The Greenstone Grail (46 page)

But they believe in science, Annie thought, in genetic fingerprints, and
you’re
human … She whipped round and ran to Michael, clutching at him yet again, reaching up to drag her short nails down his cheek. A thin redness spread along the cuts. Then the water-spirit caught her and pulled her back, locking her in its clammy grasp, the cold hand sliding across her face to enclose nose and mouth and send its liquid matter gushing into her lungs. ‘Your DNA is on me now!’ she cried. ‘The river won’t wash it off. They can pick up the minutest traces. My mark is on you and yours on me! She may be a spirit but you’re not. They’ll know – Nathan will know –’ The hand shut off her nostrils, sealed her lips. She tried to breathe, and breathed water. The dark was coming, and this time there would be no respite. She saw Michael’s expression change, twitching with fury and fear.
Nathan will know
… At least she had achieved that.

‘Let go! Let go now!
Oss-toklar
!’

‘How dare you! Release her at once!’

Two voices, one very deep, oddly accented, one a little higher in tone. Both familiar. The spirit halted; for an instant, startled, it lost its grip on solidity. Annie broke free from an arm that was suddenly more fluid than flesh, and reeled, coughing and gasping, against a strong supportive body. Eric. Rowena was striding towards Michael like an avenging angel.

‘Knew you were up to something! You said your barbecue in Oxford was rained off, but it only rained here. You’re after
the Grail too, aren’t you? You and this psycho bitch were in the woods that afternoon, murdering Von Humboldt. Don’t know
how
you did it, but you did it all right.’ She rounded on Rianna. ‘Trying to strangle Annie, were you? Never did trust you actress types. You’re going down for the rest of your life …’

Confused, uncertain, Nenufar wavered. Her form shimmered as if river-gleams showed through the veil of flesh and skin. Then she turned and fled, more gliding than running, her feet barely meeting the ground. As she drew near to the shrubs along the riverbank her shape thinned into a damp coil of mist which wound its way between the leaves and vanished towards the water. Rowena stood staring after her, suddenly silent, panting from the impact of anger cut short. When she found her voice again, it was to swear.

Michael, seizing the moment, ran the other way – round the house to the car. It was parked at the side of his tower, in the shade of a tree. Annie heard the click as the system unlocked and saw the lights blink even as he reached the door. Eric released her to go in pursuit but she grabbed his jacket, holding him back. ‘No. No.
Look
.’

Something
was crawling out from under the tree, swiftly engulfing the car, distorting the smooth flanks of the Merc into ripples and bulges. The windows were closed but it flowed through them and up the air vents, making the space within quiver as if in a heat wave. Michael had thrust the key in the ignition; the engine stuttered and stalled. Then he seemed to be beating at nothingness, as though attacked by invisible insects. His mouth twisted and gaped; he clutched at his head. The screaming went on for some time. When it was over he slumped sideways, his face slack, drained of all personality. A phantom glimmer of movement crossed his features as
Rowena approached and her reflection curved over the windscreen.

‘Don’t go there,’ Annie said. ‘Here. I’ve got iron.’ The number in her pocket, little use against human or water-spirit, but effective for gnomons.

‘I too,’ said Eric. ‘There is no iron in car?’

‘Chrome. Wood. Plastic. Is he – is he dead?’

‘Not dead, mad. They eat his mind. Nothing left.’

Suddenly, Annie found she was sobbing, from relief or some other reaction, while Eric patted her clumsily; he was still not comfortable with physical contact. She strove to pull herself together, curbing the tears, though she was still trembling inwardly. The gnomons seemed to have gone. She glanced round at the man in the car, and then hastily looked away.

By the time the inspector arrived, with Bartlemy, Nathan and Hazel in his wake, Michael was beginning to drool.

Teatime found all of them except the police in the drawing room at Thornyhill, eating their way through the reserves of Bartlemy’s larder and drinking tea, with stronger stimulants for those who weren’t driving. ‘You never said how you all managed to get there at more or less the same time,’ Annie was saying. After a rather careful interview with Pobjoy, tiptoeing round the more questionable aspects of her story, she was at last beginning to relax.

‘Obviously we all started worrying about you at once,’ said Bartlemy. ‘Anyhow, Nathan was back safe, and I wanted to bring him home. When you weren’t there, we asked along the High Street, like Rowena and Eric. You’ve lived in a village long enough, Annie: you know what it’s like. In a city, no one would have noticed a thing, but here, half the population saw where you were going. Anyway,
Hazel joined us and insisted on coming too, then Pobjoy turned up. I was very concerned when I realized you’d gone to Riverside House. After I talked to Woody I was pretty sure Michael was behind the appearance of Nenufar in these parts. I’m not certain how Rowena reached the same conclusion –’

‘He lied about the weather in Oxford,’ Rowena said. ‘Stupid sort of lie. Why bother? Unless he was giving himself an alibi. Couldn’t have done the robbery – too tall – must’ve been the murder. What was that
thing
acting as his wife?’

There were several muddled attempts to explain. ‘We may never know who she really was,’ Bartlemy said. ‘Nenufar was no more her real name than Rianna Sardou. But with nobody to conjure her, she cannot return. The police will look for her, of course, but they won’t find anything. They’ve got a very old corpse and a murderer too far gone to plead Not Guilty who’ll have to spend the rest of his life in an asylum. Pobjoy won’t be completely satisfied – he’s too intelligent for that – but he’ll make do. The Grail’s been returned and he won’t press the matter of the theft, though I daresay he’ll always suspect you two were involved.’ He nodded at Nathan and Hazel.

‘But you told him
you
found it, not Nathan,’ Hazel said. ‘I heard you.’

‘I thought that was best,’ said Bartlemy. ‘He didn’t believe me, though.’

‘Who did take it?’ asked Rowena. ‘Who was this dwarf?’

‘That I also wish to know,’ said Eric. ‘If he return it to my world he must have much force.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Bartlemy replied. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know all the answers, and we can only speculate. However, some old records suggest that Josevius Grimthorn had an assistant, a hunchback – or a dwarf –’

‘Ought to be a hunchback,’ Rowena said unexpectedly. ‘Traditional.’

‘At a guess, his master imprisoned him for some unknown offence. He’s werefolk, a true dwarf not just a short human – he must be to have survived so long. Anyway, he’d know there was a transition point in the sunken chapel where the Grail could pass from world to world –’

‘Could a human get through?’ Nathan interrupted. ‘Sorry. I just wondered.’

‘I wouldn’t recommend trying it. Remember, the Grail was going home – and it’s an inanimate object, though clearly it has certain powers. A living thing would probably be annihilated by the forces involved in the transition, even if it was able to pass through that portal.’

‘Why would dwarf wish to return cup to my people?’ Eric demanded. ‘Did he do right thing? Is it wrong, we keep it here?’

‘Again, we don’t know,’ Bartlemy continued. ‘Maybe the dwarf
thought
he did right. Maybe
we’ve
done wrong. The spell that can save your people – if such a spell exists – is not yet prepared. Until then, the Grail seems safer here, out of reach of local terrorists.’

‘
If
I can get it back,’ Rowena pointed out. ‘Julian’s taking it to Sotheby’s again – for the Von Humboldts.’

‘We must do what we can.’

She took a restorative gulp of tea. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I’m really supposed to believe all this stuff – about other worlds and sea-spirits and so on.’

‘Believe what you want,’ Bartlemy said. ‘You know what you saw.’

‘Oh yes, I know. Won’t forget in a hurry.’ She gave a shudder, and reached for another biscuit. ‘What
were
those things that went for Michael? Not exactly invisible, but …’

‘Gnomon,’ said Eric. ‘From my world. Bring madness. Iron keep them away.’

‘They could be protecting the Grail,’ said Bartlemy. ‘Though on this occasion they seemed to be protecting Annie. We don’t know why.’

‘All over, isn’t it?’ said Rowena. ‘Time we knew everything.’

‘Life doesn’t work that way,’ smiled Bartlemy, both amused and a little sad.

‘Not over,’ said Eric. ‘My people still die.’

It can’t be over, thought Hazel. Everyone else had big adventures except me; I only had small ones. Unless you count getting arrested, and that wasn’t much fun. I wasn’t even arrested properly, in the end, just interviewed …

It isn’t over until I can stop myself dreaming
, Nathan reflected. (And Halmé had said: ‘
Sim vo-khalir
,’ till we meet again.)

I wish it was over, Annie thought, but it isn’t. I haven’t told him about his father – that’s part of this, it must be – but I can’t. Just let me have a little more time – time for innocence, and childhood, and trust, before I have to destroy them forever.

It isn’t over …

Later, Bartlemy said to her: ‘You must be very upset about Michael. I’m so sorry. I know how much you liked him.’

‘It’s odd,’ Annie said, ‘but I’m not. Not yet, anyway. It’s as if, when I saw through him, all the liking – all the attraction – drained away. Perhaps it’s because it was false, all along –
he
was false – false charm, false courage – his whole persona was just a mask, and when you tore it off there was nothing underneath left to like. I don’t feel betrayed, just a bit silly. Falling for him like a teenager – sorry, Nathan, Hazel.’

‘He was very clever,’ Bartlemy affirmed. ‘He probably used more than charm on you. He was Gifted, but he hid it well. I never picked up on it, and I should have done. He must have suppressed it very carefully in public.’

‘What d’you mean by “Gifted”?’ Rowena wanted to know.

‘How did Nathan get cup back?’ Eric said. ‘That is story I like to hear.’

‘What is the real meaning of the universe?’ Annie added mischievously. She was feeling sufficiently recovered to be a little mischievous now.

They sat there well into the evening, talking and talking, while Bartlemy went into the kitchen, setting the questions aside, knowing that some of them would never have answers, and began to prepare a dinner that would celebrate the occasion, and salve the spirit, and fill the spaces where the answers would not come.

About four months later Inspector Pobjoy found himself in the vicinity of Thornyhill. He hadn’t really found himself, of course; this was a visit he had been meaning to make for some time, delaying it, desiring it, touched with curiosity and something more, maybe an element of apprehension. Bartlemy didn’t look surprised to see him. Pobjoy wondered if he was ever surprised to see anyone. If the Queen had knocked at the door he would have greeted her with the same tranquil smile, there would have been tea and biscuits …

There was tea, and biscuits. Different biscuits from last time, winter biscuits with a hint of cinnamon, a whiff of spice. Hoover sat at his feet studying him with an expression that would have been disconcerting on the face of a witness, and was completely unnerving on a dog. Fortunately for him, Pobjoy didn’t notice.

‘I gather you decided to set aside the matter of the theft,’ Bartlemy said. ‘I’m so glad. I can’t help realizing I was the prime suspect. It took place in my house, I’m known to be a collector, in a small way – no doubt you could prove I have an obsession with the history of the Thorns – and it would have been very easy for me to engineer the power cut. I was out of the room at the relevant moment, after all. No one else could have done that; I’m sure the point must have occurred to you.’

Shaken out of his normal inscrutability, Pobjoy could only stare. Bartlemy was quite right – but it never
bad
occurred to him.

‘Then when things got a little too hot for me – when I felt
the investigation was coming too close – I simply restored the Grail to the appropriate people, and happily, that was the end of the matter. Most kind of you.’

‘The – the dwarf?’ Pobjoy stuttered.

‘My dog,’ said Bartlemy blandly. ‘He’s very highly trained.’

Hoover cocked an ear, thumped his tail, and did his best to exude both high training and low cunning.

‘That wasn’t a confession, you understand,’ Bartlemy concluded. ‘Merely a hypothesis. Have some Christmas cake. I know it’s a little premature, but one can’t eat all the good food over the holiday: it’s too much. Far better to spread it out a bit.’

Pobjoy, who generally tried to work over the Christmas break because he had nowhere else to be, accepted mutely.

‘How is poor Michael?’ Bartlemy asked.

Poor Michael, the inspector noted. Aha. A soft-centred liberal. He might have guessed …

‘Insane,’ he said. ‘Or so they say. The psychiatrists claim some sort of shock has virtually blanked out his mind. Most of the time he says nothing. Occasionally he babbles – or gibbers. None of it makes much sense. They say he’ll need permanent care; he’s effectively an imbecile. He could be faking it in the hope of the chance to do a runner. But his accomplice is still out there somewhere – the woman who was posing as his wife. We never found her.’