Teena: A House of Ill Repute (3 page)

Slowly, I shook my head. 'No, not this time,' I whispered, 'not as such, anyway. It was like the other time, only I wasn't there myself, but I could see and hear everything as though I was a fly on the wall.'

'What did you see?' Anne-Marie began filling a mug with coffee from the percolator. 'Hacklebury, I suppose? And Megan?'

I nodded. 'Yes, both of them. They were talking about me, Angelina, I mean, and about the girl they used for the fake wedding ceremony.' I paused, and then began relating the conversation I had somehow overheard from more than one hundred and thirty years earlier.

'But why would Mad Meg lie to him like that?' Andy demanded.

Anne-Marie let out a little snort of derision and rolled her eyes. 'Because, that way she gets rid of Angelina once and for all,' she said, with an edge to her voice that usually only harassed schoolteachers manage to perfect.

'By killing the girl Maud?' Andy protested. 'How does that get rid of Angelina?'

'It doesn't, not as such,' I said, 'but Hacklebury will
think
Angelina is dead and he won't be too bothered about trying to catch up with Maud, will he? He'll expect Maud to keep her head down, because as far as he's concerned, she's killed the gamekeeper fellow and stolen money and jewels from the house.'

'But Erik knows the truth and the real Angelina will still be out there somewhere,' Andy pointed out.

'Yes, but you can bet your woolly stockings Megan will move heaven and earth to catch up with them,' Anne-Marie said. 'And when she does, she isn't going to let them hang around to spill the beans, is she?'

'But meanwhile, the law will be looking for Angelina anyway,' Andy countered. 'What if they get to her first? She,
you
, can't go to them voluntarily. If only I'd got into Indira's body a few seconds earlier, she wouldn't have stabbed that bloke.'

'Well, it's a bit late to worry about that now,' I reasoned. 'All I know is that Hacklebury is going to let Megan kill Maud, thinking she's Angelina, so Megan will have a clear field for whatever devious plan it is she's hatching.'

'Well, whatever it is,' Anne-Marie said, 'it means she's got Hacklebury all to herself again.'

'I can't believe that one woman could be so bloody evil to another,' Andy declared. 'I mean, I knew from what Teenie said that she was a nutter, but to actually kill another person in cold blood...'

'After what she did to me,' I said, 'killing someone hardly seems that much. Dying would be preferable to spending years being treated like a damned dog. If you hadn't come to my rescue, who knows how many years Angelina and me might have spent trapped in that awful dog outfit. From the way Megan was talking before, I reckon it was meant to be a life sentence.'

'And now this other poor bitch has taken your place,' Anne-Marie said, 'although it looks like her life sentence is going to be a very short one.'

'Get that lacing tighter, Burrows.' Megan Crowthorne leaned back against the wall of the outbuilding, her mouth twisted sideways into the grin that was peculiarly her own. 'Come on, man, pull her gut in.'

The servant, Burrows, tugged dutifully on the laces that tightened the midriff section of the dog costume around the prone girl's body, and shook his head. 'Seems like she must have put on a bit of weight these past couple of days,' he muttered. 'Either that or that great oaf Erik was even stronger'n he looked.' He pulled again, and now there were the first signs of life returning to the drugged girl, for the head - which Megan had taken the precaution of enclosing in the dog-faced hood herself before summoning Burrows to help - began to stir, and faint groans emanated from within; groans made incomprehensible by the cunning gagging plate Megan had secured in place first.

Burrows still thought the girl he was preparing was Angelina. Only Tom Quickby, who had eventually not only found the body of Garfield, but had finally released Megan from the dog suit, knew the truth and he was temporarily out of the way, sworn to silence and despatched to bring the investigator, Marjoribanks, who Megan was certain would be able to track down the real Angelina and silence her as she herself intended to silence Maud.

She peered down at the helpless, brown-clad figure and its four curiously matched limbs with their artificial paws and the expressionless dogface, through which she could now see eyes finally beginning to open. She cut short a laugh, for it was uncanny how the dog suit removed all signs of individuality from its wearer, whoever she might be. Yes, Hacklebury would have his final moments of enjoyment with what he thought was Angelina, and he would never be any the wiser, if Megan had anything to do with it.

She grimaced and turned away towards the door, trying to shut out the memories of the hours she had spent within the suit's tight embrace, unable to speak and unable to stand other than on all fours, as she had been forced to stand while that brattish whore Angelina forced Erik to take her at pistol point. 'Just you wait, bitch!' she hissed beneath her breath as she emerged into the crisp afternoon sunlight. 'I'll repay you for that, be assured of it. No, I'll not have Marjoribanks kill you straight off, that I won't. Once the hue and cry has died down, methinks I'll have you back here for a little while longer. T'would be a shame to leave your nice kennel empty, that it would!'

'This whole thing is starting to get on my nerves now,' I said. We were sitting in the lounge and nearly two hours had passed since our belated breakfast - two hours during which we had discussed and debated the various events over and over, all of us promoting various theories and possibilities, but none of us coming even vaguely close to suggesting what our next course of action ought to be, nor even if there was a next course of action that would have any value in it.

For my own part, I was simply convinced the next course of action lay not in our own time, but back in the past, and that meanwhile I was merely going through the motions until I was whisked back again to continue whatever it was I had initially been taken back to do. Whether or not I once again might have an ally in Andy/Indira, of course I had no idea, any more than I could guess when my next time trip might happen.

It was a disconcerting feeling and one I have never quite managed to come to terms with, even now all these years later and after so many trips back to so many differing times and situations. It was also complicated by another feeling of unease caused by my new distrust of myself, for I was growing more and more convinced there was something within my psyche that was at least as bad as whatever it was that drove Hacklebury, though I fervently hoped it was not in the same league of depravity as whatever it was motivating Megan Crowthorne.

'It's just not fair,' I muttered, knowing I sounded about nine or ten years old as I said it. 'I didn't ask for any of this stuff and now I feel as if I'm no longer in control of my own life.'

'Join the club,' Anne-Marie smiled across at me. 'None of us are ever in control of our own lives.'

I didn't find her attempt at jocularity very funny and I pouted back defiantly. 'This is hardly the same,' I retorted pointedly. 'And it's getting worse. It was bad enough going back there and waking up as Angelina, but now these sort of flashback things on top of it all... it's too much, honestly it is!'

Andy, who was sitting in the armchair next to mine, reached across and gently stroked my forearm. 'Teenie, there's not much we can do about it,' he said soothingly. 'But maybe, if we can get to the bottom of what actually happened to Hacklebury and Mad Meg, maybe then it'll all stop.'

'Maybe it will,' I agreed, sighing, not sounding at all convinced. 'But just how do we go about finding out? Everything we've tried has either ended up at a dead end, or else given us bits and pieces that don't fit together. The only place we're likely to get any answers is back there, and I'm not sure I like the idea of going back there again. It was bad enough before, but now I know Megan is actually capable of murder. What about if she
does
catch up with Angelina? She may keep her alive for a while to torment her, but she can't risk keeping her around for too long. Even she'll realise that. If Hacklebury finds out she's been lying to him, there'll be one hell of a row. No, if Megan catches her, Angelina won't last long and what if I happen to be her when the time comes?'

'I don't think Mad Meg will be able to kill you,' Anne-Marie reasoned, 'not even if she does kill Angelina while you're in her body. If that does happen, then I reckon you'll just come straight back here and that'll be an end to it.'

'Oh, you
reckon
, do you?' I asked sarcastically. 'But can you
guarantee
it, eh?' I stared straight at her and Anne-Marie for once looked nonplussed. 'No,' I continued quietly, 'you can't guarantee anything any more than I can, and it won't be you that's at risk, either, will it?'

'No, it won't,' she agreed, shaking her head, 'and I wish there was something I could say or do that might help, but there isn't, not unless I get whisked back with you eventually.'

'And maybe turn up as a Hacklebury?' I suggested.

Anne-Marie smiled. 'Well, that would solve all the problems, wouldn't it?' she said. 'If I turned up as dear old Gregory, I'd simply whack Mad Meg over the head, dump her down the well, and that'd be an end to it. After all, you never lost your personality or real identity when you went back in Angelina's body, so there's no reason to suppose I'd end up as anything but myself, regardless of whatever body I was in.'

'But what's the likelihood of you going back in the first place?' I queried. 'I know Andy did, but that could be for a number of reasons, one of which you couldn't possibly duplicate, not with the best will in the world.'

'Maybe not duplicate, exactly,' Anne-Marie agreed, 'but who's to say it needs to be exact? There's something between all three of us, I reckon, and fate is a funny old thing.

'No, you're right, I can't guarantee much,' she went on, 'except that we're all going to get maudlin and miserable if we just sit around here doing nothing. I suggest we try taking our minds off it for a bit and let whatever's going to happen whenever and whatever. And I've got a few ideas that I
can
guarantee will distract you. In fact, they'll distract all three of us. No, don't ask, just trust me, it'll be a surprise.'

'Yes, well, I reckon I've had enough of surprises to last me a lifetime,' I sniffed.

Anne-Marie wasn't about to be deflected. 'There are good surprises and bad surprises,' she persisted, getting to her feet, 'and this one will be a good one, I promise. So, trust me?' She smiled down at me in her most disarming fashion and although I tried to resist, I knew I'd lost, at least for the moment.

'Call me a fool,' I replied, 'but yes, I trust you, though I reckon I'll end up wishing I hadn't!'

Maudie moaned softly and fought to open her eyes, her lids feeling as if they'd been weighed down. For a minute or so, as the vague patterns of light and shade struggled to form some vague semblance of order, she felt completely confused, wondering if this was just another of the weird dreams she had been experiencing since her arrival at the house. In those dreams her entire body felt tight, stiff and heavy and her limbs felt as if they were stuck in thick mud.

Very slowly her head began to clear and with it her vision, yet nothing she saw or remembered seemed to make any sense. The last thing she recalled was sitting at the small table by the bedroom window drinking the glass of wine the maid had brought in to her after her tea. She seemed to remember she had suddenly felt very tired, and that she then stumbled her way across the room to lie on the bed, but she most certainly was not lying on the bed now, for the surface beneath her felt hard and uncomfortable and, as things began at last to swim back into some sort of focus, she could see she was no longer even in the bedroom.

Instead, above her she saw rough-hewn timber beams, and above those what had to be dark tiles. Wherever she was it was not even inside the house, she realised, but rather some sort of outbuilding, too small to be a barn, but perhaps a storehouse or even a stable, for she could smell leather strongly now and from one side of her vision she could make out small heaps of straw.

Maudie made an attempt to lift her head, automatically moving her right arm to use her elbow as leverage. Except her right arm refused to bend, and her neck, when she tried to move it, felt stiff and awkward. At the same time she felt the 'thing' pressing down across her tongue, and when she tried to cry out, all she could manage was an incomprehensible animalistic squeal.

'Lie still for a while more.'

She blinked, her eyes darting around at the sound of Miss Crowthorne's voice, and she realised her field of vision was far more restricted than normal, even though things were more or less back in focus now. She blinked again, unable to believe what her eyes were telling her, but the pressure against her ears and cheeks and forehead provided further undeniable evidence. She was wearing some kind of hood, and the reason she could not see properly to either side was that she was looking out at the world through small holes cut in what her nose now told her was a thick leather hood.

With a concentrated effort, she managed to tilt her head slightly and found herself peering up at the haughty features of the woman who had originally brought her to the house. Miss Crowthorne was standing over her, smiling down, but there was something about her smile that brought a cold chill to Maudie's cramped stomach.