Lady of Hay The Final Chapter 2011
Lady of Hay
The Final Chapter 2011
(edited 2026)
In 2010 in preparation for the 25th Anniversary edition of Lady of Hay I wrote a short story called The Final Chapter. It was included at the end of that birthday edition and took the story of Jo and Nick and their friends – and their alter egos – onwards by another quarter of a century. In a very real sense it is the missing link. As I embark on a sequel to the original book which will bring the story up to the present day, I wanted to make that missing chapter available again for those who haven’t come across it before. I have done some minor edits to the story to make it clearer who is who and who was who for those who have forgotten – or never read – the original novel. I hope you enjoy it.
PART 1
‘And so,’ Bet Gunning looked at Jo and smiled. ‘How did it all work out in the end? How’s Nick?’
Nearly a quarter of a century had passed and it didn’t seem possible, sitting here in the same wine bar where they had so often met before. The décor had changed, of course. The bar no longer smelt of cigarettes. It was minimalist and stainless steel. The two women eyed one another surreptitiously. Bet, still slim and toned, her hair resolutely ash blond, eyed Jo critically. Jo was still good looking, youthful in some ways, her hair short now, expertly cut and tinted, her face relatively unlined, but there was a sadness there which seemed deep seated. Bet looked away, not wanting to be caught staring.
Jo was toying with her glass. ‘Nick and I don’t see each other anymore,’ she said. ‘It was never going to work, was it, There couldn’t be a happy ending. Not after what happened.’
‘But surely – ’
Jo shook her head. ‘It was all a long time ago. After we married we tried living in London and then in Dorset, and then in New York. Then when our son, Harry came back to school here, I came too. I hope, Bet, you are not still hankering after that scoop!’ She smiled.
Bet shook her head. ‘WIA doesn’t even exist any more.’
‘But you are still a journalist, right?’
Bet took a minute to reply. ‘From time to time, she said at last, guardedly. ‘Freelance. Like you, I hear. OK, change the subject. Tell me about Harry. Where is he now?’
‘In Paris. Working for a wine importer.’ Jo shrugged. ‘He’s frighteningly ambitious.’
‘Like his father.’ Bet studied Jo’s face for a moment, her eyes piercing behind the designer frames. ‘Do you ever think back about those days? When it happened?’
‘I try not to.’
‘No nightmares?:
‘Sometimes.’
‘I suppose a lot of the people who were there are dead now.’
‘They are all dead, Bet.’
‘No, I meant the real people. Dr Bennet? Your mother in law? Your grandmother? Ceecliff, wasn’t that her name?’’
Jo controlled a flash of irritation. ‘Stop fishing, Bet. As it happens they are all alive and well. Ceecliff may be ancient, but she’s as active as ever. I don’t suppose she’ll ever grow old. I think Carl Bennet lives in Scotland somewhere. Nick’s mum is in Hampstead.’
‘And you never reconsidered your decision not to write anything?’
So that was why Bet had got in touch after all this time. ‘Never.’ The tone of Jo’s voice put an end to Bet’s questions but after a moment’s silence she gave an unrepentant grin. ‘I reckon it would help you to lay those ghosts to rest, Jo.’
‘There are no ghosts,’ Jo retorted.
That, of course, was a lie.
‘Do you ever wonder,’ the Reverend Geoffrey Young had said, looking at her over the rim of his spectacles – they had met at a dinner party thrown by her grandmother in Long Melford – ‘about the inconsistencies apparent in all those New Age philosophies? People do not study the original religions from which they derive, and are tempted instead by a mishmash of convoluted ideas which really will not do. For instance, if a soul constantly reincarnates, where does it go in between times? What happens to someone, as in your case, where the originating story does not fit neatly with that of the host. For instance, your Matilda died. You did not. Are you still host to her on-going soul? Where do ghosts fit into all this? If they do, how do they fit into the cycle? Does Matilda now rest in peace, or does she plan a revisit, and if she does will she revisit you or lurk in wait for a new-born child?’
Jo held his gaze for a moment, trying to suppress a shiver. He had no idea how much she resented questions about that part of her past. But eventually, she made herself reply. ‘I don’t know.’ She realised she sounded feeble but she genuinely had no idea what had happened next. An emptiness had descended on her after Corfe, a blackness of soul which had only lifted at last when Harry was born. It was later that the horror had started again. The horror about which she had told no one.
She felt his gaze on her and looked up to meet his eyes. They were kind. A deep warm hazel-brown, full of genuine concern and she found herself longing suddenly to confide in him.
It was comparatively easy to arrange. He had been a friend of Ceecliff’s for a very long time and now he had retired and moved to Suffolk, he was almost a neighbour.
‘I’ve seen her ghost!’ Jo said to him several days later in Ceecliff’s conservatory. Her grandmother could still make the world’s best carrot cake and was amazingly energetic for her age. She was also the soul of tact. As soon as Jo and Geoffrey were seated she had left them alone. ‘Matilda is no longer a part of me,’ Jo went on earnestly, ‘or another version of me or whatever it is she was when I was regressed. That is over. But she still exists in some dimension. She is not at rest. It is as if she is lost, she doesn’t know where to go.’
‘I see.’ Geoffrey put a slice of cake on each plate and pushed one towards her. ‘So you think her soul is free at last of the cycle of reincarnation, which of course as a Christian I do not believe in anyway. She wants to go home?’
‘Home?’
‘Somewhere where she can be at rest.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Ah,’ said Geoffrey, ‘do I sense that you in your turn are not a believer in the church’s teaching?’
Jo smiled at him. ‘I think rather that I believe too much. Too many things. And it is belief without knowledge. A mishmash as you called it. I don’t know how to help her. I feel I can. I must. We are … we were, more than close. She was a part of me. At first I thought she was at peace, but I was wrong.’ She paused, wondering again why the presence of the woman with whom she had identified so closely should fill her with such horror and fear. ‘She has returned. She is flailing around now. I sense panic and threat.’
‘Was she a believer?’
‘In the church? At first yes. Of course. She prayed fervently and often. But not at the end, no. How could she believe in a God who would let her die like that! How could I? Matilda watched her own son die in agony in her arms, all the time knowing that she would be next. That there would be no reprieve.’
She stood up abruptly and walked away from him, staring out of the windows across the lawn.
‘It was a human being who did that to her, Jo, a king, granted, but John was not God.’ Geoffrey’s voice was gentle.
‘But God could have stopped it! He could have intervened!’
‘That is not, alas, how it works.’
‘Then how does it work?’
‘God speaks to us. He speaks to us all, but it is up to us whether we listen or not. I suspect God, through King John’s own conscience, told him he was doing wrong but he chose not to listen.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Not good enough. If it is up to us, in the end, what is the point of God?’
She narrowed her eyes. A figure was standing in the distance on the grass, her skirts moving slightly as if in a breeze. ‘She’s here now,’ she whispered. She shivered violently. ‘She’s followed me here.’
Behind her she heard the scrape of a chair on the stone floor. ‘Where?’ He was beside her.
She nodded towards the walnut tree. ‘She is waiting for me.’
‘Waiting for you?’ The rector looked at her sharply, then back at the lawn, squinting at the shadows beneath the tree. He could see nothing.
She nodded sadly, then taking a deep breath she forced herself to voice her nightmare. ‘It has taken me a long time to realise it, but I am beginning to believe, that, for her to find rest, as you call it, I need to die as well.’
He stared at her, appalled, and then looked back at the tree. She was right. There was someone there. He glimpsed the figure faintly, just for a second, then it was gone.
‘Each time I see her she is closer,’ Jo murmured. ‘I thought perhaps you could tell me what to do. For her’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Or for me.’
Harry Franklyn knew his uncle had committed suicide somewhere here, on this Paris street. At the time it had been described as a tragic accident. Sam Franklyn had had a bit too much to drink and somehow fallen from the open window.
Harry glanced up at the high top storeys with a shudder. He didn’t know which window. The place had been some kind of lodging house, not even a hotel. His uncle had checked in and gone upstairs and drunk a bottle of cognac and almost certainly jumped.
Harry had sensed from the start, as children do, that it was not something his parents wanted to discuss. The circumstances around the tragedy were a family secret until the mother of a schoolmate in the 6th form at school had blown it. She had recognised the name Franklyn. ‘You’re not Nick Franklyn’s son? King John Franklyn!’ He had been mortified, suspecting, probably rightly, that the whole school was laughing at him.
Locking himself in his study he had Googled the story and there it all was. Pete Leveson’s articles, Bet Gunning’s, the newspaper coverage of Uncle Sam’s death. Christ, it had been embarrassing! His father, who thought he was the reincarnation of King John, his mother some kind of medieval babe! Hypnotism. Murder. When he finished reading he had turned off his computer and he sat there shaking! That was it. His hopes of Oxford doomed. Any chance of a decent career finished before he had even applied.
But it hadn’t happened like that. He had won a place at university with ease, read modern languages, graduated with a first and now his dream career had begun, and with it this coveted posting to one of the greatest British wine importers based in Paris, aided, he suspected, to some surreptitious string pulling by his grandmother.
In the intervening years it had slowly occurred to him that no one knew about King John. Or if they did, no one cared. It had happened before he was born; 25 years ago, for God’s sake. Last century! In fact more than last century. It had all happened. 800 bloody years ago. That is if one believed a word of it. He had studied the Nazis and Henry VIII at school , dropped history as soon as possible, knew nothing of the Plantagenets. When he had heard the story he had secretly glanced at some books in the school library. The only thing that impressed him was the mention of Matilda’s role in the drawing up of Magna Carta. That was serious history. The rest. He had shrugged. The stuff of romantic novels.
He had been in Paris for about three months now without thinking once about Sam Franklyn and then he had seen the address on an order sheet on his desk. Rue St Victor.
And here he was, wondering vaguely exactly where it was his uncle’s body had splatted onto the pavement. Had he hit the railings, or a shop canopy or landed on a car? Or a person? Was it day or night? Had it really been an accident after he had drunk too much or had he got deliberately blotto and leapt out from one of those elegant high windows? Some of the reports had suggested that he had murdered another guy, Tim Heacham. who had been something of a celebrity photographer in his day, and that might have pushed him to kill himself. The gleeful implication in one of the articles had been that Sam Franklyn, up to that point a respected, popular doctor, had been one of the trio of characters in the ancient drama, Matilda’s husband, William de Braose, one of the two villains of the story , and his victim, Tim Heacham, had been the romantic hero, a guy called Richard de Clare, Matilda’s one true love. That story appeared to have been stifled. As far as he could discover it wasn’t mentioned again after the first couple of ludicrously lurid reports in the tabloids.
Harry grinned automatically at a couple of pretty students who had eyed him as they passed. He was accustomed to admiring glances. He was tall, blue eyed, dark haired with the slightly bashful look of a young Hugh Grant . Women fell for it every time, unaware that underneath there was a rapier mind – or so he liked to think.
He was heading towards a pavement café wondering if it would be too macabre to grab a coffee here on this street when he paused as, suddenly, he found himself shivering. A cloud had obscured the sun, casting the street into shadow, making a dark chasm between the buildings. He glanced up automatically. And at that split second he knew. It had been here. He felt the despair, the rage, the confusion, knife through his brain, then the sudden total blackness of extinction.
In New York Nick put down the phone and frowned. Something was wrong. Harry had sounded different somehow; worried. He hadn’t actually said as much, but the fact that he had called at all was odd. Father and son kept in touch by e-mail – short, cheerful, fairly regular. This call had been different. Harry had obviously phoned for reassurance.
He sighed. There had been a time, a short time, admittedly, at the beginning, when he had wondered if Harry was his son at all. Jo had after all admitted a night’s dalliance with Tim Heacham. It would be typical of the vicious strand of fate that had brought them all together, if that had happened. But even he could see Harry had his eyes, and the Franklyn smile. Then he had wondered if Tim had been reborn in his son, but that too had not happened. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. Maybe Tim had been too decent a chap to choose to return to their midst. No, Harry was his and Jo’s and theirs alone.
‘Just wanted to hear your voice, dad,’ Harry had said, and then he had laughed. A problem at work? If there was, Nick was fairly sure Harry would come right out with it and tell him. His private life? They never discussed Harry’s girlfriends, who were legion. Pregnancy? No, Harry would deal with that in whichever way would be appropriate for him in the certain knowledge that his parents would in the end support his decision. His mum? Nick frowned again. If there was something wrong with Jo, Harry would come right out and say so. So what was wrong? He sighed. Perhaps it was all his imagination. No doubt Harry would get in touch again and if there was a problem he would tell his father what it was.
That night Nick woke at 3 am bathed in sweat, in spite of the chill of his air-conditioned Manhattan apartment. For a moment he lay there without moving, listening to the pounding of his heart. It was years since he had had the dream. In it he had seen himself striding towards a dais in a crowded, high-ceilinged hall. His hair and cloak were soaked fro the storm, and he smelt of horses. It was dark outside, the hall lit by hundreds of candles, and the air was full of the sound of voices, angry voices, raised and deafening as he turned to face them. Outside it had been pouring with rain, but indoors it was hot. He could smell melting beeswax and woodsmoke, sweat and pomade. He could sense the exhilaration, the anger, the blind determination of the men around him And then he heard the sound of someone drawing a sword. Men were shouting. They were jeering. And suddenly he could smell blood. The shouts had turned to screams, the raised voices were drowned with the clash of steel and ahead of him he could see someone, a shield on his arm, charging straight at him. Beneath the helm there was murder in his eyes. And at the last moment he knew he recognised the face.
That was it. A fragment, nothing more, but as always, he was filled with such a sense of terror and foreboding he could hardly breathe. And at the moment of recognition as before he had woken without knowing who it was who was trying to kill him. He slid from the bed and staggered to the bathroom where he vomited. Behind him Julie-Ann, his wife of nearly two years, hauled herself onto her elbow, staring sleepily after him. ‘Nick? You OK, hon?’ she called softly. The curtains were half open and the room was lit only by the reflected glow from the street far below.
‘Sure. Must have eaten something that disagreed with me.’ He grabbed a glass of water, aware that his hands were shaking violently. It hadn’t happened for a long time, this feeling that there was another life somewhere deep inside him, lurking beneath the surface, the time bomb planted by his brother. He reached for the cord pull and switching on the light stared at himself in the bright cold reflection of the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair windswept and damp. For a moment he froze with terror then he realised it was rumpled from the pillow and probably damp with sweat not rain.
‘Jesus, Nick! What’s wrong?’ Julie-Ann’s face appeared behind him in the doorway. Even at night his second wife was immaculate, her hair neatly waved, her silk pyjamas elegant.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he snapped. He couldn’t believe how much she irritated him at times. ‘I had a nightmare, that’s all. Go back to bed.’ He pushed her out of the door and closed it, slipping the bolt into place. Then he turned on the shower.
It was only later as he stood at the window staring down between the dark buildings into the street far below, watching the eternal stream of traffic, the banks of red lights as the vehicles braked at the crossroads, that his thoughts went back to Harry and Paris and Jo. Why had Harry really rung? And then inevitably his thoughts had turned at last to Sam.
‘You haven’t brought my beautiful step-mom with you then?’ Harry grinned at his father. They had met for breakfast in a café on the Boulevard du Montparnasse.
Nick shook his head wearily. ‘She wasn’t very happy about that but it’s only a flying visit. I had to come and sign some papers and go to a couple of meetings that couldn’t be handled in conference calls. Barely time for her to get out her credit cards!’ Unhappy hadn’t even begun to describe Julie-Ann’s rage at being left behind, nor, if he was honest, the state of their marriage generally. But that was his problem, to be faced another time. He eyed his son guardedly. ‘So, how is Paris?’
‘Fantastic.’
‘And the job?’
‘Great. I’m enjoying it.’
The waiter brought their coffee and croissants and they watched for a moment in silence as he set them down on the glass topped table in front of them. The traffic roared past noisily but the broad pavement and the tubs of plants screening them from the passers by beneath the awning gave them the illusion of being alone.
‘Are you going to London while you’re here? Will you see Mum?’ Harry asked as he stirred his coffee. He still hadn’t looked Nick in the eye.
‘Not this time.’ He didn’t dare. He missed her so much, but he didn’t trust himself to be in the same country, never mind the same house. Shaking his head, Nick waited for his son to say something else. As the silence stretched out he finally lost patience. ‘What’s up, Harry?’
‘Uncle Sam.’ Harry glanced at his father at last and saw his face harden. ‘He died in Paris, didn’t he.’
‘You know he did.’
‘I went there. To the Rue St Victor.’
Nick said nothing. He clenched his fists
‘And I felt something.’ Harry licked his lips nervously. ‘I know it’s rubbish and I must have been imagining it, but I felt suddenly that he was in my head.’
‘I knew it!’ Nick stood up, pushing his chair back so violently it tipped over and crashed to the floor. ‘My bloody brother!’
‘I heard his voice; I saw his face, although I never knew him. He is there, behind my eyes, and at night in my dreams and he seems to be so angry.’ Harry’s voice betrayed his sudden panic.
Behind them the waiter had appeared. ‘Messieurs?’ he said quietly as he righted the chair. He glanced at them both and, satisfied that Nick’s outburst was over, retreated without further comment.
Nick sat down heavily and put his face in his hands. ‘He has never gone away,’ he said bleakly. ‘Never, in all these years. You know, I thought it was me. I blamed myself. I always blamed myself, even for being born! He loathed me from that day to the end. I was competition.’ He shook his head bitterly. Harry had grabbed a paper napkin and was mopping up the coffee that had slopped into the saucers as Nick jarred the table. ‘He broke up our marriage, me and your mum, before we even tied the knot. He was always in love with her and he was a lousy loser! And there was so much stuff between us. So much history. ‘ He gave a bark of humourless laughter. ‘And now he is targeting you. The bastard!’ He didn’t seem to doubt that Harry’s experience was real. ‘After all these years!’
Harry shivered. ‘What shall we do?’
Nick shook his head. ‘God only knows. But we will do something. This is not going to go on.’ He reached for his cup and drained it. ‘Do you know why he chose Rue St Victor to die? He was buried in the Abbey de St Victor. It disappeared a long time ago, and presumably his bones with it, but Sam probably didn’t know that.’
Harry looked puzzled. ‘I thought he was cremated.’
‘Not Sam, Harry, De Braose. This is all about De Braose!’
Jo put her hand on the trunk of the tree and stared round nervously. The Reverend Geoffrey had gone but not without promising to return the next day, Ceecliff had not come downstairs from her rest and the house and garden were deserted in the afternoon heat.
‘Matilda? Moll? Mallt?’ Jo called softly. ‘Are you there?’
She never saw her in London. Perhaps the noise, the bustle, the sheer overwhelming excess of distractions blocked out the ability to be aware of anything but the obvious. But here, in the quiet Suffolk countryside, there was nothing to get in the way.
She felt a shiver ripple up her back. There was no reason to be afraid of this woman; she was another part of herself, and yet she was afraid. Always in the past Matilda had been inside her head. Then for years she had been nothing but a steadily fading memory, a strange phenomenon. And then suddenly she was out there, an entity in her own right. And that was different.
Slowly Jo walked out across the lawn towards the pond. The willows had grown huge, weeping lazily into the ripples, shading the reflections. On the far side of the water a mallard quacked warningly and a cluster of ducklings fled towards their mother through the lilies.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to the Reverend Geoffrey again; she could see he was out of his depth. He was gentle and understanding and thoughtful, but he had no idea what she had been through; he had suggested exorcism but that was not an option. This was something she had to deal with alone. She sighed, watching as the ducklings fanned out again, reassured by her immobility.
Jo.
It was a whisper. Not Matilda. This was a man’s voice. She spun round, her heart hammering in her chest. There was no one near her. The slender whips of the willow moved slowly in an almost non existent breeze.
Jo.
‘Sam?’ Her mouth dry she backed against the trunk of the tree staring round wildly.
There was a soft chuckle. As ever.
‘Where are you?’
In Hell! The laughter was louder now; harsh.
‘No!’ Jo shook her head. ‘No, go away! I am not hearing this!’
There was silence. At her voice the duck quacked again and half flew into the shelter of the irises at the far bank of the pond, followed by her panicking brood.
‘Sam? You are dead!’ Jo called out loud. ‘You cannot touch me now. Go away!’
‘Jo?’ Ceecliff was coming across the lawn towards her, leaning heavily on her cane. ‘Are you all right, dear? What’s wrong? Has Geoffrey gone?’
Jo steadied herself with an effort. ‘I am going mad!’ she said with an attempt at a light hearted chuckle. ‘First I saw Matilda or at least her ghost, then I thought I heard Sam calling me.. Oh God, Ceecliff. Do you think I am going mad? It is as though the cast is re-assembling!’
‘Something must have stirred all these memories,’ Ceecliff said at last with calm logic after Jo had finished telling her what had happened. They were back in the conservatory. ‘A dream perhaps, or a book or a discussion? Something you heard on the radio? It doesn’t take much, dear, to remind us of the past.’ Ceecliff should know. She had been there on more than one occasion when nightmares had woken Jo, screaming.
‘Bet!’ Jo nodded thoughtfully after a moment. ‘I met Bet Gunning the other day and she started to ask questions.
‘Well, there you are then.’ Ceecliff smiled. ‘Nothing mysterious at all. Just your imagination.’
‘And the Reverend? If it is nothing but my imagination, should I let him pray for Matilda’s soul?’ Jo was chewing her thumbnail. ‘That is what he wants to do. Not an exorcism or anything like that. I wouldn’t let him even consider that; but he wants to pray. For her. For me.’
‘Would it do any harm?’
‘I don’t suppose so.’
‘Then let him, my dear. It might give you both peace.’
‘And Sam? Should he pray for Sam too?’
Ceecliff nodded. ‘Of course he should. If anyone needed prayer it must be the soul of that poor man.’
2
You killed her before, brother mine, and you’ll kill her again! Sam’s voice echoed round the small bedroom, bouncing off the low ceiling, seeming to vibrate against the open shutters in the early morning sunlight. Nick sat up with a jerk, shaking. He looked round for a moment forgetting where he was and groped for his watch, completely disorientated. He was in Harry’s 6th floor apartment. off the Boulevard St-Michel and it was 6 am which meant in New York it was midnight. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to force his eyelids open. Outside, on the window sill a pigeon was cooing.
Remember how it feels to be King John. It was wonderful, wasn’t it. So powerful! So exciting! And you want Jo to suffer. You are going to tell me what you are going to do to her, Nick – the voice went on, an echo of some distant time. You will beg me to come and watch you take your revenge.
‘Stop it, Sam!’ Nick cried out loud. ‘Stop it! Get out! Go to hell!’
You will kill her, Nick!
‘No!’ Nick’s voice rose to a shout. ‘No, I won’t, damn you!’
The door opened. ‘Dad?’ Harry appeared, tousled and sleepy. ‘What’s wrong?’ He broke off, staring. ‘Christ! Who - ? ’ For a moment his eyes had been fixed on a point just beyond his father, then he looked away, confused. ‘I thought I saw someone.’
‘You saw my brother.’ Nick rocked back and forth, trying to steady himself as he sat on the edge of the bed. He gritted his teeth. ‘You saw Sam.’
For a moment Harry was speechless. Then he sat down next to his father. He shuddered. ‘This is my fault,’ he said. ‘If I hadn’t gone to Rue St Victor – ’
‘No, Harry. You can’t blame yourself. I am amazed this hasn’t happened before.’
‘Do you think you should tell Mum you’ve seen him,’ Harry said after a minute.
‘Why?’ Nick straightened up.
‘Because she was part of it all. Because she would want to know.’
Nick shook his head vehemently. ‘No. Believe me, she wouldn’t want to know. She of all people needed to forget. What she went through was,’ he paused for such a long time Harry thought he had forgotten what he was going to say. ‘It was intolerable,’ he finished at last.
Harry bowed his head. ‘I don’t suppose I ever realised how bad it was.’ He was remembering the sniggers at school, his own reactions. He had never considered how it must have been for his parents.
‘No, well, we were determined you shouldn’t. It was over before you were born.’ Nick sighed. ‘Or at least, I thought it was.’ He stood up and went over to the window. Across the street he could see straight into the casement opposite. It was much like the one where he was standing. It was wide open with a pot of brightly coloured petunias outside on the broad sill. ‘I can never see your mother again, Harry,’ he said quietly. He was still staring out.
Harry saw the slump of his shoulders. ‘Because of Julie-Ann?’
‘No, not because of Julie-Ann!’ Nick retorted. ‘No! Because of Sam and what he turned me into. Don’t you understand? I might try and kill her!’
Harry gaped at him. ‘But, dad - !’
‘My brother is back! Do you get, Harry, what that means?’ Nick paused with a sigh. ‘No, of course you don’t. This is the brother who hypnotised me and implanted post-hypnotic suggestions that I would kill Jo one day. In his own twisted way he thought he was in love with her. I always thought it was only because I loved her, and he always wanted everything I had, but maybe that was doing him an injustice. Maybe he did really love her. I don’t know. But, for whatever reason, he was determined that if he could not have her, I shouldn’t either, and that I should be the instrument of her death. How Machiavellian is that! The sick bastard! He died knowing that he had planted a suggestion in me which would last for the rest of my life!’
‘But surely – ’
‘Oh I went to other hypnotists. Of course I did. They all tried to remove the suggestion. One man, Carl Bennet, said he had succeeded. But I could never to sure.’ Nick spun round. ‘I can never be sure, Harry!’ The agony in his voice was horrifying.
‘Is that the real reason why you and Mum split up?’ Harry asked after a long pause.
Nick shrugged his shoulders. ‘Partly, I suppose. It didn’t help, certainly.’
‘Shit! And now he is inside me as well.’ Harry’s voice was completely flat. He sat staring at his father, paralysed with terror.
Father and son looked at each other in silence, then at last Nick turned back to the window. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘I can’t live with this inside me, never knowing when it might strike. And neither can you.’
‘I’ll never be able to see Mum again,’ Harry whispered. ‘We have to tell her, dad. We can’t just disappear out of her life without explanation.’
Nick didn’t reply. He was trying to hold back his tears.
Every summer for the last few years Ceecliff and Jo had fallen into a routine. Jo loved her mews house, her life as a free lance journalist, her friends, but there was a part of her which hungered for the peace and beauty of the countryside. So she would drive her grandmother to Aldeburgh to stay with an old friend for three weeks by the sea, and Jo would go back alone to Long Melford to look after Ceecliff’s house and garden and spend a blissful holiday away from the noise and airlessness of London in high summer.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay.’ Ceecliff was worried about leaving Jo alone with the Reverend Geoffrey.
Jo grinned. ‘I shall be safe in the arms of the church!’ She swung Ceecliff’s small bag into her car. ‘Honestly! Don’t give it another thought. I will tell you everything that happens when I see you again.’
They had agreed that it should take place in the garden where Matilda had shown herself. Jo carried a small table out and set it down beneath the walnut tree before he arrived and then waited nervously to see what he was going to do.
He stood a small cross on the table with a ring of tea lights in glass containers that protected them from the wind. Then he produced a small leather-bound volume. ‘A medieval lady would be used to prayers in Latin,’ he said with an almost apologetic smile, so I have brought a Roman missal. He glanced at Jo as if for approval and she nodded. ‘I’m glad. That seems right. Thoughtful.’
He paused, studying her face for a moment and then turned back towards the cross.
‘Lady Matilda, Jo and I are here to pray for you and with you, for the repose of your soul.’ There was a moment’s silence, then he went on, ‘Pater Noster, qui es in caelis - ’
Jo looked round surreptitiously. The garden was peaceful. Somewhere nearby she could hear a thrush singing, the leaves of the willow gently rustling. The prayer finished, the Rector paused again. ‘I pray here in the garden with Jo because we sense you are still attached to her,’ he said slowly. ‘This is not somewhere you visited in your life and it is not the place of your death, but hers is a face you have grown used to and which gives you comfort and this garden is a symbol of God’s peace and gentleness and healing.’ He waited again. Jo could feel the words sinking into the surroundings, absorbed in the pond, the trees, even the grass. And then she saw it, a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned slowly and smiled. ‘She’s here,’ she whispered. The Rector nodded; he had seen her.
‘We wish you peace, lady,’ he said gently. He fumbled with the book, looking for another prayer. One of the book marks fell on the grass at his feet.
‘Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.’
The figure on the grass was shadowy, faint, her long skirts moving to the same breeze as the willow whips behind her, her hair held in place by a veil. Jo stared, fascinated. She could feel what the woman was feeling, she had lived inside that frame, worn that gown, felt that headdress on her hair. Her mouth dry she took a step closer and she frowned suddenly. She could feel the confusion now. Unhappiness, loss, rage, even fear, swirled in the air around them. ‘Forgive them, Matilda. Forgive them and let it go.’ She interrupted his prayers. ‘Find peace for yourself and for your son.’ Without realising it she had stepped towards Matilda again. She was holding out her hands. ‘I know how you felt, the pain, the betrayal, but you can’t let it go on following you generation after generation. Leave it. Forgive them!’
‘Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine, ab omnibus malis, praeteritis, praesentibus, et futuria …’ The voice behind her was strong, reassuring, as after a moment’s hesitation the Rector resumed his prayers. ‘Deliver us, we pray thee, Lord, from every evil, past, present and to come…’
No! Matilda was shaking her head. They both saw her lips move and guessed what she said, though the words dissipated in the wind. No, I cannot forgive. William betrayed us. He allowed us to die. I have to have retribution.
The figure was fading. Jo ran a few steps towards her, her hands outstretched but she was grasping at air. There was nothing there.
‘Mum?’ Harry’s voice on her mobile was muffled. ‘The most awful thing has happened.’
Outside a full moon swam over the trees and she could see bats flying in and out of the light thrown onto the terrace by the lamps in the conservatory. Jo felt herself grow cold. ‘What’s happened? Where are you?’ She was clutching the phone so tightly her knuckles turned white.
‘I’m here. In Paris. Dad’s here too. It’s Uncle Sam. He’s haunting us. Dad told me not to tell you, but it means I can’t come home. Ever.’ She could hear the terror in her son’s voice. ‘He’s trying to make dad kill you and now he’s trying to possess me too. I didn’t know, Mum. I was such a fool. I went to see the place he died and he was waiting. I felt him take me over!’ His voice died away and she heard him sniff. He was trying to suppress a sob.
For a moment she was incapable of speech, then somehow she pulled herself together. ‘Is your dad there now?’
‘He’s asleep. He’s exhausted. We’ve talked for hours. I don’t know what to do.’
‘I’m glad you told me, Harry.’ Jo’s voice was husky, her throat dry. ‘I know your dad would want to spare me this but it’s too late. Things are happening here too. Matilda is back.’
‘Back?’ Harry’s voice cracked.
‘A ghost. I had a clergyman here today, praying for her soul, but she didn’t want to go. There is too much unfinished business; too many debts unpaid.’ Her own eyes filled with tears suddenly. ‘It’s not over.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ She heard Nick’s voice suddenly in the background and her heart turned a somersault as if always did when he was near her. She loved him so much, this man who she couldn’t live with and she couldn’t live without. No one had ever taken his place; no one had even come close.
‘I’m sorry, dad. I had to tell her – ’
Harry’s words were cut off and she heard a scrabbling sound as Nick grabbed the phone. ‘Jo? Are you all right?’
‘No.’ She barely managed a whisper. ‘Matilda is following me. As long as I’m alive she is anchored here to me as a ghost, Nick. She wants something and I don’t know what. Some sort of retribution, perhaps? I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t give her another chance. I’m afraid she wants another life and for that to happen maybe I have to die; I think she wants me dead, Nick!’
‘No!’ She heard a crash in the distance and imagined Nick’s fist smashing down onto something near him. ‘That is complete and utter nonsense! It doesn’t work like that!’
‘Then how does it work?’
He was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. He sounded defeated.
‘Sam can’t possess two people at once,’ she went on after another pause. She felt calmer now. ‘Can he?’
‘He’s not possessed me, Jo. You know what he did to me. He planted a time bomb in me and it is still there, waiting to go off.’
There was another moment of silence, then at last she spoke. ‘Nick, I heard Sam’s voice. I was here in the garden at Long Melford – I’m house sitting for Ceecliff – and I heard him call my name. He said he was in hell.’
‘I wish!’ Nick’s fervent reply almost made her smile.
It took Jo only two hours next morning to pack up her belongings, ring Ceecliff and organise a neighbour to keep an eye on the house, then she climbed into her car and headed west. The idea had come suddenly in the middle of the night. There was someone to whom she could turn. Someone who could help her and who knew the whole story. Someone in Hay.
Ann Clements had changed hardly at all, save that her once blond hair was now white. Her two children, toddlers when Jo had last seen them had grown up and left home and her adored husband, Ben, had died. Now alone, she had, after an agony of indecision, sold their small holding and moved into this lovely old grey stone terraced house in Hay. She greeted Jo with a huge hug and ensconced her in a wicker chair in the little walled rear garden.
Sipping home-made elderflower cordial, Jo told Ann her story.
‘So, Nick decided it was safest to go back to New York,’ Ann said at last, her own American accent barely discernable after so many years in Wales.
Jo nodded. ‘And Harry is staying in Paris, which hopefully will keep Sam under wraps for a while. That leaves me and Matilda.’
She was watching the bees lazily droning round a pot of thyme, the flowers a haze of mauve amongst the paving stones. Her eyes strayed up to the jagged silhouette of the castle rising high on its mound in the centre of the town behind them and she looked away hurriedly. ‘What am I going to do, Ann?’
Ann was sitting opposite her, her long cotton skirt trailing on the ground, her feet bare. ‘I think we need to work out why, after so long, Matilda and William de Braose have chosen to renew their quarrel, because that is what this is all about,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t buy it that your boy casually walks down a street in Paris and suddenly Sam Franklyn’s ghost pops up and jumps into his head. It seems to me that somewhere out there, out of sight and out of mind, things have been happening. The story has moved on.’ She reached for the jug and topped up Jo’s glass to the sound of rattling ice cubes.
‘I need you to hypnotise me again,’ Jo blurted out. ‘There are obviously loose ends; unfinished business. I need to find out what.’
Ann shrugged. ‘I am happy to try, Jo, but you know as well as I do that it’s not going to work. The Matilda who was you in a previous life has died. The essence that is left, the soul fragment that goes on, is between lives.’
‘Which is why she wants me dead!’
‘No, Jo.’ Ann shook her head. ‘Why should she want you dead? It doesn’t work that way.’
‘How do you know?’
Ann smiled. ‘You got me there. I am no guru or lama. But on the other hand, I’ve studied reincarnation for years and learned a thousand theories; I’ve read hundreds of books; I’ve listened and researched and interviewed and I’ve watched dozens of people being regressed. I’ve monitored trends in belief and scepticism in the west, and acceptance in the east. I’m an expert, Jo, and I “know”,’ she sketched the inverted commas with two hooked forefingers , her bracelets jangling, ‘ that I am right. My overall gut feeling is that she cannot harm you, and that she wouldn’t want to. If she is trying to contact you it is for some different reason, but it is not to extinguish her former host.’
‘But can’t you ask her through me?’
Ann shook her head. ‘She is outside of you now, Jo. If you want to speak to her, you’ll have to ask her.’ She hauled herself to her feet. ‘I’m going to refill the jug. Think about it. Do it now if you want to.’
Jo watched her disappear up the steps into the kitchen, her skirt brushing the honeysuckle and clematis that scrambled up the back wall of the house, then with a sigh she lay back in her chair. As the quiet warmth of the garden enfolded her, she closed her eyes.
3
They were riding hard through the rain. Matilda, wrapped in a heavy cloak, the hood pulled up close around her face, the horses’ hooves throwing up chunks of red mud as they galloped westward up the narrow track. With her were two companions, one on either side. There was a flash of lightning in the darkness ahead. The reins in her hands were slippery and she could feel the chafe of the hard uncomfortable saddle beneath her thighs as she rode astride in her rain-sodden skirts.
‘Y glaw mawr, fy arglwyddes,’ Bryn, her new steward, shouted against the wind. ‘It’s raining hard, my lady.’ She forced a smile and nodded, her hands clenched round the wooden pommel of the saddle, her knuckles red and swollen. She ached in every part of her body. All she wanted to do was slide off the horse and curl up somewhere beside a warm fire and sleep for ever. She gritted her teeth and somehow she hung on.
‘Nearly there!’ he went on, his voice carried away on the storm. He was pulling ahead now as the track which had been rising steadily since they left Hay, inclined even more steeply for a few paces, then appeared to peter out, before them. They pulled the horses up on the edge of a ravine and her escort forced his nervous animal onto a narrow path which seemed to lead straight over the edge. Below she could hear the roar of a mountain stream which after the bad weather was thundering down from the higher hills over a bed of boulders. One slip of a horse’s hoof would send them crashing down to a rocky death. She raised her eyes in the darkness and there, far above she saw for a brief instant the outline of the full moon behind the streaming ragged cloud. Its light showed the outline of the hills above, the table-like ridge, the gap in the hills, the soaring line of the next summit, kinked into the form of a w on the distant horizon, then the cloud closed in, the moon disappeared and she heard another rumble of thunder. Her guide had not hesitated as he guided his horse over the edge of the ravine, and closing her eyes she allowed her own to follow, aware that her clerk, Geraint, was close behind her.
The descent seemed to go on forever but at last Bryn raised his hand and they drew the blowing trembling horses to a halt, their hooves splashing in the puddles. Bryn dismounted and came round to take her rein. He helped her down, then reached up to unstrap the small heavy coffer which rested behind her saddle. ‘Your treasure will be safe down here, arglwyddes,’ he said, shouting to make himself heard against the wind and the roar of water. ‘Come, I’ll show you.’
Blinded by the rain and the sting of her hair, torn free of her headdress beneath the hood and whipping across her eyes she saw the two men unstrap the other coffer from Geraint’s saddle and stagger with them both down the steep bank into the darkness. Nervously she followed them, cautiously feeling the slippery path with her feet as she made her way blindly down towards the water.
‘See here, just above the highest flood line,’ Bryn shouted. ‘There is a cave hollowed out in the boulders. No one comes here. Even if they do know about it they will know it is home to the old gods and leave it well alone.’ He paused, gazing round and she saw him cross himself hastily.
‘How do you know about it?’ she called back, her voice hoarse as it struggled against the elements.
He gave a brief smile. ‘My family lived in the mynydd du forest for generations, arglwyddes ,’ was all he said in reply.
The coffers were hidden at the back of the cave and loose rocks heaped in front of them, then at last, wearily, they retraced their steps to find the horses.
It was later that she made them swear on the old carved wood crucifix in the chapel of the castle, all that was left now of the riches which had once furbished it, that they would never, on the pain of their immortal souls divulge the whereabouts of her poor remaining treasure to her husband. Neither man questioned the oath. Both gave it freely Their allegiance unto death was to their lady of Hay. William they despised.
‘I dreamed about her!’ Jo looked sleepily up at Ann. ‘She showed me where she buried her treasure. The treasure which could have saved her life.’
Ann topped up Jo’s glass and sat down beside her. ‘So, it was that easy. You now know why she is so anxious to speak to you.’
‘But why now?’
Ann thought for a moment. ‘Something has happened to spark this off. Maybe it is something to do with Nick or your son. Maybe something here. Time will tell.’ She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, squinting into the sun. ‘So, what does she want you to do with this information. Are we going on a treasure hunt?’
Jo gave a wry smile. ‘It was night. There was a storm. She was on horseback with two Welsh guys from the castle. I think they had ridden out of Hay, away from the river and the path went up and then down, a long way through the dark. Then they hid the boxes behind some rocks at the back of a cave on the edge of a mountain stream. Do you reckon those instructions are good enough?’ She gave it some more thought. ‘Even she didn’t know where she was. That was why she couldn’t explain to anyone where it was, even to save her life. One of the men was a local – I expect they both were. But he seemed to say that his family had known about this hiding place for generations.’ She shook her head, defeated. He mentioned that it was a place of the old gods. And it was quite a substantial brook. The water was roaring along in spate over big boulders.’
‘I suppose that gives one or two clues. But after all these years anything could have happened. Landslips. Streams change course. Caves get blocked up. And of course those two guys could have gone back the next day and liberated the loot.’
Jo made a face. ‘Wouldn’t she know if any of that had happened?’
‘I don’t think people in her state become all-seeing.’ Ann levered herself to her feet again. ‘OK. I know we’re not going to rest until we have at least consulted a map!’
She reappeared from the kitchen a few minutes later with a tattered OS map in her hand. ‘I am supposing she rode up into the hills here behind Hay.’ She folded open the map and passed it to Jo. ‘I think this is a fairly forlorn hope but see what you can make of the contours and dingles and brooks.’
They were still poring over the map some two hours later as they sat over a meal of salad and cheese and ice cold sauvignon blanc, watching the sun sink lower into the dark folds of the landscape. To the far west the silhouette of the Brecon Beacons rose, like teeth against the clear rose and green of the twilit sky
‘I think,’ Ann said at last, ‘we should drive up into the hills. It’s a long shot, but I guess it’s safe to assume that the roads around here take the line of least resistance and follow the ancient trackways. Let’s take a punt and head up one or two now, as it gets dark and you can see if you recognise any skylines.’
Jo smiled wearily. ‘You’ve been bitten by the treasure hunting bug, Ann!’
‘I guess so.’ Ann shrugged. ‘Why not! Then next time you see Matilda you can say you tried and ask her to give you some better instructions.’
They followed the sign post towards Capel-y-ffin and Llanthony, heading up over the Gospel Pass, the highest road in Wales, Ann reminded Jo as it hair-pinned eerily ever upwards into the darkness.
They spent a couple of hours driving round, crossing cattle grids onto the open mountainside, tiptoeing up driveways towards hidden farms, scrambling by torchlight down banks towards small shallow streams but nothing reminded Jo of the stormy scene of her dream. ‘How could it? All I was aware of was the wind and the rain.’ And the ache in her back and the coldness of her hands and feet, and the raw rub of the medieval wooden saddle between her thighs. ‘I…’ she paused. ‘I don’t mean I, I mean she, trusted those two men absolutely.’
They drove home, both if they were to admit it, a little disappointed although the quest had been totally futile from the start. ‘We could do it again in daylight,’ Jo said hopefully as they climbed out of the car.
‘Definitely.’ Ann led the way down the winding street towards her front door. ‘But first a good night’s sleep and who knows, perhaps you will dream again. If so can you please demand the co-ordinates!’
Jo smiled. ‘Of course – ‘ she broke off. In the quiet street she had heard footsteps behind them. As she stopped and turned the footsteps stopped too.
‘Ann,’ she whispered.
‘I heard it.’ Ann had stopped beside her. ‘We are nearly home. Walk on steadily. Take no notice.’ Quietly she slipped her key out of her pocket and held it ready.
They almost ran the last few yards and outside Ann’s front door they turned and surveyed the street. It was deserted.
‘They must be hiding somewhere,’ Jo said breathlessly. ‘We both heard them.’
Ann pushed the door open and led the way inside, bolting it behind them.
‘Probably local lads on their way back from the pub with no malice to them at all.’ Ann threw the keys down on the hall table and led the way through to her long narrow kitchen. The door into the garden at the back of the house was open. She frowned. ‘I thought I locked that.’ She stared round. ‘Shit! I had better check nothing’s been touched. I don’t see how anyone could come in that way, but I am sure it was locked.
The house was just as they had left it; Ann’s purse on the kitchen table was untouched, her money still inside. They looked at each other. ‘We will not panic,’ Ann said firmly. They searched the house from top to bottom, then at last they were back in the kitchen, the curtains drawn against the night. ‘Nothing has happened; no one was here. The doors are all locked. We are pleasantly tired and we will go to bed. Tomorrow we will go for another drive in daylight. Does that sound like a plan?’ Ann said at last.
Jo gave a faint smile. ‘Sounds like a plan,’ she said.
Neither woman saw the shadowed figure standing outside the window, in the dark of the walled garden, staring up towards the castle.
‘Did you dream about her again?’ Ann was cooking eggs when Jo appeared in the kitchen next morning.
Jo shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Pity.’ She glanced at Jo. ‘I’ve been thinking and two things come to mind. First, I will try and put you under if you like. We’ve nothing to lose, and you never know what may come of it. The other is a more worrying thought. If Matilda is a ghost now, then so are the others characters in her drama. Well, we knew they would be, didn’t we, and of course they may not have the same urge to haunt past places or the people from their distant futures, but then again, they might.’
‘Great!’ Jo flung herself onto a stool and reached for the coffee pot.
‘Your account of what happened to your son in Paris has been bothering me. I find myself wondering if it is Sam or William de Braose who has made contact with him.’
‘They were one and the same at the end.’ Jo sipped her coffee black and unsweetened and grimaced as the caffeine kicked in. She sighed. ‘This is all crazy, Ann. Completely crazy. I am being haunted by a woman, dead for 800 years, who is asking me, telling me or begging me – who knows – to find some treasure she buried in a rain storm in an unknown place all that time ago. Or at least I imagine I am. I will never find it in a million years, and if I did what does she want me to do with it? I can’t give it to King John now – ’ She broke off abruptly.
‘Nick.’ Ann prompted.
‘ Nick.’ Jo pressed her lips together. ‘Who has gone back to his new wife and his new life in New York.’
‘If you believe what you’ve been told.’
Jo stared at Ann in horror. ‘You think he would come after me?’
‘Does he know about the treasure?’
‘No. No one knows. I only had this stupid dream yesterday.’
Ann spooned scrambled eggs onto two plates and passed one to Jo. ‘Eat. Then we’ll go explore some more.’
Jo reached for her fork.
‘Do you think that is why Matilda has been appearing to me: because Nick is getting restless?’
‘Or because William is.’
‘William?’
‘William reborn. As in Harry.’
Jo shook her head. ‘Harry knows nothing about all this. Or at least not much. We told him the minimum, we had to, but no one has mentioned it for years.’
‘Until he walked down a street in Paris to see where it was that his uncle died. You told me she wanted retribution, Jo.’
Jo put down her fork. ‘But I’d been seeing Matilda long before that happened.’
‘Then it is she who has started things happening. Which brings us round to your original question. Why?’
