Meanwhile Gardens (28 page)

Edwin’s weary face lit up when he saw her. “Things can’t get any worse can they? I mean, they can’t take away my knighthood or anything can they?”

Angie thought it might well be grounds for divorce if they could. Again she reminded herself to check where the title would go should the subject be more than just mentioned.

“I’m sure they can’t darling,” she said in her most soothing of voices. Picking up the silver salver she moved through to the elegant sitting room. This was perhaps Angie’s favourite room in the house. With its view over the garden, its large Conran sofas and its ‘real’ antique furniture it always reminded her of how far she had come.

Angie filled the thick tumbler with Scotch, sat her husband on the sofa and gave him the pillbox. “I have something to tell you.”

Edwin looked at the floor, “Go on. Tell me you have a lover, tell me you want a divorce. Kick a man when he’s down why don’t you?”

“Don’t be silly Edwin,” Angie crossed over to the marble fireplace, switched on the gas and lit the bowl of fake coals that glowed so convincingly real. “By tomorrow everything will be ok. Trust me.”

All it had taken were a few calls to confirm that Rion Ward was indeed on the missing persons register. After that another call brought her the result she wanted.

Angie gently kissed her husband on the forehead. “And it’s all thanks to you Edwin.”

The early November sun threw feeble rays across the room as she told her husband what she had done.

R
ion judged it had been three days since she had been taken from the barge but couldn’t be sure.

Most of the time she was kept in the near-darkness of what she had now decided was not, in fact, a railway arch but some kind of cellar, an old coalhole perhaps or some other sort of bunker. Rion still couldn’t figure out who the elaborate chair belonged to, or what the boxes on the shelves on the other side of the cellar contained, but she was in no hurry to find out.

She also wondered about the two peculiar swords beside the door.

Her watch told the time but the young girl had no idea if it was noon or the witching hour. There was no sense of night or day in the secret place where they had hidden her.

Rion still didn’t have a clear idea of who ‘they’ were, nor what ‘they’ wanted, but she had a feeling that when things were clear ‘they’ might not be too pleasant.

A distant scraping, a muffled clang followed by footsteps on flagstones heralded the arrival of one of her keepers but which one would it be? Gorby? Ted? Mary? Or the new one?

The door opened with a groan. Age and damp had swelled the heavy oak so that it needed a push to make a gap wide enough for a person to slip through.

“Oh it’s you,” she was relieved to see it was the new one. A silent young man of twenty nine entered. His pointed eyes were set too close together, a tightly cropped beard moulded the shape of his chin, in his hand he carried a brown paper bag.

“Don’t close the door,” Rion said trying to peer through the gap into the dimly lit corridor. In the few seconds before the timer kicked in she saw shadowy, barred alcoves much like her own. “It’s so stuffy in here, the fire gives me a headache – can’t you turn it off for a while?”

After the initial chill of the first day a gas fire had been brought in and left on permanently. She had also been given a man’s thick Arran sweater, which smelt of damp, an old duvet and several blankets that softened up the worn mattress.

Despite her repeated questioning no one would tell her why she was being held prisoner. The fact that she was being looked after, or at least not overly mistreated, reassured her in some way. Perhaps they had got the wrong person, perhaps they thought she was the daughter of some incredibly rich, doting father who would pay a king’s ransom to see his daughter again.

Perhaps.

What worried her about this scenario was how they would react when they found out that her family had no money and couldn’t care less what happened to her.

“Are you going to talk to me today?” she asked.

In reply the young man handed a styrofoam cup of soup and a clingfilm wrapped sandwich through the bars to her. Hearing the ticking timer click on Rion again tried to peer through the gap in the door, but the young man blocked her view.

What she saw next threw her more than slightly.

Another young man, the spitting image of the one already in the room, stuck his head around the door.

Rion suddenly had a dreadful thought – was the heater spewing poisonous fumes that were affecting her vision?

“Please switch off the fire,” she said shakily. Rion held onto the bars to stop her legs buckling, “I think it’s leaking.”

She took a breath to steady herself then realised that, if the fire was leaking gas, this might be the wrong thing to do. Unsure whether to hold her breath or not Rion sat down on the mattress and hoped that when she opened her eyes there would only be one of the young men, like there had been yesterday.

It was not to be.

The mirror image entered the room and whispered to his twin who repeatedly pointed to the other side of the fine mesh grille. Ignoring Rion who had slumped on the mattress they put their noses right up to the bars on the other side and peered through at Rion knew not what.

Satisfied at what they saw they stepped back and turned their attention to Rion. Again the first twin hurriedly whispered to his brother.

“Can’t you let me out just to over there?” Rion gestured to where the twins stood on the other side of the bars beside the elaborate chair. “You can close the door – it’s not like I’m going to run anywhere is it?”

This question brought another bout of whispering during which the recently arrived twin, who it was clear was the senior, kept his eyes on her.

“We’ll turn off the fire, and maybe let you come out here, if you do something for us,” Senior said.

Rion immediately noticed he had a slight country burr to his voice. She got up from the mattress but stayed near the back wall. “Like what?” she asked suspiciously.

“A favour for a favour,” he replied.

Rion was surprised to find Senior didn’t have a creepy smirk like Gorby did, a mute, almost scared smile like Junior, or even a threatening grin like Ted & Mary, he had, rather, a natural, almost friendly sort of smile.

“Such as?”

Senior nodded to Junior who took a large key from a nail on the wall. After some fumbling he managed to open the latch allowing the bars to swing open.

Rion felt momentarily confused without the barrier in front of her. Cautiously she stepped through into the other side of the cellar. She ran her fingers along the handrest of the once grand chair.

“Whose is this?” she asked.

“The Countess of Rosleagh’s,” Senior replied.

Rion sat gingerly on the faded green cushion causing a small cloud of dust to flare up. She looked at the twins, “But what is it doing here?”

Senior gestured in front of her to the part the twins had been so interested in, the part screened from her side by a fine mesh grill. “She wanted to be with her family,” he said.

For the first time Rion looked through the bars to this hitherto concealed side. On the middle shelf directly at eye level, Rion saw what could only be a large coffin. It was covered in the same faded green velvet as the chair, the sides and corners lined with dulled silver studs.

“The seventh Earl of Rosleagh,” Senior explained.

Instead of revulsion or fear Rion felt a strong sense of fascination. On the shelf immediately above the Earl was a smaller coffin covered in the same faded velvet. Beside it was a bouquet of ceramic flowers, gleaming porcelain roses with intricate lead leaves, kept as if fresh under a dome of glass.

“The Countess?” Rion asked the twins who nodded.

“She died many years after the Earl and used to come here, almost every day Gorby said, to be with her husband and children.”

“Children?” Rion asked.

She followed the twins’ gaze to the top shelf. In a row were six small coffins ranging in size from, perhaps, a five-year-old’s to the tiny coffin of an infant.

“Don’t worry they can’t get out,” Junior joked. “They’re thrice buried – wood within lead within wood.”

Rion, her eyes welling up, simply stared at the sad row of six on the upper shelf.

Senior switched off the fire. He opened the door a fraction, satisfied himself that the light in the corridor was switched off, then opened the door wider. Rion felt the deliciously cool draft clear away the stale, fumey air.

“Now for your side of the agreement,” Senior said moving closer to Rion who instinctively shrank back. He smiled, “I’m not – ” he corrected himself, “ – we’re not going to touch you.”

Rion kept her back to the bars.

“For your increased freedom while we’re around all we ask is that you keep quiet.”

This puzzled Rion. Had she been screaming in her sleep she wondered?

“Do you see there?” Senior pointed to a small box at the feet end of the Earl’s coffin.

Rion nodded.

“We want that and intend to get it but you mustn’t let anyone else know,” he pulled closer.

Rion shrank back. “What’s inside?” she asked.

“The family jewels!” Junior crowed. He grabbed a metal staff from the door, poked it through the bars and wormed the thin end under the box. He levered it up and let the studded box fall, the gems inside rattling satisfactorily.

“Beck!” his brother silenced him with a glare.

“Doesn’t the same key fit? I mean can’t you just open the bars like you did on my side?” Rion asked.

“They were sealed up after the Countess was laid to rest,” he pointed to the locks that had been soldered shut. “She wanted the family together for all time, never to be disturbed.”

“And you intend to – ?”

Senior slowly moved his head up and down. He took a metal file from his pocket and made sawing motions, “Very carefully. But if you tell – ” he scraped the file across his throat. The meaning was clear.

The twins jumped at hearing a distant sound followed by the timer clicking on. “Quick!” Senior whispered urgently as he bundled Rion into her side. He closed the bars, looked around desperately for the key before realising his brother had it. Junior quickly threw it to him but before Senior had the time to lock Rion in the door groaned open.

Gorby entered. In his hand he carried a newspaper. After some curt whispering to the twins they all left, locking the door behind them.

Rion heard them vanish down the flagstone corridor. After a second she realised she hadn’t been locked in her side. She slowly opened the bars before hearing feet dash down the corridor. A key turned in the heavy vault door and Senior rushed in.

“I have to do this,” Senior took the key from his pocket, locked Rion back behind her bars and replaced the key on its nail by the heavy oak door.

“Wait!”

Rion’s call stopped Senior at the door. He looked back.

“Where is Rosleagh?” she asked.

“Ireland.”

“Is that where we are?”

Senior simply hurried out, making sure to lock the vault behind him.

Rion was left with the Earl and Countess of Rosleagh and their six children, wondering how on earth she had got into their family vault in Ireland and what had caused the twins and Gorby to make such a speedy departure.

Although it was scant consolation, Rion thought, she at least had all the time in the world to think about it.

O
llie had picked up Jake from hospital that morning. They had decided to set off to Bridlington in order to track down Rion’s parents and hopefully Rion.

Jake had insisted on collecting something from his home before they set off. As he clambered back into the van Ollie saw what Jake had picked up – the battered tobacco tin no doubt filled with the cemetery’s finest.

“What’s this one called?” Ollie asked with a smile.

“Kensal Green,” Jake replied. “I’ve been dying for a draw for what seems like ages.”

“You were only in St Mary’s for a week!”

“Ah, but a week without weed is a long week indeed.”

Ollie laughed. “I would have brought some in for you, baked a cake with it or something, if I hadn’t been so damn preoccupied.”

Jake waved away his concern, “No matter.” He opened up the tin, took out the large silver Rizla and began rolling a joint on the Road Map of Great Britain. “My tolerance will be lower now anyway,” he grinned. “It’ll be a better buzz.”

They were soon zooming up West End Lane onto the Finchley Road and Hendon Way. With Hum already asleep in the back they manoeuvred their way through the junctions of Brent Cross, merged with the correct lane and found
themselves, with surprising ease, at the start of the Ml. The vast concrete motorway stretched northwards before them.

“That wasn’t too bad was it?” Jake asked. He lit the joint he’d been waiting so long for and, out of respect to the driver, passed it to Ollie first.

Before taking the proffered spliff Ollie had to find out something. “Where’s this on the scale between Mausoleum Madness and Headstone Homegrown?” he asked. “If it’s the former it’s best I don’t have any.”

Jake smiled. “Kensal Green is probably the lightest, most scintillating of all the crops. It’s the mimosa of marijuanas.”

Ollie took two quick puffs and handed it back to Jake, waving the joint away when it was offered back to him. “I could handle some tunes though. The adaptor thingy’s – ” Ollie reached over and opened the glove compartment, causing a stream of cassettes to spill over Jake’s feet. “ – here somewhere.”

Jake looked at the van’s ancient radio/cassette player, “Does it work in these old machines?”

“Not old mate, vintage,” Ollie grinned. “Works the same as any other.”

Ollie popped the ipod adaptor into the car stereo, quickly glancing down at the battered cassettes between Jake’s worn Timberlands, “If you see anything embarrassing there it’s probably Nicky’s.”

“Liar!” Jake plugged in the adapted cassette and scrolled through the selection. He grunted occasionally before finding one that met with his approval. “Is she seeing anyone?” he asked.