Kissing Toads (26 page)

‘I appreciate your unselfishness,' I said, ‘but I can't.'

‘Your trouble is, you have no ambition. You only want to marry sleazy ne'er-do-wells like Kyle Muldoon . . .'

‘Actually,' I said, on a note of self-discovery, ‘I haven't thought about Kyle in ages.'

‘You haven't? Okay, who
are
you thinking about?'

‘Nobody,' I said hastily. ‘I haven't the time. All I think about is work.'

‘I don't believe you. Everybody thinks about
somebody
 . . .'

‘We're late for dinner. Come on.'

In the dining room, Alex looked surprised to see Delphi and me back on good terms.

‘You don't understand girls,' Delphi said tolerantly. ‘You guys think we have shallow relationships that fall apart as soon as a man comes into the equation, but we aren't like that. It's male friendships which are superficial – based on getting pissed together and talking about football or cricket and sharing confidences like,
Cor, look at the tits on her!
Girl friendships go deep – we talk about deep stuff. Not just our love lives, but philosophy and fashion and things.'

‘Girls get pissed together too,' Alex retorted, sounding faintly aggrieved.

‘Occasionally, but that isn't the
point
of girlfriends. The point is to talk. Getting pissed is just the icing on the cake. Whereas for guys, getting pissed is pretty much the whole deal.'

‘That's nonsense,' Alex said, still disposed to argue the toss. ‘Everyone knows male bonding is much more serious. There aren't any famous examples of female friends; there are lots of them with guys. Think of the Three Musketeers.'

‘I always thought they were gay,' Delphi said. ‘Didn't one of them become a monk in the end? That
proves
it.'

At dinner, I sat next to Ash – I often did – wanting to check that Cedric had forgiven me for the remark about his dental care. (‘Probably,' Ash said. ‘If there's no arsenic in the soup, we'll know he's all right.') I'd expected Morty to be rather subdued after the way he'd chickened out on us earlier, but he chatted away as usual, apparently unaware that he had done anything to be ashamed of. But then, I reflected, sail-trimmers are like that: they think their attitude to life, honour and friendship is sheer pragmatism, and as such comprehensible and even admirable. Either that, or Morty was just naturally brazen.

‘Well, here we are again,' Russell said cheerily, ‘one big happy family.' At times like this, you can overdo the irony. ‘Let's hope now we can finish the series with no more melodrama.'

That definitely came under the heading of Famous Last Words.

  

Having made it up with Roo, I was in the sort of warm, loving mood where I wanted the world to be right with everyone, so when we went to bed I snuggled up to Alex, determined to get our sex life back on track. Somehow, since he'd come to the castle, I'd been too tired, or he'd been too peevy, or Fenny had been in the way, whatever – but we hadn't had full sex even once. Fenny tried to join in as usual, wagging his tail and burrowing between us with his nose, but I deposited him on the floor, telling him to stay so firmly that he got the message. I'd kept my underwear on – Alex liked to remove my bra himself and play with it, probably a fetish dating back to babyhood and some breastfeeding incident when his mother got her lingerie in a twist. We got cosy and I went down on him, though I didn't have a feather to give him the ultimate thrill. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he said, ‘I don't know why you were so anxious to patch things up with Roo.'

I stopped what I was doing immediately. You can't have a row with your mouth full. ‘What?'

‘I thought you'd changed your mind about her – having her as your bridesmaid and all that.'

‘She's my best friend – she always has been. I'm not going to
change my mind
about her just because we had a falling-out. Friends fall out, and in again, all the time: it doesn't mean a thing. What's got into you? You used to like her.'

‘I
have
changed my mind, okay? She's got so bossy up here, ordering everyone about. I don't want her at my wedding.'

I opened my mouth to say it was
my
wedding, not his, and shut it again. It
would
be my wedding, naturally – I'd made all the arrangements, and, anyhow, the groom isn't important: weddings are always about the bride. But I couldn't tell him that. Instead, disdaining defensive tactics, I went on the attack, reviving the subject of Darius Fitzlightly and other pals of his whom I didn't go for. Sex was forgotten and Fenny, detecting a change in the ambience, jumped back on the bed and began to bark. Alex muzzled him, swearing, I accused him of cruelty to dogs, and the quarrel degenerated into general silliness.

In the end I got up, snatched my dressing gown – for the record, a particularly gorgeous man's one in embossed velvet with a quilted silk lining – and went out, slamming the door pointedly behind me. Being solid oak, and heavy, it slammed with a thud that would have done credit to the door of a dungeon. I stormed off, though I had no real idea where I was going to storm
to
. The castle was dark and very quiet; assorted electric lighting only served to emphasise the shadows. In the dimness, Basilisa's décor was oddly reassuring: it was difficult to imagine a phantom in Highland kit would deign to promenade in front of a Dali lip sofa and purple cushions. Still, I was glad I didn't believe in ghosts. Atmosphere and communing with Elizabeth's memory I could go with, but a skeleton in tartan, possibly playing the bagpipes, was an idiotic idea.

I went downstairs, aiming vaguely for the drawing room and the chance of a drink. In the hall, I couldn't find the light switch – the staff normally dealt with turning lights on and off – and I had to feel my way, but I knew it well enough by now to reach my goal without toe-stubbing or colliding with furniture. Suddenly, a face emerged from the gloom ahead of me – a pale, alien face with cold slanting eyes, a dark fall of hair, high cheekbones catching a glimmer of light from somewhere or nowhere.

‘Shit!' I said, my heart jumping despite all my native scepticism.

‘Delphinium?' It was Ash.

‘What are you doing? Can't you put the bloody light on?'

‘I'm testing for physical signs of the supernatural. It's something that works better in the dark.' He found a switch and light flooded the hall. There was a kind of camera on a side table, and various bits of technology scattered around.

‘Imbecile!' I said furiously. I don't like being scared, especially when it isn't necessary. ‘I thought
you
were a ghost – except I don't believe in them. I might have taken you for a burglar and attacked you.'

‘I don't think you should attack more than one person per day,' Ash said with a faint – a very faint – hint of a smile. He doesn't do smiling much.

‘It would have been self-defence,' I said, ‘like with Basilisa. What
is
all this stuff? Do you seriously expect to get a picture of a hooded figure clanking chains and going
Woo
?'

‘The camera's a control. You activated it when you got near enough; there's an infrared flash. The object is to prove the hall's empty while I run the tape.' He indicated another gadget resembling a tape recorder.

‘What's that for?' I wasn't very interested; the question was a reflex.

‘An experiment. It's supposed to pick up sounds we can't hear – voices from the past, the whispers of the dead. It may work; it may not. Researchers have claimed success with it from time to time. I like to explore all possibilities.' He'd switched the machine off while we were talking. ‘You're up late. Are you all right?'

‘I couldn't sleep,' I said. ‘I came down to get a drink or something.' I'd had a half-formed project of waking up Harry to order tea or cocoa, because, after all, waiting on people was his job, but I didn't want to do it with Ash there.

We went into the drawing room and he opened the drinks cabinet. ‘I'm guessing you're not keen on Scotch?'

‘No. Gin and tonic.' There was a small fridge adjacent to the cabinet for mixers, champagne and anything else that required chilling, concealed behind a walnut door. ‘Lots of tonic.'

While he poured, I asked, ‘Do you
really
believe in ghosts? Not just memories – real spirits that come back after death?'

He threw me a swift, sharp look. ‘I keep hoping.
My
mother claimed to remember former lives, though she was as high as a kite much of the time. She was no historian, yet some of her recollections chimed perfectly with factual records – I researched them later. My grandmother had the Sight; my great-aunt was a medium. It's in the family. I have . . . curiosity. I believe there are other worlds which touch on ours, but I'm always looking for more evidence. After all, it's the ultimate question, isn't it? What happens next?'

‘D'you think there are actual ghosts here?' I asked. Perhaps I should add him to my list of useful gays. At least he was different.

‘I . . . yes.' He handed me my drink. ‘The atmosphere in Dunblair is rather overcrowded – too many people, too many tensions – but when I'm alone, I feel something. A consciousness, or more than one. Brooding – malice – guilt. An urge to communicate. But it may all be in my imagination.'

‘I've felt something too,' I said, suddenly eager. ‘Playing Elizabeth Courtney, I've sort of got close to her. When I look at her portrait, it seems almost . . . alive. We have to find out what happened to her – how she died.'

‘A whodunnit,' Ash said. ‘Maybe ghosts want justice, or some kind of exoneration. Have you tried the standard detective approach? Who benefited from her death?' As he spoke, he took a beer from the fridge and flipped off the cap with a can-opener.

I sat down for a minute.

‘The husband, of course,' I said. ‘He inherited a fortune. But he was broken-hearted and went off to Africa and died tragically, so it didn't do him much good. Indirectly . . . his family, I suppose. The mother and the long-lost cousin, especially the cousin. He got the castle
and
the money in the end. But he was on another continent when Elizabeth died.'

‘What about the other woman – the one Alasdair abandoned? Lately played by your friend Brie.'

Did I see him wince at the thought?

‘I
like
that idea,' I said. ‘Revenge is always good.
And
she married the cousin in the end, so she got the castle and Elizabeth's money too, though she couldn't have known things would work out that way.'

‘Pity the cousin was abroad for the murder,' Ash said. ‘Otherwise they could have planned it together.'

‘Maybe he wasn't,' I said slowly. ‘Maybe he was here . . . in disguise. Alasdair was with him when he died – some tropical fever. Supposing
that
was murder, too? Out in the wild somewhere, it would've been really easy to cover it up. He didn't dare claim his inheritance until the mother was dead, but after that he had a clear field. Come home, get the castle and the dosh, marry the girl – they were in cahoots all along.'

‘It's a theory,' Ash said. ‘Talk to Nigel. There might be some documentary evidence on the cousin's movements. We don't even know his name, do we?'

‘I'll find out.'

I was sure I was right – or almost sure. It all fitted so well –
if
the cousin had been in Scotland. Thinking about the mystery, I headed back upstairs, leaving Ash to his experiments. (I must discourage Roo from spending time with him. For a gay guy, he acted awfully straight.)

I lingered in the purple gallery to finish my drink. The lip sofa wasn't very comfortable, but there was a chair on the same lines, shaped like a yawning mouth with a cushiony red tongue lolling out. I sat down in it, tucking my feet under me; it encased me like a large squishy bowl. Thanks to the central heating, the room was warm; a lamp at my side cast a soft pinkish glow. I set down my glass on a low table and curled up, letting my imagination drift back into the past. At some point, I fell asleep.

I dreamed.

We all have dreams which seem to mean something from time to time. I had a recurring one after my father left, where I was in a crowded room, trying to reach him, calling out, but he never heard me, never saw me – he just went on talking, and the people got in my way until I was pushed out of the room, on my own. There was another version where I was following him down the street: he walked and I ran, but I never caught up. The dreams stopped after I visited him in the South of France. Anyway,
this
dream must have come from my conversation with Ash, an idea that got into my subconscious and took over. It was the kind where you don't know you're dreaming, which makes it very vivid and frightening, though I wasn't sure what there was to be afraid of.

I was in the gallery, but Basilisa's décor had gone. Instead there were dingy paintings, heavy curtains, hulks of furniture that looked as if no one had moved them for centuries. My chair was no longer squishy: the upholstery was worn, coarse against my skin. There was very little light. At the far end of the room, two people were talking. A man and a woman. The man had his back to me: he looked tall and dark, but under those conditions, anyone would. He was wearing a long coat with a shoulder-cape, or maybe it was a cloak; I couldn't be sure which. The woman was much shorter. She held a candle. Mostly, his body screened her from my sight, but at one stage she moved, or he did, and I saw her face. She was very young – not a woman but a girl, seventeen or so. Young enough for it not to matter that she wasn't wearing make-up. Her face was beautiful, in a full-lipped, sensuous sort of way; she had very dark brows and lashes, dark hair (I think), cheeks flushed with natural colour. Her expression was eager, nervous, desperate, bold . . .