a stupor, she'll be of absolutely no use to us, for she'll hardly comply with your wishes now, will she?'

  'No.' Hacklebury sighed. 'No, she'll certainly not.'

  'Which makes her a distinct liability,' Megan continued, 'if not an outright danger to both of us.'

  'Well, she'll not be doing much in the way of talking,' Hacklebury snickered, 'not in that little dog get-up you've put her in. Best you keep her that way for the foreseeable future, I reckon.'

  'I'm not entirely sure that's a wise idea,' Megan disagreed. Her fingers twisted together in front of her as Hacklebury looked up in surprise.

  'Well, we certainly cannot release her,' he protested.

  Megan shook her head. 'No,' she agreed, 'that we cannot do, and I was not about to suggest we should.' She paused, looking down at the space between her feet and the desk. 'What I was going to suggest,' she went on, speaking very quietly, 'is that Angelina's usefulness is far outweighed by the danger she represents to us, especially if young Maud opens her mouth to the wrong people.'

  'I cannot see Maud doing that,' Hacklebury asserted. 'The girl has committed murder, don't forget, and she'll know she'll be sure to swing for it if she's caught.'

  'True,' Megan agreed, 'but as you say, she's little more than a peasant and we cannot be sure she will continue to use what brains she has. Besides, we still have to explain Garfield's death, and if the law then catches up with her, who knows what she might say about the goings on here? No, I think I have a better solution. A much better solution, in my opinion.'

  'Which is?'

  'Which is that we lay the blame for the killing on Angelina and Erik, or better still, solely on Angelina. That way the law will be looking for her, a woman they cannot possibly hope to find.'

  'Unless they come here poking around. This place is big, but not that big.'

  'They cannot find what isn't here,' Megan said firmly.

  'You mean move her?'

  'Not exactly. Once we've established that she has killed and fled with what is now rightfully your property, all your problems are over, just so long as she is never actually found and questioned. I suggest we take steps to ensure she is never found.' She pursed her lips, and then set them in a taut line.

  Hacklebury stared up at her for a few moments and then nodded slowly. 'Yes,' he said deliberately, his eyes narrowing. 'Yes, I believe you are right. However...'

  'You need not trouble yourself over the details,' Megan put in hurriedly. 'I shall attend to those myself. It will be little different to disposing of any animal that has outlived its usefulness, I promise you.'

  'Apparently not,' Hacklebury said. He stood up and deliberately stretched his long body. 'Then to you shall fall the duty, Meg, for there is none better suited, I reckon. However, talking of suited, perhaps I should take one last farewell of my little bitch hound?'

  The corner of Megan's mouth twitched and she averted her gaze from his once again. She nodded. 'Yes,' she said, turning away towards the door. 'Yes, perhaps that would be appropriate.' She paused with one hand on the door handle. 'Allow me an hour or so, and I'll return for you once the bitch is in a suitable condition not to give you too much trouble. Then I think it will indeed be time for the master to bid his doggie a fond and final farewell.'

  'Teenie! Teenie! What's the matter!'

  I opened my eyes, blinked, and stared around me in some confusion, the now familiar surroundings of Anne-Marie's kitchen taking me somewhat by surprise. I gripped the edge of the table and blinked again, staring back at Andy in temporary bewilderment.

  He reached out and placed a hand over mine. 'Did you go back again?' he asked, his voice unsteady. 'Only you went really blank there for a few seconds, just like before.'

  Slowly, I shook my head. 'No, not this time,' I whispered, 'not as such, anyway. It was like the other time, only I wasn't there myself, but I could see and hear everything as though I was a fly on the wall.'

  'What did you see?' Anne-Marie began filling a mug with coffee from the percolator. 'Hacklebury, I suppose? And Megan?'

  I nodded. 'Yes, both of them. They were talking about me, An
gelina, I mean, and about the girl they used for the fake wedding ceremony.' I paused, and then began relating the conversation I had somehow overheard from more than one hundred and thirty years earlier.

  'But why would Mad Meg lie to him like that?' Andy demanded.

  Anne-Marie let out a little snort of derision and rolled her eyes. 'Because, that way she gets rid of Angelina once and for all,' she said, with an edge to her voice that usually only harassed schoolteachers manage to perfect.

  'By killing the girl Maud?' Andy protested. 'How does that get rid of Angelina?'

  'It doesn't, not as such,' I said, 'but Hacklebury will think Angelina is dead and he won't be too bothered about trying to catch up with Maud, will he? He'll expect Maud to keep her head down, because as far as he's concerned, she's killed the gamekeeper fellow and stolen money and jewels from the house.'

  'But Erik knows the truth and the real Angelina will still be out there somewhere,' Andy pointed out.

  'Yes, but you can bet your woolly stockings Megan will move heaven and earth to catch up with them,' Anne-Marie said. 'And when she does, she isn't going to let them hang around to spill the beans, is she?'

  'But meanwhile, the law will be looking for Angelina anyway,' Andy countered. 'What if they get to her first? She, you, can't go to them voluntarily. If only I'd got into Indira's body a few seconds earlier, she wouldn't have stabbed that bloke.'

  'Well, it's a bit late to worry about that now,' I reasoned. 'All I know is that Hacklebury is going to let Megan kill Maud, thinking she's Angelina, so Megan will have a clear field for whatever devious plan it is she's hatching.'

  'Well, whatever it is,' Anne-Marie said, 'it means she's got Hacklebury all to herself again.'

  'I can't believe that one woman could be so bloody evil to another,' Andy declared. 'I mean, I knew from what Teenie said that she was a nutter, but to actually kill another person in cold blood...'

  'After what she did to me,' I said, 'killing someone hardly seems that much. Dying would be preferable to spending years being treated like a damned dog. If you hadn't come to my rescue, who knows how many years Angelina and me might have spent trapped in that awful dog outfit. From the way Megan was talking before, I reckon it was meant to be a life sentence.'

  'And now this other poor bitch has taken your place,' Anne-Marie said, 'although it looks like her life sentence is going to be a very short one.'

  'Get that lacing tighter, Burrows.' Megan Crowthorne leaned back against the wall of the outbuilding, her mouth twisted sideways into the grin that was peculiarly her own. 'Come on, man, pull her gut in.'

  The servant, Burrows, tugged dutifully on the laces that tightened the midriff section of the dog costume around the prone girl's body, and shook his head. 'Seems like she must have put on a bit of weight these past couple of days,' he muttered. 'Either that or that great oaf Erik was even stronger'n he looked.' He pulled again, and now there were the first signs of life returning to the drugged girl, for the head - which Megan had taken the precaution of enclosing in the dog-faced hood herself before summoning Burrows to help - began to stir, and faint groans emanated from within; groans made incomprehensible by the cunning gagging plate Megan had secured in place first.

  Burrows still thought the girl he was preparing was Angelina. Only Tom Quickby, who had eventually not only found the body of Garfield, but had finally released Megan from the dog suit, knew the truth and he was temporarily out of the way, sworn to silence and despatched to bring the investigator, Marjoribanks, who Megan was certain would be able to track down the real Angelina and silence her as she herself intended to silence Maud.

  She peered down at the helpless, brown-clad figure and its four curiously matched limbs with their artificial paws and the expressionless dogface, through which she could now see eyes finally beginning to open. She cut short a laugh, for it was uncanny how the dog suit removed all signs of individuality from its wearer, whoever she might be. Yes, Hacklebury would have his final moments of enjoyment with what he thought was Angelina, and he would never be any the wiser, if Megan had anything to do with it.

  She grimaced and turned away towards the door, trying to shut out the memories of the hours she had spent within the suit's tight embrace, unable to speak and unable to stand other than on all fours, as she had been forced to stand while that brattish whore Angelina forced Erik to take her at pistol point. 'Just you wait, bitch!' she hissed beneath her breath as she emerged into the crisp afternoon sunlight. 'I'll repay you for that, be assured of it. No, I'll not have Marjoribanks kill you straight off, that I won't. Once the hue and cry has died down, methinks I'll have you back here for a little while longer. T'would be a shame to leave your nice kennel empty, that it would!'

  'This whole thing is starting to get on my nerves now,' I said. We were sitting in the lounge and nearly two hours had passed since our belated breakfast - two hours during which we had discussed and debated the various events over and over, all of us promoting various theories and possibilities, but none of us coming even vaguely close to suggesting what our next course of action ought to be, nor even if there was a next course of action that would have any value in it.

  For my own part, I was simply convinced the next course of action lay not in our own time, but back in the past, and that meanwhile I was merely going through the motions until I was whisked back again to continue whatever it was I had initially been taken back to do. Whether or not I once again might have an ally in Andy/Indira, of course I had no idea, any more than I could guess when my next time trip might happen.

  It was a disconcerting feeling and one I have never quite managed to come to terms with, even now all these years later and after so many trips back to so many differing times and situations. It was also complicated by another feeling of unease caused by my new distrust of myself, for I was growing more and more convinced there was something within my psyche that was at least as bad as whatever it was that drove Hacklebury, though I fervently hoped it was not in the same league of depravity as whatever it was motivating Megan Crowthorne.

  'It's just not fair,' I muttered, knowing I sounded about nine or ten years old as I said it. 'I didn't ask for any of this stuff and now I feel as if I'm no longer in control of my own life.'

  'Join the club,' Anne-Marie smiled across at me. 'None of us are ever in control of our own lives.'

  I didn't find her attempt at jocularity very funny and I pouted back defiantly. 'This is hardly the same,' I retorted pointedly. 'And it's getting worse. It was bad enough going back there and waking up as Angelina, but now these sort of flashback things on top of it all... it's too much, honestly it is!'

  Andy, who was sitting in the armchair next to mine, reached across and gently stroked my forearm. 'Teenie, there's not much we can do about it,' he said soothingly. 'But maybe, if we can get to the bottom of what actually happened to Hacklebury and Mad Meg, maybe then it'll all stop.'

  'Maybe it will,' I agreed, sighing, not sounding at all convinced. 'But just how do we go about finding out? Everything we've tried has either ended up at a dead end, or else given us bits and pieces that don't fit together. The only place we're likely to get any answers is back there, and I'm not sure I like the idea of going back there again. It was bad enough before, but now I know Megan is actually capable of murder. What about if she does catch up with Angelina? She may keep her alive for a while to torment her, but she can't risk keeping her around for too long. Even she'll realise that. If Hacklebury finds out she's been lying to him, there'll be one hell of a row. No, if Megan catches her, Angelina won't last long and what if I happen to be her when the time comes?'

  'I don't think Mad Meg will be able to kill you,' Anne-Marie reasoned, 'not even if she does kill Angelina while you're in her body. If that does happen, then I reckon you'll just come straight back here and that'll be an end to it.'

  'Oh, you reckon, do you?' I asked sarcastically. 'But can you guarantee it, eh?' I stared straight at her and Anne-Marie for once looked nonpl
ussed. 'No,' I continued quietly, 'you can't guarantee anything any more than I can, and it won't be you that's at risk, either, will it?'

  'No, it won't,' she agreed, shaking her head, 'and I wish there was something I could say or do that might help, but there isn't, not unless I get whisked back with you eventually.'

  'And maybe turn up as a Hacklebury?' I suggested.

  Anne-Marie smiled. 'Well, that would solve all the problems, wouldn't it?' she said. 'If I turned up as dear old Gregory, I'd simply whack Mad Meg over the head, dump her down the well, and that'd be an end to it. After all, you never lost your personality or real identity when you went back in Angelina's body, so there's no reason to suppose I'd end up as anything but myself, regardless of whatever body I was in.'

  'But what's the likelihood of you going back in the first place?' I queried. 'I know Andy did, but that could be for a number of reasons, one of which you couldn't possibly duplicate, not with the best will in the world.'

  'Maybe not duplicate, exactly,' Anne-Marie agreed, 'but who's to say it needs to be exact? There's something between all three of us, I reckon, and fate is a funny old thing.

  'No, you're right, I can't guarantee much,' she went on, 'except that we're all going to get maudlin and miserable if we just sit around here doing nothing. I suggest we try taking our minds off it for a bit and let whatever's going to happen whenever and whatever. And I've got a few ideas that I can guarantee will distract you. In fact, they'll distract all three of us. No, don't ask, just trust me, it'll be a surprise.'

  'Yes, well, I reckon I've had enough of surprises to last me a lifetime,' I sniffed.

  Anne-Marie wasn't about to be deflected. 'There are good surprises and bad surprises,' she persisted, getting to her feet, 'and this one will be a good one, I promise. So, trust me?' She smiled down at me in her most disarming fashion and although I tried to resist, I knew I'd lost, at least for the moment.

  'Call me a fool,' I replied, 'but yes, I trust you, though I reckon I'll end up wishing I hadn't!'