Lady of Hay (23 page)

Leaning forward, he put his hand over Judy’s and squeezed it gently. “Why don’t I get you another of those,” he said quietly. “Then you needn’t lick the glass. Later I’ll drop you back at your place and we’ll talk about this some more.”

***

Two days later Dorothy Franklyn rang the bell of the apartment in Lynwood House. “I hope you don’t mind, Sam, dear. I did so want to see you before you went back to Scotland.” She dropped three green-and-gold Harrods bags on the floor of the hall, then she straightened, looking at him for a moment. Reaching up to kiss him, she rumpled his hair affectionately before walking past him into the living room. “When are you going back?”

Sam followed her. “I’ve a few things to do in town and Nick said I could use the flat while he’s in France, so I’ll be here a week or so, I expect.” He threw himself into a chair and looked up at her. “You’re looking very spry, Ma.”

She smiled. “Thank you, dear,” she said. “Now tell me, how is Jo?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “What did Nick tell you?”

“Enough to make me very worried. This reincarnation business, Sam, it is all rubbish, isn’t it? I don’t like the sound of it at all. I didn’t like it when you were working on your thesis under that creepy man Cohen, and I don’t like it any better now. I think it’s dangerous. It’s got nothing whatsoever to do with medicine, or science. And to think that Jo has got involved with mumbo jumbo like that!” She shuddered visibly. “Can’t you do something, Sam?”

Sam turned away from her and looked out of the window. In the distance he could see a solid wedge of traffic sitting in the broad sweep of Park Lane. “I’m not sure that I can,” he said slowly. “I think Jo has already become too involved to extricate herself even if she wanted to. I believe that we are dealing with a genuine case of total recall of a previous incarnation. There are too many facts, too many details.” He sighed. “Too many things fit into the picture, Ma.” He glanced down at the books on the table. “I’ve been thinking about all this very hard over the past week. When I heard the tapes of Jo’s first regression a lot of things began to make sense.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “It has forced me to change my views. I believe now that maybe, once in a while, if a person—or people—have left things undone, or perhaps made a terrible mistake in one life, it is possible that when they are reborn they are given a second chance.”

“And you think Jo is being given a second chance?” Her face was inscrutable as she watched him.

Sam smiled. “Jo. Or someone else.”

“You don’t really believe that?” she said after a moment. “That there is some kind of karmic replay?” She frowned. “That is an Eastern philosophy, Sam, not one that sits easily on Western shoulders.” She paused. “But how is Jo in herself, Sam? Nick was very worried about her. Especially when you called and said she didn’t want to see him before he went off to France. She did say that?” She was watching him carefully again.

“She was badly shaken by what happened last Friday and a bit confused. I think she felt she had made rather a fool of herself in front of him. It will all have blown over by the time he gets back and they will both be glad they didn’t meet again to prolong the embarrassment.”

“This theory of yours.” She went to stand near him. “Does Jo believe it too?”

“Jo is still fighting it.” Sam frowned. “And until she accepts it she is unlikely to accept the wider implication that others must have been reincarnated with her, so that they can work out their destiny together with hers. It has to work like that.”

“So you think now that Jo is not the only one.” Thoughtfully she walked back into the living room. “Do you think Nick is involved?” She looked at him suddenly. “He wasn’t someone in this past life of hers?”

“Oh, yes, Nick is involved.” Sam’s voice had suddenly lost its lightness.

“How do you know?” she asked sharply. She sat down, putting her cup on the coffee table. “And you?” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “Are you involved too?”

“I rather think I am.” Sam sat down opposite her. “Crazy, isn’t it?” He gave her a disarming smile.

“And do you have any proof for this theory?”

“Proof?” He looked at her in astonishment. “How can there be proof? Don’t be obtuse, Ma.”

“I mean, have you or Nick had this hypnosis thing done to you, to find out?”

He shook his head. “Some things one knows. One remembers…”

She shuddered. “You’re giving me the creeps, Sam! I have never heard such a load of nonsense in my life. You’ve let your imagination run away with you. I suggest you go back to Scotland and imbue yourself with a good dose of Scots common sense!” She looked at Sam. “Who do you think you are—or were—in her story?”

Sam grinned. “Never you mind, Ma. I think we should stop talking about this.” His tone changed. “Now, what have you been buying? Are you going to show me?”

She refused to be distracted. “Did this Matilda have many men in her life?”

Sam grimaced. “At least two. Probably three.”

Dorothy was watching him closely. “Were they brothers?” she asked bluntly.

He laughed. “No, they weren’t brothers! Come on. Let’s stop talking about this.”

She continued, irritated. “Have you told Nick about this idea of yours?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

Sam shrugged. “That depends. I think it would be better if Nick concentrated on his advertising at the moment—and the delectable redhead in Fulham. There is no point in stirring things up needlessly.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Dorothy stood up briskly, trying to ignore her increasing panic. “Sam, I have to go. I’ve got one or two things to do before I catch my train.” She reached up to kiss him on the cheek, then she hesitated. “But tell me one thing first. You said you thought you had remembered things from the past. That is such a strange, frightening idea. What have you remembered?”

“It was when I was listening to the tape of Jo’s first regression,” he replied slowly. “I remembered a ring. A ring on the finger of a man.” He stared at the ceiling over her head. “I have remembered that ring for eight hundred years.”

There was silence in the room.

Dorothy licked her lips uneasily. “Why?” she whispered at last.

“Because he was my guest. And I murdered him.”

***

It was several days before Jo’s breasts returned to normal. Grimly she worked, typing up her notes, using every ounce of willpower she possessed to put Carl Bennet and Matilda de Braose out of her mind. She springcleaned the apartment, filled the storage closets, arranged to go back to Suffolk by train on Saturday morning to collect the MG, and less and less often had to remove the soggy tissues from her bra. Sam had told her that Nick was in France and she was glad. Nick was a complication she could not handle at the moment. Dutifully each night she took the two sleeping pills Sam had prescribed, went to bed at eleven, and slept heavily. Unpleasantly heavily.

She saw Sam only once more. He checked her over with quiet professionalism, ruffled her hair as if she were a naughty child, and went. She wished he had stayed longer.

When Pete Leveson called out of the blue she accepted his invitation to dinner with alacrity. He took her to the Gasworks and they sat in the huge, dimly lit reception room idly playing with the ornate chess pieces laid out in front of them while they waited for their table. Pete watched her covertly as he sipped his gin and tonic. “You’re looking great, Jo. Really great. How is work?”

She smiled. “It’s going quite well actually.”

“How did you get on with Carl Bennet? I hope the introduction was useful.” He moved a king’s pawn, not taking his eyes from her face, and saw her wary look at once.

“It was very interesting. Thank you, Pete.”

He waited for her to say more as she leaned back, staring idly around the room.

“Did you find out anything revealing?” he prompted at last.

She reached for her glass. “The woman never turned up that first time.”

“First time?” He picked her up at once. “So you’ve been again? Did he use hypnosis on you?” He moved one of her knights for her with a malicious grin.

“Three times now.” Gently she took it back from him and replaced it. She moved a bishop instead.

“And?”

She laughed uneasily. “It appears I have an alter ego. I still don’t believe I am her reincarnation—I can’t bring myself to accept that—but this woman is living a life somewhere there inside my head and it is so real! More real in some ways than the life I’m leading here and now.”

“Check.” Pete drained his glass. “You always were useless at chess, Jo. Why didn’t you let me help you? We could have made the game last at least ten minutes. Tell me about her, this lady who lives in your head.”

Jo glanced at him. “You’re not laughing?”

“No. I told you. I find it fascinating. I have always hankered after the idea of having a past life. It’s romantic, and comforting. It means if you fuck this one up, you can have another go. It also means that there might be a reason why I’m so unreasonably terrified of water.”

Jo smiled. “I expect your mother dropped you in the bath.”

“She swears not.” Pete raised his hand to the young man hovering in the background and ordered fresh drinks. “So shoot. Tell me about your other self.”

It was a relief to talk about it again. Relaxed and reassured by Pete’s quiet interest, Jo talked on. They finished their drinks and moved to their table in the grotto dark of the restaurant and she went on with the story. She kept back only one thing. She could not bring herself to mention her baby, or what had happened after his birth. When at last she had finished Pete let out a long, low whistle. “My God! And you’re telling me that you intend to let it go at that? You’re not going back?”

Jo shook her head. “If I go back again, I’ll go a thousand times. I’ve got to make myself drop it, Pete.”

“Why? What’s wrong with knowing what happened? For God’s sake, Jo!” He grinned. “I wouldn’t stop. I’d go back again and again till I had the whole story, whatever it cost. To hell with where she comes from. Whether she’s a spirit from the past or a part of your own personality fragmenting for some reason, or you in a previous existence, she is a fascinating woman. Think of the people she might have known.”

Jo smiled wryly. “She knew King John.”

“Bad King John?” He rocked back on his seat. “What a story that would be, Jo. Think—if you could interview him, through her! You can’t leave it there. You can’t. You must see that. You have to go back and find out what happened next.”

***

Judy was in the shower when Sam called the next morning. Wrapped in a towel, she picked up the phone, shaking her wet hair out of her eyes, watching the drops lying on the studio floor. The water was still running down her legs making pools around her feet. She dropped the towel and stood in the rectangle of stark sunshine from the window.

“Yes, Dr. Franklyn, of course I remember you,” she said, grinning. “What can I possibly do for you?”

Sam heard the grin at the other end of the phone. “I want you to do something for Nick,” he said slowly. “He was feeling pretty low last week—I expect you know. And now he is in France and he could use some company. Supposing I gave you his address. How soon could you be at Heathrow?”

“You mean he wants me to go to him?” Judy’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Shall we say I am sure he would be pleased if you were to turn up unexpectedly. I owe Nick a favor. I’ll even pay for your ticket. My present to you both.”

Judy raised an eyebrow. “It’s very kind of you, Dr. Franklyn, and I’d love to go.” She was staring at her naked reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall in front of her. “I never need to be persuaded to go to Paris. Especially is there’s a free ticket! But if I weren’t such an innocent, I might just ask myself what the real reason behind this sudden philanthropy was.”

He laughed out loud. “Then I’m glad you’re an innocent, Miss Curzon. I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

***

Ceecliff met Jo at Sudbury on Saturday morning and bore her home in an elderly Land Rover. The old house was full of dappled sunlight, every door and window open onto the garden, and Jo looked around her with enormous pleasure and relief. Somewhere deep inside she had been afraid the tension of that weekend two weeks ago might return.

Triumphantly Ceecliff produced a bottle of Pimms. “Nick is in France, you say?” She poured out two glasses as they sat down beneath the willow.

Jo nodded.

“And did you make it up before he went?”

“We parted friends, I suppose,” Jo said cautiously. What was the point of telling Ceecliff that he had left her frightened and alone in her apartment and gone straight to Judy? That he hadn’t been there when she needed him and that she hadn’t seen him since? She felt her grandmother’s eyes on her face and forced a smile. “I’ve decided to go back to the hypnotist again. No more hysteria, no more involvement. Just to find out, objectively, what happened.”

Ceecliff pursed her lips. “That is madness, Jo. How can you possibly be objective? How could anyone?”

“Because Dr. Bennet can tell me to be. That is the beauty of hypnosis, one does what one is told. He can use my own mind to hold everything at arm’s length.”