Part 38 (2/2)

*What was wrong with the cats, Greg?' Kate glanced at him as she unhooked three coffee mugs from the dresser.

*They spooked.' Greg shook his head. *G.o.d knows who they thought I was. They'll be back as soon as Ma gets here.' He had felt it at the same moment they had. The sudden anger; the frustrated rage. And now the fear. Marcus. He sipped the black coffee gratefully. *Are you still determined to leave Redall?'

Kate nodded. *Today, Greg. I'm going down to my mother's until after Christmas.'

*And then?'

She shook her head. *Then I'll see.' She sat down opposite him at the kitchen table. *Who knows, I might come back to write about Boudicca.'

*After Christmas she's coming back to me,' Jon said slowly. *If I can convince her what an idiot I was to let her go.'

Greg stared at him. It was there again. The rage. He took a deep breath, trying to control himself. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Marcus. He was so close. It was jealousy. That was it. He was using the jealousy as a lever. He clenched his fists. Pus.h.i.+ng back his chair and standing up he half staggered away from the table.

*Greg a?' Kate was looking at him, frightened.

*It's all right.' He swung away to hide his face. It was like pain. It came in spasms; agonising spasms. This was what had happened to Alison; this was how she had killed Bill. *You go. Both of you. Go down to the cottage and pack. I'll be all right.'

He pushed through the door into the study and slammed it behind him. The sight of the empty bed with the three blankets neatly folded, brought him up short. He stood still, letting the wave of misery flow over him. Where are you, Dad? He stared up at the ceiling. Help me. Please. He moved across to his father's desk and threw himself down in the chair. For a long time he sat looking at the portrait which lay there, where he had left it the night before, on the blotter. Oh, she was so beautiful, the Lady Claudia. So beautiful. So deceitful. So evil. His eyes blurred with tears.

For a long time he sat there, staring at her face. Then he stood up. He picked up the picture and slowly he brought it up to his lips. He could smell the jasmine now. The whole room was full of it; beautiful; exotic. Haunting.

He heard Jon and Kate in the hall. They were putting on their boots and coats. His knuckles whitened on the stretcher of the canvas as he listened to their quiet, almost conspiratorial voices. Then the door banged behind them and the house was silent. He looked into her eyes again. Claudia ...

It took no strength at all to smash the canvas across his knee.

LXXVI.

Kate and Jon walked cautiously into the small living room and looked round. Bill's body had gone, so had the police and after them the cleaners who had lifted the rugs, swept out the worst of the mud and opened the windows of the cottage to air. Relieved, Kate sighed. Somehow she had expected something to have remained of the aura a and the smell a of death, but the living room was more or less itself again, tidy and smelling only of damp.

She smiled at Jon. *I'll go up and pack.' He nodded. He glanced round the room. He had grown very quiet as they neared the cottage; almost brooding, staring at her now and then with a strange thoughtfulness.

It did not take long to pack her clothes and stack her books and papers in boxes. Later they were going to borrow another neighbour's four-wheel drive to take it all back to the farmhouse. She took one last look around the cottage, listening to the silence, sniffing unconsciously for any hint of flowers or peat or Claudia's jasmine scent. There was nothing. The cottage was empty. Rea.s.sured she pulled the door closed behind them and heard the lock click home.

The water had sunk slowly back out of the garden leaving a sea of mud. On the north side of the trees and bushes, large lumps of unmelted snow lurked, cus.h.i.+ons of white in the damp undergrowth. The south wind after the days of ice-laden easterlies was a balm to the soul a sweet, gentle and almost warm. Jon glanced at Kate. *Do you want to see the grave before we go?'

She nodded. *I'd like to see what happened. The sea seems to have gone right back.' Behind them the estuary sparkled in the sunlight covered by flocks of swimming birds.

They walked slowly towards the sh.o.r.e. Where there had been high, sweeping dunes of sand there was now a changed landscape: small, reshaped hillocks; mud; a high, drifted beach and everywhere a covering of tangled black weed, dredged from the bottom of the sea by the ferocious waves. A cloud of gulls rose from the stinking ma.s.s as cautiously they picked their way across it towards the spot where the excavations had been. They stood surveying the beach in silence.

*It was about here, wasn't it?' Jon said at last.

Kate looked around. There were no landmarks now; the hump of the dune had gone; the declivity where she and Alison had crouched was no more. The sand all round them was scooped and moulded as though by a giant spoon into a series of smooth, scalloped humps.

She smiled, overwhelmed with relief. *It's gone. There's no sign of it.'

She had half expected to feel something of Marcus there a resentment, anger, fear a the insidious emotions of another age a but there was nothing. The air was fresh and cool and full of the cries of sea birds and the uneasy shus.h.i.+ng of the waves against the sand.

*It's gone,' she said again as he reached across and drew her hand into his.

To her surprise, he laughed. *No,' he said. *No, it hasn't gone. Not quite. Look.'

It was a piece of twisted metal, torn from the depths of the sand once again and tossed and tangled with weed. Jon stooped and picked it up. *A torc. Your torc?' He held it out to her.

She took it reluctantly. *I thought it had disappeared.'

A shadow on the sand, Nion waited, invisible. His torc, the torc Claudia had given to him, which he had flung as a gift to the G.o.ds lay, a twisted, corroded half moon of useless metal, in the hand of the living woman. He could feel himself drifting irresistibly towards them, the woman who held his torc and the man who loved her, the man who would give him strength.

Behind them Greg paused on the edge of the beach. Idiots. Couldn't they leave well alone? He clenched his fists. Didn't they understand? This was where it had happened. The Roman woman, Claudia, and her lover. Her British lover. Dead. Together. He narrowed his eyes in the glare off the sea. Two men in love with one woman. A story as old as time itself.

He limped towards them slowly, and almost guiltily, Jon dropped Kate's hand.

*You realise that it was another man who came between them,' Greg said, chattily, as he reached them. *Why else would Marcus want to kill his beautiful wife?' He took the torc out of Kate's hands and turned it round, staring down at it, picking off the sticky, clinging weed. *Why do you suppose we haven't heard from him: the lover? Marcus did kill him as well, didn't he?' His eyes strayed from Kate's face to Jon's.

Behind them, shadows in the wind, Nion and Claudia drew closer. Soon they would be together.

*Let's go back, Greg.' Kate stepped away from him towards the sea, feeling the wind pull her hair away from her face. *The grave itself has gone. There's nothing to see.'

Greg was staring down at the torc in his hand, his grey-green eyes veiled. *They are here,' he whispered. *Marcus is here and Claudia, and so is the other, the lover. I can feel them. They are trapped here on this beach together. An eternal triangle.'

*Greg a' Kate interrupted him uneasily. *Let's go back.'

*Why?' There was open hostility in his gaze.

*Because it's late. Jon and I have to go. We have a long journey back to London.'

*No.' He turned away from them and stared out to sea. *No, I don't think so. You don't like London, remember?'

Jon frowned, eyeing the other man with caution. Surrept.i.tiously he put his hand on Kate's arm and pulled her away. *Let's go,' he whispered, his words almost lost in the rush of the sea. Nodding, she turned to follow him, but Greg had noticed. He swung round and his eyes were alight with anger. *No. You're not going anywhere.'

He could feel Marcus so clearly now. Close. Pus.h.i.+ng. Eager.

*Don't be stupid, Greg,' Kate's voice was sharp. *We are leaving. If you want to stay, that's up to you.' She began to walk inland, turning her back on the place where the excavation had been.

Behind them Greg was staring once more down at the torc. Suddenly his eyes were full of tears. He couldn't fight it much longer. Marcus and Kate. He couldn't cope with both. He stumbled after her. *You can't go,' he called. *I won't let you. This was sent here to hold you a '

Jon swung round. He released Kate's arm abruptly, his anger bubbling to the surface at last. *That is enough, Greg! Kate has told you. She is going. You mean nothing to her.' Angrily he s.n.a.t.c.hed the torc from the other man's hands. *This has caused enough trouble. Now it is going back where it belongs.' Lifting his arm he flung the torc into the air. As it landed in the heaving greyness of the water, he felt anger sweeping over him uncontrolled.

Terrified, he tried to master it.

<script>