Part 9 (2/2)

'There must have been lots of men about then called Jacob Parr.'

'I went back to the census of 1881,' Jane said. 'That's almost 90 years after a man named Parr crewed for Seamus Ballantyne, but as early as public records go. At that time there were over 2, 000 people with the surname Parr in the county of Lancas.h.i.+re alone. There were more than 600 just in London. In the time of the slave s.h.i.+p Andromeda, it was a common enough name and of course Jacob, being Biblical, was a very common Christian name in England then.'

'But you still think it's him. You think it's Ballantyne's Jacob Parr that's visiting your daughter in her sleep.'

'I do. I think it has to be. Otherwise it makes no sense at all. It can't just be arbitrary. The chronology is right, Jane. The song is of the period of the New Hope settlement. There has to be a connection.'

Lucy thought for a moment. She thought about her pre-lunch a.s.sumptions concerning Dr Chambers and scientific method. Parr's intervention in Edith's dreams did not exactly submit to what was rationally plausible or even frankly possible. If he existed, he was a spirit, a ghost. The proof that he existed lay in Edith's performing of the song she alleged he'd taught her. In order to buy it, you had to believe Edith Chambers was telling the truth. Evidently her mother did.

'What do you intend to do about it?'

'I don't know, Lucy. I don't even know why I'm telling you about it, really.'

'A problem shared,' Lucy said, with a bright cheer to her tone she didn't really feel. What she really felt was slightly hollow and a bit numb.

Jane said, 'I'd pull out of the New Hope project immediately if I thought for one moment Edith was in any physical or psychological danger. But that doesn't seem to be the case.'

'I'm not a mother,' Lucy said. 'This isn't really my area of expertise. But maybe you should do that anyway.'

'And risk antagonising Jacob Parr?'

'You trust your daughter?'

'I do, totally.'

'Then I think you have to wait,' Lucy said. 'I think you have to wait until Parr gives Edith this warning he's spoken of and Edith pa.s.ses on the warning to you.'

Jane nodded. Lucy thought that she looked grateful and a bit relieved. The advice was inadequate, in Lucy's opinion, but it seemed that sharing the detail of Edith's dream had unburdened her mother slightly. Lucy hoped so. She liked Jane Chambers a lot. The Parr revelation was disturbing and actually quite spooky but you couldn't really blame Jane for it or for wanting to confide in someone about it. Someone grown up and sceptical and cynical, Lucy thought. Someone exactly like I'm supposed to be.

Jane wanted to split the bill, but Lucy put it on her expenses. New Hope Island and its enduring mystery had prompted and dominated the lunch, so she thought there was no dishonesty in doing that. The two women embraced warmly at the kerbside in saying their farewell and Jane went back to the hospital and Lucy was treated to a shy smile from her l.u.s.t-stricken waiter before returning to the office to write something readable about the preening archaeologist with whom she had spent her morning.

All the way back, she thought about Jane Chambers' curious confession. She didn't have the slightest idea, really, of what to make of it. She had been fascinated by the New Hope enigma since devouring that Readers Digest article in her own childhood. She had never thought there to be anything genuinely supernatural about it. But she had a feeling, after her lunch with Jane, that the psychic chosen for the trip to the Hebrides might be in for a very interesting experience.

La.s.siter looked different, to McIntyre. There was something new and unexpected about the body-language. The ex-detective usually had an air about him McIntyre would have described as apologetic; as though he was embarra.s.sed about the s.p.a.ce he took up and did not really feel his presence anywhere fully justified. There was usually something not just deferential but almost cap-in-hand about him.

But that air was conspicuous by its absence today. He looked smart and alert and full of confidence. This might have irked the newspaper magnate in another mood. But having heard what he had that morning, this afternoon he was actually rea.s.sured by his visitor's demeanour. La.s.siter did not know it yet, but McIntyre had plans for him.

'Thanks for coming here at such short notice.'

'You pay me pretty generously for my time.'

'Not just for your time. Your talents are what I really pay you for. Did you put my proposal to Alice Lang?'

'You could've asked me that over the phone, Mr McIntyre.'

'I could have. But I asked you to come here in person.'

'Which is intriguing,' La.s.siter said, 'because I've always felt that you've deliberately kept me at arm's length. You've always treated me a bit as though I might be carrying something contagious.'

'When was the last time you had a drink?'

'Three days ago. I ordered a large scotch in a pub in Liverpool.'

'You remember the occasion?'

'I don't think I'll ever forget it, Mr McIntyre. I didn't drink the whisky, by the way.'

'You saw the light?'

'I saw something.'

They were on McIntyre's sun terrace. McIntyre's housekeeper had brought La.s.siter there after opening the front door to him. So far, he had not been invited to sit. McIntyre sat in an armchair facing the view down the hill towards London. It was one of a pair t.i.tled in that direction. It was late afternoon and smog glazed the city and made its landmarks ripple slightly so that it made a person wince to stare at them too hard.

'Alice says that she'll do it, but she has a pre-condition.'

'I'll pay her generously.'

'Money isn't what's on her mind.'

'Sit down,' McIntyre said. He gestured at the chair next to his own. 'Forgive me, La.s.siter. I'm forgetting my manners. What do I have to do for Alice Lang to get Ms Lang to go to New Hope Island?'

'She'll only go if I go.'

'Very romantic,' McIntyre said, smiling because he thought he understood suddenly the source of his visitor's new-found self-esteem. 'I'm touched.'

'Would that be a yes or a no?' La.s.siter said.

'How would you feel about going?'

'Scared, frankly.'

'Why?'

'Take your pick,' La.s.siter said. 'I didn't like the look of that spectral urchin Shanks filmed. I'm not crazy about the way Alice Lang says Shanks met his death. I did not like having that film can under my own roof. It made me suddenly accident-p.r.o.ne. And the business with Ballantyne's watch in that museum bas.e.m.e.nt in Liverpool gave me quite a turn, as you know.'

'Yet you'd go?'

'It's a mystery that wants solving, whatever happened on New Hope. The world has waited a b.l.o.o.d.y long time.'

'And you need to be there if things take a hazardous turn, I suppose. You need to be there if your damsel encounters distress.'

La.s.siter didn't reply to this remark. McIntyre's housekeeper wheeled in tea on a trolley and he smiled up at her in a polite expression of grat.i.tude.

'Funny,' McIntyre said. 'I'd never have cast you as the knight in s.h.i.+ning armour before today. But now I think about it, the role quite suits you.'

'Thank you.'

<script>