Part 3 (1/2)

At this height she could examine the details on the strange deities painted around the upper walls of the Egyptian rooms.

The G.o.ds shared Upper Egypt with her. The mortal ma.s.ses were confined below to the lands of the Lower Nile.

She was about to slip out through a window, when she felt a sharp tug at her stomach. With a snap, she was back in her office, startled and dabbing at the chocolate that had spilled across her desk from the overturned plastic cup.

Messrs St J. R. Byle 192d King's Road Thom. K. Leviticcus Chelsea London W3 SOLICITORS.

COMMISSIONERS FOR OATHS.

8th May 1984

Reference: StJRB/TKL/EJ Waterfield Ms Victoria Waterfield Thala.s.sa Billows Drive Thorpesea Yorks.h.i.+re Dear Ms Waterfield ESTATE OF THE LATE EDWARD JOSEPH.

WATERFIELD.

As executors of Mr Waterfield's estate, we have been trying for some time to trace any relatives been trying for some time to trace any relatives of the deceased. We have been led to believe of the deceased. We have been led to believe that you may be able to help us and would be that you may be able to help us and would be grateful if you would contact us as soon as grateful if you would contact us as soon as conveniently possible. conveniently possible.

Yours sincerely St John Byle 'I'm sorry,' Victoria kept saying. 'I know I should have answered the letters, but... well, it's rather complicated.'

St John Byle, consciously handsome, studied her across his mahogany desk with a detached curiosity. His ice-blue eyes made her feel like an exhibit in the museum. She wished she had asked Roxana to come with her, but she might have to discuss things that her landlady would never understand.

The solicitor took a rolled doc.u.ment from his drawer and undid the dark-blue ribbon that bound it. The paper was yellowed and the script written in a sloping, elegant hand.

Victoria took it from him and put on her spectacles.

' I, Edward Joseph Waterfield... I, Edward Joseph Waterfield... ' '

She felt a pit open in her stomach. Her skin went cold. She tried to concentrate on the rest of the doc.u.ment, but the words danced before her eyes without registering in her mind. She pulled her spectacles off again and sat fiddling awkwardly with the rims.

'Where did you find this?' she asked.

'We've held it here for many years. The will was drawn up by the original Mr Byle in July 1865. In it, Edward Waterfield left all his property and goods in perpetuity to his only daughter, Victoria Maud.'

'I see,' Victoria said. 'And I suppose you think that because my name is Victoria Maud as well, you might be able to trace some family connection.'

'Unfortunately I don't think that's very likely.' He gave a little smirk as he sat back in his seat. 'Edward Waterfield was presumed killed in an explosion at a house near Canterbury in 1866. No one could trace Victoria Maud.'

'Perhaps she died in the explosion too,' said Victoria.

'She was thought to be residing in Paris at the time.'

Of course, thought Victoria, that's the story Maxtible put round. That's why no one came to rescue me. No one in the household knew I was being held prisoner by the Daleks in the same house.

'If she had later married and had children,' Byle continued, 'then she would have adopted her husband's name and that would have been the end of the Waterfield line.'

'Not necessarily,' Victoria retorted.

'And with three, maybe four generations in between...?' He shrugged and smirked again, staring as if he expected or knew of some information she might be hiding. 'It's always been our firm's most mysterious case. Of course, if you feel you have a claim to the inheritance, we would need some sort of evidence of your own family. Say a birth certificate at least?'

'How many generations of Byles have there been?' asked Victoria. She was making a weak show of disinterest, but her eyes kept wandering back to the will, even if it was too late to take it back from him. 'Anyway, what makes you think I might have a claim?'

St John Byle reached into his drawer for a second time, producing another scrolled doc.u.ment, this one less battered than the first. He balanced it between two fingers as he stared at her. 'This is a revised version of the original will.'

'Then doesn't it supersede the first one?'

'Oh, yes.' She noticed a sudden quaver in his voice. 'If we could prove its veracity.'

She sighed. 'I don't see how I can help you.'

'Normally we would contest this as a forgery.' He unrolled the doc.u.ment. 'It alters very little of the original, except that now the property is left to the descendants of Victoria Maud.

And you see here, the same signature.'

Victoria forced herself to stare at the writing. She remembered the hand from the regularly maintained notebooks stacked on his secretaire. Next to her father's signature, a witness had carelessly scrawled the name 'Keith Perry'. She reached for the doc.u.ment. 'Please may I see?

What makes you think it's not real?'

Mr Byle kept firm hold of the scroll. 'I don't. But there's some new text added at the end: ”There are dark forces beyond both time and understanding that prey on my mind.

G.o.d keep you all from such horrors.”'

She tried to retain her composure, but he read those words, her beloved father's words, with an ignorant flippancy. 'I'm sorry. I think I'd like to go now,' she stammered.

'I think you should see the date first.'

'Why?'

'Because the doc.u.ment, which is unquestionably in the same hand as the original, was written in May 1966, over a century after the original.'

'It's a mistake,' she said.

'No.'

'He died.' Her voice was cracking. 'He died. He couldn't still be alive.'

Byle never flinched from his stare. His eyes were like ice.

'How can you be so sure?'

She was fumbling miserably with her bag. 'I have to go.'

She stood and headed towards the door.