He stood up and headed for the door, pausing when Madden called after him.
“I don’t care how you get it, or who you get it from, but I’ll pay well for its use. Perhaps the clerk at the desk can provide us with something.”
Gazo nodded. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Where are we going?” Grant asked when the door closed behind him.
“Not we,” Madden said. “Only I.”
“But—”
“I appreciate your wanting to help, but this is something I must do on my own, Rollie. I’m afraid that there will be a price paid for what must be done; a price paid inside”—he touched a closed fist to his chest, just above his heart—“and you are still not far enough along the Way to disperse the inevitable effects that will result from tonight’s work.”
It must be mine, Madden thought. He’d learned the lesson that Michael’s treachery had taught him. First it must belong to him alone. If there were aspects he could share with others of the Order, tidbits he could pass out to those he favoured, he would do so. But first it must belong to him. Heart and soul.
“What about Bett?” Lena asked. “What do we do if he comes back?”
“There’s no more time to wait for Michael.”
“But if he does come back?” Lena pressed.
“Have your man Gazo restrain him. But I don’t think we will be seeing Michael here tonight. I can sense his hand in this.”
Grant shook his head. “I don’t understand. In what?”
“The Littles have found a way to undo the spell that woke Dunthorn’s secret. It’s fading away again.”
“But—”
Enough, Madden thought.
Though he rarely used the influence of his will in such an undisguised manner with members of the Order, his patience had run out. Time was speeding by, almost out of control—time he could not afford to waste with explanations.
He locked gazes with them—first Grant, then his daughter.
You will do as I tell you, he told them. There will be no further discussion.
When he let them go, Grant squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at his temples.
“Maybe it’s best you go on alone,” Grant said. “I’ve got a migraine coming on.”
“Do you want me to get you something for it?” Lena asked, all her concern now focused on her father.
Grant shook his head. “I think I’ll just go back to my room and lie down for a while.”
Madden and Grant had worked in such close proximity for so long, with Madden constantly influencing him, that Grant didn’t have a chance to fight the older man’s will. Grant would never even begin to suspect how he had just been manipulated. Madden’s control over his colleague was absolute, though he was usually far more judicious in his display of it.
The daughter was another matter. For all the years he had known her, she was still an unknown quantity that Madden suspected had far more natural affinity for the Order’s teachings than anyone suspected. She might present a problem.
Madden could see questions lying there behind her eyes, but either the force of his will was holding strong for the moment, or she was wise enough to keep silent. That would have to do for now. If she did remember this incident and raised a fuss about it later, he would deal with her at that time.
But for the present moment . . . He caught her gaze again and locked his will to hers. Knowing her preoccupation with the pleasures of the body, it was a simple matter to influence her, and then Gazo when he returned with word of the car that he’d found, to busy themselves once he was gone.
The questions faded in her eyes, and he smiled. He had set the desire so firmly upon them that they might well be at it before her father even had a chance to leave the room.
Madden stopped in his own room long enough to put on an overcoat. When he stepped outside the hotel a few minutes later, the car was right where Gazo had promised it would be. It was a small red Fiesta—smaller than Madden would have preferred, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, he told himself, and considering the narrow back roads and lanes of this area, it was probably the most appropriate vehicle Gazo could have acquired for him.
He had a few awkward moments, getting behind the wheel on what felt like the wrong side of the car for him, but he adjusted almost immediately and was soon on his way along Penzance’s sea-front, heading for Mousehole.
3.
Felix opened the door to a pair of strange faces. One belonged to a well-dressed woman, the other to a hulking man in a cheap suit who for some reason reminded Felix of a bodyguard. It was something about the careful way the man held himself. He stood a bit behind the woman and off to one side, measuring Felix with as watchful a gaze as Felix was studying him.
The woman was holding an envelope in her hand. She seemed calm, but her fingers were nervously fidgeting with the envelope.
“Can I help you?” Felix asked.
But then the Gaffer and the others were there. Janey stood at her grandfather’s shoulder and peered at the woman, struck by her familiarity. She struggled to place the face.
“Hello, Tom,” the woman said to the Gaffer. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” She turned her attention to Janey. “And you must be Jane. You’ve grown.”
The accent was American. The clothing, the fresh face with just a touch of makeup, was nothing like what Janey remembered from her dream, but then that had been a dream. Not real.
But this didn’t feel real either.
“Mother . . . ?” she said.
The Gaffer stood stiffly at her side, his anger a palpable presence that seemed to spark from him.
“You . . .” he tried. He could barely speak, he was so enraged. “You dare. . . .”
Felix moved to one side so that the Littles could directly confront their visitor. He and Clare exchanged worried looks. Clare’s hand crept to Janey’s who clasped it with a grip so tight it hurt.
“I want to talk to you,” the woman said.
The Gaffer pointed a stiff finger to the street beyond his garden gate.
“Get away from this house!” he demanded. “Take your whorish—”
“Now wait a minute,” the woman’s companion began.
He took a step forward, pausing when Felix straightened up from the door jamb where he’d been leaning. The stranger held his hands out in front of him, palms outward.
“We don’t want any trouble,” he said. “We just want to talk to you for a minute, Mr. Little, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“I’ve nothing to say to the likes of her,” the Gaffer told him. “Nor to you, if you’re her friend.”
Janey could only stare at the woman. She’d always wondered how she’d feel if she ever met her mother. A hundred scenarios had gone through her mind—her mother would come back to Penzance for a holiday and they would run into each other by chance on Market Jew Street, or they would meet at one of Janey’s American gigs, her mother coming to listen to her talented daughter whose career she had been following with pride from afar. Or maybe on a plane, or on a bus. On a crowded city street somewhere. Always a chance meeting. Always they would find they had so much in common. . . .
Never like in last night’s dream.
But the sentiment would be the same. Her mother would turn to her and whisper softly, with tears welling in her eyes, Forgive me.
Janey laid a hand on the Gaffer’s arm. “Wait a minute, Gramps. Can’t we see what they want?”
She drank in her mother’s presence, memorizing her features. They had the same nose, the same cheekbones. Her mother’s carriage was different—smaller bones probably—but they had the same peaches and cream complexion. The same long fingers.
“Thank you, Jane,” her mother said. “May we come in?”
“We can hear you well enough from where you are,” the Gaffer said stiffly, the anger in his voice almost raw.
Janey started to say, oh, let her come in, but the words died unsaid at what she heard next.
“It’s about Paul’s will,” her mother said.
Janey thought of the man who had attacked Clare. Of her canceled tour. Of how the Boyds’ farm was being taken from them. Of the woman who had drugged Felix. . . .
Forgive me.
Her mother wasn’t here to be forgiven. She wasn’t here to return to the fold.
“It seems Paul never made a new will after the divorce,” her mother was saying. “My lawyer tells me that. . .”
Janey couldn’t concentrate on what was being said. All she knew was that her mother was here because John Madden had sent her.
She could feel the Gaffer’s anger deflating—turning to despair as her mother spoke of Paul Little as though his only legacy was nothing more than a commodity. There was no room for memory, for the warmth and kindness that had been so much a part of her father. Didn’t her mother understand how much she and Gramps had cared for him?
“Naturally, it would be more convenient for us all to settle out of court, but we’re quite prepared . . .”
How could her mother be doing this? Didn’t she see what it was doing to Gramps? What kind of a hold did Madden have on her? Didn’t she have a bloody heart?
Would a compassionate woman have left the way she did?
“Get out of here,” Janey found herself saying.
Her mother turned her gaze from the Gaffer to Janey. “I don’t think you really know what—”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child,” Janey said.
The new and improved Janey dissolved under a wave of anger that ran far deeper than the Gaffer’s.
“But—” her mother started.
“You just tell Madden that he’s not getting it,” she said. “I don’t care what he does, I’ll destroy it before I’d ever let him get his hands on it.”
“Now don’t go off half cocked,” the man who accompanied her mother began.
“Shut your gob,” Janey told him.
“We don’t know any Madden,” her mother said.
“Oh, really? You don’t know John Madden—the old bugger who sits around in an office somewhere getting a kick out of thinking up new ways to ruin people’s lives? Too bad. I guess you can’t pass the message on to him that we know what the secret is and we know how to destroy it. So why don’t you just piss off.”
She gave Felix a little push to get him out of the way and started to close the door.
“All right!” her mother cried, putting her own hand up to stop the door. “I’ll admit we’re here to get whatever it is that Dunthorn left you, but we’re not working for any John Madden.”
“You aren’t?” Janey said in a sweet voice that bore a dangerous underpinning edge to it. “Then who are you working for?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Too bad.”
She started to push against the door again. She wanted it closed. She wanted the woman out of her life, just as she’d been for most of it. She wanted her to have never come, because if it was possible, she felt worse now than she had before. And poor Gramps. . . .
Felix started forward to put an end to the shoving match that had developed between Janey and her mother when Janey suddenly shouted: “I hope you rot in hell!”
The vehemence in her voice startled her mother. With the slight ease of her pressure on the outside of the door, Janey put all her weight behind her own side and slammed it shut. She had time to lock it before she turned and almost fell into the Gaffer’s arms, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Felix started to reach for her, then turned towards the door. Clare caught his hand before he could unlock it and step outside. He started to shake her off.
“Don’t,” she said. “It’ll only make it worse.”
“But—”
“It’s not worth it, Felix.”
Felix turned to where the Gaffer was trying to comfort Janey. The old man’s eyes were shiny.
“How . . . how can she be my mother?” Janey wept against her grandfather’s shoulder. “How can she be so awful? I don’t ever want to be like her.”
“You aren’t, my love,” the Gaffer said, stroking her hair. “You’re your father’s daughter and as fine a young woman as I’ve ever known. Your father would have been proud of you.”
“But she . . . she . . . How could she . . . ?”
“It’s that man’s doing—your John Madden. I’m sure he paid her well.”
Janey finally stood back. She wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. Felix got a box of tissues from the kitchen and brought them back to the front door where he handed her one. She blew her nose and dabbed at her cheeks. She took a long ragged breath, slowly let it out.
She felt worse than awful.
“But why would he pay her to do it?” she asked. “What was the point?”
“To make you feel like this,” Clare said.
Felix pulled back the lace from the window in the door and looked out.
“They’re gone,” he said.
Janey sniffled and blew her nose again.
“And we have to go, too,” she said. “Before something else happens. I can’t bear any more.”
Felix nodded, then turned to the Gaffer. “You’ll have to come with us now, Tom. There’s no telling what they’ll do.”
“They’re not chasing me out of my own home,” the Gaffer said.
“Will you at least call someone to stay with you while we’re gone?”
“I don’t need baby-sitting.”
“Please?” Janey put in.
The Gaffer sighed. “All right. I’ll ring up Dinny. But don’t you wait for him to come. You just go on and do what you can with the book.”
“But—”
“I won’t budge in this, my robin. I’ll be fine.”
Janey looked to Felix for help, but he only shook his head.
“We don’t have much time,” Clare said. “The moon will be rising soon.”
“Oh, Gramps. . . .”
The Gaffer gave her a hug. “Go on then, my gold. No one will be bothering me here.”
He went to the phone as he spoke and dialed the Boyds’ number.
Full of misgivings, Janey collected the Dunthorn book that they’d wrapped, first in a plastic bag, then in a waterproof oil-skin satchel. She waited until the Gaffer had finished his call, refusing to leave until she could at least be sure that Dinny was going to be staying with him.
“There, my treasure,” the Gaffer said as he got off the phone. He tried, but didn’t quite manage, a smile. “It’s all arranged.”
Janey could see that her grandfather felt about as much like smiling as she did, but she loved him for trying.
“We should go,” Clare said.
Janey nodded. “I love you, Gramps,” she said.
“I love you, too,” he told her.
Blinking back new tears, Janey reached for the tissue box again. It was sitting on the back of the sofa, beside her purse. She blew her nose, then stuffed more tissues into her purse. Her Eagle tin whistle, the kind that came in two parts so that it was easy to carry around, was in the way. She started to take it out, then just stuffed the tissues around it, and hung her purse from her shoulder.
She gave the Gaffer one last look. “Don’t let anyone in,” she said, “unless you’re sure it’s Dinny. And if it’s not, if anything happens, promise me you’ll ring the police straightway.”
“I will.”
Plainly unhappy at leaving him behind, she finally let Felix and Clare hurry her out to the car. The little Robin started first time around and moments later they were chugging up the hill to Paul.
4.
“Well, that’s that,” Connie said after a moment’s stunned silence.
She and Dennison stared at the door that had been slammed in their faces. Connie couldn’t help shivering as she remembered the look on her daughter’s face just before the door closed.
I hope you rot in hell.
Connie had been cursed before, but never with such
conviction. Coming from her own flesh and blood seemed to lend more weight to it. She suppressed another shiver.
“I guess I blew it,” she said, turning to her companion.
And she felt like shit for trying.
Think of that ten grand, she told herself. Bett’s still going to pay up. All she’d lost was her shot at the bonus.
And her self-respect.
“I don’t think so,” Dennison said.
Connie just shook her head. “Where were you when all this was going on? Didn’t you see the look she gave me?”
“But that’s exactly what Mr. Bett hired you to do—shake them up. Put them even more off their stride.”
“So how come I feel so bad?”
Dennison gave her a considering look, then shrugged. “I didn’t say what you did was right—I just said you’d done what Mr. Bett hired you to do.”
“Thanks for caring.”
Christ, she thought as soon as she said it. Like she should talk about caring after what she’d just done.
I hope you rot in hell.
She probably would. And living as she had for the better part of her life, she knew just who’d be keeping her company down there. All the sleazebags and lowlifes and losers.
Dennison took her arm and steered her out of the Littles’ tiny yard.
“Let’s see if we can find a phone booth and call ourselves a cab,” he said.
Connie shot a lingering glance at the Gaffer’s house and suppressed a sudden desire to go back and apologize, then she shook her head.
Like they’d even listen.
As though even if she’d known exactly how she’d be feeling right this moment when Bett had first asked her, she wouldn’t still go right ahead and do it all the same.
She knew herself too well. She needed that money. She needed whatever she could get.
“Connie?” Dennison said.
She turned from the house and let him lead her back down to the harbourfront.
5.
It was Lena’s sprained ankle that saved her.
She had the faint buzz of a headache in the back of her head, but it wasn’t enough to stop the wave of pure animal hunger that had her shivering every time she looked at Gazo. As soon as Madden left she could barely hold on for her father to leave the room before she started to peel off her clothes.
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