Moth to the Flame

by Maxine Barry

  Instantly, Davina began to cast Neville as the villain of her poem. She could use his sartorial elegance like a battering ram. Lampoon the man’s obvious ego, turn him into the voracious monster who would bring doom to her luckless heroine . . .

  ‘Right, well, places then,’ Jared said reluctantly as Davina took a seat next to Alicia. ‘Right, let’s have a run-through—no interruptions,’ Jared carried on. ‘I’ll be timing the changes.’ He moved to the front row, placing himself between Neville and his sister. If the creep wanted to start sneering, he’d have to get through Jared first.

  ‘Right. Act One, Scene One. Places!’ And so it began, the first ever run-through of The Estate of Matrimony.

  Alicia made copious notes. As the rehearsal drew to an end, Jared slumped down next to Alicia and sighed.

  ‘That was fascinating,’ Davina was the first to break the silence. ‘You thought of the whole plot?’ she asked Alicia.

  ‘Oh, Jared and Emily helped.’ She indicated the ginger-haired girl on the stage. ‘But it needs work.’

  Davina smiled. ‘All first drafts do. Isn’t that right, Neville?’ she added, silkily using the man’s first name, in order to put him on the spot. Jared, very discreetly, hid a grin behind his hand whilst Neville rose to the occasion magnificently. ‘Of course. The play has a lot of merit. But that appalling bit of sloppy work in Act II, Scenes four and five, need major repairs.’

  ‘I’ve already got notes and thoughts on that,’ Alicia said, with just a hint of bite to her voice, missing the stunned look that Neville gave her. It was the first time in his life he could remember his sweet and compliant sister answering him back in that way.

  Davina and Jared both felt like applauding.

  ‘I think you’ll come up with something really special, Alicia,’ Rupert Greyling-Simms, who’d been waiting his chance, chose that moment to step into the fray. Jared’s head snapped up as Rupert approached. Davina, who knew nothing about the background of the leading man, looked at him thoughtfully. As far as outward appearances were concerned, he was a veritable blond Adonis.

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ Alicia laughed shakily. ‘I hope I don’t let you down,’ she raised her voice to include the rest of the cast but nobody believed that she would. They could all tell that it was basically a good play.

  ‘You won’t,’ Rupert said firmly. ‘Now, I’ve ordered some smoked salmon and champagne to be delivered to Jared’s room,’ he called over to the stage. ‘Hope everyone has an appetite.’

  The cast began to applaud and cat-call, whilst Jared thought of the beer and crisps he’d organised, and grimaced wryly.

  ‘Right,’ Jared called out loudly. ‘Meet here again tomorrow for script changes.’ There were groans and good-natured mutters, and a general exodus towards Jared’s room in Wolsey.

  ‘Well, the library awaits me,’ Davina murmured. ‘Alicia, I liked the play a lot. Have you ever thought of writing a whodunit? I think you could give Ruth Rendell, et al, a real run for their money.’

  Alicia’s blue eyes widened like those of an owl. ‘Really? Do you really think so?’

  ‘I doubt my sister would want to do anything so run-of-the-mill, Miss Granger,’ Neville stepped in smoothly.

  Jared opened his mouth to tell the idiot to shut up, but Davina got there ahead of him. ‘Oh? You think that genre is run-of-the-mill? I’m surprised,’ she purred. ‘I’ve always found that particular area very rich in talent. In my opinion, Margery Allingham’s “Campion” is a fine creation. Every bit as good as Dorothy L. Sayers’ “Lord Peter Wimsey”.’

  Neville forced a smile on to his lips. ‘Of course. The twenties and thirties was a classic era for whodunits. But nowadays . . .’ he spread his hands in a dismissive gesture.

  Rupert shifted restlessly, impatient to have Alicia to himself. During the last few weeks, he felt that they’d reached a real rapport. Although she didn’t pick him out for special attention, Rupert knew that that was just a cover. She was so shy, she didn’t want to make her attraction for him obvious. But he was getting weary of pretending they were just friends. It was time to make his move. She was so beautiful. So alive. He must hear her say those magic words to him, soon. Say to him, ‘I love you.’

  Rupert reached out and took Alicia by the arm. She was so surprised—she’d actually forgotten he was still there—that she felt herself moving forward. ‘Why don’t we leave them to argue,’ he said softly, ‘whilst we go and drink champagne?’

  Jared went white at this openly aggressive move. He made an instinctive gesture towards them as Rupert began to lead Alicia away, but Neville quickly blocked him. ‘Not so fast, Cowan! I don’t want you encouraging Alicia in this damned silly fantasy of hers . . .’

  Davina saw that Jared was more than capable of dealing with the Neville Normans of this world, and with a discreet excuse, moved away. It had been a real breather to get away from the enigmatic and painful puzzle that was Gareth Lacey for a short while. But now his spectre was back. As Davina headed towards the Library, her shoulders uncharacteristically slumped, Alicia found herself being escorted to Jared’s room not by Jared, but by Rupert Greyling-Simms.

  ‘I think you’ve been very clever,’ he said admiringly. ‘And my character is very complex, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, and you play him so well,’ she assured him hastily. What were Jared and her brother talking about back there?

  ‘Thank you,’ Rupert said, his face glowing at her praise. ‘I can really sympathise with him. He loves Susan so much,’ he carried on, his eyes feasting hungrily on her face, ‘she’s his whole world. He simply has to have her all to himself. He can’t bear to share her with her husband and children.’

  He thought of his father, back at Warrington Manor, and his heart lurched. He was a brute of a man, who lived merely to hunt and fish on his estates, and mock his only son. According to his father, Rupert was a failure, a dead loss, a miserable wretched excuse for a son and heir. He thought of his mother, a voracious spender of money and excruciating social snob, and of his sister. Daddy’s precious pet. His biggest rival . . .

  But when he returned home with this prize—Alicia Norman—then his family would see. His father, with his expert eye for women, would love her. Even he would have to admit that his son had chosen a beauty. His snobbish mother would be forced to admit that a Norman was a class act, for Alicia’s father was to be mentioned in the next New Year’s Honours List, if the current rumours could be believed. And as for his sister . . . Well, Alicia would put paid to his father’s threats to leave the family fortune to her! As soon as he produced a grandson for the old man, Rupert knew his fortune would be secured. And this gorgeous, enchanting, precious creature beside him was just the woman to turn his life around. Secure a happy future. Provide him with the love that no-one else had ever chosen to give him.

  ‘Tell me, Alicia, have you ever seen Warrington Manor . . . ?’ he murmured . . . They climbed the stairs to Wolsey together, Alicia’s mind on Jared. But when Jared strolled in a few minutes later, it was to find Alicia and Rupert over in one corner, talking animatedly, and Jared cast them a thoughtful, worried look. There was something odd about Rupert. He’d noticed it quite a few times recently—especially when he was playing the part of Sam Blake, the killer. His performance of teetering on the edge of insanity was just a shade too convincing. And Jared wondered, uneasily, about the nature of the man’s obvious infatuation with Alicia. It wasn’t . . . normal. Oh, he knew that a woman as beautiful as Alicia was bound to attract men, like moths to a flame, and he was more than prepared to fight them off. But Rupert . . . there was something . . . pathetic . . . about Rupert that worried him. Made him unsure how to proceed. He also knew that Alicia was hardly aware of his existence, and she was so damned green when it came to men, that she was probably missing all the signals . . .

  Neville didn’t miss the thoughtful and worried look on Jared’s face, and frowned. Neville was nobody’s fool; he could see that Jared was fa
lling for his sister, and Alicia, the silly chump, was just the sort of romantic fool who might just be persuaded to go for a penniless engineer, rather than a titled, rich, Lord of the Realm.

  He had to think of a way to break them up . . .

  He wandered aimlessly around Jared’s room, chatting to the crush of people inside, and then, on a desk strewn with engineering books, noticed Jared’s cheque-book, lying out in plain sight, and that gave Neville a brilliant idea. Glancing casually around, making sure that no one was looking, he made a quick note of Jared’s account number, then went downstairs to the public telephone in the hall to put through a call to his bank.

  He wanted to transfer five . . . no, ten thousand pounds into Jared Cowan’s account. A pay-off to leave his sister alone. Of course, Jared knew nothing about it. But Alicia wouldn’t know that. And wouldn’t believe that, either, when he told her that her precious Jared had been bought off.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Davina stepped off the train at Banbury Station and hailed a taxi. She knew her heart wasn’t in what she was doing, and she growled warnings to herself as she got into the back of the cab, like a she-wolf with a recalcitrant bone.

  ‘King Canute College, please,’ she said crisply. It was her head that was ruling this show. That settled, she looked around her, leaning forward as they neared the famous Cross. The words of the nursery rhyme flickered across her mind.

  Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,

  To see a fine lady upon a white horse,

  With rings on her fingers, And bells on her toes,

  She shall have music wherever she goes.

  But no poem echoed back at her. Nothing was coming to her today, except a vague but persistent depression. It was that damned man’s fault. Gareth Lacey. He’d come into her life like one of the plagues of Egypt, utterly destroying everything good. David—dead. Her own peace of mind—gone. Her life upside down. Her body no longer her own. Just thinking about him set up a familiar sweet ache deep in her abdomen. She could feel her skin tingle in anticipation of his touch. Already she could hear his voice in her mind, talking about all the things that were important to her—life, poetry, experience, love, humanity. . .

  Damn it! Concentrate on the matter in hand, she snarled at herself angrily. And it was good advice, for the taxi had arrived.

  There was not a soul about. Obviously everyone was in class. By following battered signs with missing letters, she eventually found her way to the administration building. There the Principal’s secretary, who was expecting her, gave a discreet buzz on the intercom, and the inner door promptly opened, revealing a beaming, bald, rotund man who swept forward.

  ‘Miss Granger, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to meet you,’ he beamed, thrusting out his hand.

  Davina took it and felt a sudden shaming rush of guilt. This man’s honesty was written across his face for all to see, and she felt, suddenly, dirty and shabby in comparison.

  ‘Hello, Mr Morgan,’ she smiled as best she could. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me at such short notice.’

  She’d written to him only three days ago, requesting a meeting, hinting at her availability to give a lecture to the College’s English students.

  ‘That’s no problem at all,’ he assured her, ushering her into his office. There was a threadbare carpet, battered desk, and wilting greenery, but somehow the energetic presence of the Principal seemed to override it.

  Davina felt like a Judas, here to bring shame and disgrace on them. For when the news hit that Gareth Lacey had been caught selling exam papers to a student of this college, would Mr Morgan be beaming so happily? She somehow doubted it. But, as if to rebut that, flashing into her mind came a sudden stark vision of David’s funeral.

  It had been a raw December day, wet and bleak as they’d watched the coffin being lowered into a cold, dark grave. It had been almost impossible to believe that under the white lilies was the fun-loving, generous-hearted boy she’d adored.

  To Davina he’d always been someone to love, and protect.

  After she’d left school and begun her wanderlust days, they’d sent each other long chatty letters. She could almost picture his beloved St Bede’s from his description of it. And then, after just a year, his letters had begun to change, became bleaker, more disjointed. And running through them all, this growing fear and hatred of one of his tutors: Dr Gareth Lacey. And then, finally, the phone call from her mother. Come home. David was dead. It was only on that short, rainy journey to the cemetery that her mother had told her it had been suicide. She’d stood in the cemetery in Hastings, chilled to the very bone, and promised her brother that the man who’d put him into that deep dark hole would never get away with it. No matter what the cost. Well, she should have known that promises weren’t always easy to keep. There would always be casualties when it came to revenge. And the round-faced, beaming Principal of King Canute was one of them.

  She watched him bleakly as he poured her the freshly made instant coffee, and assured herself that the College would survive. They would all survive. She supposed even Gareth would survive. An ex-Oxford don would always be able to get a job somewhere, after all. He might go abroad, to America. But not into the education system, of course, she thought, with a brief twist of her lips. His notoriety would travel even across the Atlantic. But the publishing world would probably welcome him. And this honest man wouldn’t be blamed for the actions of one of his students, would he?

  Salving your conscience nicely, aren’t you Davina? she asked herself bitterly, as she drank the coffee, and felt her blank mind become even blanker.

  ‘Geoffrey Thorpe, our Head of English, will be coming over when his class ends. I hope that’s all right?’ the Principal said and Davina smiled faintly, agreeing that it was. The private investigator she’d hired was from London, and came very highly recommended. She’d simply told him what she wanted—an English Student at King Canute College, due to sit finals this summer, who looked set to fail, and who, as a result, wouldn’t turn down the chance of earning an illicit couple of thousand. And, barely a week later, a list of four names, complete with biographies, had turned up in her pigeon-hole, together with a large bill. The list had included a single mother, who had to hold down a job as well as look after her son, and so had little time for study. Next on the list was an independently wealthy girl, who seemed to be using her time at college as a chance to drink, be merry and chase the male students in her year. The third name was that of a housewife and mother, who’d decided to return to education and found things had changed so much since her own schooldays that she’d bitten off rather more than she could properly chew. And finally, there was a boy called Gavin Brock. From a middle-class family, he’d wasted his three years at the small college, being more interested in girlfriends, late nights and rock concerts, than in studying. He was counting on a cushy job in his father’s company to set him up for life, and was currently in a state of panic. Of them all, Brock was by far the best candidate.

  ‘So, tell me what brings you to this neck of the woods,’ the Principal’s voice penetrated her busy thoughts, and Davina forced herself to smile, to talk about the anthology, her Hilary Term as an Honorary Fellow at St Bede’s, and her wish to lecture at some of the less well endowed but equally deserving colleges within the State sector.

  There was a knock on the door, and a thin, ginger-haired man walked in. His watery blue eyes went straight to her.

  ‘Ah, Geoffrey!’ Mr Morgan bounced out of his chair and introduced them. ‘Miss Granger, this is our Head of English, Mr Thorpe. Miss Granger has just been telling me about an anthology she’s compiling at St Bede’s . . .’

  Davina shook the man’s hand, not surprised to find that her own hand was icy. Within half-an-hour, Davina had fixed a time and date, and was resolved to give them the best damned lecture she could think of. As she left, she could hear them happily discussing the local papers that must be informed, and once outside she checked her watch, relieved to see that it w
as just gone one o’clock.

  She’d timed it perfectly. This time following her nose, she easily found her way to the College Canteen, looking for one face in particular. Gavin Brock looked up as someone drew back a chair, and blinked as the blonde woman sat opposite him.

  He blinked again, then smiled. ‘Hello. I wouldn’t have the pie if I were you,’ he flashed her his best, charming, white-toothed grin.

  Davina promptly smiled back. Fancied himself, didn’t he? But she supposed he had good reason. At 22, he was good-looking enough, in a very British sort of way. Dark hair, blue eyes, wide smile. ‘I won’t,’ she promised, allowing her naturally soft voice to soften even more. ‘You are Gavin Brock, aren’t you?’

  He swelled visibly. ‘Sure. And you are . . . ?’

  Davina, aware now of some of the openly interested looks being cast their way, rose slowly. ‘Let’s get out of here, shall we?’ The smell of the food was beginning to nauseate her. ‘It’s nice outside,’ she lied smoothly, ‘and I’d like to talk to you . . . alone.’

  Gavin had no problem with that and snatched his leather jacket off the back of the chair, following her out of the hot canteen like an eager puppy. Outside they both shivered as the raw March wind hit them, but neither complained. She began to lead him slowly away, towards the front gate.

  In no mood, now they were alone, to indulge him in any more fantasies, she got straight to the point. ‘How would you like to earn ten thousand pounds?’ she asked quietly.

  Gavin jerked. ‘Huh? What did you say?’

  Davina smiled. ‘I said,’ she repeated patiently, ‘how would you like to earn ten thousand pounds?’

  Gavin shoved his hands deep into his pockets and scowled at her, obviously unnerved.