Laura Possessed (3 page)

‘I imagine it'll be very different from how he knew it.'

‘Lord, yes. It had been empty for some time when Edward and I found it—broken panes and flaking brown paint—you know the kind of thing. We had workmen in the house for three solid months—central heating engineers, plumbers, plasterers, electricians—you name them, we had them!'

None of which, concluded Laura ruefully, threw the least light on what was troubling her.

She did not really want to go to the cocktail party that Sunday, but Edward would take no refusal.

‘I'll make sure you don't get too tired and we shan't stay long, and it will do you good to see some new faces. We can't have you turning into a recluse! You do seem to have been rather nervous the last few days. A change of
scene
will make all the difference. Anyway, I want you to meet Clive Sandilands and collect some facts about violence.'

Laura smiled. ‘You're determined I should write that book, aren't you?'

‘
A
book, yes. The choice of subject matter was yours, and I must admit it surprised me rather.'

‘It surprised me too,' Laura said frankly. ‘I hadn't realized I was sufficiently interested in the subject. I always skip the more lurid descriptions in the papers. Perhaps it stems from my own accident—a personality change!' She was smiling but watched his face closely to see whether he reacted to the suggestion.

‘Jekyll and Hyde? Not quite your thing, sweetie.'

‘But
could
it all have a lasting effect, Edward?' Laura persisted in a low voice, anxious, now that the subject had been broached, to probe a little deeper.

‘The crash? I shouldn't think so. It would have manifested itself before this, anyway.'

And with that she had to be content. Perhaps he was right, she thought as she prepared for the party, and all she needed was to be taken out of herself. But as the everyday expression passed through her mind, it jolted to a startled standstill. ‘To be taken out of herself'—what an annihilating thought! She caught up her handbag and went running out of the room and down the stairs to where
Edward
stood waiting.

Afterwards, when the choking, dizzy panic had receded slightly, Laura was convinced that she had known as she went into Tom Howard's house what she would find there, and it was with a sense of blind fatalism that she looked across the room full of people to see the man from her dream standing by the fireplace. It couldn't be happening, but it was. She was seized with a fit of uncontrollable shaking that was painful in its intensity. He turned his head in their direction, but he was looking not at herself but at Caroline behind her. In a kind of sick paralysis she waited as he made his way across the room towards them. Feverishly she searched his face for some discrepancy that didn't tally with his dream-image, but there was none. She knew his face as well as her own, and she had never seen him before.

Someone had put a glass in her hand and she drank quickly. Caroline was saying gaily, ‘Laura, this is the man I was telling you about, who used to live at Four Winds. Lewis Castleton, my sister-in-law, Laura Hardy.'

His eyes, heavy-lidded and slate-grey, passed over her face without interest, but he said ‘How do you do?' pleasantly enough and held out his hand. She could no more have taken it than put her hand into a crocodile's mouth. She made some confused murmur about the glass she was holding, which he smilingly acknowledged before turning his
attention
back to Caroline.

At least, Laura thought a little hysterically, he did not appear to have had the same dream himself! But as she remembered the feel of his mouth and hands, so vivid in the dream, the dislike which had come with awakening intensified into actual nausea, scorching and stinging at the base of her throat.

Fortunately it was at that moment that Edward took her arm and introduced her to one or two people before settling her comfortably on a sofa next to an elderly lady who was their host's mother. Mechanically Laura made appropriate replies to her remarks, while her eyes returned with sick fascination to Lewis Castleton.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a tendency to stoop, and though he was dressed conventionally in a dark suit, it seemed to Laura's heightened senses that he was happiest in casual clothes and seldom wore a tie. Perhaps, she thought bleakly, that was just something else she instinctively knew about him. The dark hair was rather long, as she remembered, but it gave the impression more that he had not bothered to have it cut than that he cared for the present fashion. He bent his head to catch what Caroline was saying, and as Laura's eyes slid from him to her sister-in-law, their acute awareness of each other struck her forcibly. Caroline had never looked more beautiful, with her heavy gold hair swept
up
on top of her head, and there was a breathless, excited gaiety about her that sounded warning bells in Laura's head.

Anxiously she looked round for Edward, wondering how she could inveigle him to Caroline's side before the attraction that was flaring between her and Lewis Castleton should reach flashpoint. But he had disappeared in the crowd and her searching eyes couldn't locate him.

‘Are you all right?' enquired a brusque voice on her left, and she turned quickly to see a tall, thin young man staring down at her almost belligerently.

‘Oh, I—yes—yes, thank you.'

‘I noticed you when you came into the room. I thought you were going to pass out.'

Laura moistened her lips and thankfully seized on her past history. ‘As a matter of fact, I'm just recovering from a rather unpleasant car crash. This is the first time I've been out since.'

‘I see.' The piercing grey eyes didn't leave her face, and she had an uncomfortable suspicion that her half-truth was only half believed.

‘May I join you?' he asked abruptly, and sat down before she had a chance to reply. ‘You're Edward Hardy's sister, aren't you? My name's Paul Denver.'

‘How do you do?' Laura said a little faintly.

‘You're quite sure you're all right? Would
you
like me to get you a glass of water?'

‘No, really, thank you. It's just rather hot and noisy, isn't it?'

‘It certainly is. Personally, I loathe these ritualistic occasions.'

‘Then why did you come?' she asked unthinkingly, and then, flushing, ‘I'm sorry—I didn't mean—'

But he gave a bark of laughter. ‘Don't apologize, it's a good question. I came because Mr. Howard has been good enough to print some articles I wrote on higher education.'

‘Not another journalist!' Laura protested, smiling.

‘No, actually I'm a schoolmaster.'

She turned at that and looked at the thin, bony face with its high forehead and intent grey eyes. ‘I should imagine you're a very good one.'

His eyes held hers. ‘Thank you. I believe you're right!'

She smiled involuntarily. This forthright young man was a tonic after the denials and false modesties she was used to. ‘And where do you teach, Mr. Denver?'

‘Ledbrook Boys' Grammar, for my sins.'

‘As bad as that?'

‘Not really, no. They're an average bunch. Some respond, some don't. Others you know quite well could be brilliant if they'd put their minds to their work. They don't, of course, and it almost breaks your heart. Such waste!'
There
was a vehemence in his voice which told her that this was a pet subject of his.

‘And what subjects do you teach?'

‘English and history. I might add that one of your father's novels is a set book for the third year this term!'

‘Really? How interesting! Which one?'

‘
The Sentinel.
It comes under the category “Modern novel by well-known author.” Am I right in thinking you once wrote a book yourself?'

‘Yes, but I doubt if that will ever be a set book!'

‘Laura—' Edward was standing in front of them. ‘I'm sorry to interrupt, but I want you to meet Clive Sandilands. Clive—my sister.'

Laura rose to her feet, Paul Denver beside her, as a rather short, pleasant-faced man came forward and took her hand.

‘Miss Hardy. Edward tells me you're contemplating another book. I must say I'm delighted!'

‘Thank you. Mr. Denver was just asking about my first, but I'm sure he'll be much more interested in yours. He teaches history. Paul Denver—Mr. Sandilands.'

Paul's pale face was flushed with excitement. ‘It's a great honour to meet you, sir. I've admired your work for years. I was just telling Miss Hardy that one of her father's books is on the curriculum this year. I need hardly add that your historical analyses have
been
considered works of reference for as long as I can remember.'

Clive Sandilands laughed. ‘Thank you. I'm grateful for the compliment, even if it does make me feel as old as the history I write about!'

Edward, who, to Laura's relief, had at last moved off in search of Caroline, now rejoined their circle with her, but Lewis Castleton came with them and more introductions were performed. Castleton was standing next to Laura, and as he bent forward to shake Clive Sandilands' hand, his sleeve brushed against her arm. She felt herself sway dizzily and with a surge of gratitude was conscious of Paul Denver's hand steadying her.

‘Now, Clive,' Edward instructed, ‘let's have your findings! Is your study of violence confined to the United States?'

Beside her, Laura was penetratingly aware of Lewis Castleton's sudden stillness.

‘In this instance, yes,' Sandilands was replying. ‘And it's also confined to the sixties—
The Violent Decade
, I'm calling it. Of course, the outstanding instances were the ghetto riots and the assassinations of public figures—the Kennedy brothers, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. But I have a theory that they were only the tip of the iceberg, the outward sign of countless acts of violence some of which were never even recognized for what they were.'

‘Lewis,'
Caroline broke in eagerly, ‘didn't you say you were in the States at the time of Robert Kennedy's death?'

‘Yes, I was, as it happens.' To Laura's acutely attuned ears, his voice sounded strained, a little off key.

‘Really?' Sandilands exclaimed. ‘That's fantastic! You weren't by any chance actually on the spot, I suppose?'

‘Very nearly. I was over there to cover the primaries. I spent the whole of that evening with the rest of the press in room 516, just across the corridor from Kennedy's.'

Clive Sandilands' eyes were shining with excitement. ‘You mean you were actually at the Ambassador? I can't believe my luck! Just meeting you by chance like this! Were you there when the shots were fired?'

‘No.' Lewis Castleton moved uncomfortably, but it was impossible to resist the other man's eagerness. He went on rather reluctantly, ‘Kennedy came out of his room about midnight to go down to the Embassy Ballroom and claim the victory. The crowd had been chanting for him for hours. We all surged after him, but there was such a crush at the elevator—'he smiled slightly—‘lift—that several of us gave up and went back to our room to watch it in comfort on TV.'

‘Go on, man!'

‘It's all rather hazy, I'm afraid. I'd been drinking heavily, celebrating with the Kennedy
crowd,
and although I didn't know it, I was also on the verge of a breakdown.'

‘But you must remember something more?'

‘Well, there was the speech, of course, and the crowd laughing and cheering. He started to make the usual tributes to his supporters, and at that point someone, his campaign secretary, I think, came in and said Kennedy would be leaving for The Factory straight after his press conference, so we all went down. And by the time we got there, it had happened.'

‘Incredible!' Sandilands said wonderingly. ‘Simply incredible! What was the first you knew about it?'

‘Well, as I said, everything was blurred by this time. I remember the bedlam in the ballroom—screaming and sobbing and girls in campaign ribbons kneeling and praying. Then I regret to say I passed out completely. I didn't know anything else until I came to in hospital days later.'

‘What a scoop!' Edward said. ‘My God, what a thing to have experienced!'

Lewis Castleton emptied the glass in his hand. Laura saw that a muscle was jumping at the corner of his eye. ‘Yes. I never got the chance to write it up, of course, but plenty of other people did.'

‘It must have been a personal shock for you,' Caroline remarked, ‘having been so close to him.'

‘It was, of course, but the possibility of
assassination
was always there. Only the previous day a firecracker had exploded as they drove through Chinatown in San Francisco. His wife was terrified but Kennedy was perfectly calm.' He glanced across at Sandilands and added sardonically, ‘Your
Violent Decade
in action.'

‘Yes, indeed.' Sandilands seemed a little subdued by this first-hand account of the tragedy, and Laura warmed to him still further.

‘Is it principally the political murders you're concentrating on, Mr. Sandilands?' Paul enquired.

‘Not principally, no, but they naturally all tie in, the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan and the other side of the coin, the growth of the Black Power movement. But as I said, apart from those altogether there were literally hundreds of other instances reported daily in the press, without even taking into account those which interested me equally—reports of accidents, and so on, which were quite probably undetected murder. To give you a brief example, I found when I looked up the files for that first week in June when Robert Kennedy was shot that the headlines immediately prior to that had been full of the death of General Balfour's wife.'