Star Locket

by Natalie Jane Prior

  ‘You are in trouble.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I may be old, but I am not blind. You have come back alone. Where is my niece’s husband?’

  ‘He’s gone after Miss Taverner. She ran away and he followed her. By now, I expect the police are after him. He hit the legation attachée with a jemmy and broke his arm.’

  Anna regarded him coldly over the top of her spectacles. ‘And why, may I ask, did he do that?’

  There was no point in lying. ‘We were trying to steal Miss Taverner’s half of the locket out of the legation safe.’

  Anna sighed. She took off her reading glasses and set them down on the table, and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. The room was well-lit this morning, and her face looked quite unlined, so that if Stephen had not already known how old she was, he would have found it hard to guess.

  ‘You know, you seemed to me such a sensible young man,’ she remarked. ‘I really can’t conceive why you would try to do such a thing. Did you really think that Greitz would permit you to get away with it? As for Michael, if he did, with all his experience and training, then he is an even bigger fool than I took him for.’

  ‘I never thought of Greitz at all,’ said Stephen, shamefacedly. ‘I don’t know about Michael. We just—acted.’

  ‘And were successful? Of course not. If anything, what you have done has placed us in even greater danger than we were in last night. Did it never occur to you that such an attempt ought not to be made without proper planning and backup? And if you had found Miss Taverner’s pendant, if you had been successful, what on earth would you have done with it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Stephen. ‘I suppose I would have given it to Estée.’

  ‘It doesn’t belong to Miss Merton. It belongs to Sally Taverner, who I am sure is now with Greitz, telling him everything that has happened. You don’t need to look so surprised. Did it never occur to you that if Greitz was after one girl, he would also have sought out the other?’

  ‘Not at first,’ said Stephen. ‘Michael thinks she has gone to him too, but I wasn’t sure whether to believe him.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Anna coldly. ‘He is her father, after all. And like many evil men, Richard Greitz has a great deal of personal charm, which I imagine she would have neither the wit nor the inclination to resist. From what I have seen of Miss Merton, I am very sure she would not—and whatever their differences of experience, they are the same person, remember. Greitz has a great deal of power, both magical and political. The stakes are high: I assure you, he would not hesitate to draw on it in whatever way he deemed necessary.’

  ‘The legation was full of a horrible smell. Michael said it was magic’

  ‘If that is what he said, he would be right. I am not surprised. It is an obvious place for Greitz to start. The evidence will begin to show in these English newspapers over the next few weeks: in leaders and editorials calling for parliamentary support for an independent Ostermark. British relations with the Great Powers are tense enough as it is; it will not seem so very strange if a pro-Ostermark policy starts to creep up in a political agenda. The question is, will it really be pro-Ostermark? Or will it be pro-Greitz? Right now his ability to influence things beyond the boundaries of Ostermark is limited, but if he finds the other half of that locket, that will rapidly change.’

  ‘If he’s relying on Miss Taverner to find it for him, he can’t have it yet,’ said Stephen. ‘When we looked, it wasn’t in the safe.’

  ‘If you had thought about it carefully, you would have realised it could not be.’ Anna waited a moment for these words to sink in. ‘Think, Stephen. A moment’s thought is sometimes worth an hour’s action. Michael is a manipulator. That is why he finds me so frustrating: because I refuse to play things his way, and he cannot twist me to his way of thinking. He tried to influence you by playing on your emotions.’

  ‘He told me that you were going to destroy the star locket,’ said Stephen. ‘That if you did, either Estée or Miss Taverner would cease to exist.’

  ‘Do you really care about Sally Taverner? At least be truthful, Stephen. You love Estée Merton, and you are afraid for her. But there is a perfect timing in this that you cannot change by your own will. Nor should you want to. Those girls have spent fifteen years wandering the world, and they are here now for a reason. You need to understand this. You must have faith that good can come out of this situation.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Do you? How much? It seems to me that at the moment you have more faith in Michael Barker than you have in God. It doesn’t seem to have got you very far.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘This is a broken world. Nothing in it is fair, Stephen. Was it fair when Dominick Barker stole a newborn baby from its mother’s breast? Is it fair that his son, through his own self-willed stupidity, is trying to destroy everything I’ve worked for and believe in? Was it fair that my husband was killed, that my nineteen-year-old son was blasted into atoms for simply being in a cellar at the wrong time? Is it fair that I have to forgive the man who did that to my baby?’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, no. It’s not fair. But it’s when you stop expecting that it will be, that miraculously you are given the strength to survive, the grace to forgive, and enough love that you can carry on in the midst of the fighting. It’s the knowledge that one day this fight will be over, and that everything will be put right, and that all the pain and the sadness will be so utterly forgotten. It will be as if it never was. And in the meantime I do everything I can to work towards that. I pray and I keep watch; I use my intellect and make calculated decisions. But I do not compromise. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that hard decisions cannot be shirked. You may choose the easy path if you wish, but in the end, it is always harder.’ She looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I know you will not listen to me. If I am altogether fair, I must admit that at your age, and in your circumstances, I would have done the same. But Stephen, one way or another, the star locket will be rejoined by Greitz, or its power will be broken. If you think there is another option, you are deluding yourself.’

  ‘You can’t know that,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Anna. ‘But there is one thing I do know, and that is that Richard Greitz takes this matter every whit as seriously as I do. For him, the stakes are even higher than they are for us. If he fails, he loses everything. Remember that, Stephen. Remember it, and be careful.’

  Estée sat on her bed in the upstairs room, an Ostermarkan newspaper on her lap. Anna had already filleted it with her scissors, and there was a tiny lattice of windows where the articles that interested her had been cut out. Estée was struggling to interest herself in an article about the closure of the old bridge over the River Ling, but it was hard to feel enthusiastic about a demolition project when she was doubtful she would even exist by the time it was completed. If she even existed now. A curious numbness had descended upon her since her conversation with Anna the night before, and now it seemed no act of will could shake it off.

  Estée laid the newspaper listlessly aside and folded back the cuff of her grey woollen dress. Her forearm looked much as it usually did: pale skin, a scattering of fine hairs, a slim wrist ending in a neat hand with shapely fingers. She had always been rather vain about her hands. Now it was as if they belonged to someone else entirely. Experimentally, Estée pinched the flesh on the underside of her left arm. It hurt. She pinched it again, harder this time, until the skin went white under the pressure. Surely if she could feel pain, there must be something inside her, something to prove that she had a place in the world, that she existed, and that somebody, somewhere cared…

  ‘Estée. What are you doing?’ The door opened. In three steps Stephen had crossed the room and seized her hand. ‘You’re hurting yourself! Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Leave me alone.’ Estée snatched back her hand. She pulled away from him, backing into the corner of the bed and wall. ‘You
don’t understand. I don’t even know if I exist any more. I don’t even know who I am.’

  ‘You’re exactly the same person you were when you woke up yesterday,’ said Stephen levelly. ‘You have to hold on to that, Estée. You heard what Anna said. One of you is a copy of the other, but it’s just as likely to be Sally Taverner as you.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course. Why not?’ He saw the expression on her face and realised something had happened. ‘Estée—have you found out something? Please, tell me—’

  ‘Her birthday.’ Estée heaved a deep breath. ‘She said her birthday was the thirteenth of December. That’s three days before mine.’ Stephen looked at her uncomprehendingly, and she went on, ‘Don’t you see? If Sally Taverner was born three days before me, she must have been the original and I must be the copy.’

  It was simple, so simple that Stephen was amazed no one had worked it out before now. His brain raced, but he could not fault her logic. Two identical children, one coming into existence three days after the other: of course the firstborn must have been the naturally born child, the second the simulacrum.

  His heart felt as if it had turned over and fallen out of his chest onto the floor. Yet it was clear he had to answer her, so he said fiercely, ‘I don’t believe it. And neither should you. There’s no birth certificate, no documentary proof. All the people who knew for certain have been dead for years. For all we know, the sixteenth is the day your parents adopted you. Maybe they didn’t even know your proper date of birth. And for that matter, who’s to say Sally Taverner knows? Her parents weren’t members of the Casimirites. At least your mother was there.’

  ‘That’s why she probably knew. It’s why she was so upset when she was dying. She begged God to forgive her, because she’d never told me I wasn’t real—’

  ‘Did she actually say that?’ demanded Stephen. ‘Estée, you’re letting your imagination run away with you. She’s far more likely to have felt guilty about stealing a baby from her sister. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Estée, after a pause. ‘I know there was a dreadful quarrel in the family before she left Ostermark.’

  ‘Well, I’d say we now know the reason why.’ Stephen waited for this to sink in, then pressed on. ‘Estée, we haven’t got time to waste on this. Something terrible has happened. Michael Barker and I have just tried to find Sally Taverner’s half of the star locket at the legation. While we were searching, she interrupted us. Francis Sinclair heard the ruckus, and there was a fight. I think Michael has broken Sinclair’s arm; the last I saw, he was unconscious. Once he comes around, well, there’d be a case for assault against both of us, with Miss Taverner as an eyewitness.’

  ‘She wouldn’t—’

  ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t count on that. I told you I don’t think she likes me much,’ said Stephen. ‘But there’s more, Estée. Sally was there because she was looking for the locket herself. Mrs van Homrigh thinks your father—Greitz—has persuaded her to do it. That means we can’t trust her any more. We have to get that half of the locket before she does. If she gives it to Greitz, and he already has your half, he’ll join them back together immediately.’

  Estée paled. ‘Why would Sally do such a thing?’

  ‘We don’t know what lies Greitz has told her,’ said Stephen. ‘Or what magical hold he has over her. But we must get that locket, Estée. My uncle can’t have had it on him when he was killed or Greitz would have taken it, and Uncle George obviously never had a chance to put it back in the legation safe. That means it’s got to be somewhere in the apartment. Once you’ve got it, we have to get you out of Ostermark. We can put you and the locket on a boat and send you back to New Zealand, Canada, anywhere you like.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes. You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous. Greitz would find you eventually, and I don’t think Mrs van Homrigh could protect you.’ He put his hand into his pocket and drew out a roll of bank notes. Estée’s eyes widened.

  ‘Where did you get those?’

  ‘Out of the legation safe. It was in my uncle’s security box. Well, I know he’s dead: there’s no point in pretending otherwise. My sister and I are his heirs, so I didn’t think there was any harm in taking it. And I don’t feel bad about using it to help you either. The more I think about this, the more I’m convinced my uncle knew a lot about what Greitz was doing.’

  ‘You mean, that’s why Greitz killed him?’

  ‘Probably.’ Stephen thought of his uncle as he had last seen him, sleek and convivial in his evening dress at the opera, the lynchpin of the assembled gathering. He did not know for sure what George Melhuish had done, or why Richard Greitz had finally found it necessary to kill him, but his uncle had been instrumental in bringing the Taverners back to Starberg, and he could guess the depths he had probably sunk to. ‘Your uncle is a blackmailer,’ Francis Sinclair had hissed at him, soon after Stephen had arrived from London. ‘You know why he’s the British Minister? It’s because there are men like him back in London who put him here. Men who don’t want their private business talked about. And your uncle is worse than any of them because he’s taking their money in return for staying quiet.’ Stephen had tried hard to disbelieve these accusations, but in his heart, to his great distress, he knew them to be true. And what his uncle had done in London, he must also have done in Starberg. He must have blackmailed Richard Greitz. Year after year he had done it, until finally, on Sunday morning, he had outlived his usefulness.

  My uncle was corrupt, thought Stephen. I cannot make excuses for his behaviour. Even so he was still my uncle. He loved Mary and me, and our mother, and he looked after us when others would have left us to sink. I may never know exactly what happened to him. But I intend to try to find out.

  They left the house by the back door. Stephen did not delude himself that their departure went unnoted. He could almost feel Anna van Homrigh’s eyes boring into his back as they walked down the street, and he did not relax until they had turned the corner and were out of sight of the house.

  It was ridiculous, he knew, but he was almost more afraid of her than he was of Greitz’s followers. A small, honest corner of his thoughts recognised these feelings as the stirrings of conscience, but now Estée was with him, he knew he could not afford such a luxury. And anyway, he told himself, was there anything so very wrong in what he was doing? He was merely retrieving something which had not been his uncle’s in the first place, and if Sally had Estée’s half of the locket, then surely it was right that Estée would have Sally’s. They were the same person, after all. A sneaking feeling of disgust rose up inside Stephen despite himself: he was not wont to be such an equivocator, and being dishonest with himself sat badly with his usual principles. In the end, he did not think about it at all, but merely focussed on Estée’s hand, held tightly in his own as they walked.

  The commissionaire had evidently given up on him, for he showed no surprise at seeing Stephen enter for the second time that morning without having gone out between times. Nor did he glance twice at Estée, who by now, Stephen thought gloomily, he must surely have identified as his teenaged mistress, brought in during his uncle’s absence and against his wishes. He and Estée went quickly upstairs to the apartment. It was much as they had left it, though the legation maids had been in as usual to clean it. As soon as they entered, Estée sank down on the sofa and curled her feet up under her.

  ‘I’ll make us some coffee.’ Stephen would have preferred tea, but the Ostermarkan variety was vile, and his uncle had long since given up drinking it. While the coffee brewed he got out some digestives—these, at least, were Huntley and Palmer’s, sent to him by his mother—dropped them on a plate, and spooned sugar recklessly into the cups. The coffee, when he poured it, was the colour and consistency of mud. He had still not got the knack of making it properly. Probably, thought Stephen dismally, he never would.

  ‘Here you are.’ He proffered the biscuits and a cup. Estée took the coff
ee absently and started sipping it. Stephen picked a biscuit, feeling faintly embarrassed at how hungry he was, and sat down in the armchair opposite.

  For a few moments, neither of them said anything. Estée sipped her coffee, and Stephen finished his biscuit and ate another one. Then, finally, Estée spoke.

  ‘Do you think I have a spirit? I mean, does anyone? Is there even such a thing?’

  Stephen’s heart sank. There was, it seemed, no turning her away from this topic of conversation, for which he had no easy answers.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Estée, of course there is.’

  ‘Of course, you’d be bound to say that, wouldn’t you,’ she said bitterly. ‘It’s easy for you. You’re not the only person in the world who doesn’t have one. Or if it’s not me, it’s Sally, and it amounts to the same thing, because while we’re both alive, we’ll never know for sure. We could live out our entire lives, until we are old ladies, and never know if we were a real human being or not. I don’t think I could bear that. I don’t think I could stand living out the rest of my life waiting for one or the other of us to die, just so I could prove that I existed. It’s not enough, you see, just to feel pain and hate and love, if in the end you’re nothing but a shadow of something real. I want to be more than a flicker on a wall, Stephen. I deserve something more—’

  ‘Estée, stop.’ Stephen could see where she was leading, and he did not want to contemplate it. He had spoken more firmly than he had intended; rather to his surprise, for her voice had been rising in a kind of wail. Estée broke off immediately. Stephen pushed aside his untouched coffee. ‘It’s going to be all right. I’ve just worked out where the pendant is. Wait here, and I’ll see if I’m right.’

  He left her sitting on the sofa and went out of the room. His uncle’s bedroom was down the passage, a large room with heavy curtains and a view of the street. Already, Stephen thought, it had the faintly abandoned air of a dead man’s room, the effects, all left as they had been on the morning of his disappearance, awaiting dispersal. Stephen glanced at the silver-backed brushes on the chest of drawers, their bristles dark with his uncle’s hair; at the book on the chair beside the bed with his reading glasses neatly on top. The maid had filled the jug of water on the washstand, under the vain assumption that he would be returning. Soon, very soon, he would be called upon to pack all these things and send them back to London. Stephen went over to the wardrobe, a large piece of locally made furniture with a heavy door, and, steeling himself slightly, clicked it open.