Kingdom of Shadows (6 page)

He seemed to be considering, and for a moment she dared hope he would reprieve her, but it was no good. He released her wrist.

‘Very good, Mother. Perhaps a lesson in obedience now will make her a douce wife later. But don’t hurt her too much. I’d hate to see such a pretty child marked.’

Almost blind with rage and humiliation, Isobel barely noticed as she was led, stumbling, to the chamber she shared with Mairi and two of Countess Elizabeth’s grandchildren, and there made to take off her gown. Standing shivering in her shift, she watched dumbly as one of the countess’s ladies appeared, carrying a hazel switch.

She was too proud to cry. When it was over she pulled her gown back on with Mairi’s help, and then walked in silence to the deep window embrasure. Only there, behind the heavy curtain, did she allow herself to waver for a moment, kneeling on the cushioned window seat, staring out across the glittering sea.

The telephone made Clare jump nearly out of her skin. It was several minutes before she could gather her wits enough to stagger to her feet to answer it.

It was Emma.

‘I thought I’d missed you again. Are we still going out tomorrow evening?’ Emma’s voice was down to earth, cheerful.

‘Tomorrow?’ Clare was dazed.

‘You remember. We agreed we’d have a meal together – just us, without husbands – to try that new place we were talking about. Are you all right, Clare?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Clare pushed her hair back from her face distractedly. ‘I must have been asleep. What time is it?’

‘Just after five –’

‘Five?’ Clare’s eyes opened wide. ‘My God, I’m due at the bank in less than an hour. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Em, OK?’

She sat still for a minute after she put down the phone, trying to gather her wits. The meditation, if that is what it had been, had been a terrifying reality. It was as if, in sitting down and opening the secret, closed recesses of her consciousness to the past, she had allowed someone else’s memories to come flooding back. It was as if she were Isobel and Isobel were she; as if she had entered completely into the mind of this child who had, according to Aunt Margaret, been her ancestor, and as if Isobel had entered into hers. Shaken, she stood up and gazed into the mirror, trying to catch a glimpse of those other eyes which had, in the silence of her meditation, looked out through her own. But it was no use. They had gone. All she saw were the eyes of Clare Royland, a twentieth-century woman who was late for an evening with her husband.

Shrugging off her mood as best she could she began at last to get ready. She slipped into the green silk dress with its swirling calf-length skirt, and reached for Aunt Margaret’s gold pendant to clasp round her neck, staring at herself in the mirror for a moment one last time before reaching slowly for her hairbrush. Already it was nearly half past five.

The taxi dropped her opposite the broad flight of steps which led up to the door of the merchant bankers, Beattie Cameron, at 6.15 p.m. exactly. Slowly, trying to compose herself into the role of partner’s wife, she walked up the steps and smiled at the commissionaire who unlocked the door for her.

‘Good evening, Mr Baines. Is Mr Royland in his office?’

‘Good evening, Mrs Royland. It’s a treat to see you again, if I may say so. I’ll just check at the desk.’ He led the way to the reception desk and picked up the internal phone.

Clare stared round at the huge entrance hall. This was still the old building, for all its modern plate-glass doors, the broad flight of stairs and the oak panelling betraying the office’s solid Victorian origins. Above the grotesque marble fireplace at one end of the hall was a large portrait of James Cameron, cofounder of the bank, and opposite him, hanging over another equally imposing fireplace, Donald Beattie, grandfather of the present senior partner. Paul’s office was at the top of the first flight of stairs.

As Baines rang off she turned towards the stairs with a smile. ‘All right to go up?’

‘He’s not in his office, Mrs Royland.’ Baines came out from behind the desk. ‘He’s in the new building. If you’d like to follow me, I’ll show you where to go.’

He opened a door in the far wall beyond the stairs and ushered her through. There, a glass walkway lined with exotic plants led directly into the new tower building where the bank and the stockbrokers, Westlake Pierce, her brother’s firm, now formed the nucleus of a new and powerful financial services group.

Clare followed him into the fluorescently lit building until he stopped outside a row of lift doors. ‘This one will take you straight to him, Mrs Royland. The penthouse conference room. Non-stop. You get a breathtaking view from up there. You haven’t been in the new building before, have you?’

He paused, his finger on the button as the lift door slid back. ‘Mrs Royland? Are you all right?’

Clare had closed her eyes, her fists clenched tightly as she felt her stomach turn over in panic. The lift – a steel box with deep grey carpeting on floor and walls – was waiting for her, the door open, the little red eye above the call button alight and watching.

Desperately, she swallowed. ‘Are there any stairs?’

‘Stairs?’ He looked shocked. ‘There are thirty-two storeys, Mrs Royland! Don’t you like lifts? I don’t like them much myself, truth to tell, but they’re fast, these ones. You’ll be all right.’ He gave her a reassuring smile.

She bit her lip. ‘Would you come up with me?’

‘I can’t.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not supposed to leave the desk. By rights, I shouldn’t even have come through here …’

There was nothing for it. Giving him a shaky smile, Clare stepped into the lift, clutching her leather purse tightly to her, and watched as the door slid shut.

Paul couldn’t have done it deliberately. He wouldn’t. Yet how could he have forgotten her claustrophobia, her terror, above all of lifts? Why couldn’t he have waited downstairs and come up with her, rather than making her travel up alone? Was this some weird punishment for being half an hour late? Breathe deeply. Relax. Use what you’ve been taught. And count. Slowly count. The lift is a fast one. Any moment it will stop and the doors will slide open.

It was slowing. She braced herself ready for the slight jolt as it stopped. Relieved, she waited for the door to open. There was total silence around her. Nothing happened. Even the slight hum of the mechanism had stopped. Then the lights went out.

‘Oh God!’ Clare dropped her purse in the darkness, the adrenalin of panic knifing through her stomach. Desperately she reached out in front of her, until her hands encountered the heavy steel doors, groping frantically for the crack between them. She could hear her breathing, hear her own sobbing as she clawed desperately around her. It was like the nightmare all over again, the nightmare of the cage – but this cage was real and solid, and it wasn’t a dream. Was there an escape hatch? A telephone? She couldn’t remember. Frantically she tried to keep a hold on the threads of reason as she hammered on the heavy, fabric-deadened walls. But there was nothing. Just a square, empty box.

‘Oh Christ! Oh God, please don’t let this be happening! Please!’ Already it was growing hot and airless. The darkness was absolute; tangible, like black oil swirling round her –

Falling to her knees she put her hands over her face, trying to cut out the darkness, rocking backwards and forwards on the soft executive carpet, and at last, uncontrollably, she began to scream.

3

‘Clare? Clare darling, you’re all right. It’s all over. You’re safe.’

Paul was squatting beside her in the lift, his arms tightly round her. Behind him, the broad penthouse reception area was bright with light. ‘Come on, Clare. Can you stand up? Nothing happened. There was some sort of power failure. It was only a few seconds, darling.’

Shaking like a leaf, with her husband’s arm around her, Clare managed to rise to her feet and Paul helped her out of the lift. ‘Come on, darling. There are chairs in the conference room. Penny, could you get some brandy? Quickly.’ Paul’s secretary had been hovering white-faced in the doorway.

Clinging to him, Clare followed Paul into the huge conference room with its floor-to-ceiling windows. Some were screened with blinds, but no blinds were drawn on the western side, and the whole side of the room was a blaze of fiery red from the setting sun. Helping Clare to a chair, Paul took the proffered glass from his secretary and held it to his wife’s lips. ‘Drink this. My God, woman, you frightened me. Why on earth did you scream like that?’

‘I’m sorry, Paul, but I couldn’t help it –’

‘Of course you couldn’t.’ Penny put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She was a plump pretty woman of about thirty, smartly dressed in a dark suit with a frilly jabot at the collar of her blouse. Next to the green swirl of silk under Clare’s mink coat it looked odd, even indecently sober. ‘I hate that lift myself. I’m always terrified it might get stuck.’

‘It didn’t get stuck.’ Paul sounded irritated. ‘It stopped for a couple of seconds when the electricity went off. That’s all.’

‘It was several minutes, and it probably seemed like several hours to poor Mrs Royland,’ Penny retorted stoutly. She glared at her employer.

Shakily Clare took another sip of brandy. ‘I’m all right now, really.’ She managed a smile.

Behind Paul the sunset was fading fast. Greyness was settling over the city. No one had switched on any lights in the conference room itself, and it began to seem very dark.

Paul was watching his wife closely, as if undecided what to do. The wave of tenderness which had swept over him as he helped her from the lift had passed, leaving him strangely detached once more. When at last he spoke, his eyes were cold. Whatever regret and sadness that still touched him when he thought of their longing to have a child had been firmly suppressed. He had far more immediate worries on his mind.

‘You look very pale, Clare. I don’t think you should come to the reception after all.’

‘Nonsense, Paul. I’m fine.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Paul was firm. ‘Penny, would you go back with Clare? Get a taxi and see her to the house. I have to go on to this wretched do, but I’ll come on home straight away afterwards. You should go to bed, darling. You look completely overwrought.’

‘I’m not, Paul.’ Clare was suddenly angry. ‘I’m perfectly all right. If you’d been waiting in your office none of this would have happened.’

‘I thought you’d like to see the view.’

‘But you know how much I hate lifts. Couldn’t you at least have waited downstairs and come up with me?’ She knew she sounded petulant, and the realisation made her even more angry.

He was looking at her thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I should have. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh Paul.’ She bit her lip suddenly, desperately wanting him to put his arms around her, but it was Penny who kept ineffectually patting her shoulder.

Paul had reached into his pocket for his wallet. He extricated a ten-pound note. ‘Here, Penny. Would you take her home now, please, then go on yourself. I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Paul –’

‘No, darling. I insist. I’m afraid you will have to go down in the lift again, there’s no other way, but I’m sure you’ll be all right with Penny with you.’

Clare swallowed her anger and disappointment with difficulty. Paul was treating her like a spoiled child who needed punishing. She wanted to shout at him, to defy him, to go to the party in spite of him, but then again, for his sake she did not want to argue in front of the other woman; and she had to admit, her legs did still feel shaky. She glanced up at him, suppressing with difficulty the new wave of fear which swept over her at the thought of getting into the lift again. ‘But what about you? Why can’t you come down with us?’

‘I’ll follow in five minutes or so. I have a few papers to sort out.’ He glanced at the long conference table. At the far end his case lay open, a neat pile of documents beside it on the polished surface. His gold fountain pen lay meticulously aligned on top of the papers. ‘You will be all right, Clare. Penny will look after you.’

Unceremoniously he ushered them both to the door. He didn’t wait to see them call the lift.

Penny pressed the button, her arm firmly linked through Clare’s. As the doors slid open she glanced up at the small glass-fronted cupboard set into the wall high up near the lift buttons. Inside it were all the emergency power switches for the top floor. Sitting in the conference room, bathed in the light of the setting sun, she had got up to close the door on to the landing after Paul went out to the cloakroom. She was sure she had seen him standing there near the switches. Then all the lights had gone out and, dazzled by the sunlight behind her, she could see nothing on the dark landing at all.

‘The club is almost empty this evening.’ Peter Cassidy greeted James Gordon in the changing room at Cannon’s as the latter, having fitted his card into the electronic door, came in carrying his sports bag. ‘We needn’t have bothered to book a court.’ He stooped to retie the lace on one white tennis shoe. ‘How is your sister, James? Em seems to think she’s going through a rough patch.’

‘Is she?’ Putting his card back in his wallet, James ripped off his tie and pulled the Asser and Turnbull shirt up over his head without undoing more than two buttons. ‘I haven’t talked to Clare for ages. I think she was a bit miffed about me inheriting Aunt Margaret’s money. I mean, the old girl had a very good reason for doing it, but Paul and Clare didn’t see it that way. Paul wanted to contest the will and have her declared senile.’

‘Which she wasn’t, I gather.’ Peter sat down on the bench in the middle of the room to wait for him.

‘No way. She was right on the ball up to the last five minutes, Ma said. Clare knew that of course. I don’t think she cares, actually. It’s Paul. You’d think with all his money he’d leave it alone, wouldn’t you? But perhaps it’s a habit with him.’ He paused reflectively. On the whole he was a great admirer of Paul’s. ‘Anyway, I thought Clare might be too embarrassed by the whole stupid thing to want to talk to me for a bit.’ He grinned, flicking his dark hair back from his face. ‘Besides, she hasn’t been much fun lately. She leads such a boring life, stuck in that house stuck in the middle of nowhere.’ He stepped out of his trousers and reached for his shorts.